An interesting comparison to characters from F. Scott Fitzgerald's monumental novel The Great Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan,
summed up the Clinton's style very succinctly when Roger Stone quoted the following from that seminal work (The Clintons' War on Women
by Roger Stone, Robert Morrow ):
"They smashed up things
and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together,
and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Stone's use of this analogy suggests that it's as if the Clintons fashioned
themselves directly from Fitzgerald's description of the fictional Buchanan's, two of the most vapid and amoral characters in
all of classic literature.
There are at least three dimensions of Hillary Clinton (and Clinton family in general)
corruption:
Her early experiments with "make money fast" schemes.
Speeches to Wall Street firms. The key "real" question about Hillary is whether or not she
will ever release the text of her Wall Street
speeches (some content was released by Wikileaks as a part of Podesta emails). It the fact that she has something to hide (actually the price they bought her is pretty low --
around $24 millions). In other words, like Obama before her, she is classic "bait and switch" candidate.
Bought before being elected...
Donations (especially from foreign entities) to Clinton foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Never in the US history has
a U.S. secretary of state copped $17.7 million from a self-sponsored “charity foundation” while
in office. Smashing several levels of the "glass ceiling" (about which she like to speak) on
acceptable limits of “honest graft”
And it's not only about conflict of interest. Email scandal suggests that the sordid story of
Clinton Foundation also touches issues covered by RICO statute
Jim Haygood
The Clinton Foundation follows up on Bill’s heartfelt promise in Atlanta
yesterday to avoid conflicts of interest:
Clinton Foundation officials used an obscure New York state charity board
filing amendment to disclose that the non-profit received $17.7 million in
donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of
State, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The specific foreign governments involved and the particular amounts they
each gave were not disclosed on the document, entitled “Exhibit A” and filed
to the public charity division operated by New York Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman, a Democrat. The money was given between 2010 and 2013 when
Clinton was America’s chief diplomat.
“There is no doubt that the foundation purposely refused to make public
certain things as a way of protecting the Secretary of State during her
tenure,” former U.S. attorney Joseph DiGenova charged. “The entire process
to hide information from the public is completely inconsistent with a public
charity.”
DiGenova predicted that “the new revelations will up the ante for the
FBI. This will just add fodder to the ongoing investigation.”
The former federal prosecutor also doubted that the $18 million figure
was accurate. “There is no reason to believe that the $18 million figure is
complete,” he said, citing the “unreliability” of past foundation
accountings. “It may very well be much, much more.”
“One has to wonder what the New York State Attorney General is doing,”
DiGenova said. “He’s a very partisan Democrat. And it is readily apparent
that he intends to do nothing about the Clinton Foundation.”
Cleta Mitchell of Foley & Lardner law office in Washington D.C. agreed,
saying “the Attorney General of New York has a statutory and fiduciary
responsibility to conduct an investigation into the Clinton Foundation to
determine whether this entity is engaged in fulfilling its charitable
mission.”
The book Clinton Cash is
one of the few that is devoted to
Clinton foundation donations correlation with actions of the former Secretary of State of the most powerful nation in the world.
Along this this it also provide
interesting perceptive on Hillary Clinton character and actions. As in saying "the most
objective coverage of the character of the person usually comes from people who does not like this
person".
The book is organized into
eleven chapters. Some chapters focus on particular transactions or deals, such as the creation of UrAsia Energy and Uranium One in Kazkakhstan, and the connection shareholders had and have to the
Clintons. Other chapters focus on a broader set of relationships, particularly with regard to
Bill Clinton’s paid speeches during the years Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, and
whether those paying for his speeches had significant business before the State Department.[7]
Schweizer dubs the Clintons' blend of government service and private remuneration the “Clinton
blur.” (Wikipedia)
Writing for The
Washington Post, academic and political activist
Lawrence Lessig
wrote "On any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption."
PolitiFact.com
confirmed that since leaving the White House in 2001 and 2013, Bill Clinton made thirteen speeches
for which he commanded more than $500,000 each. In this is not a bribe I do not know what is. Each
of those amount is more then people involved is small scams like mail fraud server years in jail. Eleven of these thirteen speeches were made while Hillary
was at the State Department.[15]
In an interview with the sympathetic Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Harper,
the publisher of Clinton Cash) it was put to Schweizer that he hadn’t “nailed” his thesis. “It’s
hard for any author to nail it – one of the strategies of the Clinton camp is to set a bar for me
as an author that is impossible to meet,” he replied.
... ... ...
Certainly, pundits were warning about the problem of the large sums of money flowing into the
Clinton Foundation’s coffers even before Hillary Clinton took up her position as Obama’s global emissary-in-chief.
A month before she became secretary of state,
the Washington Post warned in an editorial that her husband’s fundraising activities were problematic.
“Even if Ms Clinton is not influenced by gifts to her husband’s charity, the appearance of conflict
is unavoidable.”
Since the foundation was formed in 2001, some $2bn has been donated, mainly in big lump sums.
Fully a third of the donors giving more than $1m, and more than a half of those handing over more
than $5m, have been foreign governments, corporations or tycoons. (The foundation stresses that such
largesse has been put to very good use – fighting obesity around the globe, combating climate change,
helping millions of people with HIV/Aids obtain antiretroviral drugs at affordable prices.)
Schweizer may have made mistakes about aspects of Bill Clinton’s fees on the speaker circuit,
but one of his main contentions – that the former president’s rates skyrocketed after his wife became
secretary of state – is correct.
Politifact confirmed that since leaving the White House in 2001 and 2013, Bill Clinton made
13 speeches for which he commanded more than $500,000; all but two of those mega-money earners occurred
in the period when Hillary was at the State Department.
Though Schweizer has failed to prove actual corruption in the arrangement – at no point in the
book does he produce evidence showing that Bill’s exorbitant speaker fees were directly tied
to policy concessions from Hillary – he does point to several glaring conflicts of interest.
Bill Clinton did accept large speaker fees accumulating to more than $1m from TD Bank, a major shareholder
in the Keystone XL pipeline, at precisely the time that the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton
within it, was wrestling with the vexed issue of whether to approve it.
It is also true that large donations to the foundation from the chairman of Uranium One, Ian Telfer,
at around the time of the Russian purchase of the company and while Hillary Clinton was secretary
of state, were never disclosed to the public. The multimillion sums were channeled through a subsidiary
of the Clinton Foundation, CGSCI, which did not reveal its individual donors.
Such awkward collisions between Bill’s fundraising activities and Hillary’s public service have
raised concerns not just among those who might be dismissed as part of a vast rightwing conspiracy.
Take Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham university who has written extensively on political
corruption in the US.
Teachout, who last year stood against Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic party nomination for New
York governor, points out that you don’t have to be able to prove quid pro quo for alarm bells
to ring.
“Our whole system of rules is built upon the concept that you must prevent conflicts
of interests if you are to resist corruption in its many forms. Conflicts like that can infect us
in ways we don’t even see.”
Teachout said that the Clintons presented the US political world with a totally new challenge.
“We have never had somebody running for president whose spouse – himself a former president – is
running around the world raising money in these vast sums.”
... ... ...
Though
Bill Clinton insisted this week that his charity has done nothing “knowingly inappropriate”,
that is unlikely to satisfy the skeptics from left or right. They say that a family
in which one member is vying for the most powerful office on Earth must avoid straying
into even the unintentionally inappropriate.
In the wake of Clinton Cash, the foundation has admitted that it
made mistakes in disclosing some of its contributions. It has also implemented
new rules that will see its financial reporting increase from once annually to four times a year,
while large donations from foreign governments will be limited in future to six countries including
the UK and Germany.
But with Bill refusing doggedly to give up his speaker engagements – “I gotta pay our bills” –
and foreign corporations and super-rich individuals still able to donate to the family charity, it
looks like this controversy may run and run. Politically, too, Hillary Clinton is confronted
with a potential credibility gap between her appeal to ordinary Americans on the presidential campaign
trail and the millions that continue to flow to the foundation.
“Is she going to be in touch with the needs and dreams of poor America when her spouse and daughter
are working with the world’s global elite?” said Dave Levinthal of the anti-corruption investigative
organization, the Center for Public Integrity. “That’s a question she will have to answer, every
step of the way.”
mkenney63 5 May 2015 20:39
It would be nice to know how much Saudi and Chinese money her "Foundation" has taken-in. I can
tell you how much Bernie has taken - $0. Bernie, the only truly progressive in the race, raised
$1.5 million in one day from ordinary working people like you and me who have the smarts to know
who's really in their corner. When I look at Hillary I ask myself, do we really want parasitic
people like this running our country? Is there anything she has ever touched that isn't tainted
by a lust for money?
foggy2 gixxerman006 5 May 2015 20:38
I am in the process of reading the actual book. He does have actual sources for many things but
what is missing is the information controlled by that now cleaned off server and the details of
just who contributed to them, their foundation, and who hired them for those gold plated speeches.
Those names never were made public and now the related tax forms are being "redone." Wonder how
long that will take.
The author was able to get pertinent data from the Canadian tax base information and that is
important because some of the heavier hitters are Canadians who needed help in the US and other
places to make piles of money on their investments. And many statements made by people are documented
as are some cables sent TO the state department.
AlfredHerring raffine 5 May 2015 20:33
It's funny that free-market Tea Party Republicans criticize the Clintons
There's a broad populist streak in the Tea Party. They may be social conservatives and opposed
to government telling them they MUST buy health insurance from a private company (that's where
it started) but on many issues they're part of the Teddy Roosevelt trust busting and Franklin
Roosevelt New Deal traditions.
"... "I wanted to tell you that I have compiled a list of 34 confirmed minors," Villafana wrote to Lefkowitz. "There are six others, whose name [sic] we already have, who need to be interviewed by the FBI to confirm whether they were 17 or 18 at the time of their activity with Mr. Epstein." ..."
"... Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse. .the U.S. Attorney's Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his Named and Un-Named co-conspirators. ..."
"... His legal team? Gerald Lefcourt, Roy Black, Ken Starr, and Alan Dershowitz. ..."
"... The federal non-prosecution agreement Epstein's legal team negotiated immunized all named and unnamed potential co-conspirators in Epstein's child trafficking network, which includes those who allegedly procured minors for Epstein and any powerbrokers who may have molested them." ..."
LOLITA EXPRESS...ORGY ISLAND...ELITE PEDOPHILE RING ?-2006
* George W Bush President: January 20, 2001 – Jan. 20, 2009
* Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General USA: Feb. 3, 2005–Sept. 17, 2007
* Michael Bernard Mukasey, AG. USA: Nov. 9, 2007 – Jan. 20, 2009
* Eric Holder, A G. USA: Feb. 3, 2009 – April 27, 2015
* Loretta Lynch, Attorney General USA: April 27, 2015 – Present
* Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana
* Epstein's Attorneys: Gerald Lefcourt, Roy Black, Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz.
+ "He (Epstein) is an enthusiastic member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations."
+ Bill Clinton...26 trips aboard the "Lolita Express"
Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 is equipped with the necessary hardware for him to wake up, roll out of bed, and start trading.
+ Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually
service Epstein and his friends and acted as a "potential co-conspirator" in his crimes.
+ Socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein's former assistant Sarah Kellen -- have been repeatedly accused in court filings
of acting as pimps. Oxford-educated Maxwell, recently seen dining with Clinton at Nello's on Madison Avenue. Manhattan-London
G. Maxwell, daughter of the mysteriously deceased media titan Robert Maxwell.
+ A new lawsuit has revealed how Clinton took multiple trips to Epstein's private island where he 'kept young women as sex
slaves'
+ Clinton was also apparently friends with a woman who collected naked pictures of underage girls for Epstein to choose from
+ Clinton invited her (pimp) to Chelsea's wedding
+ According to former child sex slave Virginia Roberts and a class action lawsuit against convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey
Epstein, former President Bill Clinton was present during sex parties involving up to twenty underage girls at Epstein's secluded
island in the Caribbean.
+ 20 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 said were sexually abused by Epstein, Palm Beach Police and FBI
+ 35 female minors sexually abused, Epstein settled lawsuits from more than 30 "Jane Doe" victims since 2008; the youngest
alleged victim was 12 years old at the time of her abuse.
..............................Source: FBI & Federal Prosecutors
+ flights on Epstein's planes 1997 to 2005, include Dershowitz (FOX NEWS, Harvard Law), former Treasury Secretary and Harvard
president Larry Summers, Naomi Campbell, and scientist Stephen Pinker.
+ In the most recent court documents, filed on December 30, Roberts further claims she was sex-trafficked to "many other powerful
men, including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister,
and other world leaders." Roberts said Epstein trafficked children to politicians, Wall Streeters and A- listers to curry favor,
advance his business, and for political influence.
The FIX
2015 Doc Release by Judge:
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana wrote to Epstein lawyer Jay Lefkowitz in a Sept. 19, 2007, email. "I will include our
standard language regarding resolving all criminal liability and I will mention 'co-conspirators,' but I would prefer not to highlight
for the judge all of the other crimes and all of the other persons that we could charge ... maybe we can set a time to meet, if
you want to meet 'off campus' somewhere, that is fine. I will make sure that I have all the necessary decision makers present
or 'on call' as well."
"I wanted to tell you that I have compiled a list of 34 confirmed minors," Villafana wrote to Lefkowitz. "There are six
others, whose name [sic] we already have, who need to be interviewed by the FBI to confirm whether they were 17 or 18 at the time
of their activity with Mr. Epstein."
In a December 2007 letter, the prosecutor acknowledges some notifications of alleged victims but says they were sent after
the U.S. Attorney's Office signed the plea deal and halted for most of the women at the request of Epstein's lawyers.
"Three victims were notified shortly after the signing of the Non-Prosecution Agreement of the general terms of that Agreement,"
Villafana wrote, again to Lefkowitz. "You raised objections to any victim notification, and no further notifications were done."
On Sept. 24, 2007, in a deal shrouded in secrecy that left alleged victims shocked at its leniency,
Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement
to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse. .the U.S. Attorney's
Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his Named and Un-Named co-conspirators.
"In 2006 the FBI counted at least 40 underage girls who had been molested by Epstein. Authorities searched his Florida mansion
and found two computers containing child *********** and homemade video and photographs from cameras hidden in bedroom walls which
had been used to film sex acts. The case was airtight for many counts of sexual crimes but Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer
and the Justice Department stepped in and offered Epstein a plea deal. In 2008 Epstein pleaded guilty in a Florida court to one
count of soliciting underage girls for sex. His punishment was 13 months of "8 hour nights only" at a halfway house. No other
charges about raping underage girls nor running an underage sex trafficking ring were mentioned in the plea. His legal team?
Gerald Lefcourt, Roy Black, Ken Starr, and Alan Dershowitz.
The federal non-prosecution agreement Epstein's legal team negotiated immunized all named and unnamed potential co-conspirators
in Epstein's child trafficking network, which includes those who allegedly procured minors for Epstein and any powerbrokers who
may have molested them."
Lately, Jeffrey Epstein's high-flying style has been drawing oohs and aahs: the bachelor financier lives in New York's largest
private residence, claims to take only billionaires as clients, and flies celebrities including Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey
on his Boeing 727. But pierce his air of mystery and the picture changes. Vicky Ward explores Epstein's investment career, his
ties to retail magnate Leslie Wexner, and his complicated past.
Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery
So how do termite grouping patterns fare as an investment strategy? Again, facts are hard to come by. A working day for Epstein
starts at 5 a.m., when he gets up and scours the world markets on his Bloomberg screen -- each of his houses, in New York, St.
Thomas, Palm Beach, and New Mexico, as well as the 727, is equipped with the necessary hardware for him to wake up, roll
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump
president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who
bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful
wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact
that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth
bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people
did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment
stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump
in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to
conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every
component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence
agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to
remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of
amounts to an attempted soft coup.
It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was
nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once
again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White
House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be
clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be
barred from public office or the media forever.
As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary,
they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry.
Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid
Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you
have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.
i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally
distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly
declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the
Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could
watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends).
No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that
be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him
walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve
counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for
Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM |
link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that
Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No
presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)
Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts
with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this
moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".
I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by
the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit
(about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing
is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is
chanting "give me more, give me more...".
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.
However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million
but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC,
EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up
crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a
cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles
to Brooklyn.
The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and
political circles.
The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop
their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele
dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the
dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation
when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia
investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking
with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with
Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and
the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was
briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing
this.
I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the
coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around
Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme
never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a
deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the
attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis,
etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of
preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM |
link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they
brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they
had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from
their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In
this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit
the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this
train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped
Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon
fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier,
moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead
proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because
the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least
some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they
took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This
time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this
time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no
longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.
Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are
designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole,
are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions
for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.
Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions
have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their
institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the
Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a
constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason
of the highest order.
Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number
international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color
Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first
time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved.
None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved.
Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually
societal collapse.
In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to
Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:
- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent
737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry,
in an industry where reputation is everything.
- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the
rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result
was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover
from that crisis.
- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is
systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions,
(the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and
the ability to maintain peace.
The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the
damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears,
and societal decline sets in.
It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of
many indicators.
Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning
and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is
factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of
the BBC news, we're in information control territory.
But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has
good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.
In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media.
Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has
just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the
shifting currents within that political elite.
So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think.
In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing
and what they intend to do.
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on
substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty,
supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow
they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their
daily fodder for conversation...
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."
Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues
the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never
delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an
infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.
The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to
distract, and they've done it well.
The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same
ilk.
Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's
collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from
doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.
2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary
for over 25 years.
3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was
never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal
even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.
When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary
repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that
she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card
industry.
4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead
she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her
campaign.
5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't
support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a
speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters
activist; and she called whites "deplorables".
Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The
Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.
6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and
Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.
IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the
election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any
dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:
> hiring Manafort;
> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;
> talking about Putin in a admiring way.
And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:
> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;
> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;
> served as a device for settling scores:
- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");
- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).
hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM |
link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen
buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice
and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's
presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired
by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases.
This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal
server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 -
2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and
the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and
conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.
The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been
written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation
with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster
the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.
As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and
head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund
Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor
Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or
Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was
employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor
Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath
@2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a
nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article
from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today
like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."
the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this
sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in
tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance..
instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if
any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so
long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is
still on track...
@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers
make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy
weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to
move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their
deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes
about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!
During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does
everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen.
Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her
associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in
court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.
Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM |
link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people
anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be
in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room
yelling that the house is on fire.
Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of
steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact
merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?
Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing
happend:
If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media
malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being
wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves
defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity.
Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.
The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to
our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being
wrong.
Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to
acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already
know.
It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing
it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.
And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years
Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4
You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell
swoop....
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel)
and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations
with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas
administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.
That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in
which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want
something covered up? Put Mueller on it.
To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and
pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont
believe. Lol
Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as
Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China
trademarks .
The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing
negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal
like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR
protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in
which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how
far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is
an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The
Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions
overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it
onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After
years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown
restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will
become true after all.
"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.
When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight,
you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar,
one with a great deal of blood on her hands.
My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new
credibility.
The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people
with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely
arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.
And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American
foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will
deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.
No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they
lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.
It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.
So funny.
Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate
Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his
Administration.
Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.
The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate.
Lets just blame it all on Hillary.
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever
of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily
die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily
recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The
dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have
succumbed.
As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment,
then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!
It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money
from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited
from it", highly likely!
Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort
has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of
Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly
likely.
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger
Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most
certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against
defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of
Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct
conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely
different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win
because the DNC threw all its weight against him.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the
spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the
American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race
theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one:
if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the
bits you want.
I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it
exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than
before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for
that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment"
acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American
people (or a signficant part of it).
But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.
It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it
had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between
Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term
enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most
of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and
can be balkanized.
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new
bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new
information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only
spun onto new hysteria.
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been
wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to
simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of
evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of
Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort
to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless
wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and
Republicans.
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."
Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two
positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.
Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.
A case of divide and conquer against the population
This time it was a fabricated scandal.
Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection
and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements,
wearing down relations.
The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims
concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like
that).
Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove
anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on
towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry
and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.
Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other
distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and
effort.
Management by crisis
The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other
manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through
spam.
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.
Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter
suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.
I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was
(mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the
Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do
nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her
turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of
personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier
during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up
to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration,
the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is
that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's
that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him
and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax
returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the
press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns). Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate,
meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like
open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the
Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character
issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other
examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's
well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer
Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make")
and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find
that even a little bit strange?
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and
Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns.
Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press
asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns) . Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless
astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders.
These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and
another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and
to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie
refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to
squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk
about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the
overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that
even a little bit strange?
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not
voters.
Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western
states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a
thin margin.
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned
the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...
From Xymphora March 21, 2019.
"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):
"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent
were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually
estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34
percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50
donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from
Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about
the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about
it: 76 percent is a lot."
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and
involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state.
And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in
2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is
not confronting Putin"...
Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow,
troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.
I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's
terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so
distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.
I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the
popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing
side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too
many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the
people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say
she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other
problems, but it still wasn't enough.
I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her
elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and
the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.
Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough
to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has
helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller
to prove.
It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that
Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the
"national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify
the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.
It is time to build
cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony.
Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it.
The truth will work better.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged
as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign
of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission
was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.
One Man's Terrorist
Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the
1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United
States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation,
stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan
descended deeper into civil war.
The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the
West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest
sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former
benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however,
is something altogether different.
From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew
thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims
as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration
armed and trained these fighters in
flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists
via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in
which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded
that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.
When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European
soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what
was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their
independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo
as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.
The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia,
called it "without any question a terrorist
group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden
and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department
accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.
However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan
Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil
war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded
as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton
administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces
committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president
called the war an internal Russian affair
and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia
from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.
Although NATO
called
the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against
the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that
the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict.
President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum
they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary
of State James Rubin later
admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing
were quite small."
Wagging the Dog?
In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood
producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't
help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's
impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated
tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack
on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.
There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO
began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government
issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:
The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no
proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions
and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A
state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.
Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March
1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the
NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA
and its supposed adherents and supporters."
While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly
exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted
– that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves."
This was completely false . US diplomat David
Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a
total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes
Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims
they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.
However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared
that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been
"fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington.
Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed
or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner,
acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."
Bloody Hypocrites
The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration
had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention.
More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan
genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal
Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses,
where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.
Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign
of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite
horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did
Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration
positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist
regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the
world's worst human rights
records. The list goes on and on.
Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since
the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were
forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995.
Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the
Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent
civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned
convoys of fleeing refugees.
"Painful for the Serbs"
Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and
seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist
John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools,
factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian
people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much
of its water supply.
NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle
of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the
building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards.
There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing
knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President
Jacques Chirac forecast as
many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in
nearby apartments.
Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they
were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes
flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties
on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly
hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's
ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age
23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged
shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."
Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7,
killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic
and medical dispensary were also bombed in the
mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.
Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece
was
blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people
killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged
by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a
doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.
On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes
bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing.
An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over
the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was
bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox
Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to
help those wounded in the first strike.
No One Is Safe
The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175
bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000
residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children,
died when bombs meant to
destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy
befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO
warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly
men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the
attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."
The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike
on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded.
Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later
reported that the US deliberately bombed the
embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.
There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks
on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed
refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including
16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported
a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month
later, another column of refugees was
bombed near Koriša, killing
87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile
struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM
missile blew the roof off
of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.
NATO's "Murderous Thugs"
As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their
atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from
the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or
were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost
entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.
The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group
"murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally
intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were
surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles
rescued the besieged militants. It later
emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.
Credibility Conundrum
The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling
toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly
action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton
added
that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's
real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton,
declaring on the eve of the war that
"to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute,
wrote that the Clinton administration
"transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United
States into a major test of American resolve."
Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands
of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable"
way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's
1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had
trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly
attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly
did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat
to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without
international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,
then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.
Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging
nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history.
Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense,
Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian
people in service of NATO's credibility.
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights,
is archived atwww.brettwilkins.com
Yves here. This post focuses on an important slice of history in what "freedom" has meant in
political discourse in the US. But I wish it had at least mentioned how a well-funded, then
extreme right wing effort launched an open-ended campaign to render US values more friendly to
business. They explicitly sought to undo New Deal programs and weaken or end other social
safety nets. Nixon Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell codified the strategy for this initiative
in the so-called Powell Memo of 1971.
One of the most effective spokesmen for this libertarian program was Milton Friedman, whose
bestseller Free to Choose became the foundation for a ten-part TV series.
America is having a heated debate about the meaning of the word socialism . We'd be
better served if, instead, we were debating the meaning of freedom .
The
Oregonian reported last week that fully 156,000 families are on the edge of homelessness in
our small-population state. Every one of those households is now paying more than 50 percent of
its monthly income on rent, and none of them has any savings; one medical bill, major car repair
or job loss, and they're on the streets.
While socialism may or may not solve their problem, the more pressing issue we have is an
entire political party and a huge sector of the billionaire class who see homelessness not as a
problem, but as a symptom of a "free" society.
The words freedom and liberty are iconic in American culture -- probably more so than with
any other nation because they're so intrinsic to the literature, declarations and slogans of our
nation's founding.
The irony -- of the nation founded on the world's greatest known genocide (the systematic
state murder of tens of millions of Native Americans) and over three centuries of legalized
slavery and a century and a half of oppression and exploitation of the descendants of those
slaves -- is extraordinary. It presses us all to bring true freedom and liberty to all
Americans.
But what do those words mean?
If you ask the Koch brothers and their buddies -- who slap those words on pretty much
everything they do -- you'd get a definition that largely has to do with being "free" from
taxation and regulation. And, truth be told, if you're morbidly rich, that makes a certain amount
of sense, particularly if your main goal is to get richer and richer, regardless of your
behavior's impact on working-class people, the environment, or the ability of government to
function.
On the other hand, the definition of freedom and liberty that's been embraced by so-called
"democratic socialist" countries -- from Canada to almost all of Europe to Japan and Australia --
you'd hear a definition that's closer to that articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he
proposed, in January 1944, a " second Bill
of Rights " to be added to our Constitution.
FDR's proposed amendments included the right to a job, and the right to be paid enough to
live comfortably; the right to "adequate food and clothing and recreation"; the right to start a
business and run it without worrying about "unfair competition and domination by monopolies"; the
right "of every family to a decent home"; the right to "adequate medical care to achieve and
enjoy good health"; the right to government-based "protection from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accident, and unemployment"; and the right "to a good education."
Roosevelt pointed out that, "All of these rights spell security." He added, "America's own
rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have
been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there
cannot be lasting peace in the world."
The other nations mentioned earlier took President Roosevelt's advice to heart. Progressive
"social democracy" has kept Europe, Canada, and the developed nations of the East and South
Pacific free of war for almost a century -- a mind-boggling feat when considering the history of
the developed world since the 1500s.
Just prior to FDR winning the White House in the election of 1932, the nation had been
treated to 12 years of a bizarre Republican administration that was the model for today's GOP. In
1920, Warren Harding won the presidency on a campaign of "more industry in government, less
government in industry" -- privatize and deregulate -- and a promise to drop the top tax rate of
91 percent down to 25 percent.
He kept both promises, putting the nation into a sugar-high spin called the Roaring '20s,
where the rich got fabulously rich and working-class people were being beaten and murdered by
industrialists when they tried to unionize. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (the three Republican
presidents from 1920 to 1932) all cheered on the assaults, using phrases like "the right to work"
to describe a union-free nation.
In the end, the result of the "
horses and sparrows " economics advocated by Harding ("feed more oats to the horses and
there'll be more oats in the horse poop to fatten the sparrows" -- that generation's version of
trickle-down economics) was the Republican Great Depression (yes, they called it that until after
World War II).
Even though Roosevelt was fabulously popular -- the only president to be elected four times --
the right-wingers of his day were loud and outspoken in their protests of what they called
"socialist" programs like Social Security, the right to unionize, and government-guaranteed job
programs including the WPA, REA, CCC, and others.
The Klan and American Nazis were assembling by the hundreds of thousands nationwide -- nearly
30,000 in Madison Square Garden
alone -- encouraged by wealthy and powerful "economic royalists" preaching "freedom" and "
liberty ." Like the Kochs' Freedomworks , that generation's huge and well-funded
(principally by the DuPonts' chemical fortune) organization was the Liberty League .
Roosevelt's generation had seen the results of this kind of hard-right "freedom" rhetoric in
Italy, Spain, Japan and Germany, the very nations with which we were then at war.
Speaking of "the grave dangers of 'rightist reaction' in this Nation," Roosevelt told America in that same speech that: "[I]f
history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called 'normalcy' of the 1920s --
then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields
abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home."
Although right-wingers are still working hard to disassemble FDR's New Deal -- the GOP budget
for 2019 contains massive cuts to Social Security, as well as to Medicare and Medicaid -- we got
halfway toward his notion of freedom and liberty here in the United States:
You're not free if
you're old and deep in poverty, so we have Social Security (although the GOP wants to gut it).
You're not free if you're hungry, so we have food stamps/SNAP (although the GOP wants to gut
them). You're not free if you're homeless, so we have housing assistance and homeless shelters
(although the GOP fights every effort to help homeless people). You're not free if you're sick
and can't get medical care, so we have Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare (although the GOP wants
to gut them all). You're not free if you're working more than 40 hours a week and still can't
meet basic expenses, so we have minimum wage laws and the right to unionize (although the GOP
wants to gut both). You're not free if you can't read, so we have free public schools (although
the GOP is actively working to gut them). You're not free if you can't vote, so we've passed
numerous laws to guarantee the right to vote (although the GOP is doing everything it can to keep
tens of millions of Americans from voting).
The billionaire class and their wholly owned Republican politicians keep trying to tell us
that "freedom" means the government doesn't provide any of the things listed above.
Instead, they tell us (as Ron Paul famously did in a GOP primary debate years ago) that, if we're
broke and sick, we're "free" to die like a feral dog in the gutter.
Freedom is homelessness, in the minds of the billionaires who own the GOP.
Poverty, lack of education, no access to health care, poor-paying jobs, and barriers to voting
are all proof of a free society, they tell us, which is why America's lowest life expectancy,
highest maternal and childhood death rates, lowest levels of education, and lowest pay
are almost all in GOP-controlled states .
America -- particularly the Democratic Party -- is engaged in a debate right now about the
meaning of socialism . It would be a big help for all of us if we were, instead, to have
an honest debate about the meaning of the words freedom and liberty .
Let us not forget the other propaganda arm of Republican party and big money- Fox news. They
spew the freedom nonsense while not adhering to any definition of the word.
I worked in the midwest as an Engineer in the 90s to early 2000s and saw plants being
gutted/shifted overseas, Union influence curtailed and mid level and bottom pay stay flat for
decades; all in the name of free market.
Sadly the same families that are the worst affected vote Republican! But we know all this
and have known it for a while. What will change?
The intro to this post is spot on. The Powell memo outlined a strategy for a corporate
coup d'eta. Is was completely successful. Now that the business class rules America, their only
vision is to continue the quest and cannibalize the country and enslave its people by any means
possible. What tools do they use to achieve these ends? -- debt, fear, violence and pandering
to human vanity as a motivator. Again, very successful.
Instead of honest public debate- which is impossible when undertaken with liars and thieves,
a good old manifesto or pamphlet like Common Sense is in order. Something calling out concrete
action that can be taken by commoners to regain their social respect and power. That should
scare the living daylights out of the complacent and smug elite.
Its that, or a lot of public infrastructure is gong to be broken up by the mob- which
doesn't work out in the long run. The nations that learn to work with and inspire their
populations will prosper- the rest will have a hard time of it. Look no further than America's
fall.
This piece raises some important points, but aims too narrowly at one political party,
when the D-party has also been complicit in sharing the framing of "freedom" as less
government/regulation/taxation. After all, it was the Clinton administration that did welfare
"reform", deregulation of finance, and declared the end of the era of "big government", and
both Clinton and Obama showed willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare in a "grand
bargain".
If in place of "the GOP," the author had written, "The national Democratic and Republican
parties over the past fifty years," his claim would be much more accurate. To believe what he
says about "the GOP," you have to pretend that Clinton, and Obama, and Pelosi, and Schumer, and
Feinstein simply don't exist and never did. The author's implicit valorization of Obamacare is
even more disheartening.
But perhaps this is the *point* of the piece after all? If I were a consultant to the DNC
(and I make less than $100,000/yr so I am clearly not), I would advocate that they commission,
underscore, and reward pieces exactly like this one. For the smartest ones surely grasp that
the rightist oligarchic policy takeover has in fact happened, and that it has left in its wake
millions of disaffected, indebted, uneducated, uninsured Americans.
(Suggesting that it hadn't was the worst idiocy of Clinton's 2016 campaign. It would have
been much better had she admitted it and blamed it on the Republican Senate while holding dear
old Obama up as a hamstrung martyr for the cause. I mean, this is what everybody at DailyKos
already believes, and the masses -- being poor and uneducated and desperate -- can be brought
around to believe anything, or anyway, enough of them can be.)
I would advocate that the DNC double down on its rightful claims to Roosevelt's inheritance,
embrace phrases like "social democracy" and "freedom from economic insecurity," and shift
leftward in all its official rhetoric. Admit the evisceration of the Roosevelt tradition, but
blame it all on the GOP. Maybe *maybe* even acknowledge that past Democratic leaders were a
little naive and idealistic in their pursuit of bipartisanship, and did not understand the
truly horrible intentions of the GOP. But today's Democrats are committed to wresting back the
rights of the people from the evil clutches of the Koch Republicans. This sort of thing.
Would my advice be followed? Or would the *really* smart ones in the room demure? If so, why
do you think they would?
In short, I read this piece as one stage in an ongoing dialectic in the Democratic Party in
the run-up to the 2020 election wherein party leaders try to determine how leftward its
"official" rhetoric is able to sway before becoming *so* unbelievable (in light of historical
facts) that it cannot serve as effective propaganda -- even among Americans!
Team Blue elites are the children of Bill Clinton and the Third Way, so the echo chamber was
probably terrible. Was Bill Clinton a bad President? He was the greatest Republican President!
The perception of this answer is a key. Who rose and joined Team Blue through this run? Many
Democrats don't recognize this, or they don't want to rock the boat. This is the structural
problem with Team Blue. The "generic Democrat" is AOC, Omar, Sanders, Warren, and a handful of
others.
Can the Team Blue elites embrace a Roosevelt identity? The answer is no. Their ideology is
so wildly divergent they can't adjust without a whole sale conversion.
More succinctly, the Third Way isn't about helping Democrats win by accepting not every
battle can be won. Its about advancing right wing politics and pretending this isn't what its
about. If they are too clear about good policy, they will be accused of betrayal.
This article makes me wonder if the GOP is still a political party anymore. I know, I know,
they have the party structure, the candidates, the budget and all the rest of it but when you
look at their policies and what they are trying to do, the question does arise. Are they doing
it because this is what they believe is their identity as a party or is it that they are simply
a vehicle with the billionaires doing the real driving and recruiting? An obvious point is that
among billionaires, they see no need to form their own political party which should be telling
clue. Certainly the Democrats are no better.
Maybe the question that American should ask themselves is just what does it mean to be an
American in the year 2020? People like Norman Rockwell and his Four Freedoms could have said a
lot of what it meant some 60 years ago and his work has been updated to reflect the modern era
( https://www.galeriemagazine.com/norman-rockwell-four-freedoms-modern/
) but the long and the short of it is that things are no longer working for most people anymore
-- and not just in America. But a powerful spring can only be pushed back and held in place for
so long before there is a rebound effect and I believe that I am seeing signs of this the past
few years.
" a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be
established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of
the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and
his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from
unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and
unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security."
America is having a heated debate about the meaning of the word socialism. We'd be better
served if, instead, we were debating the meaning of freedom.
I agree, and we should also be having a debate about capitalism as it actually exists. In
the US capitalism is always talked about in rosy non-specific terms (e.g. a preference for
markets or support for entrepreneurship) while anybody who says they don't necessarily support
capitalism has to answer for Stalin's gulag's or the Khmer Rouge. All the inequalities and
injustices that have helped people like Howard Schultz or Jeff Bezos become billionaire
capitalists somehow aren't part of capitalism, just different problems to be solved somehow but
definitely not by questioning capitalism.
Last night I watched the HBO documentary on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos and I couldn't
help but laugh at all these powerful politicians, investors, and legal giants going along with
someone who never once demonstrated or even explained how her groundbreaking innovation
actually worked. $900 million was poured into that company before people realized something
that a Stanford professor interviewed in the documentary saw when she first met Holmes.
Fracking companies have been able to consistently raise funding despite consistently losing
money and destroying the environment in the process. Bank balance sheets were protected while
working people lost everything in the name of preserving American capitalism. I think it's good
to debate socialism and capitalism, but there's not really any point if we aren't going to be
talking about Actually Existing Capitalism rather than the hypothetical version that's trotted
out anytime someone suggests an alternative.
There was a great comment here on NC a little while ago, something to the effect of
"capitalism has the logic of a cancer cell. It's a pile of money whose only goal is to become a
bigger pile of money." Of course good things can happen as a side effect of it becoming a
bigger pile of money: innovation, efficiencies, improved standard of living, etc. but we need
government (not industry) regulation to keep the bad side effects of capitalism in check (like
the cancer eventually killing its host).
Shoot, must have missed that comment but it's a good metaphor. Reminds me of Capital vol. 1,
which Marx starts with a long and dense treatment of the nature of commodities and
commodification in order to capture this process whereby capitalists produce things people
really do want or need in order to get at what they really want: return on their
investment.
I also agree but I think we need to have a the same heated debate over what capitalism
means. Over the years I have been subjected to (exposed) to more flavors of socialism than I
can count. Yet, other than an introductory economics class way back when, no debatable words
about what 'capitalism' is seems to get attention. Maybe it's time to do that and hope that
some agreeable definition of 'freedom' falls out.
of course maybe socialism is the only thing that ever really could solve homelessness, given
that it seems to be at this point a worldwide problem, although better some places than others
(like the U.S. and UK).
This article lets the Dems off the hook. They have actively supported the Billionaire
Agenda for decades now; sometimes actively (like when they helped gut welfare) and sometimes by
enabling Repubs objectives (like voter suppression).
At this point in time, the Dem leadership is working to deep six Medicare for All.
With 'friends' like the Dems, who needs the Repubs?
1) In the history, a mention of the attempted coup against FDR would be good. See The
Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer. ( Amazon link )
2) For the contemporary intellectual history, I really appreciated Nancy MacLean's
Democracy in Chains . ( Amazon
link ) Look her up on youtube or Democracy Now . Her book got a bit of press and she
interviews well.
This post seems heavily slanted against the GOP and does not take into account how
pro-business the Democrats have become. I tenuously agree with Yves intro that much of the
current pro business value system campaign in the US was started with the political far right
and the Lewis Powell Memo. And that campaign kicked into high gear during the Reagan
Presidency.
But as that "pro business campaign" gained steam, the Democratic Party, IMO, realized that
they could partake in the "riches" as well and sold their political soul for a piece of the
action. Hartman's quote about the billionaire class should include their "wholly owned
Republicans and Democrat politicians".
As Lambert mentions (paraphrasing), "The left puts the working class first. Both liberals
and conservatives put markets first, liberals with many more layers of indirection (e.g.,
complex eligibility requirements, credentialing) because that creates niches from which their
professional base benefits".
As an aside, while the pro-business/capitalism on steroids people have sought more
"freedom", they have made the US and the world less free for the rest of us.
Also the over focusing on freedom is not uniquely GOP. As Hartman mentions, "the words
freedom and liberty are iconic in American culture -- probably more so than with any other
nation because they're so intrinsic to the literature, declarations and slogans of our nation's
founding." US culture has taken the concept of freedom to an extreme version of
individualism.
That is not surprising given our history.
The DRD4 gene is a dopamine receptor gene. One stretch of the gene is repeated a variable
number of times, and the version with seven repeats (the "7R" form) produces a receptor protein
that is relatively unresponsive to dopamine. Being unresponsive to dopamine means that people
who have this gene have a host of related traits -- sensation and novelty seeking, risk taking,
impulsivity, and, probably most consistently, ADHD. -- -- Seems like the type of people that
would value extreme (i.e. non-collective) forms of freedom
The United States is the individualism poster child for at least two reasons. First
there's immigration. Currently, 12 percent of Americans are immigrants, another 12 percent are
children of immigrants, and everyone else except for the 0.9 percent pure Native Americans
descend from people who emigrated within the last five hundred years.
And who were the immigrants?' Those in the settled world who were cranks, malcontents,
restless, heretical, black sheep, hyperactive, hypomanic, misanthropic, itchy, unconventional,
yearning to be free, yearning to be rich, yearning to be out of their, damn boring repressive
little hamlet, yearning. -- -- Again seems like the type of people that would value freedom in
all aspects of life and not be interested in collectivism
Couple that with the second reason -- for the majority of its colonial and independent
history, America has had a moving frontier luring those whose extreme prickly optimism made
merely booking passage to the New World insufficiently, novel -- and you've got America the
individualistic.
The 7R variant mentioned above occurs in about 23 percent of Europeans and European
Americans. And in East Asians? 1 percent. When East Asians domesticated rice and invented
collectivist society, there was massive selection against the 7R variant. Regardless of the
cause, East Asian cultural collectivism coevolved with selection against the 7R variant.
So which came first, 7R frequency or cultural style? The 4R and 7R variants, along with the
2R, occur worldwide, implying they already existed when humans radiated out of Africa 60,000 to
130,000 years ago. A high incidence of 7R, associated with impulsivity and novelty seeking, is
the legacy of humans who made the greatest migrations in human history.
So it seems that many of the people who immigrated to the US were impulsive, novelty
seeking, risk takers. As a counterpoint, many people that migrated to the US did not do so by
choice but were forced from their homes and their countries by wars.
The point of this long comment is that for some people the concept of freedom can be taken
to extreme -- a lack of gun control laws, financial regulation, extremes of wealth, etc. After
a brief period in the 1940's, 1950's, and early 1960's when the US was more collective, we
became greedy, consumerist, and consumption oriented, aided by the political and business
elites as mentioned in the post.
If we want the US to be a more collective society we have to initially do so in our
behaviors i.e. laws and regulations that rein in the people who would take the concept of
freedom to an extreme. Then maybe over an evolutionary time period some of the move impulsive,
sensation seeking, ADHDness, genes can be altered to a more balance mix of what makes the US
great with more of the collective genes.
IMO, if we do not begin to work on becoming a collective culture now, then climate change,
water scarcity, food scarcity, and resource scarcity will do it for us the hard way.
In these days of short attention spans I apologize for the long comment. The rest of my day
is busy and I do not have more time to shorten the comment. I wanted to develop an argument for
how the evolutionary and dysfunctional forms of freedom have gotten us to this point. And what
we need to do to still have some freedom but also "play nice and share in the future sandbox of
climate change and post fossil fuel society.
"... Another house manager, Alfredo Rodriguez, told Recarey that very young girls were giving Epstein massages at least twice a day, and in one instance, Epstein had Rodriguez deliver one dozen roses to Mary, at her high school. ..."
"... Palm Beach prosecutors said the evidence was weak, and after presenting the case to a grand jury, Epstein was charged with only one count of felony solicitation of prostitution. In 2008, he pleaded guilty and nominally served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a county jail: Epstein spent one day a week there, the other six out on "work release." ..."
"... Today, Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, albeit one who routinely settles civil lawsuits against him, brought by young women, out of court. As of 2015, Epstein had settled multiple such cases. ..."
In 2005, the world was introduced to reclusive billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, friend to princes and an American
president, a power broker with the darkest of secrets: He was also a pedophile, accused of recruiting dozens of underage girls into
a sex-slave network, buying their silence and moving along, although he has been convicted of only one count of soliciting prostitution
from a minor. Visitors to his private Caribbean island, known as "Orgy Island," have included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Stephen
Hawking.
According to a 2011 court filing by alleged Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre, she saw Clinton and Prince Andrew on the
island but never saw the former president do anything improper. Giuffre has accused Prince Andrew of having sex with her when she
was a minor, a charge Buckingham Palace denies.
"Epstein lives less than one mile away from me in Palm Beach," author James Patterson tells The Post. In the 11 years since Epstein
was investigated and charged by the Palm Beach police department, ultimately copping a plea and serving 13 months on one charge of
soliciting prostitution from a 14-year-old girl, Patterson has remained obsessed with the case.
"He's a fascinating character to read about," Patterson says. "What is he thinking? Who is he?"
Patterson's new book,
"Filthy Rich:
A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal That Undid Him, and All the Justice That Money Can Buy," is an attempt to answer such
questions. Co-authored with John Connolly and Tim Malloy, the book contains detailed police interviews with girls who alleged sexual
abuse by Epstein and others in his circle. Giuffre alleged that Epstein's ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media
tycoon Robert Maxwell, abused her. Ghislaine Maxwell has denied allegations of enabling abuse.
Epstein has spent the bulk of his adult life cultivating relationships with the world's most powerful men. Flight logs show that
from 2001 to 2003, Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's private plane, dubbed "The Lolita Express" by the press, 26 times. After Epstein's
arrest in July 2006, federal tax records show Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation that year.
Bill Clinton in 1994. AP
Epstein was also a regular visitor to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago, and the two were friends. According to the Daily Mail, Trump
was a frequent dinner guest at Epstein's home, which was often full of barely dressed models. In 2003, New York magazine reported
that Trump also attended a dinner party at Epstein's honoring Bill Clinton.
Last year, The Guardian reported that Epstein's "little black book" contained contact numbers for A-listers including Tony Blair,
Naomi Campbell, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson.
In a 2006 court filing, Palm Beach police noted that a search of Epstein's home uncovered two hidden cameras. The Mirror reported
that in 2015, a 6-year-old civil lawsuit filed by "Jane Doe No. 3," believed to be the now-married Giuffre, alleged that Epstein
wired his mansion with hidden cameras, secretly recording orgies involving his prominent friends and underage girls. The ultimate
purpose: blackmail, according to court papers.
Britain's Prince Andrew in 2012 AP
"Jane Doe No. 3" also alleged that she had been forced to have sex with "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business
executives, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders."
"We uncovered a lot of details about the police investigation and a lot about the girls, what happened to them, the effect on
their lives," Patterson says.
"The reader has to ask: Was justice done here or not?"
Epstein, now 63, has always been something of an international man of mystery. Born in Brooklyn, he had a middle-class upbringing:
His father worked for the Parks Department, and his parents stressed hard work and education.
'We uncovered a lot of details about the police investigation and a lot about the girls, what happened to them, the effect
on their lives.'
- James Patterson
Epstein was brilliant, skipping two grades and graduating Lafayette High School in 1969. He attended Cooper Union but dropped
out in 1971 and by 1973 was teaching calculus and physics at Dalton, where he tutored the son of a Bear Stearns exec. Soon, Epstein
applied his facility with numbers on Wall Street but left Bear Stearns under a cloud in 1981. He formed his own business, J. Epstein
& Co.
The bar for entry at the new firm was high. According to a 2002 profile in New York magazine, Epstein only took on clients who
turned over $1 billion, at minimum, for him to manage. Clients also had to pay a flat fee and sign power of attorney over to Epstein,
allowing him to do whatever he saw fit with their money.
Still, no one knew exactly what Epstein did, or how he was able to amass a personal billion-dollar-plus fortune. In addition to
a block-long, nine-story mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Epstein owns the $6.8 million mansion in Palm Beach, an $18 million
property in New Mexico, the 70-acre private Caribbean island, a helicopter, a Gulfstream IV and a Boeing 727.
"My belief is that Jeff maintains some sort of money-management firm, though you won't get a straight answer from him," one high-level
investor told New York magazine. "He once told me he had 300 people working for him, and I've also heard that he manages Rockefeller
money. But one never knows. It's like looking at the Wizard of Oz -- there may be less there than meets the eye."
Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach home Splash News
"He's very enigmatic," Rosa Monckton told Vanity Fair in 2003. Monckton was the former British CEO of Tiffany & Co. and confidante
to the late Princess Diana. She was also a close friend of Epstein's since the 1980s. "He never reveals his hand . . . He's a classic
iceberg. What you see is not what you get."
Both profiles intimated that Epstein had a predilection for young women but never went further. In the New York magazine piece,
Trump said Epstein's self-professed image as a loner, an egghead and a teetotaler was not wholly accurate.
Donald Trump in 1990 AP
"I've known Jeff for 15 years," Trump said. "Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful
women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
Three years after that profile ran, Palm Beach Police Officer Michele Pagan got a disturbing message. A woman reported that her
14-year-old stepdaughter confided to a friend that she'd had sex with an older man for money. The man's name was Jeff, and he lived
in a mansion on a cul-de-sac.
Pagan persuaded the woman to bring her stepdaughter down to be interviewed. In his book, Patterson calls the girl Mary. And Mary,
like so many of the other girls who eventually talked, came from the little-known working-class areas surrounding Palm Beach.
A friend of a friend, Mary said, told her she could make hundreds of dollars in one hour, just for massaging some middle-aged
guy's feet. Lots of other girls had been doing it, some three times a week.
Mary claimed she had been driven to the mansion on El Brillo Way, where a female staffer escorted her up a pink-carpeted staircase,
then into a room with a massage table, an armoire topped with sex toys and a photo of a little girl pulling her underwear off.
Ghislaine Maxwell Getty Images
Epstein entered the room, wearing only a towel, Mary said.
"He took off the towel," Mary told Pagan. "He was a really built guy. But his wee-wee was very tiny."
Mary said Epstein got on the table and barked orders at her. She told police she was alone in the room with him, terrified.
Pagan wrote the following in her incident report:
"She removed her pants, leaving her thong panties on. She straddled his back, whereby her exposed buttocks were touching Epstein's
exposed buttocks. Epstein then turned to his side and started to rub his penis in an up-and-down motion. Epstein pulled out a purple
vibrator and began to massage Mary's vaginal area."
Palm Beach assigned six more detectives to the investigation. They conducted a "trash pull" of Epstein's garbage, sifting through
paper with phone numbers, used condoms, toothbrushes, worn underwear. In one pull, police found a piece of paper with Mary's phone
number on it, along with the number of the person who recruited her.
On Sept. 11, 2005, detectives got another break. Alison, as she's called in the book, told Detective Joe Recarey that she had
been going to Epstein's house since she was 16. Alison had been working at the Wellington Green Mall, saving up for a trip to Maine,
when a friend told her, "You can get a plane ticket in two hours . . . We can go give this guy a massage and he'll pay $200," according
to her statement to the police.
Alison told Recarey that she visited Epstein hundreds of times. She said he had bought her a new 2005 Dodge Neon, plane tickets,
and gave her spending money. Alison said he even asked her to emancipate from her parents so she could live with him full-time as
his "sex slave."
She said Epstein slowly escalated his sexual requests, and despite Alison's insistence that they never have intercourse, alleged,
"This one time . . . he bent me over the table and put himself in me. Without my permission."
Alison then asked if what Epstein had done to her was rape and spoke of her abject fear of him.
An abridged version of her witness statement, as recounted in the book:
Alison : Before I say anything else . . . um, is there a possibility that I'm gonna have to go to court or anything?
Recarey : I mean, what he did to you is a crime. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Alison : Would you consider it rape, what he did?
Recarey : If he put himself inside you without permission . . . That, that is a crime. That is a crime.
Alison : I don't want my family to find out about this . . . 'Cause Jeffrey's gonna get me. You guys realize that, right? . . . I'm
not safe now. I'm not safe.
Recarey : Why do you say you're not safe? Has he said he's hurt people before?
Alison : Well, I've heard him make threats to people on the telephone, yeah. Of course.
Recarey : You're gonna die? You're gonna break your legs? Or --
Alison : All of the above!
Alison also told Recarey that Epstein got so violent with her that he ripped out her hair and threw her around. "I mean," she
said, "there's been nights that I walked out of there barely able to walk, um, from him being so rough."
Two months later, Recarey interviewed Epstein's former house manager of 11 years, documented in his probable-cause affidavit as
Mr. Alessi. "Alessi stated Epstein receives three massages a day . . . towards the end of his employment, the masseuses . . . appeared
to be 16 or 17 years of age at the most . . . [Alessi] would have to wash off a massager/vibrator and a long rubber penis, which
were in the sink after the massage."
Another house manager, Alfredo Rodriguez, told Recarey that very young girls were giving Epstein massages at least twice a
day, and in one instance, Epstein had Rodriguez deliver one dozen roses to Mary, at her high school.
In May 2006, the Palm Beach Police Department filed a probable-cause affidavit, asking prosecutors to charge Epstein with four
counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor -- a second-degree felony -- and one count of lewd and lascivious molestation of
a 14-year-old minor, also a second-degree felony.
Today, Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, albeit one who routinely settles civil lawsuits against him, brought by young women,
out of court.
Palm Beach prosecutors said the evidence was weak, and after presenting the case to a grand jury, Epstein was charged with
only one count of felony solicitation of prostitution. In 2008, he pleaded guilty and nominally served 13 months of an 18-month sentence
in a county jail: Epstein spent one day a week there, the other six out on "work release."
Today, Jeffrey Epstein is a free man, albeit one who routinely settles civil lawsuits against him, brought by young women,
out of court. As of 2015, Epstein had settled multiple such cases.
Giuffre has sued Ghislaine Maxwell in Manhattan federal court, charging defamation -- saying Maxwell stated Giuffre lied about
Maxwell's recruitment of her and other underage girls. Epstein has been called upon to testify in court this month, on Oct. 20.
The true number of Epstein's victims may never be known.
He will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life, not that it fazes him. "I'm not a sexual predator, I'm an 'offender,' "
Epstein told The Post in 2011. "It's the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel."
Human society is way to complex for alpha males to succeed unconditionally... Quite a different set of traits is often needed.
Notable quotes:
"... Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. ..."
"... Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference. ..."
"... I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea right ..."
"... Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status. ..."
"... "They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." ..."
"... "He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him." ..."
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of
entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. The rich
shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some other societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to
senior party members, senior clergymen, or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money at all).
"Go with the winner." That is how it works for the alpha male (a chimp, an ape, or a gorilla) for most followers anyway. Some will challenge. If victorious, followers will line up (more go-with-the-winner). If defeated, an outcast.
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary rival, but in this instance I think the debunking
is merited. It's quite possible that rich people act the way we would act if we were rich, and that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession
with rich people didn't cut very deep. Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's
the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the way they think, does not change the fact that, while they
have more money, they think differently, and different rules apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone else was the Alpha Chimp does not change the fact that
an Alpha Chimp has fundamentally different behavior than the rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and
Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me. Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasn't about Fitzgerald and wasn't even by Hemingway. Anyway I was more
attacking the "rich have more money" thing than I was trying to defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea
right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald
thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations
and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are
better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored of the rich, seeing them as a "special glamorous race"
but ultimately became disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing
that wrecked him."
Pedophilia has come up in the mainstream a lot lately, as PizzaGate came to light fairly recently and more and more pedophile
rings are being exposed, some of which have involved government officials.
If you're unfamiliar with PizzaGate, it refers to a wide range of email correspondence leaked from the DNC that allegedly unearthed
a high-level elitist global pedophile ring in which the U.S. government was involved.
It emerged when Wikileaks released tens of thousands of emails from the former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton,
John Podesta, who also served as Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. It's because of these emails that many claimed John Podesta
was a part of these child trafficking rings as well.
Since then, conspiracy theorists and world renowned journalists alike have been looking into the topic and speculating how big
this problem could be and who could be involved within these underground rings.
For example, award winning American journalist Ben Swann explained the Pizzagate controversy in detail on mainstream news:
Not long after, Swann's entire online personal brand and accounts had all but vanished from the
internet. Why?
More recently, there's been some speculation that these pedophile rings could stretch into pop culture, potentially involving
more pedophilia scandals and symbolism within the media. The question here is: Is there any tangible evidence of all of this, or
is it mere speculation?
Pedophilia Symbolism
I'd like to begin by identifying the symbols that are used by pedophiles to identify themselves and make their requests within
underground networks. Here is a link
to a declassified FBI document illustrating the symbols and images used by pedophiles to "identify their sexual preferences."
So, how do these images relate to pizza? First of all, before PizzaGate was even suggested, "cheese pizza" was used as
a code word to discuss "child porn" (hint: it's the same initials, CP). A quick Google search will reveal that the market for underage
sex workers is fairly substantial, and you can even see a 2015 post on
Urban Dictionary that explains
how "cheese pizza" is used as code for child porn.
As per PizzaGate and the symbolism, it all started when multiple emails involving John Podesta, his brother, and Hillary Clinton
simply didn't add up. Strange wording discussing pizza and cheese left readers confused, and because the emails made so little sense,
it led many to suspect that they were code for something else.
For example, this email addressed to John Podesta
reads: "The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related)," and
this email sent from John Podesta asks: "Do you
think I'll do better playing dominos on cheese than on pasta?" There are many more examples, and I encourage you to go through
the Wikileaks vault to explore.
On top of that, the DNC was associated with two pizza places, Comet Ping Pong and Besta Pizza, which use very clear symbols of
pedophilia in their advertising and have strange images of children and other ritualistic type images and suspicious videos on their
social media accounts – which has since been made private given the controversy over the images and their link to the DNC, but again,
a quick Google search will show you what those images looked like. You can read the email correspondence between John Podesta and
Comet Ping Pong's owner, James Alefantis,
here .
Clinton Democrats (DemoRats) are so close to neocons that the current re-alliance is only natural and only partially caused by
Trump. Under Obama some of leading figures of his administration were undistinguishable from neocons (Samantha Power is a good
example here -- she was as crazy as Niki Haley, if not more). There is only one "war party in the USA which
continently consists of two wings: Repugs and DemoRats.
Notable quotes:
"... Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham , one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton , who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon. ..."
"... That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's way" ..."
"... But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent. ..."
"... This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan ..."
"... While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining ..."
"... At the same time, Democratic policy elites in Washington are once again formally aligning with neoconservatives , even to the point of creating joint foreign policy advocacy groups (a reunion that predated Trump ). The leading Democratic Party think tank, the Center for American Progress, donated $200,000 to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and has multilevel alliances with warmongering institutions. ..."
"... By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet, MSNBC, is stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a "national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism"). ..."
"... All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation -- which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way. ..."
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S December 18 announcement that he intends to withdraw all U.S.
troops from Syria produced some isolated support in the
anti-war wings of bothparties , but largely provoked
bipartisan outrage among in Washington's reflexively pro-war establishment.
Both
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary
Clinton, who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient
hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror
jargon.
But while official Washington united in opposition, new polling data from
Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump's Syria
withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.
That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the
proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as
Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's
way" far more than they agree with the pro-war view that "the U.S. needs to keep troops in
places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan to help support our allies fight terrorism and
maintain our foreign policy interests in the region."
But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support
for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents
overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in
2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump
voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent.
A similar gap is seen among those who voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections (28
percent support withdrawal while 54 percent oppose it), as opposed to the widespread support
for withdrawal among 2018 GOP voters: 74 percent to 18 percent.
Identical trends can be seen on the question of Trump's announced intention to withdraw half
of the U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, where Democrats are far more supportive of keeping
troops there than Republicans and independents.
This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in
Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data
consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all
troops from Afghanistan:
With Trump rather than Obama now advocating troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, all of this
has changed. The new polling data shows far more support for troop withdrawal among Republicans
and independents, while Democrats are now split or even opposed . Among 2016 Trump voters,
there is massive support for withdrawal: 81 percent to 11 percent; Clinton voters, however,
oppose the removal of troops from Afghanistan by a margin of 37 percent in favor and 47 percent
opposed.
This latest poll is far from aberrational. As the Huffington Post's Ariel Edwards-Levy
documented early this week , separate polling shows a similar reversal by Democrats on
questions of war and militarism in the Trump era.
While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should
continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to
withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining. "Those who voted for
Democrat Clinton now said by a 42-point margin that the U.S. had a responsibility to do
something about the fighting in Syria involving ISIS," Edwards-Levy wrote, "while Trump voters
said by a 16-point margin that the nation had no such responsibility." (Similar trends can be
seen among GOP voters, whose support for intervention in Syria has steadily declined as Trump
has moved away from his posture of the last two years --
escalating bombings in both Syria and Iraq and killing far more civilians , as he
repeatedly vowed to do during the campaign -- to his return to his other campaign pledge to
remove troops from the region.)
This is, of course, not the first time that Democratic voters have wildly shifted their
"beliefs" based on the party affiliation of the person occupying the Oval Office. The party's
base spent the Bush-Cheney years denouncing war on terror policies, such as assassinations,
drones, and Guantánamo as moral atrocities and war crimes, only to suddenly support those
policies once they
became hallmarks of the Obama presidency .
But what's happening here is far more insidious. A core ethos of the anti-Trump #Resistance
has become militarism, jingoism, and neoconservatism. Trump is frequently attacked by Democrats
using longstanding Cold War scripts wielded for decades against them by the far right: Trump is
insufficiently belligerent with U.S. enemies; he's willing to allow the Bad Countries to take
over by bringing home U.S. soldiers; his efforts to establish less hostile relations with
adversary countries is indicative of weakness or even treason.
By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet,
MSNBC, is
stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while
even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the
pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a
"national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism").
All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first
time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and
imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max
Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of
conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly
pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation --
which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way.
Obama strategy in Syria was replica of Clinton strategy in Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity
or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about), arm
them, create false flags to set them at each other's throats. Enjoy the results.
Obama like Clinton before him was a real wolve in sheep's clothing
Notable quotes:
"... Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face. ..."
"... Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. ..."
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he
plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each
other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true
progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.
His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed
today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the
establishment.
Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible
campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016
election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from
Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the
threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).
Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to
succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that
these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve
the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get
financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.
Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more
peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.
Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but
within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack
was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false
flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get
peace in Korea.
Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama
protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has
welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.
How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will
NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully
committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven
foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO
goals.
Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction,
provided without charge and in abundance.
Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM |
39@ 10 17
Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he
was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope
inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving
US imperialism a pleasing face.
Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too
blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major
sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump.
Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from
all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same
underlying trends.
But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the
right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state
would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
"The last two Democratic presidencies largely involved talking progressive while serving
Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. The obvious differences in personalities and
behavior of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama diverted attention from their underlying political
similarities. In office, both men rarely fought for progressive principles -- and routinely
undermined them."
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
"... "a group called CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project" a group that has received funding from Soros, to Pueblo Sin Fronteras through a person named 'Alex Mensing' who works both for CARA and as "an on-the ground coordinator in Mexico for the Pueblo Sin Fronteras". ..."
"... ..A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of the nation's wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the past decade those donors have invested more than $300 million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally.... ..."
"... US based groups or cutouts are the organizers of the caravan. ..."
"... The list of Democratic Party-connected organizations that might have originated the idea of a caravan from Central America is small. I surmise Clinton Global Initiative because they would have the requisite connections and blaming Soros seems to easy and convenient. But Soros is also rumored to be behind support for European migrants so it's certainly possible. ..."
How did this group of thousands come together to walk to US were Trump has vowed to keep
illegals out. People like this would naturally come together if they were catching a ship, or
at some sort of aid post refugee camp ect.
After a search on caravan starting point, I found this at the Guardian.
"Who organized the caravan?
In interviews, Honduran members of the group said that they learned about the caravan from
Facebook posts, and a report on the local HCH television station, which erroneously suggested
that a former congressman and radio host would cover the costs of the journey.
After that, rumours spread quickly, including the mistaken promise that any member would be
given asylum in the US. Darwin Ramos, 30, said he was desperate to flee threats from a local
drug gang, and when news of the caravan reached his neighbourhood, he seized on it as his
best chance to escape."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/24/caravan-migrants-what-is-it-where-from-guatemala-honduras-immigrants-mexico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Sin_Fronteras
"Pueblo Sin Fronteras (en: People without Borders) is an immigration rights group known for
organizing several high profile migrant caravans in Mexico and Central America. The
organization's efforts to facilitate immigration and calls for open borders attracted
considerable amounts of coverage in the Mexican and American media."
Pueblo Sin Fronteras website. Zero information there other than the have bases or offices
in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tijuana in Mexico. https://www.pueblosinfronteras.org/commitees.html
No information on who they are or who funds them. Very much a political organization.
On two caravans like this have occurred, both organized by this shadowy group.
Slow moving lots of press coverage that can last for weeks so long as the peasant suckers
stay suckers and don't pull out. Very much an anti Trump political show put on by whoever
funds and controls this Pueblo Sin Fronteras organisation.
Centro Sin Fronteras is the parent group to Pueblo Sin Fronteras. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/centro-sin-fronteras/
"Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, former fugitive from U.S. immigration
authorities, and activist for illegal immigrants in the U.S., formed the activist group La
Familia Latina Unida ("The United Latin Family") as an expansion of the Centro Sin Fronteras.
[7] La Familia Latina Unida runs Pueblo Sin Fronteras ("People Without Borders"), a group
that organizes "migrant caravans" from Mexico and Latin America to cross the U.S. border
illegally"
The majority of people in the caravan may be leaving their own countries due to violence
poverty ect, but the caravan itself is a manufactured political event. left to their own
devices, some may have moved towards the US in small groups, others would have been deterred
due to Trumps immigration policy, but they have joined this so called caravan on false
promises made by the organisers. Nothing better than kids, women and oldies doing it tough or
better yet dying for political media coverage.
As for the politically organized caravan, the peasants have officially been offered a home
in Mexico, but the organizers prefer them to go on to the US. As they have been offered a
place in mexico, they are now economic migrants wanting greener pastures in the US rather
than refugees.
The peasants themselves, I think are mostly genuine though organizers are mixed through
the group. The peasants are no more than consumables in a political action.
. ..A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of
the nation's wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the
Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the past decade those donors have invested more than $300
million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for
immigrants here illegally.... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/us/obama-immigration-policy-changes.html
How can people not see this caravan march as the obvious false flag it is to influence the
election. The actors are being paid and busses have been mobilized and paid for to move them
forward. The right says Soros money might be behind it and they may be right. Surprised the
left has not blamed Putin. Which proves my point that the left is actively conspiring with
the right the keep them in power. Why wouldnt they care?. As Caitlin Johnstone says, after I
said it, they get paid the same no matter what. As part of a 2 party monopoly,with 2 parties
the minimum to serve the illusion of a representative Democracy,the oiligarchs will continue
to throw money to the loser.
This has been scripted well in advance. Republicans need to maintain both houses for the
2nd stage of Trumps destruction of America (credibility and finance), especially its
government and middle class as the elite will be protected from the damage. Democrats are
standing on the sidelines rambling about Russia Gate or Khashoggi Gate or mobilizing their
forces to support gay marriages and transgender access to bathrooms. And to boot they bring
out Hillary and Obama at the last moment to bash Trump to galvanize the rights voters even
more. No other purpose for doing so.
To be sure, a Democratic win means nothing except perhaps as a poor proxy for a lack of
support for Trump. 40% of their candidates come from the military or intelligence services.
They are owned by the oligarchs as much as tbe Republicans. The only difference in the
parties is the costumes they wear and the rhetoric the speak
Or perhaps its as simple as not wanting to share responsibility for what is to come as
their best shot to win in 2020
Frankly the best outcome would be the decimation of the Democrat Party and its subsequent
dissolution. Lets end the farce of a Democracy. One party for all. Hail Trump or whomever he
appoints as his successor, or just let the elites vote and announce who they voted for every
4 years. Thats pretty much what the constitution meant for us to be doing anyways. The idea
of a Direct vote by all citizens for President and Senate would have horrified them. Seeing
the results of elections these past 40 years I have concluded they are right.
Invaders or Dupes? Have the caravan migrants been misled?
While it's true that anyone can request asylum, the caravan migrants appear to be under
the impression that they have a legitimate claim to asylum in USA because they are fleeing
gang violence in their home country. That is very likely to be untrue.
Such a claim MIGHT be valid in countries that have signed the Cartagena Declaration
and ratified it into law - but the US has not. The Declaration expands the definition of
refugees to include:
"persons who have fled their country because their lives, security or freedom have been
threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive
violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public
order".
FYI
The 1951 UN Convention as amended defines a refugee as someone with a "well-founded fear
of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular
social group or political opinion" . The caravan stories I have heard are unlikely to
qualify under this definition.
Some countries that have loads of asylum seekers have set up camps to hold them. Some,
like Australia, even have camps in foreign countries. Trump's talk of setting up tents
implies that USA will also establish such camps. Life in these camps is likely to be
uncomfortable and unproductive. Only those will genuine asylum claims would tough it out.
How telling it is that when we disagree on the nature of the Caravan, we fall into an
either-or choice between 2 absolutes. Either it is a complete hoax from the ground up, or
it's a completely authentic grass-roots happening.
But we have seen enough color revolutions to understand that there is always an authentic
component to each one. I have commented several times on how delicately the CIA and other
organizers of color revolutions symbiotically fuse with good and authentic people who have a
noble cause. How these bad people can merge with such good people is a wonder to me.
But this itself is the fact that must demolish the partisan thinking of "one side or the
other". It's clear that the people who run things and their henchmen who arrange things are
marvelously nuanced when it comes to good and evil. They'll be good when it suits them and
evil for the same reason, and treat people well and badly, all depending on the exigencies of
the mission.
In simple words, there undoubtedly is a core heart to the population of the caravan that
is good, hopeful, enterprising and industrious, and that hopes to receive just one little
break from the world, and a sliver of social justice. This radiating core of goodness and
humanity, which would break open the hearts of ordinary people like you and me, to the
organizers and their fixers is simply the perfect place to hide, concealed by superb
protective coloration.
Take a look at the Maidan in Ukraine, and see how many good people thought they were
fighting to create a wonderful new world, until the snipers fired on both sides and brought
off the color revolution with superb skill and complete amoral ruthlessness - all as a result
of long planning and preparation, not to mention the cash to hire mercenaries and provide the
best logistics.
So I personally will stand by my thought that we will see what this is when the shooters
begin to provoke the violence. And if that happens, then sadly, it will be the innocents who
again, as always, are massacred.
But if the US handles it well, and permits controlled entry under the supervision of the
border authorities, and there are no shooters and no provocations coming either from the
Caravan people - or from some other force off to the side that doesn't seem to belong to
anyone, but which seems to be the cause of death to both sides - then this will all fizzle
out as another political skirmish of short duration, and the Democrats and Republicans will
move on to their next diversions.
You wrote: "Either it is a complete hoax from the ground up, or it's a completely
authentic grass-roots happening."
I am inclined to believe that it is both, to wit an authentic grass-roots happening that
has been hijacked (like so many others) by interested parties for their own ends.
Grieved 97
That's the way I'm seeing it. "But we have seen enough color revolutions to understand that
there is always an authentic component to each one. I have commented several times on how
delicately the CIA and other organizers of color revolutions symbiotically fuse with good and
authentic people who have a noble cause. How these bad people can merge with such good people
is a wonder to me."
Well put, not only the above paragragh but the whole comment. Not much most of us can do
to help the naive perhaps desperate people sucked in to the US political caravan but we
should at least be exposing those who are exploiting and furthingf their misery for political
purposes.
Requirement for any President or political leader is to be a good actor. I believe they
simply follow a script prepared by the real rulers operating in the shadows. Maybe I am
wrong. Its like fake wrestling as Caitlin Johnstone pointed out. You have to be a good actor
and pretend to care while actually making sure you qlose if the script calls for it
Jackrabbit@100
Its true they have been duped but the point is that desparate and poor people rarely work
together spontaneously in an organized fashion and a caravan such as this must be organized
and paid for. Someone is feeding them. The timing is too good to be true. Obviously they have
been promised something, asylum, money or whatever and assured of their safety. To determine
who is behind it you simply need to look at who benefits.
When discussing this caravan "false flag", many people will dismiss "conspiracy theories"
that involve paid actors.
RJPJR @98 thought the caravan an an "authentic grass-roots happening that has been
hi-jacked" . But that theory is also unsatisfying. As you point out (Pft), it is strange
that ordinary people organize themselves to make a march like the caravan.
The best explanation is that people were organized to make the march by local groups
[connected to Clinton Global Initiative?] which got PAID to do so. These trusted local groups
then told the marchers that: 1) they would get support along the way, and 2) that they have a
good/great chance of actually getting asylum.
Organizers would not want a member of the caravan to tell a reporter that the march was
fake, or that they are paid. But it has been reported that "well wishers" have given the
marchers food and money. And the press has not questioned that support. And the marchers seem
to have a genuine belief that they qualify for asylum. Such a belief would be easy to instill
in poor, uneducated people who can be easily duped into believing that an international
treaty like the Cartegena Declaration applies to all countries.
Jackrabbit, in my post @67 I linked the Pueblo Sin Fronteras website. When I found out about
this group I looked for their website which I was able to access, and although information
was sparse on this shadowy group, they proudly advertised their work on this caravan.
Since posting a link here I am now censored from that website - security exceptions blah
blah.
Not local globalist groups but US based groups or cutouts are the organizers of the
caravan.
But my hunch is that the trail ends with a one or more local groups that are known to
people in the area. These poor people basically had to be sold a 'bill of goods'. That's
difficult unless you are known/trusted (have a "brand" like Coca-Cola).
There would be several intermediary groups. Maybe a large in-country charity with US
connections? And one or more groups outside the country (US, Mexico, even EU) that are
connected to / get funding and direction from a major US group.
Let's face it, whoever was behind this would not want the caravan to be connected to back
to group with US political connections. And it's probably unlikely that we will find any
'smoking gun' that does that.
The list of Democratic Party-connected organizations that might have originated the
idea of a caravan from Central America is small. I surmise Clinton Global Initiative because
they would have the requisite connections and blaming Soros seems to easy and convenient. But
Soros is also rumored to be behind support for European migrants so it's certainly
possible.
It really the same reasoning that led b to suspect that it was CIA/MI6 that foiled
assassination plot in Denmark, not Mossad.
"... The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed. ..."
"... the Republicans are being forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.) ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court, where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift, new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual depravity in higher education. ..."
"... I hope that the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. ..."
Back in the last century, when this was a different country, the Democrats were the "smart"
party and the Republicans were the "stupid" party.
How did that work?
Well, back then the Democrats represented a broad middle class, with a base of factory
workers, many of them unionized, and the party had to be smart, especially in the courts, to
overcome the natural advantages of the owner class.
In contrast, the Republicans looked like a claque of country club drunks who staggered
home at night to sleep on their moneybags. Bad optics, as we say nowadays.
The Democrats also occupied the moral high ground as the champion of the little guy. If not
for the Dems, factory workers would be laboring twelve hours a day and children would still be
maimed in the machinery. Once the relationship between business and labor was settled in the
1950s, the party moved on to a new crusade on even loftier moral high ground: civil rights,
aiming to correct arrant and long-lived injustices against downtrodden black Americans. That
was a natural move, considering America's self-proclaimed post-war status as the world's Beacon
of Liberty. It had to be done and a political consensus that included Republicans got it done.
Consensus was still possible.
The Dems built their fortress on that high ground and fifty years later they find themselves
prisoners in it. The factory jobs all vamoosed overseas. The middle class has been pounded into
penury and addiction.
The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons
seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the
permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual
minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group
that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of
them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed.
The Republican Party has, at least, sobered up some after getting blindsided by Trump and
Trumpism. Like a drunk out of rehab, it's attempting to get a life. Two years in, the party
marvels at Mr. Trump's audacity, despite his obvious lack of savoir faire. And despite a
longstanding lack of political will to face the country's problems,the Republicans are being
forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration
policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of
medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on
thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.)
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting
with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an
unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even
more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no
Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling
them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court,
where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift,
new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual
depravity in higher education.
I hope that Democrats lose as many congressional and senate seats as possible.I hope that
the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding
dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. If
there is anything to salvage in this organization, I hope it discovers aims and principles that
are unrecognizable from its current agenda of perpetual hysteria. But if the party actually
blows up and disappears, as the Whigs did a hundred and fifty years ago, I will be content. Out
of the terrible turbulence, maybe something better will be born.
Or, there's the possibility that the dregs of a defeated Democratic Party will just go
batshit crazy and use the last of its mojo to incite actual sedition. Of course, there's also a
distinct possibility that the Dems will take over congress, in which case they'll ramp up an
even more horrific three-ring-circus of political hysteria and persecution that will make the
Spanish Inquisition look like a backyard barbeque. That will happen as the US enters the most
punishing financial train wreck in our history, an interesting recipe for epic political
upheaval.
"... Yet last year, notably without success, the Clinton campaign devoted plenty of its messaging to the Trump-Russia theme. As the "Shattered" book notes, "Hillary would raise the issue herself repeatedly in debates" with Trump. For example, in one of those debates she said: "We have seventeen – seventeen ..."
"... In early spring, the former communications director of the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign, Jennifer Palmieri, summed up the post-election approach neatly in a Washington Post ..."
"... The inability of top Clinton operatives to identify with the non-wealthy is so tenacious that they still want to assume "the public will be with us" the more they talk about Russia Russia Russia. Imagine sitting at a kitchen table with average-income voters who are worried sick about their financial futures – and explaining to them that the biggest threat they face is from the Kremlin rather than from US government policies that benefit the rich and corporate America at their expense ..."
"... One of the most promising progressives to arrive in Congress this year, Rep. Jamie Raskin from the Maryland suburbs of D.C., promptly drank what might be called the "Klinton Kremlin Kool-Aid." His official website features an article about a town-hall meeting that quotes him describing Trump as a "hoax perpetrated by the Russians on the United States of America. ..."
"... Like hundreds of other Democrats on Capitol Hill, Raskin is on message with talking points from the party leadership. That came across in an email that he recently sent to supporters for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser. It said: "We pull the curtain back further each day on the Russian Connection, forcing National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to resign, Attorney General Sessions to recuse, and America to reflect on who's calling the shots in Washington. ..."
A new book about Hillary Clinton's last campaign for president – Shattered
, by journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes – has gotten a lot of publicity since it appeared two weeks ago. But major
media have ignored a revealing passage near the end of the book.
Soon after Clinton's defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. "Within 24 hours of her concession speech," the
authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta "assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters
to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering
the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of
the argument."
Six months later, that centerpiece of the argument is rampant – with claims often lurching from unsubstantiated overreach to outright
demagoguery.
A lavishly-funded example is the "Moscow Project," a mega-spin effort that surfaced in midwinter as a project of the Center for
American Progress Action Fund. It's led by Neera Tanden, a
self-described "loyal soldier" for Clinton
who also runs the Center for American Progress (where she succeeded Podesta as president). The Center's board includes several billionaires.
The "Moscow Project" is expressly inclined to go over the top, aiming to help normalize ultra-partisan conjectures as supposedly
factual. And so, the homepage of the "Moscow Project" prominently
declares: "Given Trump's obedience to Vladimir Putin and the deep ties between his advisers and the Kremlin, Russia's actions are
a significant and ongoing cause for concern."
Let's freeze-frame how that sentence begins: "Given Trump's obedience to Vladimir Putin." It's a jaw-dropping claim; a preposterous
smear.
Echoes of such tactics can be heard from many Democrats in Congress and from allied media. Along the way, no outlet has been more
in sync than MSNBC, and no one on the network has been more promotional of the Russia-runs-Trump meme than Rachel Maddow,
tirelessly promoting the line and sometimes connecting dots in
Glenn Beck fashion
to the point of journalistic malpractice.
Yet last year, notably without success, the Clinton campaign devoted plenty of its messaging to the Trump-Russia theme. As
the "Shattered" book notes, "Hillary would raise the issue herself repeatedly in debates" with Trump. For example, in one of those
debates she said: "We have seventeen – seventeen – intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded
that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence
our election ."
After Trump's election triumph, the top tier of Clinton strategists quickly moved to seize as much of the narrative as they could,
surely mindful of what George Orwell observed: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the
past." After all, they hardly wanted the public discourse to dwell on Clinton's lack of voter appeal because of her deep ties to
Wall Street. Political recriminations would be much better focused on the Russian government.
In early spring, the former communications director of the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign, Jennifer Palmieri, summed up
the post-election approach neatly in a Washington Post opinion
article : "If we make plain that what Russia has done is nothing less than an attack on our republic, the public will be with
us. And the more we talk about it, the more they'll be with us."
The inability of top Clinton operatives to identify with the non-wealthy is so tenacious that they still want to assume "the public
will be with us" the more they talk about Russia Russia Russia. Imagine sitting at a kitchen table with average-income voters who
are worried sick about their financial futures – and explaining to them that the biggest threat they face is from the Kremlin rather
than from US government policies that benefit the rich and corporate America at their expense.
Tone deaf hardly describes the severe political impairment of those who insist that denouncing Russia will be key to the Democratic
Party's political fortunes in 2018 and 2020. But the top-down pressure for conformity among elected Democrats is enormous and effective.
One of the most promising progressives to arrive in Congress this year, Rep. Jamie Raskin from the Maryland suburbs of D.C.,
promptly drank what might be called the "Klinton Kremlin Kool-Aid." His official website features an
article about a town-hall meeting that quotes him describing Trump as a "hoax perpetrated by the Russians on the United States
of America. "
Like hundreds of other Democrats on Capitol Hill, Raskin is on message with talking points from the party leadership. That
came across in an email that he recently sent to supporters for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser. It said:
"We pull the curtain back further each day on the Russian Connection, forcing National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to resign,
Attorney General Sessions to recuse, and America to reflect on who's calling the shots in Washington. "
You might think that Wall Street, big banks, hugely funded lobbyists, fat-check campaign contributors, the fossil fuel industry,
insurance companies, military contractors and the like are calling the shots in Washington. Maybe you didn't get the memo.
An interesting hypothesis. CIA definitly became a powerful political force in the USA -- a rogue political force which starting from JFK assasination tries to control who is elected to important offices. But in truth Cavanaugh is a pro-CIA candidate so to speak. So why CIA would try to derail him.
Notable quotes:
"... I think I've figured out why they had to go to couples counseling about an outside door and why she came up with claim that she needed an outside bedroom door because she'd been assaulted 37 years ago. The Palo Alto building codes for single family homes were created to make sure single family homes remained single family and weren't chopped up into apartments. ..."
"... An outside door into a master bedroom with attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment ..."
"... So she wants the door. Husband says waste of money and trouble. Contractor says call me when you're ready. So they go to counseling Husband explains why the door's unreasonable. Therapist asks wife why she " really deep down" needs the door. Wife makes up the story about attempted rape 35 years ago flashbacks If only there were 2 doors in that imaginary bedroom she could have escaped. ..."
"... Kacanaugh was nominated. CIA searched for sex problems in his working life. Found nothing Searched law school and college found nothing. In desperation searched high school found nothing. Searched CIA personnel records which go back to grade school and found one of their own employees was about Kavanaugh's age and attended a high school near his and the students socialized. ..."
"... She's 3rd generation CIA. grandfather assistant director. Father CIA contractor who managed CIA unofficial band accounts. And she runs a CIA recruitment office. ..."
I think I've figured out why they had to go to couples counseling about an outside door and why she came up with claim
that she needed an outside bedroom door because she'd been assaulted 37 years ago. The Palo Alto building codes for single family
homes were created to make sure single family homes remained single family and weren't chopped up into apartments.
Outside doors enter public areas kitchen sunroom living rooms not bedrooms. An outside door into a master bedroom with
attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment
There's a unit It's a stove 2 ft counter space and sink. The stoves electric and plugs into an ordinary household electricity.
It's backed against the bathroom wall. Break through the wall, connect the pipes running water for the sink. Add an outside door
and it's a small apartment.
Assume they didn't want to make it an apartment just a master bedroom. Usually the contractor pulls the permits routinely.
But an outside bedroom door is complicated. The permits will cost more. It might require an exemption and a hearing They night
need a lawyer. And they might not get the permit.
So she wants the door. Husband says waste of money and trouble. Contractor says call me when you're ready. So they go to
counseling Husband explains why the door's unreasonable. Therapist asks wife why she " really deep down" needs the door. Wife
makes up the story about attempted rape 35 years ago flashbacks If only there were 2 doors in that imaginary bedroom she could
have escaped.
Kacanaugh was nominated. CIA searched for sex problems in his working life. Found nothing Searched law school and college
found nothing. In desperation searched high school found nothing. Searched CIA personnel records which go back to grade school
and found one of their own employees was about Kavanaugh's age and attended a high school near his and the students socialized.
She's 3rd generation CIA. grandfather assistant director. Father CIA contractor who managed CIA unofficial band accounts.
And she runs a CIA recruitment office.
What Hillary Knew
Hillary Clinton once tweeted that "every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard,
believed, and supported." What about Juanita Broaddrick?
"... "Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties -- chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps ..."
"... And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and predatory. ..."
Thomas Frank's new collection of essays: Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a
Sinking Society (Metropolitan Books 2018) and Listen, Liberal; or,Whatever
Happened to the Party of the People? (ibid. 2016)
To hang out with Thomas Frank for a couple of hours is to be reminded that, going back to
1607, say, or to 1620, for a period of about three hundred and fifty years, the most archetypal
of American characters was, arguably, the hard-working, earnest, self-controlled, dependable
white Protestant guy, last presented without irony a generation or two -- or three -- ago in
the television personas of men like Ward Cleaver and Mister Rogers.
Thomas Frank, who grew up in Kansas and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, who
at age 53 has the vibe of a happy eager college nerd, not only glows with authentic Midwestern
Nice (and sometimes his face turns red when he laughs, which is often), he actually lives in
suburbia, just outside of D.C., in Bethesda, where, he told me, he takes pleasure in mowing the
lawn and doing some auto repair and fixing dinner for his wife and two children. (Until I met
him, I had always assumed it was impossible for a serious intellectual to live in suburbia and
stay sane, but Thomas Frank has proven me quite wrong on this.)
Frank is sincerely worried about the possibility of offending friends and acquaintances by
the topics he chooses to write about. He told me that he was a B oy Scout back in Kansas, but
didn't make Eagle. He told me that he was perhaps a little too harsh on Hillary Clinton in his
brilliantly perspicacious "Liberal Gilt [ sic ]" chapter at the end of Listen,
Liberal . His piercing insight into and fascination with the moral rot and the hypocrisy
that lies in the American soul brings, well, Nathaniel Hawthorne to mind, yet he refuses to say
anything (and I tried so hard to bait him!) mean about anyone, no matter how culpable he or she
is in the ongoing dissolving and crumbling and sinking -- all his
metaphors -- of our society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story"
he is telling in Rendezvous with Oblivion : "This is what a society looks like when the
glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when
they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses
through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on
their power to accumulate" ( Thomas Frank in NYC on book tour https://youtu.be/DBNthCKtc1Y ).
And I believe that Frank's self-restraint, his refusal to indulge in bitter satire even as
he parses our every national lie, makes him unique as social critic. "You will notice," he
writes in the introduction to Rendezvous with Oblivion, "that I describe [these
disasters] with a certain amount of levity. I do that because that's the only way to confront
the issues of our time without sinking into debilitating gloom" (p. 8). And so rather than
succumbing to an existential nausea, Frank descends into the abyss with a dependable flashlight
and a ca. 1956 sitcom-dad chuckle.
"Let us linger over the perversity," he writes in "Why Millions of Ordinary Americans
Support Donald Trump," one of the seventeen component essays in Rendezvous with Oblivion
: "Let us linger over the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the
fortunes of working people. But our left party in America -- one of our two monopoly parties --
chose long ago to turn its back on these people's concerns, making itself instead into the
tribune of the enlightened professional class, a 'creative class' that makes innovative things
like derivative securities and smartphone apps " (p. 178).
And it is his analysis of this "Creative Class" -- he usually refers to it as the "Liberal
Class" and sometimes as the "Meritocratic Class" in Listen, Liberal (while Barbara
Ehrenreich uses the term " Professional Managerial Class ,"and Matthew Stewart recently
published an article entitled "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy" in the
Atlantic ) -- that makes it clear that Frank's work is a continuation of the profound
sociological critique that goes back to Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899) and, more recently, to Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites (1994).
Unlike Veblen and Lasch, however, Frank is able to deliver the harshest news without any
hauteur or irascibility, but rather with a deftness and tranquillity of mind, for he is both in
and of the Creative Class; he abides among those afflicted by the epidemic which he diagnoses:
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care
providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its
new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of
toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the
Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so
much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of
education. They are a 'creative class' that naturally rebels against fakeness and conformity.
They are an ' innovation class ' that just can't stop coming up with awesome new stuff" (
Listen, Liberal , pp. 27-29).
And the real bad news is not that this Creative Class, this Expert Class, this
Meritocratic Class, this Professional Class -- this Liberal Class, with all its
techno-ecstasy and virtue-questing and unleashing of innovation -- is so deeply narcissistic
and hypocritical, but rather that it is so self-interestedly parasitical and
predatory.
The class that now runs the so-called Party of the People is impoverishing the people; the
genius value-creators at Amazon and Google and Uber are Robber Barons, although, one must
grant, hipper, cooler, and oh so much more innovative than their historical predecessors. "In
reality," Frank writes in Listen, Liberal ,
.there is little new about this stuff except the software, the convenience, and the
spying. Each of the innovations I have mentioned merely updates or digitizes some business
strategy that Americans learned long ago to be wary of. Amazon updates the practices of
Wal-Mart, for example, while Google has dusted off corporate behavior from the days of the
Robber Barons. What Uber does has been compared to the every-man-for-himself hiring
procedures of the pre-union shipping docks . Together, as Robert Reich has written, all these
developments are 'the logical culmination of a process that began thirty years ago when
corporations began turning over full-time jobs to temporary workers, independent contractors,
free-lancers, and consultants.' This is atavism, not innovation . And if we keep going in
this direction, it will one day reduce all of us to day laborers, standing around like the
guys outside the local hardware store, hoping for work. (p. 215).
And who gets this message? The YouTube patriot/comedian Jimmy Dore, Chicago-born,
ex-Catholic, son of a cop, does for one. "If you read this b ook, " Dore said while
interviewing Frank back in January of 2017, "it'll make y ou a radical" (Frank Interview Part 4
https://youtu.be/JONbGkQaq8Q ).
But to what extent, on the other hand, is Frank being actively excluded from our elite media
outlets? He's certainly not on TV or radio or in print as much as he used to be. So is he a
prophet without honor in his own country? Frank, of course, is too self-restrained to speculate
about the motives of these Creative Class decision-makers and influencers. "But it is ironic
and worth mentioning," he told me, "that most of my writing for the last few years has been in
a British publication, The Guardian and (in translation) in Le Monde Diplomatique
. The way to put it, I think, is to describe me as an ex-pundit."
Frank was, nevertheless, happy to tell me in vivid detail about how his most fundamental
observation about America, viz. that the Party of the People has become hostile to the
people , was for years effectively discredited in the Creative Class media -- among the
bien-pensants , that is -- and about what he learned from their denialism.
JS: Going all the way back to your 2004 book What's the Matter with Kansas? -- I
just looked at Larry Bartels's attack on it, "What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
Kansas?" -- and I saw that his first objection to your book was, Well, Thomas Frank says the
working class is alienated from the Democrats, but I have the math to show that that's false.
How out of touch does that sound now?
TCF: [laughs merrily] I know.
JS: I remember at the time that was considered a serious objection to your
thesis.
TCF: Yeah. Well, he was a professor at Princeton. And he had numbers. So it looked
real. And I actually wrote a response to
that in which I pointed out that there were other statistical ways of looking at it, and he
had chosen the one that makes his point.
JS: Well, what did Mark Twain say?
TCF: Mark Twain?
JS: There are lies, damned lies --
TCF: [laughs merrily] -- and statistics! Yeah. Well, anyhow, Bartels's take became
the common sense of the highly educated -- there needs to be a term for these people by the
way, in France they're called the bien-pensants -- the "right-thinking," the people who
read The Atlantic, The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post op-ed page,
and who all agree with each other on everything -- there's this tight little circle of
unanimity. And they all agreed that Bartels was right about that, and that was a costly
mistake. For example, Paul Krugman, a guy whom I admire in a lot of ways, he referenced this
four or five times.
He agreed with it . No, the Democrats are not losing the white working class outside the
South -- they were not going over to the Republicans. The suggestion was that there is
nothing to worry about. Yes. And there were people saying this right up to the 2016
election. But it was a mistake.
JS: I remember being perplexed at the time. I had thought you had written this brilliant
book, and you weren't being taken seriously -- because somebody at Princeton had run some
software -- as if that had proven you wrong.
TCF: Yeah, that's correct . That was a very widespread take on it. And Bartels was
incorrect, and I am right, and [laughs merrily] that's that.
JS: So do you think Russiagate is a way of saying, Oh no no no no, Hillary didn't really
lose?
TCF: Well, she did win the popular vote -- but there's a whole set of pathologies out
there right now that all stem from Hillary Denialism. And I don't want to say that Russiagate
is one of them, because we don't know the answer to that yet.
JS: Um, ok.
TCF: Well, there are all kinds of questionable reactions to 2016 out there, and what
they all have in common is the faith that Democrats did nothing wrong. For example, this same
circle of the bien-pensants have decided that the only acceptable explanation for
Trump's victory is the racism of his supporters. Racism can be the only explanation for the
behavior of Trump voters. But that just seems odd to me because, while it's true of course that
there's lots of racism in this country, and while Trump is clearly a bigot and clearly won the
bigot vote, racism is just one of several factors that went into what happened in 2016. Those
who focus on this as the only possible answer are implying that all Trump voters are
irredeemable, lost forever.
And it comes back to the same point that was made by all those people who denied what was
happening with the white working class, which is: The Democratic Party needs to do nothing
differently . All the post-election arguments come back to this same point. So a couple
years ago they were saying about the white working class -- we don't have to worry about them
-- they're not leaving the Democratic Party, they're totally loyal, especially in the northern
states, or whatever the hell it was. And now they say, well, Those people are racists, and
therefore they're lost to us forever. What is the common theme of these two arguments? It's
always that there's nothing the Democratic Party needs to do differently. First, you haven't
lost them; now you have lost them and they're irretrievable: Either way -- you see what I'm
getting at? -- you don't have to do anything differently to win them.
JS: Yes, I do.
TCF: The argument in What's the Matter with Kansas? was that this is a
long-term process, the movement of the white working class away from the Democratic Party. This
has been going on for a long time. It begins in the '60s, and the response of the Democrats by
and large has been to mock those people, deride those people, and to move away from organized
labor, to move away from class issues -- working class issues -- and so their response has been
to make this situation worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it
gets worse! And there's really no excuse for them not seeing it. But they say, believe,
rationalize, you know, come up with anything that gets then off the hook for this, that allows
them to ignore this change. Anything. They will say or believe whatever it takes.
JS: Yes.
TCF: By the way, these are the smartest people! These are tenured professors at Ivy
League institutions, these are people with Nobel Prizes, people with foundation grants, people
with, you know, chairs at prestigious universities, people who work at our most prestigious
media outlets -- that's who's wrong about all this stuff.
JS: [quoting the title of David Halberstam's 1972 book, an excerpt from which Frank uses
as an epigraph for Listen, Liberal ] The best and the brightest!
TCF: [laughing merrily] Exactly. Isn't it fascinating?
JS: But this gets to the irony of the thing. [locates highlighted passage in book] I'm
going to ask you one of the questions you ask in Rendezvous with Oblivion: "Why are
worshippers of competence so often incompetent?" (p. 165). That's a huge question.
TCF: That's one of the big mysteries. Look. Take a step back. I had met Barack Obama.
He was a professor at the University of Chicago, and I'd been a student there. And he was super
smart. Anyhow, I met him and was really impressed by him. All the liberals in Hyde Park --
that's the neighborhood we lived in -- loved him, and I was one of them, and I loved him too.
And I was so happy when he got elected.
Anyhow, I knew one thing he would do for sure, and that is he would end the reign of
cronyism and incompetence that marked the Bush administration and before them the Reagan
administration. These were administrations that actively promoted incompetent people. And I
knew Obama wouldn't do that, and I knew Obama would bring in the smartest people, and he'd get
the best economists. Remember, when he got elected we were in the pit of the crisis -- we were
at this terrible moment -- and here comes exactly the right man to solve the problem. He did
exactly what I just described: He brought in [pause] Larry Summers, the former president of
Harvard, considered the greatest economist of his generation -- and, you know, go down the
list: He had Nobel Prize winners, he had people who'd won genius grants, he had The Best and
the Brightest . And they didn't really deal with the problem. They let the Wall Street
perpetrators off the hook -- in a catastrophic way, I would argue. They come up with a health
care system that was half-baked. Anyhow, the question becomes -- after watching the great
disappointments of the Obama years -- the question becomes: Why did government-by-expert
fail?
JS: So how did this happen? Why?
TCF: The answer is understanding experts not as individual geniuses but as members
of a class . This is the great missing link in all of our talk about expertise. Experts
aren't just experts: They are members of a class. And they act like a class. They have loyalty
to one another; they have a disdain for others, people who aren't like them, who they perceive
as being lower than them, and there's this whole hierarchy of status that they are at the
pinnacle of.
And once you understand this, then everything falls into place! So why did they let the Wall
Street bankers off the hook? Because these people were them. These people are their peers. Why
did they refuse to do what obviously needed to be done with the health care system? Because
they didn't want to do that to their friends in Big Pharma. Why didn't Obama get tough with
Google and Facebook? They obviously have this kind of scary monopoly power that we haven't seen
in a long time. Instead, he brought them into the White House, he identified with them. Again,
it's the same thing. Once you understand this, you say: Wait a minute -- so the Democratic
Party is a vehicle of this particular social class! It all makes sense. And all of a sudden all
of these screw-ups make sense. And, you know, all of their rhetoric makes sense. And the way
they treat working class people makes sense. And they way they treat so many other demographic
groups makes sense -- all of the old-time elements of the Democratic Party: unions, minorities,
et cetera. They all get to ride in back. It's the professionals -- you know, the professional
class -- that sits up front and has its hands on the steering wheel.
* * *
It is, given Frank's persona, not surprising that he is able to conclude Listen,
Liberal with a certain hopefulness, and so let me end by quoting some of his final
words:
What I saw in Kansas eleven years ago is now everywhere . It is time to face the obvious:
that the direction the Democrats have chosen to follow for the last few decades has been a
failure for both the nation and for their own partisan health . The Democrats posture as the
'party of the people' even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and
glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege
in a way that Americans find stomach-turning . The Democrats have no interest in reforming
themselves in a more egalitarian way . What we can do is strip away the Democrats' precious
sense of their own moral probity -- to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge
that righteousness is always on their side . Once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal
virtue has been cracked, anything becomes possible. (pp. 256-257).
"... please recall Bill Clinton's rules of engagement as applied to the Serbs in 1999, wherein he decided that the political leaders, bureaucratic support structure, media infrastructure and intellectual underpinnings of his enemies' war effort were legitimate targets of war. ..."
After observing Skynet's coordinated attack on Alex Jone's Infowars yesterday, we can hardly
wait to implement Bill Clinton's Rules of Engagement on the already identified Enemies
of the People, and eagerly await the God-Emperor's word.
Second, please recall Bill Clinton's rules of engagement as applied to the Serbs in
1999, wherein he decided that the political leaders, bureaucratic support structure, media
infrastructure and intellectual underpinnings of his enemies' war effort were legitimate
targets of war.
No one else may have been paying attention to the unintended consequences of that, but
many folks on our side of the present divide were. Food for thought. A reminder about the shape of the battlefield (legal and otherwise) and Bill Clinton's
Rules of Engagement.
"... Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email." ..."
"... In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line. ..."
"... The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left, but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer to a thoroughly right-wing party. ..."
"... There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and Moscow are in conflict. ..."
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on the CBS interview program "Face the Nation"
Sunday and fully embraced the anti-Russia campaign of the US military-intelligence apparatus,
backed by the Democratic Party and much of the media.
In response to a question from CBS host Margaret Brennan, Sanders unleashed a torrent of
denunciations of Trump's meeting and press conference in Helsinki with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. A preliminary transcript reads:
SANDERS: "I will tell you that I was absolutely outraged by his behavior in Helsinki, where
he really sold the American people out. And it makes me think that either Trump doesn't
understand what Russia has done, not only to our elections, but through cyber attacks against
all parts of our infrastructure, either he doesn't understand it, or perhaps he is being
blackmailed by Russia, because they may have compromising information about him.
"Or perhaps also you have a president who really does have strong authoritarian tendencies.
And maybe he admires the kind of government that Putin is running in Russia. And I think all of
that is a disgrace and a disservice to the American people. And we have got to make sure that
Russia does not interfere, not only in our elections, but in other aspects of our lives."
These comments, which echo remarks he gave at a rally in Kansas late last week, signal
Sanders' full embrace of the right-wing campaign launched by the Democrats and backed by
dominant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus. Their opposition to Trump is centered
on issues of foreign policy, based on the concern that Trump, due to his own "America First"
brand of imperialist strategy, has run afoul of geostrategic imperatives that are considered
inviolable -- in particular, the conflict with Russia.
Sanders did not use his time on a national television program to condemn Trump's persecution
of immigrants and the separation of children from their parents, or to denounce his naming of
ultra-right jurist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, or to attack the White House
declaration last week that the "war on poverty" had ended victoriously -- in order to justify
the destruction of social programs for impoverished working people. Nor did he seek to advance
his supposedly left-wing program on domestic issues like health care, jobs and education.
Sanders' embrace of the anti-Russia campaign is not surprising, but it is instructive. This
is, after all, an individual who presented himself as "left-wing," even a "socialist." During
the 2016 election campaign, he won the support of millions of people attracted to his call for
a "political revolution" against the "billionaire class." For Sanders, who has a long history
of opportunist and pro-imperialist politics in the orbit of the Democratic Party, the aim of
the campaign was always to direct social discontent into establishment channels, culminating in
his endorsement of the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Sanders's support for the anti-Russia and anti-Wikileaks campaign is all the more
telling because he was himself the victim of efforts by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic
Party leadership to block his 2016 campaign. In June and July 2016, Wikileaks published
internal Democratic emails in which officials ridiculed the Sanders campaign, forcing the DNC
to issue a public apology: "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and
sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the
inexcusable remarks made over email."
In the aftermath of his election campaign, Sanders was elevated into a top-level
position in the Democratic Party caucus in the US Senate. His first response to the
inauguration of Trump was to declare his willingness to "work with" the president, closely
tracking remarks of Obama that the election of Trump was part of an "intramural scrimmage" in
which all sides were on the same team. As the campaign of the military-intelligence agencies
intensifies, however, Sanders is toeing the line.
The experience is instructive not only in relation to Sanders, but to an entire social
milieu and the political perspective with which it is associated. This is what it means to work
within the Democratic Party. The Sanders campaign did not push the Democrats to the left,
but rather the state apparatus of the ruling class brought Sanders in to give a "left" veneer
to a thoroughly right-wing party.
New political figures, many associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are
being brought in for the same purpose. As Sanders gave his anti-Russia rant, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez sat next to him nodding her agreement. The 28-year-old member of the DSA last
month won the Democratic nomination in New York's 14th Congressional District, unseating the
Democratic incumbent, Joseph Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic leadership in
the House of Representatives.
Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has been given massive and largely uncritical publicity by the
corporate media, summed up in an editorial puff piece by the New York Times that
described her as "a bright light in the Democratic Party who has brought desperately needed
energy back to New York politics "
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders were jointly interviewed from Kansas, where the two appeared
Friday at a campaign rally for James Thompson, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the
US House of Representatives from the Fourth Congressional District, based in Wichita, in an
August 7 primary election.
Thompson might appear to be an unusual ally for the "socialist" Sanders and the DSA member
Ocasio-Cortez. His campaign celebrates his role as an Army veteran, and his website opens under
the slogan "Join the Thompson Army," followed by pledges that the candidate will "Fight for
America." In an interview with the Associated Press, Thompson indicated that despite his
support for Sanders' call for "Medicare for all," and his own endorsement by the DSA, he was
wary of any association with socialism. "I don't like the term socialist, because people do
associate that with bad things in history," he said.
Such anticommunism fits right in with the anti-Russian campaign, which is the principal
theme of the Democratic Party in the 2018 elections. As the World Socialist Web
Site has pointed out for many months, the
real thrust of the Democratic Party campaign is demonstrated by its recruitment as
congressional candidates of dozens of former CIA and military intelligence agents, combat
commanders from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and war planners from the Pentagon, State
Department and White House.
There is no contradiction between the influx of military-intelligence candidates into
the Democratic Party and the Democrats' making use of the services of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez
to give the party a "left" cover. Both the CIA Democrats and their pseudo-left "comrades" agree
on the most important questions: the defense of the global interests of American imperialism
and a more aggressive intervention in the Syrian civil war and other areas where Washington and
Moscow are in conflict.
"... The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27 March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you. I'm protecting you." And, he did keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .) ..."
"... They want another Barack Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest). But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the disaster of 2016? ..."
"... Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt driven to do in 2016). ..."
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is
called "The Third Way" and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political
center, nothing "extremist" or "marginal." But didn't liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson
Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans -- they attract flies and
billionaires, but not many votes. And didn't the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with
millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the
narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 -- and the
Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he
actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27
March 2009, "I'm not out there to go after you.
I'm protecting you." And, he did
keep his promise to them, though not to his voters .)
They're at it, yet again. On July 22nd, NBC News's Alex Seitz-Wald headlined
"Sanders' wing of the party terrifies moderate Dems. Here's how they plan to stop it." And
he described what was publicly available from the 3-day private meeting in Columbus Ohio of The
Third Way, July 18-20, the planning conference between the Party's chiefs and its billionaires.
Evidently, they hate Bernie Sanders and are already scheming and spending in order to block
him, now a second time, from obtaining the Party's Presidential nomination. "Anxiety has
largely been kept to a whisper among the party's moderates and big donors, with some of the
major fundraisers pressing operatives on what can be done to stop the Vermonter if he runs for
the White House again." This passage in Seitz-Wald's article was especially striking to me:
The gathering here was an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising
Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare
opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to
win over Republicans turned off by Trump.
The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, cohosted the event
and addressed attendees twice, underscored that this group is not interested in the class
warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.
"You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be
rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to
laughs.
I would reply to congressman Ryan's remark: If you want to be rich, then get the hell out of
politics! Don't run for President! I don't want you there! And that's no joke!
Anyone who doesn't recognize that an inevitable trade-off exists between serving the public
and serving oneself, is a libertarian -- an Ayn Rander, in fact -- and there aren't many of
those in the Democratic Party, but plenty of them are in the Republican Party.
Just as a clergyman in some faiths is supposed to take a vow of chastity, and in some faiths
also to take a vow of poverty, in order to serve "the calling" instead of oneself, anyone who
enters 'public service' and who aspires to "be rich" is inevitably inviting corruption
-- not prepared to do war against it . That kind of politician is a Manchurian
candidate, like Obama perhaps, but certainly not what this or any country needs, in any case.
Voters like that can be won only by means of deceit, which is the way that politicians like
that do win.
No decent political leader enters or stays in politics in order to "be rich," because no
political leader can be decent who isn't in it as a calling, to public service, and as a
repudiation, of any self-service in politics.
Republican Party voters invite corrupt government, because their Party's ideology is
committed to it ("Freedom [for the rich]!"); but the only Democratic Party voters who at all
tolerate corrupt politicians (such as Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York State) are actually
Republican Democrats -- people who are confused enough so as not really to care much about what
they believe; whatever their garbage happens to be, they believe in it and don't want to know
differently than it.
The Third Way is hoping that there are
enough of such 'Democrats' so that they can, yet again, end up with a Third Way Democrat being
offered to that Party's voters in 2020, just like happened in 2016. They want another Barack
Obama. There aren't any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest).
But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again -- after the
disaster of 2016?
Maybe the Third Way is right, and there's a sucker born every minute. But if that's what the
Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America's stunningly low voter-participation rate
is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the
Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt
driven to do in 2016).
The Third Way is the way to the death of democracy, if it's not already dead . It is no answer
to anything, except to the desires of billionaires -- both Republican and Democratic.
The center of American politics isn't the center of America's aristocracy. The goal
of groups such as The Third Way is to fool the American public to equate the two. The
result of such groups is the contempt that America's
public have for America's Government . But, pushed too far, mass disillusionment becomes
revolution. Is that what America's billionaires are willing to risk? They might get it.
"... As one person who had talked to Clinton about the difference between Trump and Sanders crowds recounted, her feeling was that 'at least white supremacists shaved.'" ..."
"... Why does Trump get away with corruption? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton normalized it ..."
"Clinton to be honored at Harvard for 'transformative impact'" [
The Hill ]. Irony is not dead.
"From the Jaws of Victory" [ Jacobin ]. Some
highlights from Amy Chozick's Chasing Hillary , which really does sound like a fun
read:
"In the public's mind, Clinton's 'deplorables' quip is remembered as evidence of her
disdain for much of Trump's fan base. But there was one other group Clinton had a similar
dislike of: Bernie Sanders supporters.
As one person who had talked to Clinton about the difference between Trump and Sanders
crowds recounted, her feeling was that 'at least white supremacists shaved.'"
UPDATE "Why does Trump get away with corruption? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton normalized
it" [Josh Barro, Business
Insider ].
The dramatic rise fo the number of CIA-democrats as candidates from Democratic Party is not assedental. As regular clintonites
are discredited those guys can still appeal to patriotism to get elected.
Notable quotes:
"... Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests! ..."
"... Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries. ..."
"... After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire. ..."
"... It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate voters and steal the popular vote. ..."
"... This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq. ..."
During the 2016 Democratic party primaries we wrote that
what Bernie achieved, is to bring back the real political discussion in America, at least concerning the Democratic camp. Bernie
smartly "drags" his primary rival, Hillary Clinton, into the heart of the politics. Up until a few years ago, you could not observe
too much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, who were just following the pro-establishment "politics as usual",
probably with a few, occasional exceptions. The "politics as usual" so far, was "you can't touch the Wall Street", for example.
Bernie continuously forcing Hillary to appear apologetic about her campaign funding from big financial interests. She tries hard
to persuade the public that she will not serve specific interests. Her anxiety can be identified in many cases and it was very clear
at the moment when she accused Bernie of attacking her, concerning this funding. Hillary was forced to respond with a deeply irrational
argument: anyone who takes money from big interests doesn't mean that he/she will vote for policies in favor of these interests!
Bernie drives the discussion towards fundamental ideological issues. He forced Hillary to defend her "progressiveness". She was
forced to speak even about economic interests by names. A few years ago, this would be nearly a taboo in any debate between any primaries.
After the disastrous defeat by Trump in 2016 election, the corporate Democrats realized that the progressive movement, supported
mostly by the American youth, would not retreat and vanish. On the contrary, Bernie Sanders' popularity still goes up and there is
a wave of progressive candidates who appear to be a real threat to the DNC establishment and the Clintonian empire.
It seems that the empire has upgraded its dirty tactics beyond Hillary's false relocation to the Left. Seeing the big threat from
the real progressives, the empire seeks to "plant" its own agents, masked as progressives, inside the electoral process, to disorientate
voters and steal the popular vote.
Eric Draitser gives us valuable information for such a type of candidate. Key points:
One candidate currently generating some buzz in the race is Jeff Beals, a self-identified "Bernie democrat" whose campaign website
homepage describes him as a " local teacher and former U.S. diplomat endorsed by the national organization of former Bernie Sanders
staffers, the Justice Democrats. " And indeed, Beals centers his progressive bona fides to brand himself as one of the inheritors
of the progressive torch lit by Sanders in 2016. A smart political move, to be sure. But is it true?
Beals describes himself as a "former U.S. diplomat," touting his expertise on international issues born of his experience overseas.
In an email interview with CounterPunch, Beals describes his campaign as a " movement for diplomacy and peace in foreign affairs
and an end to militarism my experience as a U.S. diplomat is what drives it and gives this movement such force. " OK, sounds
good, a very progressive sounding answer. But what did Beals actually do during his time overseas?
By his own admission, Beals' overseas career began as an intelligence officer with the CIA. His fluency in Arabic and knowledge
of the region made him an obvious choice to be an intelligence spook during the latter stages of the Clinton Administration.
Beals shrewdly attempts to portray himself as an opponent of neocon imperialism in Iraq. In his interview with CounterPunch, Beals
argued that " The State Department was sidelined as the Bush administration and a neoconservative cabal plunged America into the
tragic Iraq War. As a U.S. diplomat fluent in Arabic and posted in Jerusalem at the time, I was called over a year into the war to
help our country find a way out. "
This is a Master's class in blatant historical revisionism and outright dishonesty. Beals was not a soldier unwillingly drafted
into service, but an intelligence officer who voluntarily accepted an influential and critically important post for the Bush Administration
in its ever-expanding crime against humanity in Iraq.
Moreover, no one who knows anything about the Iraq War could possibly swallow the tripe that CIA/State Department officials in
Iraq were " looking to help our country find a way out " a year into the war. A year into the war, the bloodletting was only
just beginning, and Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the other corporate vultures had yet to fully exploit the country and make billions
off it. So, unfortunately for Beals, the historical memory of the anti-war Left is not that short.
It is self-evident that Beals has a laundry list of things in his past that he must answer for. For those of us, especially Millennials,
who cut our activist teeth demonstrating and organizing against the Iraq War, Beals' distortions about his role in Iraq go down like
hemlock tea. But it is the associations Beals maintains today that really should give any progressive serious pause.
When asked by CounterPunch whether he has any connections to either Bernie Sanders and his surrogates or Hillary Clinton and hers,
Beals responded by stating: " I am endorsed by Justice Democrats, a group of former Bernie Sanders staffers who are pledged to
electing progressives nationwide. I am also endorsed for the Greene County chapter of the New York Progressive Action Network, formerly
the Bernie Sanders network. My first hire was a former Sanders field coordinator who worked here in NY-19. "
However, conveniently missing from that response is the fact that Beals' campaign has been, and continues to be, directly managed
in nearly every respect by Bennett Ratcliff, a longtime friend and ally of Hillary Clinton. Ratcliff is not mentioned in any publicly
available documents as a campaign manager, though the most recent FEC filings show that as of April 1, 2018, Ratcliff was still on
the payroll of the Beals campaign. And in the video of Beals' campaign kickoff rally, Ratcliff introduces Beals, while only being
described as a member of the Onteora School Board in Ulster County . This is sort of like referring to Donald Trump as an avid
golfer.
Beals has studiously, and rather intelligently, avoided mentioning Ratcliff, or the presence of Clinton's inner circle on his
campaign. However, according to internal campaign documents and emails obtained by CounterPunch, Ratcliff manages nearly every aspect
of the campaign, acting as a sort of éminence grise behind the artifice of a progressive campaign fronted by a highly educated and
photogenic political novice.
By his own admission, Ratcliff's role on the campaign is strategy, message, and management. Sounds like a rather textbook description
of a campaign manager. Indeed, Ratcliff has been intimately involved in "guiding" Beals on nearly every important campaign decision,
especially those involving fundraising .
And it is in the realm of fundraising that Ratcliff really shines, but not in the way one would traditionally think. Rather than
focusing on large donations and powerful interests, Ratcliff is using the Beals campaign as a laboratory for his strategy of winning
elections without raising millions of dollars.
In fact, leaked campaign documents show that Ratcliff has explicitly instructed Beals and his staffers not to spend money on
food, decorations, and other standard campaign expenses in hopes of presenting the illusion of a grassroots, people-powered campaign
with no connections to big time donors or financial elites .
It seems that Ratcliff is the wizard behind the curtain, leveraging his decades of contact building and close ties to the Democratic
Party establishment while at the same time manufacturing an astroturfed progressive campaign using a front man in Beals .
One of Ratcliff's most infamous, and indefensible, acts of fealty to the Clinton machine came in 2009 when he and longtime Clinton
attorney and lobbyist, Lanny Davis, stumped around Washington to garner support for the illegal right-wing coup in Honduras, which
ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in favor of the right-wing oligarchs who control the country today. Although
the UN, and even U.S. diplomats on the ground in Honduras, openly stated that the coup was illegal, Clinton was adamant to actively
keep Zelaya out.
Essentially then, Ratcliff is a chief architect of the right-wing government in Honduras – the same government assassinating feminist
and indigenous activists like Berta Cáceres, Margarita Murillo, and others, and forcibly displacing and ethnically cleansing Afro-indigenous
communities to make way for Carribbean resorts and golf courses.
And this Washington insider lobbyist and apologist for war criminals and crimes against humanity is the guy who's on a crusade
to reform campaign finance and fix Washington? This is the guy masquerading as a progressive? This is the guy working to elect an
"anti-war progressive"?
In a twisted way it makes sense. Ratcliff has the blood of tens of thousands of Hondurans (among others) on his hands, while Beals
is a creature of Langley, a CIA boy whose exceptional work in the service of Bush and Clinton administration war criminals is touted
as some kind of merit badge on his resume.
What also becomes clear after establishing the Ratcliff-Beals connection is the fact that Ratcliff's purported concern with
campaign financing and "taking back the Republic" is really just a pretext for attempting to provide a "proof of concept," as it
were, that neoliberal Democrats shouldn't fear and subvert the progressive wing of the party, but rather that they should co-opt
it with a phony grassroots facade all while maintaining links to U.S. intelligence, Wall Street, and the power brokers of the Democratic
Party .
Key figures on anti-trump color revolution including Mueller, Rosenstein and Comey are closely connected with Clinton foundation
Notable quotes:
"... Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? Bet you can't guess. No other than James Comey. ..."
"... Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005? No other than the Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein. ..."
"... Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time frame??? I know, it's a miracle, just a coincidence, just an anomaly in statistics and chances: Robert Mueller. ..."
"... Then of all surprises, in April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy on Halloween. ..."
"... The DOJ didn't even convene a Grand Jury. Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself, like the true "Gangsta" Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016 and exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing. ..."
"... It goes on and on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation witch hunt by Rosenstein to provide cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues. ..."
I'm on the other side of the planet but a friend in the Mid-West sent me this and I thought I'd ask if anyone else had seen
it?
Is there corruption in DC?
From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation. A Grand Jury had been empaneled. The investigation
was triggered by the pardon of Marc Rich ..
Governments from around the world had donated to the "Charity". Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those "Donations" to the Clinton
Foundation were declared.
Guess who took over this investigation in 2002? Bet you can't guess. No other than James Comey.
Guess who was transferred in to the Internal Revenue Service to run the Tax Exemption Branch of the IRS? Your friend and mine,
Lois "Be on The Look Out" (BOLO) Lerner.
It gets better, well not really, but this is all just a series of strange coincidences, right?
Guess who ran the Tax Division inside the Department of Injustice from 2001 to 2005? No other than the Assistant Attorney
General of the United States, Rod Rosenstein.
Guess who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during this time frame??? I know, it's a miracle, just
a coincidence, just an anomaly in statistics and chances: Robert Mueller.
What do all four casting characters have in common? They all were briefed and were front line investigators into the Clinton
Foundation Investigation.
Now that's just a coincidence, right? Ok, lets chalk the last one up to mere chance.
Let's fast forward to 2009. James Comey leaves the Justice Department to go and cash-in at Lockheed Martin.
Hillary Clinton is running the State Department, on her own personal email server.
The Uranium One "issue" comes to the attention of the Hillary. Like all good public servants do, you know looking out for America's
best interest, she decides to support the decision and approve the sale of 20% of US Uranium to no other than, the Russians.
Now you would think that this is a fairly straight up deal, except it wasn't, I question what did the People get out of it??
Oddly enough, prior to the sales approval, Bill Clinton goes to Moscow, gets paid 500K for a one-hour speech then meets with Vladimir
Putin at his home for a few hours.
Ok, no big deal right? Well, not so fast, the FBI had a mole inside this scheme.
Guess who was the FBI Director during this time frame? Yep, Robert Mueller. He requested the State Department allow himself
to deliver a Uranium Sample to Moscow in 2009, under the guise of a "sting" operation -- (see leaked secret cable 09STATE38943)..
while it is never clear if Mueller did deliver the sample, the "implication" is there ..
Guess who was handling that case within the Justice Department out of the US Attorney's Office in Maryland ?? No other than,
Rod Rosenstein.
Remember the "informant" inside the FBI -- - Guess what happened to the informant? Department of Justice placed a GAG order
on him and threatened to lock him up if he spoke about the Uranium Deal. Personally, I have to question how does 20% of the most
strategic asset of the United States of America end up in Russian hands??? The FBI had an informant, a mole providing inside information
to the FBI on the criminal enterprise and NOTHING happens, except to the informant -- Strange !!
Guess what happened soon after the sale was approved? 145 million dollars in "donations" made their way into the Clinton Foundation
from entities directly connected to the Uranium One deal.
Guess who was still at the Internal Revenue Service working the Charitable Division?
No other than, Lois Lerner. Ok, that's all just another series of coincidences, nothing to see here, right? Let's fast forward
to 2015.
Due to a series of tragic events in Benghazi and after the nine "investigations" the House, Senate and at State Department,
Trey Gowdy who was running the 10th investigation as Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, discovers that the Hillary
ran the State Department on an unclassified, unauthorized, outlaw personal email server.
He also discovered that none of those emails had been turned over when she departed her "Public Service" as Secretary of State
which was required by law.
He also discovered that there was Top Secret information contained within her personally archived email. Sparing you the State
Departments cover up, the nostrums they floated, the delay tactics that were employed and the outright lies that were spewed forth
from the necks of the Kerry State Department, they did everything humanly possible to cover for Hillary.
Guess who became FBI Director in 2013? Guess who secured 17 no bid contracts for his employer (Lockheed Martin) with the State
Department and was rewarded with a six million dollar thank you present when he departed his employer. No other than James Comey.
Folks if I did this when I worked for the government, I would have been locked up -- The State Department didn't even comply with
the EEO and small business requirements the government places on all Request For Proposals (RFP) on contracts -- It amazes me
how all those no-bids just went right through at State -- simply amazing and no Inspector General investigation !!
Next after leaving the private sector Comey is the FBI Director in charge of the "Clinton Email Investigation" after of course
his FBI Investigates the Lois Lerner "Matter" at the Internal Revenue Service and exonerates her. Nope couldn't find any crimes
there. Nothing here to report --
Then of all surprises, in April 2016, James Comey drafts an exoneration letter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile the
DOJ is handing out immunity deals like candy on Halloween.
The DOJ didn't even convene a Grand Jury. Like a lightning bolt of statistical impossibility, like a miracle from God himself,
like the true "Gangsta" Homey is, James steps out into the cameras of an awaiting press conference on July the 8th of 2016 and
exonerates the Hillary from any wrongdoing. As I've said many times, July 8, 2016 is the date that will live in infamy of
the American Justice System ..
Can you see the pattern?
It goes on and on, Rosenstein becomes Asst. Attorney General, Comey gets fired based upon a letter by Rosenstein, Comey
leaks government information to the press, Mueller is assigned to the Russian Investigation witch hunt by Rosenstein to provide
cover for decades of malfeasance within the FBI and DOJ and the story continues.
FISA Abuse, political espionage .. pick a crime, any crime, chances are this group and a few others did it. All the same players.
All compromised and conflicted. All working fervently to NOT go to jail themselves. All connected in one way or another to the
Clinton's. They are like battery acid, they corrode and corrupt everything they touch. How many lives have the Clinton's destroyed?
As of this writing, the Clinton Foundation, in its 20+ years of operation of being the largest International Charity Fraud
in the history of mankind, has never been audited by the Internal Revenue Service.
Let us not forget that Comey's brother works for DLA Piper, the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation's taxes.
"... Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said ."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created." ..."
"... The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served . ..."
"... What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law. ..."
"... None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win. ..."
"... Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls." ..."
"... The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego. ..."
"... "Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law, but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either. ..."
"... there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign. ..."
"... We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out ..."
"... The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep state. ..."
"... Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor. Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails. ..."
"... I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought up the so-called "dossier" ..."
"... Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his cups. ..."
"... Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.) ..."
"... Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed bin-Talal's bagman. ..."
Wednesday's criminal referral by 11 House Republicans of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton as well as several former and serving top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials
is a giant step toward a Constitutional crisis.
Named in the referral to the DOJ for possible violations of federal law are: Clinton, former
FBI Director James Comey; former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; former Acting FBI Director
Andrew McCabe; FBI Agent Peter Strzok; FBI Counsel Lisa Page; and those DOJ and FBI personnel
"connected to" work on the "Steele Dossier," including former Acting Attorney General Sally
Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.
With no attention from corporate media, the referral was sent to Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber.
Sessions appointed Huber months ago to assist DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. By
most accounts, Horowitz is doing a thoroughly professional job. As IG, however, Horowitz lacks
the authority to prosecute; he needs a U.S. Attorney for that. And this has to be disturbing to
the alleged perps.
This is no law-school case-study exercise, no arcane disputation over the fine points of
this or that law. Rather, as we say in the inner-city, "It has now hit the fan." Criminal
referrals can lead to serious jail time. Granted, the upper-crust luminaries criminally
"referred" enjoy very powerful support. And that will come especially from the mainstream
media, which will find it hard to retool and switch from Russia-gate to the much more delicate
and much less welcome "FBI-gate."
As of this writing, a full day has gone by since the letter/referral was reported, with
total silence so far from T he New York Times and The Washington Post and other
big media as they grapple with how to spin this major development. News of the criminal
referral also slipped by Amy Goodman's non-mainstream DemocracyNow!, as well as many
alternative websites.
The 11 House members chose to include the following egalitarian observation in the first
paragraph of the
letter conveying the criminal referral: "Because we believe that those in positions of high
authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the
potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately." If this uncommon attitude
is allowed to prevail at DOJ, it would, in effect, revoke the de facto "David Petraeus
exemption" for the be-riboned, be-medaled, and well-heeled.
Stonewalling
Meanwhile, the patience of the chairmen of House committees investigating abuses at DOJ and
the FBI is wearing thin at the slow-rolling they are encountering in response to requests for
key documents from the FBI. This in-your-face intransigence is all the more odd, since several
committee members have already had access to the documents in question, and are hardly likely
to forget the content of those they know about. (Moreover, there seems to be a good chance that
a patriotic whistleblower or two will tip them off to key documents being withheld.)
The DOJ IG, whose purview includes the FBI, has been cooperative in responding to committee
requests for information, but those requests can hardly include documents of which the
committees are unaware.
Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes
(R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who
misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and
his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots
to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said
."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."
Whether the House will succeed in overcoming the resistance of those criminally referred and
their many accomplices and will prove able to exercise its Constitutional prerogative of
oversight is, of course, another matter -- a matter that matters.
And Nothing Matters More Than the Media
The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of
Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted
headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an
article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded
fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served
.
Nor is the Post above issuing transparently clever warnings -- like this one in a
lead
article on March 17: "Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting
the FBI. 'This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI's going to win,' said one ally,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. 'You can't fight the FBI. They're going
to torch him.'" [sic]
Mind-Boggling Criminal Activity
What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety
of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have
been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with
taking such major liberties with the law.
None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities
directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind
that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which
point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not
prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to
win.
But she lost.
Comey himself gives this away in the embarrassingly puerile book he has been hawking, "A
Higher Loyalty" -- which
amounts to a pre-emptive move motivated mostly by loyalty-to-self, in order to obtain a
Stay-Out-of-Jail card. Hat tip to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone for a key observation, in his
recent article
, "James Comey, the Would-Be J. Edgar Hoover," about what Taibbi deems the book's most damning
passage, where Comey discusses his decision to make public the re-opening of the Hillary
Clinton email investigation.
Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an
environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making
her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight
than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the
polls."
The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the
next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally
referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very
tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very
tall body that houses an outsized ego.
I think it can be said that readers of Consortiumnews.com may be unusually well equipped to
understand the anatomy of FBI-gate as well as Russia-gate. Listed below chronologically are
several links that might be viewed as a kind of "whiteboard" to refresh memories. You may wish
to refer them to any friends who may still be confused.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of
the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and
then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years. In retirement, he co-created Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
A weird country, the USA.
Reading the article I'm reminded of the 1946 Senate investigation into Pearl Harbour, where,
in my opinion, the truth was unearthed.
At the same time, this truth hardly ever reached the wider public, no articles, the book, ed.
Harry Elmer Barnes, never reviewed.
Will McCabe wind up in jail? Will Comey? Will Hillary face justice? Fingers crossed!
The short answer is NO. McCabe might, but not Comey and the Killer Queen, they've both served Satan, uh I mean the
Deep State too long and too well.Satan and the banksters–who really run the show–take care of their own and
apex predators like Hillary won't go to jail. But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and
plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.
"Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning
constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law,
but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have
had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either.
Consortium News many sops tossed to 'realpolitik' where false narrative is attacked with
alternative false narrative, example given, drunk Ukrainian soldiers supposedly downing MH 17
with a BUK as opposed to Kiev's Interior Ministry behind the Ukrainian combat jet that
actually brought down MH 17, poisons everything (trust issues) spewed from that news
service.
The realpolitik 'face saving' exit/offer implied in the Consortium News narrative where
Russia doesn't have to confront the West with Ukraine's (and by implication the western
intelligence agencies) premeditated murder of 300 innocents does truth no favors.
Time to grow up and face reality. Realpolitik is dead; the caliber of 'statesman' required
for these finessed geopolitical lies to function no longer exist on the Western side, and the
Russians (I believe) are beginning to understand there is no agreement can be made behind
closed doors that will hold up; as opposed to experiencing a backstabbing (like NATO not
moving east.)
Back on topic; the National Security Act of 1947 and the USA's constitution are mutually
exclusive concepts, where you have a Chief Justice appoints members of our FISA Court, er,
nix that, let's call a spade a spade, it's a Star Chamber. There is no constitution to
uphold, no matter well intended self deceits. There will be no constitutional crisis, only a
workaround to pretend a constitution still exists:
To comprehend the internal machinations s of US politics one needs a mind capable of high
level yoga or of squaring a circle.
On the one hand there is a multimillion, full throttle investigation into – at best
– nebulus, inconsequential links between trump/ his campaign & Russia.
On the other there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the
primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies
conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign.
Naturally, its this 2nd conspiracy which is retarded.
Imagine, a mere agency of a dept, the FBI, is widely considered untouchable by The President
! Indeed, they will "torch" him. AND the "the third estate" ie: the msm will support them the
whole way!
As a script the "The Twilight Zone" would have rejected all this as too ludicrous, too
psychotic for even its broad minded viewers.
And that will come especially from the mainstream media
I quit reading right there. Use of that term indicates mental laziness at best. What's mainstream about it? Please
refer to corporate media in proper terms, such as PCR's "presstitute" media. Speaking of PCR, it's too bad he doesn't allow comments.
The MSM is controlled by Zionists as is the U.S. gov and the banks, so it is no surprise that
the MSM protects the ones destroying America, this is what they do. Nothing of consequence will be done to any of the ones involved, it will all be covered
up, as usual.
What utter nonsense. These people are ALL actors, no one will go to jail, because everything
they do is contrived, no consequence for doing as your Zionist owners command.
There is no there there. This is nothing but another distraction, something o feed the
dual narratives, that Clinton and her ilk are out to get Trump, and the "liberal media" will
cover it up. This narrative feeds very nicely into the primary goal of driving
Republicans/conservatives to support Trump, even as Trump does everything they elected him
NOT TO DO!
We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a
Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out
Yet even while Obama did the work of the Zionist money machine, the media played up the
fake battle between those who thought he was not born in America, "birthers" and his blind
supporters.
Nothing came of any of it, just like Monica Lewinsky, nothing but theater, fill the air
waves, divide the people, while America is driven insane.
The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the
weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep
state. It's seriously way pass time for Jeff Sessions to grow a pair, put on his big boy
pants, unrecuse himself from the Russian collusion bullshit case, fire Rosenstein and Mueller
and end the case once and for all. These two traitors are in danger of completely derailing
the Trump agenda and toppling the Republican majority in November, yet Jeff Sessions is still
busy arresting people for marijuana, talk about missing the forest for the trees.
As far as where this referral will go from here, my guess is, nowhere. Not as long as Jeff
Sessions the pussy is the AG. It's good to hear that Giuliani has now been recruited by Trump
to be on his legal team. What Trump really needs to do is replace Jeff Sessions with
Giuliani, or even Chris Christie, and let them do what a real AG should be doing, which is
clean house in the DOJ, and prosecute the Clintons for their pay-to-play scheme with their
foundation. Not only is the Clinton corruption case the biggest corruption case in US
history, but this might be the only way to save the GOP from losing their majority in
November.
But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and
plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.
Sadly I think you're right. Things might be different if we had a real AG, but Jeff
Sessions is not the man I thought he was. He's been swallowed by the deep state just like
Trump. At least Trump is putting up a fight, Sessions just threw in the towel and recused
himself from Day 1. Truly pathetic. Some patriot he is.
" He's ferreted out more than a few and probably has a lot better idea who his friends are
he certainly knows the enemies by now."
He failed to ferret out Haley, Pompeo, or Sessions and he just recently appointed John
Bolton, so I don't agree with your assessment. If his friends include those three, that says
enough about Trump to make any of his earlier supporters drop him.
Anyway, not having a ready made team, or at least a solid short list of key appointees
shows that he was just too clueless to have even been a serious candidate. It looks more as
though Trump is doing now what he intended to do all along. That means he was bullshitting
everybody during his campaign.
So, maybe the neocons really have been his friends all along.
" America is a very crooked country, nothing suprises me".
Every country on this insane planet is "crooked" to a greater or lesser degree, when to a
lesser degree, this is simply because they, the PTB, have not yet figured out how to
accelerate, how to increase their corruption and thereby how to increase their unearned
monetary holdings.
Money is the most potent singular factor which causes humans to lose their minds, and all
of their ethics and decency.
And within the confines of a "socialist" system, "money" is replaced by rubber-stamps, which
then wield, exactly in the manner of "wealth", the power of life or death, over the unwashed
masses.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz
musician.
BTW Jeff Sessions is a fraternal brother of Pence (a member of the same club, same
[recently deceased] guru) and is no friend of Trump.
That would explain why Sessions reclused himself from the start, and refused to appoint a
special council to investigate the Clintons. He's in on this with Pence.
Just as it looks like the Comey memos will further exonerate Trump, we now have this farce
extended by the DNC with this latest lawsuit on the "Trump campaign". The Democrats are now
the most pathetic sore losers in history, they are hell bent on dragging the whole country
down the pit of hell just because they can't handle a loss.
Wishful thinking that anything will come of this, just like when the Nunes memo was released.
Nothing will happen as long as Jeff Sessions is AG. Trump needs to fire either Sessions or
Rosenstein ASAP, before he gets dragged down by this whole Russian collusion bullshit case.
Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against
Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor.
Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's
true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could
be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was
revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails.
John Podesta, in addition to being a top Democrat/DC lobbyist and a criminal deviant, is
also a long-time CIA asset running a blackmail/influence operation that utilized his
deviancy: the sexual exploitation of children.
What kind of "physical proof" could Assange have? A thumb drive that was provably
American, or something? Rohrabacher only got Red Pilled on Russia because he had one very
determined (and well heeled) constituent. But he did cosponsor one of Tulsi Gabbard's "Stop
Funding Terrorists" bills, which he figured out on his own. Nevertheless, a bit of a loose
cannon and an eff'd up hawk on Iran He's probably an 'ISIS now, Assad later' on Syria.
I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought
up the so-called "dossier". Anyone could see it was absurd but he played his hand with it,
pretending it was being looked at. I would say Trump could see through this sleazy game Comey
was trying to play and sized him up. Comey is about as slimy as they get even as he parades
around trying to look noble. What a corrupt bunch.
"The culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain "
[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Robert Mueller's Questionable Past
that appeared yesterday on the American Free Press website:]
During his tenure with the Justice Department under President George H W Bush, Mueller
supervised the prosecutions of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, the Lockerbie bombing (Pan
Am Flight 103) case, and Gambino crime boss John Gotti. In the Noriega case, Mueller ignored
the ties to the Bush family that Victor Thorn illustrated in Hillary (and Bill): The Drugs
Volume: Part Two of the Clinton Trilogy. Noriega had long been associated with CIA operations
that involved drug smuggling, money laundering, and arms running. Thorn significantly links
Noriega to Bush family involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Regarding Pan Am Flight 103, the culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain.
Pro-Palestinian activists, Libyans, and Iranians have all officially been blamed when US
intelligence and the mainstream mass media needed to paint each as the antagonist to American
freedom. Mueller toed the line, publicly ignoring rumors that agents onboard were said to
have learned that a CIA drug-smuggling operation was afoot in conjunction with Pan Am
flights. According to the theory, the agents were going to take their questions to Congress
upon landing. The flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.
There has been some former high flyers going to jail recently. Sarkozy is facing a hard
time at the moment. If it can happen to a former president of France it can happen to
Hillary.
Am I a Christian? Well, no. I had some exposure to Christianity but it never took hold. On
the other hand, I do believe there was a historical Jesus that was a remarkable man, but
there is a world (or universe) of difference between the man and the mythology. Here's some
of my thoughts on the matter:
Nothing uncanny about it. There's a frenetic Democratic cottage industry inferring magical
emotional charisma powers that explain the outsized influence of those three. The fact is
very simple. All three are CIA nomenklatura.
(1.) Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his
cups.
(2.) Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that
the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has
conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.)
(3.) Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed
bin-Talal's bagman. While he was vocationally wet behind the ears he not only got into
Pakistan, no mean feat at the time, but he went to a falconry outing with the future acting
president of Pakistan. And is there anyone alive who wasn't flabbergasted at the instant
universal acclaim for some empty suit who made a speech at the convention? Like Bill Clinton,
successor to DCI Bush, Obama was blatantly, derisively installed in the president slot of the
CIA org chart.
Excellent post and quite accurate information, however my point being that the irrational
fear harbored by the individuals who could actually begin to rope these scumbags in, is just
that : Irrational, as they seem to think or have been lead/brainwashed to believe that these
dissolute turds are somehow endowed with supernatural, otherworldy powers and options, and
that they are capable of unholy , merciless vengeance : VF, SR, etc.
And the truth is as soon as they finally start to go after them they, they will fall apart at
the seams, such as with all cowards, and this is the bottom line : They, the BC/HC/BO clique,
they are nothing more than consumate cowards, who can only operate in such perfidious manners
when left unchallenged.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro Jazz
artist.
"... Bill Clinton attacked Yugoslavia, blithely violating Internal Law. George Bush Jr. did the same by attacking Iraq, and Barack Obama by attacking Libya and Syria. As for Donald Trump, he has never hidden his distrust of supra-national rules. ..."
"... " Globalisation ", in other words the " globalisation of Anglo-Saxon values ", has created a class society between states. ..."
"... " Communication ", a new name for " propaganda ", has become the imperative in international relations. From the US Secretary of State brandishing a phial of pseudo-anthrax to the British Minister for Foreign Affairs lying about the origin of Novitchok in the Salisbury affair, lies have become the substitute for respect, and cause general mistrust. ..."
"... Russia is wondering today about the possible desire of the Western powers to block the United Nations. If this is so, it would create an alternative institution, but there would no longer be a forum which would enable the two blocks to discuss matters. ..."
o the Western powers hope to put an end to the constraints of International Law? That is the
question asked by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergueï Lavrov, at the Moscow
conference on International Security [ 1 ].
Over the last few years, Washington has been promoting the concept of " unilateralism ".
International Law and the United Nations are supposed to bow to the power of the United
States.
This concept of political life is born of the History of the United States - the colonists
who came to the Americas intended to live as they chose and make a fortune there. Each
community developed its own laws and refused the intervention of a central government in local
affairs. The President and the Federal Congress are charged with Defense and Foreign Affairs,
but like the citizens themselves, they refused to accept an authority above their own.
Bill Clinton attacked Yugoslavia, blithely violating Internal Law. George Bush Jr. did
the same by attacking Iraq, and Barack Obama by attacking Libya and Syria. As for Donald Trump,
he has never hidden his distrust of supra-national rules.
Making an allusion to the Cebrowski-Barnett doctrine [ 2 ], Sergueï Lavrov declared: " We
have the clear impression that the United States seek to maintain a state of controlled chaos
in this immense geopolitical area [the Near East], hoping to use it to justify the military
presence of the USA in the region, without any time limit, in order to promote their own agenda
".
The United Kingdom also seem to feel quite comfortable with breaking the Law. Last month, it
accused Moscow in the " Skripal affair ", without the slightest proof, and attempted to unite a
majority of the General Assembly of the UN to exclude Russia from the Security Council. It
would of course be easier for the Anglo-Saxons to unilaterally rewrite the Law without having
to take notice of the opinions of their opponents.
Moscow does not believe that London took this initiative. It considers that Washington is
calling the shots.
" Globalisation ", in other words the " globalisation of Anglo-Saxon values ", has
created a class society between states. But we should not confuse this new problem with
the existence of the right to a veto. Of course, the UNO, while it declares equality between
states whatever their size, distinguishes, within the Security Council, five permanent members
who have a veto. This Directorate, composed of the main victors of the Second World War, is a
necessity for them to accept the principle of supra-national Law. However, when this
Directorate fails to embody the Law, the General Assembly may take its place. At least in
theory, because the smaller states which vote against a greater state are obliged to suffer
retaliatory measures.
La " globalisation of Anglo-Saxon values " ignores honour and highlights profit, so that the
weight of the propositions by any state will be measured only by the economic development of
its country. However, over the years, three states have managed to gain an audience to the
foundations of their propositions, and not in function of their economy – they are the
Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (today under house arrest in his own country), the Venezuela of
Hugo Chávez, and the Holy See.
The confusion engendered by Anglo-Saxon values has led to the financing of intergovernmental
organisations with private money. As one thing leads to another, the member states of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), for example, have progressively abandoned their
propositional power to the profit of private telecom operators, who are united in a "
consultative committee ".
" Communication ", a new name for " propaganda ", has become the imperative in
international relations. From the US Secretary of State brandishing a phial of pseudo-anthrax
to the British Minister for Foreign Affairs lying about the origin of Novitchok in the
Salisbury affair, lies have become the substitute for respect, and cause general
mistrust.
During the first years of its creation, the UNO attempted to forbid " war propaganda ", but
today, it is the permanent members of the Security Council who indulge in it.
The worst occurred in 2012, when Washington managed to obtain the nomination of one of its
worst war-hawks, Jeffrey Feltman, as the number 2 of the UNO [ 3 ]. From that date onward, wars have
been orchestrated in New York by the very institution that is supposed to prevent them.
Russia is wondering today about the possible desire of the Western powers to block the
United Nations. If this is so, it would create an alternative institution, but there would no
longer be a forum which would enable the two blocks to discuss matters.
Just as a society which falls into chaos, where men are wolves for men when deprived of the
Law, so the world will become a battle-field if it abandons International Law. Thierry Meyssan
This is probably the most vicious attack on Trump trangressions that i encountered so far...
Notable quotes:
"... The problem for Trump is that what his accusers are saying puts him in legal and political jeopardy. They are claiming, in effect, that he has committed a variety of unlawful and impeachable offenses – from obstruction of justice to violations of campaign finance laws. ..."
"... The Clinton-Lewinsky dalliance led to a series of events that prevented Clinton from doing even more harm to our feeble welfare state institutions than he would otherwise have done. ..."
There is no doubt about it: Stormy Daniels is a formidable woman. Karen McDougal is no slouch either, though she is hard to admire
after that riff, in her Anderson Cooper interview, about how religious and Republican she is; she even said that she used to love
the Donald. Stormy Daniels is better than that.
How wonderfully appropriate it would be if she were to become the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.
Even in a world as topsy-turvy as ours has become, there has to be a final straw.
To be sure, evidence of Trump's vileness, incompetence, and mental instability is accumulating at breakneck speed, and there are
polls now that show support for him holding fast or even slightly rising. Trump's hardcore "base" seems more determined than ever
to stand by their man.
But even people as benighted as they are bound to realize eventually that they have been had. Many of them already do, but don't
care; they hate Clinton Democrats that much. This is understandable, but foolish; so foolish, in fact, that they can hardly keep
it up indefinitely.
To think otherwise is to despair for the human race.
What, if anything, can bring them to their senses in time for the 2018 election?
Stormy Daniels says she only wants to tell her story, not bring Trump down. But her political instincts seem decent, and she is
one shrewd lady. Therefore, I would not be the least surprised if that is not quite true. It hardly matters, though, what her intentions
are; I'd put my money on her.
A recession might also do the trick. A recession is long overdue, and Trump's tax cut for the rich and his tariffs are sure to
make its consequences worse when it happens.
To turn significant portions of Trump's base against him, a major military conflagration might also do -- not the kind Barack
Obama favored, fought far away and out of public view, but a real war, televised on CNN, and waged against an enemy state like North
Korea or Iran. It would have to go quickly and disastrously wrong, though, in ways that even willfully blind, terminally obtuse Trump
supporters could not fail to see.
Or the gods could smile upon us, causing Trump's exercise regimen (sitting in golf carts) and his fat-ridden, cholesterol rich
diet to catch up with him, as it would with most other sedentary septuagenarians. The only downside would be that a heart attack
or stroke might elicit sympathy for the poor bastard. No sane person could or should hope for a calamitous economic downturn or for
yet another devastating, pointless, and manifestly unjust war, especially one that could become a war to end all wars (along with
everything else), on the off-chance that some good might come of it. And if the best we can do is hope that cheeseburgers with fries
will save us, we are grasping at straws.
These are compelling reasons to hope that the accusations made by Daniels and McDougal and Summer Zervos – and other consensual
and non-consensual Trump victims and "playmates" – gain traction. If the several defamation lawsuits now in the works can get the
president deposed, this is not out of the question.
The problem for Trump is not that his accusers' revelations will cause his base to defect; no matter how salacious their stories
and no matter how believable they may be. Trump's moral turpitude is taken for granted in their circles; and they do not care about
the myriad ways his words and deeds offend the dignity of the office he holds or embarrass the country he purports to put "first."
If any of that mattered to them, they would have jumped ship long ago.
Except perhaps for unreconstructed racists and certifiable sociopaths, white evangelicals are Trump's strongest supporters. What
a despicable bunch of hypocrites they are! As long as Trump delivers on their agendas, his salacious escapades don't faze them at
all. Godly folk have evidently changed a good deal since the Cotton Mather days.
What has not changed is their seemingly limitless ability to believe nonsense.
And in case light somehow does manage to shine through, Trump has shown them how to restore the darkness they crave. When cognitive
dissonance threatens, all they need do is scream "fake news."
The problem for Trump is that what his accusers are saying puts him in legal and political jeopardy. They are claiming, in
effect, that he has committed a variety of unlawful and impeachable offenses – from obstruction of justice to violations of campaign
finance laws.
In this case as in so many others, it is the cover-up, not the underlying "crime," that could lead to his undoing – especially
if the stories Daniels and the others are telling shed light upon or otherwise connect with or meld into Robert Mueller's investigation
of (alleged) Russian "meddling" in the 2016 election.
Trump could and probably will survive their charges. His base is such a preternaturally obdurate lot that there may ultimately
be no last straw for them. We may have no choice, in the end, but to despair for a sizeable chunk of the human race.
Stormy Daniels would not be any less admirable on that account. She took Trump on and came out on top. For all the world (minus
the willfully blind) to see, she, the porn star, is a strong woman who has her life together, while he, the president, is a discombobulated
sleaze ball who is leading himself and his country to ruin.
***
It was different with Monica Lewinsky, another presidential paramour who, almost two decades ago, also held the world's attention.
There was nothing sleazy or venal about Lewinsky's involvement with Bill Clinton; and, for all I know, unless chastity counts,
she is as good and virtuous a person as can be. But personal qualities are not what made her affair with our forty-second president
as historically significant as it turned out to be.
It would be fair to say that of all the women who have ever had intimate knowledge of that old horn dog's private parts, there
is no one who did more good for her country. If only for that, if there were a heaven, there would be special place in it just for
her.
The Clinton-Lewinsky dalliance led to a series of events that prevented Clinton from doing even more harm to our feeble welfare
state institutions than he would otherwise have done.
Who knows how much progress he would have turned back had he and Monica never done the deed or at least not been found out. Building
on groundwork laid down by Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, he and his wife had already terminated Aid to Families With Dependent
Children, one of the main government programs aimed at relieving poverty. This was to be just the first step in "ending welfare as
we know it."
With their "donors" pushing for more austerity, those two neoliberal pioneers were itching to begin privatizing other, more widely
supported social programs, including even Social Security, the so-called "third rail" of American politics.
The "Lewinsky matter" put the kybosh on that idea, leaving the American people forever in Monica's debt.
Back in the Kennedy days, Mel Brook's two-thousand year old man got it right when he said: presidents "gotta do it," to which
he added – " because if they don't do it to their wives and girlfriends, they do it to the nation."
Stormy Daniels made much the same point ten years ago, while flirting with the idea of running against Louisiana Senator David
Vitter. Vitter's political career had been almost ruined when his name turned up in the phone records of the infamous "DC Madam,"
Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Daniels told voters that, unlike Vitter, she would "screw (them) honestly."
What then are we to make of the fact that Trump screws both the nation and his wife (maybe) and his girlfriends (or whatever they
are)?
Blame it on arrested development, on the fact that despite his more than seventy-one years, Trump still has the mind of a teenage
boy, one with money and power enough to live out his fantasies.
The contrast with Bill Clinton is stark. Clinton is a philanderer with eclectic tastes, a charming rascal with a broad and mischievous
mind. Honkytonk women from Arkansas appeal to him as much as zaftig MOTs from the 90210 area code.
Trump, on the other hand, goes for super-models, Playboy centerfolds, and aspiring beauty queens -- standard teenage
fantasy fare.
He seems to have had little trouble living his dreams – not thanks to his magnetic face, form and figure, and certainly not to
his refinement, wit or charm, but to his inherited and otherwise ill-gotten wealth.
It is money and the power that follows from it that draws women to his net.
Henry Kissinger understood; recall his musings on the aphrodisiacal properties of power. Even in his prime, that still unindicted
war criminal (and later-day Hillary Clinton advisor) was even more repellent than Trump. But that never kept him from having to fight
the ladies off.
This fact of life puts a heavy responsibility on the women with whom presidents hook up.
Consider Melania. She made a Faustian bargain when she agreed to become Trump's trophy bride; in return for riches and a soft
life in a gilded tower, she sold her soul. She might have thought better of it had she taken the burdens she would incur as First
Lady into account, but why would she? The prospect was too improbable.
She has, it seems, a very practical, old world view of marriage, and is therefore tolerant of her husband's womanizing. At the
same time, as a mother and daughter, she is, like most immigrants, a strong proponent of old world "family values."
Too much of a proponent perhaps; insofar as her idea was to "chain migrate" her parents out of Slovenia and onto Easy Street,
or to raise a kid who would never want for anything, there were less onerous ways of going about it. After all, there are plenty
of rich Americans lusting after supermodels out there, and it is a good bet that many of them are less repellent than Trump.
She was irresponsible as well. She ought to have realized that the man she married had already spawned two idiot sons, along with
other fruit from the poisonous tree, and that four bad apples in one generation are enough.
And so now she finds herself a single mother – not in theory, of course, but very definitely in practice. Unlike most women in
that position, she is not wanting for resources. But it must be a hard slog, even so. To her credit, Melania seems to be handling
the burden well. More power to her!
She also deserves credit for her body language when the Donald is around; the contempt she shows for him is wonderful to behold.
Best of all is her sense of the absurd. The way she plagiarized from Michelle Obama had obvious comic validity, and making childhood
bullying her First Lady cause – all First Ladies have causes -- was a stroke of genius.
On balance, therefore, it is hard not to feel sorry for her. Of all the women in Trump's ambit, she deserves humiliation the least.
The rumor mill has it that with all the publicity about Daniels and the others , she has finally had enough. This may
be the case; the old world ethos requires discretion and a concern with appearances. That is not the Donald's way, however, and now
she is paying the price.
What a magnificent humiliation it would be if she and Trump were to split up on that account. This could happen soon. I would
expect, though, that through a combination of carrots and sticks, Trump and his fixers will find a way to minimize the political
effects. More likely still, they will channel Joe Kennedy and Jackie O, and figure out a way to head the problem off.
Then there is poor forgotten Tiffany. Her Wikipedia entry lists her as both a law student and a "socialite." I hope her studious
side wins out and that, despite the genes from her father's side, she is at least somewhat decent and smart.
I'd be more confident of that if she would do what Ronald Reagan's daughter, Patti, did: use her mother's, not her father's, name.
Unless she is a sleaze ball too, a Trump in the Eric and Don Junior mold, that would be a fine way to make a political point.
It would also pay back over the years. With the Trump administration on its current trajectory, who, in a few years' time, would
take a Tiffany Trump seriously? A Tiffany Maples would stand a better chance.
Her half-sister, the peerless Ivanka, the Great Blonde Hope, is, of course, her father's sweetie. Let's not go there, however.
Her marriage to Jared Kushner is already enough to process.
What a pair those two make; and what a glorious day it will be when the law finally catches up with Jared, as it did with his
Trump-like father, Charles. Perhaps he will take Ivanka down a notch or two with him. Despite an almost complete lack of qualifications,
Trump made his son-in-law his minister of almost everything; a pretty good gig for a feckless, airhead rich kid. Among other things,
Trump enabled him to become Benjamin Netanyahu's ace in the hole. Netanyahu is a Kushner family friend. Netanyahu has more than his
share of legal troubles too. Let them all go down together!
Ivanka and Jared are well matched – they share a "business model." It has them exploiting their daddies' connections and money.
Jared peddles real estate; his efforts have gotten his family into serious debt, while putting him in solid with Russian and Eastern
European oligarchs, Gulf state emirs, and Mohammad bin Salman – people in comparison with whom his father-in-law seems almost virtuous.
Ivanka sells trinkets and schmatas to people who think the Trump name is cool. There actually are such people; at two
hundred grand a pop, Mar-a-Lago is full of them. Ivanka's demographic is made up mostly of their younger set.
Two other presidential women bare mention: Hope Hicks and Nikki Haley. Surely, they both have tales to tell, but it looks, for
now, as if their stories would be of little or no prurient interest. Neither of them appear to have been propositioned or groped.
Even though Hicks is said to be like a daughter to the Donald – we know what that could mean! – it is a safe bet that there was
nothing of a romantic nature going on between them. For one thing, Hicks seems too close to Ivanka; for another, she is known to
have dallied with two Trump subordinates, Corey Lewandowski and Rob Porter. The don is hardly the type to let his underlings have
at his women.
Haley had to quash a spate of rumors that flared up thanks to some suggestive remarks Michael Wolff made while hawking Fire
and Fury . The rumor caught on because people who hadn't yet fully realized what a piece of work Trump is, imagined that something
had to be awry inasmuch as her main qualification for representing the United States at the United Nations was an undergraduate degree
in accounting. Abject servility to the Israel lobby also helped.
But the Trump administration is full of ambitious miscreants whose views on Israel and Palestine are as abject and servile as
hers, and compared to many others in Trump's cabinet she is, if anything, over qualified. Think of neurosurgeon Ben Carson heading
the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is qualified because, as a child, he lived in public housing.
With the exception of Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, Summer Zervos and whoever else comes forward with a juicy and credible tale
to tell, the women currently in the president's ambit, though good for gossip and interesting in the ways that characters on reality
TV shows can be, are of little or no political consequence.
This could change if any of them decides to "go rogue," to use an expression from the Sarah Palin days. But, while neither Melania
nor Tiffany can yet be judged hopeless, it would be foolish to expect much of anything good to come from either of them.
Stormy, Karen, Summer, and whoever else steps forward are a better bet. They are the only ones with any chance of doing as much
for their country and the world as Monica Lewinsky did a generation ago.
Among the president's women, they are a breed apart. This is plainly the case with Stormy Daniels; it is already clear that she
deserves what all Trump's money can never buy – honor and esteem. To the extent that the others turn out to be similarly courageous,
they will too.
"... Running against what she (wrongly) perceived (along with most election prognosticators) as a doomed and feckless opponent and as the clear preferred candidate of Wall Street and the intimately related U.S foreign policy elite , including many leading Neoconservatives put off by Trump's isolationist and anti-interventionist rhetoric, the "lying neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton arrogantly figured that she could garner enough votes to win without having to ruffle any ruling-class feathers. ..."
"... Smart Wall Street and K Street Democratic Party bankrollers have long understood that Democratic candidates have to cloak their dollar-drenched corporatism in the deceptive campaign discourse of progressive- and even populist-sounding policy promise to win elections. ..."
"... Trump trailed well behind Clinton in contributions from defense and aerospace – a lack of support extraordinary for a Republican presidential hopeful late in the race. ..."
"... one fateful consequence of trying to appeal to so many conservative business interests was strategic silence about most important matters of public policy. Given the candidate's steady lead in the polls, there seemed to be no point to rocking the boat with any more policy pronouncements than necessary ..."
"... Misgivings of major contributors who worried that the Clinton campaign message lacked real attractions for ordinary Americans were rebuffed. The campaign sought to capitalize on the angst within business by vigorously courting the doubtful and undecideds there, not in the electorate ..."
"... Of course, Bill and Hillary helped trail-blaze that plutocratic "New Democrat" turn in Arkansas during the late 1970s and 1980s. The rest, as they say, was history – an ugly corporate-neoliberal, imperial, and racist history that I and others have written about at great length. ..."
"... My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency ..."
"... Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton ..."
"... The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America ..."
"... Still, Trump's success was no less tied to big money than was Hillary's failure. Candidate Trump ran strangely outside the longstanding neoliberal Washington Consensus, as an economic nationalist and isolationist. His raucous rallies were laced with dripping denunciations of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, and globalization, mockery of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, rejection of the New Cold War with Russia, and pledges of allegiance to the "forgotten" American "working-class." He was no normal Republican One Percent candidate. ..."
"... Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache ..."
"... "In a frontal assault on the American establishment, the Republican standard bearer proclaimed 'America First.' Mocking the Bush administration's appeal to 'weapons of mass destruction' as a pretext for invading Iraq, he broke dramatically with two generations of GOP orthodoxy and spoke out in favor of more cooperation with Russia . He even criticized the 'carried interest' tax break beloved by high finance" (emphasis added). ..."
"... "What happened in the final weeks of the campaign was extraordinary. Firstly, a giant wave of dark money poured into Trump's own campaign – one that towered over anything in 2016 or even Mitt Romney's munificently financed 2012 effort – to say nothing of any Russian Facebook experiments [Then] another gigantic wave of money flowed in from alarmed business interests, including the Kochs and their allies Officially the money was for Senate races, but late-stage campaigning for down-ballot offices often spills over on to candidates for the party at large." ..."
"... "In a harbinger of things to come, additional money came from firms and industries that appear to have been attracted by Trump's talk of tariffs, including steel and companies making machinery of various types [a] vast wave of new money flowed into the campaign from some of America's biggest businesses and most famous investors. Sheldon Adelson and many others in the casino industry delivered in grand style for its old colleague. Adelson now delivered more than $11 million in his own name, while his wife and other employees of his Las Vegas Sands casino gave another $20 million. ..."
"... Peter Theil contributed more than a million dollars, while large sums also rolled in from other parts of Silicon Valley, including almost two million dollars from executives at Microsoft and just over two million from executives at Cisco Systems. ..."
"... Among those were Nelson Peltz and Carl Icahn (who had both contributed to Trump before, but now made much bigger new contributions). In the end, along with oil, chemicals, mining and a handful of other industries, large private equity firms would become one of the few segments of American business – and the only part of Wall Street – where support for Trump was truly heavy the sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds clearly began with the Convention but turned into a torrent " ..."
"... The critical late wave came after Trump moved to rescue his flagging campaign by handing its direction over to the clever, class-attuned, far-right white- and economic- nationalist "populist" and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, who advocated what proved to be a winning, Koch brothers-approved "populist" strategy: appeal to economically and culturally frustrated working- and middle-class whites in key battleground states, where the bloodless neoliberal and professional class centrism and snooty metropolitan multiculturalism of the Obama presidency and Clinton campaign was certain to depress the Democratic "base" vote ..."
"... Neither turnout nor the partisan division of the vote at any level looks all that different from other recent elections 2016's alterations in voting behavior are so minute that the pattern is only barely differentiated from 2012." ..."
"... An interesting part of FJC's study (no quick or easy read) takes a close look at the pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Internet activism that the Democrats and their many corporate media allies are so insistently eager to blame on Russia and for Hillary's defeat. FJC find that Russian Internet interventions were of tiny significance compared to those of homegrown U.S. corporate and right-wing cyber forces: ..."
"... By 2016, the Republican right had developed internet outreach and political advertising into a fine art and on a massive scale quite on its own. ..."
"... Breitbart and other organizations were in fact going global, opening offices abroad and establishing contacts with like-minded groups elsewhere. Whatever the Russians were up to, they could hardly hope to add much value to the vast Made in America bombardment already underway. Nobody sows chaos like Breitbart or the Drudge Report ." ..."
"... no support from Big Business ..."
"... Sanders pushed Hillary the Goldman candidate to the wall, calling out the Democrats' capture by Wall Street, forcing her to rely on a rigged party, convention, and primary system to defeat him. The small-donor "socialist" Sanders challenge represented something Ferguson and his colleagues describe as "without precedent in American politics not just since the New Deal, but across virtually the whole of American history a major presidential candidate waging a strong, highly competitive campaign whose support from big business is essentially zero ." ..."
"... American Oligarchy ..."
"... teleSur English ..."
"... we had no great electoral democracy to subvert in 2016 ..."
"... Only candidates and positions that can be financed can be presented to voters. As a result, in countries like the US and, increasingly, Western Europe, political parties are first of all bank accounts . With certain qualifications, one must pay to play. Understanding any given election, therefore, requires a financial X-ray of the power blocs that dominate the major parties, with both inter- and intra- industrial analysis of their constituent elements." ..."
"... Elections alone are no guarantee of democracy, as U.S. policymakers and pundits know very well when they rip on rigged elections (often fixed with the assistance of U.S. government and private-sector agents and firms) in countries they don't like ..."
"... Majority opinion is regularly trumped by a deadly complex of forces in the U.S. ..."
"... Trump is a bit of an anomaly – a sign of an elections and party system in crisis and an empire in decline. He wasn't pre-approved or vetted by the usual U.S. " deep state " corporate, financial, and imperial gatekeepers. The ruling-class had been trying to figure out what the Hell to do with him ever since he shocked even himself (though not Steve Bannon) by pre-empting the coronation of the "Queen of Chaos." ..."
"... His lethally racist, sexist, nativist, nuclear-weapons-brandishing, and (last but not at all least) eco-cidal rise to the nominal CEO position atop the U.S.-imperial oligarchy is no less a reflection of the dominant role of big U.S. capitalist money and homegrown plutocracy in U.S. politics than a more classically establishment Hillary ascendancy would have been. It's got little to do with Russia, Russia, Russia – the great diversion that fills U.S. political airwaves and newsprint as the world careens ever closer to oligarchy-imposed geocide and to a thermonuclear conflagration that the RussiaGate gambit is recklessly encouraging. ..."
On the Friday after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series and prior to the Tuesday on which
the vicious racist and sexist Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Bernie
Sanders spoke to a surprisingly small crowd in Iowa City on behalf of Hillary Clinton. As I
learned months later, Sanders told one of his Iowa City friends that day that Mrs. Clinton was
in trouble. The reason, Sanders reported, was that Hillary wasn't discussing issues or
advancing real solutions. "She doesn't have any policy positions," Sanders said.
The first time I heard this, I found it hard to believe. How, I wondered, could anyone run
seriously for the presidency without putting issues and policy front and center? Wouldn't any
serious campaign want a strong set of issue and policy positions to attract voters and fall
back on in case and times of adversity?
Sanders wasn't lying. As the esteemed political scientist and money-politics expert Thomas
Ferguson and his colleagues Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen note in an important study released by
the Institute for New Economic Thinking two months ago, the Clinton campaign "emphasized
candidate and personal issues and avoided policy discussions to a degree without precedent in
any previous election for which measurements exist .it stressed candidate qualifications [and]
deliberately deemphasized issues in favor of concentrating on what the campaign regarded as
[Donald] Trump's obvious personal weaknesses as a candidate."
Strange as it might have seemed, the reality television star and presidential pre-apprentice
Donald Trump had a lot more to say about policy than the former First Lady, U.S. Senator, and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a wonkish Yale Law graduate.
"Courting the Undecideds in Business, not in the Electorate"
What was that about? My first suspicion was that Hillary's policy silence was about the
money. It must have reflected her success in building a Wall Street-filled campaign funding
war-chest so daunting that she saw little reason to raise capitalist election investor concerns
by giving voice to the standard fake-progressive "hope" and "change" campaign and policy
rhetoric Democratic presidential contenders typically deploy against their One Percent
Republican opponents. Running against what she (wrongly) perceived (along with most election
prognosticators) as a doomed and feckless opponent and as the clear preferred candidate of
Wall
Street and the intimately related U.S foreign policy elite , including many leading
Neoconservatives put off by Trump's isolationist and anti-interventionist rhetoric, the
"lying
neoliberal warmonger" Hillary Clinton arrogantly figured that she could garner enough votes
to win without having to ruffle any ruling-class feathers. She would cruise into the White
House with no hurt plutocrat feelings simply by playing up the ill-prepared awfulness of her
Republican opponent.
If Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Chen (hereafter "JFC") are right, I was on to something but not
the whole money and politics story. Smart Wall Street and K Street Democratic Party bankrollers
have long understood that Democratic candidates have to cloak their dollar-drenched corporatism
in the deceptive campaign discourse of progressive- and even populist-sounding policy promise
to win elections. Sophisticated funders get it that the Democratic candidates' need to
manipulate the electorate with phony pledges of democratic transformation. The big
money backers know it's "just politics" on the part of candidates who can be trusted to
serve elite interests (like Bill
Clinton 1993-2001 and Barack
Obama 2009-2017 ) after they gain office.
What stopped Hillary from playing the usual game – the "manipulation of populism by
elitism" that Christopher
Hitchens once called "the essence of American politics" – in 2016, a year when the
electorate was in a particularly angry and populist mood? FJC's study is titled "
Industrial Structure and Party Competition in an Age of Hunger Games : Donald Trump and the
2016 Presidential Election." It performs heroic empirical work with difficult campaign finance
data to show that Hillary's campaign funding success went beyond her party's usual corporate
and financial backers to include normally Republican-affiliated capitalist sectors less
disposed than their more liberal counterparts to abide the standard progressive-sounding policy
rhetoric of Democratic Party candidates. FJC hypothesize that (along with the determination
that Trump was too weak to be taken all that seriously) Hillary's desire get and keep on board
normally Republican election investors led her to keep quiet on issues and policy concerns that
mattered to everyday people. As FJC note:
"Trump trailed well behind Clinton in contributions from defense and aerospace – a
lack of support extraordinary for a Republican presidential hopeful late in the race. For
Clinton's campaign the temptation was irresistible: Over time it slipped into a variant of
the strategy [Democrat] Lyndon Johnson pursued in 1964 in the face of another [Republican]
candidate [Barry Goldwater] who seemed too far out of the mainstream to win: Go for a grand
coalition with most of big business . one fateful consequence of trying to appeal to so
many conservative business interests was strategic silence about most important matters of
public policy. Given the candidate's steady lead in the polls, there seemed to be no point to
rocking the boat with any more policy pronouncements than necessary . Misgivings of
major contributors who worried that the Clinton campaign message lacked real attractions for
ordinary Americans were rebuffed. The campaign sought to capitalize on the angst within
business by vigorously courting the doubtful and undecideds there, not in the electorate
" (emphasis added). Hillary
Happened
FJC may well be right that a wish not to antagonize off right-wing campaign funders is what
led Hillary to muzzle herself on important policy matters, but who really knows? An alternative
theory I would not rule out is that Mrs. Clinton's own deep inner conservatism was sufficient
to spark her to gladly dispense with the usual progressive-sounding campaign boilerplate. Since
FJC bring up the Johnson-Goldwater election, it is perhaps worth mentioning that 18-year old
Hillary was a "Goldwater Girl" who worked for the arch-reactionary Republican presidential
candidate in 1964. Asked about that episode on National
Public Radio (NPR) in 1996 , then First Lady Hillary said "That's right. And I feel like my
political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don't recognize this
new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not
conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl."
It was a revealing reflection. The right-wing Democrat Hillary acknowledged that her
ideological world view was still rooted in the conservatism of her family of origin. Her
problem with the reactionary Republicanism afoot in the U.S. during the middle 1990s was that
it was "not conservative in many respects." Her problem with the far-right Republican
Congressional leaders Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay was that they were betraying true
conservatism – "the conservatism [Hillary] was raised with." This was worse even than the
language of the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC) – the right-wing Eisenhower
Republican (at leftmost) tendency that worked to push the Democratic Party further to the Big
Business-friendly right and away from its working-class and progressive base.
What happened? Horrid corporate Hillary happened. And she's still happening. The "lying
neoliberal warmonger" recently went to India to double down on her
"progressive neoliberal" contempt for the "basket of deplorables" (more on that phrase
below) that considers poor stupid and backwards middle America to be by
saying this : "If you look at the map of the United States, there's all that red in the
middle where Trump won. I win the coasts. But what the map doesn't show you is that I won the
places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product (GDP). So I won the places
that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward" (emphasis added).
That was Hillary Goldman Sachs-Council on Foreign Relations-Clinton saying "go to Hell" to
working- and middle-class people in Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri,
Indiana, and West Virginia. It was a raised middle and oligarchic finger from a super-wealthy
arch-global-corporatist to all the supposedly pessimistic, slow-witted, and retrograde losers
stuck between those glorious enclaves (led by Wall Street, Yale, and Harvard on the East coast
and Silicon Valley and Hollywood on the West coast) of human progress and variety (and GDP!) on
the imperial shorelines. Senate Minority Leader Dick
Durbin had to go on television to say that Hillary was "wrong" to write off most of the
nation as a festering cesspool of pathetic, ass-backwards, lottery-playing, and opioid-addicted
white-trash has-beens. It's hard for the Inauthentic Opposition Party (as the late Sheldon Wolin reasonably called
the Democrats ) to pose as an authentic opposition party when its' last big-money
presidential candidate goes off-fake-progressive script with an openly elitist rant like
that.
Historic Mistakes
Whatever the source of her strange policy silence in the 2016 campaign, that hush was "a
miscalculation of historic proportion" (FJC). It was a critical mistake given what Ferguson and
his colleagues call the "Hunger Games" misery and insecurity imposed on tens of millions of
ordinary working- and middle-class middle-Americans by decades of neoliberal capitalist
austerity , deeply exacerbated by the Wall Street-instigated Great Recession and the weak
Obama recovery. The electorate was in a populist, anti-establishment mood – hardly a
state of mind favorable to a wooden, richly globalist, Goldman-gilded candidate, a long-time
Washington-Wall Street establishment ("swamp") creature like Hillary Clinton.
In the end, FJC note, the billionaire Trump's ironic, fake-populist "outreach to blue collar
workers" would help him win "more than half of all voters with a high school education or less
(including 61% of white women with no college), almost two thirds of those who believed life
for the next generation of Americans would be worse than now, and seventy-seven percent of
voters who reported their personal financial situation had worsened since four years ago."
Trump's popularity with "heartland" rural and working-class whites even provoked Hillary
into a major campaign mistake: getting caught on video telling elite Manhattan election
investors that half of Trump's supporters were a "basket
of deplorables." There was a hauntingly strong parallel between Wall Street Hillary's
"deplorables" blooper and the super-rich Republican candidate Mitt Romney's
infamous 2012 gaffe : telling his own affluent backers saying that 47% of the population
were a bunch of lazy welfare cheats. This time, though, it was the Democrat – with a
campaign finance profile closer to Romney's than Obama's in 2012 – and not the Republican
making the ugly plutocratic and establishment faux pas .
"A Frontal Assault on the American Establishment"
Still, Trump's success was no less tied to big money than was Hillary's failure. Candidate
Trump ran strangely outside the longstanding neoliberal Washington Consensus, as an economic
nationalist and isolationist. His raucous rallies were laced with dripping denunciations of
Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, and globalization, mockery of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq,
rejection of the New Cold War with Russia, and pledges of allegiance to the "forgotten"
American "working-class." He was no normal Republican One Percent candidate. As FJC
explain:
"In 2016 the Republicans nominated yet another super-rich candidate – indeed,
someone on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. Like legions of conservative
Republicans before him, he trash-talked Hispanics, immigrants, and women virtually non-stop,
though with a verve uniquely his own. He laced his campaign with barely coded racial appeals
and in the final days, ran an ad widely denounced as subtly anti-Semitic. But in striking
contrast to every other Republican presidential nominee since 1936, he attacked
globalization, free trade, international financiers, Wall Street, and even Goldman Sachs. '
Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it
has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache . When
subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the
politicians do nothing. For years, they watched on the sidelines as our jobs vanished and our
communities were plunged into depression-level unemployment.'"
"In a frontal assault on the American establishment, the Republican standard bearer
proclaimed 'America First.' Mocking the Bush administration's appeal to 'weapons of mass
destruction' as a pretext for invading Iraq, he broke dramatically with two generations of GOP
orthodoxy and spoke out in favor of more cooperation with Russia . He even criticized
the 'carried interest' tax break beloved by high finance" (emphasis added).
Big Dark Money and Trump: His Own and Others'
This cost Trump much of the corporate and Wall Street financial support that Republican
presidential candidates usually get. The thing was, however, that much of Trump's "populist"
rhetoric was popular with a big part of the Republican electorate, thanks to the "Hunger Games"
insecurity of the transparently bipartisan New Gilded Age. And Trump's personal fortune
permitted him to tap that popular anger while leaping insultingly over the heads of his less
wealthy if corporate and Wall Street-backed competitors ("low energy" Jeb Bush and "little
Marco" Rubio most notably) in the crowded Republican primary race.
A Republican candidate
dependent on the usual elite bankrollers would never have been able to get away with Trump's
crowd-pleasing (and CNN and FOX News rating-boosting) antics. Thanks to his own wealth, the
faux-populist anti-establishment Trump was ironically inoculated against pre-emption in the
Republican primaries by the American campaign finance "wealth
primary," which renders electorally unviable candidates who lack vast financial resources
or access to them.
Things were different after Trump won the Republican nomination, however. He could no longer
go it alone after the primaries. During the Republican National Convention and "then again in
the late summer of 2016," FJC show, Trump's "solo campaign had to be rescued by major
industries plainly hoping for tariff relief, waves of other billionaires from the far, far
right of the already far right Republican Party, and the most disruption-exalting corners of
Wall Street." By FJC's account:
"What happened in the final weeks of the campaign was extraordinary. Firstly, a giant wave
of dark money poured into Trump's own campaign – one that towered over anything in 2016
or even Mitt Romney's munificently financed 2012 effort – to say nothing of any Russian
Facebook experiments [Then] another gigantic wave of money flowed in from alarmed business
interests, including the Kochs and their allies Officially the money was for Senate races,
but late-stage campaigning for down-ballot offices often spills over on to candidates for the
party at large."
"The run up to the Convention brought in substantial new money, including, for the first
time, significant contributions from big business. Mining, especially coal mining; Big Pharma
(which was certainly worried by tough talk from the Democrats, including Hillary Clinton,
about regulating drug prices); tobacco, chemical companies, and oil (including substantial
sums from executives at Chevron, Exxon, and many medium sized firms); and telecommunications
(notably AT&T, which had a major merge merger pending) all weighed in. Money from
executives at the big banks also began streaming in, including Bank of America, J. P. Morgan
Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. Parts of Silicon Valley also started coming in from
the cold."
"In a harbinger of things to come, additional money came from firms and industries that
appear to have been attracted by Trump's talk of tariffs, including steel and companies
making machinery of various types [a] vast wave of new money flowed into the campaign from
some of America's biggest businesses and most famous investors. Sheldon Adelson and many
others in the casino industry delivered in grand style for its old colleague. Adelson now
delivered more than $11 million in his own name, while his wife and other employees of his
Las Vegas Sands casino gave another $20 million.
Peter Theil contributed more than a million
dollars, while large sums also rolled in from other parts of Silicon Valley, including almost
two million dollars from executives at Microsoft and just over two million from executives at
Cisco Systems. A wave of new money swept in from large private equity firms, the part of Wall
Street which had long championed hostile takeovers as a way of disciplining what they mocked
as bloated and inefficient 'big business.' Virtual pariahs to main-line firms in the Business
Roundtable and the rest of Wall Street, some of these figures had actually gotten their start
working with Drexel Burnham Lambert and that firm's dominant partner, Michael Milkin.
Among
those were Nelson Peltz and Carl Icahn (who had both contributed to Trump before, but now
made much bigger new contributions). In the end, along with oil, chemicals, mining and a
handful of other industries, large private equity firms would become one of the few segments
of American business – and the only part of Wall Street – where support for Trump
was truly heavy the sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds clearly began
with the Convention but turned into a torrent "
The critical late wave came after Trump moved to rescue his flagging campaign by handing its
direction over to the clever, class-attuned, far-right white- and economic- nationalist
"populist" and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, who advocated what proved to be a winning,
Koch brothers-approved "populist" strategy: appeal to economically and culturally frustrated
working- and middle-class whites in key battleground states, where the bloodless neoliberal and
professional class centrism and snooty metropolitan multiculturalism of the Obama presidency
and Clinton campaign was certain to depress the
Democratic "base" vote. Along with the racist voter suppression carried out by Republican
state governments (JFC rightly chide Russia-obsessed political reporters and commentators for
absurdly ignoring this important factor) and (JFC intriguingly suggest) major anti-union
offensives conducted by employers in some battleground states, this major late-season influx of
big right-wing political money tilted the election Trump's way.
The Myth of Potent Russian Cyber-Subversion
As FJC show, there is little empirical evidence to support the Clinton and corporate
Democrats' self-interested and diversionary efforts to explain Mrs. Clinton's epic fail and
Trump's jaw-dropping upset victory as the result of (i) Russian interference, (ii), then FBI
Director James Comey's October Surprise revelation that his agency was not done investigating
Hillary's emails, and/or (iii) some imagined big wave of white working-class racism, nativism,
and sexism brought to the surface by the noxious Orange Hulk. The impacts of both (i) and (ii)
were infinitesimal in comparison to the role that big campaign money played both in silencing
Hillary and funding Trump.
The blame-the-deplorable-racist-white-working-class narrative is
belied by basic underlying continuities in white working class voting patterns. As FJC note: "
Neither turnout nor the partisan division of the vote at any level looks all that different
from other recent elections 2016's alterations in voting behavior are so minute that the
pattern is only barely differentiated from 2012." It was about the money – the big
establishment money that the Clinton campaign took (as FJC at least plausibly argue) to
recommend policy silence and the different, right-wing big money that approved Trump's
comparative right-populist policy boisterousness.
An interesting part of FJC's study (no quick or easy read) takes a close look at the
pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Internet activism that the Democrats and their many corporate media
allies are so insistently eager to blame on Russia and for Hillary's defeat. FJC find that
Russian Internet interventions were of tiny significance compared to those of homegrown U.S.
corporate and right-wing cyber forces:
"The real masters of these black arts are American or Anglo-American firms. These compete
directly with Silicon Valley and leading advertising firms for programmers and personnel.
They rely almost entirely on data purchased from Google, Facebook, or other suppliers,
not Russia . American regulators do next to nothing to protect the privacy of voters
and citizens, and, as we have shown in several studies, leading telecom firms are major
political actors and giant political contributors. As a result, data on the habits and
preferences of individual internet users are commercially available in astounding detail and
quantities for relatively modest prices – even details of individual credit card
purchases. The American giants for sure harbor abundant data on the constellation of bots,
I.P. addresses, and messages that streamed to the electorate "
" stories hyping 'the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and
infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups
already wary of one another by the Russians miss the mark.' By 2016, the Republican right had
developed internet outreach and political advertising into a fine art and on a massive scale
quite on its own. Large numbers of conservative websites, including many that that tolerated
or actively encouraged white supremacy and contempt for immigrants, African-Americans,
Hispanics, Jews, or the aspirations of women had been hard at work for years stoking up
'tensions between groups already wary of one another.' Breitbart and other organizations were
in fact going global, opening offices abroad and establishing contacts with like-minded
groups elsewhere. Whatever the Russians were up to, they could hardly hope to add much value
to the vast Made in America bombardment already underway. Nobody sows chaos like Breitbart or
the Drudge Report ."
" the evidence revealed thus far does not support strong claims about the likely success
of Russian efforts, though of course the public outrage at outside meddling is easy to
understand. The speculative character of many accounts even in the mainstream media is
obvious. Several, such as widely circulated declaration by the Department of Homeland
Security that 21 state election systems had been hacked during the election, have collapsed
within days of being put forward when state electoral officials strongly disputed them,
though some mainstream press accounts continue to repeat them. Other tales about Macedonian
troll factories churning out stories at the instigation of the Kremlin, are clearly
exaggerated."
The Sanders Tease: "He Couldn't Have Done a Thing"
Perhaps the most remarkable finding in FJC's study is that Sanders came tantalizingly close
to winning the Democratic presidential nomination against the corporately super-funded Clinton
campaign with no support from Big Business . Running explicitly against the "Hunger
Games" economy and the corporate-financial plutocracy that created it, Sanders pushed Hillary
the Goldman candidate to the wall, calling out the Democrats' capture by Wall Street, forcing
her to rely on a rigged party, convention, and primary system to defeat him. The small-donor
"socialist" Sanders challenge represented something Ferguson and his colleagues describe as
"without precedent in American politics not just since the New Deal, but across virtually the
whole of American history a major presidential candidate waging a strong, highly
competitive campaign whose support from big business is essentially zero ."
Sanders pulled this off, FJC might have added, by running in (imagine) accord with
majority-progressive left-of-center U.S. public opinion. But for the Clintons' corrupt advance-
control of the Democratic National Committee and convention delegates, Ferguson et al might
further have noted, Sanders might well have been the Democratic presidential nominee, curiously
enough in the arch-state-capitalist and oligarchic United States
Could Sanders have defeated the billionaire and right-wing billionaire-backed Trump in the
general election? There's no way to know, of course. Sanders consistently out-performed Hillary
Clinton in one-on-one match -up polls vis a vis Donald Trump during the primary season, but
much of the big money (and, perhaps much of the corporate media) that backed Hillary would have
gone over to Trump had the supposedly
"radical" Sanders been the Democratic nominee.
Even if Sanders has been elected president, moreover, Noam Chomsky is certainly correct in
his recent judgement that Sanders would have been able to achieve very little in the White
House. As Chomsky told Lynn Parramore two weeks ago, in
an interview conducted for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the same think-tank
that published FJC's remarkable study:
"His campaign [was] a break with over a century of American political history. No
corporate support, no financial wealth, he was unknown, no media support. The media simply
either ignored or denigrated him. And he came pretty close -- he probably could have won the
nomination, maybe the election. But suppose he'd been elected? He couldn't have done a thing.
Nobody in Congress, no governors, no legislatures, none of the big economic powers, which
have an enormous effect on policy. All opposed to him. In order for him to do anything, he
would have to have a substantial, functioning party apparatus, which would have to grow from
the grass roots. It would have to be locally organized, it would have to operate at local
levels, state levels, Congress, the bureaucracy -- you have to build the whole system from
the bottom."
As Chomsky might have added, Sanders oligarchy-imposed "failures" would have been great
fodder for the disparagement and smearing of "socialism" and progressive, majority-backed
policy change. "See? We tried all that and it was a disaster!"
I would note further that the Sanders phenomenon's policy promise was plagued by its
standard bearer's persistent loyalty to the giant and absurdly expensive U.S.-imperial Pentagon
System, which each year eats up hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars required to implement
the progressive, majority-supported policy agenda that Bernie F-35 Sanders ran
on.
"A Very Destructive Ideology"
The Sanders challenge was equally afflicted by its candidate-centered electoralism. This
diverted energy away from the real and more urgent politics of building people's movements
– grassroots power to shake the society to its foundations and change policy from the
bottom up (Dr. Martin Luther King's preferred strategy at the end of his life just barely short
of 50 years ago, on April 4 th , 1968) – and into the narrow, rigidly
time-staggered grooves of a party and spectacle-elections crafted by and for the wealthy Few
and the American
Oligarchy 's "permanent political class" (historian Ron Formisano). As Chomsky explained on the eve of the 2004
elections:
"Americans may be encouraged to vote, but not to participate more meaningfully in the
political arena. Essentially the election is a method of marginalizing the population. A huge
propaganda campaign is mounted to get people to focus on these personalized quadrennial
extravaganzas and to think, 'That's politics.' But it isn't. It's only a small part of
politics The urgency is for popular progressive groups to grow and become strong enough so
that centers of power can't ignore them. Forces for change that have come up from the grass
roots and shaken the society to its core include the labor movement, the civil rights
movement, the peace movement, the women's movement and others, cultivated by steady,
dedicated work at all levels, every day, not just once every four years sensible [electoral]
choices have to be made. But they are secondary to serious political action."
"The only thing that's going to ever bring about any meaningful change," Chomsky told Abby Martin on teleSur
English in the fall of 2015, "is ongoing, dedicated, popular movements that don't pay
attention to the election cycle." Under the American religion of voting,
Chomsky told Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson in the spring of 2016, "Citizenship means every
four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It's a
very destructive ideology basically, a way of making people passive, submissive objects [we]
ought to teach kids that elections take place but that's not politics."
For all his talk of standing atop a great "movement" for "revolution," Sanders was and
remains all about this stunted and crippling definition of citizenship and politics as making
some marks on ballots and then returning to our domiciles while rich people and their
agents (not just any "other guys") "run [ruin?-P.S.] the world [into the ground-P.S.]."
It will take much more in the way of Dr. King's politics of "who' sitting in the streets,"
not "who's sitting in the White House" (to use Howard Zinn's
excellent dichotomy ), to get us an elections and party system worthy of passionate citizen
engagement. We don't have such a system in the U.S. today, which is why the number of eligible
voters who passively boycotted the 2016 presidential election is larger than both the number
who voted for big money Hillary and the number who voted for big money Trump.
(If U.S. progressives really want to consider undertaking the epic lift involved in passing
a U.S. Constitutional Amendment, they might want to focus on this instead of calling for a
repeal of the Second Amendment. I'd recommend starting with a positive Democracy Amendment that
fundamentally overhauls the nation's political and elections set-up in accord with elementary
principles and practices of popular sovereignty. Clauses would include but not be limited to
full public financing of elections and the introduction of proportional representation for
legislative races – not to mention the abolition of the Electoral College, Senate
apportionment on the basis of total state population, and the outlawing of gerrymandering.)
Ecocide Trumped by Russia
Meanwhile, back in real history, we have the remarkable continuation of a bizarre
right-wing, pre-fascist presidency not in normal ruling-class hands, subject to the weird whims
and tweets of a malignant narcissist who doesn't read memorandums or intelligence briefings.
Wild policy zig-zags and record-setting White House personnel turnover are par for the course
under the dodgy reign of the orange-tinted beast's latest brain spasms. Orange Caligula spends
his mornings getting his information from FOX News and his evenings complaining to and seeking
advice from a small club of right-wing American oligarchs.
Trump poses grave environmental and nuclear risks to human survival. A consistent Trump
belief is that climate change is not a problem and that it's perfectly fine – "great" and
"amazing," in fact – for the White House to do everything it can to escalate the
Greenhouse Gassing-to-Death of Life on Earth. The nuclear threat is rising now that he has
appointed a frothing right-wing uber-warmonger – a longtime advocate of bombing Iran and
North Korea who led the charge for the arch-criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq – as his top
"National Security" adviser and as he been convinced to expel dozens of Russian diplomats.
Thanks, liberal and other Democratic Party RussiaGaters!
The Clinton-Obama neoliberal Democrats have spent more than a year running with the
preposterous narrative that Trump is a Kremlin puppet who owes his presence in the White House
to Russia's subversion of our democratic elections. The climate crisis holds little
for the Trump and Russia-obsessed corporate media. The fact that the world stands at the eve of
the ecological self-destruction, with the Trump White House in the lead, elicits barely a
whisper in the reigning commercial news media. Unlike Stormy Daniels, for example, that little
story – the biggest issue of our or any time – is not good for television ratings
and newspaper sales.
Sanders, by the way, is curiously invisible in the dominant commercial media, despite his
quiet survey status as the nation's "most popular politician." That is precisely what you would
expect in a corporate and financial oligarchy buttressed by a powerful corporate, so-called
"mainstream" media oligopoly.
Political Parties as "Bank Accounts"
One of the many problems with the obsessive Blame-Russia narrative that a fair portion of
the dominant U.S. media is running with is that we had no great electoral democracy to
subvert in 2016 . Saying that Russia has "undermined [U.S.-] American democracy" is like
me – middle-aged, five-foot nine, and unblessed with jumping ability – saying that
the Brooklyn Nets' Russian-born center Timofy Mozgof subverted my career as a starting player
in the National Basketball Association. In state-capitalist societies marked by the toxic and
interrelated combination of weak popular organization, expensive politics, and highly
concentrated wealth – all highly evident in the New Gilded Age United States –
electoral contests and outcomes boil down above all and in the end to big investor class cash.
As Thomas Ferguson and his colleagues explain:
"Where investment and organization by average citizens is weak, however, power passes by
default to major investor groups, which can far more easily bear the costs of contending for
control of the state. In most modern market-dominated societies (those celebrated recently as
enjoying the 'end of History'), levels of effective popular organization are generally low,
while the costs of political action, in terms of both information and transactional
obstacles, are high. The result is that conflicts within the business community normally
dominate contests within and between political parties – the exact opposite of what
many earlier social theorists expected, who imagined 'business' and 'labor' confronting each
other in separate parties Only candidates and positions that can be financed can be presented
to voters. As a result, in countries like the US and, increasingly, Western Europe, political parties are first of all bank accounts . With certain qualifications, one
must pay to play. Understanding any given election, therefore, requires a financial X-ray of
the power blocs that dominate the major parties, with both inter- and intra- industrial
analysis of their constituent elements."
Here Ferguson might have said "corporate-dominated" instead of "market-dominated" for the
modern managerial corporations emerged as the "visible hand" master of the "free market" more
than a century ago.
We get to vote? Big deal.
People get to vote in Rwanda, Russia, the Congo and countless
other autocratic states as well. Elections alone are no guarantee of democracy, as U.S.
policymakers and pundits know very well when they rip on rigged elections (often fixed with the
assistance of U.S. government and private-sector agents and firms) in countries they don't
like, which includes any country that dares to "question the basic principle that the United
States effectively owns the world by right and is by definition a force for good" ( Chomsky,
2016 ).
Majority opinion is regularly trumped by a deadly complex of forces in the U.S. The
list of interrelated and mutually reinforcing culprits behind this oligarchic defeat of popular
sentiment in the U.S. is extensive. It includes but is not limited to: the campaign finance,
candidate-selection, lobbying, and policy agenda-setting power of wealthy individuals,
corporations, and interest groups; the special primary election influence of full-time party
activists; the disproportionately affluent, white, and older composition of the active (voting)
electorate; the manipulation of voter turnout; the widespread dissemination of false,
confusing, distracting, and misleading information; absurdly and explicitly unrepresentative
political institutions like the Electoral College, the unelected Supreme Court, the
over-representation of the predominantly white rural population in the U.S. Senate; one-party
rule in the House of "Representatives"; the fragmentation of authority in government; and
corporate ownership of the reigning media, which frames current events in accord with the
wishes and world view of the nation's real owners.
Yes, we get to vote. Super. Big deal. Mammon reigns nonetheless in the United States, where,
as the leading liberal
political scientists Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens find , "government policy reflects the
wishes of those with money, not the wishes of the millions of ordinary citizens who turn out
every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates for federal office."
Trump is a bit of an anomaly – a sign of an elections and party system in crisis and an
empire in decline. He wasn't pre-approved or vetted by the usual U.S. "
deep state " corporate, financial, and imperial gatekeepers. The ruling-class had been
trying to figure out what the Hell to do with him ever since he shocked even himself
(though not Steve Bannon) by pre-empting the coronation of the "Queen of Chaos."
He is a
homegrown capitalist oligarch nonetheless, a real estate mogul of vast and parasitic wealth who
is no more likely to fulfill his populist-sounding campaign pledges than any previous POTUS of
the neoliberal era.
His lethally racist, sexist, nativist, nuclear-weapons-brandishing, and
(last but not at all least) eco-cidal rise to the nominal CEO position atop the U.S.-imperial
oligarchy is no less a reflection of the dominant role of big U.S. capitalist money and
homegrown plutocracy in U.S. politics than a more classically establishment Hillary ascendancy
would have been. It's got little to do with Russia, Russia, Russia – the great diversion
that fills U.S. political airwaves and newsprint as the world careens ever closer to
oligarchy-imposed geocide and to a thermonuclear conflagration that the RussiaGate gambit is
recklessly encouraging.
"... If Mueller's probe drags on and fails to produce a "smoking gun," the whole affair may end up seeming so complex, muddy, and partisan that most of the public would prefer to move on, eager to talk about something else . ..."
"... In 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole decided to take a hard line on China -- portraying the nation as a growing economic and geopolitical threat to the United States and a violator of international rules and norms. In response, China tried to leverage its extensive diplomatic , intelligence , and financial networks in the United States in order to sway the election in favor of Dole's rival, Democrat Bill Clinton. ..."
"... This is not a theory, it is historical fact: there was a major Congressional investigation . In the end, several prominent Democratic fundraisers, including close Clinton associates, were found to be complicit in the Chinese meddling efforts and pled guilty to various charges of violating campaign finance and disclosure laws (most notably James T. Riady , Johnny Chung , John Huang , and Charlie Trie ). Several others fled the country to escape U.S. jurisdiction as the probe got underway. The Democratic National Committee was forced to return millions of dollars in ill-gotten funds (although by that point, of course, their candidate had already won). ..."
"... Clinton authorized a series of controversial defense contracts with China as well -- despite Department of Justice objections . Federal investigators were concerned that the contractors seemed to be passing highly sensitive and classified information to the Chinese. And indeed, the companies in question were eventually found to have violated the law by giving cutting-edge missile technology to China, and paid unprecedented fines related to the Arms Export Control Act during the administration of George W. Bush. But they were inexplicably approved in the Bill Clinton years. ..."
A president can be reelected despite corruption, foreign meddling, and sex
scandals Bill Clinton was reelected with help from China. / The Baffler Imagine for a
moment that special counsel Robert Mueller is unable to establish direct and intentional
collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Or, suppose he proves collusion by a few
former campaign aides but finds nothing directly implicating the president himself. In either
event -- or in just about any other imaginable scenario -- it seems improbable that Congress
will have the votes to impeach Trump or otherwise hold him accountable prior to 2020.
In other words, Russiagate could well continue to distract and infuriate Trump without
breaking his hold on power.
Is it shocking to think evidence of Russian chicanery could be shrugged off? Don't be
shocked. After all, the last major case of foreign meddling and collusion in a U.S.
presidential race didn't exactly end up rocking the republic.
In 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole decided to
take a hard line on China -- portraying the nation as a growing economic and geopolitical
threat to the United States and a violator of international rules and norms. In response, China
tried to leverage its extensive diplomatic
, intelligence
, and financial
networks in the United States in order to sway the election in favor of Dole's rival, Democrat
Bill Clinton.
This is not a theory, it is historical fact: there was a major
Congressional investigation . In the end, several prominent Democratic fundraisers,
including close Clinton associates, were found to be complicit in the Chinese meddling efforts
and pled guilty to various charges of violating campaign finance and disclosure laws (most
notably James
T. Riady , Johnny Chung , John Huang , and
Charlie Trie ). Several others fled
the country to escape U.S. jurisdiction as the probe got underway. The Democratic National
Committee was forced to return millions of dollars
in ill-gotten funds (although by that point, of course, their candidate had already won).
It was a scandal that persisted after the election in no small part because many of
Clinton's own policies in his second term seemed to lend credence to insinuations of
collusion.
Several prominent Democratic fundraisers, including close Clinton associates, were found
to be complicit in Chinese meddling efforts and pled guilty to campaign finance
violations.
Rather than attempting to punish the meddling country for undermining the bedrock of our
democracy, Bill Clinton worked to ease sanctions and
normalize relations with Beijing -- even as the U.S. ratcheted up sanctions against Cuba,
Iran, and Iraq. By the end of his term, he signed a series of sweeping trade deals that
radically expanded China's economic and geopolitical clout -- even though some in
his administration
forecast that this would come at the expense of key American industries and U.S.
manufacturing workers.
Clinton authorized a series of controversial defense contracts with China as well --
despite Department of Justice objections . Federal investigators were concerned that the
contractors seemed to be passing highly sensitive and classified information to the Chinese.
And indeed, the companies in question were eventually
found to have violated the law by giving cutting-edge missile technology to China, and paid
unprecedented fines related to the Arms Export Control Act during the administration of George
W. Bush. But they were inexplicably approved in the Bill Clinton years.
For a while, polls showed that the public found the president's posture on China to be so
disconcerting that most supported appointing an independent
counsel (a la Mueller) to investigate whether the Clinton Administration had essentially been "
bought ."
Law enforcement officials shared these concerns: FBI director Louis Freeh (whom Clinton
could not get rid of, having just
fired his predecessor ) publically called
for the appointment of an independent counsel. So did the chief prosecutor charged with
investigating Chinese meddling, Charles La
Bella . However, they were blocked at every turn by Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno
-- eventually leading La Bella to resign in protest of the AG's
apparent obstruction.
The 1996 Chinese collusion story, much like the 2016 Russian collusion story, dragged on for
nearly two years -- hounding Clinton at every turn. That is, until it was discovered that the
president had been having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The 1996 Chinese collusion story dragged on for nearly two years -- hounding Clinton at
every turn. That is, until the Monica Lewinsky scandal came along.
This was Bill Clinton's second known extra-marital
affair with a subordinate : in the lead-up to his 1992 election it was also discovered that
Clinton had been involved in a long-running affair with Gennifer Flowers -- an employee of the
State of Arkansas during Bill's governorship there,
appointed as a result of Clinton's intercession on her behalf.
The drama of the inquiry into Bill Clinton's myriad alleged sexual improprieties, the
President's invocation of executive
privilege to prevent his aides from having to testify against him, Clinton's perjury ,
subsequent
impeachment by the House,
acquittal in the Senate, and eventual
plea-bargain deal -- these sucked the oxygen away from virtually all other stories related
to the president.
Indeed, few today seem to remember that the Chinese meddling occurred at all. This despite
continuing China-related financial improprieties involving both
the Clintons and the DNC Chairman who presided over the 1996 debacle,
Terry McAuliffe -- and despite the fact that the intended target of the current
foreign meddling attempt just so happens to be married to the intended beneficiary of
the last.
And the irony in this, of course, is that not only do we find ourselves reliving an
apparently ill-fated collusion investigation, but the foreign meddling story is once again
competing with a presidential sex scandal -- this time involving actual porn stars. (Gennifer
Flowers and Paula Jones both
posed for Penthouseafter their involvement with Clinton surfaced.
Stormy Daniels and Karen
McDougal are well-established in the industry.)
Much like Bill Clinton, our current president has a long pattern of accusations of
infidelity, sexual harassment and even assault. However all of Trump's alleged sexual
misconduct incidents occurred before he'd assumed any public office. Therefore,
although some Democrats hope to provide Trump's accusers an opportunity to
testify before Congress if their party manages to retake the House in 2018, the
legal impact of these accounts is likely to be nil. The political significance of such
theater is likely being overestimated as well.
The danger for Democrats in all this is that they could get lulled into the notion that
Trump's liabilities -- the Mueller probe, the alleged affairs, and whatever new scandals and
outrages Trump generates in the next two years -- will be sufficient to energize and mobilize
their base in 2020. Democratic insiders and fatcats are likely to think they can put forward
the same sort of unpalatable candidate and platform they did last cycle -- only this time,
they'll win! A strong showing in 2018 could even reinforce this sense of complacency -- leading
to another debacle in the race for the White House in 2020.
Democrats consistently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by believing they've got some
kind of lock. Remember the " Emerging Democratic Majority
" thesis? Remember Hillary Clinton's alleged 2016 " Electoral Firewall ?"
What have the Democrats learned from 2016? The answer is, very little if they believe the
essential problem was just James Comey and the Russians.
Here's one lesson Democrats would do well to internalize:
The party has won by running charismatic people against Republican cornflake candidates (see
Clinton v. Bush I or Dole, or Obama v. McCain or Romney). Yet whenever Democrats find
themselves squaring off against a faux-populist who plays to voters' base instincts, the party
always make the same move: running a wonky technocrat with an impressive resume, detailed
policy proposals, and little else.
Does it succeed in drawing a sharp contrast? Pretty much always. Does it succeed at winning
the White House? Pretty much never: Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and now Clinton.
Democrats could be headed for trouble if they are counting on the Mueller investigation to
bring Trump down.
Democrats rely heavily on irregular voters to win elections; negative partisanship races
tend to depress turnout for these constituents. More broadly, if left with a choice between a
"lesser of two evils" the public
tends to stick with the "devil they know." In short: precisely what Democrats
don't need in 2020 is a negative partisanship race.
A referendum on Trump might not play out the way Democrats expect. Against all odds, it
looks like the president will even have
an actual record to run on . He should not be underestimated.
Clinton-style triangulation is also likely to backfire. Contemporary research suggests there
just aren't a lot of " floating voters " up for grabs
these days. Rather than winning over disaffected Republicans, this approach would likely just
alienate the Democratic base.
The party's best bet is to instead focus on
mobilizing the left by articulating a compelling positive message for why Americans should
vote for them (rather than just against Trump). They will need to respond to Trump
with
a populist of their own -- someone who can credibly appeal to people in former Obama
districts that
Hillary Clinton lost . And they need to activate those who
sat the last election out -- for instance by delivering for elements of their base that the
party has largely taken for granted in recent cycles.
If the Democratic National Committee wants to spend its time talking about Russia and sex
scandals instead of tending to these priorities, then we should all brace for another humiliating
"black swan" defeat for the party in 2020.
But, you say, isn't Trump the
least popular president ever after one year in office? Guess whose year-one
(un)popularity is closest to Trump's? Ronald Reagan. He was under 50 percent in approval
ratings at the end of his first year; but he went on to win reelection in an historic
landslide. Barack Obama was barely breaking
even after year one but won reelection comfortably. Bill Clinton was only slightly above 50
percent after his first year.
You know who else had the lowest approval rating in a quarter-century after Trump's first
year in office? The
Democratic Party.
Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at
Columbia University. Readers can connect to his research and social media via his website .
"Institutionally, the Democratic Party Is Not Democratic"
Very apt characterization "the Democratic Party is nothing more
than a layer of indirection between the donor class and the Democratic consultants and the
campaigns they run;" ... " after all, the Democratic Party -- in its current incarnation -- has important roles to play
in not expanding its "own" electorate through voter registration, in the care and feeding of the intelligence community, in
warmongering, in the continual buffing and polishing of neoliberal ideology, and in general keeping the Overton Window firmly
nailed in place against policies that would convey universal concrete material benefits, especially to the working class"
Notable quotes:
"... That said, the revivification of the DNC lawsuit serves as a story hook for me to try to advance the story on the nature of political parties as such, the Democratic Party as an institution, and the function that the Democratic Party serves. I will meander through those three topics, then, and conclude. ..."
"... What sort of legal entity is ..."
"... Political parties were purely private organizations from the 1790s until the Civil War. Thus, "it was no more illegal to commit fraud in the party caucus or primary than it would be to do so in the election of officers of a drinking club." However, due to the efforts of Robert La Follette and the Progressives, states began to treat political parties as "public agencies" during the early 1890s and 1900s; by the 1920s "most states had adopted a succession of mandatory statutes regulating every major aspect of the parties' structures and operations. ..."
"... While 1787 delegates disagreed on when corruption might occur, they brought a general shared understanding of what political corruption meant. To the delegates, political corruption referred to self-serving use of public power for private ends, including, without limitation, bribery, public decisions to serve private wealth made because of dependent relationships, public decisions to serve executive power made because of dependent relationships, and use by public officials of their positions of power to become wealthy. ..."
"... Two features of the definitional framework of corruption at the time deserve special attention, because they are not frequently articulated by all modern academics or judges. The first feature is that corruption was defined in terms of an attitude toward public service, not in relation to a set of criminal laws. The second feature is that citizenship was understood to be a public office. The delegates believed that non-elected citizens wielding or attempting to influence public power can be corrupt and that elite corruption is a serious threat to a polity. ..."
"... You can see how a political party -- a strange, amphibious creature, public one moment, private the next -- is virtually optimized to create a phishing equilibrium for corruption. However, I didn't really answer my question, did I? I still don't know what sort of legal entity the Democratic Party is. However, I can say what the Democratic Party is not ..."
"... So the purpose of superdelegates is to veto a popular choice, if they decide the popular choice "can't govern." But this is circular. Do you think for a moment that the Clintonites would have tried to make sure President Sanders couldn't have governed? You bet they would have, and from Day One. ..."
"... More importantly, you can bet that the number of superdelegates retained is enough for the superdelegates, as a class, to maintain their death grip on the party. ..."
"... could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. ..."
"... That's exactly ..."
"... Functionally, the Democratic Party Is a Money Trough for Self-Dealing Consultants. Here once again is Nomiki Konst's amazing video, before the DNC: https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAvblBnXV-w Those millions! That's real money! ..."
"... Today, it is openly acknowledged by many members that the DNC and the Clinton campaign were running an operation together. In fact, it doesn't take much research beyond FEC filings to see that six of the top major consulting firms had simultaneous contracts with the DNC and HRC -- collectively earning over $335 million since 2015 [this figure balloons in Konst's video because she got a look at the actual budget]. (This does not include SuperPACs.) ..."
"... One firm, GMMB earned $236.3 million from HFA and $5.3 from the DNC in 2016. Joel Benenson, a pollster and strategist who frequents cable news, collected $4.1m from HFA while simultaneously earning $3.3 million from the DNC. Perkins Coie law firm collected $3.8 million from the DNC, $481,979 from the Convention fund and $1.8 million from HFA in 2016. ..."
"... It gets worse. Not only do the DNC's favored consultants pick sides in the primaries, they serve on the DNC boards so they can give themselves donor money. ..."
"... These campaign consultants make a lot more money off of TV and mail than they do off of field efforts. Field efforts are long-term, labor-intensive, high overhead expenditures that do not have big margins from which the consultants can draw their payouts. They also don't allow the consultants to make money off of multiple campaigns all in the same cycle, while media and mail campaigns can be done from their DC office for dozens of clients all at the same time. They get paid whether campaigns win or lose, so effectiveness is irrelevant to them. ..."
"... the Democratic Party is nothing more than a layer of indirection between the donor class and the Democratic consultants and the campaigns they run; ..."
"... the Democratic Party -- in its current incarnation -- has important roles to play in not expanding its "own" electorate through voter registration, in the care and feeding of the intelligence community, in warmongering, in the continual buffing and polishing of neoliberal ideology, and in general keeping the Overton Window firmly nailed in place against policies that would convey universal concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. ..."
"... the bottom line is that if Democratic Party controls ballot access for the forseeable future, they have to be gone through ..."
"... In retrospect, despite Sanders evident appeal and the power of his list, I think it would have been best if their faction's pushback had been much stronger ..."
An alert reader who is a representative of the class that's suing the DNC Services
Corporation for fraud in the 2016 Democratic primary -- WILDING et al. v. DNC SERVICES
CORPORATION et al., a.k.a. the "DNC lawsuit" -- threw some interesting mail over the transom;
it's from Elizabeth Beck of Beck & Lee, the firm that brought the case on behalf of the
(putatively) defrauded class (and hence their lawyer). Beck's letter reads in relevant
part:
The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation
engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as
Secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill.
FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the Foundation was started, have taken the lead in
the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law
enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in coming weeks.
The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether
the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable
efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government
outcomes.
The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or
political use and whether the Foundation complied with applicable tax laws, the officials
said.
... ... ...
One challenge for any Clinton-era investigation is that the statute of limitations on most
federal felonies is five years and Clinton left office in early 2013.
"... I got to thinking today about how neocon and neoliberal are becoming interchangeable terms. ..."
"... As neoconservatism developed, that is with Iraq and Afghanistan, the neocons even came to embrace nation building which had always been anathema to traditional conservatism. Neocons sold this primarily by casting nation building in military terms, the creation and training of police and security forces in the target country. ..."
"... 9/11 too was critical. It vastly increased the scope of the neocon project in spawning the Global War on Terror. It increased the stage of neocon operations to the entire planet. ..."
"... Politically, neoconservatism has become the bipartisan foreign policy consensus. Democrats are every bit as neocon in their views as Republicans. Only a few libertarians on the right and progressives on the left reject it. ..."
"... The roots of neoliberalism are the roots of kleptocracy. Both begin under Carter. Neoliberalism also known at various times and places as the Washington Consensus (under Clinton) and the Chicago School is the political expression for public consumption of the kleptocratic economic philosophy, just as libertarian and neoclassical economics (both fresh and salt water varieties) are its academic and governmental face. The central tenets of neoliberalism are deregulation, free markets, and free trade. If neoliberalism had a prophet or a patron saint, it was Milton Friedman. ..."
"... Again just as neoconservatism and kleptocracy or bipartisan so too is neoliberalism. There really is no daylight between Reaganism/supply side economics/trickledown on the Republican side and Clinton's Washington Consensus or Team Obama on the other. ..."
"... The distinctions between neoconservatism and neoliberalism are being increasingly lost, perhaps because most of our political classes are practitioners of both. ..."
"... At the same time, neoliberalism went from domestic to global, and here I am not just thinking about neoliberal experiments, like Pinochet's Chile or post-Soviet Russia, but the financialization of the world economy and the adoption of kleptocracy as the world economic model. ..."
"... I'm now under the opinion that you can't talk about any of the "neo-isms" without talking about the corporate state. ..."
"... With neocons, it manifests itself through the military-industrial complex (Boeing, Raytheon, etc.), and with neolibs it manifests itself through finance and industrial policy. ..."
"... But each leg has two components, a statist component and a corporate component. ..."
"... It also explains why economic/financial interests (neolib) are now considered national security interests (neocon). The viability of the state is now tied to the viability of the corporation. ..."
"... Corporate/statist (not sure "corporate" captures the looting/rentier aspect though). We see it everywhere, for example in the revolving door. ..."
"... I think you could also make the argument that Obama is perhaps the most ideal combination of neolib & neocon. ..."
"... A reading of the classical liberal economists puts some breaks on the markets, corporations, etc. Neoliberalism goes to the illogical extremes of market theory and iirc, has some influence from the Austrian school ... which gives up on any pretense of scientific exposition of economics or rationality at the micro level, assuming that irrationality will magically become rational behavior in aggregate. ..."
"... Therefore, US conservatives post Eisenhower but especially post Reagan are almost certainly economic neoliberals. Since Clinton, liberals/Democrats have been too (at least the elected ones). You nailed neoconservative and both parties are in foreign policy since at least Clinton ... though here lets not forget to go back as far as JFK and his extreme anti-Communism that led to all sorts of covert operations, The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Remember, the Soviets put the missiles in Cuba because we put missiles in Turkey and they backed down from Cuba because we agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey; Nikita was nice enough not to talk about that so that Kennedy didn't lose face. ..."
"... Perhaps it should be pointed out that the Clintons became fabulously wealthy just after Bill left office, mostly on the strength of his speaking engagements for the financial sector that he'd just deregulated. ..."
"... The unfortunate fact of the matter is that at that level of politics, the levers of money and power work equally well on both party's nomenklatura. They flock to it like moths to porch light. ..."
"... "Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ..."
I got to thinking today about how neocon and neoliberal are becoming interchangeable terms. They did not start out that
way. My understanding is they are ways of rationalizing breaks with traditional conservatism and liberalism. Standard conservatism
was fairly isolationist. Conservatism's embrace of the Cold War put it at odds with this tendency. This was partially resolved by
accepting the Cold War as a military necessity despite its international commitments but limiting civilian programs like foreign
aid outside this context and rejecting the concept of nation building altogether.
With the end of the Cold War conservative internationalism needed a new rationale, and this was supplied by the neoconservatives.
They advocated the adoption of conservatism's Cold War military centered internationalism as the model for America's post-Cold War
international relations. After all, why drop a winning strategy? America had won the Cold War against a much more formidable opponent
than any left on the planet. What could go wrong?
America's ability not simply to project but its willingness to use military power was equated with its power more generally. If
America did not do this, it was weak and in decline. However, the frequent use of military power showed that America was great and
remained the world's hegemon. In particular, the neocons focused on the Middle East. This sales pitch gained them the backing of
both supporters of Israel (because neoconservatism was unabashedly pro-Israel) and the oil companies. The military industrial complex
was also on board because the neocon agenda effectively countered calls to reduce military spending. But neoconservatism was not
just confined to these groups. It appealed to both believers in American exceptionalism and backers of humanitarian interventions
(of which I once was one).
As neoconservatism developed, that is with Iraq and Afghanistan, the neocons even came to embrace nation building which had always
been anathema to traditional conservatism. Neocons sold this primarily by casting nation building in military terms, the creation
and training of police and security forces in the target country.
9/11 too was critical. It vastly increased the scope of the neocon project in spawning the Global War on Terror. It increased
the stage of neocon operations to the entire planet. It effectively erased the distinction between the use of military force against
countries and individuals. Individuals more than countries became targets for military, not police, action. And unlike traditional
wars or the Cold War itself, this one would never be over. Neoconservatism now had a permanent raison d'être.
Politically, neoconservatism has become the bipartisan foreign policy consensus. Democrats are every bit as neocon in their views
as Republicans. Only a few libertarians on the right and progressives on the left reject it.
Neoliberalism, for its part, came about to address the concern of liberals, especially Democrats, that they were too anti-business
and too pro-union, and that this was hurting them at the polls. It was sold to the rubiat as pragmatism.
The roots of neoliberalism are the roots of kleptocracy. Both begin under Carter. Neoliberalism also known at various times and
places as the Washington Consensus (under Clinton) and the Chicago School is the political expression for public consumption of the
kleptocratic economic philosophy, just as libertarian and neoclassical economics (both fresh and salt water varieties) are its academic
and governmental face. The central tenets of neoliberalism are deregulation, free markets, and free trade. If neoliberalism had a
prophet or a patron saint, it was Milton Friedman.
Again just as neoconservatism and kleptocracy or bipartisan so too is neoliberalism. There really is no daylight between Reaganism/supply
side economics/trickledown on the Republican side and Clinton's Washington Consensus or Team Obama on the other.
And just as we saw with neoconservatism, neoliberalism expanded from its core premises and effortlessly transitioned into globalization,
which can also be understood as global kleptocracy.
The distinctions between neoconservatism and neoliberalism are being increasingly lost, perhaps because most of our political
classes are practitioners of both. But initially at least neoconservatism was focused on foreign policy and neoliberalism on
domestic economic policy. As the War on Terror expanded, however, neoconservatism came back home with the creation and expansion
of the surveillance state.
At the same time, neoliberalism went from domestic to global, and here I am not just thinking about neoliberal experiments,
like Pinochet's Chile or post-Soviet Russia, but the financialization of the world economy and the adoption of kleptocracy as the
world economic model.
jest on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 5:55am
I'm now under the opinion that you can't talk about any of the "neo-isms" without talking about the corporate state.
That's really the tie that binds the two things you are speaking of.
With neocons, it manifests itself through the military-industrial complex (Boeing, Raytheon, etc.), and with neolibs it
manifests itself through finance and industrial policy.
For example, you need the US gov't to bomb Iraq (Raytheon) in order to secure oil (Halliburton), which is priced & financed
in US dollars (Goldman Sachs). It's like a 3-legged stool; if you remove one of these legs, the whole thing comes down. But
each leg has two components, a statist component and a corporate component.
The entity that enables all of this is the corporate state.
It also explains why economic/financial interests (neolib) are now considered national security interests (neocon). The viability
of the state is now tied to the viability of the corporation.
lambert on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 9:18am
Corporate/statist (not sure "corporate" captures the looting/rentier aspect though). We see it everywhere, for example in the
revolving door.
I think the stool has more legs and is also more dynamic; more like Ikea furniture. For example, the press is surely critical
in organizing the war.
But the yin/yang of neo-lib/neo-con is nice: It's as if the neo-cons handle the kinetic aspects (guns, torture) and the neo-libs
handle the mental aspects (money, mindfuckery) but both merge (like Negronponte being on the board of Americans Select) over time
as margins fall and decorative aspects like democratic institutions and academic freedom get stripped away. The state and the
corporation have always been tied to each other but now the ties are open and visible (for example, fines are just a cost of doing
business, a rent on open corruption.)
And then there's the concept of "human resource," that abstracts all aspects of humanity away except those that are exploitable.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
jest on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 1:37pm
I like the term much better than Fascist, as it is 1) more accurate, 2) avoids the Godwin's law issue, and 3) makes them sound
totalitarianist.
Yes, I would agree that additional legs make sense. The media aspect is essential, as it neutralizes the freedom of the press,
without changing the constitution. It dovetails pretty well with the notion of Inverted Totalitarianism.
I think you could also make the argument that Obama is perhaps the most ideal combination of neolib & neocon. The
two sides of him flow together so seamlessly, no one seems to notice. But that's in part because he is so corporate.
Lex on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 8:28am
Actually, neoliberalism is an economic term. An economic liberal in the UK and EU is for open markets, capitalism, etc. You're
right that neoliberalism comes heavily from the University of Chicago, but it has little to do with American political liberalism.
A reading of the classical liberal economists puts some breaks on the markets, corporations, etc. Neoliberalism goes to the
illogical extremes of market theory and iirc, has some influence from the Austrian school ... which gives up on any pretense of
scientific exposition of economics or rationality at the micro level, assuming that irrationality will magically become rational
behavior in aggregate.
Therefore, US conservatives post Eisenhower but especially post Reagan are almost certainly economic neoliberals. Since Clinton,
liberals/Democrats have been too (at least the elected ones). You nailed neoconservative and both parties are in foreign policy
since at least Clinton ... though here lets not forget to go back as far as JFK and his extreme anti-Communism that led to all
sorts of covert operations, The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Remember, the Soviets put the missiles in
Cuba because we put missiles in Turkey and they backed down from Cuba because we agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey; Nikita
was nice enough not to talk about that so that Kennedy didn't lose face.
"Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Hugh on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 3:57pm
I agree that neoconservatism and neoliberalism are two facets of corporatism/kleptocracy. I like the kinetic vs. white collar
distinction.
The roots of neoliberalism go back to the 1940s and the Austrians, but in the US it really only comes into currency with Clinton
as a deliberate shift of the Democratic/liberal platform away from labor and ordinary Americans to make it more accommodating
to big business and big money. I had never heard of neoliberalism before Bill Clinton but it is easy to see how those tendencies
were at work under Carter, but not under Johnson.
This was a rough and ready sketch. I guess I should also have mentioned PNAC or the Project to Find a New Mission for the MIC.
Hugh on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 10:44pm
I have never understood this love of Clinton that some Democrats have just as I have never understood the attraction of Reagan
for Republicans. There is no Clinton faction. There is no Obama faction. Hillary Clinton is Obama's frigging Secretary of State.
Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both of whom served as Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, were Obama's top financial and economic
advisors. Timothy Geithner was their protégé. Leon Panetta Obama's Director of the CIA and current Secretary of Defense was Clinton's
Director of OMB and then Chief of Staff.
The Democrats as a party are neoconservative and neoliberal as are Obama and the Clintons. As are Republicans.
What does corporations need regulation mean? It is rather like saying that the best way to deal with cancer is to find a cure
for it. Sounds nice but there is no content to it. Worse in the real world, the rich own the corporations, the politicians, and
the regulators. So even if you come up with good ideas for regulation they aren't going to happen.
What you are suggesting looks a whole lot another iteration of lesser evilism meets Einstein's definition of insanity. How
is it any different from any other instance of Democratic tribalism?
Lex on Mon, 08/20/2012 - 11:49pm
Perhaps it should be pointed out that the Clintons became fabulously wealthy just after Bill left office, mostly on the strength
of his speaking engagements for the financial sector that he'd just deregulated. Both he and Hillary hew to a pretty damned neoconservative
foreign policy ... with that dash of "humanitarian interventionism" that makes war palatable to liberals.
But your deeper point is that there isn't enough of a difference between Obama and Bill Clinton to really draw a distinction,
not in terms of ideology. What a theoretical Hillary Clinton presidency would have looked like is irrelevant, because both Bill
and Obama talked a lot different than they walked. Any projection of a Hillary Clinton administration is just that and requires
arguing that it would have been different than Bill's administration and policies.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that at that level of politics, the levers of money and power work equally well on
both party's nomenklatura. They flock to it like moths to porch light.
That the money chose Obama over Clinton doesn't say all that much, because there's no evidence suggesting that the money didn't
like Clinton or that it would have chosen McCain over Clinton. It's not as if Clinton's campaign was driven into the ground by
lack of funds.
Regardless, that to be a Democrat i would kind of have to chose between two factions that are utterly distasteful to me just
proves that i have no business being a Democrat. And since i wouldn't vote for either of those names, i guess i'll just stick
to third parties and exit the political tribalism loop for good.
"Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those
scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social
status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic..."
McClatchy
points out, since March 2015 Judicial Watch has been engaged in a back and forth battle with
the National Archives which argues that "the documents should be kept secret [to preserve]
grand jury secrecy and Clinton's personal privacy."
Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that files Freedom of Information Act
requests, wants copies of the documents that the National Archives and Records Administration
has declined to release. It filed a FOIA request for the documents in March 2015 and in October
2015 the group sued for the 238 pages of responsive records.
According to Judicial Watch: " The National Archives argues that the documents should be
kept secret, citing grand jury secrecy and Clinton's personal privacy."
But Judicial Watch says that because so much about the Whitewater case has already been made
public, "there is no secrecy or privacy left to protect."
The documents in question are alleged drafts of indictments written by Hickman Ewing, the
chief deputy of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel appointed to investigate Bill and
Hillary Clinton's alleged involvement in fraudulent real estate dealings dating back to the
70's.
Ewing told investigators he drafted the indictments in April 1995. According to Judicial
Watch, the documents pertain to allegations that Hillary Clinton provided false information and
withheld information from those investigating the Whitewater scandal.
Meanwhile, for those who haven't been alive long enough to remember some of the original
Clinton scandals dating back to the 1970's, the Whitewater scandal revolved around a series of
shady real estate deals in the Ozarks, not to mention a couple of illegal, federally-insured
loans, back when Bill was Governor of Arkansas.
Of course, like with all Clinton scandals, while several other people ended up in jail as a
result of the FBI's Whitewater investigation, Bill and Hillary emerged unscathed. Wikipedia
offers more details:
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal (or simply Whitewater), was an American
political episode of the 1990s that began with an investigation into the real estate
investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal,
in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture in the 1970s and
1980s.
A March 1992 New York Times article published during the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign
reported that the Clintons, then governor and first lady of Arkansas, had invested and lost
money in the Whitewater Development Corporation. The article stimulated the interest of L. Jean
Lewis, a Resolution Trust Corporation investigator who was looking into the failure of Madison
Guaranty Savings and Loan, also owned by Jim and Susan McDougal.
Lewis looked for connections between the savings and loan company and the Clintons, and on
September 2, 1992, she submitted a criminal referral to the FBI naming Bill and Hillary Clinton
as witnesses in the Madison Guaranty case. Little Rock U.S. Attorney Charles A. Banks and the
FBI determined that the referral lacked merit, but Lewis continued to pursue the case. From
1992 to 1994, Lewis issued several additional referrals against the Clintons and repeatedly
called the U.S. Attorney's Office in Little Rock and the Justice Department regarding the case.
Her referrals eventually became public knowledge, and she testified before the Senate
Whitewater Committee in 1995.
David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against the Clintons, claimed in November
1993 that Bill Clinton had pressured him into providing an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan
McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. The allegations were regarded as
questionable because Hale had not mentioned Clinton in reference to this loan during the
original FBI investigation of Madison Guaranty in 1989; only after coming under indictment
himself in 1993, did Hale make allegations against the Clintons. A U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the
Whitewater project. Jim Guy Tucker, Bill Clinton's successor as governor, was convicted of
fraud and sentenced to four years of probation for his role in the matter. Susan McDougal
served 18 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions relating to
Whitewater.
Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary were ever prosecuted, after three separate inquiries found
insufficient evidence linking them with the criminal conduct of others related to the land
deal.
Just more attempts to "criminalize behavior that is normal"...
"National Security" Will Prevail Again. Hillary's health and mental condition are at
risk.
Hillary/Diezapam 2020
Holy war? FFS people, this shit's straight out of the End of Days stories or numerous
religious, spiritual and philosophical belief systems. Yes, the war between good and evil is
real and evil has the upper hand at the moment. Greatly has the upper hand.
Edit and More Importantly, Andre Ward's announced his retirement from boxing Man was a
thing of beauty in the ring....
In 1999, nine years before the Calabrese interview, Zeifman told the Scripps-Howard news
agency: "If I had the power to fire her, I would have fired her." In a 2008 interview on "The
Neal Boortz Show," Zeifman was asked directly whether he fired her. His answer: "Well, let me
put it this way. I terminated her, along with some other staff members who were ! we no
longer needed, and advised her that I would not ! could not recommend her for any further
positions."
They owned the property of what was most likely a drug smuggling operation in Paron,
Arkansas.
That property has ties with the Rose law firm in Little Rock , in which Hillary Rodham
Clinton was formerly a partner. While some observers believe the property was intended as an
additional presidential residence - the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, for example, reported it
was rumored to be a "White House West"; and contractors who worked on it whimsically tagged
it "Camp Chelsea" - there are strong indications something quite different might be taking
place in Paron
Simultaneous with this, residents said there was an increase in low-flying airplanes over
the property. Unlike the military aircraft that occasionally fly over the area, these were
"small Cessna-like" aircraft, according to Hill. He said the planes typically fly through a
pass in the Cockspur Mountains on Southeast's property, several miles from the main road.
"After the planes leave, 20 to 30 minutes will go by, and small trucks and Jeeps leave the
property at two different entrances," said Hill. He added that neighbors, during a flurry of
aircraft activity, had logged the details, which they then passed on to federal
authorities
The ones with Vince Foster's fingerprints on them?
" After nearly two years of searches and subpoenas, the White House said this evening that
it had unexpectedly discovered copies of missing documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's law
firm that describe her work for a failing savings and loan association in the 1980's.
"The mysterious appearance of the billing records, which had been the specific subject of
various nvestigative subpoenas for two year s, sparked intense interest about how they
surfaced and where they had been"
"But Whitewater investigators believe that the billing records show significant
representation. They argue that the records prove that Ms. Clinton was not only directly
involved in the representation of Madison, but more specifically, in providing legal work on
the fraudulent Castle Grande land deal."
"Investigators believe this suggests that, at some point, this copy was passed from Vince
Foster to Hillary Clinton for her review.
In addition, investigators had the FBI conduct fingerprint analysis of the billing
records. Of significance, the prints of Vince Foster and Hillary Clinton were found."
It is extremely unfortunate that criminal behavior is now considered normal! The Clintons
are responsible for that.
The Clintons were extremely guilty of Whitewater for profiteering on a failed real estate
deal at Arkansas' residents expense, in addition to dozens of other crimes! I often wonder
how life could be much better if the Clintons were never elected! The invasive and rampant
corruption in virtually every sector of our society, has made this country 100%
dysfunctional!
There had been criminal activity at the local level in government in some regions, but
Clinton nationalized it, and legitimized it. Nixon was impeached, and resigned, giving people
belief that nobody was above the law.
Now, Trump has not committed a single impeachable offense, and all that they ever talk
about is impeachment!
I recall reading that Starr had DNC loyalties. My guess is that Republicans were more
concerned with a President Gore, than a President Clinton.
Although Hillary Clinton has blamed numerous factors and people for her loss to Donald Trump in
last year's election, no one has received as much blame as the Russian government. In an effort to
avoid blaming the candidate herself by turning the election results into a national scandal, accusations
of Kremlin-directed meddling soon surfaced. While such accusations have largely been discredited
by both
computer analysts and
award-winning journalists like Seymour Hersh, they continue to be repeated as the
investigation into Donald Trump's alleged collusion with the Russian government picks up steam.
However,
newly released Clinton emails suggest that that the former secretary of state's disdain for the
Russian government is a relatively new development. The emails, obtained by conservative watchdog
group Judicial Watch, show that the Russian government was included in invitations to exclusive Clinton
Foundation galas that began less than two months after Clinton became the top official at the U.S.
State Department.
In March of 2009, Amitabh Desai, then-Clinton Foundation director of foreign policy, sent invitations
to numerous world leaders, which included Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, then-Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev, and former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. Desai's emails were
cc'd to Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro and later forwarded to top Clinton aide Jake
Sullivan.
The Clinton Foundation's activities during Hillary's tenure as secretary of state have been central
to the accusations that the Clinton family used their "charitable" foundation as a means of enriching
themselves via a massive "Pay to Play" scheme. Emails leaked by Wikileaks, particularly
the Podesta emails , offered
ample evidence connecting foreign donations to the Clintons and their foundation with preferential
treatment by the U.S. State Department.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
"... My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers, teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations, and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and interests. ..."
"... This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals, anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc. all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards the right was a natural part of this evolution. ..."
"... They also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this. ..."
"... the New Class has very strong internal solidarity – and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside that class is "fair game." ..."
"... So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism", I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled out. ..."
"... Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class, and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it. ..."
"... A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony, like Chris. ..."
"... I assume he meant certain professors [of economics]. Actually on @4, there's a good chapter on the topic in a Thomas Franks latest. ..."
Obviously Mr. Deerin is, on its face, utilizing a very disputable definition
of "liberal."
However, I think a stronger case could be made for something like Mr.
Deerin's argument, although it doesn't necessarily get to the same conclusion.
My observation is that the New Class (professionals, lobbyists, financiers,
teachers, engineers, etc.) have ruled the country in recent decades. For
much of the twentieth century this class was in some tension with corporations,
and used their skills at influencing government policy to help develop and
protect the welfare state, since they needed the working class as a counterweight
to the natural influence of corporate money and power. However, somewhere
around 1970 I think this tension collapsed, since corporate managers and
professionals realized that they shared the same education, background and
interests.
Vive la meritocracy. This "peace treaty" between former rivals allowed
the whole newly enlarged New Class to swing to the right, since they really
didn't particularly need the working class politically anymore. And since
it is the hallmark of this class to seek prestige, power and money while
transferring risk away from themselves, the middle class and blue collar
community has been the natural recipient. Free trade (well, for non-professionals,
anyway), neoliberalism, ruthless private equity job cutting, etc., etc.
all followed very naturally. The re-alignment of the Democratic Party towards
the right was a natural part of this evolution.
I think the 90% or so of the community who are not included in this class
are confused and bewildered and of course rather angry about it. They
also sense that organized politics in this country – being chiefly the province
of the New Class – has left them with little leverage to change any of this.
Watching the bailouts and lack of prosecutions during the GFC made
them dimly realize that the New Class has very strong internal solidarity
– and since somebody has to pay for these little mistakes, everyone outside
that class is "fair game."
So in that sense–to the extent that you define liberal as the ideology
of the New Class (neoliberal, financial-capitalistic, big corporate-friendly
but opposed to non-meritocratic biases like racism, sexism, etc.) is "liberalism",
I think it is reasonable to say that it has bred resistance and anger among
the "losers." As far as having "failed", well, we'll see: the New Class
still controls almost all the levers of power. It has many strategies for
channeling lower-class anger and I think under Trump we'll see those rolled
out.
Let me be clear, I'm not saying Donald Trump is leading an insurgency
against the New Class – but I think he tapped into something like one and
is riding it for all he can, while not really having the slightest idea
what he's doing.
Perhaps some evolution in "the means of production" or in how governments
are influenced will ultimately develop to divide or downgrade the New Class,
and break its lock on the corridors of power, but I don't see it on the
horizon just yet. If anyone else does, I'd love to hear more about it.
A little puzzled by the inclusion of teachers, alongside financiers
and the like, in William Meyer's list of the New Class rulers. Enablers
of those rulers, no doubt, but not visibly calling the shots. But then I'm
probably just another liberal elitist failing to recognize my own hegemony,
like Chris.
"... "Have you ever met or talked to any Russian official or relative of any Russian banker, or any Russian or even read Gogol, now or in the past?" ..."
"... Progressives joined the FBI/CIA's 'Russian Bear' conspiracy: " Russia intervened and decided the Presidential election" – no matter that millions of workers and rural Americans had voted against Hillary Clinton, Wall Street's candidate and no matter that no evidence of direct interference was ever presented. Progressives could not accept that 'their constituents', the masses, had rejected Madame Clinton and preferred 'the Donald'. They attacked a shifty-eyed caricature of the repeatedly elected Russian President Putin as a subterfuge for attacking the disobedient 'white trash' electorate of 'Deploralandia'. ..."
"... Progressive demagogues embraced the coifed and manicured former 'Director Comey' of the FBI, and the Mr. Potato-headed Capo of the CIA and their forty thugs in making accusations without finger or footprints. ..."
"... Then Progressives turned increasingly Orwellian: Ignoring Obama's actual expulsion of over 2 million immigrant workers, they condemned Trump for promising to eventually expel 5 million more! ..."
"... Progressives, under Obama, supported seven brutal illegal wars and pressed for more, but complained when Trump continued the same wars and proposed adding a few new ones. At the same time, progressives out-militarized Trump by accusing him of being 'weak' on Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. They chided him for his lack support for Israel's suppression of the Palestinians. They lauded Trump's embrace of the Saudi war against Yemen as a stepping-stone for an assault against Iran, even as millions of destitute Yemenis were exposed to cholera. The Progressives had finally embraced a biological weapon of mass destruction, when US-supplied missiles destroyed the water systems of Yemen! ..."
"... Thank you for putting your finger on the main problem right there in the first paragraph. There were exceptions of course. I supported Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic Primary that gave us the first black etc. But I never voted for Obama. Throughout the Cheney Admin I pleaded with progressives to bolt the party. ..."
"... This is an excellent summary of the evolution of "progressives" into modern militarist fascists who tolerate identity politics diversity. There is little to add to Mr. Petras' commentary. ..."
"... Barak Obama is America's biggest con man who accomplished nothing "progressive" during eight years at the top, and didn't even try. (Obamacare is an insurance industry idea supported by most Republicans, which is why it recently survived.) Anyone who still likes Obama should read about his actions since he left office. Obama quickly signed a $65 million "book deal", which can only be a kickback since there is no way the publisher can sell enough books about his meaningless presidency to justify that sum. Obama doesn't get royalties based on sales, but gets the money up front for a book he has yet to write, and will have someone do that for him. (Book deals and speaking fees are legal forms of bribery in the USA.) ..."
"... Then Obama embarked on 100 days of ultra expensive foreign vacations with taxpayers covering the Secret Service protection costs. He didn't appear at charity fundraisers, didn't campaign for Democrats, and didn't help build homes for the poor like Jimmy Carter. He returns from vacation this week and his first speech will be at a Wall Street firm that will pay him $400,000, then he travels to Europe for more paid speeches. ..."
"... They chose power over principles. Nobel War Prize winner Obomber was a particularly egregious chameleon, hiding his sociopathy through two elections before unleashing his racist warmongering in full flower throughout his second term. ..."
"... Like a huge collective 'Monica Lewinsky' robot, the Progressives in the Democratic Party bent over and swallowed Clinton's vicious 1999 savaging of the venerable Glass Steagall Act ..."
Over the past quarter century progressive writers, activists and academics have followed a trajectory
from left to right – with each presidential campaign seeming to move them further to the right. Beginning
in the 1990's progressives mobilized millions in opposition to wars, voicing demands for the transformation
of the US's corporate for-profit medical system into a national 'Medicare For All' public
program. They condemned the notorious Wall Street swindlers and denounced police state legislation
and violence. But in the end, they always voted for Democratic Party Presidential candidates who
pursued the exact opposite agenda.
Over time this political contrast between program and practice led to the transformation of the
Progressives. And what we see today are US progressives embracing and promoting the politics of the
far right.
To understand this transformation we will begin by identifying who and what the progressives are
and describe their historical role. We will then proceed to identify their trajectory over the recent
decades.
We will outline the contours of recent Presidential campaigns where Progressives were deeply
involved.
We will focus on the dynamics of political regression: From resistance to submission, from
retreat to surrender.
We will conclude by discussing the end result: The Progressives' large-scale, long-term embrace
of far-right ideology and practice.
Progressives by Name and Posture
Progressives purport to embrace 'progress', the growth of the economy, the enrichment of society
and freedom from arbitrary government. Central to the Progressive agenda was the end of elite corruption
and good governance, based on democratic procedures.
Progressives prided themselves as appealing to 'reason, diplomacy and conciliation', not brute
force and wars. They upheld the sovereignty of other nations and eschewed militarism and armed intervention.
Progressives proposed a vision of their fellow citizens pursuing incremental evolution toward
the 'good society', free from the foreign entanglements, which had entrapped the people in unjust
wars.
Progressives in Historical Perspective
In the early part of the 20th century, progressives favored political equality while opposing
extra-parliamentary social transformations. They supported gender equality and environmental preservation
while failing to give prominence to the struggles of workers and African Americans.
They denounced militarism 'in general' but supported a series of 'wars to end all wars'
. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson embodied the dual policies of promoting peace at home
and bloody imperial wars overseas. By the middle of the 20th century, different strands emerged
under the progressive umbrella. Progressives split between traditional good government advocates
and modernists who backed socio-economic reforms, civil liberties and rights.
Progressives supported legislation to regulate monopolies, encouraged collective bargaining and
defended the Bill of Rights.
Progressives opposed wars and militarism in theory until their government went to war.
Lacking an effective third political party, progressives came to see themselves as the 'left
wing' of the Democratic Party, allies of labor and civil rights movements and defenders of civil
liberties.
Progressives joined civil rights leaders in marches, but mostly relied on legal and
electoral means to advance African American rights.
Progressives played a pivotal role in fighting McCarthyism, though ultimately it was the Secretary
of the Army and the military high command that brought Senator McCarthy to his knees.
Progressives provided legal defense when the social movements disrupted the House UnAmerican Activities
Committee.
They popularized the legislative arguments that eventually outlawed segregation, but it was courageous
Afro-American leaders heading mass movements that won the struggle for integration and civil rights.
In many ways the Progressives complemented the mass struggles, but their limits were defined by
the constraints of their membership in the Democratic Party.
The alliance between Progressives and social movements peaked in the late sixties to mid-1970's
when the Progressives followed the lead of dynamic and advancing social movements and community organizers
especially in opposition to the wars in Indochina and the military draft.
The Retreat of the Progressives
By the late 1970's the Progressives had cut their anchor to the social movements, as the anti-war,
civil rights and labor movements lost their impetus (and direction).
The numbers of progressives within the left wing of the Democratic Party increased through recruitment
from earlier social movements. Paradoxically, while their 'numbers' were up, their caliber had declined,
as they sought to 'fit in' with the pro-business, pro-war agenda of their President's party.
Without the pressure of the 'populist street' the 'Progressives-turned-Democrats' adapted
to the corporate culture in the Party. The Progressives signed off on a fatal compromise: The corporate
elite secured the electoral party while the Progressives were allowed to write enlightened manifestos
about the candidates and their programs . . . which were quickly dismissed once the Democrats took
office. Yet the ability to influence the 'electoral rhetoric' was seen by the Progressives as a sufficient
justification for remaining inside the Democratic Party.
Moreover the Progressives argued that by strengthening their presence in the Democratic Party,
(their self-proclaimed 'boring from within' strategy), they would capture the party membership,
neutralize the pro-corporation, militarist elements that nominated the president and peacefully transform
the party into a 'vehicle for progressive changes'.
Upon their successful 'deep penetration' the Progressives, now cut off from the increasingly disorganized
mass social movements, coopted and bought out many prominent black, labor and civil liberty activists
and leaders, while collaborating with what they dubbed the more malleable 'centrist' Democrats.
These mythical creatures were really pro-corporate Democrats who condescended to occasionally converse
with the Progressives while working for the Wall Street and Pentagon elite.
The Retreat of the Progressives: The Clinton Decade
Progressives adapted the 'crab strategy': Moving side-ways and then backwards but never forward.
Progressives mounted candidates in the Presidential primaries, which were predictably defeated
by the corporate Party apparatus, and then submitted immediately to the outcome. The election of
President 'Bill' Clinton launched a period of unrestrained financial plunder, major wars of aggression
in Europe (Yugoslavia) and the Middle East (Iraq), a military intervention in Somalia and secured
Israel's victory over any remnant of a secular Palestinian leadership as well as its destruction
of Lebanon!
Like a huge collective 'Monica Lewinsky' robot, the Progressives in the Democratic Party bent
over and swallowed Clinton's vicious 1999 savaging of the venerable Glass Steagall Act, thereby opening
the floodgates for massive speculation on Wall Street through the previously regulated banking sector.
When President Clinton gutted welfare programs, forcing single mothers to take minimum-wage jobs
without provision for safe childcare, millions of poor white and minority women were forced to abandon
their children to dangerous makeshift arrangements in order to retain any residual public support
and access to minimal health care. Progressives looked the other way.
Progressives followed Clinton's deep throated thrust toward the far right, as he outsourced manufacturing
jobs to Mexico (NAFTA) and re-appointed Federal Reserve's free market, Ayn Rand-fanatic, Alan Greenspan.
Progressives repeatedly kneeled before President Clinton marking their submission to the Democrats'
'hard right' policies.
The election of Republican President G. W. Bush (2001-2009) permitted Progressive's to temporarily
trot out and burnish their anti-war, anti-Wall Street credentials. Out in the street, they protested
Bush's savage invasion of Iraq (but not the destruction of Afghanistan). They protested the media
reports of torture in Abu Ghraib under Bush, but not the massive bombing and starvation of millions
of Iraqis that had occurred under Clinton. Progressives protested the expulsion of immigrants from
Mexico and Central America, but were silent over the brutal uprooting of refugees resulting from
US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the systematic destruction of their nations' infrastructure.
Progressives embraced Israel's bombing, jailing and torture of Palestinians by voting unanimously
in favor of increasing the annual $3 billion dollar military handouts to the brutal Jewish State.
They supported Israel's bombing and slaughter in Lebanon.
Progressives were in retreat, but retained a muffled voice and inconsequential vote in favor of
peace, justice and civil liberties. They kept a certain distance from the worst of the police state
decrees by the Republican Administration.
Progressives and Obama: From Retreat to Surrender
While Progressives maintained their tepid commitment to civil liberties, and their highly 'leveraged'
hopes for peace in the Middle East, they jumped uncritically into the highly choreographed Democratic
Party campaign for Barack Obama, 'Wall Street's First Black President'.
Progressives had given up their quest to 'realign' the Democratic Party 'from within':
they turned from serious tourism to permanent residency. Progressives provided the foot soldiers
for the election and re-election of the warmongering 'Peace Candidate' Obama. After the election,
Progressives rushed to join the lower echelons of his Administration. Black and white politicos joined
hands in their heroic struggle to erase the last vestiges of the Progressives' historical legacy.
Obama increased the number of Bush-era imperial wars to attacking seven weak nations under American's
'First Black' President's bombardment, while the Progressives ensured that the streets were quiet
and empty.
When Obama provided trillions of dollars of public money to rescue Wall Street and the bankers,
while sacrificing two million poor and middle class mortgage holders, the Progressives only criticized
the bankers who received the bailout, but not Obama's Presidential decision to protect and reward
the mega-swindlers.
Under the Obama regime social inequalities within the United States grew at an unprecedented rate.
The Police State Patriot Act was massively extended to give President Obama the power to order the
assassination of US citizens abroad without judicial process. The Progressives did not resign when
Obama's 'kill orders' extended to the 'mistaken' murder of his target's children and other family
member, as well as unidentified bystanders. The icon carriers still paraded their banner of the
'first black American President' when tens of thousands of black Libyans and immigrant workers
were slaughtered in his regime-change war against President Gadhafi.
Obama surpassed the record of all previous Republican office holders in terms of the massive numbers
of immigrant workers arrested and expelled – 2 million. Progressives applauded the Latino protestors
while supporting the policies of their 'first black President'.
Progressive accepted that multiple wars, Wall Street bailouts and the extended police state were
now the price they would pay to remain part of the "Democratic coalition' (sic).
The deeper the Progressives swilled at the Democratic Party trough, the more they embraced the
Obama's free market agenda and the more they ignored the increasing impoverishment, exploitation
and medical industry-led opioid addiction of American workers that was shortening their lives. Under
Obama, the Progressives totally abandoned the historic American working class, accepting their degradation
into what Madam Hillary Clinton curtly dismissed as the 'deplorables'.
With the Obama Presidency, the Progressive retreat turned into a rout, surrendering with one flaccid
caveat: the Democratic Party 'Socialist' Bernie Sanders, who had voted 90% of the time with the Corporate
Party, had revived a bastardized military-welfare state agenda.
Sander's Progressive demagogy shouted and rasped on the campaign trail, beguiling the young electorate.
The 'Bernie' eventually 'sheep-dogged' his supporters into the pro-war Democratic Party corral.
Sanders revived an illusion of the pre-1990 progressive agenda, promising resistance while demanding
voter submission to Wall Street warlord Hillary Clinton. After Sanders' round up of the motley progressive
herd, he staked them tightly to the far-right Wall Street war mongering Hillary Clinton. The Progressives
not only embraced Madame Secretary Clinton's nuclear option and virulent anti-working class agenda,
they embellished it by focusing on Republican billionaire Trump's demagogic, nationalist, working
class rhetoric which was designed to agitate 'the deplorables'. They even turned on the working
class voters, dismissing them as 'irredeemable' racists and illiterates or 'white trash' when
they turned to support Trump in massive numbers in the 'fly-over' states of the central US.
Progressives, allied with the police state, the mass media and the war machine worked to defeat
and impeach Trump. Progressives surrendered completely to the Democratic Party and started to advocate
its far right agenda. Hysterical McCarthyism against anyone who questioned the Democrats' promotion
of war with Russia, mass media lies and manipulation of street protest against Republican elected
officials became the centerpieces of the Progressive agenda. The working class and farmers had disappeared
from their bastardized 'identity-centered' ideology.
Guilt by association spread throughout Progressive politics. Progressives embraced J. Edgar Hoover's
FBI tactics: "Have you ever met or talked to any Russian official or relative of any Russian
banker, or any Russian or even read Gogol, now or in the past?" For progressives, 'Russia-gate'
defined the real focus of contemporary political struggle in this huge, complex, nuclear-armed superpower.
Progressives joined the FBI/CIA's 'Russian Bear' conspiracy: "Russia intervened and decided
the Presidential election" – no matter that millions of workers and rural Americans had voted
against Hillary Clinton, Wall Street's candidate and no matter that no evidence of direct interference
was ever presented. Progressives could not accept that 'their constituents', the masses, had rejected
Madame Clinton and preferred 'the Donald'. They attacked a shifty-eyed caricature of the repeatedly
elected Russian President Putin as a subterfuge for attacking the disobedient 'white trash' electorate
of 'Deploralandia'.
Progressive demagogues embraced the coifed and manicured former 'Director Comey' of the FBI,
and the Mr. Potato-headed Capo of the CIA and their forty thugs in making accusations without finger
or footprints.
The Progressives' far right - turn earned them hours and space on the mass media as long
as they breathlessly savaged and insulted President Trump and his family members. When they managed
to provoke him into a blind rage . . . they added the newly invented charge of 'psychologically
unfit to lead' – presenting cheap psychobabble as grounds for impeachment. Finally! American
Progressives were on their way to achieving their first and only political transformation: a Presidential
coup d'état on behalf of the Far Right!
Progressives loudly condemned Trump's overtures for peace with Russia, denouncing it as appeasement
and betrayal!
In return, President Trump began to 'out-militarize' the Progressives by escalating US involvement
in the Middle East and South China Sea. They swooned with joy when Trump ordered a missile strike
against the Syrian government as Damascus engaged in a life and death struggle against mercenary
terrorists. They dubbed the petulant release of Patriot missiles 'Presidential'.
Then Progressives turned increasingly Orwellian: Ignoring Obama's actual expulsion of over
2 million immigrant workers, they condemned Trump for promising to eventually expel 5 million
more!
Progressives, under Obama, supported seven brutal illegal wars and pressed for more, but complained
when Trump continued the same wars and proposed adding a few new ones. At the same time, progressives
out-militarized Trump by accusing him of being 'weak' on Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. They
chided him for his lack support for Israel's suppression of the Palestinians. They lauded Trump's
embrace of the Saudi war against Yemen as a stepping-stone for an assault against Iran, even as millions
of destitute Yemenis were exposed to cholera. The Progressives had finally embraced a biological
weapon of mass destruction, when US-supplied missiles destroyed the water systems of Yemen!
Conclusion
Progressives turned full circle from supporting welfare to embracing Wall Street; from preaching
peaceful co-existence to demanding a dozen wars; from recognizing the humanity and rights of undocumented
immigrants to their expulsion under their 'First Black' President; from thoughtful mass media critics
to servile media megaphones; from defenders of civil liberties to boosters for the police state;
from staunch opponents of J. Edgar Hoover and his 'dirty tricks' to camp followers for the 'intelligence
community' in its deep state campaign to overturn a national election.
Progressives moved from fighting and resisting the Right to submitting and retreating; from retreating
to surrendering and finally embracing the far right.
Doing all that and more within the Democratic Party, Progressives retain and deepen their ties
with the mass media, the security apparatus and the military machine, while occasionally digging
up some Bernie Sanders-type demagogue to arouse an army of voters away from effective resistance
to mindless collaboration.
But in the end, they always voted for Democratic Party Presidential candidates who pursued
the exact opposite agenda.
Thank you for putting your finger on the main problem right there in the first paragraph.
There were exceptions of course. I supported Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic Primary that gave
us the first black etc. But I never voted for Obama. Throughout the Cheney Admin I pleaded with
progressives to bolt the party.
This piece accurately traces the path from Progressive to Maoist. It's a pity the Republican
Party is also a piece of shit. I think it was Sara Palin who said "We have two parties. Pick one."
This should be our collective epitaph.
This is an excellent summary of the evolution of "progressives" into modern militarist
fascists who tolerate identity politics diversity. There is little to add to Mr. Petras' commentary.
"Progressives loudly condemned Trump's overtures for peace with Russia, denouncing it as
appeasement and betrayal!"
Perhaps the spirit of Senator Joseph McCarthy is joyously gloating as progressives (and democrats)
take their place as his heirs and successors and the 21st century incarnation of the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee.
The great Jimmy Dore is a big thorn for the Democrats. From my blog:
Apr 29, 2017 – Obama is Scum!
Barak Obama is America's biggest con man who accomplished nothing "progressive" during
eight years at the top, and didn't even try. (Obamacare is an insurance industry idea supported
by most Republicans, which is why it recently survived.) Anyone who still likes Obama should read
about his actions since he left office. Obama quickly signed a $65 million "book deal", which
can only be a kickback since there is no way the publisher can sell enough books about his meaningless
presidency to justify that sum. Obama doesn't get royalties based on sales, but gets the money
up front for a book he has yet to write, and will have someone do that for him. (Book deals and
speaking fees are legal forms of bribery in the USA.)
Then Obama embarked on 100 days of ultra expensive foreign vacations with taxpayers covering
the Secret Service protection costs. He didn't appear at charity fundraisers, didn't campaign
for Democrats, and didn't help build homes for the poor like Jimmy Carter. He returns from vacation
this week and his first speech will be at a Wall Street firm that will pay him $400,000, then
he travels to Europe for more paid speeches.
Obama gets over $200,000 a year in retirement, just got a $65 million deal, so doesn't need
more money. Why would a multi-millionaire ex-president fly around the globe collecting huge speaking
fees from world corporations just after his political party was devastated in elections because
Americans think the Democratic party represents Wall Street? The great Jimmy Dore expressed his
outrage at Obama and the corrupt Democratic party in this great video.
Left in the good old days meant socialist, socialist meant that governments had the duty of
redistributing income from rich to poor. Alas in Europe, after 'socialists' became pro EU and
pro globalisation, they in fact became neoliberal. Both in France and the Netherlands 'socialist'
parties virtually disappeared.
So what nowadays is left, does anyone know ?
Then the word 'progressive'. The word suggests improvement, but what is improvement, improvement
for whom ? There are those who see the possibility for euthanasia as an improvement, there are
thos who see euthanasia as a great sin.
Discussions about left and progressive are meaningless without properly defining the concepts.
They chose power over principles. Nobel War Prize winner Obomber was a particularly egregious
chameleon, hiding his sociopathy through two elections before unleashing his racist warmongering
in full flower throughout his second term. But, hey, the brother now has five mansions, collects
half a mill per speech to the Chosen People on Wall Street, and parties for months at a time at
exclusive resorts for billionaires only.
Obviously, he's got the world by the tail and you don't. Hope he comes to the same end as Gaddaffi
and Ceaușescu. Maybe the survivors of nuclear Armageddon can hold a double necktie party with
Killary as the second honored guest that day.
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson embodied the dual policies of promoting peace at home
and bloody imperial wars overseas.
You left out the other Roosevelt.
Like a huge collective 'Monica Lewinsky' robot, the Progressives in the Democratic Party
bent over and swallowed Clinton's vicious 1999 savaging of the venerable Glass Steagall Act
Hilarious!
Ignoring Obama's actual expulsion of over 2 million immigrant workers, they condemned Trump
for promising to eventually expel 5 million more!
so it's not just conservative conspiracy theory stuff as some might argue.
Still, the overall point of this essay isn't affected all that much. Open borders is still
a "right wing" (in the sense this author uses the term) policy–pro-Wall Street, pro-Big Business.
So Obama was still doing the bidding of the donor class in their quest for cheap labor.
I've seen pro-immigration types try to use the Obama-deportation thing to argue that we don't
need more hardcore policies. After all, even the progressive Democrat Obama was on the ball when
it came to policing our borders, right?! Who needed Trump?
@Carlton Meyer If Jimmy keeps up these attacks on Wall Street, the Banksters, and rent-seekers
he is going to get run out of the Progressive movement for dog-whistling virulent Anti-Semitism.
Look at how the media screams at Trump every time he mentions Wall Street and the banks.
Mr. Petra has penned an excellent and very astute piece. Allow me a little satire on our progressive
friends, entitled "The path to hell is paved with good intentions".
The early socialist/progressive travellers were well-intentioned but naïve in their understanding
of human nature and fanatical about their agenda. To move the human herd forward, they had no
compulsions about resorting to harsher and harsher prodding and whipping. They felt entitled to
employ these means because, so they were convinced, man has to be pushed to move forward and they,
the "progressives", were the best qualified to lead the herd. Scoundrels, psychopaths, moral defectives,
and sundry other rascals then joined in the whipping game, some out of the sheer joy of wielding
the whip, others to better line their pockets.
So the "progressive" journey degenerates into a forced march. The march becomes the progress,
becoming both the means and the end at the same time. Look at the so-called "progressive" today
and you will see the fanatic and the whip-wielder, steadfast about the correctness of his beliefs.
Tell him/her/it that you are a man or a woman and he retorts "No, you are free to choose, you
are genderless". What if you decline such freedom? "Well, then you are a bigot, we will thrash
you out of your bigotry", replies the progressive. "May I, dear Sir/Madam/Whatever, keep my hard-earned
money in my pocket for my and my family's use" you ask. "No, you first have to pay for our peace-making
wars, then pay for the upkeep of refugees, besides which you owe a lot of back taxes that are
necessary to run this wonderful Big Government of ours that is leading you towards greener and
greener pastures", shouts back the progressive.
Fed up, disgusted, and a little scared, you desperately seek a way out of this progress. "No
way", scream the march leaders. "We will be forever in your ears, sometimes whispering, sometimes
screaming; we will take over your brain to improve your mind; we will saturate you with images
on the box 24/7 and employ all sorts of imagery to make you progress. And if it all fails, we
will simply pack you and others like you in a basket of deplorables and forget about you at election
time."
Knowing who is "progressive" and know who is "far-right" is like knowing who is "fascist" and
who is not. For obvious historical reasons, the Russian like to throw the "fascist" slogan against
anyone who is a non-Russian nationalist. However, I accept the eminent historian Carroll Quigley's
definition of fascism as the incorporation of society and the state onto single entity on a permanent
war footing. The state controls everything in a radically authoritarian social structure. As Quigley
states, the Soviet Union was the most complete embodiment of fascism in WWII. In WWII Germany,
on the other hand, industry retained its independence and in WWII Italy fascism was no more than
an empty slogan.
Same for "progressives". Everyone wants to be "progressive", right? Who wants to be "anti-progressive"?
However, at the end of the day, "progressive" through verbal slights of hand has been nothing
more than a euphemism for "socialist" or, in the extreme, "communist" the verbal slight-of-hand
because we don't tend to use the latter terms in American political discourse.
"Progressives" morphing into a new "far-right" in America is no more mysterious than the Soviet
Union morphing from Leninism to Stalinism or, the Jewish (Trotskyite) globalists fleeing Stalinist
nationalism and then morphing into, first, "Scoop" Jackson Democrats and then into Bushite Republicans.
As you might notice, the real issue is the authoritarian vs. the non-authoritarian state. In
this context, an authoritarian government and social order (as in communism and neoconservatism)
are practical pre-requisites necessity to force humanity to transition to their New World Order.
Again, the defining characteristic of fascism is the unitary state enforced via an authoritarian
political and social structure. Ideological rigor is enforced via the police powers of the state
along with judicial activism and political correctness. Ring a bell?
In the ongoing contest between Trump and the remnants of the American "progressive" movement,
who are the populists and who the authoritarians? Who are the democrats and who are the fascists?
I would say that who lands where in this dichotomy is obvious.
@Alfa158 Is Jimmy Dore really a "Progressive?" (and what does that mean, anyway?) Isn't Jimmy's
show hosted by the Young Turks Network, which is unabashedly Libertarian?
Anyway, what's so great about "the Progressive movement?" Seems to me, they're just pathetic
sheepdogs for the war-crazed Dems. Jimmy should be supporting the #UNRIG movement ("Beyond Trump
& Sanders") for ALL Americans:
On 1 May 2017 Cynthia McKinney, Ellen Brown, and Robert Steele launched
Petras, for some reason, low balls the number of people ejected from assets when the mafia
came to seize real estate in the name of the ruling class and their expensive wars, morality,
the Constitution or whatever shit they could make up to fuck huge numbers of people over. Undoubtedly
just like 9/11, the whole thing was planned in advance. Political whores are clearly useless when
the system is at such extremes.
Banks like Capital One specialize in getting a signature and "giving" a car loan to someone
they know won't be able to pay, but is simply being used, shaken down and repossessed for corporate
gain. " No one held a gun to their head! " Get ready, the police state will in fact put a gun
to your head.
Depending on the time period in question, which might be the case here, more than 20 million
people were put out of homes and/or bankrupted with more to come. Clearly a bipartisan effort
featuring widespread criminal conduct across the country – an attack on the population to sustain
militarism.
If I may add:
"and you also have to dearly pay for you being white male heterosexual for oppressing all colored,
all the women and all the sexually different through the history".
"And if it all fails, we will simply pack you and others like you in a basket of deplorables
and forget about you at election time. If we see that you still don't get with the program we
will reeducate you. Should you resist that in any way we'll incarcerate you. And, no, normal legal
procedure does not work with racists/bigots/haters/whatever we don't like".
"Progressives loudly condemned Trump's overtures for peace with Russia, denouncing it as appeasement
and betrayal!"
Perhaps the spirit of Senator Joseph McCarthy is joyously gloating as progressives (and democrats)
take their place as his heirs and successors and the 21st century incarnation of the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee.
take their place as his heirs and successors and the 21st century incarnation of the House
UnAmerican Activities Committee
which itself was a progressive invention. There was no "right wing" anywhere in sight when
it was estsblished in 1938.
"... The reasoning was simple and is not hard to understand: Carthago delenda est. ..."
"... In a way McCain can be viewed now as a caricature of the Roman senator Cato the Elder, who is said to have used it as the conclusion to all his speeches. ..."
Your discussion just again had shown that there is no economics, only a political economy.
And all those neoliberal perversions, which are sold as an economic science is just an apologetics
for the financial oligarchy.
Apologetics of plunder in this particular case.
In a way the USSR with its discredited communist ideology, degenerated Bolshevik leadership
(just look at who was at the Politburo of CPSU at the time; people much lower in abilities then
Trump :-) and inept and politically naïve Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm had chosen the most inopportune
time to collapse :-)
And neoliberal vultures instantly circled the corpse and have had a feast. Geopolitical goals
of the USA also played important role in amplifying the scope of plunder.
No comparison of performance of Russia vs. China makes any sense if it ignores this fact.
While I would argue with the economic advice given the Russian government after 1988, I am simply
trying to understand the reasoning behind the advice, no more than that.
The reasoning was simple and is not hard to understand: Carthago delenda est.
In a way McCain can be viewed now as a caricature of the Roman senator Cato the Elder,
who is said to have used it as the conclusion to all his speeches.
History repeats "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
"... If America were a free and democratic country, with a free press and independent publishing houses (and assuming, of course, that Americans were a literate people), Williamson's book would topple the Clinton regime, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the rest of the criminal cabal that inhabits the world of modern corporate statism faster than you could say "Jonathan Hay." ..."
"... Hay, for those who need an introduction to the international financial buccaneers who control our lives, was the general director of the Harvard Institute of International Development (HIID) in Moscow (1992-1997), who facilitated the crippling of the Russian economy and the plundering of its industrial and manufacturing infrastructure with a strategy concocted by Larry Summers, Andre Schliefer (HIID's Cambridge-based manager), Jeffrey Sachs and his Swedish sidekick Anders Aslund, and a host of private players from banks and investment houses in Boston and New York - a plan approved and assisted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. ..."
"... These third-generation Bolsheviks - led by former Pravda hack Yegor Gaidar, grandson of a Bolshevik who achieved prominence as the teenage mass murderer of White Army officers, now heads the Moscow-based Institute for Economies in Transition - became instant millionaires (or billionaires) and left the Russian workers virtual slaves of them and their new foreign investors. ..."
"... Ironically, when Harvard's Sachs and Hay started identifying Russians they could work with, they ignored - or shunned - the most capable talent at hand: those numerous Russian economists who for 20 years had been studying the Swiss economist Wilhelm von Roepke and his disciple, Ludwig Erhard, father of Germany's "economic miracle" in anticipation of the day when Communism would collapse. Somewhat sardonically, Williamson notes that one, probably unintended, benefit of Gorbachev's perestroika was the recruitment of these Russian economists by top U.S. universities. ..."
"... On another level, Contagion is about the workings of international finance, the consolidation of capital into fewer and fewer hands, and the ruthless, death-dealing policies it inflicts on its target countries through currency manipulation, inflation, depression, taxation and war - with emphasis on Russia but with attention also given to Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, the Balkans, and other countries, and how it uses its control over money to produce social chaos. ..."
"... Those who read Williamson's book will find particularly interesting her treatment of the Federal Reserve, and how this "bank" was designed to plunder the wealth of America through war, debt, and taxation, in order to maintain what is nothing more nor less than a giant pyramid scheme that depends on domination of the earth and its resources. ..."
"... The policies inflicted on Russia by the banks were cruel to the Nth degree; but the policy implementers - Williamson employs the derogatory Russian word m yakigolovy ("soft-headed ones") applied to the Americans - were a foppish lot, streaming into Russia by the thousands (the IMF, alone, with 150 staffers) with their outrageous salaries and per diem allowances, renting out the finest dachas, bringing in their exotic consumer goods, driving up prices for goods and rents, spurring a boom in the drug and prostitution businesses, and then watching, cold-heartedly, the declining fortunes of their hosts as they lost everything - including the artistic heritage of the country. ..."
"... Gore, who was raised to be President, has impeccable Russian connections. His father, of course, was Lenin financier Armand Hammer's pocket senator, and it was Hammer who paid for Al Jr.'s expensive St. Alban's Prep schooling; and, as Williamson reports, Al Jr.'s daughter married Andrew Schiff, grandson of Jacob, who, as a member of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., underwrote anti-czarist political agitation for two decades before Lenin's coup, and congratulated Lenin upon his successful revolution. ..."
"... By March 1999, Russia was now a financial basket case, and billions, if not tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer-backed loans had vanished into the secret bank accounts of both Russian and American gangster capitalists, and the news was starting to make little vibrations on Capitol Hill. "The U.S. administration's response to the debacle was repulsively similar to a typical Bill Clinton bimbo-eruption operation: Having ruined Russia by cosseting her in debt, meddling ignorantly in her internal affairs, and funding a drunken usurper, his agents denied all error and slandered ('slimed') her," writes Williamson. ..."
"... The cost to the American taxpayers of Clinton regime bailouts in a three-and-a-half-year period, Williamson notes, is more than $180 billion! The "new financial architecture" Clinton has erected, she writes, "isn't new at all, but rather something the international public lenders have been wanting for decades, i.e., an automatic bailout for their own bad practices." ..."
"... As the extent of the corruption of the Clinton-Yeltsin "reform" plan for Russia unfolded last year, with the attendant Bank of New York scandal, the mysterious death of super banker Edmond Safra in his Monte Carlo penthouse, the collapse of the Russian stock market, and the whiplash effect in Southeast Asia, Congress was pressed to hold hearings. ..."
"... What resulted, as Williamson accurately narrates it, was just a smoke screen, show hearings that barely rose above the seriousness of a Gilbert and Sullivan farce - though they did result in proposed new domestic banking laws that, if passed, will effectively make banks another federal police force responsible for reporting to the U.S. government the most minute financial transactions of U.S. citizens. ..."
"... In this regard, it is instructive to quote Williamson at length: "If the FBI, [Manhattan District Attorney] Robert Morgenthau, or Congress were serious about getting to the bottom of the plundering of Russia's assets and U.S. taxpayers' resources, they would show far more professional interest in exactly what was said and agreed in the private meetings [U.S. Treasury secretary] Larry Summers, Strobe Talbott, and [former Treasury Secretary] Robert Rubin conducted with Anatoly Chubais [former Russian finance minister, who oversaw the distribution and sale of Russian industries], and Sergie Vasiliev [Yeltsin's principal legal adviser, and a member of the Chubais clan], and later Chubais again in June and July of 1998. ..."
"... And why did Michel Camdessus [who left the presidency of the IMF earlier this year] announce his sudden retirement so soon after Moscow newspapers reported that a $200,000 payment was made to him from a secret Kremlin bank account? . . . ..."
"... You see, as this book explains, the Clinton's Russia policy did not just plunder Russians, leaving them destitute while creating a new and ruthless class of international capitalist gangsters at U.S. taxpayer expense; it had the double consequence of bringing all Americans deeper into the bankers' New World Order by increasing their debt load, decreasing their privacy, and restricting their civil rights. If only Americans cared. ..."
After 1991 Eastern Europe and FSU were mercilessly looted. That was tremendous one time transfer
of capital (and scientists and engineers) to Western Europe and the USA. Which helped to secure
"Clinton prosperity period"
China were not plundered by the West. Russia and Eastern Europe were. That's the key difference.
For Russia this period was called by Anne Williamson in her testimony before the Committee
on Banking and Financial Services of the United States House of Representatives "The economic
rape of Russia"
How Clinton & Company & The Bankers Plundered Russia by Paul Likoudis
May 4, 2000
The other day I was surprised to learn that Jeffrey Sachs, the creator of "shock therapy"
capitalism, who participated in the looting of Russia in the 1990s, is now NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's
top adviser for health care. So we in NY will get shock therapy, much as the Russians did two
decades ago. Here is a story I wrote for The Wanderer in 2000:
===
How Clinton & Company & The Bankers Plundered Russia
by Paul Likoudis
In an ordinary election year, Anne Williamson's Contagion would be political dynamite, a
bombshell, a block-buster, a regime breaker.
If America were a free and democratic country, with a free press and independent publishing
houses (and assuming, of course, that Americans were a literate people), Williamson's book
would topple the Clinton regime, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the rest
of the criminal cabal that inhabits the world of modern corporate statism faster than you could
say "Jonathan Hay."
Hay, for those who need an introduction to the international financial buccaneers who
control our lives, was the general director of the Harvard Institute of International Development
(HIID) in Moscow (1992-1997), who facilitated the crippling of the Russian economy and the
plundering of its industrial and manufacturing infrastructure with a strategy concocted by
Larry Summers, Andre Schliefer (HIID's Cambridge-based manager), Jeffrey Sachs and his Swedish
sidekick Anders Aslund, and a host of private players from banks and investment houses in Boston
and New York - a plan approved and assisted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Contagion can be read on many different levels.
At its simplest, it is a breezy, slightly cynical, highly entertaining narrative of Russian
history from the last months of Gorbachev's rule to April 2000 - a period which saw Russia
transformed from a decaying socialist economy (which despite its shortcomings, provided a modest
standard of living to its citizens) to a "managed economy" where home-grown gangsters and socialist
theoreticians from the West, like Hay and his fellow Harvardian Jeffrey Sachs, delivered 2,500%
inflation and indescribable poverty, and transferred the ownership of Russian industry to Western
financiers.
Williamson was an eyewitness who lived on and off in Russia for more than ten years, where
she reported on all things Russian for The New York Times, Th e Wall Street Journal, and a
host of other equally reputable publications. She knew and interviewed just about everybody
involved in this gargantuan plundering scheme: Russian politicians and businessmen, the new
"gangster" capitalists and their American sponsors from the IMF, the World Bank, USAID, Credit
Suisse First Boston, the CIA, the KGB - all in all, hundreds of sources who spoke candidly,
often ruthlessly, of their parts in this terrible human drama.
Her account is filled with quotations from interviews with top aides of Yeltsin and Clinton,
all down through the ranks of the two hierarchical societies to the proliferating mass of Russian
destitute, pornographers, pimps, drug dealers, and prostitutes. Some of the principal characters,
of course, refused to talk to Williamson, such as Bill Clinton's longtime friend from Oxford,
Strobe Talbott, now a deputy secretary of state and, Williamson suspects, a onetime KGB operative
whose claim to fame is a deceitful translation of the Khrushchev Memoirs. (A KGB colonel refused
to confirm or deny to Williamson that Clinton and Talbott visited North Vietnam together in
1971 - though he did confirm their contacts with the KGB for their protests against the U.S.
war in Vietnam in Moscow. See especially footnote 1, page 210.)
The 546-page book (the best part of which is the footnotes) gives a nearly day-by-day report
on what happened to Russia; left unstated, but implied on every page, is the assumption that
those in the United States who think what happened in Russia "can't happen here" better realize
it can happen here.
Once the Clinton regime and its lapdogs in the media defined Russian thug Boris Yeltsin
as a "democrat," the wholesale looting of Russia began. According to the socialist theoreticians
at Harvard, Russia needed to be brought into the New World Order in a hurry; and what better
way to do it than Sachs' "shock therapy" - a plan that empowered the degenerate, third-generation
descendants of the original Bolsheviks by assigning them the deeds of Russia's mightiest state-owned
industries - including the giant gas, oil, electrical, and telecommunications industries, the
world's largest paper, iron, and steel factories, the world's richest gold, silver, diamond,
and platinum mines, automobile and airplane factories, etc. - who, in turn, sold some of their
shares of the properties to Westerners for a song, and pocketed the cash, while retaining control
of the companies.
These third-generation Bolsheviks - led by former Pravda hack Yegor Gaidar, grandson
of a Bolshevik who achieved prominence as the teenage mass murderer of White Army officers,
now heads the Moscow-based Institute for Economies in Transition - became instant millionaires
(or billionaires) and left the Russian workers virtual slaves of them and their new foreign
investors.
When Russian members of the Supreme Soviet openly criticized the looting of the national
patrimony by these new gangsters early in the U.S.-driven "reform" program, in 1993, before
all Soviet institutions were destroyed, Yeltsin bombed Parliament.
Ironically, when Harvard's Sachs and Hay started identifying Russians they could work
with, they ignored - or shunned - the most capable talent at hand: those numerous Russian economists
who for 20 years had been studying the Swiss economist Wilhelm von Roepke and his disciple,
Ludwig Erhard, father of Germany's "economic miracle" in anticipation of the day when Communism
would collapse. Somewhat sardonically, Williamson notes that one, probably unintended, benefit
of Gorbachev's perestroika was the recruitment of these Russian economists by top U.S. universities.
In the new, emerging global economy, it's clear that Russia is the designated center for
heavy manufacturing - just as Asia is for clothing and computers - with its nearly unlimited
supply of hydroelectric power, iron and steel, timber, gold and other precious metals.
This helps explain why America's political elites don't give a fig about the closing down
of American industries and mines. As Williamson observes, Russia is viewed as some kind of
"closet."
What is important for Western readers to understand - as Williamson reports - is that when
Western banks and corporations bought these companies at bargain basement prices, they bought
more than just industrial equipment. In the Soviet model, every unit of industrial production
included workers' housing, churches, opera houses, schools, hospitals, supermarkets, etc.,
and the whole kit-and-caboodle was included in the selling price. By buying large shares of
these companies, Western corporations became, ipso facto, town managers.
Another Level
On another level, Contagion is about the workings of international finance, the consolidation
of capital into fewer and fewer hands, and the ruthless, death-dealing policies it inflicts
on its target countries through currency manipulation, inflation, depression, taxation and
war - with emphasis on Russia but with attention also given to Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia,
the Balkans, and other countries, and how it uses its control over money to produce social
chaos.
Those who read Williamson's book will find particularly interesting her treatment of
the Federal Reserve, and how this "bank" was designed to plunder the wealth of America through
war, debt, and taxation, in order to maintain what is nothing more nor less than a giant pyramid
scheme that depends on domination of the earth and its resources.
Williamson is of that small but noble school of economics writers who believe that the academic
field of economics is not some esoteric science that can only be comprehended by those with
IQs in four digits, and she - drawing on such writers as Hayek and von Mises, Roepke and the
late American Murray Rothbard - explains in layman's vocabulary the nuts and bolts of sound
economic principles and the real-world effects of the Fed's policies on hapless Americans.
Contagion also serves up a severe indictment of the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund, and the other international "lending" agencies spawned by the Council on Foreign Relations
and similar "councils" and "commissions" which are fronts for the big banks run by the Houses
of Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, et al.
The policies inflicted on Russia by the banks were cruel to the Nth degree; but the
policy implementers - Williamson employs the derogatory Russian word m yakigolovy ("soft-headed
ones") applied to the Americans - were a foppish lot, streaming into Russia by the thousands
(the IMF, alone, with 150 staffers) with their outrageous salaries and per diem allowances,
renting out the finest dachas, bringing in their exotic consumer goods, driving up prices for
goods and rents, spurring a boom in the drug and prostitution businesses, and then watching,
cold-heartedly, the declining fortunes of their hosts as they lost everything - including the
artistic heritage of the country.
Williamson describes brilliantly that heady atmosphere in Moscow in the early days of the
IMF/USAID loan-scamming: a 24-hour party. There were bars like the Canadian-operated Hungry
Duck, which lured Russian teenage girls into its bar with a male striptease and free drinks,
"who, once thoroughly intoxicated, were then exposed to crowds of anxious young men the club
admitted only late in the evening."
The Third Level
At a third and more intriguing level, Contagion is about America's criminal politics in
the Clinton regime, and, inevitably, the reader will put Williamson's book down with the sense
that Al Gore will be the next occupier of the White House.
Gore, who was raised to be President, has impeccable Russian connections. His father,
of course, was Lenin financier Armand Hammer's pocket senator, and it was Hammer who paid for
Al Jr.'s expensive St. Alban's Prep schooling; and, as Williamson reports, Al Jr.'s daughter
married Andrew Schiff, grandson of Jacob, who, as a member of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., underwrote
anti-czarist political agitation for two decades before Lenin's coup, and congratulated Lenin
upon his successful revolution.
Williamson also documents Gore's intimate involvement with powerful Wall Street financial
houses, and his New York breakfast meeting with multibillionaire George Soros (a key Russian
player) just as the Russian collapse was underway.
Williamson tells an interesting story of Gore's response to the IMF/World Bank/USAID plunder
of U.S. taxpayers for the purpose of hobbling Russia.
By March 1999, Russia was now a financial basket case, and billions, if not tens of
billions of U.S. taxpayer-backed loans had vanished into the secret bank accounts of both Russian
and American gangster capitalists, and the news was starting to make little vibrations on Capitol
Hill. "The U.S. administration's response to the debacle was repulsively similar to a typical
Bill Clinton bimbo-eruption operation: Having ruined Russia by cosseting her in debt, meddling
ignorantly in her internal affairs, and funding a drunken usurper, his agents denied all error
and slandered ('slimed') her," writes Williamson.
"Pundits and academics joined government officials in bemoaning Mother Russia's thieving
ways, her bottomless corruption and constant chaos, all the while wringing their soft hands
with a schoolmarm's exasperation. Russia's self-appointed democracy coach Strobe Talbott ('Pro-Consul
Strobe' to the Russians) would get it right. An equally sanctimonious Albert Gore - the same
Al Gore who'd been so quick to return the CIA's 1995 report detailing Viktor Chernomyrdin's
and Anatoly Chubais' personal corruption with the single word 'Bullshit' scrawled across it
- took the low road and sniffed that the Russians would just have to get their own economic
house in order and cut their own deal with the IMF. . . ."
The cost to the American taxpayers of Clinton regime bailouts in a three-and-a-half-year
period, Williamson notes, is more than $180 billion! The "new financial architecture" Clinton
has erected, she writes, "isn't new at all, but rather something the international public lenders
have been wanting for decades, i.e., an automatic bailout for their own bad practices."
As the extent of the corruption of the Clinton-Yeltsin "reform" plan for Russia unfolded
last year, with the attendant Bank of New York scandal, the mysterious death of super banker
Edmond Safra in his Monte Carlo penthouse, the collapse of the Russian stock market, and the
whiplash effect in Southeast Asia, Congress was pressed to hold hearings.
What resulted, as Williamson accurately narrates it, was just a smoke screen, show hearings
that barely rose above the seriousness of a Gilbert and Sullivan farce - though they did result
in proposed new domestic banking laws that, if passed, will effectively make banks another
federal police force responsible for reporting to the U.S. government the most minute financial
transactions of U.S. citizens.
Double Effect
In this regard, it is instructive to quote Williamson at length: "If the FBI, [Manhattan
District Attorney] Robert Morgenthau, or Congress were serious about getting to the bottom
of the plundering of Russia's assets and U.S. taxpayers' resources, they would show far more
professional interest in exactly what was said and agreed in the private meetings [U.S. Treasury
secretary] Larry Summers, Strobe Talbott, and [former Treasury Secretary] Robert Rubin conducted
with Anatoly Chubais [former Russian finance minister, who oversaw the distribution and sale
of Russian industries], and Sergie Vasiliev [Yeltsin's principal legal adviser, and a member
of the Chubais clan], and later Chubais again in June and July of 1998.
"Instead of allowing Larry Summers to ramble casually in response to questions at a banking
committee hearing, the Treasury secretary should be asked exactly who suckered him - his Russian
friends, his own boss [former Harvard associate Robert Rubin, his boss at Treasury who was
once cochairman at Goldman Sachs], or private sector counterparts of the Working Committee
on Financial Markets [a White House group whose membership is drawn from the country's main
financial and market institutions: the Fed, Treasury, SEC, and the Commodities & Trading Commission].
. . . Or did he just bungle the entire matter on account of wishful thinking? Or was it gross
incompetence?
"The FBI and Congress ought to be very interested in establishing for taxpayers the truth
of any alleged 'national security' issues that justified allowing the Harvard Institute of
International Development to privatize U.S. bilateral assistance. It too should be their brief
to discover the relationship between the [Swedish wheeler-dealer and crony of Sachs, Anders]
Aslund/Carnegie crowd and Treasury and exactly what influence that relationship may have had
on the awarding of additional grants to Harvard without competition. On what basis did Team
Clinton direct their financial donor, American International Group's (AIG) Maurice Greenberg
(a man nearly as ubiquitous as any Russian oligarch in sweetheart public-funding deals), to
Brunswick Brokerage when sniffing out a $300 million OPIC guarantee for a Russian investment
fund. . . .
And why did Michel Camdessus [who left the presidency of the IMF earlier this year]
announce his sudden retirement so soon after Moscow newspapers reported that a $200,000 payment
was made to him from a secret Kremlin bank account? . . .
"American and Russian citizens can never be allowed to learn what really happened to the
billions lent to Yeltsin's government; it would expose the unsavory and self-interested side
of our political, financial, and media elites. . . . Instead, the [House] Banking Committee
hearings will use the smoke screen of policing foreign assistance flows to pass legislation
that will effectively end U.S. citizens' financial privacy while making them prisoners of their
citizenship. . . . The Banking Committee will use the opportunity the Russian dirty money scandal
presents to reanimate the domestic 'Know Your Customer' program, which charges domestic banks
with monitoring and reporting on the financial transactions in which middle-class Americans
engage. This data is collected and used by various government agencies, including the IRS;
meaning that if a citizen sells the family's beat-up station wagon or their 'starter' home,
the taxman is alerted immediately that the citizen's filing should reflect the greater tax
obligation in that year of the sale. . . . Other data on citizens for which the government
has long thirsted will also be collected by government's newest police force, the banks. .
. ."
You see, as this book explains, the Clinton's Russia policy did not just plunder Russians,
leaving them destitute while creating a new and ruthless class of international capitalist
gangsters at U.S. taxpayer expense; it had the double consequence of bringing all Americans
deeper into the bankers' New World Order by increasing their debt load, decreasing their privacy,
and restricting their civil rights. If only Americans cared.
"... In any event, it was "intercepts" leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down. ..."
"... But here's the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we shall amplify momentarily. ..."
"... But let's first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy as a private citizen. ..."
"... It's about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that: ..."
"... 'The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia's financial, personal and political grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press release. ..."
"... And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody, made clear that General Flynn's real sin was a potential peace overture to the Russians: ..."
"... We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger. But let's also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, "intercepts" mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President's own closest advisors as a matter of course. ..."
"... As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy: ..."
"... Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State. ..."
"... Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political adversaries. ..."
"... Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and "assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin's cronies. ..."
"... Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed! ..."
"... But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom. ..."
"... That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive. ..."
General Flynn's tenure in the White House was only slightly longer than that of President-elect
William Henry Harrison in 1841. Actually, with just 24 days in the White House, General Flynn's tenure
fell a tad short of old "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". General Harrison actually lasted 31 days before
getting felled by pneumonia.
And the circumstances were considerably more benign. It seems that General Harrison had a fondness
for the same "firewater" that agitated the native Americans he slaughtered at the famous battle memorialized
in his campaign slogan. In fact, during the campaign a leading Democrat newspaper skewered the old
general, who at 68 was the oldest US President prior to Ronald Reagan, saying:
Give him a barrel of hard [alcoholic] cider, and a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year
and he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.
That might have been a good idea back then (or even now), but to prove he wasn't infirm, Harrison
gave the longest inaugural address in US history (2 hours) in the midst of seriously inclement weather
wearing neither hat nor coat.
That's how he got pneumonia! Call it foolhardy, but that was nothing compared to that exhibited
by Donald Trump's former national security advisor.
General Flynn got the equivalent of political pneumonia by talking for hours during the transition
to international leaders, including Russia's ambassador to the US, on phone lines which were bugged
by the CIA Or more accurately, making calls which were "intercepted" by the very same NSA/FBI spy
machinery that monitors every single phone call made in America.
Ironically, we learned what Flynn should have known about the Deep State's plenary surveillance
from Edward Snowden. Alas, Flynn and Trump wanted the latter to be hung in the public square as a
"traitor", but if that's the solution to intelligence community leaks, the Donald is now going to
need his own rope factory to deal with the flood of traitorous disclosures directed against him.
In any event, it was "intercepts" leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington
Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down.
But here's the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster
about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we
shall amplify momentarily.
But let's first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio
is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy
as a private citizen.
It's about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with
the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that:
'The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia's financial, personal and political
grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,' House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi said in a press release.
Yet, we should rephrase. The re-litigation aspect reaches back to the Republican primaries, too.
The Senate GOP clowns who want a war with practically everybody, John McCain and Lindsey Graham,
are already launching their own investigation from the Senate Armed Services committee.
And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting
a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody, made clear that General Flynn's real sin was a potential
peace overture to the Russians:
Sen. Lindsey Graham also said he wants an investigation into Flynn's conversations with a Russian
ambassador about sanctions: "I think Congress needs to be informed of what actually Gen. Flynn said
to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions," the South Carolina Republican told CNN's Kate
Bolduan on "At This Hour. And I want to know, did Gen. Flynn do this by himself or was he directed
by somebody to do it?"
We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger.
But let's also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, "intercepts"
mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President's own closest advisors as a matter
of course.
This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already
announced #1 national security advisor to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion "bugging,"
albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly specious Logan Act charge at
the center of the case.
As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic
pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with
envy:
Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against
potential members of the Trump administration, and disclosed that information to others. Even
Richard Nixon didn't use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance operations.
Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the
leaking related thereto, smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and
The Week both noted, it wreaks of 'police-state' style tactics. But knowing dear Sally as I do,
it comes as no surprise.
Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind
to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated
by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and
self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State.
Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal
leadership of the permanent government machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we
have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
Rep. Devin Nunes:
'I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,' he told
The Washington Post. 'The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his
phone calls recorded.'
Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.
But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee
knows that everybody is bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using
its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts to "opposition research" with the aim of election
nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to American democracy
and the liberties of the American people.
As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and
a large slice of the Never Trumper intelligence community were systematically engaged in "opposition
research" during the campaign and the transition:
According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of
Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping,
listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember the infamous LA cases), and reported
what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved
in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee.
What justification was there for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future
Trump appointee?
Consider this little tidbit in
The Washington Post . The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits
of Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort. (With
the) FBI 'routinely' monitoring conversations of Americans...... Yates listened to 'the intercepted
call,' even though Yates knew there was 'little chance' of any credible case being made for prosecution
under a law 'that has never been used in a prosecution.'
And well it hasn't been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in
order to punish one of Thomas Jefferson's supporters for having peace discussions with the French
government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the Presidential campaign of 1800 based
on sheer political motivation.
According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did
day and night during the interregnum:
Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale
secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political
adversaries.
So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about
Team Trump's trafficking with the Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar
with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing illegal or even untoward about
Flynn's post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.
Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January
1981 when word came of the release of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did
not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception -- nor was it a parting gift to the Gipper by the
outgoing Carter Administration.
To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the
transition by private American citizens. As the history books would have it because it's true, the
leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan's national security council director-designate,
Dick Allen.
As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:
Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described
'Iranian exile' who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan,
not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.
The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan's first national security adviser,
Allen aide Laurence Silberman, and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who
in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).
To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary
because he's not there; the Logan Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever
of citizen diplomacy.
So let's get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a
sour grapes campaign to delegitimize the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA
Director John Brennan.
That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated
in the ridiculous Russian meddling report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course,
was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence director, and the clueless Democrat
lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.
Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and
"assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a
handful of Putin's cronies.
Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would
be soon reversed!
But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly
about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would
not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted
that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.
That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas
Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the
War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.
We haven't had deep state (successfully) take out a President since JFK. I am sure they will
literally be gunning for Donald Trump! His election screwed up the elite's world order plans ...
poor Soros ... time for him to take a dirt knap!
Be careful Trump! They will try and kill you! The United States government is COMPLETELY corrupt.
Draining the swamp means its either you or they die!
Let us help Trump's presidency to make America (not globalist) great again.
Not only democrats rigged Primary to elect Clinton as presidential candidate last year even
though she has poor judgement (violating government cyber security policy) and is incompetent
(her email server was not secured) when she was the Secretary of State, and was revealed to be
corrupt by Bernie Sanders during the Primary, but also democrats encourage illegal immigration,
discourage work, and "conned" young voters with free college/food/housing/health care/Obama phone.
Democratic government employees/politicians also committed crimes to leak classified information
which caused former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn losing his job and undermined Trump's
presidency.
However middle/working class used their common senses voting against Clinton last November.
Although I am not a republican and didn't vote in primary but I voted for Trump and those Republicans
who supported Trump in last November since I am not impressed with the "integrity" and "judgement"
of democrats, Anti-Trump protesters, Anti-Trump republicans, and those media who endorsed Clinton
during presidential election and they'll work for globalists, the super rich, who moved jobs/investment
overseas for cheap labor/tax and demanded middle/working class to pay tax to support welfare of
illegal aliens and refugees who will become globalist's illegal voters and anti-Trump protesters.
To prevent/detect voter fraud, "voter ID" and "no mailing ballots" must be enforced to reduce
possible "voter frauds on a massive scale" committed by democratic/republic/independent party
operatives. All the sanctuary counties need to be recounted and voided county votes if recount
fails since the only county which was found to count one vote many times is the only "Sanctuary"
county, Wayne county, in recount states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) last year. The
integrity of voting equipment and voting system need to be tested, protected and audited. There
were no voting equipment stuck to Trump. Yet, many voting equipment were found to switch votes
to Clinton last November. Voter databases need to be kept current. Encourage reporting of "voter
fraud on a massive scale" committed by political party operatives with large reward.
Trump knows whats coming. Rush Limbaugh said "I've known Trump for a long time, he is a winner
and I am sure none of this phases him at all. The media didn't create him, the media can't destroy
him."
Flynn has been there for several years. If he was such a threat why did they not take action
sooner since Soweeto appointed him in 2012? It must be that Soweto Obama is his spy buddy then,
both of them in league with the Russians since Obama has been with Flynn for a much longer time
he had to know if something was up.
The entire Russian spy story is a complete Fake news rouse.
I am wondering what they'll say tomorrow to draw attention awya form the muslim riots in Sweden.
If the news of Muslim riots in Sweden, then Trump will be even more vindicated and the MSM will
look even more stupid and Fake.
The Deep State has accentually lost control of the Intelligence Community via its Agents /
Operatives & Presstitute Media vehicle's to Gas Light the Masses.
So what Criminals at large Obama, Clapper & Lynch have done 17 days prior to former CEO Criminal
Obama leaving office was to Decentralize & weaken the NSA. As a result, Intel gathering was then
regulated to the other 16 Intel Agencies.
Thus, taking Centuries Old Intelligence based on a vey stringent Centralized British Model,
De Centralized it, filling the remaining 16 Intel Agenices with potential Spies and a Shadow Deep
State Mirror Government.
All controlled from two blocks away at Pure Evil Criminal War Criminal Treasonous at large,
former CEO Obama's Compound / Lair.
It's High Treason being conducted "Hidden In Plain View" by the Deep State.
It's the most Bizzare Transition of Power I've ever witnessed. Unprecedented.
Flynn did not tell Pence that Pence's best friend was front and center on the Pizzagate list.
That's what cost Flynn his job...it had fuck all do do with the elections.
"... Most of the major changes he mentions are clearly and explicitly the consequence of policy changes, mostly by Republicans, starting with Reagan: deregulation, lower taxes on the wealthy, a lack of antitrust enforcement, and the like. ..."
This is frankly rather disingenuous. Most of the major changes he mentions are clearly and explicitly
the consequence of policy changes, mostly by Republicans, starting with Reagan: deregulation,
lower taxes on the wealthy, a lack of antitrust enforcement, and the like.
libezkova -> DrDick... January 25, 2017 at 09:29 PM
Read through the link and it's not nearly that simple, especially when you consider the fact that
some trends, though plausibly or certainly reinforced through policy, aren't entirely or even
primarily caused by policy.
I did not say they were the *only* factors, but they are the primary causes. If you look at the
timelines and data trends it is pretty clear. Reagan broke the power of the Unions and started
deregulation (financialization is a consequence of this), which is the period when the big increases
began. Automation plays a secondary role in this. what has happened is that the few industries
which are most conducive to automation have remained here (like final assembly of automobiles),
while the many, more labor intensive industries (automobile components manufacturing) have been
offshored to low wage, not labor or environmental protections countries.
Both parties participated in the conversion of the USA into neoliberal society. So it was a bipartisan
move.
Clinton did a lot of dirty work in this direction and was later royally remunerated for his
betrayal of the former constituency of the Democratic Party and conversion it into "yet another
neoliberal party"
Obama actually continued Bush and Clinton work. He talked about 'change we can believe in'
while saving Wall street and real estate speculators from jail they fully deserved.
Very true. Republicans were in the vanguard and did most heavy lifting. That's undeniable.
But Clinton's negative effects were also related to the weakening the only countervailing force
remaining on the way of the neoliberalism -- trade unionism. So he played the role of "subversive
agent" in the Democratic Party. His betrayal of trade union political interests and his demoralizing
role should be underestimated.
hile everyone's been gearing up for President Trump's inauguration, the Clinton Foundation made a
major announcement this week that went by with almost no notice: For all intents and purposes, it's
closing its doors.
In a tax filing, the Clinton Global Initiative said it's firing 22 staffers and closing its
offices, a result of the gusher of foreign money that kept the foundation afloat suddenly drying up
after Hillary Clinton failed to win the presidency.
It proves what we've said all along: The Clinton Foundation was little more than an
influence-peddling scheme to enrich the Clintons, and had little if anything to do with "charity,"
either overseas or in the U.S. That sound you heard starting in November was checkbooks being
snapped shut in offices around the world by people who had hoped their donations would buy access to
the next president of the United States.
And why not? There was a strong precedent for it in Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of
state. While serving as the nation's top diplomat, the Clinton Foundation took money from at least
seven foreign governments - a clear breach of Clinton's pledge on taking office that there would be
total separation between her duties and the foundation.
Is there a smoking gun? Well, of the 154 private interests who either officially met or had
scheduled phone talks with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, at least 85 were donors
to the Clinton Foundation or one of its programs.
... ... ...
Using the Freedom of Information Act, Judicial Watch in
August obtained emails
(that had been hidden from investigators) showing that Clinton's top
State Department aide, Huma Abedin, had given "special expedited access to the secretary of state"
for those who gave $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. Many of those were facilitated
by a former executive of the foundation, Doug Band, who headed Teneo, a shell company that managed
the Clintons' affairs.
As part of this elaborate arrangement, Abedin was given special permission to work for the State
Department, the Clinton Foundation and Teneo - another very clear conflict of interest.
As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said at the time, "These new emails confirm that Hillary
Clinton abused her office by selling favors to Clinton Foundation donors."
The seedy saga doesn't end there. Indeed, there are so many facets to it, some may never be
known. But there is still at least one and possibly four active federal investigations into the
Clintons' supposed charity.
Americans aren't willing to forgive and forget. Earlier this month, the IBD/TIPP Poll asked
Americans whether they would like President Obama to pardon Hillary for any crimes she may have
committed as secretary of state, including the illegal use of an unsecured homebrew email server. Of
those queried, 57% said no. So if public sentiment is any guide, the Clintons' problems may just be
beginning.
Writing in the Washington Post in August of 2016, Charles Krauthammer pretty
much summed up the whole tawdry tale
: "The foundation is a massive family enterprise disguised
as a charity, an opaque and elaborate mechanism for sucking money from the rich and the tyrannous to
be channeled to Clinton Inc.," he wrote. "Its purpose is to maintain the Clintons' lifestyle
(offices, travel accommodations, etc.), secure profitable connections, produce favorable publicity
and reliably employ a vast entourage of retainers, ready to serve today and at the coming Clinton
Restoration."
Except, now there is no Clinton Restoration. So there's no reason for any donors to give money to
the foundation. It lays bare the fiction of a massive "charitable organization," and shows it for
what it was: a scam to sell for cash the waning influence of the Democrats' pre-eminent power
couple. As far as the charity landscape goes, the Clinton Global Initiative won't be missed.
Twenty-five years ago, Bill Clinton almost single-handedly sold the Democratic Party to Wall Street
making it the second neoliberal party in the USA (soft neoliberals) and betaying interest of working
class and middle class. The political base of the party became "neoliberal intelligencia" and minority
groups, such as sexual minorities, feminists (with strong lesbian bent) deceived by neoliberals part
of black community (that part that did not manage to get in jail yet ;-) , etc. Clintonism (aka "soft"
neoliberalism) as an ideology was dead after 2007, but still exists in zombie stage. and even counterattacks
in some countries.
The author is afraid using the term "neoliberalism" like most Us MSM. Which is a shame. In this
sense defeat of Hillary Clinton was just the last nail in the coffin of "soft neoliberalism" (Third
Way) ideology. Tony Blair was send to dustbin of history even earlier then that. Destruction of jobs
turned many members of trade unions hostile to Democrats (so much for "they have nowhere to go" Bill
Clinton dirty trick) and they became easy pray of far right. In this sense Bill Clinton is the godfather
of far right in the USA and he bears full personal responsibility for Trump election.
In foreign policy Clinton was a regular bloodthirsty neocon persuing glibal neoliberal empire led
by the USA, with Madeline Albright as the first (but not last) warmonger female Secretary of State
Notable quotes:
"... Twenty-five years ago, Bill Clinton almost single-handedly repositioned the Democratic Party
for electoral success, co-opting and defusing Republican talking points ..."
"... "New Democrat" he'd once exemplified was now extinct, a victim first of Clinton's own successes,
and then of the economic and social dislocations of the globalism whose inevitability he foresaw when
he predicted that Americans would one day "change jobs four or five times in their lifetimes!" ..."
"... Bill Clinton's "Third Way" ideology was also undone by sheer geopolitical realities ..."
"... ..."People thought she'd been conceived in Goldman Sachs' trading desk," says one veteran Clinton
aide ..."
"... his personal and sexual misconduct in office, and his and his wife's tendency toward legalistic
corner-cutting-a point Sanders also drove home, even as he disavowed any interest in "her damn emails."
..."
their quarter-century project to build a mutual buy-one, get-one-free Clinton dynasty has ended
in her defeat, and their joint departure from the center of the national political stage they had
hoped to occupy for another eight years. Their exit amounts to a finale not just for themselves,
but for Clintonism as a working political ideology and electoral strategy.
Twenty-five years ago, Bill Clinton almost single-handedly repositioned the Democratic Party
for electoral success, co-opting and defusing Republican talking points and moving the party
toward the center on issues like welfare and a balanced budget, in the process becoming the first
presidential nominee of his party since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win two consecutive terms.
... ... ...
"New Democrat" he'd once exemplified was now extinct, a victim first of Clinton's own successes,
and then of the economic and social dislocations of the globalism whose inevitability he foresaw
when he predicted that Americans would one day "change jobs four or five times in their lifetimes!"
Bill Clinton's "Third Way" ideology was also undone by sheer geopolitical realities --
there are almost no Blue Dog Democrats left after a generation of redistricting, primary challenges
and electoral defeats in the South
...while Hillary Clinton recognized the change intellectually, she seemed unable to catch up to
the practical realities of its political implications for her campaign
..."People thought she'd been conceived in Goldman Sachs' trading desk," says one veteran
Clinton aide
...Obama had not only largely overlooked the concerns of white working-class voters but, with
his health care overhaul, had been seen as punishing them financially to provide new benefits to
the poorest Americans. Fairly or not, he lost the public argument.
...Bill Clinton himself was far from an unalloyed asset in Hillary's campaign this year. The rosy
glow that had come to surround much of his post presidency, and his charitable foundation's good
works around the world, receded in the face of Trump's relentless reminders of his personal and
sexual misconduct in office, and his and his wife's tendency toward legalistic corner-cutting-a point
Sanders also drove home, even as he disavowed any interest in "her damn emails."
This was written in 2011 but it summarizes Obama presidency pretty nicely, even today. Betrayer
in chief, the master of bait and switch. That is the essence of Obama legacy. On "Great Democratic betrayal"...
Obama always was a closet neoliberal and neocon. A stooge of neoliberal financial oligarchy, a puppet,
if you want politically incorrect term. He just masked it well during hist first election campaigning
as a progressive democrat... And he faced Romney in his second campaign, who was even worse, so after
betraying American people once, he was reelected and did it twice. Much like Bush II. He like
another former cocaine addict -- George W Bush has never any intention of helping American people, only
oligarchy.
Notable quotes:
"... IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. ..."
"... We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues. ..."
"... These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power. ..."
"... Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back ..."
"... he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans. ..."
"... I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator. ..."
"... Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is. ..."
"... So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. ..."
"... I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans ..."
"... He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation. ..."
"... I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are. ..."
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans
were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost
their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even
the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment,
with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what
they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that
he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and
suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes,
was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This
was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated
with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated
regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And
it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods,
with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we
will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting
money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity
to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we
won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that
your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the
policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was
to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands.
That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given
Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans
and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement.
It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit
that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest
Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant
narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters,
but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut
themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share
for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of
his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his
first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had
happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president
had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building
the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis
out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden,
he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate
as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best
exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a
major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial
one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power
in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power
is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform
ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt
started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the
trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply,
and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill.
The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics
- in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness
and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for
at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait
for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking
with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police
dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or
a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his
true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic
inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack
Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the
people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that
decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind
it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story
of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them
for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem
other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer
confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked
the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his
temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration
that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
Bill Levine August 7, 2011
Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since
the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011
"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of
what they had just been through, what caused it,...
Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic
and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class;
and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly
push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican
and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would
be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social
Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in
the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this
road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!
Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President
Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying
not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly
why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant
and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will
we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric
of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well,
he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I
vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely
since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral
vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance
to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe
in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity
and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse
labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones
that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government
to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community,
opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed
the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at
GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to
lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum.
He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some
good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality,
where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all
Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our
national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem.
-->
I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a
person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a
centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA.
Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged
a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate
someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader
does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than
trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats
who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson,
have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed
are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not
the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic
about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see
anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure
of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this
column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures
to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins
of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans,
he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters
who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people.
That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who
acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible,
avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws
which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict
averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political
and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the
country as Republicans are.
This was written in 2011 but it summarizes Obama presidency pretty nicely, even today. Betrayer
in chief, the master of bait and switch. That is the essence of Obama legacy. On "Great Democratic betrayal"...
Obama always was a closet neoliberal and neocon. A stooge of neoliberal financial oligarchy, a puppet,
if you want politically incorrect term. He just masked it well during hist first election campaigning
as a progressive democrat... And he faced Romney in his second campaign, who was even worse, so after
betraying American people once, he was reelected and did it twice. Much like Bush II. He like
another former cocaine addict -- George W Bush has never any intention of helping American people, only
oligarchy.
Notable quotes:
"... IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. ..."
"... We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues. ..."
"... These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power. ..."
"... Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back ..."
"... he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans. ..."
"... I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator. ..."
"... Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is. ..."
"... So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. ..."
"... I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans ..."
"... He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation. ..."
"... I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are. ..."
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans
were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost
their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even
the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment,
with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what
they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that
he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and
suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes,
was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This
was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated
with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated
regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And
it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods,
with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we
will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting
money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity
to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we
won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that
your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the
policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was
to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands.
That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given
Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans
and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement.
It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit
that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest
Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant
narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters,
but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut
themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share
for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of
his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his
first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had
happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president
had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building
the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis
out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden,
he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate
as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best
exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a
major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial
one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power
in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power
is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform
ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt
started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the
trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply,
and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill.
The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics
- in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness
and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for
at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait
for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking
with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police
dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or
a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his
true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic
inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack
Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the
people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that
decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind
it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story
of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them
for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem
other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer
confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked
the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his
temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration
that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
Bill Levine August 7, 2011
Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since
the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011
"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of
what they had just been through, what caused it,...
Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic
and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class;
and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly
push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican
and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would
be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social
Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in
the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this
road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!
Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President
Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying
not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly
why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant
and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will
we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric
of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well,
he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I
vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely
since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral
vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance
to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe
in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity
and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse
labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones
that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government
to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community,
opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed
the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at
GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to
lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum.
He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some
good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality,
where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all
Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our
national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem.
-->
I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a
person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a
centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA.
Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged
a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate
someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader
does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than
trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats
who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson,
have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed
are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not
the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic
about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see
anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure
of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this
column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures
to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins
of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans,
he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters
who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people.
That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who
acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible,
avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws
which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict
averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political
and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the
country as Republicans are.
"... The Democratic Party as a Party (Sanders was an outlier) has nothing to do with "fair and equal
play for all". This is a party of soft neoliberals and it adheres to Washington consensus no less then
Republicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus ..."
"... If you read the key postulates it is clear that that they essentially behaved like an occupier
in this country. In this sense "Occupy Wall street" movement should actually be called "Liberation from
Wall Street occupation" movement. ..."
"... Bill Clinton realized that he can betray working class with impunity as "they have nowhere
to go" and will vote for Democrat anyway. In this sense Bill Clinton is a godfather of the right wing
nationalism in the USA. He sowed the "Teeth's of Dragon" and now we have, what we have. ..."
You guys should wake up and smell what country you live in. Here is a good place to start.
"Campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan told stories of Cadillac-driving "welfare
queens" and "strapping young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps. In trumpeting these
tales of welfare run amok, Reagan never needed to mention race, because he was blowing a dog
whistle: sending a message about racial minorities inaudible on one level, but clearly heard
on another. In doing so, he tapped into a long political tradition that started with George
Wallace and Richard Nixon, and is more relevant than ever in the age of the Tea Party and the
first black president.
In Dog Whistle Politics, Ian Haney L?pez offers a sweeping account of how politicians and
plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor
the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog whistle appeals generate middle-class
enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration,
and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes
for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and financial markets, and
aggressively curtail social services. White voters, convinced by powerful interests that minorities
are their true enemies, fail to see the connection between the political agendas they support
and the surging wealth inequality that takes an increasing toll on their lives. The tactic
continues at full force, with the Republican Party using racial provocations to drum up enthusiasm
for weakening unions and public pensions, defunding public schools, and opposing health care
reform.
Rejecting any simple story of malevolent and obvious racism, Haney L?pez links as never
before the two central themes that dominate American politics today: the decline of the middle
class and the Republican Party's increasing reliance on white voters. Dog Whistle Politics
will generate a lively and much-needed debate about how racial politics has destabilized the
American middle class -- white and nonwhite members alike."
Reading the above posts I am reminded that in November there was ONE Election with TWO Results:
Electoral Vote for Donald Trump by the margin of 3 formerly Democratic Voting states Michigan,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania
Popular Vote for Hillary Clinton by over 2.8 Million
The Democratic Party and its Candidates OBVIOUSLY need to get more votes in the Electoral States
that they lost in 2016, not change what they stand for, the principles of fair and equal play
for all.
And, in the 3 States that turned the Electoral Vote in Trump's favor and against Hillary, all
that is needed are 125,000 or more votes, probably fewer, and the DEMS win the Electoral vote
big too.
It is not any more complex than that.
So how does the Democratic Party get more votes in those States?
PANDER to their voters by delivering on KISS, not talking about it.
That is create living wage jobs and not taking them away as the Republican Party of 'Free Trade'
and the Clinton Democratic Party 'Free Trade' Elites did.
Understand this: It is not the responsibility of the USA, or in its best interests, to create
jobs in other nations (Mexico, Japan, China, Canada, Israel, etc.) that do not create jobs in
the USA equivalently, especially if the gain is offset by costly overseas confrontations and involvements
that would not otherwise exist.
"The Democratic Party and its Candidates OBVIOUSLY need to get more votes in the Electoral
States that they lost in 2016, not change what they stand for, the principles of fair and equal
play for all. "
The Democratic Party as a Party (Sanders was an outlier) has nothing to do with "fair and
equal play for all". This is a party of soft neoliberals and it adheres to Washington consensus
no less then Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus
If you read the key postulates it is clear that that they essentially behaved like an occupier
in this country. In this sense "Occupy Wall street" movement should actually be called "Liberation
from Wall Street occupation" movement.
Bill Clinton realized that he can betray working class with impunity as "they have nowhere
to go" and will vote for Democrat anyway. In this sense Bill Clinton is a godfather of the right
wing nationalism in the USA. He sowed the "Teeth's of Dragon" and now we have, what we have.
Blast from the past. Bill Clinton position on illegal immegtation.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again. ..."
"... President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported. ..."
"... However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong, and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime. ..."
Democrats remember that we are a nation of immigrants. We recognize the extraordinary contribution
of immigrants to America throughout our history. We welcome legal immigrants to America. We support
a legal immigration policy that is pro-family, pro-work, pro-responsibility, and pro-citizenship
, and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.
We know that citizenship is the cornerstone of full participation in American life. We are
proud that the President launched Citizenship USA to help eligible immigrants become United States
citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is streamlining procedures, cutting red tape,
and using new technology to make it easier for legal immigrants to accept the responsibilities
of citizenship and truly call America their home.
Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate
illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington
talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border
was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal
immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned
the very next day to commit crimes again.
President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and
illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in
El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone,
the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country.
Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them
on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported.
However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the
temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need
to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans
like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort
of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong,
and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime.
Democrats want to protect American jobs by increasing criminal and civil sanctions against
employers who hire illegal workers , but Republicans continue to favor inflammatory rhetoric over
real action. We will continue to enforce labor standards to protect workers in vulnerable industries.
We continue to firmly oppose welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We believe family members
who sponsor immigrants into this country should take financial responsibility for them, and be
held legally responsible for supporting them.
"... The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and disable
their dominance. ..."
"... It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the neoliberal
turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution of income
between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments. In Europe,
the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. ..."
"... When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features of
his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading money
center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New York Federal
Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury in the Obama Administration,
but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. The crisis served
to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political
power entirely into their hands as well. Simon Johnson called it a coup. ..."
"... Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980 drove
both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. ..."
"... It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility for
economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that just happened,
in a meteorological economics. ..."
"... This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could aid
the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting constraints.
..."
"... No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and draw
attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes the political
problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational clarity or
coherence. ..."
"... If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power,
Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional
critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected,
Obama isn't really trying. ..."
"... Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism, because
it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference. ..."
At the center of Great Depression politics was a political struggle over the distribution of
income, a struggle that was only decisively resolved during the War, by the Great Compression.
It was at center of farm policy where policymakers struggled to find ways to support farm incomes.
It was at the center of industrial relations politics, where rapidly expanding unions were seeking
higher industrial wages. It was at the center of banking policy, where predatory financial practices
were under attack. It was at the center of efforts to regulate electric utility rates and establish
public power projects. And, everywhere, the clear subtext was a struggle between rich and poor,
the economic royalists as FDR once called them and everyone else.
FDR, an unmistakeable patrician in manner and pedigree, was leading a not-quite-revolutionary
politics, which was nevertheless hostile to and suspicious of business elites, as a source of
economic pathology. The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek
to side-step and disable their dominance.
It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments.
In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle.
In retrospect, though the New Deal did use direct employment as a means of relief to good effect
economically and politically, it never undertook anything like a Keynesian stimulus on a Keynesian
scale - at least until the War.
Where the New Deal witnessed the institution of an elaborate system of financial repression,
accomplished in large part by imposing on the financial sector an explicitly mandated structure,
with types of firms and effective limits on firm size and scope, a series of regulatory reforms
and financial crises beginning with Carter and Reagan served to wipe this structure away.
When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New
York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five
banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well. Simon
Johnson called it a coup.
I don't know what considerations guided Obama in choosing the size of the stimulus or its composition
(as spending and tax cuts). Larry Summers was identified at the time as a voice of caution, not
"gambling", but not much is known about his detailed reasoning in severely trimming Christina
Romer's entirely conventional calculations. (One consideration might well have been worldwide
resource shortages, which had made themselves felt in 2007-8 as an inflationary spike in commodity
prices.) I do not see a case for connecting stimulus size policy to the health care reform. At
the time the stimulus was proposed, the Administration had also been considering whether various
big banks and other financial institutions should be nationalized, forced to insolvency or otherwise
restructured as part of a regulatory reform.
Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. Accelerating
the financialization of the economy from 1999 on made New York and Washington rich, but the same
economic policies and process were devastating the Rust Belt as de-industrialization. They were
two aspects of the same complex of economic trends and policies. The rise of China as a manufacturing
center was, in critical respects, a financial operation within the context of globalized trade
that made investment in new manufacturing plant in China, as part of globalized supply chains
and global brand management, (arguably artificially) low-risk and high-profit, while reinvestment
in manufacturing in the American mid-west became unattractive, except as a game of extracting
tax subsidies or ripping off workers.
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that
just happened, in a meteorological economics.
It is conceding too many good intentions to the Obama Administration to tie an inadequate stimulus
to a Rube Goldberg health care reform as the origin story for the final debacle of Democratic
neoliberal politics. There was a delicate balancing act going on, but they were not balancing
the recovery of the economy in general so much as they were balancing the recovery from insolvency
of a highly inefficient and arguably predatory financial sector, which was also not incidentally
financing the institutional core of the Democratic Party and staffing many key positions in the
Administration and in the regulatory apparatus.
This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints.
No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence.
The short version of my thinking on the Obama stimulus is this: Keynesian stimulus spending is
a free lunch; it doesn't really matter what you spend money on up to a very generous point, so
it seems ready-made for legislative log-rolling. If Obama could not get a very big stimulus
indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen
spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again,
if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really
trying.
Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
Great comment. Simply great. Hat tip to the author !
Notable quotes:
"… The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and
disable their dominance. …"
"… It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist
commitments. In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. …"
"… When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the
New York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top
five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well.
Simon Johnson called it a coup. … "
"… Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. …"
"… It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces"
that just happened, in a meteorological economics. …"
"… This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints. …"
"… No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence. …"
"… If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of
power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular
and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic
Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really trying. …"
"… Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
…"
Lost control of the Senate
Lost control of the House of Representatives
Lost control of dozens of state legislatures and Governorships.
The Republicans control 36 States of America - One more and they could in theory amend the Constitution.
In Wisconsin (notionally Democrat) the Legislature and Governor are both Republican controlled.
And Clinton didn't even campaign there when it was pretty obvious the State was not trending towards
her.
@138 The woman is wrong. Chelsea Clinton was not paid $600 k from the Clinton Foundation.
Chelsea Clinton was paid $600 k per year from 2011 by NBC for 'work' as a special correspondent,
whilst also pocketing $300 k per year plus stock options as a 'board member' of IAC. Chelsea's
speaking fees were a mere $65 k per.
The NYT offers a more severe critique of the IAC board deal readable by clicking through
the links. There will be those who see nothing improper about a fifth-estate firm paying a 31
year-old graduate student $600 k, or awarding her a board seat and stock options at $300k. Others
may disagree, and perhaps with some good reason.
The defeat of the democratic candidate by a rodeo clown is a slap in the face. Contra Manta
@71 I do not believe that anything less than a slap in the face of this order would be enough
to jar the successful and well-fed out of their state of complacency and indifference to the plight
of both the blacks and whites left behind by 8 years of Democratic rule, and far longer when we're
talking about urban African-Americans.
As noted, I believe the Republican candidate to be far and away the more sober, safer choice
both on domestic and foreign policy. Now we'll find out.
Thanks for the kind words to Rich, Bruce, T, bob mc, and others.
Disgusting as it is, yes, my understanding is Obama can do
exactly that. My guess is, want to or not, he probably will come under so much pressure
he will have to pass out plenty of pardons. Or maybe Lynch will give everyone involved
in the Clinton Foundation immunity to testify and then seal the testimony -- or never
bother to get any testimony. So many games.
For Obama, it might not even take all that much pressure. From about his second day
in office, from his body language, he's always looked like he was scared.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, which he would do, being the lawyer he is,
Giuliani has been screaming for the Clintons' scalps. That's exactly what a sharp lawyer
would do if he was trying to force Obama to pardon them. If he really meant to get them
he would be agreeing with the FBI, saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of wrong
doing, and then change his mind once (if) he's AG and it's too late for deals.
With so many lawyers, Obama, the Clintons, Lynch, Giuliani, Comey, no justice is
likely to come out of this.
@ Posted by: Ken Nari | Nov 11, 2016 2:51:53 PM | 55
I heard a podcast on Batchelor
with Charles Ortel which explained some things -- even if there are no obvious likely
criminal smoking guns -- given that foundations get away with a lot of "leniency"
because they are charities, incomplete financial statements and chartering documents, as
I recall. I was most interested in his description of the number of jurisdictions the
Foundation was operating under, some of whom, like New York were already investigating;
and others, foreign who might or might be, who also have very serious regulations,
opening the possibility that if the Feds drop their investigation, New York (with very
very strict law) might proceed, and that they might well be investigated
(prosecuted/banned??) in Europe.
The most recent leak wrt internal practices was just damning ... it sounded like a
playground of favors and sinecures ... no human resources department, no written
policies on many practices ...
This was an internal audit and OLD (2008, called "the Gibson Review") so corrective
action may have been taken, but I thought was damning enough to deter many donors (even
before Hillary's loss removed that incentive) particularly on top of the Band (2011)
memo. Unprofessional to the extreme.
It's part of my vast relief that Clinton lost and will not be in our lives 24/7/365
for the next 4 years. (I think Trump is an unprincipled horror, but that's as may be,
I'm not looking for a fight). After the mess Clinton made of Haiti (and the
accusations/recriminations) I somehow thought they'd have been more careful with their
"legacy" -- given that it was founded in 1997, 2008 is a very long time to be operating
without written procedures wrt donations, employment
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
Two sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI's investigations told
Fox News Wednesday that a probe of the Clinton Foundation is likely to lead to an indictment.
Fox News's Bret Baier said Wednesday that the FBI probe into a possible pay-to-play scheme between
Democratic presidential nominee and the Clinton Foundation
has been going on for over a year. Sources told the news network that the investigation, which is
conducted by the White Collar Crime division of the FBI, is a "very high priority."
One source further
stated that the bureau collected "a lot of" evidence, adding that "there is an avalanche of new information
coming every day." Baier also said that the Clinton Foundation probe is more expansive than previously
thought, and that many individuals have been interviewed several times throughout the course of the
investigation. Sources said that they are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case" and that
investigations are likely to continue. Baier added that when he pressed the sources about the details
of both probes, they told him that they are likely to lead to an indictment. Additionally, Baier
reported that according to Fox News's sources, Clinton's private email server had been breached by
at least five foreign intelligence hackers. FBI Director James Comey said in July that he could not
say definitively whether her server had been breached.
It's looking increasingly like there is an ongoing mutiny underway within the FBI as the
Wall Street Journal is reporting that, according to "officials at multiple agencies", FBI agents
felt they had adequate evidence, including "secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton
Foundation" , to pursue an investigation of the Clinton Foundation but were repeatedly obstructed
by officials at the Department of Justice.
Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle
between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements
as worthless hearsay, people familiar with the matter said.
The roots of the dispute lie in a disagreement over the strength of the case, these people
said, which broadly centered on whether Clinton Foundation contributors received favorable treatment
from the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
Senior officials in the Justice Department and the FBI didn't think much of the evidence, while
investigators believed they had promising leads their bosses wouldn't let them pursue , they said.
Despite clear signals from the Justice Department to abandon the Clinton Foundation inquiries,
many FBI agents refused to stand down. Then, earlier this year in February 2016, the FBI presented
initial evidence at a meeting with Leslie Caldwell, the head of the DOJ's criminal division, after
which agents were delivered a clear message that "we're done here." But, as the WSJ points out, DOJ
became increasing frustrated with FBI agents that were " disregarding or disobeying their instructions"
which subsequently prompted an emphatic "stand down" message from the DOJ to "all the offices involved."
As 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither
side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first.
In February, a meeting was held in Washington among FBI officials, public-integrity prosecutors
and Leslie Caldwell, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. Prosecutors from
the Eastern District of New York-Mr. Capers' office-didn't attend, these people said.
The public-integrity prosecutors weren't impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar
with the discussion said. "The message was, 'We're done here,' " a person familiar with the matter
said.
Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding
or disobeying their instructions.
Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message
to all the offices involved to " stand down ,'' a person familiar with the matter said.
The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking
about alleged deals the Clintons made , these people said. The agents listening to the recordings
couldn't tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was,
they thought, worth checking out.
In an
interview with House magazine, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux – the former Chief of the Defence
staff – said Mr. Trump is "wise enough to get good people round him and probably knows that he's
got to listen to them and therefore I think we should not automatically think it will be less safe".
He added: "It's non-state actors like Isis that are the biggest threat to our security. If
countries and states could coalesce better to deal with these people – and I think Trump's instinct
is to go down that route – then I think there's the case for saying that the world certainly won't
be any less safe.
"It's that lack of understanding and empathy with each other as big power players that is a
risk to us all at the moment.
"Therefore I think he would reinvigorate big power relationships, which might make the world
ironically safer."
During the interview Lord Richards also discussed the somewhat controversial view that the
West should partner with Russia and Bashar al-Assad to take back the Syrian city of Aleppo.
He said: "If the humanitarian situation in Syria is our major concern, which it should be –
millions of lives have been ruined, hundreds of thousands have been killed – I believe there is
a strong case for allowing Assad to get in there and take the city back.
"The opposition groups – many of whom are not friends of ours, they're extremists – are now
intermingled with the original good opposition groups, are fighting from amongst the people. The
only quick way of solving it is to allow Assad to win. There's no way the opposition groups are
going to win."
Lord Richards added: "We want the humanitarian horror of Aleppo to come to a rapid halt. The
best and quickest way of doing that is to encourage the opposition groups to leave. The Russians
are undoubtedly using their weapons indiscriminately. If they're going to attack those groups
then there is inevitably going to be civilian casualties.
"The alternative is for the West to declare a no-fly zone and that means you've got to be prepared
to go to war with Russia ultimately. I see no appetite for that and nor, frankly, do I see much
sense in it. It sticks in my throat to say it because I have no love for Assad.
"The fact is, the only way to get it to stop now is to allow Assad to win and win quickly and
then turn on Isis with the Russians."
Fox News Channel's Bret Baier reports the latest news about the Clinton Foundation
investigation from two sources inside the FBI. He reveals five important new pieces of
information in these two short clips:
"... In the latest update from Fox's Bret Baier , we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation about ongoing conflicts of interest. ..."
"... FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI 302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources. ..."
"... As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian, told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies." ..."
"... Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans. ..."
"... The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations. ..."
"... Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with. ..."
"... In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago. ..."
Now that thanks to first the
WSJ, and then
Fox News, the public is aware that a probe into the Clinton Foundation is not only a hot topic
for both the FBI and the DOJ (and has managed to split the law enforcement organizations along ideological
party lines), but is also actively ongoing despite the DOJ's attempts to squash it.
In the latest update from
Fox's Bret Baier, we learn that the Clinton Foundation investigation has now taken a "very high
priority," perhaps courtesy of new documents revealed by Wikileaks which expressed not only a collusive
element between Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the "charitable foundation's" donors, which included
the use of funds for personal gain, but also revealed deep reservations by people within the foundation
about ongoing conflicts of interest.
As Baier also notes, the Clinton Foundation probe has been proceeding for more than a year, led
by the White-Collar Crime division.
Fox adds that even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign,
FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, and FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed
multiple people regarding the case.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told
Fox News, adding some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and
interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, Baier's sources said. Agents also
are going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews as well as the FBI
302 documents, which agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
As expected, the Clinton Foundation denied everything, and Foundation spokesman, Craig Minassian,
told Fox news a statement: "We're not aware of any investigation into the Foundation by the
Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any United States Attorney's Office and
we have not received a subpoena from any of those agencies."
Now that details of the infighting between the DOJ and FBI regarding the Foundation probe have
been made public, Loretta Lynch may have no choice but to launch an official probe, including subpoeans.
The information follows a report over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal that four
FBI field offices have been collecting information about the foundation. The probes – in
addition to the revived email investigation – have fueled renewed warnings from Republicans that
if Clinton is elected next week, she could take office under a cloud of investigations.
"This is not just going to go away … if she ends up winning the election," Rep. Ron DeSantis,
R-Fla., told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" earlier this week.
Donald Trump has referenced this scenario, repeatedly saying on the stump this past week that
her election could trigger a "crisis."
Separately, Fox News reports that authorities also are virtually certain, i.e., "there is about
a 99 percent chance", that up to five foreign intelligence agencies may have accessed and
taken emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, two separate sources with intimate knowledge
of the FBI investigations told Fox News. If so, it would suggest that the original FBI probe - which
found no evidence of breach - was either incomplete or tampered with.
The revelation led House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul to describe Clinton's
handling of her email system during her tenure as secretary of state as "treason."
"She exposed [information] to our enemies," McCaul said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning. "Our
adversaries have this very sensitive information. … In my opinion, quite frankly, it's treason."
McCaul, R-Texas, said that FBI Director James Comey told him previously that foreign adversaries
likely had gotten into her server. When Comey publicly discussed the Clinton email case back in
July, he also said that while there was no evidence hostile actors breached the server, it was
"possible" they had gained access.
Clinton herself later pushed back, saying the director was merely "speculating."
But sources told Fox News that Comey should have said at the time there is an "almost certainty"
that several foreign intelligence agencies hacked into the server.
The claims come as Comey's FBI not only revisits the email investigation following the discovery
of additional emails on the laptop of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner – the estranged husband of Clinton aide
Huma Abedin – but is proceeding in its investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
In other words, Anthony Weiner may be ultimately responsible not only for the downfall of Hillary
Clinton's presidential candidacy, but also the collapse of the entire Clinton Foundation... which
incidentally is just what Donald Trump warned could happen over a year ago.
A summary of Baier's latest reporting is in the clip below...
The FBI has unexpectedly published papers from an over ten-year-old investigation of former president
Bill Clinton's controversial pardon of a financier, reports
NTB.
The case against Clinton was dismissed without charges in 2005, and several Democrats therefore question
why the 129-page report of the investigation is published right now, a few days before the election,
in which Bill Clinton's wife Hillary Clinton is trying to become president.
The rage against the FBI is already great in the Democratic Party after the federal police last week
announced they will investigate new emails relating to Hillary Clinton.
Financier Marc Rich was indicted for tax fraud and lived in exile in Switzerland when Bill Clinton
pardoned him on his last day as president on January 20, 2001. Several reacted to the pardon, especially
since Rich's ex-wife was a major donor to the Democratic Party.
The FBI started to investigate the pardon the year after.
"... FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation. ..."
"... Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News. ..."
"... "There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails. ..."
A second FBI investigation involving Hillary Clinton is ongoing. The investigation to uncover
corruption by the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton, is given high priority and now runs parallel
with the reopened FBI case of her using a private email server to avoid the Federal Records Act.
The FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year
has now taken a "very high priority," separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell
Fox News .
FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which
is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and the Clinton Foundation. The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation.
Even before the WikiLeaks dumps of alleged emails linked to the Clinton campaign, FBI agents
had collected a great deal of evidence, law enforcement sources tell Fox News.
"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News,
who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.
FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing
the same people again, some for the third time, sources said.
Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and
the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up,
according to sources.
"... It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation. Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation were combined. ..."
"... FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to pour more resources into the investigation. ..."
"... The story gets more complicated when you factor in that McCabe's wife, Dr. Jill McCabe had received a $467,500 campaign contribution in 2015 for a state senate race from McAuliffe . ..."
"... CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. ..."
FBI investigators from across the country have been following leads into reports of bribery
involving the Clinton Foundation. Multiple field offices have been involved in the investigation.
A report in Sunday's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by Devlin Barrett revealed that agents assigned
to the New York field office have been carrying the bulk of the work in investigating the Clinton
Foundations. They have received assistance from the FBI field office in Little Rock according to
"people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported. Other offices, including Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., have been collecting evidence to regarding "financial crimes or influence-peddling."
As far back as February 2016, FBI agents made presentation to the Department of Justice (DOJ),
the WSJ's sources stated. "The meeting didn't go well," they wrote. While some sources said
the FBI's evidence was not strong enough, others believed the DOJ had no intention from the start
of going any further. Barrett wrote that the DOJ officials were "stern, icy and dismissive of the
case."
Barrett wrote, "'That was one of the weirdest meetings I've ever been to,' one participant told
others afterward, according to people familiar with the matter."
It appears there was rift between the FBI and the DOJ with how to move forward with the investigation.
Agents in the Washington office were directed to focus on a separate issue relating to the actions
of former Virginia Governor and Clinton Foundation Board Member Terry McAuliffe. Agents inside the
FBI believed they could build a stronger case if the investigation of McAuliffe and the foundation
were combined.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemed to be caught in the middle of the fight between DOJ officials
who appeared to want to slow down or shut down the investigation and FBI agents who were eager to
pour more resources into the investigation.
Barrett wrote, "'Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?'
Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with the conversation. After a pause, the official
replied, 'Of course not,' these people said."
Some of the WSJ sources told Barrett that a "stand down" order had been given to the FBI
agents by McCabe. Others denied that no such order was given.
Preet Bharara, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appears to have
taken in interest in moving forward from the DOJ side, the Daily Caller's Richard Pollock
reported in August.
Pollock wrote:
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District
of New York. Bharara's prosecutorial aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions
of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street insiders.
He said prosecutorial support could come from multiple U.S. Attorneys Offices and stated this
was a major departure from other "centralized FBI investigations."
CNN also reported that multiple field offices were "in agreement a public corruption investigation
should be launched" with Clinton Foundation officials as a target. The cable news network reported
the investigation would have looked at "conflicts of interest by foreign donors and official acts
by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
"... "The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled, I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that." ..."
"... Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation was held back, but not the rest of the bureau. ..."
"... "The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said. ..."
A former FBI official said Sunday that Bill and Hillary Clinton are part of a "crime family"
and added that top officials impeded the investigation into Clinton's email server while she was
secretary of state.
Former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom praised Donald Trump before he offered a take down
of the Clintons in a radio interview with John Catsimatidis,
The Hill reported.
"The Clintons, that's a crime family, basically," Kallstrom said. "It's like organized crime.
I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool."
Kallstrom, best known for spearheading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800
in the late '90s, called Clinton a "pathological liar" and blamed Attorney General Loretta Lynch
for botching the Clinton email server investigation.
"The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation," he said. "That's the
problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled,
I'm sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that."
"God forbid we put someone like that in the White House," he added of Clinton.
Kallstrom blamed the FBI leadership under FBI Director James Comey as the reason the investigation
was held back, but not the rest of the bureau.
"The agents are furious with what's going on, I know that for a fact," he said.
Saturday on CNN while discussing the FBI reopening the investigation into Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private unsecured email server during her tenure as secretary
of state, former Assistant Director of the FBI Thomas Fuentes said, "The FBI has an intensive investigation
ongoing into the Clinton Foundation."
He added, "The FBI made the determination that the investigation would go forward as a comprehensive
unified case and be coordinated, so that investigation is ongoing and Huma Abedin and her role and
activities concerning secretary of state in the nature of the foundation and possible pay to play,
that's still being looked at and now."
"... After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy. ..."
"... She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again. ..."
"... So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change - with the same old Clinton-first approach. ..."
"... Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to mention those that show little concern for women's rights. ..."
It was 25 years ago that Martin Scorsese delighted audiences with his movie rendition of the Jim
Thompson novel, "The Grifters."
The story is an ingenious tale of deception and betrayal. By definition a grifter is someone who
has made money dishonestly, in a swindle or a confidence game.
After weeks of revealing information behind the Clinton Foundation and their self-motivated fundraising
tactics, there is no other word to describe the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
She's engaged in behavior that is disqualifying to be a candidate for the highest office, and yet
dozens of American legislators, leaders and even media outlets have endorsed her candidacy.
She's swindled countries out of donations, she's swindled corporate America with her lofty promises
and she's swindled the American people – over and over and over again.
So why now, after the knowledge that top-tier corporations and other wealthy supporters paid to
meet with both the former president and the now Democratic presidential nominee should we believe
that she would change her behavior to act in the best interest of the country? In fact, one could
argue that this information is a window into how Clinton would rule the land. She'd have an eye out
for only herself and her family, while leaving the American people - who so desperately want a change
- with the same old Clinton-first approach.
Beyond her blatant disregard for the American public, Clinton's cavalier approach to national
security has come into question from a myriad of angles. From the secret server in her home basement
that received hundreds of confidential email communications, to the lack of response she paid to
the Congress when asked about the issue, to the suggestion that she made promises to the FBI that
would cause them to "look the other way" when ruling on the secret email server. And then how about
the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation took from countries that are of disrepute, not to
mention those that show little concern for women's rights.
The most recent set of Clinton emails that have come to light are of such great concern to national
security that the FBI has announced they will conduct a new investigation of Clinton's emails. This
is just ELEVEN days before the country goes to the polls and decides on our next president.
Where has the leadership gone in this country? Since when do reputable news outlets stand behind
candidates who have proven themselves over and over to be out for themselves and dangerous, even?
It used to be that newspapers and legislators and leaders who speak from a platform would find themselves
offering wisdom. Wisdom about which candidate was best for the job – based on the facts. Instead
we find ourselves sifting through the list of endorsements for Clinton with little or no mention
of her disregard for the law, her lack of concern for those she serves, and the careless nature in
which she has proven herself to lead.
Now that the newspapers know better and have written about the truth in their own words, how can
the media and elected officials stand by their decision to endorse her? They need to rescind their
endorsement. That includes President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
In a quote from his book Thompson describes one of the characters, "Anyone who deprived her of
something she wanted, deserved what he got."
Sounds all too familiar to the Democratic nominee for grifter-in-chief. If she's not changed by
now, who is to say she'd be any different when she was the most powerful elected official in the
United States. Once a grifter, always a grifter.
Sharon Day is the Republican National Committee Co-Chair.
"... Wow, they clearly state Bill Clinton uses golfing to establish communication with donors ..."
"... "People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation. But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton had declared her own presidential run the month before." - source ..."
"... In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million total to the foundation. ..."
"... Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations and that is it. ..."
"... so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; ..."
"... This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole... ..."
"... This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for quid pro quo. ..."
"... Does any of it contradict the MOU she signed when appointed Sec State? https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34993 ..."
He also said they were talking about golf when he called Donald trump last year before trump decided
to run.
"People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton
and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation.
But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton
had declared her own presidential run the month before." -
source
Question-Are we to assume that any OTHER speaking engagements that WJC did were not because of
the foundation, but from when his wife was SOS?
In total, The Wall Street Journal reports, two dozen companies and groups, plus the
Abu Dhabi government, gave Bill more than $8 million for speeches, even as they were hoping
for favorable treatment from Hillary's bureaucracy. And 15 of them also gave at least $5 million
total to the foundation.
Can someone help me see the shadiness, what am I missing? unless the "foundation donors require
significant maintenance to keep them engaged and supportive of the foundation" means they are
giving them political favors then it just looks like the clinton foundation is accepting donations
and that is it.
so pro-clinton sources have been propping up the Clinton Foundation for years as the pinnacle
of charity while not really being able to explain where all the money goes; because it sure
doesn't seem to be going to Haiti or many other charities.
This shows that they require 20 million a year to operate with 8 employees. It shows they
have to raid the Clinton Global Initiative for $6M to $11M every year to cover that budget hole...
so this gives credence to the suspicion that the CF is hiding money somewhere (laundering money
to Clintons and friends). Also this document shows how teneo made Bill Clinton " more than $50
million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date
or the $66 million in future contracts" as of 2011.
This is useful information that is probably not reflected on tax returns. Most importantly
it shows that when Bill was offered a shady $8 million dollar over 2 year deal that would appear
to be a conflict of interest while Hillary was Sect of State, Podesta and Band suggested hiding
the money as payment for speeches. This boosts the accusation that the speeches are payments for
quid pro quo.
"... It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and ex-parliamentarian. ..."
"... Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration. In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004. ..."
"... Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. ..."
A sinister atmosphere surrounds the Clinton Foundation's role in Ukrainian military coup of February
2014, experts point out.
It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's
European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was
the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while
Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many
of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman
and ex-parliamentarian.
Remarkably, among individual donors contributing to the Clinton Foundation in the period between
1999 and 2014, Ukrainian sponsors took first place in the list, providing the charity with almost
$10 million and pushing England and Saudi Arabia to second and third places respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation alone transferred at least $8.6 million
to the Clinton charity between 2009 and 2013. Pinchuk, who acquired his fortune from a pipe-making
business, served twice as a parliamentarian in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and was married to the daughter
of ex-president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
Although the Clinton's charity denies that the donations were somehow connected with political
matters, experts doubt that international private sponsors received no political support in return.
In 2008 Pinchuk pledged to make a five-year $29 million contribution to the Clinton Global Initiative
in order to fund a program aimed at training future Ukrainian leaders and "modernizers." Remarkably,
several alumni of these courses are current members of Ukrainian parliament. Because of the global
financial crisis, the Pinchuk Foundation sent only $1.8 million.
Experts note that during Mrs. Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Viktor Pinchuk was introduced
to some influential American lobbyists. Curiously enough, he tried to use his powerful "friends"
to pressure Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free Yulia Tymoshenko, who served a jail
term.
Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration.
In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board
including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice,
Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent
figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004.
No one would argue that proponents of Ukraine's pro-Western course played the main role in organizing
the coup of February 2014 in Kiev. Furthermore, the exceptional role of the United States in ousting
then-president Viktor Yanukovich has also been recognized by political analysts, participants of
Euromaidan and even by Barack Obama, the US President.
Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet
government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment
banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the
Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have
previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.
So far, experts note, the recent "game of thrones" in Ukraine has been apparently instigated by
a few powerful clans of the US and Ukraine, who are evidently benefitting from the ongoing turmoil.
In this light the Clinton Foundation looks like something more than just a charity: in today's world
of fraudulent oligopoly we are facing with global cronyism, experts point out, warning against its
devastating consequences.
Qatar, like most Muslim countries, treats women as second-class citizens, but
champion-of-women Hillary never lets a little thing like that stop her from doing business. (See:
"On favors.") And a far greater threat than murderous Muslims adhering to a fanatical 7th-century
religious ideology lurks right here at home - those pesky Roman Catholics and their silly
2,000-year-old faith. (See: "On Catholics.")
That's explains vicious campaign by neoliberal MSM against Trump and swiping under the carpet all
criminal deeds of Clinton family. They feel the threat...
Notable quotes:
"... It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives: socialism and communism. ..."
"... That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness. That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. ..."
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by
race-obsessed lumpen. It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously
the case in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge.
The North's abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War
had more to do a desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from
the competition of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.[…]
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to
screw Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core
of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten
her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In other words it's all part of a grand plan when the Clintonoids aren't busy debating the finer
points of her marketing and "mark"–a term normally applied to the graphic logo on a commercial product.
"... I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism rather amusing. ..."
"... Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American nativist, ..."
"... Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act, I have this piece for you . ..."
"... Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme, mobilizing force in national life. ..."
"... In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are not only permissible; they are imperatives. ..."
"... The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine. I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist running a rather incompetent campaign. ..."
"... The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics. ..."
"... White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and customary advantages. ..."
"... The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy. ..."
"... The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more important groups. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity politics." ..."
"... The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders ..."
"... In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill. ..."
"... Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens. ..."
"... That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary GOP establishment away from Trump. ..."
"... "Identity politics" is near the core of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism. ..."
"... Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement. ..."
"... By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests. ..."
"... Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power. ..."
"... Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group, some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him. ..."
"... Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices. ..."
I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism
rather amusing.
For one thing, liberals don't crush fascism. Liberals appease fascism, then they exploit fascism.
In between there's a great big war, where communists crush fascism. That's pretty much the lesson
of WWII.
Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American
nativist, which is pretty much indistinguishable from old-fashioned racist when considering
the subjugation of native Americans and African-Americans and Asian immigrants, but requires that
touch of "nativist" nuance when considering indigenous bigotry against Irish, Italian, and Jewish
immigrants and citizens.
Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of
attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and
predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion
things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know
Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act,
I have this piece for you .
And for anybody who doesn't believe the US government does not already engage in intensive "extreme"
vetting and targeting of all Muslims immigrants, especially those from targeted countries, not only
to identify potential security risks but to groom potential intelligence assets, I got the Brooklyn
Bridge to sell you right here:
Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns
bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme,
mobilizing force in national life.
In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy
resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel
might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are
not only permissible; they are imperatives.
The need to seize state power and hold it while a fascist or Bolshevik agenda is implemented dictates
the need for a military force loyal to and subservient to the party and its leadership, not the state.
The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine.
I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political
movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist
running a rather incompetent campaign.
It's a little premature to throw dirt on the grave of the Trump candidacy, perhaps (I'll check
back in on November 9), but it looks like he spent too much time glorying in the adulation of his
white male nativist base and too little time, effort, and money trying to deliver a plausible message
that would allow other demographics to shrug off the "deplorable" tag and vote for him. I don't blame/credit
the media too much for burying Trump, a prejudice of mine perhaps. I blame Trump's inability to construct
an effective phalanx of pro-Trump messengers, a failure that's probably rooted in the fact that Trump
spent the primary and general campaign at war with the GOP establishment.
The only capital crime in politics is disunity, and the GOP and Trump are guilty on multiple counts.
The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to
the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between
big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics.
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed
lumpen . It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case
in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. The North's
abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War had more to do a
desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from the competition
of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.
White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American
labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and
customary advantages.
If anyone harbors illusions concerning the kumbaya solidarity between white and black labor
in the post-World War II era, I think the article The Problem of Race in American Labor History
by Herbert Hill ( a freebie on
JSTOR ) is a good place to start.
The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American
politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political
muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy.
However, in this campaign, the race wedge has cut the other way in a most interesting fashion.
White conservatives are appalled, and minority liberals energized, by the fact that the white guy,
despite winning the majority white male vote, lost to a black guy not once but twice, giving a White
Twilight/Black Dawn (TM) vibe to the national debate.
The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton
and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more
important groups.
The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching
and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity
politics."
The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary
Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie
Sanders.
My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I
never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders while announcing
the Black Congressional Caucus endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Bear in mind that during the 1960s,
Sanders had
affiliated his student group at the University of Chicago with Lewis' SNCC, the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee; during the same era, Hillary Clinton was at Wellesley
condemning
"the snicks" for their excessively confrontational tactics.
Ah, politics.
To understand the significance of this event, one should read Fracture by the guru of woke
Clintonism, Joy Reid. Or read
my piece on the subject . Or simply understand that after Hillary Clinton lost Lewis's endorsement,
the black vote, and the southern Democratic primaries to Barack Obama in 2008, and she was determined
above all to secure and exploit monolithic black support in the primaries and, later on, the general
in 2016.
So, in order to prevent Sanders from splitting the black vote to her disadvantage on ideological/class
lines, Clinton played the race card. Or, as we put it today when discussing the championing of historically
disadvantaged a.k.a. non white male heterosexual groups, celebrated "identity politics".
In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie
bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African
American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided
acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill.
Trump's populism draws its heat from American nativism, not "soak the rich" populism of the Sandernista
stripe, and it was easily submerged in the "identity politics" narrative.
Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for
his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against
blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe
the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists
subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens.
As an indication of the fungible & opportunistic character of the "identity politics" approach,
as far as I can tell from a recent visit to a swing state, as the Clinton campaign pivoted to the
general, the theme of Trump's anti-black racism has been retired in favor of pushing his offenses
against women and the disabled. Perhaps this reflects the fact that Clinton has a well-advertised
lock on the African-American vote and doesn't need to cater to it; also, racism being what it is,
playing the black card is not the best way to lure Republicans and indies to the Clinton camp.
The high water mark of the Clinton African-American tilt was perhaps the abortive campaign to
turn gun control into a referendum on the domination of Congress by white male conservatives. It
happened a few months ago, so who remembers? But John Lewis led a sit-in occupation of the Senate
floor in the wake of the Orlando shootings to highlight how America's future was being held hostage
to the whims of Trump-inclined white pols.
That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice
initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists
started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary
GOP establishment away from Trump.
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to screw
Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core of
the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand
of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In my view, a key tell is Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable
foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a
font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement.
By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative
crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider
to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ
the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests.
Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from
the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press
to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and
it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity
politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power.
In my view, the Trump and Clinton campaigns are both protofascist.
Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group,
some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him.
Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which
adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices.
But the bottom line is race. U.S. racism has stacked up 400 years of tinder that might take a
few hundred more years, if ever, to burn off. And until it does, every politician in the country
is going to see his or her political future in flicking matches at it. And that's what we're seeing
in the current campaign. A lot. Not fascism.
(Reprinted from
China Matters by permission of author or representative)
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
"... [Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous aides, including Doug Brand ..."
"... No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how that's playing in Florida? ..."
"[Qatar] would like to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that
Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous
aides, including Doug Brand [isc]. "Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti
- particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are
happy to consider projects we suggest. I'm collecting input from CF Haiti team."
No doubt! The Clintons sure were working the Haiti angle any way that they could. I wonder how
that's playing in Florida?
Donald Trump is accusing the Clintons of cashing in on Haiti's deadly 2010 earthquake.
The Republican nominee cited State Department emails obtained by the Republican National
Committee through a public records request and detailed in an ABC News story.
At issue is whether friends of former President Bill Clinton, referred to as "friends of Bill,"
or "FOB," in the emails, received preferential treatment or contracts from the State Department
in the immediate aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. More than 230,000
people died, the U.S. has said.
Imagine that while George W. Bush was governor of
Texas and president of the United States, various people and companies decided
to write him checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars, just because they
thought he was a great guy. Those people and companies, just coincidentally,
happened to have interests that were affected by the policies of Texas and the
United States. But when he thanked them for their money, Bush never promised to
do anything in particular for them. You would be suspicious, right?
Now, that's roughly what has been happening with the Clinton Foundation.
Various people and companies have been writing checks for millions of dollars
to the Foundation during the same time that Hillary Clinton was secretary of
state and, following that, the most likely next president of the United
States-a title she has held since the day Barack Obama's second term began.
(The Clintons finally decided to
scale back the Foundation
earlier this week.)
... ... ...
So the real question is this: Do you think it would be appropriate for people and companies
affected by U.S. policy to be writing $1 million checks directly to the Clintons? If the answer
is yes, then you should be against any campaign finance rules whatsoever. If the answer is no,
you should be worried about the Clinton Foundation.
Vinny Idol
|
August 25, 2016 at 8:02 pm
|
I disagree whole heartedly with this post. The clinton foundation is a
big deal, because its proof positive that America was founded on Money
laundering, the elite that run this country make and made their money
through money laundering; and no one wants that in the White House. Thats
ok for the rest of America sociery, but not the government where peoples
lives hang on the balance through every speech, law and policy that is
conducted on capitol hill.
The Clintons destroyed Libya, Honduras, Haiti through their money
laundering scheme called the clinton foundation. Theres no justification
for that.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 12:40 am
|
Trump thinks very highly of Reagan, but very lowly of Mexicans, so if
Trump were to win I suspect he will secretly sell some of our nukes, this
finally giving him the financial boost needed to overtake Carlos Slim on
the list of the world's richest men. This 'deal of deals' then also
harkens back to another historical 'deal' (Iran/Contra), and of course
Reagan, while simultaneously eliminating Trump's deepest regret which is
that of being bested by a Mexican. This being the real reason that he
decided to run in the first place.
Probably though, HRC will win. The
problem there being that all of the scrutiny that she has been receiving
for so long, coupled with Bills' infidelities, and other various setbacks
and slights, have left her very angry and bitter. Combining this seething
hatred of all humans, especially men, with the fact that there has never
been a women president to look up to, HRC's only influence is a secretary
who worked for Woodrow Wilson by the name of Mildred Jingowitz, or Ms.
Jingo as she was called. Ms. Jingo stands out for HRC because she
actually wrote the Espionage Act of 1917 and the the Sedition Act of
1918. Those combining to "cover a broader range of offenses, notably
speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war
effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government
bonds."
"The Sedition Act of 1918 stated that people or countries cannot say
negative things about the government or the war."
"It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive
language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed
forces or that caused others to view the American government or its
institutions with contempt." Most importantly though, these acts gave the
Government the legal right to prosecute draft dodgers, and …these could
bring an end to at least some of the scrutiny that has plagued HRC for so
long just so long as we remain at war.
So, if you are wondering what any of this has to do with the Clinton
Foundation, well, HRC used the Foundation to facilitate at least one very
large arms deal with at least one Royal Gulfie. But it matters little
whether she used the foundation or not, HRC used her tenure at Foggy
Bottom to arrange a record number of weapons deals, and of course she is
mad as hell and determined to prove just how tough women can be (and
there is of course one man who she respects, H. Kissinger).
Anyway, it doesn't take a historian specializing in the build-up
leading to the two World Wars to figure out the rest. BOOM!!!
I'm a long-time reader. I admire what you and Simon have
done educating us about the financial crisis and its aftermath, and I
agree with most of your political positions, especially related to the
corrupting influence of money in politics. I have seen this first hand
over my years in politics and government, and I believe it is the single
most important issue we face because progress on all others depends on
it.
But in taking yet another hack at Hillary Clinton in this post, you've
contradicted yourself in a way that unravels your argument, while
engaging in false equivalencies and blowing a key fact out of proportion.
First, the internal contradiction:
"Bill and Hillary are getting on in years, they only have one child,
and she is married to a hedge fund manager. When you have that much
money, a dollar in your foundation is as good as a dollar in your bank
account. Once you have all your consumption needs covered, what do you
need money for?"
You imply, here, that the Clintons' wealth and Marc Mezvinsky's hedge
fund income have made the marginal value of another dollar in income de
minimis for the Clintons' personal finances. Then you write,
paraphrasing, that a dollar donated to the Foundation is as good as a
dollar deposited in their personal bank account; therefore, you imply,
money that goes to their foundation is as corrupting as money that goes
into their personal accounts.
You see the problem in claiming that a contribution to the Clinton
Foundation is a powerful incentive for HRC to tilt her foreign policy
positions, right? You just made the case for why a donation to the
Foundation has little personal value to the Clintons:
MV of $ to bank account = 0.
MV of $ to Foundation = MV of $ to bank account.
But you don't proceed to: Therefore, MV of $ to Foundation = 0. So,
according to your logic, there can be no corrupting influence.
You follow this, writing:
"If you're a Clinton, you want to have an impact in the world, reward
your friends, and burnish your legacy. A foundation is an excellent
vehicle for all of those purposes, for obvious reasons. It is also an
excellent way to transfer money to your daughter free of estate tax,
since she can control it after you die."
Your imply that the Clintons give equal weight to their desires to
reward their friends, burnish their legacy, and have an impact on the
world. What evidence do you have of this? Also, you implicitly denigrate
their charitable motives by describing them as a desire "to have an
impact on the world" without a nod to their clear intent to have an
impact that is profoundly constructive. You also speculate, without
providing any support, that the Foundation is a tax avoidance scheme to
enrich their daughter. I think you've crossed a line here.
Now for the false equivalencies:
"Imagine that while George W. Bush was governor of Texas and president
of the United States, various people and companies decided to write him
checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars, just because they thought he
was a great guy. Those people and companies, just coincidentally,
happened to have interests that were affected by the policies of Texas
and the United States. But when he thanked them for their money, Bush
never promised to do anything in particular for them. You would be
suspicious, right?"
Why imagine? We have the real-world case of the Saudis bailing out
George W's Harken Energy while his father was president. Of course, this
is only one example of how the lucrative Bush-Saudi relationship
generated income that went straight into the Bush "coffers".
So you implicitly compare HRC's alleged conflict related to the
family's charity with the Bush family conflict related to their own
personal bank accounts. While HW Bush, as president, made use of his long
friendship with the Saudis for the family's personal gain, HRC gave
access to the likes of the crown prince of Bahrain and Nobel Peace Prize
Winner Muhammad Yunus. Not equivalent. Not even close. I wonder how
routine it is for a Secretary of State to meet with the crown prince of
an oil-producing nation or a Nobel Prize winner versus how routine is it
for foreign oligarchs friendly to a president to bailout his son.
But at least the Saudis were allies of the US. Today, the GOP nominee
has undisclosed but apparently significant business ties to close allies
of the president of our greatest strategic adversary, and expresses his
admiration for an autocrat who is seizing territory in Europe and
terminating his opponents. I've missed your post on this one, though I'm
sure there is one.
One last point: This controversy involved some 85 meetings or
telephone calls HRC granted to Foundation donors. The media have morphed
this into 85 meetings, dropping the "and telephone calls," and made this
out to be a pretty big number. Naive readers and Hillary haters have
accepted it as such. If fact, 85 meetings and telephone calls over four
years are, well, de minimis.
Many of these donors had standing sufficient to get them in the door
whether they gave to the Foundation or not. But let's say all of them
gained access solely as a result of their donations. Over the four years
HRC was Secretary of State, 85 meetings and telephone calls work out to
1.8 meetings/calls per month. Let's make a guess that she met or talked
on the phone with an average of 15 people a day. So, one of every 250
people HRC met or had a phone call with each month, or 21 out of 3000
each year, would have secured their contact with her by donating to the
Foundation. 85 doesn't look so big in context, especially since no one
has presented any evidence of any quid pro quos.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 2:42 am
|
Philip,
The 85 meetings occurred during about half of HRC's term and I've not
heard anyone else dilute things with "phone calls".
Plus, the Bahrainis
were approved for a major arms deal after donating. The Prince tried to
make an appointment with HRC privately, but was made to go through State
Dept. channels before being allowed a meeting.
HRC was also involved in the selling of more weapons in her term than
all of those occurring during the Bush 43 terms combined.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 2:50 am
|
Philip.
Also, there is this:
"You had a situation, that The Wall Street Journal reported, where
Hillary Clinton herself intervened in a case dealing with taxes with UBS,
a Swiss bank, and then, suddenly, after that, UBS began donating big to
the Clinton Foundation. So there are many examples of-I mean, there's oil
companies-that's another one I should mention right now, which is that
oil companies were giving big to the Clinton Foundation while lobbying
the State Department-successfully-for the passage of the Alberta Clipper,
the tar sands pipeline."
David Sarota, interview:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/25/weapons_pipelines_wall_st_did_clinton
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 9:40 am
|
Other noteworthy donors to the Clinton Foundation:
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch
Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media
Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters
Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,000-$1,000,000
Google
News Corporation Foundation
Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent company
$250,000-$500,000
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publisher
Richard Mellon Scaife
Owner of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
$100,000-$250,000
Abigail Disney
Documentary filmmaker
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Howard Stringer
Former CBS, CBS News and Sony executive
Intermountain West Communications Company
Local television affiliate owner (formerly Sunbelt Communications)
$50,000-$100,000
Bloomberg L.P.
Discovery Communications Inc.
George Stephanopoulos
ABC News chief anchor and chief political correspondent
Mort Zuckerman
Owner of New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report
Time Warner Inc.
Owner of CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting
First, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a cite
supporting the statement that move arms sales occurred during HRC's four
years than during W's eight years. I'd like to look under the cover of
that one.
Also, it's important to note that a lot more people are involved in
approving arms sales than the SoS, including Republicans on the Hill.
Second, the AP touted its original story as being "meetings" but when
you read the story itself you found it was "meetings and phone calls."
Subsequently, the media and commentariat referred to 85 meetings,
dropping reference to phone calls.
Now for the arms sales to Bahrain. This one is especially juicy
because it's an excellent example of how HRC is being tarred.
The US has massive military assets in Bahrain, which hosts the largest
US military outpost in the Gulf. We've been making massive arms sale to
Bahrain for many years. So no surprise that we'd make some when HRC was
SoS.
And considering the strategic importance of Bahrain, there's no
surprise in HRC meeting with the crown prince. The surprise would be if
she declined to do so.
Now, if memory serves, and I encourage you to check me on this, the US
suspended arms sales to Bahrain while HRC was SoS in response to the
Bahrain's suppression of dissent among its Shia minority. Later, we
partially lifted the suspension to allow sales of arms Related to
protecting our huge naval base in Bahrain. I think this decision also
came while HRC was SoS.
So, the arm sales to Bahrain illustrates my objections to the facile
claims that contributions to the CF suggest that HRC is corrupt. These
claims bring one sliver of information to the discussion: so and so
donated money to the CF and then talked to HRC on the phone (or got a
meeting). No evidence is produced that there's a causal relationship
between the two much less a quid pro quo in which the donation and
meeting led HRC to act in an official capacity to benefit the
contributor.
All of the examples I've seen so far, the oil companies, UBS, etc. are
like this. No context, no evidence of a quid pro quo, all inuendo.
publiustex
|
August 26, 2016 at 10:20 am
|
I consider some of these contributors to be unsavory, and I wish they'd
give the Clinton Foundation a lot more money so they'd have less to sink
into GOP House and Senate races.
Philip Diehl
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:05 am
|
Ray LaPan-Love: You left out this quote from the interview with David
Sirota. Context matters.
'DAVID SIROTA: Well, my reaction to it is that
I think that if you look at some of these individual examples, I think
Paul is right that it's hard to argue that their donations to the
foundation got them access. They are - a lot of these people in the AP
story are people who knew her."
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:21 am
|
Pub,
I can't remember where I saw the comparison between the arms sales of HRC
and the shrub. But, if it comes to me I'll add it later. Meanwhile, here
is a link to lots of related info:
And yes, "no context, no evidence of a quid pro quo", and almost as if
she knew she might run for the prez job.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:41 am
|
Sorry Phillip, but gee whiz, am I to assume that nobody else has any
'context' on a story that is difficult to miss. Where does one draw such
lines? And the spin you are hoping for is somewhat unwound by David using
the phrase "hard to argue". That could be interpreted to simply mean that
the CF is good at obfuscating. And as someone who has worked in politics
and even for a large NPO, I can atably assure you
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 26, 2016 at 11:59 am
|
….!!!!!! my cursor got stuck on the previous comment as I tried to use
spell-check.
Anyway, I was trying to comfratably assure you that these organizations
are commonly structured to allow for deceptive practices. The Sierra Club
for example has affiliates that collect donations and then those funds
are used to pay the overhead of the affiliate 'before' any money is
donated to the Sierra Club. Thus, the Sierra club's solicitation costs
are not reflected in the percentage of funds used toward whatever cause.
This is not of course very subtle, and a Foundation such the CF could not
likely get away something this obvious, but…schemes such those exposed by
the Panama Papers should make us all hesitant to assume anything.
I'm a long-time fan of your smart writing and the important work that
you (and Simon) do. But what's with this constant Clinton Derangement
Syndrome? Why look so hard to find some morsel of "scandal" with the
Clintons when there's an entire herd of elephants in the room with the
Republican candidate??
As a wealth manager of many years, I must disagree with your
dismissive assessment of the Clintons' personal philanthropy as a
personal piggy bank. For sure, in a regular family foundation (many of my
clients!) the grants and donations are entirely at the discretion of the
controlling family, and very often it's all about shiny brass plaques and
photo ops with museum directors or mayors. Fine, that's our system, and
at least something gets done. And then the donors die and the plaques
fade. A shawl has no pockets.
But the Clinton operation is unique: they choose specific issues,
partner with competent outside groups, and then direct enormous extra
outside funds - not just their own meager foundation money - to tackle
the problems. This is only possible because of their international
status; not a Gates nor a Slim nor a Zuckerberg could engineer the same.
One can certainly speculate about who got access (a phone call,
seriously?) or who was schmoozed in what way in order to secure their
donations. But to broad-brush the whole of the Clinton philanthropy as
personal corruption is truly unfair. And it sure doesn't make sense when
there's so much worse and genuinely scandalous material on the other side
just waiting to be uncovered.
Keep the faith!
Bruce E. Woych
|
August 27, 2016 at 2:39 pm
|
Note: (from Global Research critique @ (eg:
https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/suite
) cited above:
"Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, Andre
Vltchek has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest
books are: "Exposing Lies Of The Empire" and "Fighting Against Western
Imperialism". Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point
of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a
book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book
about Indonesia: "Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear". Andre is making
films for teleSUR and Press TV.
Ray LaPan-Love
|
August 27, 2016 at 3:42 pm
|
Bruce, (been awhile),
High grade stuff there. Yet, I'm not as taken by Caros' comment as you
seem to be. Near the end, this part: "The Clinton family business is
benefiting themselves AND OTHERS by way of their prominence."
To begin with, the Clinton's influence in arming the royal gulfies may
get us all killed, and so his comparison to the Bushs, while apt in a
current sense, it may well be…dangerously premature. Then too, Caro is of
course taking sides as if the Clintons don't fully realize the P.R.
benefits of giving away other peoples money. Which segs the question of
how could the Clintons have put so much time and effort into Hillary's
run, while creating so many pitfalls for themselves? Did they think the
Repubs might get nice? Are they stupid, arrogant maybe? Or just so
corrupt that they just can't stop like so many kleptomaniacs? In any
case, it isn't only Trump's fitness that we should be questioning.
"... "State Department Delays Records Request About Clinton-Linked Firm Until After The 2016 Election" [ International Business Times ]. "Beacon Global Strategies is a shadowy consulting firm that's stacked with former Obama administration officials, high profile Republicans and a number of Hillary Clinton's closest foreign policy advisers. But beyond its billing as a firm that works with the defense industry, it is unclear for whom specifically the company works, exactly what it does, and if Beacon employees have tried to influence national security policy since the firm's founding in 2013. ..."
"... UPDATE "New York-based Teneo, with 575 employees, markets itself as a one-stop shop for CEOs to get advice on a wide range of issues, including mergers and acquisitions, handling crises and managing public relations. For its services, it generally charges clients monthly retainer fees of $100,000 to $300,000." [ Wall Street Journal , "Teneo, Consulting Firm with Clinton Ties, Eyes $1 Billion IPO"]. Founder Douglas Band was Bill Clinton's body man . One can only wonder what a body man does to become worth $1 billion to, well, the people who made him worth a billion. ..."
"... The donors expect that their support of the Clinton Foundation will help them get access to the State Department, [Doug] Band see above] expects that he can count on [Huma] Abedin to help, and Abedin seems to understand that she needs to be responsive to Band. This would be a lot of effort for powerful people to expend, if it led to nothing at all. ..."
"... UPDATE "Even as the Clintons are touting plans to distance themselves from their foundation and limit its fundraising if Hillary Clinton is elected president, they're planning one last glitzy fundraising bash on Friday to belatedly celebrate Bill Clinton's 70th birthday" [ Politico ]. ..."
"... "Plans called for performances by Wynton Marsalis, Jon Bon Jovi and Barbra Streisand, according to people briefed on the planning. They said that major donors are being asked to give $250,000 to be listed as a chair for the party, $100,000 to be listed a co-chair and $50,000 to be listed as a vice-chair." Sounds lovely! How I wish I could go… ..."
"State Department Delays Records Request About Clinton-Linked Firm Until
After The 2016 Election" [
International Business Times ]. "Beacon Global Strategies is a shadowy consulting
firm that's stacked with former Obama administration officials, high profile
Republicans and a number of Hillary Clinton's closest foreign policy advisers.
But beyond its billing as a firm that works with the defense industry, it is
unclear for whom specifically the company works, exactly what it does, and if
Beacon employees have tried to influence national security policy since the
firm's founding in 2013.
UPDATE "New York-based Teneo, with 575 employees, markets itself as a one-stop
shop for CEOs to get advice on a wide range of issues, including mergers and
acquisitions, handling crises and managing public relations. For its services,
it generally charges clients monthly retainer fees of $100,000 to $300,000."
[
Wall Street Journal , "Teneo, Consulting Firm with Clinton Ties, Eyes $1
Billion IPO"]. Founder Douglas Band was Bill Clinton's
body man
. One can only wonder what a body man does to become worth $1 billion to,
well, the people who made him worth a billion.
"[I]n many of these [Clinton Foundation] episodes you can see expectations
operating like an electrical circuit. The donors expect that their support of
the Clinton Foundation will help them get access to the State Department, [Doug]
Band see above] expects that he can count on [Huma] Abedin to help, and Abedin
seems to understand that she needs to be responsive to Band. This would be a
lot of effort for powerful people to expend, if it led to nothing at all. There
are two obvious possibilities. One is that the State Department actually was
granting important favors to Clinton Foundation donors that the many sustained
investigations have somehow failed to detect. The other, which is more likely,
is that someone, somewhere along the line, was getting played" [
The New Yorker ]. Surely those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive?
And public office is being used for private gain in either case?
UPDATE "Even as the Clintons are touting plans to distance themselves from
their foundation and limit its fundraising if Hillary Clinton is elected president,
they're planning one last glitzy fundraising bash on Friday to belatedly celebrate
Bill Clinton's 70th birthday" [
Politico ].
"Plans called for performances by Wynton Marsalis, Jon Bon Jovi
and Barbra Streisand, according to people briefed on the planning. They said
that major donors are being asked to give $250,000 to be listed as a chair for
the party, $100,000 to be listed a co-chair and $50,000 to be listed as a vice-chair."
Sounds lovely! How I wish I could go…
13. How can we know you won't (again) impulsively damage
relationships with crucial allies to preserve your own ego?
Hillary Clinton added,
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S.
politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get
elected. #Trump2016
Is such incompetence in messaging a reflection of Hillary Clinton
own confusion? Or are the categories "terrorist and dictator" versus
"crucial allies" solely depending on the size of payments to the
Clinton Foundation?
She is sliding to throwing mud ,. what ever will stick will do
the trick I guess .This started after some polls showing the
Donald ahead a few points .
I recognize election season is always crazy in the states,
especially as an outside observer looking in, but this cycle
seems so far beyond that norm compared even to 4 years ago it
makes me quite uncomfortable. It reeks of a growing desperation
by the elites to me. The 2012 campaigns of the two major parties
were a circus by any measure, but they seem completely measured
and intellectual by this year's standards.
I understand American culture dwells a lot on violence, but
the new standards of political rhetoric disturb me greatly. It
seems most of the country's population is either willfully
ignorant of the destruction their country creates or cheers it
on wildly and willingly. How anybody could advocate carpet
bombing without irony or rebuttal is frightenening. That it
could drum up support - well that's just depressing.
The two most important topics in this election, nuclear
weapons and global warming, both candidates have been decidedly
silent about. It scares me that neither party even attempts to
appeal to the left anymore, except by manipulating them by fear
and non existent 'security' issues. If it's all about PR and
perception management anyways, I wonder why Clinton wears her
right leaning nature and war mongering history on her sleeve?
Maybe content and debate matters less than I assume it does to
the average American voter. Maybe it's totally about spectacle
and personality now and nothing else. Sad, sad days for those
who live in the middle of the Empire but it's hard to be
sympathetic sometimes. It seems the hot new consumer electronic
device gets more of a thorough analysis and debate than does
either major party candidates' platform (if you could even call
it that).
Vote republican and catastrophic, irreversible climate change
is almost guaranteed, with a hearty chance of more war and more
regime change operations (despite attempts to paint the
candidate as 'isolationist').
Vote democrat for more wars and regime change, with the
status quo of environmental destruction happily maintained
(despite the attempts to paint the candidate as an
'environmentalist').
this us election is much more pathetic then usual... witnessing
the standing president refer to putin akin to saddam hussain is
frankly insane, but shows how depraved the usa has gotten...
and, besides that, since when did the average usa person even
know where any place outside the usa was on a map, let alone
having actually been their? oh - i guess it doesn't matter...
as @1 originalone says basically 'putin did it'...
The Obama administration authorized CIA backing of the
rebellion almost before it started. In all likelihood, it
started several years before the revolt, and the authorization
was to provide legal cover for activity that was already
ongoing.
Unfortunately, your observations are sharp,
correct and to the point. All I can weakly offer is something
Ralph Nader said. Ralph Nader once noted that the difference
between the democrats and republicans is the difference between
a car hitting a wall at 60 miles per hour versus 120 miles per
hour. Not so anymore. Now both cars will hit the wall going as
fast as they can. And the passengers will jump for joy at the
speed.
This is Christopher Hitchens biting analysis from previous Presidential elections,
but still relevant
Notable quotes:
"... The last time that Clinton foreign-policy associations came up for congressional review, the investigations ended in a cloud of murk that still has not been dispelled. ..."
"... the real problem is otherwise. Both President and Sen. Clinton, while in office, made it obvious to foreign powers that they and their relatives were wide open to suggestions from lobbyists and middlemen. ..."
"... If you recall the names John Huang, James Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and others, you will remember the pattern of acquired amnesia syndrome and stubborn reluctance to testify, followed by sudden willingness on the part of the Democratic National Committee to return quite large sums of money from foreign sources. Much of this cash had been raised at political events held in the public rooms of the White House, the sort of events that featured the adorable Roger Tamraz , for another example. ..."
"... It found that the Clinton administration's attitude toward Chinese penetration had been abysmally lax (as lax, I would say, as its attitude toward easy money from businessmen with Chinese military-industrial associations). ..."
"... Many quids and many quos were mooted by these investigations (still incomplete at the time of writing) though perhaps not enough un-ambivalent pros . You can't say that about the Marc Rich and other pardons-the vulgar bonanza with which the last Clinton era came to an end. Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, gave large sums to Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign and to Bill Clinton's library, and Marc Rich got a pardon. ..."
"... Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory, convicted of bank fraud, hired Hillary Clinton's brother Tony and paid him $250,000, and they got a pardon. Carlos Vignali Jr. and Almon Glenn Braswell paid $400,000 to Hillary Clinton's other brother, Hugh , and, hey, they , respectively, got a presidential commutation and a presidential pardon, too. ..."
"... Does this sibling and fraternal squalor have foreign-policy implications, too? Yes. Until late 1999, the fabulous Rodham boys were toiling on another scheme to get the hazelnut concession from the newly independent republic of Georgia. There was something quixotically awful about this scheme-something simultaneously too small-time and too big-time-but it also involved a partnership with the main political foe of the then-Georgian president (who may conceivably have had political aspirations), so once again the United States was made to look as if its extended first family were operating like a banana republic. ..."
"... In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. ..."
"... Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me. ..."
It was apt in a small way that the first
endorser of Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of state should have been
Henry Kissinger. The last time he was nominated for any position of responsibility-the
chairmanship of the 9/11 commission-he accepted with many florid words about
the great honor and responsibility, and then he withdrew when it became clear
that he would have to disclose the client list of Kissinger Associates. (See,
for the article that began this embarrassing process for him, my Slate
column "The
Latest Kissinger Outrage.")
It is possible that the Senate will be as much of a club as the undistinguished
fraternity/sorority of our ex-secretaries of state, but even so, it's difficult
to see Sen. Clinton achieving confirmation unless our elected representatives
are ready to ask a few questions about conflict of interest along similar lines.
And how can they not? The last time that Clinton foreign-policy associations
came up for congressional review, the investigations ended in a cloud of murk
that still has not been dispelled. Former President Bill Clinton has recently
and rather disingenuously offered to submit his own foundation to scrutiny (see
the
work of my Vanity Fair colleague Todd Purdum on the delightful friends
and associates that Clinton has acquired since he left office), but
the real problem is otherwise. Both President and Sen. Clinton, while in
office, made it obvious to foreign powers that they and their relatives were
wide open to suggestions from lobbyists and middlemen.
Just to give the most salient examples from the Clinton fundraising scandals
of the late 1990s: The House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight published
a list of witnesses called before it who had either "fled
or pled"-in other words, who had left the country to avoid testifying or
invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination. Some Democratic members
of the committee said that this was unfair to, say, the Buddhist nuns who raised
the unlawful California temple dough for then-Vice President
Al Gore, but however fair you want to be, the number of those who found
it highly inconvenient to testify fluctuates between 94 and 120. If you
recall the names John Huang, James Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and others,
you will remember the pattern of acquired amnesia syndrome and stubborn reluctance
to testify, followed by sudden willingness on the part of the Democratic National
Committee to return quite large sums of money from foreign sources. Much of
this cash had been raised at political events held in the public rooms of the
White House, the sort of events that featured the adorable
Roger Tamraz, for another example.
Related was the result of a House select
committee
on Chinese espionage in the United States and the illegal transfer to China
of advanced military technology. Chaired by Christopher Cox, R-Calif., the committee
issued a
report
in 1999 with no dissenting or "minority" signature. It found that the Clinton
administration's attitude toward Chinese penetration had been abysmally lax
(as lax, I would say, as its attitude toward easy money from businessmen with
Chinese military-industrial associations).
Many quids and many quos were mooted by these investigations
(still incomplete at the time of writing) though perhaps not enough un-ambivalent
pros. You can't say that about the Marc Rich and other pardons-the vulgar
bonanza with which the last Clinton era came to an end. Rich's ex-wife, Denise
Rich, gave large sums to Hillary Clinton's re-election campaign and to Bill
Clinton's library, and Marc Rich got a pardon.
Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory, convicted of bank fraud,
hired Hillary Clinton's brother Tony and paid him $250,000, and they
got a pardon. Carlos Vignali Jr. and Almon Glenn Braswell paid $400,000 to Hillary
Clinton's other brother,
Hugh, and, hey, they, respectively, got a presidential commutation
and a presidential pardon, too. In the Hugh case, the money was returned
as being too embarrassing for words (and as though following the hallowed custom,
when busted or flustered, of the Clinton-era DNC). But I would say that it was
more embarrassing to realize that a former first lady, and a candidate for secretary
of state, was a full partner in years of seedy overseas money-grubbing and has
two greedy brothers to whom she cannot say no.
Does this sibling and fraternal squalor have foreign-policy implications,
too? Yes. Until late 1999, the fabulous Rodham boys were toiling on another
scheme to get the hazelnut concession from the newly independent republic of
Georgia. There was something quixotically awful about this scheme-something
simultaneously too small-time and too big-time-but it also involved a partnership
with the main political foe of the then-Georgian president (who may conceivably
have had political aspirations), so once again the United States was made to
look as if its extended first family were operating like a banana republic.
China, Indonesia, Georgia-these are not exactly negligible countries on our
defense and financial and ideological peripheries. In each country, there are
important special interests that equate the name Clinton with the word pushover.
And did I forget to add what President Clinton pleaded when the revulsion at
the Rich pardons became too acute? He claimed that he had concerted the deal
with the government of Israel in the intervals of the Camp David "agreement"!
So anyone who criticized the pardons had better have been careful if they didn't
want to hear from the Anti-Defamation League. Another splendid way of showing
that all is aboveboard and of convincing the Muslim world of our evenhandedness.
In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the
Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. A president absolutely
has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other
agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this
is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty
is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is
ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either
of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently
was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of
her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him
for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What
may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness
and masochism to me.
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a columnist for Vanity Fair and
the author, most recently, of
Arguably, a collection of essays.
The whole thing smells to high heaven. The only reason to trust that there are no direct quid
pro quos is, perversely, that there are so many donations and so many speeches and interactions
that they all begin to seem normal.
Yes, there may be smoke and no fire, in the legal sense, but let us not pretend there are no
issues here.
"... Does it get money because of the Clintons involvement in raising money? Undoubtedly, without their participation it can't raise anywhere near that amount of money, and the reason is that their high public profile means that people believe that by giving to them they can influence policy, ..."
Low level personnel in the US government are expected to reject gifts, or if culturally they cannot,
then they turn them over to their agency, unless it is something like a coffee or a sandwich.
There is an expectation that people are going to not just not actually corrupt their job by doing
favors for people who give them gifts or do them favors, but that they will avoid the appearance of
corruption that is generated by accepting gifts.
The supreme court doesn't agree with that anymore. Anyone can accept any kind of bribe as long as
they don't let it influence their actions. You can't see the desk for the treasure that's being dumped
onto political tables to fund campaigns and line their personal pockets.
This is a foreign practice, one that is corrupt and should be rooted out nationally. Accepting gifts
creates a corrupting environment, no matter what the recipient does, because EVERYONE understands that
the gift is intended to influence policy or gain access so that the person can influence policy. The
person giving the gift knows it, or they wouldn't give it, the person receiving the gift knows it, but
"deep down in their honest hearts" they're not going to allow it to influence their work and decisions?
No of course not. Buying access is the same as putting a stack of cash into someone's pocket to get
them to vote one way or another on a bill of interest.
Does the Clinton foundation do good work? Sure. Does it get money because of the Clintons involvement
in raising money? Undoubtedly, without their participation it can't raise anywhere near that amount
of money, and the reason is that their high public profile means that people believe that by giving
to them they can influence policy, even if those people are not in office (through backchannels
and whispers and introductions).
Does every person donating to the Clinton foundation want to influence policy, or are they primarily
motivated by wanting to fund it's good works? This is impossible to tell. Even someone as prominent
and perhaps morally blameless Elie Wiesel isn't there to eat cookies and have tea and talk about the
weather if he's in Hillary Clinton's office. That is not what he is there for. That kind of meeting
is not purely a social call, it's an effort to influence policy, whether it is related to statements
on the Armenian genocide or the Sudan or god knows what.
Is he a person that she should meet with, whether he gives a donation to her foundation or not? Maybe
that is her job. Probably most of these meetings are that way. That's why public officials are expected
to put investments and charities into trusts and blinds and under separate management when they're in
office, to help establish the boundary between their public responsibilities and their private interests
including their charitable interests.
It doesn't matter to me whether she did anything that she shouldn't have done, legally. The letter
of the law is insufficient to dictate the actions of moral people. Is it disqualifying? She's already
been disqualified in my mind, this is just another thing.
Is it disturbing and annoying to me to see the double standard where promoters are willing to weasel
and explain away whatever the Clintons have done that for any person on the other side of the aisle
would be moral issues that disqualify them from office?
"... A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday, raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department. ..."
"... The exchange about the passport, between Mr. Band and Huma Abedin, who was then a top State Department aide to Mrs. Clinton, was included in a set of more than 500 pages of emails made public by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that sued for their release. ..."
"... "Need get me/justy and jd dip passports," Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin on July 27, 2009, referring to passports for himself and two other aides to Mr. Clinton, Justin Cooper and John Davidson. ..."
"... Traveling with a former president does not convey any special diplomatic status, the State Department indicated in a statement regarding the emails. "Diplomatic passports are issued to Foreign Service officers or a person having diplomatic or comparable status," the statement said. ..."
"... "Any individuals who do not have this status are not issued diplomatic passports," it said, adding that "the staff of former presidents are not included among those eligible to be issued a diplomatic passport." ..."
A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic
passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday,
raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access
at the department.
The request by the adviser, Douglas J. Band, who started one arm of the Clintons' charitable foundation,
was unusual, and the State Department never issued the passport. Only department employees and others
with diplomatic status are eligible for the special passports, which help envoys facilitate travel,
officials said.
... ... ...
The exchange about the passport, between Mr. Band and Huma Abedin, who was then a top State Department
aide to Mrs. Clinton, was included in a set of more than 500 pages of emails made public by Judicial
Watch, a conservative legal group that sued for their release.
"Need get me/justy and jd dip passports," Mr. Band wrote to Ms. Abedin on July 27, 2009, referring
to passports for himself and two other aides to Mr. Clinton, Justin Cooper and John Davidson.
... ... ...
But a person with knowledge of the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the
three men were arranging to travel with Mr. Clinton to Pyongyang less than a week later for the former
president's secret negotiations. Mr. Clinton already had a diplomatic passport as a former president.
... ... ...
Traveling with a former president does not convey any special diplomatic status, the State Department
indicated in a statement regarding the emails. "Diplomatic passports are issued to Foreign Service officers or a person having diplomatic or
comparable status," the statement said.
"Any individuals who do not have this status are not issued diplomatic passports," it said, adding
that "the staff of former presidents are not included among those eligible to be issued a diplomatic
passport."
The emails released by Judicial Watch also include discussions about meetings between Mrs. Clinton
and a number of people involved in major donations to the Clinton Foundation.
In one exchange in July 2009, Ms. Abedin told Mrs. Clinton's scheduler that Mr. Clinton "wants
to be sure" that Mrs. Clinton would be able to see Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical,
at an event the next night. Dow Chemical has been one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation,
giving $1 million to $5 million, records show.
Ms. Abedin arranged what she called "a pull-aside" for Mr. Liveris to speak with Mrs. Clinton
in a private room after she arrived to give a speech, according to the emails, which did not explain
the reason for the meeting.
The person with knowledge of the issue said that this email chain also related to Mr. Clinton's
North Korea trip because Mr. Liveris had offered to let Mr. Clinton use his private plane.
A separate batch of State Department documents
released by Judicial Watch last month also revealed contacts between the State Department and Clinton
Foundation donors. In one such exchange, Mr. Band sought to put a billionaire donor in touch with
the department's former ambassador to Lebanon.
Donald J. Trump, Mrs. Clinton's Republican opponent, has seized on the documents, saying they
revealed a "pay to play" operation.
"... "When I was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush," You knew exactly where this article was going once you read the first 14 words. ..."
"... The author was chief ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush Administration. Why does that bother me? I realize this guy's term was from 2005 to 2007 and the Abu Ghraib story pretty much broke in early 2005, ..."
"... How much did the Clinton campaign pay for this Op-Ed? 'Every one does it' and 'it's not illegal'. 'It's how business is done.' How about doing a real in-depth investigation on the Clinton Foundation and perceived favors to donors NYT, instead of more opinion? ..."
"... Clearly a planted article. Nice try. Is everyone aware that the Foundation paid off Clinton's '08 campaign debt? They gave $400,000 and considered "payment for the campaign's mailing lists" ..."
"... According to former Justice Department Deputy Assistant Attorney General Shannen Coffin, there are at least three different categories of federal laws which may be implicated. ..."
"... One, the ethics and government act, which says you can't use a public office for private gain for yourself or even for a charity. So in giving special access to the donors for the Clinton Foundation, the ethics and government act is implicated. So perhaps Mr. Painter is a bit hasty dismissing such claims. ..."
"... If it was only about getting a government post or an arranged meeting, I would agree. But this seems different because significant amounts of money changed hands as a result of State Department intervention. And a lot of that money ended up at the Foundation or as speaking fees to Bill Clinton. How is this not seen as foreign donations effecting an American election - which I believe is illegal. ..."
"... Mr. Painter: You say "There is little if any evidence that federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton". So if there is even "little" evidence that the laws were broken, then shouldn't American electorate consider it when making their election day decisions? ..."
"... You did not mention that there was no independent investigation on this subject, so there is no way to know whether there was "little" or "significant" or "overwhelming" evidence that the laws were broken. ..."
"... And finally, even if the written laws were not broken, what about the immorality of what Clintons did? Has morality been completely removed from the public square in this once great country? ..."
"... If there was no evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, then why did Bill Clinton's speaking fees increase astronomically (from roughly $100,000 to $850,000) during Hillary's tenure at the State Department? ..."
"... as the neocons and neolibs in power withdraw from the govt's former "general welfare" Constitutional role and concentrate on enriching themselves and their friends - it would pay for citizens to become more aware of how the sector works. ..."
"... the system they devised inevitably empowers some groups more than others. Since democratic theory defines government officials as representatives of the voters, it encourages constituents to influence the decisions of those agents. Ideally, politicians should not favor the interests of some groups over others, but reality dictates otherwise. ..."
"... In the contest for influence, money inevitably plays a major, although not always decisive, role. In an effort to limit this role, we have developed both formal and informal methods to constrain human greed. The law prohibits bribery, for example. To discourage subtler forms of influence-buying, we have developed codes of ethics that pressure officials to limit financial connections with groups or individuals who might seek their help. ..."
"... Public opinion can serve as a powerful tool to enforce these codes. This explains the informal requirement that a president divest herself of financial connections that might affect her decisions. If Clinton rejects this tradition, she will undermine an important method of limiting the influence of moneyed interests in government. We have too few such tools as it is. ..."
"... Our laws are relatively stringent and prevent the crassest forms of corruption, and our culture makes lesser but legal offenses dangerous politically. But to imagine that any government, anywhere, could function without either those sorts of alliances or some equally corruptible strongman central oversight is is as naive and dangerously idealistic. ..."
"... How would someone feel if they found out that a doctor who prescribed them a medication is also paid large sums by a pharmaceutical company to promote the drug? Or, if the doctors owns substantial amount of stock in the company? Appearances do matter and it is likely that such conflicts do impact judgement. These kinds of allowances are being cleaned up across the country, at least in medicine. ..."
"... I am fine if they get higher salaries, but it is time to clean up the political corruption and crony capitalism. It is a shame that we hold our politicians to such incredible low standards and it is not a surprise that so many people don't bother to vote. ..."
"... It doesn't matter how good or bad the work of the Clinton Foundation is. That is not the question. The question is the motivation of many who contribute to the foundation. Are they motivated by altruism or is donating in a big way a ploy to gain access to Mrs. Clinton. ..."
"... I doubt that Clinton breached a fundamental legal boundary. However, the Clinton's have always seen the bright line and have decided to test the boundaries. From using police to secure women while governor to taking money from Walmart to major financial institutions to the email scandal, the Clinton's do it again and again and blame a vast right wing conspiracy. The Clinton foundation used Doug Band as a bag man securing commercial contracts for Bill and Hilary while he had a senior role at the foundation (flashing red lights). Huma took money off the state department books as did other Clinton confidants (flashing red lights), etc. They can't help themselves. Are these actives illegal? Probably not. However, we seek to be inspired by our leaders, we want leaders who are better than the average, better than us. ..."
"... When Bill can trot off to Russia, get 750k for a speech at the same time that business interests of the donor is before the State Department, it smells. The crux of the matter is the rotten judgement. ..."
"... You want a POTUS who has good judgement. The relentless chasing of a buck mixed with the appearance of impropriety, real or imagined, is the problem. When mixed with her poor judgement on the emails and her poor judgement on invading Iraq and disrupting Libya, you have a problem which explains her low approval rating. She is just fortunate that she has Trump to run against. ..."
"... If we look back to the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, those that were screaming the loudest for justice were having extramarital affairs during the "investigation". Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde. And then there was Dennis Hastert. ..."
"... You bring up yet another problem with Hilary. She has covered for her sexual predator husband for decades, including harassing and publicly shaming her husband's sexual assault victims. And there are many going back to his Oxford days. How is that ok? ..."
"... The Trumpster won the Republican nomination precisely because of voter disgust over the in-crowd culture of politicians and donors. Bernie Sanders came close to winning the Democratic nomination for much of the same reason. Hilary and her entire family need to wake up fast if she has any hope or desire to get elected. We all know where Hilary's money is coming from. Does Hilary know where her voters are coming from and where they are now? ..."
"... To put this in a nutshell, The Clinton's self-enriching behavior- and use of public office for private gain - is troubling in the extreme ..."
"... During her tenure as Secretary of State (as reported by the AP) of the 154 non-official meetings at least 85 of those individuals were private-sector donors who contributed up to $156 million to Clinton Foundation initiatives. ..."
"... The report comes on top of other far more incriminating investigations revealing the appearance of quid pro quo with foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps the worst example was when investors who profited from the Clinton State Department's approval of a deal for Russia's atomic energy agency's acquisition of a fifth of America's uranium mining rights subsequently pumped money into the Clinton Foundation. ..."
"... I hate to say this but the Clintons are America's version of Russian Oligarchs - and their Foundation almost a glorified form of money laundering. I can only pray that in 2020, us Dems may find a better president ,and that the Clintons be soon forgotten. ..."
"... Without seeing the 30,000 deleted emails, how is anyone qualified to say no laws were broken? Besides, who cares what the chief ethics lawyer for a president who authorized torture thinks? ..."
This is not the typical foundation funded by family wealth earned by
an industrialist or financier. This foundation was funded almost entirely by donors, and to the
extent anyone in the Clinton family "earned" the money, it was largely through speaking fees for
former President Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton when she was not secretary of state. This
dependence on donations - a scenario remarkably similar to that of many political campaigns -
means that the motivations of every single donor will be questioned whenever a President Clinton
does anything that could conceivably benefit such donors.
... ... ...
This kind of access is the most corrupting brand of favoritism and
pervades the entire government. Under both Republican and Democratic presidents, top
ambassadorial posts routinely go to campaign contributors. Yet more campaign contributors hound
these and other State Department employees for introductions abroad, preferred access and
advancement of trade and other policy agendas. More often than not the State Department does
their bidding.
... ... ...
The problem is that it does not matter that no laws were broken, or
that the Clinton Foundation is principally about doing good deeds. It does not matter that
favoritism is inescapable in the federal government and that the Clinton Foundation stories are
really nothing new. The appearances surrounding the foundation are problematic, and it is and
will be an albatross around Mrs. Clinton's neck.
... ... ...
As for Chelsea Clinton, anti-nepotism laws, strengthened after
President Kennedy appointed his brother Robert as attorney general, could prevent her mother from
appointing her to some of the highest government positions. But she could give her mother
informal advice, and there are a great many government jobs for which she would be eligible. She
does not need the Clinton Foundation to succeed in life.
Richard W. Painter, a professor of law at the University of
Minnesota, was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007.
Majortrout, is a trusted commenter Montreal 2 days ago
"When I was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush," You knew
exactly where this article was going once you read the first 14 words.
chichimax, albany, ny 2 days ago
I have a hard time focusing on this article. The author was chief ethics lawyer for the
George W. Bush Administration. Why does that bother me? I realize this guy's term was from
2005 to 2007 and the Abu Ghraib story pretty much broke in early 2005, but, thinking
about those other lawyers for that Bush and what they said was okay, it really gives me the
creeps to think about focusing on anything this guy might say about ethics. Just sayin'.
Lori, San Francisco 2 days ago
How much did the Clinton campaign pay for this Op-Ed? 'Every
one does it' and 'it's not illegal'. 'It's how business is done.' How about doing a real
in-depth investigation on the Clinton Foundation and perceived favors to donors NYT, instead
of more opinion?
If the foundation is so squeaky clean there should be no problem.
Or has Hilary made it clear you won't get a front row seat at her next mythical press
conference? Or has she threatened to stop sending you the press releases from her campaign you
report as news?
Ange, Boston 2 days ago
Clearly a planted article. Nice try. Is everyone aware that
the Foundation paid off Clinton's '08 campaign debt? They gave $400,000 and considered
"payment for the campaign's mailing lists"
Crabby Hayes, Virginia 2 days ago
According to former Justice Department Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Shannen Coffin, there are at least three different categories of federal laws
which may be implicated.
One, the ethics and government act, which says you can't use
a public office for private gain for yourself or even for a charity. So in giving special
access to the donors for the Clinton Foundation, the ethics and government act is implicated.
So perhaps Mr. Painter is a bit hasty dismissing such claims.
Randy, Largent 2 days ago
If it was only about getting a government post or an arranged
meeting, I would agree. But this seems different because significant amounts of money changed
hands as a result of State Department intervention. And a lot of that money ended up at the
Foundation or as speaking fees to Bill Clinton. How is this not seen as foreign donations
effecting an American election - which I believe is illegal.
Isa Ten, CA 2 days ago
Mr. Painter: You say "There is little if any evidence that
federal ethics laws were broken by Mrs. Clinton". So if there is even "little" evidence that
the laws were broken, then shouldn't American electorate consider it when making their
election day decisions?
You did not mention that there was no independent
investigation on this subject, so there is no way to know whether there was "little" or
"significant" or "overwhelming" evidence that the laws were broken.
Your main argument is that "everyone" does that. Perhaps, it is
time to change that and Trump is the man who can do it. Is it fear of this kind of change that
frightens so many NeverTrumpsters into rejecting him?
And finally, even if the written laws were not broken, what
about the immorality of what Clintons did? Has morality been completely removed from the
public square in this once great country?
David Keltz, Brooklyn 2 days ago
If there was no evidence of corruption at the Clinton Foundation, then why did Bill
Clinton's speaking fees increase astronomically (from roughly $100,000 to $850,000) during
Hillary's tenure at the State Department?
Did he suddenly become more sought after, nearly 8 or 9 years after his presidency? If
there was no evidence of corruption, then why did Hillary Clinton use her authority to appoint
herself onto the Haiti Relief Fund Board, where her sole relief efforts entailed asking people
not to donate to the Red Cross, but to the Clinton Foundation?
John D., Out West 2 days ago
One thing that comes through loud & clear in the comments: a lot
of people don't have a clue how non-profit organizations work. For a sector that's responsible
for most of the good things in this country these days - as the neocons and neolibs in
power withdraw from the govt's former "general welfare" Constitutional role and concentrate on
enriching themselves and their friends - it would pay for citizens to become more aware of how
the sector works.
James Lee, Arlington, Texas August 31, 2016
The framers of our Constitution had no illusions about the weaknesses of human nature. They
carefully crafted our charter of government to pit the officials of each branch against each
other, to obstruct the kind of collusion that could undermine the foundations of a free
society.
Despite their best efforts, however, the system they devised inevitably empowers some
groups more than others. Since democratic theory defines government officials as
representatives of the voters, it encourages constituents to influence the decisions of those
agents. Ideally, politicians should not favor the interests of some groups over others, but
reality dictates otherwise.
In the contest for influence, money inevitably plays a major, although not always
decisive, role. In an effort to limit this role, we have developed both formal and informal
methods to constrain human greed. The law prohibits bribery, for example. To discourage
subtler forms of influence-buying, we have developed codes of ethics that pressure officials
to limit financial connections with groups or individuals who might seek their help.
Public opinion can serve as a powerful tool to enforce these codes. This explains the
informal requirement that a president divest herself of financial connections that might
affect her decisions. If Clinton rejects this tradition, she will undermine an important
method of limiting the influence of moneyed interests in government. We have too few such
tools as it is.
confetti, MD August 31, 2016
I don't think that favoritism in political life will ever go
away, for the simple reason that political power isn't attained in a vacuum. It requires
sturdy alliances by definition, and those are forged via exchange of valued items - material
goods, policy compromises, position, status, assistance and other durable support. Our
laws are relatively stringent and prevent the crassest forms of corruption, and our culture
makes lesser but legal offenses dangerous politically. But to imagine that any government,
anywhere, could function without either those sorts of alliances or some equally corruptible
strongman central oversight is is as naive and dangerously idealistic.
Of course the Clintons wheeled and dealed - but well within the
law.
I'm more interested in what end that served and the real
consequences than the fact that it occurred. In their case, an effective charity that aided
many very vulnerable people was sustained, and no demonstrable compromises that negatively
affected global policies occurred.
It's the Republicans and truly sold out Democrats, who have
forever been deep in the pocket of big money and whose 'deals' in that department cause
tangible harm to the populace, that I'm more concerned with. This is their smoke and mirrors
show.
Alexander K., Minnesota August 31, 2016
How would someone feel if they found out that a doctor who prescribed them a medication
is also paid large sums by a pharmaceutical company to promote the drug? Or, if the doctors
owns substantial amount of stock in the company? Appearances do matter and it is likely that
such conflicts do impact judgement. These kinds of allowances are being cleaned up across the
country, at least in medicine.
It is time that conflict of interest for politicians at all levels is taken seriously by
the public. I am fine if they get higher salaries, but it is time to clean up the
political corruption and crony capitalism. It is a shame that we hold our politicians to such
incredible low standards and it is not a surprise that so many people don't bother to vote.
Great editorial.
Michael Belmont, Hewitt, New Jersey 2 days ago
It doesn't matter how good or bad the work of the Clinton
Foundation is. That is not the question. The question is the motivation of many who contribute
to the foundation. Are they motivated by altruism or is donating in a big way a ploy to gain
access to Mrs. Clinton. The AP analysis suggests that is just what went on. At the very
least it looks bad. Appearances are everything in politics.
Hillary doesn't need to appear to be unethical should she
be elected. Bad enough she has Bill by her side. She doesn't need a special prosecutor
investigator distracting her presidency with an influence peddling scandal. Like it or not,
Republicans will be hunting for her political hide. Hillary doesn't need to paint a bulls-eye
for them.
Chris, 10013 2 days ago
I doubt that Clinton breached a fundamental legal boundary. However, the Clinton's have
always seen the bright line and have decided to test the boundaries. From using police to
secure women while governor to taking money from Walmart to major financial institutions to
the email scandal, the Clinton's do it again and again and blame a vast right wing conspiracy.
The Clinton foundation used Doug Band as a bag man securing commercial contracts for Bill and
Hilary while he had a senior role at the foundation (flashing red lights). Huma took money off
the state department books as did other Clinton confidants (flashing red lights), etc. They
can't help themselves. Are these actives illegal? Probably not. However, we seek to be
inspired by our leaders, we want leaders who are better than the average, better than us.
In the Clintons, we have highly competent, experienced, politicians who have repeated
shown deep ethical problems. She is the best candidate by far. It's unfortunate that our
future President never learned what ethics are.
Robert, Minneapolis 2 days ago
An interesting article. It is probably true that many, if not most, politicians are
influence sellers to a degree. I suspect that the Clintons are just better at it. It is fair
to say that we do not know if laws have been broken. But it is also fair to say that
appearances matter, and that the Clintons are very good at lining their own pockets at the
same time the foundation does it's good work.
When Bill can trot off to Russia, get 750k for a speech at the same time that business
interests of the donor is before the State Department, it smells. The crux of the matter is
the rotten judgement.
You want a POTUS who has good judgement. The relentless chasing of a buck mixed with
the appearance of impropriety, real or imagined, is the problem. When mixed with her poor
judgement on the emails and her poor judgement on invading Iraq and disrupting Libya, you have
a problem which explains her low approval rating. She is just fortunate that she has Trump to
run against.
Madelyn Harris, Portland, OR 2 days ago
So glad to see many NYT readers here recognize the hypocrisy in this opinion piece. The
message is "All of them do it, it's mostly legal, though it's distasteful and problematic.
However, Hillary is the only one who should stop doing it because it looks bad."
The loudest voices of this partisan attack should be under the same scrutiny and be
compelled to practice what they preach. If we look back to the Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky scandal, those that were screaming the loudest for justice were having extramarital
affairs during the "investigation". Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde. And then there
was Dennis Hastert.
Let's start looking into the personal emails of Paul Ryan, Jason Chaffetz, Donald Trump,
Trey Gowdy, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz. Imagine what we would find! Legal, but ethically
problematic exchanges and clearly illegal exchanges that would justify imprisonment. If they
ask for justice, we should provide it.
Lori, San Francisco 2 days ago
You bring up yet another problem with Hilary. She has covered for her sexual predator
husband for decades, including harassing and publicly shaming her husband's sexual assault
victims. And there are many going back to his Oxford days. How is that ok?
John D., Out West 2 days ago
An excellent piece, actually tethered to reality and non-profit law and practice ...
finally! Yes, all the Clinton clan needs to divorce themselves from the foundation, and I'm
not sure why they would wait until after the election to do so.
It seems the loudest critics are of the tribe that created campaign finance law as it
stands today, with the CU case having created a legal system of bribery across the board in
government. C'mon guys, be consistent, or it's the big H word for you!
RNW, Albany, CA 2 days ago
When it comes to ethics and public officials, appearances do in indeed MATTER! Cronyism and
conflicts of interest might elicit a big yawn from the political class, their fellow travelers
and camp followers but arouse anger and indignation from voters. Remember those guys?
We're the ones that politicians suddenly remember every few years with they come. hats in
hand, begging for donations and, most of all, our votes. (The plea for donations is a farce.
Except for a few outliers, they don't really need or want OUR donations.)
The Trumpster won the Republican nomination precisely because of voter disgust over the
in-crowd culture of politicians and donors. Bernie Sanders came close to winning the
Democratic nomination for much of the same reason. Hilary and her entire family need to wake
up fast if she has any hope or desire to get elected. We all know where Hilary's money is
coming from. Does Hilary know where her voters are coming from and where they are now?
Tembrach, Connecticut 2 days ago
I preface this by saying that I am proud Democrat & will vote for Mrs. Clinton, as Mr.
Trump is beyond the pale of decency
To put this in a nutshell, The Clinton's self-enriching behavior- and use of public
office for private gain - is troubling in the extreme
During her tenure as Secretary of State (as reported by the AP) of the 154 non-official
meetings at least 85 of those individuals were private-sector donors who contributed up to
$156 million to Clinton Foundation initiatives.
The report comes on top of other far more incriminating investigations revealing the
appearance of quid pro quo with foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps the worst
example was when investors who profited from the Clinton State Department's approval of a deal
for Russia's atomic energy agency's acquisition of a fifth of America's uranium mining rights
subsequently pumped money into the Clinton Foundation.
Mrs Clinton rightly condemns Trump for playing footsy with Putin. But pray tell, what
exactly was this?
I hate to say this but the Clintons are America's version of Russian Oligarchs - and
their Foundation almost a glorified form of money laundering. I can only pray that in 2020, us
Dems may find a better president ,and that the Clintons be soon forgotten.
Thought Bubble, New Jersey 2 days ago
Without seeing the 30,000 deleted emails, how is anyone qualified to say no laws were
broken? Besides, who cares what the chief ethics lawyer for a president who authorized torture
thinks?
More than half of the people who managed to score a personal one on one meeting with Hillary Clinton
while she was Secretary of State donated money to the Clinton Foundation, either as an individual
or through a company where they worked. "Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million.
At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million," the Associated Press
reported.
Does that make Hillary corrupt? Yes. It does.
At this writing, there is
no evidence that anyone received any special favors as a result of their special access to Clinton.
Not that treats were not requested. They were. (The most amusing was Bono's
request to stream his band's music into the international space station, which was mercifully
rejected.)
That's irrelevant. She's still corrupt.
Clinton's defenders like to point out that neither she nor her husband
draw a salary from their foundation. But that's a technicality.
The Clintons
extract millions of dollars in travel expenditures, including luxurious airplane accommodations
and hotel suites, from their purported do-gooder outfit. They exploit the foundation as a patronage
mill, arranging for it to hire their loyalists at extravagant six-figure salaries. Charity Navigator,
the Yelp of non-profits, doesn't bother to issue a rating for the Clinton foundation due to the pathetically
low portion of money
($9 million out of $140 million in 2013) that makes its way to someone who needs it.
"It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a
slush fund for the Clintons," says Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog
group.
As a measure of how institutionally bankrupt American politics is, all this
crap is technically
legal. But that doesn't mean it's not corrupt.
Public relations experts
caution politicians like the Clintons that the
appearance of impropriety is almost as bad as its actuality. If it looks
bad, it will hurt you with the polls. True, but that's not really the point.
The point is: access is corruption.
It doesn't matter that the lead singer of U2 didn't get to live out his rocker
astronaut fantasy. It's disgusting that he was ever in a position to have it
considered. To put a finer point on it, ethics require that someone in Hillary
Clinton's position never, ever take a meeting or correspond by email or offer a
job to someone who donated money to her and her husband's foundation. Failure
to build an unscalable wall between government and money necessarily creates a
corrupt quid pro quo:
"Just got a call from the Clinton Foundation. They're
shaking us down for a donation. Should we cough up a few bucks?"
"Hillary could be president someday. Chelsea could end up in the Senate. It
couldn't hurt to be remembered as someone who threw them some money when they
asked."
This, I 100% guarantee you, was the calculus when Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary for a one- or two-hour speech. She doesn't have anything new to say that everyone hasn't already heard million times before. It's not like she shared any valuable stock tips during those talks. Wealthy individuals and corporations pay politicians for one thing: access.
Ted Rall, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for ANewDomain.net, is the author of the
book "Snowden," the biography of the NSA whistleblower.
Good question, this NC reader is just pretty fed up with the status quo (maybe others want
to chime in):
– Unlimited immunity from prosecution for banking executive criminals
–
More shiny new undeclared "nation-building" and "RTP" wars
– Globalist trade deals that
enshrine unaccountable corporate tribunals over national sovereignty, environmental and worker
protection, and self-determination
– America's national business conducted in secrecy at
the behest of corporate donors to tax-exempt foundations
– Paid-for quid-pro-quo media
manipulation of candidate and election coverage
– Health care system reform designed to
benefit entrenched insurance providers over providing access to reasonable-cost basic care.
Based on the above I'd say the 11:2 ratio looks about right.
Really enjoyed Atrios easy-breezy
summation
of Clinton Foundation / State Department skullduggery…
"…a bit unseemly in that way that the sausage factory is a bit gross, but it
basically seems to fall in 'this is how things work' territory as far as I can
tell…"
Breezy is right. It does lead me to ask if this were not the Clinton
Foundation but was the Bush Foundation or the Rubio Foundation or…would this
still be just be the way things work? I do not think so.
Don't get me wrong I have great admiration for Atrios (he is right on the
money regarding Social Security and self-driving cars), but the double
standard where both Obama and Clinton are concerned is strong at Eschaton,
and I'm sorry to say with him as well.
Accepting this as the way things work is just accepting that corruption
is the norm and there is nothing to be done about it. So unless you are
willing to shut up about supposed misdeeds of all elected officials and
political candidates because this is the way it is done, you need to get the
f*ck over the idea that this is NORMAL and ACCEPTABLE.
And I don't see that happening over there, or at Daily Kos, or… once the
subject is out is out of the tribe.
I can understand the "it's OK when
our people
do it" double
standard. Family/tribe/team, we are all trained to do that. What I don't
understand is how one could ever arrive at Clinton Foundation = our
people prerequisite to applying it in this instance. WT actual F?
I think you are coming at this from far too realistic a point of
view. You aren't looking at this as the Foundation is a tool, like a
speech or a fundraiser, in order to provide
wealthy
worthy
individuals/groups/corporations/nations a means to expedite access to
the government official, in this case Clinton. You think of it as a
false charity. But for the greasing the wheels is normal operating
procedure, what this was was a gift to open more avenues for the
wheels to be greased. It's up to you…or me…or even the people of Flint
among others to use that opportunity.
Breezy is right. It does lead me to ask if this were not the
Clinton War With Russia
but was the
Bush War With Iraq
or the
Rubio War With Syria
or…would this still be just
be the way things work? I do not think so.
Don't get me wrong I have great admiration for Atrios (he is right on
the money regarding Social Security and self-driving cars), but the
double standard where both Obama and Clinton are concerned is strong at
Eschaton, and I'm sorry to say with him as well.
Accepting this as the way things work is just accepting that
endless and new wars
is the norm and there is nothing to be done
about it. So unless you are willing to shut up about supposed
endless new wars
of all elected officials and political
candidates because this is the way it is done, you need to get the f*ck
over the idea that this is NORMAL and ACCEPTABLE.
And I don't see that happening over there, or at Daily Kos, or… once
the subject is out is out of the tribe.
Excellent interview. I've bookmarked Ortel's website and am looking
forward to his forthcoming writings. I was not aware of the differences
between laws regulating charities versus other forms of organizations, so
the interview as a starting point was very useful for me.
Hillary Clinton's pay-for-play scandal is threatening to derail her campaign.
Public outrage follows revelations that the Foundation took foreign cash during
Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, that Clinton aide Huma Abedin was
helping Foundation donors get favors and access from the State Department, and
that Clinton aide Cheryl Mills was doing assignments for the Clinton Foundation
while on the State Department payroll.
In a letter Monday to Foundation president Donna Shalala, Priebus demands
transparency.
"I am writing to you to call on the Clinton Foundation and all of the entities
under its umbrella to release all correspondence its officials had with the State
Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state," Priebus added.
As I am sure you are well aware, a spate of recent news reports involving
the Clinton Foundation's relationship with the Clinton State Department has
renewed serious concerns about conflicts of interest and whether donors to the
foundation benefitted from official acts under then-Secretary Clinton.
"It isn't just "suspicious." It's influence peddling, which is corrupt
by definition. And there's a whole infrastructure, institutional and technical, to support it." Lambert Strether of
Corrente.
Notable quotes:
"... here you have Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having this Clinton Foundation, with billions of dollars pouring into it from some of the world's worst tyrannies ..."
"... Bill and Hillary Clinton are being personally enriched by those same people, doing speeches, for many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in front of them, at the same time that she's running the State Department, getting ready to run for president, and soon will be running the executive branch. ..."
"... the problem here is that the Clintons have essentially become the pioneers of eliminating all of these lines, of amassing massive wealth from around the world, and using that to boost their own political power, and then using that political power to boost the interests of the people who are enriching them in all kinds of ways. ..."
[W]hat Donna Brazile said in that video that you played is nothing short of laughable. It's not
questioned when Republicans do favors for their donors? Of course it is. In fact, it's been a core,
central critique of the Democratic Party, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for years, that
Republicans are corrupt because they serve the interest of their big donors. One of the primary positions
of the Democratic Party is that the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court has corrupted politics
because it allows huge money to flow into the political process in a way that ensures, or at least
creates the appearance, that people are doing favors for donors.
And so, here you have Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton having this Clinton Foundation, with billions
of dollars pouring into it from some of the world's worst tyrannies, like Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates and Qatar and other Gulf states, other people who have all kinds of vested interests
in the policies of the United States government. And at the same time, in many cases, both Bill and
Hillary Clinton are being personally enriched by those same people, doing speeches, for many hundreds
of thousands of dollars, in front of them, at the same time that she's running the State Department,
getting ready to run for president, and soon will be running the executive branch. …
And so, the problem here is that the Clintons have essentially become the pioneers of eliminating
all of these lines, of amassing massive wealth from around the world, and using that to boost their
own political power, and then using that political power to boost the interests of the people who
are enriching them in all kinds of ways. And of course questions need to be asked, and suspicions
are necessarily raised, because this kind of behavior is inherently suspicious. And it needs a lot
of media scrutiny and a lot of attention, and I'm glad it's getting that.
"... On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress' legitimate interest in preventing the money that is spent on elections from exerting an "'undue influence on an officeholder's judgment"' and from creating "4he appearance of such influence,"' beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. I ..."
"... Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf. ..."
"... Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority's apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences docs not accord with the theory or reality of politics. ..."
On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress' legitimate interest in preventing the money that
is spent on elections from exerting an "'undue influence on an officeholder's judgment"' and from
creating "4he appearance of such influence,"' beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. Id.,
at 150; see also. e.g., id., at 143-144. 152-154; Colorado II, 533 U. S.. at 441; Shrink Missouri.
528 U. S., at 389.
Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference
between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is
not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf.
Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority's apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements
can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences docs not accord with the theory or reality
of politics.
It certainly does not accord with the record Congress developed in passing BCRA. a record
that stands as a remarkable testament to the energy and ingenuity with which corporations, unions,
lobbyists, and politicians may go about scratching each other's backs - and which amply supported
Congress' determination to target a limited set of especially destructive
"... Hillary will win, and it will be more than business as usual. Influence peddling and pay to play will accelerate. The neocon money will flow into the system and foreign policy will be a debacle. We may very well be approaching WWIII. ..."
"... Under a Clinton II presidency, long-term international turmoil and confrontation lie ahead no matter what their family foundation may attempt to achieve. ..."
If Clinton gets elected, she will be under investigation prior to the inauguration. The Republicans
will use their hold on the house to start several investigations on November 9.
However, the GOP (continuing a party tradition) will cruise right past several true issues,
and lock onto the one thing they believe will hold the most shock value. This will turn out to
not be provable, or not be all that interesting to anyone but die-hard GOP supporters, and she
will exit the investigations as powerful, if not more so, than before.
There are plenty of reasons to investigate the Clinton machine, but if you expect this clown
show to do it competently I have a bridge to sell you…
No this one is backfiring already as most of the donors were people HRC would have met anyway,
including Nobel Peace winners! and the 89 out of 154 people has not been released. And the article
does not note any mischief but that there were meetings!
Or that there are a ton of other government officials have spouses that run well run charities.
Matt Yglesias has de-bunked this one a lot and my guess disappears relatively quickly.
This is as worthless evidence as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
Hillary will win, and it will be more than business as usual. Influence peddling and pay to
play will accelerate. The neocon money will flow into the system and foreign policy will be a
debacle. We may very well be approaching WWIII.
The economy will continue to hollow out due to central bank hubris, government stimulus, and
non-free trade deals. Income inequality will get worse. The middle class will continue to shrink.
After leaving office, Bill Clinton could have devoted his energies to Habitat for Humanity (like
Jimmy Carter) or thrown his energies into helping an existing organisation (like the Bill & Melinda
Gates foundation). He didn't, because he wanted the "fruits" of his philanthropic work to accrue
to him and his family. And so it is not unreasonable to ask exactly what those fruits are, especially
those gained while Hillary Clinton was serving as the nation's chief diplomat.
Under a Clinton II presidency, long-term international turmoil and confrontation lie ahead
no matter what their family foundation may attempt to achieve.
The two sources of her problems are beginning to merge much as two weather depressions might
collide and become a hurricane. One is the already well-trodden matter of her use of a private
email server while Secretary of State. The other relates to the Clinton Foundation and whether
donors received preferential access to her while she served in that post.
Two bombs dropped on the Clinton campaign at once on Monday. First it emerged that the FBI has
collected and delivered to the State Department almost 15,000 new emails not previously seen and
a federal judge ordered the department to accelerate their release to the public. Meanwhile, a
conservative group called Judicial Watch released details of still more emails detailing exactly
how donors to the foundation set about trying to get Ms Clinton's attention.
... ... ...
Questions have been swirling for weeks about whether or not Ms Clinton was drawn into giving
special favours to some of her husband's pals in return for their giving generously to the
charitable foundation he set up after leaving the presidency – a pay and play arrangement. On
Monday, Judicial Watch unveiled details that showed exactly how that might have happened thanks
to emails it had accessed through the courts sent to and from Huma Abedin, a close Clinton
confidante and her deputy chief of staff during her four years at the State Department.
... ... ...
In attempt to forestall the trouble that is already upon his wife, Mr Clinton announced this
week that should she win the presidency, several things will change at his Foundation. First and
foremost it would cease to take money from any foreign governments and donors and only from
US-based charities and individuals. He would also step down from the foundation entirely and
cease personally to raise funds for it.
...many voters are simply afraid that with Ms Clinton in the White House the whole tawdry
cycle will just start all over again and nothing else with get done in Washington
It was only one in a long parade of late-August fundraisers Ms Clinton has attended, but it
stands out for the generosity required of those who attended. The price of admission for the
20-odd guests who obliged was a stunning $200,000. That was double the $100,000 charged for
guests who mingled recently with Ms Clinton in Omaha at the home of Susan Buffett, the daughter
of Warren Buffett, the veteran investment oracle.
... ... ...
As of Monday, she and Mr Kaine had harvested no less than $32 million for the Hillary Victory
Fund, which will be distributed to her campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state
parties. A lot of was raised in last week as Ms Clinton hopscotched from party to party on
Martha's Vineyard and Cape Code in Massachusetts.
Is that Huma in a blue dress under the Resolute desk?
Pairadimes d Here2Go •Aug 27, 2016 9:14 PM
Ramirez is a genius.
zeronetwork d debtor of last resort •Aug 27, 2016 8:15 PM
The thought process Donald has started is not going to fade very soon. Still
few weeks before election. I am sure Donald got some more cards in his sleeve.
are we there yet •Aug 27, 2016 8:36 PM
I have a solution for Hillary's in-continuance and mobility declining problems.
The chair behind the presidents desk should be a wheelchair with a bedpan.
Otherwise the term 'campaign trail' will take on a whole new meaning.
"... If Hillary Clinton wins, within a year of her inauguration, she will be under investigation by a special prosecutor on charges of political corruption, thereby continuing a family tradition. ..."
"... Of 154 outsiders whom Clinton phoned or met with in her first two years at State, 85 had made contributions to the Clinton Foundation, and their contributions, taken together, totaled $156 million. ..."
"... Conclusion: access to Secretary of State Clinton could be bought, but it was not cheap. Forty of the 85 donors gave $100,000 or more. Twenty of those whom Clinton met with or phoned dumped in $1 million or more. ..."
"... On his last day in office, January 20, 2001, Bill Clinton issued a presidential pardon to financier-crook and fugitive from justice Marc Rich, whose wife, Denise, had contributed $450,000 to the Clinton Library. ..."
Prediction: If Hillary Clinton wins, within a year of her inauguration, she will be under
investigation by a special prosecutor on charges of political corruption, thereby continuing a family
tradition.
... ... ...
Of 154 outsiders whom Clinton phoned or met with in her first two years at State, 85 had made
contributions to the Clinton Foundation, and their contributions, taken together, totaled $156 million.
Conclusion: access to Secretary of State Clinton could be bought, but it was not cheap. Forty
of the 85 donors gave $100,000 or more. Twenty of those whom Clinton met with or phoned dumped in
$1 million or more.
To get to the seventh floor of the Clinton State Department for a hearing for one's plea, the
cover charge was high. Among those who got face time with Hillary Clinton were a Ukrainian oligarch
and steel magnate who shipped oil pipe to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and a Bangladeshi economist
who was under investigation by his government and was eventually pressured to leave his own bank.
The stench is familiar, and all too Clintonian in character.
Recall. On his last day in office, January 20, 2001, Bill Clinton issued a presidential pardon
to financier-crook and fugitive from justice Marc Rich, whose wife, Denise, had contributed $450,000
to the Clinton Library.
The Clintons appear belatedly to have recognized their political peril.
Bill has promised that, if Hillary is elected, he will end his big-dog days at the foundation
and stop taking checks from foreign regimes and entities, and corporate donors. Cash contributions
from wealthy Americans will still be gratefully accepted.
One wonders: will Bill be writing thank-you notes for the millions that will roll in to the family
foundation-on White House stationery?
"... Her dismal trustworthiness ratings strongly suggest the people want to see stricter ethical standards from her. She ignores that at her own peril ..."
"... the Clinton Foundation (private) was selling access to the Secretary of State (public). ..."
"... That's called influence peddling, and if you follow Zephyr Teachout on corruption (and not the majority in Citizens United ) that's a textbook case of corruption. The Clinton Foundation enables as capital in the form of wealth to be converted into social capital in the form of access (and reputation laundering). Which is how the Beltway works, and how an oligarchy works. As we have seen, liberals accept this completely, as do conservatives, although the left does not. ..."
"... On the AP story about the Clinton Foundation, the State Department refused AP access to all visitor logs. Then Clinton campaign surrogates complained that AP based its story on incomplete visitor logs. And so it goes in HillaryLand [ The Intercept ]. Lots more detail in this story, well worth a read. ..."
"Watchdogs warn of 'serious' conflicts of interest for Clinton Foundation" [The
Hill]. "Chelsea Clinton's role on the board will only perpetuate the 'pay to play' perceptions
and accusations, the watchdogs said. 'As long as the Clinton Foundation is tied to the family,'
[Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen] said, 'very wealthy' people and
special interests 'will try to find a way to throw money at the feet' of the Clinton family. And
if Chelsea Clinton remains on the board - especially if she retains a fundraising roll - 'she
would be the avenue.'" This is so wrong. How else is Chelsea supposed to raise money for her Senate
run? Answer me that!
UPDATE "Chelsea Clinton would remain on the board of her family's foundation even if her mother
is elected president, a spokeswoman said Thursday" [AP].
"Editorial: Clintons should end ties to charity " [Charlotte
Observer]. "[Clinton] seems not to recognize that while a good lawyer focuses on what the
law allows, a good politician focuses on what the people want. Her dismal trustworthiness ratings
strongly suggest the people want to see stricter ethical standards from her. She ignores that
at her own peril."
UPDATE "The key to understanding why good government advocates are upset about the new revelations
is to first get past the argument that Clinton Foundation donors were transactionally rewarded
for their gifts" [Vox].
"This is not what my sources argued. Instead, the heart of their complaint was that the foundation's
contributors appear to have gained a greater ability to make their voices heard by Clinton's State
Department by virtue of donating to her husband's private foundation."
In other words, the Clinton Foundation (private) was selling access to the Secretary of State
(public).
That's called influence peddling, and if you follow
Zephyr Teachout on corruption (and not the majority in
Citizens United)
that's a textbook case of corruption. The Clinton Foundation enables as capital in the form of
wealth to be converted into social capital in the form of access (and reputation laundering).
Which is how the Beltway works, and how an oligarchy works. As we have seen, liberals accept this
completely, as do conservatives, although the left does not.
"Democrats embrace the logic of 'Citizens United'" [Lawrence Lessig,
WaPo]. 2015, even more true today.
See also Sirota from 2015.
UPDATE What liberals and Democrats used to believe, before the giant sucking pit of need that
is the Clinton campaign made them lose their minds [image of tiny little hands waving, faint screams,
as they circle downward in the vortex]. The dissenting opinion from Citizens United: (Twitter)
Justice Stevens' dissent in Citizens United (via @ggreenwald ) shreds the central argument of Hillary's
defenders
On numerous occasions we have recognized Congress' legitimate interest in preventing the money that
is spent on elections from exerting an "'undue influence on an officeholder's judgment"' and from
creating "4he appearance of such influence,"' beyond the sphere of quid pro quo relationships. Id.,
at 150; see also. e.g., id., at 143-144. 152-154; Colorado II, 533 U. S.. at 441; Shrink Missouri.
528 U. S., at 389. Corruption can take many forms. Bribery may be the paradigm case. But the difference
between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind. And selling access is
not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one's behalf.
Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority's apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements
can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences docs not accord with the theory or reality
of politics. It certainly does not accord with the record Congress developed in passing BCRA. a record
that stands as a remarkable testament to the energy and ingenuity with which corporations, unions,
lobbyists, and politicians may go about scratching each other's backs - and which amply supported
Congress' determination to target a limited set of especially destructive
UPDATE From The Blogger Formerly KnownAs Who Is IOZ?
On the AP story about the Clinton Foundation, the State Department refused AP access to all
visitor logs. Then Clinton campaign surrogates complained that AP based its story on incomplete
visitor logs. And so it goes in HillaryLand [The
Intercept]. Lots more detail in this story, well worth a read.
UPDATE "Clinton Foundation Investigation Update: Key Details About Financial And Political
Dealings" [David Sirota,
International Business Times]. Good wrap-up from Sirota, who's been all over this.
UPDATE "On the campaign trial, Clinton is using a private airplane owned by a Wall Street banker
and donor to get to fund-raisers this week on the West Coast" [New
York Post]. How cozy.
"... Soon after the correspondence about a meeting, Clinton's State Department significantly increased arms export authorizations to the country's autocratic government, even as that nation moved to crush pro-democracy protests . ..."
Emails just released by the State Department appear to show Clinton Foundation officials brokering
a meeting between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a top military leader of Bahrain
- a Middle Eastern country that is a major foundation
donor
.
Soon after the correspondence about a meeting, Clinton's State Department significantly
increased arms export authorizations to the country's autocratic government, even as that nation
moved to crush pro-democracy
protests
.
"... Early in her term, the State Department called one arms deal for a Clinton Foundation donor, Saudi Arabia, a "top priority" for Clinton. ..."
"... The Associated Press on Tuesday reported that a review of calendar items shows "more than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money - either personally or through companies or groups - to the Clinton Foundation." Those 85 donors - which did not include foreign government contributors - gave up to $156 million, according to the news service. ..."
"... The Washington Post in 2014 reported that in 2010, Clinton pushed Russia to approve a $3.7 billion purchase from Boeing. Two months after the deal was solidified, reported the newspaper, Boeing announced a $900,000 contribution to the Clinton Foundation. ..."
As the rhetoric about the Clintons' public and private financial dealings intensifies, here is a
brief review of the major investigative reporting that has been done about the Clinton Foundation.
Arms exports: Last year, an
International Business Times
series documented the ways in which many major foreign governments that had donated to the Clinton
Foundation ended up receiving a boost in arms export authorizations from the Clinton-led State Department.
Federal law explicitly
designates the secretary of state as "responsible for the continuous supervision and general direction
of sales" of arms, and the State Department itself
says it "is responsible for
managing all government-to-government transfers of military equipment to other countries." Early
in her term, the State Department
called one arms deal for
a Clinton Foundation donor, Saudi Arabia, a "top priority" for Clinton.
Many of the donor countries that benefited were those that the State Department criticized on
human rights grounds, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Some of the same countries received boosts
in arms classified as "toxicological agents" as they worked to crush pro-democracy protests during
the Arab Spring uprisings.
Donor access: The
Associated Press on Tuesday reported that a review of calendar items shows "more than half the
people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave
money - either personally or through companies or groups - to the Clinton Foundation." Those 85 donors
- which did not include foreign government contributors - gave up to $156 million, according to the
news service. The AP story followed the release of
emails this week that appeared to show Clinton Foundation officials working with State Department
officials to broker meetings between foundation donors and Hillary Clinton. It also followed an
ABC News report on a Clinton Foundation donor being appointed by the State Department to an intelligence
advisory panel "even though he had no obvious experience in the field."
Business dealings: In May, the
Wall Street Journal reported that the Clinton Foundation "set up a financial commitment that
benefited a for-profit company part-owned by people with ties to the Clintons." The newspaper noted
that former President Bill Clinton "personally endorsed the company, Energy Pioneer Solutions Inc.,
to then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu for a federal grant that year" - and that the company ultimately
received an $812,000 grant. While the Clinton Foundation openly works with corporations and governments
on its philanthropic projects, the Journal notes that "under federal law, tax-exempt charitable organizations
aren't supposed to act in anyone's private interest but instead in the public interest."
Promoting corporate donors: In 2015, IBT
reported that while Clinton Foundation donor Cisco faced criticism over its work with China's
autocratic government, Clinton's State Department honored the company for "outstanding corporate
citizenship, innovation and democratic principles." Her department also delivered government contracts
to the company. The
Washington Post in 2014 reported that in 2010, Clinton pushed Russia to approve a $3.7 billion
purchase from Boeing. Two months after the deal was solidified, reported the newspaper, Boeing announced
a $900,000 contribution to the Clinton Foundation.
"... Admittedly, Mr. Trump does seem very open to the idea of negotiating with Russia, and even partnering with Moscow to tackle some of the greatest challenges facing the world today, including radical Islamist terrorism. In that sense, he may really be the most 'Russia friendly' presidential candidate the US has seen since 1945, not counting the early 1990s, when Washington's friendly overtures toward Russia were based on the condition that Moscow does everything US officials tell it to. ..."
"... Does that make him a puppet to the Russians, the Kremlin and to Vladimir Putin personally? Not likely. Despite all the media investigations and even more accusations, no substantiated evidence has been presented demonstrating that Trump has any significant business or personal interests in Russia which would create a conflict of interest. ..."
"... The Times' piece reported on the fact that the Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the US State Department has repeatedly criticized for human rights abuses and discrimination against women. The offending countries purportedly include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Brunei, along with Algeria. Riyadh, the paper noted, was "a particularly generous benefactor," giving between $10 and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, with at least another $1 million donated by the 'Friends of Saudi Arabia' organization. ..."
"... Abedin has long been accused by independent media in the US and elsewhere of having connections with Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, charges which have long been labeled as nothing more than a conspiracy theory. But Sunday's story seems to have ruffled a few feathers in some high places, with a Clinton campaign spokesperson explaining (rather unconvincingly) to the New York Post that Abedin played no formal role in the radical journal. "My understanding is that her name was simply listed on the masthead in that periodical," the spokesman said. ..."
"... And so the question stands: If the media feels justified in crucifying 'Kremlin agent' Donald Trump for a Moscow beauty pageant and some nice words about Vladimir Putin, will it provide the same level of scrutiny for Mrs. Clinton, given the knowledge that her Foundation has taken in tens of millions of dollars from the Saudis, and that her top advisor seems to have been a supporter of hardcore Islamist ideology? ..."
The media has had a field day commenting on Donald Trump's words
about cooperation with Russia against ISIS, labeling him a 'Kremlin agent' and a danger to the Western
security order. But what about Hillary Clinton and her foundation's ties to the Saudis? If Trump
is 'Moscow's man', does that make Clinton the candidate of Middle Eastern sheikdoms?
The US media has been relentless in its efforts to sink Republican presidential candidate Donald
Trump's campaign, in part due to the candidate's string of friendly remarks and gestures toward Russia
and President Vladimir Putin. The media have accused Moscow of every sin imaginable, from
meddling in America's elections, to using Trump advisor Paul Manafort, who was
called 'the Kremlin's man in Ukraine', to outright calling Trump himself a
'Russian agent'.
Former NATO chief Anders Rasmussen joined the party bashing Trump recently,
slamming him for having "his own views on the Ukrainian conflict," and adding that to top it
all off, "he praises President Putin!"
Admittedly, Mr. Trump does seem very open to the idea of negotiating with Russia, and even partnering
with Moscow to tackle some of the greatest challenges facing the world today, including radical Islamist
terrorism. In that sense, he may really be the most 'Russia friendly' presidential candidate the
US has seen since 1945, not counting the early 1990s, when Washington's friendly overtures toward
Russia were based on the condition that Moscow does everything US officials tell it to.
Does that make him a puppet to the Russians, the Kremlin and to Vladimir Putin personally? Not
likely. Despite all the media investigations and even more accusations, no substantiated evidence
has been presented demonstrating that Trump has any significant business or personal interests in
Russia which would create a conflict of interest. The businessman held a Miss Universe Pageant
in Moscow a few years ago, and tried, unsuccessfully, to build a Trump tower in the Russian capital.
But he also has assets around the world, in Scotland, Dubai, and in over a dozen other countries.
Does that make him the agent of these countries, too?
Amid the endless suspicions surrounding 'Kremlin Agent Trump', a story in the New York Times unassumingly
titled 'Foundation Ties Bedevil Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign' almost slipped through
the cracks, before blowing up on national television.
The Times' piece reported on the fact that the Clinton Foundation has
accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the US State Department has repeatedly criticized
for human rights abuses and discrimination against women. The offending countries purportedly include
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Brunei, along with Algeria. Riyadh,
the paper noted, was "a particularly generous benefactor," giving between $10 and $25 million to
the Clinton Foundation, with at least another $1 million donated by the 'Friends of Saudi Arabia'
organization.
The scandal didn't end there. Speaking to CNN reporter Dana Bash, Clinton Campaign manager Robby
Mook
could not coherently explain why the Clintons weren't willing to stop accepting donations from
foreign 'investors' unless Clinton became president of the United States. Instead, Mook tried to
divert the question to Donald Trump, saying the candidate has never revealed his financials, and
adding that Mrs. Clinton had taken "unprecedented" steps to being "transparent."
And the plot thickens. On Sunday, conservative US and British media
revealed that Huma Abedin, a longtime friend and top aid to Clinton, had worked as an assistant
editor for a radical Islamic Saudi journal for over a decade. The publication, called the Journal
of Muslim Minority Affairs, featured everything from pieces opposed to women's rights, to articles
blaming the US for the September 11 terror attacks.
In one article in January 1996, Abedin's own mother wrote a piece for the journal, where she complained
that Clinton, who was First Lady at the time, was advancing a "very aggressive and radically feminist"
agenda which was un-Islamic and dangerous for empowering women.
Abedin has long been accused by independent media in the US and elsewhere of having connections
with Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood, charges which have long been labeled
as nothing more than a conspiracy theory. But Sunday's story seems to have ruffled a few feathers
in some high places, with a Clinton campaign spokesperson
explaining (rather unconvincingly) to the New York Post that Abedin played no formal role in
the radical journal. "My understanding is that her name was simply listed on the masthead in that
periodical," the spokesman said.
These two stories, the first offering new details including dollar estimates about the money received
by the Clinton Foundation from the Saudis, and the second shedding light on her top advisor's apparent
ties to a Saudi journal propagating Islamist ideas, should lead the media to look for answers to
some very troubling questions. These should be the same kinds of questions asked earlier this summer,
when a formerly classified 28 page chapter of the 9/11 Commission Report was finally released, revealing
that Saudi officials had supported the hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks against the
United States in 2001.
And so the question stands: If the media feels
justified in crucifying 'Kremlin agent' Donald Trump for a Moscow beauty pageant and some nice words
about Vladimir Putin, will it provide the same level of scrutiny for Mrs. Clinton, given the knowledge
that her Foundation has taken in tens of millions of dollars from the Saudis, and that her top advisor
seems to have been a supporter of hardcore Islamist ideology?
"... Behind the private jet journey of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin" [ Yahoo News ]. The article explains why wearing one hat from Abedin's massive collection of headgear makes this all legal. ..."
"... "After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, Bill Clinton received $17.6 million in payments from a for-profit university. Since that time, another organization with a connection to that university received almost $90 million in grants from an agency that's part of the State Department" [ CNN ]. Clinton was paid for "inspiring people." Oh. OK. ..."
"... UPDATE "Donald Trump appears to have donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation" [ Business Insider ]. As Trump said: "I gave to many people before this - before two months ago I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. That's a broken system." I hate it when Trump's right. ..."
"Behind the private jet journey of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin" [
Yahoo News ]. The article explains why wearing one hat from Abedin's massive collection of
headgear makes this all legal. Musical
interlude --
"Clinton Foundation: World Class Slacktivists" [
Medium ]. "I think this could be called a 'charity bubble' since at some point, there won't
be any more cash to take. And then what will people do? What will happen when the hospital where
future doctors and nurses will work closes due to lack of funds?"
"After Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, Bill Clinton received $17.6 million in payments
from a for-profit university. Since that time, another organization with a connection to that
university received almost $90 million in grants from an agency that's part of the State Department"
[
CNN ]. Clinton was paid for "inspiring people." Oh. OK.
UPDATE "Donald Trump appears to have donated $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation" [
Business Insider ]. As Trump said: "I gave to many people before this - before two months
ago I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what, when
I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for
me. That's a broken system." I hate it when Trump's right.
Money
UPDATE "Hillary Clinton Continues Fundraising Swing at Home of Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel"
[
Variety ]. "Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, Shonda Rhimes, Tobey Maguire and former HBO programming
president Michael Lombardo were among those at the event, according to a source who was there,
with tickets priced at $33,400 per person. About 55 people attended….
The Democratic presidential candidate is fundraising in the weeks before her first debate with
Republican rival Donald Trump [on September 26]." And definitely not holding press conferences.
UPDATE "Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel & Hillary Clinton Pose for Adorable Photobooth Pics
at Star-Studded Fundraiser" [
ET ]. " "Look who came over for lunch… #imwithher," Biel wrote on Instagram." Quite a lunch.
Hillary Clinton spent the weekend fundraising in affluent New England
communities, speaking to more than 2,200 donors at private brunches and
gatherings in Nantucket and Cape Cod-but what she told them "remains a
mystery," the Associated Press
reported Monday.
The fundraising effort-which follows her campaign's
most lucrative month so far with a
$63 million gain in July-underscores Clinton's continued evasion of
transparency over her ties to wealthy elites. In fact, of the roughly 300
fundraising events she has held since announcing her White House run in
April 2015, only five have allowed any press coverage, and Clinton has
attempted to ban the use of social media among guests, according to the
AP.
..."Why wouldn't Hillary tell the American people, whose votes she wants, what she told
corporations in private for almost two years?" Nader wrote. "Is it that she doesn't want to be
accused of doubletalk, of 'gushing' (as one insider told the Wall Street Journal) when addressing
bankers, stock traders or corporate bosses?"
These speeches are so controversial in part because of the high price tag they came with.
Clinton would charge an average of $5,000 per minute for her speeches.
"We know she has such transcripts. Her contract with these numerous business groups, prepared by
the Harry Walker Lecture Agency, stipulated that the sponsor pay $1000 for a stenographer to take
down a verbatim record, exclusively for her possession."
According to Nader, "Where Trump's White House is seen as utterly unpredictable, Hillary's
White House is utterly predictable: more Wall Street, more military adventures." Nader continued,
"As Senator and Secretary of State she has never seen a weapons system or a war that she didn't
support."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
"Other donors got action via direct appeal to Abedin: For example, 75-grand-giver Maureen White
wrote, 'I am going to be in DC on Thursday. Would she have any time to spare?' Huma's reply: "Yes
I'll make it work'" [New
York Post]. Wait, all I need to buy access to Clinton is a grand? That's all? Really?
UPDATE "'Huma, I need your help now to intervene please. We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton,
who has been there now for nearly six months,' Aboussie wrote. 'It should go without saying that
the Peabody folks came to Dick and I because of our relationship with the Clinton's [sic],' she added"
[The Intercept].
"'We are working on it and I hope we can make something work,' Abedin replied, noting 'we have to
work through the beauracracy [sic] here.' Obviously, as the example above shows, that's not always
true, and Abedin seems to be the arbiter of which donors go to Happyville, and which to Pain City.
UPDATE "The emails do not show that Clinton Foundation donors received any policy favors from
Hillary Clinton or other elected officials. What they show is that people who donated to the foundation
believed they were owed favors by Clinton's staffers, and at least one of those staffers - the odious
Doug Band - shared this belief" [Jonathon Chait,
New York Magazine]. Yes, selling access is called "influence peddling." It's corrupt in itself,
regardless of policy outcomes. The headline: "Clinton Foundation Still Not Criminal, Still Not Great
for Hillary." So, if "not criminal" is the baseline…
UPDATE "Bill Clinton says he will leave Clinton Foundation if Hillary is elected president" [Los
Angeles Times]. From the Department of How Stupid Do They Think We Are? Even if you accept that
quid pro quo is the only form of corruption, which I don't, consider the possibility that
Bill closed the deal on the quid before the election, and Hillz will deliver the pro
quo after the election. Surely, that is, a quid pro quo can be asynchronous? Or are
we now to believe that the only form of corruption is when cash in an envelope is transferred from
one hand to another? That's even worse than Citizens United!
Hillary Clinton leads in the polls nationally and in key battleground states, but the flood of
stories regarding her private email server and donations to the Clinton Foundation demonstrate
the former secretary of state won't be able to completely outrun voter skepticism -- or Donald
Trump.
... ... ...
Trump supporter Sen. Jeff Sessions suggested that the Democratic presidential candidate used
her high position to "extort" from international governments for her family's foundation.
"The fundamental thing is you can not be Secretary of State of the United States of America and
use that position to extort or seek contributions to your private foundation," he told CNN's
Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" Tuesday. "That is a fundamental violation of law and that does
appear to have happened."
... ... ...
A
Washington Post/ABC News poll from earlier this month showed that 59% of voters believe that
Clinton is not honest and trustworthy.
So the campaign turned its attention on Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and her emails. That
was readily apparent Monday, as both Trump and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence brought up
the issue.
"It's time for Hillary Clinton to come clean about the Clinton Foundation," Pence said at a rally
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The Clinton Foundation last week accounced it would ban donations to from corporations and
foreign countries if Hillary Clinton is elected. Pence rhetorically asked why there wasn't a
conflict of interest when she was Secretary of State.
"Apparently she'll have a conflict of interest with the Clinton Foundation if she becomes
President but I guess she didn't have a conflict of interest taking foreign donations while she
was secretary of state of the United States of America," Pence said
This foundation gives Clintons the ability to finance travel, equipment and staff for political
campaigns of Hillary Clinton. Note the level of interconnection between Hillary Clinton staff and
Clinton foundation in email scandal. Hume Abedin often called the system administrator from Clinton
foundation to fix the "bathroom" mail server. Also spending by foundation "on charoty"
are very questionable both in scope and targets. Compare with Gates foundation and you will
see that Clinton foundation is essentially Clinton family slush fund disguised as a charity.
Notable quotes:
"... Since its founding in 2001, the Clinton Foundation served as a bridge between Bill Clinton's administration and Hillary Clinton's drive to conquer the White House again. ..."
"... But beyond the Republican bluster, there is a substantial critique of the Clinton Foundation: At its core, it fuses fundraising, influence-peddling, Washington networking, "humanitarian" causes and an endless grasp for power and money. ..."
"... Though taking care to adhere to the letter of the law, the foundation comes close to the line in many cases ..."
The stated mission of the Clinton Foundation, set up at the end of Bill Clinton's second term in
the White House, is to "alleviate poverty, improve global health, strengthen economies, and protect
the environment."
But far more important to its operations is the Clinton Foundation's unstated
mission: to further entrench the already formidable power of the Clinton family.
For more than two decades, both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have lived very public lives
ensconced in the upper echelons of America's political establishment. Since its founding in 2001,
the Clinton Foundation served as a bridge between Bill Clinton's administration and Hillary Clinton's
drive to conquer the White House again.
... ... ...
But beyond the Republican bluster, there is a substantial critique of the Clinton Foundation:
At its core, it fuses fundraising, influence-peddling, Washington networking, "humanitarian" causes
and an endless grasp for power and money.
Though taking care to adhere to the letter of the law, the foundation comes close to the
line in many cases -- for example, soliciting donations by offering face time with the
Clintons in ways that seem suspiciously like a political campaign for elected office, but not
exactly like that, because that would be a violation of the law.
"... The Foundation donors included corporations and individuals with significant matters before the State Department. And then either Hillary Clinton herself or one of her closest aides took action favorable to the donor. ..."
"... The Clintons' made the State Department into the same kind of Pay-to-Play operations as the Arkansas Government was: pay the Clinton Foundation huge sums of money and throw in some big speaking fees for Bill Clinton and you got to play with the State Department. ..."
"... The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a Special Prosecutor. After the FBI and Department of Justice whitewash of the Clinton email crimes, they certainly cannot be trusted to quickly or impartially investigate Hillary Clinton's crimes. ..."
"... Some former prosecutors have even suggested that the coordination between the pay-for-play State Department and the corrupt Clinton Foundation constitute a clear example of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) enterprise. ..."
Donald Trump called for an independent special protector to investigate the Clinton
Foundation at a rally in Akron, Ohio Monday night. Trump said the Justice Department
is a "political arm" of the White House and can not be trusted to investigate
properly.
TRUMP: The Foundation donors included corporations and individuals with
significant matters before the State Department. And then either Hillary Clinton
herself or one of her closest aides took action favorable to the donor.
Her actions corrupted and disgraced one of the most important Departments of
government, indeed one of only four established by the United States Constitution
itself.
The Clintons' made the State Department into the same kind of Pay-to-Play
operations as the Arkansas Government was: pay the Clinton Foundation huge sums of
money and throw in some big speaking fees for Bill Clinton and you got to play
with the State Department.
The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it
was done require an expedited investigation by a Special Prosecutor. After the FBI
and Department of Justice whitewash of the Clinton email crimes, they certainly
cannot be trusted to quickly or impartially investigate Hillary Clinton's crimes.
Some former prosecutors have even suggested that the coordination between the
pay-for-play State Department and the corrupt Clinton Foundation constitute a
clear example of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) enterprise.
The Justice Department is required to appoint an independent Special Prosecutor
because it has proven itself to be a political arm of the White House.
What a bunch of neoliberal piranha, devouring the poorest country in Europe, where pernneers exist
on $1 a day or less, with the help of installed by Washington corrupt oligarchs (Yanukovich was installed
with Washington blessing and was controlled by Washington, who was fully aware about the level of corruption
of its government; especially his big friend vice-president Biden).
Notable quotes:
"... Mr. Kalyuzhny was also a founding board member of a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, that hired the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm that received $1.02 million to promote an agenda generally aligned with the Party of Regions. ..."
"... Because the payment was made through a nongovernmental organization, the Podesta Group did not register as a lobbyist for a foreign entity. A co-founder of the Podesta Group, John D. Podesta, is chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, and his brother, Tony Podesta, runs the firm now. ..."
"... The Podesta Group, in a statement, said its in-house counsel determined the company had no obligation to register as a representative of a foreign entity in part because the nonprofit offered assurances it was not "directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party." ..."
"... On Monday, Mr. Manafort issued a heated statement in response to an article in The New York Times that first disclosed that the ledgers - a document described by Ukrainian investigators as an under-the-table payment system for the Party of Regions - referenced a total of $12.7 million in cash payments to him over a five-year period. ..."
"... In that statement, Mr. Manafort, who was removed from day-to-day management of the Trump campaign on Wednesday though he retained his title, denied that he had personally received any off-the-books cash payments. "The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly and nonsensical," he said. ..."
MOSCOW - The Ukrainian authorities, under pressure to bolster their assertion that once-secret
accounting documents show cash payments from a pro-Russian political party earmarked for Donald J.
Trump's campaign chairman, on Thursday released line-item entries, some for millions of dollars.
The revelations also point to an outsize role for a former senior member of the pro-Russian political
party, the Party of Regions, in directing money to both Republican and Democratic advisers and lobbyists
from the United States as the party tried to burnish its image in Washington.
The former party member, Vitaly A. Kalyuzhny, for a time chairman of the Ukraine Parliament's
International Relations Committee, had signed nine times for receipt of payments designated for the
Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, according to Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament
who has studied the documents. The ledger covered payments from 2007 to 2012, when Mr. Manafort worked
for the party and its leader, Viktor F. Yanukovych, Ukraine's former president who was deposed.
Mr. Kalyuzhny was also a founding board member of a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization,
the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, that hired the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm
that received $1.02 million to promote an agenda generally aligned with the Party of Regions.
Because the payment was made through a nongovernmental organization, the Podesta Group did
not register as a lobbyist for a foreign entity. A co-founder of the Podesta Group, John D. Podesta,
is chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, and his brother, Tony Podesta, runs the firm now.
The role of Mr. Kalyuzhny, a onetime computer programmer from the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk,
in directing funds to the companies of the chairmen of both presidential campaigns, had not previously
been reported. Mr. Kalyuzhny was one of three Party of Regions members of Parliament who founded
the nonprofit.
The Associated Press, citing emails it had obtained, also reported Thursday that Mr. Manafort's
work for Ukraine included a secret lobbying effort in Washington that he operated with an associate,
Rick Gates, and that was aimed at influencing American news organizations and government officials.
Mr. Gates noted in the emails that he conducted the work through two lobbying firms, including
the Podesta Group, because Ukraine's foreign minister did not want the country's embassy involved.
The A.P. said one of Mr. Gates's campaigns sought to turn public opinion in the West against Yulia
Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister who was imprisoned during Mr. Yanukovych's administration.
The Podesta Group, in a statement, said its in-house counsel determined the company had no
obligation to register as a representative of a foreign entity in part because the nonprofit offered
assurances it was not "directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized
in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party."
Reached by phone on Thursday, a former aide to Mr. Kalyuzhny said he had lost contact with the
politician and was unsure whether he remained in Kiev or had returned to Donetsk, now the capital
of a Russian-backed separatist enclave.
Ukrainian officials emphasized that they did not know as yet if the cash payments reflected in
the ledgers were actually made. In all 22 instances, people other than Mr. Manafort appear to have
signed for the money. But the ledger entries are highly specific with funds earmarked for services
such as exit polling, equipment and other services.
On Monday, Mr. Manafort issued a heated statement in response to an article in The New York
Times that first disclosed that the ledgers - a document described by Ukrainian investigators as
an under-the-table payment system for the Party of Regions - referenced a total of $12.7 million
in cash payments to him over a five-year period.
In that statement, Mr. Manafort, who was removed from day-to-day management of the Trump campaign
on Wednesday though he retained his title, denied that he had personally received any off-the-books
cash payments. "The suggestion that I accepted cash payments is unfounded, silly and nonsensical,"
he said.
Mr. Manafort's statement, however, left open the possibility that cash payments had been made
to his firm or associates. And details from the ledgers released Thursday by anticorruption investigators
suggest that may have occurred. Three separate payments, for example, totaling nearly $5.7 million
are earmarked for Mr. Manafort's "contract."
Another, from October 2012, suggests a payment to Mr. Manafort of $400,000 for exit polling, a
legitimate campaign outlay.
Two smaller entries, for $4,632 and $854, show payments for seven personal computers and a computer
server.
The payments do not appear to have been reported by the Party of Regions in campaign finance disclosures
in Ukraine. The party's 2012 filing indicates outlays for expenses other than advertising of just
under $2 million, at the exchange rate at the time. This is less than a single payment in the black
ledger designated for "Paul Manafort contract" in June of that year for $3.4 million.
Ukrainian investigators say they consider any under-the-table payments illegal, and that the ledger
also describes disbursements to members of the central election committee, the group that counts
votes.
Correction: August 20, 2016
Because of an editing error, an article on Friday about the political activities in Ukraine of
Donald J. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, misidentified the office once held by
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a rival of Mr. Manafort's client, the former president Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Ms. Tymoshenko served as prime minister of Ukraine, not its president.
"... Edward G. Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said the foundation should be disbanded if Mrs. Clinton wins, and he added that it would make sense for the charity to stop taking foreign donations immediately. ..."
"... Begun in 1997, the foundation has raised roughly $2 billion and is overseen by a board that includes Mr. Clinton and the couple's daughter, Chelsea. ..."
"... This foundation made the Clinton's very rich. When a foundation only gives ten to fifteen percent of their proceeds to the ones they are helping one should know there is something wrong. ..."
"... Large sums of money from powerful foreign entities given to powerful political entities are never given for "free." Even if they come without specific stipulations, they instill within the recipient a sense of reciprocity and empathy that may not have existed before. ..."
"... The Clintons are highly manipulative career politicians who continually display that they believe they are above the law of the proletariat. They will do whatever they believe benefits them without regard for the rest of us. ..."
"... Regarding the foundation, I would love to see a report on what percentage of these funds are actually being used for "good causes" versus supporting the Clinton lifestyle.. ..."
"... I am sorry, there is absolutely nothing anyone can say that will make me believe for even a nano second, that someone from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia simply decided out of the goodness of their heart, to donate 10 million bucks to an American charity. ..."
"... After her stint at State Department, Hillary completely misread the sentiment of American voters when she returned to campaign. She thought America was going to wrap her in a big "Welcome Back" snugly blanket. What she found were unexpected insurgencies in Bernie and Trump- and a public who wasn't so eager to greet her- especially when they realized she didn't have a message, platform or offer a simple reason as to WHY she wants to become President. Throw in the foundation and her establishment ties to Wall Street and Big Pharma- She suddenly isn't so appealing. ..."
"... Mr. Trump, who the Times always castigates for his shady business practices, is a cheap street corner hustler compared to the Clintons. ..."
"... Trump and Hillary show the total bankruptcy of our major political parties and the ruling political establishment. I'm voting Green, there may be a chance of saving our democracy yet. ..."
"... The presence or absence of "direct" connections between either Clinton and their donors suggests a touching naivete. Being at dinner at the Clinton's home, seeing someone at dinner there ... this is how connections are made and made to work, not through "direct orders from the boss!" This is a web of shameless corruption in which an ex-president parlays his reputation to boost him and his wife into the ranks of the 1%. ..."
"... The donors have given to gain access or future favors of or through the Clintons. That's clear. These nations/individuals don't do anything charitable in their own nations. They want something in return and the Clintons' being the politicians that they are as well as being hawks about money, have always known that. They chose the money. It's the basis for many foundations run by people that have already accomplished their goals and who next expect to get paid or who desire more power by association than even money can buy. ..."
"... The money raking Foundation and the Goldman Sachs speeches, all while they must have absolutely certain that Hillary would be running for President, speak the delusional sense of entitlement usually reserved for royalty. ..."
"... the clinton hire their political team via these donations and pay for there expenses including huge travel expenses...not bad for public service. ..."
"... That is untrue. They can travel, live in luxury, pay their daughter and friends, and use trust assets for all kinds of personal stuff in the name of charity. Who do you think paid for Bill and Chelsea's trip to Africa? They aren't know for giving any away either! ..."
"... Bribery is corporatized these days ..."
"... Makes no sense. After a certain number, simple greed seems like insufficient motivation. You can't live long enough to spend it all! So what do the Clinton's want -- and more directly, why do they insist on sabotaging any good that comes their way? The country doesn't need their drama ..."
"... It's a charity. The Clintons got very rich while running it. That's an issue. Then the fact that Hillary was Secretary of State while the Clintons were raking in the foreign contributions. That was a clear conflict of interest and it should never have been allowed. And if it wasn't a conflict then why are the Clintons backing away from the idea now? ..."
"... Just because Trump is a kook it doesn't mean the Clintons aren't crooked and they too should be nowhere near another term in the White House. Newsflash: Hillary and Bill Clinton are not trustworthy ..."
"... They have always sought money and power where ever it was, and foundations are an excellent tax dodge for wealthy people to pay their relatives and friends tax free salaries while wielding enormous power through grants. ..."
"... Sure, their foundation has theoretically been devoted to "good works" but it also gives the founders a very cushy life style, access to the highest levels of government (and graft) around the world, and a ready source of donors for Hillary's political campaigns. ..."
"... Hillary has operated with such conflicts of interest since she was First Lady of Arkansas, working for a law firm which handled services for the largest financial services firm in the state. Don't feel sorry for these "maligned" victims. ..."
"... It's deja vu all over again! ..."
"... The "foundation" spends about 10% on actual "charity" work. Watch "Heist" and "Clinton Cash" and so many other printed sources to see what true pay-to-play self-enrichment on a mammoth scale looks like. ..."
"... They are CROOKS with ZERO concern for anyone but themselves. Look at Haiti for openers. A country still in ruin, but Hillary's brother has a first-ever seat on a Gold Mining operation in Haiti... and as Sec. of State, she pushed back a raise for workers from 61Cents back to 31Cents per hour. How can anyone with a heart vote for these carpetbaggers? ..."
"... The article fails to mention that almost none of the money actually goes to charity. Nonprofits like this are excellent vehicles for avoiding taxes since the money can be spent on salaries and "business expenses" like travel. ..."
"... This particular nonprofit looks too much like a money laundering operation for the benefit of the Clintons. Either the donors were expecting some sort of payback or they thought they were donating to charity. In either case, something is wrong with this. ..."
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated more than $10 million. Through a foundation, so did the
son-in-law of a former Ukrainian president whose government was widely criticized for corruption
and the murder of journalists. A Lebanese-Nigerian developer with vast business interests
contributed as much as $5 million.
... ... ...
The Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the State
Department - before, during and after Mrs. Clinton's time as secretary - criticized for their
records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues. The countries include Saudi Arabia,
the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.
... ... ...
...Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has sued to obtain
records from Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department, said that "the damage is done."
"The conflicts of interest are cast in stone, and it is something that the Clinton administration
is going to have to grapple with," Mr. Fitton said. "It will cast a shadow over their policies."
... ... ...
Edward G. Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said the foundation
should be disbanded if Mrs. Clinton wins, and he added that it would make sense for the charity
to stop taking foreign donations immediately.
Begun in 1997, the foundation has raised roughly $2 billion and is overseen by a board
that includes Mr. Clinton and the couple's daughter, Chelsea.
... ... ...
Victor Pinchuk
, a steel magnate whose father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, was president of Ukraine
from 1994 to 2005, has directed between $10 million and $25 million to the foundation. He has
lent his private plane to the Clintons and traveled to Los Angeles in 2011 to attend Mr.
Clinton's star-studded 65th birthday celebration.
... ... ...
In July 2013, the Commerce Department began investigating complaints that Ukraine - and by
extension Mr. Pinchuk's company, Interpipe - and eight other countries had illegally dumped a
type of steel tube on the American market at artificially low prices.
A representative for Mr. Pinchuk said the investigation had nothing to do with the State
Department, had started after Mrs. Clinton's tenure and been suspended in July 2014. He added
that at least 100 other people had attended the dinner party at Mrs. Clinton's house and that she
and Mr. Pinchuk had spoken briefly about democracy in Ukraine.
C Tracy,
WV
This foundation made the Clinton's very rich. When a foundation only gives ten to
fifteen percent of their proceeds to the ones they are helping one should know there is
something wrong.
The foundation should bedevil the Clinton's, it is a sham. Money and power is the driving
force behind the Clintons' to say they are in favor of helping women and gays while at the
same time taking money from countries that treat women as no more than property and kill or
imprison gays is at least immoral. This is just another millstone around Hillary's political
neck.
JW,
Shanghai 1 hour ago
Large sums of money from powerful foreign entities given to powerful political entities
are never given for "free." Even if they come without specific stipulations, they instill
within the recipient a sense of reciprocity and empathy that may not have existed before.
It is impossible for Clinton to have taken so much money from these groups and to not feel
somewhat beholden to them.
The Clintons are highly manipulative career politicians who continually display that they
believe they are above the law of the proletariat. They will do whatever they believe benefits
them without regard for the rest of us.
I am ashamed that this is the best we have to choose from.
Regarding the foundation, I would love to see a report on what percentage of these funds
are actually being used for "good causes" versus supporting the Clinton lifestyle..
.
#Election2016 #RaceToTheBottom
karenpk,
Chicago 1 hour ago
I am sorry, there is absolutely nothing anyone can say that will make me believe for
even a nano second, that someone from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia simply decided out of the
goodness of their heart, to donate 10 million bucks to an American charity.
Ditto for the others. I really have a problem with how brazen these
politicians are, and how we simply turn a blind eye to them, as well as the wealthy investors
that own them. Oh, that's how politicians are. Well, if we acted like that, we would be
unemployed, then thrown in jail. What makes them special, other than their own self
proclamation? Nothing.
Aaron,
Ladera Ranch, CA 1 hour ago
After her stint at State Department, Hillary completely misread the sentiment of
American voters when she returned to campaign. She thought America was going to wrap her in a
big "Welcome Back" snugly blanket. What she found were unexpected insurgencies in Bernie and
Trump- and a public who wasn't so eager to greet her- especially when they realized she didn't
have a message, platform or offer a simple reason as to WHY she wants to become President.
Throw in the foundation and her establishment ties to Wall Street and Big Pharma- She suddenly
isn't so appealing.
The U.S. does not control the prices on prescription drugs they way other nations do and we
pay 50% more than other developed nations. This is what Hillary will fight to maintain, that
along with a huge defense budget, perpetual warfare and global conflict. It's the status quo
and it's disgusting. I'll vote for Trump just to spite Hillary.
Roy Brophy,
Minneapolis, MN 1 hour ago
" American officials have long worried about Saudi Arabia's suspected role in promoting a
hard-line strain of Islam, which has some adherents who have been linked to violence."
Like the Saudis who planed and carried out the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11?
Mr. Trump, who the Times always castigates for his shady business practices, is a cheap
street corner hustler compared to the Clintons.
The only reason Trump sounds crazier than Hillary is that she is a more practiced liar.
After the utter failure of Afghanistan and Iraq, which she and the Times supported, she went
blazing into Libya and did the same thing with the same results.
Trump and Hillary show the total bankruptcy of our major political parties and the
ruling political establishment. I'm voting Green, there may be a chance of saving our
democracy yet.
JO,
CO 1 hour ago
The presence or absence of "direct" connections between either Clinton and their donors
suggests a touching naivete. Being at dinner at the Clinton's home, seeing someone at dinner
there ... this is how connections are made and made to work, not through "direct orders from
the boss!" This is a web of shameless corruption in which an ex-president parlays his
reputation to boost him and his wife into the ranks of the 1%.
Does this mean Donald would make an acceptable president? No. But neither does Hillary.
Maybe better that we consider going the route of SCOTUS-1 and leave the Oval (almost typed
Offal) Office empty for four years!
Hanan,
New York City 2 hours ago
The donors have given to gain access or future favors of or through the Clintons.
That's clear. These nations/individuals don't do anything charitable in their own nations.
They want something in return and the Clintons' being the politicians that they are as well as
being hawks about money, have always known that. They chose the money. It's the basis for many
foundations run by people that have already accomplished their goals and who next expect to
get paid or who desire more power by association than even money can buy.
There will be no way around this for Clinton. Trump has a similar problem with monied
interests all over the world. In both instances, not good choices nor good odds that whomever
succeeds will not be plagued by unending issues due to conflicts that will be posed. exposed
and/or links to their money and debts. Trump calls it "pay for play" regarding Clinton. As for
Trump and all his huge deals, its called getting played while Trump gets paid.
Fred McTaggart,
Kalamazoo, MI 2 hours ago
The actions that Bill Clinton is promising after the election are a tacit admission that
the Foundation represents an enormous conflict of interest. But by now such actions are
meaningless. They should have been taken before Hillary Clinton started campaigning for U.S.
Senator and certainly before she accepted a position as Secretary of State.
Stan Continople
, Brooklyn 4 hours ago
The money raking Foundation and the Goldman Sachs speeches, all while they must have
absolutely certain that Hillary would be running for President, speak the delusional sense of
entitlement usually reserved for royalty.
Just because she's also a "policy wonk" does
not make her any less deranged than Trump. Who knows when her last remaining ties to reality
may finally snap - along with that macabre smile?
Majortrout,
is a trusted commenter Montreal 4 hours ago
I'm amazed that the NYTimes has written this article. When Mrs. Clinton was running for the
top spot for the DNC, all we read was negativity against Bernie Sanders, with very little
written about Benghazi,her private e-mail server, and other "suggested improprieties". When
she finally won the nomination for POTUS, all we read in the NYTimes was negativity against
Donald Trump, and again hardly anything negative news against Mrs. Clinton.
How about that?
Now with have this issue, and it isn't going to go away so fast.
"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a
duck"
Elephant lover, is a trusted commenter New Mexico 5 hours ago
The donations are to a trust. The trust does not benefit the Clintons. It benefits the
poor. How is this corrupt?
Just Sayin,
New York 13 minutes ago
the clinton hire their political team via these donations and pay for there expenses
including huge travel expenses...not bad for public service.
retiredseal83
, Coronado, CA 13 minutes ago
That is untrue. They can travel, live in luxury, pay their daughter and friends, and
use trust assets for all kinds of personal stuff in the name of charity. Who do you think paid
for Bill and Chelsea's trip to Africa? They aren't know for giving any away either!
ExPeterC,
is a trusted commenter Bear Territory 6 hours ago
Bribery is corporatized these days
paula,
is a trusted commenter new york 6 hours ago
Makes no sense. After a certain number, simple greed seems like insufficient
motivation. You can't live long enough to spend it all! So what do the Clinton's want -- and
more directly, why do they insist on sabotaging any good that comes their way? The country
doesn't need their drama
-- but Trump is simply too horrible to contemplate.
Billy,
up in the woods down by the river 7 hours ago
It's a charity. The Clintons got very rich while running it. That's an issue. Then the
fact that Hillary was Secretary of State while the Clintons were raking in the foreign
contributions. That was a clear conflict of interest and it should never have been allowed.
And if it wasn't a conflict then why are the Clintons backing away from the idea now?
Just because Trump is a kook it doesn't mean the Clintons aren't crooked and they too
should be nowhere near another term in the White House. Newsflash: Hillary and Bill Clinton
are not trustworthy
SAK,
New Jersey 7 hours ago
The donations to the foundation has bad appearance.
Saudis or Qataris desiring to be charitable to Africans
could send the money to African charities rather than
route through Clinton foundation. It is very typical of
Saudis. They donated generously to the favorite charity
of Bush family. The results are obvious. Despite their
bad human rights record and discrimination against
women, beheadings and disseminating extremist
version of Islam though their funding of mosques and
madressas in Muslim world, Saudi Arabia remains a
strategic partner. US continues to supply arms,
intelligence and advice on military operations in Yemen.
There is no doubt Saudis have bought influence through
donations.
Deus02,
Toronto 5 hours ago
Not fear, but considerable and continuing concern about her credibility going forward.
While Hillary continually touts herself as a progressive democrat, it would seem neither
yourself nor the NYT got the memo about her recent four person presidential transition team
headed up by Russ Salazar, former Secretary of the Interior AND Washington corporate lobbyist
whom coincidentally is a profracking, fossil fuel AND supporter of the TPP. You couldn't ask
for a more establishment pro corporate type than him.
He will also, as part of a Clinton administration, head the team that is responsible for the
hiring of up to 4000 new employees and one can only guess where they will come from? Any
wonder why many Sanders supporters and Independents STILL do not find her trustworthy and are
reluctant to vote for her?
The fact remains, that any other democratic candidate without Clinton's baggage, at this
juncture, would be beating Trump by at least 20 points, a landslide.
susan,
California 7 hours ago
???? Their foundation ties bedevil her? That make it seem like she is being treated
unfairly by circumstances beyond their control. Nothing could be further from the truth - the
Clintons brought all of these problems on themselves.
They have always sought money and
power where ever it was, and foundations are an excellent tax dodge for wealthy people to pay
their relatives and friends tax free salaries while wielding enormous power through grants.
Sure, their foundation has theoretically been devoted to "good works" but it also gives
the founders a very cushy life style, access to the highest levels of government (and graft)
around the world, and a ready source of donors for Hillary's political campaigns.
Hillary has operated with such conflicts of interest since she was First Lady of
Arkansas, working for a law firm which handled services for the largest financial services
firm in the state. Don't feel sorry for these "maligned" victims.
They created the
situation(s) which invited all the criticism, and, incredibly, continue to do so. It takes a
long time to raise billions of dollars for their closely held foundation - they are not about
to let it go until they have another source of revenue and means of attracting wealthy donors
- the Presidency of the United States.
It's deja vu all over again!
Deus02,
Toronto 1 hour ago
Yep, the Saudis are going to implement a significant human rights program in the Kingdom
and the 500K that Trans Canada donated to the Clinton Foundation are going to announce they no
longer wish to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
Yeah right!
Pier Pezzi
, Orlando 41 minutes ago
The "foundation" spends about 10% on actual "charity" work. Watch "Heist" and "Clinton
Cash" and so many other printed sources to see what true pay-to-play self-enrichment on a
mammoth scale looks like.
Then vote for anyone but Clinton.
They are CROOKS with ZERO concern for anyone but themselves. Look at Haiti for openers.
A country still in ruin, but Hillary's brother has a first-ever seat on a Gold Mining
operation in Haiti... and as Sec. of State, she pushed back a raise for workers from 61Cents
back to 31Cents per hour. How can anyone with a heart vote for these carpetbaggers?
Don B
, Massachusetts 8 hours ago
The article fails to mention that almost none of the money actually goes to charity.
Nonprofits like this are excellent vehicles for avoiding taxes since the money can be spent on
salaries and "business expenses" like travel.
That isn't always objectionable: The Monterey Aquarium was set up that way but it was
funded by a rich man to provide a career for his daughter.
This particular nonprofit looks
too much like a money laundering operation for the benefit of the Clintons. Either the donors
were expecting some sort of payback or they thought they were donating to charity. In either
case, something is wrong with this.
"... But beyond the Republican bluster, there is a substantial critique of the Clinton Foundation: At its core, it fuses fundraising, influence-peddling, Washington networking, "humanitarian" causes and an endless grasp for power and money. ..."
"... Though taking care to adhere to the letter of the law, the foundation comes close to the line in many cases -- for example, soliciting donations by offering face time with the Clintons in ways that seem suspiciously like a political campaign for elected office, but not exactly like that, because that would be a violation of the law. ..."
"... Using methods like this, the Clinton Foundation raised some $2 billion since its inception 15 years ago. ..."
"... "Nearly half of the major donors who are backing Ready for Hillary, a group promoting her 2016 presidential bid, as well as nearly half of the bundlers from her 2008 campaign, have given at least $10,000 to the foundation, either on their own or through foundations or companies they run," according to the Post . ..."
"... As part of that agreement, the Clinton Foundation reported that prior to 2008, Saudi Arabia had contributed between $10 million and $25 million to its coffers -- a strange patron of a foundation that promotes itself as a fierce advocate for women's rights. But as should be obvious, how the money is used isn't generally as important to the governments, corporations and corporate executives contributing as the influence they buy. ..."
"... Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy ..."
"... The Clinton Foundation has staffers and programs in dozens of countries working on countless issues. But it's perhaps best known for its high-profile role in the reconstruction of Haiti after a devastating earthquake struck there in January 2010 . ..."
"... In this respect, the Clinton Foundation's operations in Haiti bore a striking resemblance to the Bush administration's arrogant colonial posture toward the occupation of Iraq -- right down to the way the Bush administration deployed recent Ivy League graduates to carry out central elements of the U.S. empire's plans for occupation and reconstruction. ..."
"... First, they had no background in development -- they didn't know what they were talking about in aid or humanitarianism. Second, they didn't even realize it. They had come to Haiti in their suits convinced they were going to fix the place, and then they looked really confused when we would try to explain to them why the ideas they came up with on the back of an envelope on the plane over wouldn't work. ..."
"... Indeed, the iconic accomplishments of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti today are an industrial park built to help foreign-owned clothing manufacturers exploit low-wage Haitian labor; trailers to house schools for Haiti's next generation of workers; and a luxury hotel for wealthy corporate executives who need a place to rest their weary heads as they seek out new business opportunities. ..."
"... But a year after its opening, the park had only produced 1,500 jobs. "Hundreds of smallholder farmers were coaxed into giving up more than 600 acres of land for the complex, yet nearly 95 percent of that land remains unused," according to an Al Jazeera report published in September 2013 . ..."
"... But the Clinton Foundation did see at least one project through to completion, under the auspices of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The fund invested $2 million to complete the construction of a luxury hotel in Pétionville. ..."
Bill Clinton looks on as Hillary Clinton campaigns at the Broad Street Market in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, July 29, 2016. (Photo: Ruth Fremson / The New York Times)
The stated mission of the Clinton Foundation, set up at the end of Bill Clinton's second term
in the White House, is to "alleviate poverty, improve global health, strengthen economies, and protect
the environment."
But far more important to its operations is the Clinton Foundation's unstated mission: to further
entrench the already formidable power of the Clinton family.
For more than two decades, both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have lived very public lives
ensconced in the upper echelons of America's political establishment. Since its founding in 2001,
the Clinton Foundation served as a bridge between Bill Clinton's administration and Hillary Clinton's
drive to conquer the White House again.
The foundation itself has been the subject of countless Republican-inspired inquiries and attacks,
including a
new
IRS investigation of its finances announced in the midst of the Democratic National Convention,
though it was overshadowed by Donald Trump's nonstop buffoonery.
But beyond the Republican bluster, there is a substantial critique of the Clinton Foundation:
At its core, it fuses fundraising, influence-peddling, Washington networking, "humanitarian" causes
and an endless grasp for power and money.
Though taking care to adhere to the letter of the law, the foundation comes close to the line
in many cases -- for example, soliciting donations by offering face time with the Clintons in ways
that seem suspiciously like a political campaign for elected office, but not exactly like that, because
that would be a violation of the law.
After Hillary Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State in 2013 to focus her attention on campaigning
for the White House, she officially rejoined the Clinton Foundation.
As theWashington Post reported in 2015:
[T]he organization has stepped up its solicitation efforts in anticipation of soon losing one
of its chief fundraisers [Hillary] to the campaign trail -- building a $250 million endowment
designed to provide some long-term stability.
The recent efforts have at times looked like a political campaign. A contest offered foundation
donors the chance to win a free trip to New York to attend a Clinton gala and have a photo taken
with the former first couple. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton hosted a "Millennium Network" event
in 2013 aimed at cultivating a younger generation of philanthropists. According to an invitation,
there were six tiers of donations, ranging from $150 for individuals to $15,000 for a couple seeking
a photograph with Hillary Clinton.
***
Using methods like this, the Clinton Foundation raised some $2 billion since its inception 15
years ago.
"Nearly half of the major donors who are backing Ready for Hillary, a group promoting her 2016
presidential bid, as well as nearly half of the bundlers from her 2008 campaign, have given at least
$10,000 to the foundation, either on their own or through foundations or companies they run,"
according to the Post.
The list of Clinton Foundation donors includes blue-chip corporations such as Coca Cola and Verizon,
Wall Street players like Goldman Sachs and American military contractors.
Federal law designates the Secretary of State as "responsible for the continuous supervision
and general direction of sales" of arms, military hardware and services to foreign countries.
In practice, that meant that Clinton was charged with rejecting or approving weapons deals --
and when it came to Clinton Foundation donors, Hillary Clinton's State Department did a whole
lot of approving.
While Clinton was Secretary of State, her department approved $165 billion worth of commercial
arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors. That figure from Clinton's three full fiscal years in
office is almost double the value of arms sales to those countries during the same period of President
George W. Bush's second term.
Fully one-third of foundation donors giving more than $1 million at a time are foreign governments.
When the Obama administration vetted Clinton for the post of Secretary of State in 2008, it barred
foreign governments that had previously given to the foundation from increasing their donations,
in order to deflect accusations about purchasing influence from America's highest-ranking diplomat.
As part of that agreement, the Clinton Foundation reported that prior to 2008, Saudi Arabia had
contributed between $10 million and $25 million to its coffers -- a strange patron of a foundation
that promotes itself as a fierce advocate for women's rights. But as should be obvious, how the money
is used isn't generally as important to the governments, corporations and corporate executives contributing
as the influence they buy.
Nobody, I think, in American history has merged their public service as Secretary of State
or president with their private gains to the extent that Hillary really has. And by that I mean
the Clinton Foundation, overall.
Here's the problem, you can imagine. She's going to Saudi Arabia, she's going to Europe, she's
going to the Near Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia has asked her -- and this is all very public
-- we want more arms. We want to buy arms in America...
Hillary's in a position to go to Raytheon, to Boeing, and say, look, do I have a customer for
you. Saudi Arabia would love to buy your arms. Maybe we can arrange something. I'm going to do
my best. By the way, you know, my foundation is -- you know, I'm a public-spirited person and
I'm trying to help the world. Would you like to make a contribution to my foundation?
Well, lo and behold, the military-industrial complex is one of the big contributors to the
Clinton Foundation, as is Saudi Arabia, and many of the parties who are directly affected by her
decisions.
***
The Clinton Foundation has staffers and programs in dozens of countries working on countless issues.
But it's perhaps best known for its high-profile role in the reconstruction of Haiti after
a devastating
earthquake struck there in January 2010.
The foundation's Haitian initiatives, like similar operations elsewhere, are distinguished by
an allegiance to the free market and a corporation-centric solution to social problems.
In this respect, the Clinton Foundation's operations in Haiti bore a striking resemblance to the
Bush administration's arrogant colonial posture toward the occupation of Iraq -- right down to the
way the Bush administration deployed
recent Ivy League graduates to carry out central elements of the U.S. empire's plans for occupation
and reconstruction.
First, they had no background in development -- they didn't know what they were talking about
in aid or humanitarianism. Second, they didn't even realize it. They had come to Haiti in their
suits convinced they were going to fix the place, and then they looked really confused when we
would try to explain to them why the ideas they came up with on the back of an envelope on the
plane over wouldn't work.
Indeed, the iconic accomplishments of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti today are an industrial
park built to help foreign-owned clothing manufacturers exploit low-wage Haitian labor; trailers
to house schools for Haiti's next generation of workers; and a luxury hotel for wealthy corporate
executives who need a place to rest their weary heads as they seek out new business opportunities.
***
In 2012, Bill and Hillary Clinton personally attended the opening ceremony of the Caracol Industrial
Park, which was supposed to create some 60,000 jobs for Haitians longing for decent employment. Among
the celebrities who attended the opening were Sean Penn and Ben Stiller,
according to the Washington Examiner.
But a year after its opening, the park had only produced 1,500 jobs. "Hundreds of smallholder
farmers were coaxed into giving up more than 600 acres of land for the complex, yet nearly 95 percent
of that land remains unused,"
according to an Al Jazeera report published in September 2013.
The Clinton Foundation disgracefully contracted with Clayton Homes -- the same firm sued by the
U.S. government for supplying trailers reeking of formaldehyde fumes to Hurricane Katrina refugees
-- to provide trailers to serve as schools for the children of the town of Léogâne,
according to
a report in the Nation by Isabel Macdonald and Isabeau Doucet.
Warren Buffet, owner of the investment firm Berkshire Hathway, which in turns owns Clayton Homes,
was a prominent supporter of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. Buffet co-hosted a fundraiser
that raked in more than $1 million for her campaign.
But the Clinton Foundation did see at least one project through to completion, under the auspices
of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. The fund invested $2 million to complete the construction of a luxury
hotel in Pétionville.
The Oasis Hotel "symbolizes Haiti 'building back better' and sends a message to the world that
Haiti is open for business,"
according to Paul Altidor, vice president of the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. "For Haiti's recovery
to be sustainable, it must attract investors, businesses and donors, all of whom will need a business-class,
seismically safe hotel."
But these trickle-down visions of development are precisely what angers Haitians about the colonial
arrogance of the West's reconstruction efforts. "All the money that went to pay the salaries of foreigners
and to rent expensive apartments and cars for foreigners while the situation of the country was degrading
-- there was something revolting about it,"
former Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis told the New York Times in 2012:
The practices of the Clinton Foundation illustrate the total embrace of neoliberalism and the
free market by the Clinton clan -- to the family's enormous financial benefit.
Remember that the next time you hear another liberal blowhard complain about how anyone who says
you're acting out of "privilege" if you aren't ready to vote for Hillary Clinton. In reality, the
Clintons themselves represent the pinnacle of privilege, fused with the power of the U.S. government
and its foreign policy agenda.
Challenging the Clinton establishment is part and parcel of challenging the privileges of those
who stand atop the global capitalist system.
Eric Ruder is in the editorial
board of the International Socialist Review. He is also a frequent contributor to Socialist Worker.
"... Judicial Watch wanted Clinton to answer questions in person about whether she used the server to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests. But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled her written responses would be sufficient. ..."
"... The lawsuit already has obtained several previously unreleased emails that suggested some of Clinton's aides had sought to help the Clinton Foundation, a charity run by her husband and daughter, while she was still secretary of State. ..."
"... Clinton faces several civil lawsuits stemming from her use of a private server, and damaging new emails could yet surface before election day. ..."
Judicial Watch wanted Clinton to answer questions in person about whether she used the
server to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests. But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled
her written responses would be sufficient.
The group has until Oct. 14 to submit the questions, and Clinton must respond within 30 days.
... ... ...
The lawsuit already has obtained several previously unreleased emails that suggested some
of Clinton's aides had sought to help the Clinton Foundation, a charity run by her husband and
daughter, while she was still secretary of State.
In one message, a top Clinton aide appeared to try to help a wealthy donor get a meeting with
the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, after a Clinton Foundation executive had requested it.
Clinton faces several civil lawsuits stemming from her use of a private server, and
damaging new emails could yet surface before election day.
"... Between the creation of the victory fund in September and the end of [June], the fund had brought in $142 million, . . . 44 percent [to] DNC ($24.4 million) and Hillary for America ($37.6 million), . . . state parties have kept less than $800,000 of all the cash brought in by the committee - or only 0.56 percent. ..."
"... Beyond the transfers, much of the fund's $42 million in direct spending also appears to have been done to directly benefit the Clinton campaign, as opposed to the state parties ..."
"... The fund has paid $4.1 million to the Clinton campaign for "salary and overhead expenses" to reimburse it for fundraising efforts. And it has directed $38 million to vendors such as direct marketing company Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey and digital consultant Bully Pulpit Interactive - both of which also serve the Clinton campaign - for mailings and online ads that sometimes closely resemble Clinton campaign materials. ..."
I am not interested in a prolonged back and forth, but I will lay out a bare outline of facts.
I do not find much support for your characterization of these arrangements, which give new meaning
to the fungibility of funds. I think it is fair and accurate to describe the HVF transfer arrangements
as a means of circumventing campaign financing limits and using the State parties to subsidize
the Clinton campaign. Court rulings have made aggregate fund raising legal and invites this means
of circumventing the $2700 limit on individual Presidential campaign donations. Whether the circumvention
is legal - whether it violates the law to invite nominal contributions to State Parties of $10,000
and channel those contributions wholly to operations in support of Clinton, while leaving nothing
in State Party coffers is actually illegal, I couldn't say; it certainly violates the norms of
a putative joint fundraising effort. It wasn't hard for POLITICO to find State officials who said
as much. The rest of this comment quotes POLITICO reports dated July 2016.
Hillary Victory Fund, which now includes 40 state Democratic Party committees, theoretically could
accept checks as large as $436,100 - based on the individual limits of $10,000 per state party,
$33,400 for the DNC, and $2,700 for Clinton's campaign.
Between the creation of the victory fund in September and the end of [June], the fund had
brought in $142 million, . . . 44 percent [to] DNC ($24.4 million) and Hillary for America ($37.6
million), . . . state parties have kept less than $800,000 of all the cash brought in by the committee
- or only 0.56 percent.
. . . state parties have received $7.7 million in transfers, but within a few days of most
transfers, almost all of the cash - $6.9 million - was transferred to the DNC . . .
The only date on which most state parties received money from the victory fund and didn't pass
any of it on to the DNC was May 2, the same day that POLITICO published an article exposing the
arrangement.
Beyond the transfers, much of the fund's $42 million in direct spending also appears to
have been done to directly benefit the Clinton campaign, as opposed to the state parties.
The fund has paid $4.1 million to the Clinton campaign for "salary and overhead expenses"
to reimburse it for fundraising efforts. And it has directed $38 million to vendors such as direct
marketing company Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey and digital consultant Bully Pulpit Interactive
- both of which also serve the Clinton campaign - for mailings and online ads that sometimes closely
resemble Clinton campaign materials.
JM Hatch 08.03.16 at 2:23 am
@41 Lee Arnold: Are you referring to the Warren Buffet who owns Fruit-of-the-Loom? The same
company which had Hillary's State Dept bust up a minimum wage law for Haiti's textile industry?
The same company which then donated to the Clinton Foundation for aid that never arrived to Haiti?
If not, then who is this Warren Buffet?
"... Fractured Lands in the NYT Magazine: this is getting the full MSM `serious journalism' treatment. Strangely, in 40,000 words it mentions Saudi Arabia essentially once, Bahrain once, in the phrase, `an arc across the Arab world from Mauritania to Bahrain', and Qatar not at all. ..."
"... So the three MENA countries most responsible for supporting extremism in their own neighborhood (and underwriting it elsewhere as well) are left off the hook. ..."
Fractured Lands in the NYT Magazine: this is getting the full MSM `serious journalism' treatment. Strangely, in 40,000 words it mentions Saudi Arabia essentially once,
Bahrain once, in the phrase, `an arc across the Arab world from Mauritania to Bahrain',
and Qatar not at all.
So the three MENA countries most responsible for supporting extremism in their own neighborhood
(and underwriting it elsewhere as well) are left off the hook.
He stated in the beginning that he's only dealing with six countries and Saudi Arabia wasn't
one of them. I started to read it but didn't get very far.
had to ck that out too…" Although definitions, names, and borders can vary, generally the regions
of Asia include West Asia (which is part of the Middle East), the Caucasus (sometimes also considered
as part of the Middle East), Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia (also called the Indian Subcontinent),
and Southeast Asia. West Asia is sometimes referred to as the Middle East, with is actually a
misnomer since the cultural region we define as the Middle East often included countries outside
of Asia, such as Egypt in Africa and Cyprus in Europe. West Asia specifically includes the countries
within the region of Asia bordered by the Mediterranean and Red Seas to the West and the Persian
Gulf, the Gulfs of Aden and Oman, and the Arabian Sea to the South.
Countries within West Asia include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Just northeast
of Turkey lies the Caucasus, a mountainous region wedged between the Black Sea to the West and
the Caspian Sea to the East. The Caucasus includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of
Russia. Central Asia is located just north of Iran and Afghanistan and south of Russia, consisting
of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. East Asia defines the region
between Central Asia, Russia, and the Pacific Ocean roughly up to the beginning of the Tropic
of Cancer."…and i'm still confused.
"... About Hillary's cute lawerly language–just to be clear, isn't it neoliberal dogma that by definition all "trade deals" increase jobs and wages. ..."
"... In effect this statement can be accurately summed up as "I support the TPP." I wonder–are a lot of people being taken in by this crap? Wouldn't it be better to just outright lie? I mean it's not like Trump has been letting this language go by unchallenged; he'll be pretty merciless about it in the debates coming up. ..."
"... The problem is, is Trump smart enough to understand that? Is he patient and disciplined enough to make that "parsing problem" a basic part of his message and keep discussing it? ..."
"... I know Trump is shrewd and cunning and educated about high-level money-grubbing and handing off his losses to others. But does he have any higher-order intelligence? Does he think longer and deeper and can he show that in any debates Hillary cannot avoid showing up for? Do they educate for that at Wharton? ..."
"... Bill did usher in the – pay to play – model imo like none before him. ..."
"EXCLUSIVE: Joint FBI-US Attorney Probe Of Clinton Foundation Is Underway" [Daily
Caller]. "Multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges
against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official. The investigation
centers on New York City where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former
official who has direct knowledge of the activities. The New York-based probe is being led by
Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara's prosecutorial
aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street
insiders."
Normally, I view the Daily Caller with great skepticism, based on past fabrications (then again,
Judy Miller). That said, this one was vouched for on the Twitter by reporters I have respect for.
And with Clinton owning both political establishments, it's hard to see where else the
(sadly) single source could turn. Interestingly, Bharara hasn't issued a denail as of this writing,
altough they declined comment. Here's a rehash from
LawNewz. So we'll see how this plays out.
"Clinton team tells supporters to dismiss email questions as 'more bark than bite'" [Yahoo
News] (talking points for Brock trolls and reputable allies, if any, attached). Notice there
are two issues with "her damned email." (1) Clinton's privatization of the server as such, with
the associated security issues. (2) Corruption, enabled by the privatization: Clinton's conflation
of the private interests of the Clinton Foundation with the public actions of the State Department
under Clinton's leadership.
The privatized server enables corruption by severing the evidentiary chain between private
communications (said to be yoga lessons and Chelsea's wedding, but, as we now know, more than
that) and putatively public actions. The content of the 40 emails not turned over by
Clinton, and now revealed by Judicial Watch, re-connects the links in the evidentiary chain. Of
course, Clinton's talking points are designed to obfuscate the distinction.
Jim Haygood, August 12, 2016 at 2:14 pm
This just in:
"Of the [Clintons'] $1,042,000 in charitable cash contributions, exactly $1 million went
to, you guessed it, the Clinton Family Foundation."
It takes a Harambe to trample a village.
temporal, August 12, 2016 at 2:56 pm
That is sort of the way it's done for most of the rich that make charitable contributions.
Give presents to friends wait for other presents to return and pay less taxes. The Clintons apparently
decided that honesty was the best policy and skipped all that trusting others to pass the dutchie.
lyman alpha blob
RE: Joint FBI-US Attorney Probe Of Clinton Foundation
This morning I saw an article saying that the DOJ has rebuffed the FBI
request to investigate the Clinton Foundation. Quick search turns up a lot
of articles – here's one
from the Washington Times:
"The Obama administration rejected requests from three FBI field offices
that wanted to open public corruption probes of the Clinton Foundation,
according to a report that added to headaches for Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton.
Alerted by banks to suspicious transactions, the FBI wanted to
investigate conflicts of interest involving foreign donors to the foundation
while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. But the Justice Department put
the kibosh on the it, CNN reported."
So now I'm confused – aren't US Attorneys part of the DOJ? Can anyone
shed some light on this?
My twitter is saying Bharara could claim jurisdiction and the probe is
an end run around DOJ. It is all based on one anonymous source for now,
grain of salt and so forth.
There seems to be a lot of rich people on the board as well as hanging around as employees
at TCFF. That million won't go far. Maybe they'll pass on a couple of bucks to Haiti or send them
some used furniture.
Paid Minion, August 12, 2016 at 3:28 pm
Another example of "charitable donations"– A big chunk of the "Warbird Restoration" business.
-Millionaire buys and restores WWII airplane. (The price of which has been driven into
the millions of dollars by rich guys bidding against each other)
-"Donates" airplane to "charitable/non-profit" organization, dedicated to "honoring the
memory…………"
-The guy that donates gets a tax writeoff, then flies it on the tax-deductible donations.
Yeah, when the guy kicks the bucket, the airplane goes to the charity. But, being dead, and
having received a 10-20 year tax writeoff, why does he care at that point?
It would take twenty years to find and document all of the little scams for rich people that have
been written into the tax code.
Seems like the tax code gives out $100 of "incentives" for every $5 rich people spend.
RMO, August 13, 2016 at 1:49 am
Being an aviation nut I've noticed that many warbirds have gone WAY up in price over the last
decade. They've never been cheap to own (even when they were available as surplus in large quantities
the operating costs could be amazingly high) but now you have to be a multi-millionaire at least
to buy something like a P-51. A lot of classic cars and sailing yachts have gone the same way.
The extremely wealthy seem to have decided these things are desirable and the prices rocket into
the stratosphere. I suppose I can consider myself fortunate that the type of flying that I love
the most (soaring) is also one of the least expensive ways of getting off the ground. It's also
one of the few forms of flying that let one go wingtip-to-wingtip with eagles and hawks on a regular
basis.
fajensen, August 14, 2016 at 1:24 pm
Maybe the purchase of a carefully restored vintage Flakvierling 38 is more appropriate?
If they are flying over your land … you could put some authenticity into the Squillionaire
WWII flyboy experience ;-)
Foppe, August 12, 2016 at 2:34 pm
fwiw, on the topic of elite corruption/pay2play/hillary: When I recently tried to talk about
this with someone who takes himself slightly too seriously, who sees his interests as aligned
with the professional classes, self-identifying as a "pragmatist", and who seems constitutionally
unable to conceive of the notion that highly educated people could be as corrupt as they (often)
are incompetent, I found that it was pretty much impossible to get him to even acknowledge that
Hillary's SoS/CF corruption was problematic.
Because "that's always how it goes/what happens, we shouldn't kid ourselves" and "at least
we know about this" (apparently the fact that quite a bit of effort was being expended to make
it harder for us to find out about this didn't faze him either, perhaps because of ideas he harbors
about how that's necessary because "the masses wouldn't understand" or whatnot).
Utterly bizarre, this unwillingness to engage with the facts, because of beliefs someone holds
about how not doing so is the pragmatic option, in someone who also identifies as a (hard) scientist.
hemeantwell, August 12, 2016 at 2:55 pm
I've been reading around in some of the mid-20th c. lit on the psychology of fascism - "Prophets
of Deceit," "The Inability to Mourn" and others in the genre - and that sort of "realism" was
thought of as a key component in bringing about acceptance of, and then sympathy with, fascism.
Once corruption and related forms of power asymmetries are accepted, there's not much left to
maintain a principled critical standpoint. You're just left with your own narrow self interest
and an openness to appreciating the skill with which the game is played. Hitler was quite a politician
and, wowzers, Mussolini sure had some chutzpah, that March on Rome was awesome!
As an old-style Leninist party in a modern world, the CCP is confronted by two major challenges:
first, how to maintain "ideological discipline" among its almost 89 million members in a globalized
world awash with money, international travel, electronically transmitted information, and heretical
ideas. Second, how to cleanse itself of its chronic corruption, a blight that Xi has himself described
as "a matter of life and death."
The primary reason the Party is so susceptible to graft is that while officials are poorly
paid, they do control valuable national assets. So, for example, when property development deals
come together involving real estate (all land belongs to the government) and banking (all the
major banks also belong to the government), officials vetting the deals find themselves in tempting
positions to supplement their paltry salaries by accepting bribes or covertly raking off a percentage
of the action. Since success without corruption in China is almost a non sequitur,
officials and businessmen (and heads of state-owned enterprises are both) are all easily touched
by what Chinese call "original sin" (yuanzui), namely, some acquaintance with corruption.
The more anti corruption pressure Jinping applies, the greater the flood of loot coming out
of China. Canada is getting swamped.
jgordon
About Hillary's cute lawerly language–just to be clear, isn't it neoliberal dogma that by definition
all "trade deals" increase jobs and wages.
In effect this statement can be accurately summed up as "I support the TPP." I wonder–are a
lot of people being taken in by this crap? Wouldn't it be better to just outright lie? I mean
it's not like Trump has been letting this language go by unchallenged; he'll be pretty merciless
about it in the debates coming up.
MyLessThanPrimeBeef
If she is so far ahead, she should be able to risk embracing the deal openly and not have to
borrow a page from Obama's playbook about privately calming his supporters, back in 2008, about
his public position on NAFTA.
different clue
The problem is, is Trump smart enough to understand that? Is he patient and disciplined enough
to make that "parsing problem" a basic part of his message and keep discussing it?
I know Trump is shrewd and cunning and educated about high-level money-grubbing and handing
off his losses to others. But does he have any higher-order intelligence? Does he think longer
and deeper and can he show that in any debates Hillary cannot avoid showing up for? Do they educate
for that at Wharton?
RE: Clinton's drive to assimilate the Republican establishment
IMNSHO this is the recipe for the gridlock you're looking for Lambert and
may even rid us of both Trump and Clinton. Not sure what the Dems were thinking
they'd accomplish by targeting Repulicans to vote for Clinton. While some might
hold there nose and pull the lever for her out of disgust for Trump, it
certainly does not follow that they will also vote for down-ticket Dems. It
seems asinine to me to expect that they would.
More likely the result is a Clinton presidency backed by a Republican
Congress. I'd say it would be great if they'd then impeach her but one has to
be careful what one wishes for. I don't see a Kaine presidency as much of an
improvement and I suspect repubs would be more likely to cooperate with him
than they would Clinton.
Why would this cause gridlock? Wouldn't this cause Trade Agreements and
Grand Bargains? The elite mainstreamers will get all those done first and
then get around to Impeachment and stuff if they need to amuse themselves.
But they will see to first things first . . . if its Clinton and a Republan
Senate and House.
If Clinton is elected president in November, she'll earn a salary of
$400,000 but forgo any income from speeches (until she leaves office,
anyway). That could cost the Clintons $10 million per year, based on the
speech income Hillary Clinton averaged as a private citizen in 2013 and
2014. That's $40 million during a four-year term.
This is so inspiring! Let's take up a collection fund for Hillary, call it
the 'Pantsuit Fund'. It's the least we can do…
PS No word on what portion of this "lost" income would be funneled into the
Clinton Foundation instead…
But the money paid to her openly after leaving the State Department was
just a down payment for the presidency. So it's really more like she got
$20+ million spread out over eight years (or twelve, if you want to factor
in the depressing possibility of a second term) plus her cumulative White
House salary of $1.6 million (or again, $3.2 over eight presidential years).
And all that money paid to Bill, Chelsea and her husband was ALSO a down
payment on the presidency. How many millions was that?
The violin I am playing for them all is sub-atomic in size.
Bill did usher in the – pay to play – model imo like none before him.
Disheveled Marsupial…. The layers of gate keepers to gain audience
must have been commensurate to hot groupies servicing roadies and
security staff… endless blow jobs and other sex acts committed in pursuit
of entering the inner sanctum… where eternal bliss resides…
The income wouldn't be foregone, only deferred. She would expect anywhere
up to billions of dollars after leaving office if she got enough done for
the OverClass while IN office.
Merely delayed . . . not denied.
Watch how much money Obama harvests in the years ahead. That will be the
template.
I have sinking feeling of horror even contemplating that someone as
bloodthirsty as Hillary actually has a shot of being president. That the
"left" are the ones who let things get this far is incredibly ironic. Or
not. Maybe they've always been bloodthirsty warmonger hungry for chaos and
destruction in their hearts.
"over the last 15 years, have lost two major wars, set the Mediterranean
littoral on fire, created a refugee crisis that's destabilizing our largest
military protectorate, and blown many thousands of far away brown people to
pink mist (but that's not racist, no siree. We have credentials)."
Serious men in suits, sitting around a table, having serious conversations:
who do we bomb today? How much 'collateral damage' do the PR guys deem is
acceptable?
At no point will the idea that not bombing is a genuine option come up. Nor
will the fact that (for some strange reason) people don't like being bombed and
we're actually making more enemies than we're eliminating. I'm reminded of the
South Park episode where the leaders of the Vatican have a meeting about how
they can cover up raping children in the future. Simply not raping children
never occurs to them as a choice.
I was both surprised, and not surprised that 90-some percent of her
charitable donations went to the Clinton Foundation.
Talk about hiding in plain sight.
The main factor in rigging the system is pack of rabid gdogs called neoliberal MSM, which attack
Trump 24 x 7, throwing our of the window any pretence about objectivity. They dissect each his
phrase and create face skandals. One after another. They give a pass Hillary without even
analysing her positions and her record (always dismal, often criminal, as in the term "war
criminal"). Bastards...
It would be difficult to imagine a more implausible tribune
of the people than Donald Trump.
It is harder still to
think of him as an elected official of any kind, much less a
President.
But the man does have certain strengths. He is shrewd, for
example; and to be shrewd, he must be at least somewhat in
touch with reality.
To the extent that he is, he has to be wondering what the
hell he was thinking when he threw his hat into the ring.
... ... ...
As it became clear that Trump was doing better in the primaries than anyone
had expected, the Republican establishment did try to derail his campaign - in
league with the plutocrats who back them and Fox News. They failed
spectacularly.
They were unable to rig the election because too many of the people that
used to listen to them finally realized that they were being used, and refused
to go along.
The only candidate who can rightfully claim that the primary elections were
rigged against his candidacy is Bernie Sanders. Circumstantial evidence of
this had been overwhelming from Day One; the DNC emails that Wikileaks
published established the point definitively.
No wonder that Democrats don't want to talk about the content of those
emails; that they'd rather deflect attention to unsubstantiated allegations
about Russian hacking.
After Trump's asinine quip about a 2nd amendment "solution" to stopping
Clinton's presidential run, her campaign manager, Robby Mook, had
this
to say:
"What Trump is saying is dangerous. A person seeking to be the President
of the United States should not suggest violence in any way."
A presidential candidate should not suggest violence in
any
way?!?
Really?
This coming from a high-level supporter of a candidate who…
…has supported
every
war during her political career?
…supported the use of civilian-butchering cluster bombs by Israel in Gaza?
…supported the brutal invasions by the Saudi dictatorship of Bahrain and
Yemen?
…enthusiastically pushed for the bombing of Libya that turned it into a
failed state?
…threatened use of nuclear weapons vs. Iran?
…supported the military coups against the elected governments in Honduras
and Egypt, turning both into violence-ridden basket cases?
…adores as her mentor the arch war criminal Henry Kissinger, orchestrator of
the tortures and killings of 10s of thousands?
Tell me, please, Clinton supporters, how is this not "suggest[ing] violence
in any way."
Is it because threats of violence don't count when they're promoted against
human beings who aren't Americans? Go ahead, probe the deeply caustic,
Trump-like racism behind that assumption.
Last Friday, four days before Trump issued his violent threat and a few
weeks after the constitution-waiving stunt at the Democratic convention, the
ACLU and a federal court finally forced the release of the Obama
administration's patently
unconstitutional guidelines
[2]
for killing people with drones (
nearly
90%
of whom were not the intended targets).
And yesterday, while the Republican sociopath was issuing his threat, the
Obama State Department approved the sale of more than
$1
billion in arms to Saudi Arabia
, no doubt to continue its bloody invasion
of Yemen, where the UN recently estimated that
two-thirds of the civilian casualties
are caused by Saudi air strikes.
Where was the Democratic and Republican outrage against those very real,
violent threats?
When Clinton wins the November election, will we stoop ever farther into an
Orwellian world as our first "feminist" president continues to shovel billions
in arms to arguably the most anti-feminist dictatorship on the planet? Where
violence against people doesn't count as violence due to their nationality
and/or the color of their skin?
If you're outraged about Trump's barbarous suggestion of 2
nd
Amendment "solutions" to elections, please don't stop there. Get your blood
boiling and then also, and just as forcefully, challenge Clinton's own
barbarous "solutions."
"A third of the members of the United Nations have felt Washington's
boot, overturning governments, subverting democracy, imposing blockades and
boycotts. Most of the presidents responsible have been liberal – Truman,
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama…"
"One of the more violent presidents, Obama gave full reign to the
Pentagon war-making apparatus of his discredited predecessor. He prosecuted
more whistleblowers – truth-tellers – than any president. He pronounced
Chelsea Manning guilty before she was tried. Today, Obama runs an
unprecedented worldwide campaign of terrorism and murder by drone."
"In 2009, Obama promised to help "rid the world of nuclear weapons" and
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No American president has built more
nuclear warheads than Obama."
"... Clinton's top aides' favors for and interactions with the Clinton Foundation seem in violation of the ethics agreements that Hillary Clinton agreed to in order to be appointed and confirmed as Secretary of State. For example, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton on January 5, 2009, wrote in a letter to State Department Designated Agency Ethics Official James H. Thessin: ..."
"... "For the duration of my appointment as Secretary if I am confirmed, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which The William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party…." ..."
"... The emails reveal that Clinton campaign adviser and pollster Mark Penn advised Clinton on NATO and piracy. Another major Clinton fundraiser, Lana Moresky, also pushed Clinton to hire someone for a position at State. Clinton directed Abedin to follow up and "help" the applicant and told Abedin to "let me know" about the job issue. ..."
"... The emails show that Hillary Clinton relied on someone named "Justin " (presumably Justin Cooper, a Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee), to set up her cell phone voicemail, rather than having State Department personnel handle it. This was in a February 11, 2009, email from Clinton aide Lauren Jiloty to Clinton, using Clinton's [email protected] address. ..."
Remember how Hillary Clinton repeatedly assured us all that she had turned over all work-related
emails? And that she avoided any conflicts of interest with her Clinton Foundation?
Well, this week we released 296 pages of State Department records containing 44 email exchanges
not previously turned over to the State Department. This brings the known total to 171 of new
Clinton emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over. These
records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, "as far as she knew," all of
her government emails were turned over to the State Department.
The new documents reveal that in April 2009 controversial Clinton Foundation official Doug
Band pushed for a job for an associate. In the email, Band tells Hillary Clinton's former aides
at the State Department, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, that it is "important to take care of [Redacted].
Band is reassured by Abedin that, "Personnel has been sending him options." Band was co-founder
of Teneo Strategy with Bill Clinton and a top official of the Clinton Foundation, including its
Clinton Global Initiative.
Included is a 2009 email in which Band directs Abedin and Mills to put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire
and Clinton Foundation donor Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department's "substance
person" on Lebanon. Band notes that Chagoury is "key guy there [Lebanon] and to us," and insists
that Abedin call Amb. Jeffrey Feltman to connect him to Chagoury.
Chagoury, a foreign national, is a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and a top
donor to the Clinton Foundation. He has appeared near the top of the Foundation's donor list as
a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. He also pledged $1
billion to the Clinton Global Initiative. According to a 2010 investigation by PBS Frontline,
Chagoury was convicted in 2000 in Switzerland for laundering money from Nigeria, but agreed to
a plea deal and repaid $66 million to the Nigerian government.
Clinton's top aides' favors for and interactions with the Clinton Foundation seem in violation
of the ethics agreements that Hillary Clinton agreed to in order to be appointed and confirmed
as Secretary of State. For example, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton on January 5,
2009, wrote in a letter to State Department Designated Agency Ethics Official James H. Thessin:
"For the duration of my appointment as Secretary if I am confirmed, I will not participate
personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which The
William J. Clinton Foundation (or the Clinton Global Initiative) is a party or represents a party…."
As preparation for Hillary's upcoming visit to Asia, Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley
Asia, on Feb. 11, 2009, sends Hillary a copy of his upcomingtestimony before Congress in which
he would condemn any U.S. efforts to criticize Chinese monetary policy or enact trade barriers.
Several days later, Hillary asked Abedin about Roach possibly "connecting" with her while she
was in Beijing: "I forwarded you my email to him about connecting in Beijing. Can he come to the
embassy or other event?" Morgan Stanley is a long-time financial supporter of the Clintons.
The emails also reveal that Abedin left then-Secretary Clinton's daily schedule, a presumably
sensitive document, on a bed in an unlocked hotel room. An email on April 18, 2009, during a conference
in Trinidad and Tobago, from aide Melissa J. Lan to Huma Abedin asks for the Secretary's "day
book binders." Abedin replies: "Yes. It's on the bed in my room. U can take it. My door is open.
I'm in the lobby.Thx." Moreover, the emails show the annoyance of another Clinton aide that the
schedule was sent to an authorized State Department email address and not to an unsecured non-state.gov
account.
The emails reveal that Clinton campaign adviser and pollster Mark Penn advised Clinton on NATO
and piracy. Another major Clinton fundraiser, Lana Moresky, also pushed Clinton to hire someone
for a position at State. Clinton directed Abedin to follow up and "help" the applicant and told
Abedin to "let me know" about the job issue.
The emails show that Hillary Clinton relied on someone named "Justin " (presumably Justin Cooper,
a Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation employee), to set up her cell phone voicemail, rather than
having State Department personnel handle it. This was in a February 11, 2009, email from Clinton
aide Lauren Jiloty to Clinton, using Clinton's [email protected] address.
This is the ninth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the
non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin.
The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information (FOIA)
lawsuit against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684))
requiring the agency to produce "all emails of official State Department business received or
sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013,
using a 'non-state'.gov email address."
It's no wonder Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts
and Congress. They show that the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with
Hillary Clinton in potential violation of the law.
These revelations have created a national firestorm in the media, as even the liberal media
grasp the significance of the Clinton Foundation's pay for play relationship with the Clinton
State Department. See these major stories in the New York Post and The New York Times or this
major editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
Do the Clinton's not realize when they've won something? Bill at least doesn't.
After the
FBI absolved Hillary of any wrong-doing but still chastised her for her
carelessness, you would think that Bill and Hill would want to move away from a
scandal has plagued them, right?
Not according to Bill, who may have just gotten Hillary in more trouble with the
FBI:
Bill Clinton is accusing the FBI director of serving up "the biggest load of
bull I've ever heard" - marking the first significant public comments from the
husband of the Democratic nominee on the scandal that's plagued his wife's
campaign for over a year.
The Clinton's are notorious for holding grudges for decades, so it is safe to say
that FBI Director Comey is in for a bit of trouble if Hillary ever gets into office.
I don't know why you'd even want to bring this up. You won. Do you really want
people to look further into the FBI investigation and Hillary's emails? I don't think
so.
Bill, August 13, 2016 at 9:56 pm
Comey had better watch out. People who cross Bill and Killary have a disturbing habit of
dying mysteriously.
"... At the time, three field offices were in agreement an investigation should be launched after the FBI received notification from a bank of suspicious activity from a foreigner who had donated to the Clinton Foundation , according to the official. ..."
"... The Department of Justice had looked into allegations surrounding the foundation a year earlier after the release of the controversial book "Clinton Cash," but found them to be unsubstantiated and there was insufficient evidence to open a case. ..."
"... Some also expressed concern the request seemed more political than substantive, especially given the timing of it coinciding with the investigation into the private email server and Clinton's presidential campaign. ..."
"... The official said involvement of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York "would be seen by agents as a positive development as prosecutors there are generally thought to be more aggressive than the career lawyers within the DOJ ." ..."
"... The former official said the investigation is being coordinated between bureau field offices and FBI managers at headquarters in Washington, D.C. The unusual process would ensure senior FBI supervisors, including Director James Comey, would be kept abreast of case progress and of significant developments. ..."
"... What a joke. The FBI already has their statement prepared. "No reasonable prosecutor would prosecute Hillary over these obvious felonies that Hillary committed. Gotta go to a Hillary fundraiser now. Have a great day and keep trusting us!" ..."
"... FBI = F ucked B eyond I magination. Zero credibility these days, and deserving of zero respect with another "nothing to see here" no doubt forthcoming. ..."
"... Give it up already. As much as anyone may want to see Hillary behind bars or even just "lose" the election, it's just wishful thinking. Everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can clearly tell that the fix is in. Hillary will NOT be prosecuted for anything and Trump will NOT be allowed to win the "election", regardless what the actual "vote" count may be. ..."
"... It is all just political theater and most plebes don't even realize that tbey are simply unwitting pawns in the play. ..."
"... in my years of reading zh, most folks were on board with the assessment that, THERE ARE NOT 2 PARTYS! ..."
"... and to further that, the 'candidates' are chosen well ahead of time, by TPTB. ..."
Having detailed
Clinton-appointee Loretta Lynch's DoJ push-back against the FBI's Clinton Foundation probe, it
seems Director Comey has decided to flex his own muscles and save face as
DailyCaller reports, multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption
charges against the Clinton Foundation , according to a former senior law enforcement official.
At the time, three field offices were in agreement an investigation should be launched
after the FBI received notification from a bank of suspicious activity from a foreigner who had
donated to the Clinton Foundation , according to the official.
FBI officials wanted to investigate whether there was a criminal conflict of interest
with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton's tenure .
But...
The Department of Justice had looked into allegations surrounding the foundation
a year earlier after the release of the controversial book "Clinton Cash," but found them
to be unsubstantiated and there was insufficient evidence to open a case.
As so as a result...
DOJ officials pushed back against opening a case during the meeting earlier this year
.
Some also expressed concern the request seemed more political than substantive,
especially given the timing of it coinciding with the investigation into the private
email server and Clinton's presidential campaign.
However,
as DailyCaller reports, The FBI is undertaking multiple investigations involving potential
corruption changes against The Clinton Foundation...
The investigation centers on New York City where the Clinton Foundation has its main
offices , according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities.
Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices - a major departure from
other centralized FBI investigations.
The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney
for the Southern District of New York.
The official said involvement of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of
New York "would be seen by agents as a positive development as prosecutors there are generally
thought to be more aggressive than the career lawyers within the DOJ ."
...
The former official said the investigation is being coordinated between bureau field offices
and FBI managers at headquarters in Washington, D.C. The unusual process would ensure senior FBI
supervisors, including Director James Comey, would be kept abreast of case progress and of significant
developments.
The reliance on U.S. attorneys would be a significant departure from the centralized manner
in which the FBI managed the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use
of a private server and email addresses.
That investigation was conducted with agents at FBI headquarters, who coordinated with the
Department of Justice's National Security Division (NSD).
While Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Bharara, said he would "decline comment," and FBI spokeswoman
Samantha Shero said, "we do not have a comment on investigative activity," we wonder if the unusual
procedures and the tone of that comment suggests a mutinous FBI standing up to the politicized DoJ?
What a joke. The FBI already has their statement prepared. "No reasonable prosecutor would
prosecute Hillary over these obvious felonies that Hillary committed. Gotta go to a Hillary fundraiser
now. Have a great day and keep trusting us!"
My next paycheck says FBI will find corruption, and some low-ranking assistant at the Clinton
Foundation will be the fall guy. Comey will be unable to prove to a standard that any reasonable
prosecutor would pursue, whether HRC had any knowledge, or intent.
FBI = F ucked B eyond I
magination. Zero credibility these days, and deserving of zero respect with another "nothing to see here"
no doubt forthcoming.
And given Hillary Clinton is the most openly corrupt venal slime ever to crawl the face of
the planet, with a weight of evidence against her in the public domain so overwhelming it makes
OJ look angelic; their inability to make a case makes them look just plain laughable as a law
enforcement organisation.
Give it up already. As much as anyone may want to see Hillary behind bars or even just "lose"
the election, it's just wishful thinking. Everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can clearly
tell that the fix is in. Hillary will NOT be prosecuted for anything and Trump will NOT be allowed
to win the "election", regardless what the actual "vote" count may be.
It is all just political theater and most plebes don't even realize that tbey are simply unwitting
pawns in the play.
Get used to another 4 (maybe 8) years of the shitshow to continue unabated as Merika circles
the drain.
Hate to say it but it's the reality one must face.
As I see it, Hillary will accelerate a financial and/or social collapse of the US. Trump will
slow it down, at worst, or prevent it altogether if he chooses to outright default.
Either path results in a much-needed reset. Trump's path will be less bloody.
that is a pretty short list of who should be locked up. USA has the jails and hopefully some
day those jails will be full of crimanals instead of weed smokers.
Hillary for the win (and NO, I don't want that. , but it's gonna be.) It's funny , well
..funny sad.. that in my years of reading zh, most folks were on board with the assessment
that, THERE ARE NOT 2 PARTYS!
and to further that, the 'candidates' are chosen well ahead of time, by TPTB. (If
people know what that means)..I think a lot of newcomers just arrow up comments that have arrows
up, without knowing half of the content )
"... The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a United States Federal Law passed in 1970 that was designed to provide a tool for law enforcement agencies to fight organized crime. RICO allows prosecution and punishment for alleged racketeering activity that has been executed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. ..."
Will the FBI present a recommendation to the Attorney
General under RICO. According to author Frank Huguenurd "Activity
considered to be racketeering may include bribery,
counterfeiting, money laundering, embezzlement, illegal gambling,
kidnapping, murder, drug trafficking, slavery, and a host of other
nefarious business practices."
.
Will
the FBI be charging Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as the Clinton
Foundation on Racketeering charges under RICO?
.
Highly
unlikely. Hillary is protected by the Attorney General who is a
"protégée" of the Clintons.
.
(M.Ch.
GR Editor, July 6, 2016)
.
.
*
* *
The
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a
United States Federal Law passed in 1970 that was designed to
provide a tool for law enforcement agencies to fight organized
crime. RICO allows prosecution and punishment for alleged
racketeering activity that has been executed as part of an ongoing
criminal enterprise.
.
Activity
considered to be racketeering may include
bribery
,
counterfeiting,
money laundering
,
embezzlement, illegal gambling, kidnapping, murder, drug
trafficking, slavery, and a host of other nefarious business
practices.
James Comey and The FBI will present a recommendation to Loretta
Lynch, Attorney General of the Department of Justice, that includes
a cogent argument that the Clinton Foundation is an ongoing
criminal enterprise engaged in
money
laundering
and soliciting bribes in exchange for political,
policy and legislative favors to individuals, corporations and even
governments both foreign and domestic.
... ... ...
Here's what we do know. Tens of millions of dollars donated to
the Clinton Foundation was funneled to the organization through
a Canadian shell company which has made tracing the donors
nearly impossible. Less than 10% of donations to the Foundation
has actually been released to charitable organizations and $2M
that has been traced back to long time Bill Clinton friend Julie
McMahon (aka
The Energizer
). When
the official investigation into Hillary's email server began,
she instructed her IT professional to delete over 30,000 emails
and cloud backups of her emails older than 30 days at both
Platte
River Networks
and
Datto,
Inc
. The FBI has subsequently recovered the majority, if
not all, of Hillary's deleted emails and are putting together a
strong case against her for attempting to cover up her illegal
and illicit activities.
A conviction under RICO comes when the
Department of Justice proves that the defendant has engaged in
two or more examples of racketeering and that the defendant
maintained an interest in, participated in or invested in a
criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.
There is ample evidence already in the public record that the
Clinton Foundation qualifies as a criminal enterprise and
there's no doubt that the FBI is privy to significantly more
evidence than has already been made public.
Under RICO, the sections most relevant in this case will be
section 1503 (obstruction of justice), section 1510 (obstruction
of criminal investigations) and section 1511 (obstruction of
State or local law enforcement). As in the case with Richard
Nixon after the Watergate Break-in, it's the cover-up of a crime
that will be the Clintons' downfall. Furthermore, under
provisions of title 18, United States Code: Section 201, the
Clinton Foundation can be held accountable for improprieties
relating to bribery. The FBI will be able to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that through the Clinton Foundation,
international entities were able to commit bribery in exchange
for help in securing business deals, such as the uranium-mining
deal in Kazakhstan.
Progressives who are fed up with the Democratic leadership's adherence to the status quo are
calling for a major #DemExit on July 29. However, progressive groups, such as Black Men for
Bernie, are urging voters to stay in the party until they have a chance to vote in their states'
primaries, especially if they live in closed or semi-closed primary states.
Abstaining from #DemExit until after state and local primaries is especially important for Florida,
which has a closed primary. On August 30, Professor and legal expert Tim Canova has a chance to unseat
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whose tenure as the head of the Democratic
Party has been fraught with controversy and more recently, allegations of election fraud and rigging.
A mass exodus, therefore, could sabotage progressives' own agenda to elect officials who are challenging
incumbents and establishment candidates. As of now, 23 states and territories have local and state
primaries up until September 13, so it is imperative for current members of the Democratic party
to stay until they've voted and then commit to #DemExit.
@xxSJWxx @Calvinus @CorporatistNation I think that xxSJWxx misunderstood where I am at... I
AGREE 100% that Hillary should go down for racketeering etc... Watch
Clinton Cash!!! What I said was... IF
THE VOTES WERE ACTUALLY "COUNTED"... WE WOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT NOMINEE... E.G., BERNIE SANDERS...
The Votes were NOT counted and so we have this unethical sociopath named Hillary who in my opinion
is also a Meglomaniac... who WILL start World War Three given half a chance. So lets hope that
there is a judge somewhere with courage and integrity who will indict her.
IF you want to be FULLY informed on The Clinton Foundation, The Clinton Global Initiative and
just what scoundrels Bill and Hill are... Then you MUST watch "Clinton Cash!"
I watched "Clinton Cash" TWICE last night rather than watch the "Sh*tShow!" #Vote2DefeatHER#VoteJillNOTHill
When one really examines the overall plan, the overall structure of the design of the banksters,
it really shouldn't be that difficult to reduce inequality:
The Clintons and the Bankers
1992: The Blackstone Group, at that time the wealthiest private equity firm (private
bank) in the world, would provide presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, with free office space
to solicit campaign donations. (Blackstone Group was founded by David Rockefeller protégé, Peter
G. Peterson, with Rockefeller family seed money.)
1993: In response to a request from the JP Morgan Bank, the Group of 30 (lobbyists for
the central bankers founded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1978) publishes
a paper promoting the widespread adoption of credit derivatives, with the caveat that "legal risk"
should be removed. (Members of the G30 includes Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, whose first
position after college was with Kissinger Associates, founded by Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller's
right-hand man.)
1993: Mortgage Bankers Association publishes a paper outlining the structure and concept
of MERS, or Mortgage Electronic Registry System, a necessity for rapid mortgage securitizations
(credit derivatives) and shuffling home loans between lenders so that homeowners couldn't find
the actual owner.
1993: The SEC - under Clinton - will drop the requirement for investment firms to report
on the identity of the major shareholders. (This is to obscure the ownership - if you don't know
who the owners are, you won't know who owns everything.)
Next, President Clinton's aiding and abetting the bankers:
Clinton will sign NAFTA (actually version 2.0, after LBJ's Border Industrialization Program)
which includes a clause to allow for the foreign ownership of Mexican banks - previously only
allowed to be Mexican-owned.
Within one year 90% of Mexican banks are foreign owned, principally by US banks.
Next, Clinton will sign the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act, allowing
for full interstate banking - a major step in the cartel formation.
Next up, Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowing for the consolidation of
corporate media and reconstitution of AT&T into one entity.
The Investment Company Act of 1996 is signed into law, allowing for unlimited number of investors
per hedge fund or similar funds. The combination of the potential for an unlimited number of credit
default swaps, and an unlimited number of commodity futures purchases, and an unlimited number
of investors per fund, allows for ultra-speculation.
Next the Big Three: the REIT Modernization Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization
Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act - these together will set the stage for the greatest
transfer of wealth in human history, the global economic meltdown (and kill the New Deal entirely).
1997: Years after this date, investigative gumshoe reporter, Greg Palast, would uncover
a secret 1997 memorandum between Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, urging for the inclusion
of the "credit derivatives-acceptance clause" in the WTO's Financial Services Agreement (so that
the various governmental signatories around the world would accept Wall Street's fantasy finance
Ponzi scheme).
The legal advisors in the creation of the Mortgage Electronic Registry System - or MERS - were
the attorneys at Covington & Burling, the same law firm from which Eric Holder, President Obama's
choice for attorney general to contain the banker meltdown, came from.
So Covington & Burling, which has long enjoyed a strategic partnership with Kissinger Associates,
was the legal advisor of record, and their man, Eric Holder, was appointed by the president to
insure no bankers were prosecuted, and this entire criminal conspiracy would not be exposed. President
Obama also appointed Judith ("Jami") Miscik, then president and vice-chair of Kissinger Associates,
to his Intelligence Advisory Board.
And the then CEO of Fannie Mae, the fellow who promoted the large-scale adoption of mortgage
securitizations, James Johnson, had a longstanding relationship with David Rockefeller and Henry
Kissinger; Johnson was the business contact for the American Friends of Bilderberg, Inc. (directors:
David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, et al.).
So, I just looked at the wordles that Lambert used in the Kitchen Table post and I didn't see
the word 'liberal' anywhere. However, if you made a wordle from Rush Limbaugh's broadcast career,
'liberal' would be one of the bigger words. I guess Thomas Frank is attacking 'liberals' from
the left? One thing is for sure, the word is dirtier than ever. It just makes me want to use it
more and more. It's so dirty!
Everyone at Davos calls themselves [neo]liberals. The Joint Chiefs of Staff go into the woods
and do primal screams, "we're liberals and we're going to turn the Middle East into glass!!!!
We're so liberal!!" That's what they're doing at the Bohemian Grove. They all gather around Henry
Kissinger and sing about being liberals in their hearts.
Davos People are the quintessential [neo]liberals. USians are as liberal as they are
Christian: they only say it in order to be accepted by people who have been told that only
self-described liberals are worthy...
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen
referred congressional charges of corrupt Clinton Foundation "pay-to-play" activities to his
tax agency's exempt operations office for investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation
has learned.
The request to investigate the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation on charges of "public
corruption" was made in a
July 15 letter by 64 House Republicans to the IRS, FBI and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They
charged the foundation is "lawless."
The initiative is being led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican
who serves as the vice chairwoman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees FTC.
The FTC regulates public charities alongside the IRS.
The lawmakers charged the Clinton Foundation is a "lawless 'pay-to-play' enterprise
that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated."
Koskinen's July 22 reply came only a week after the House Republicans contacted the tax agency.
It arrived to their offices Monday, the first opening day of the Democratic National Convention in
Philadelphia.
"We have forwarded the information you have submitted to our Exempt Organizations
Program in Dallas," Koskinen told the Republicans.
The Exempt Organization Program is the division of the IRS that regulates the operations of public
foundations and charities. It's the same division that was led by former IRS official Lois
Lerner when hundreds of conservative, evangelical and tea party non-profit applicants were
illegally targeted and harassed by tax officials.
Blackburn told TheDCNF she believes the IRS has a double standard because, "they
would go after conservative groups and religious groups and organizations, but they wouldn't be looking
at the Clinton Foundation for years. It was as if they choose who they are going to audit and question.
It's not right."
Blackburn said she and her colleagues will "continue to push" for answers on the Clinton Foundation's
governing policies, including its insular board of directors. She said they also will examine
conflicts of interest and "follow the money trail."
"In my opinion, there's a lack of good governance, there is the appearance of conflicts
of interest, and there are continued questions about the financial dealings," she told
TheDCNF.
House Republicans singled out
Laureate Education and Uranium One as two companies that seemed to have paid lavish sums to the
Clintons and later received official government benefits.
Laureate hired former President Bill Clinton as "honorary chancellor," paying him $16.5 million
over five years. The Baltimore-based company, which operates for-profit universities in 28 countries,
also donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation's
web site.
While Bill was collecting a paycheck from the company and his wife was secretary of state, the
International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank, invested $150 million in Laureate.
It was the largest-ever single IFC investment to an educational company. The United States government
is the largest contributor to the IFC. During that same period, the Department of State's U.S. Agency
for International Development awarded $55 million to the International Youth Foundation. Laureate
CEO Douglas Becker is on the foundation's board of directors. International Youth Foundation, the
Clinton Foundation and Laureate jointly participated in foundation programs.
A Laureate spokesman denied the quid pro quo charges: "Allegations of any quid pro
quo between Laureate, the International Youth Foundation and the Clintons are completely false,"
she told TheDCNF, adding, "the IFC's decision to invest in Laureate had no connection to and was
not influenced in any way whatsoever by Hillary Clinton."
The IFC also awarded $150 million to another company owned by Frank Giustra, a close friend of
Bill Clinton. Giustra donated $100 million to create the "Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership"
within the Clinton Foundation. The funds went to Pacific Infrastructure, a company in which Giustra
had a significant financial stake. The company was to build a port and oil pipeline in Colombia that
was strenuously opposed by environmental and human rights groups because the pipeline sliced through
five indigenous villages and forcibly displaced the tribes.
Giustra also was an owner in Uranium One, a uranium mining company with operations in Kazakhstan
and in the western United States. Giustra wanted to sell a share of the uranium business to Russia's
atomic energy agency, which required U.S. approval, including that of Secretary Clinton. The Russian
investment was approved.
Blackburn added that it appeared the Clinton Foundation - which was tax-exempt only to construct
and manage Clinton's presidential library - never got IRS approval to become a tax-exempt global
organization with operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and the Caribbean.
"In the Clinton Foundation we have a charity that has never filed the appropriate
paperwork," Blackburn charged.
Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the Clinton Foundation, told TheDCNF
that the expansion of the foundation into a global giant was not legally approved by the IRS.
"It's crystal clear in a review of their application that their purposes were narrowly
limited, as they should have been, to a presidential archive in Little Rock, Arkansas,"
he said to TheDCNF. "End of discussion."
Blackburn also questions the makeup of the Clinton Foundation's board of directors, which IRS
rules require include independent, arm's-length board members. The Clinton Foundation board mainly
consists of close friends, business colleagues and big donors to the Clintons, as
reported by TheDCNF.
"All charities need to guard against incestuous relationships which limit their ability
to be objective," the congresswoman said. "In the Clinton Foundation, we see a lack
of diversity within their board."
Uranium One did not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment. The Clinton Foundation also did
not respond to TheDCNF's request for comment.
Very fine piece of media analysis, B. The Clintonistas can only go negative, because they have
nothing meaningful to offer the electorate in a positive sense.
Just watched 'Clinton Cash' over at Breitbart and highly recommend for any interested in learning
a bit more about The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation's 'Pay to Play' scheme to enrich
their personal purse while selling out our laws aka U.S. citizens.
It's airing again tomorrow at 2pm ET and 8 pm ET Sunday, July 24 @breitbart.com
"... Well, it's obvious that Hillary wanted to keep some information from the public finding out. The information that she wanted to keep from the public probably didn't concern national security so much as her own private dealings. Nobody, I think, in American history has merged their public service as secretary of state or president with their private gains to the extent that Hillary really has. And by that I mean the Clinton Foundation, overall. ..."
"... She's going to Saudi Arabia, she's going to Europe, she's going to the Near Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia has asked her–and this is all very public–we want more arms. We want to buy arms in America. We know that Saudi Arabia is one of the major contributors to the Clinton Foundation. ..."
"... Well, lo and behold, the military-industrial complex is one of the big contributors to the Clinton Foundation, as is Saudi Arabia, and many of the parties who are directly affected by her decisions. Now, my guess is what she didn't want people to find out, whether on Freedom of Information Act or others, are the lobbying she's doing for her own foundation, which in a way means her wealth, her husband's wealth, Bill Clinton's wealth, and the power that both of them have by getting a quarter billion dollars of grants into the foundation during her secretary of state. ..."
"... We don't have any evidence one way or the other. So certainly there is no evidence. There is only the appearance of what looks to me to be an inherent conflict of interest with the foundation. ..."
On Thursday morning, the media fest and political fest around Hillary Clinton's email scandal
continued, as the head of the FBI, James Comey, spoke at a congressional House oversight committee.
Here's a little clip of what was said there. But let me just foreshadow–maybe the emails aren't the
real issue that should be in front of these hearings. Now, here's the chairman of the House Oversight
Committee, Jason Chaffetz, questioning James Comey and a bit of his answer.
JASON CHAFFETZ: It seems to a lot of us that the average Joe, the average American, that if they
had done what you laid out in your statement, that they'd be in handcuffs. And I think there is a
legitimate concern that there is a double standard. Your name isn't Clinton, you're not part of the
powerful elite, that Lady Justice will act differently.
JAMES COMEY: I believe this investigation was conducted consistent with the highest traditions
of the FBI. Our folks did it in an apolitical and professional way. There are two things that matter
in a criminal investigation of a subject. And so when I look at the facts we gathered here–as I said,
I see evidence of great carelessness. But I do not see evidence that is sufficient to establish that
Secretary Clinton, or those with whom she was corresponding, both talked about classified information
on email, and knew when they did it they were doing something that was against the law. So give that
assessment of the facts and my understanding of the law, my conclusion was, and remains, no reasonable
prosecutor would bring this case. No reasonable prosecutor would bring the second case in 100 years
focused on gross negligence.
JAY: Now joining us from New York is Michael Hudson. Michael's a Distinguished Research Professor
of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His latest book is Killing the Host: How
Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy. Thanks for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Good to be back here, Paul.
JAY: First, let's talk a little bit about what we just heard. The chairman of the House Oversight
Committee says, is there a double standard here? Somebody else might be in handcuffs, and Hillary
Clinton's not being charged. I guess a lot of people are asking that question. The FBI director says
this doesn't rise to the level of criminality; it's carelessness. I don't know the law well enough.
I'm certainly not a lawyer. But it seems to me that the deliberate, willful decision to use a private
server–and some people have said one of the reasons could be to avoid Freedom of Information Act
requests–and I don't know if that rises to the level of criminality. But it's sure wrong.
HUDSON: Well, it's obvious that Hillary wanted to keep some information from the public finding
out. The information that she wanted to keep from the public probably didn't concern national security
so much as her own private dealings. Nobody, I think, in American history has merged their public
service as secretary of state or president with their private gains to the extent that Hillary really
has. And by that I mean the Clinton Foundation, overall.
Here's the problem, you can imagine. She's going to Saudi Arabia, she's going to Europe, she's
going to the Near Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia has asked her–and this is all very public–we want
more arms. We want to buy arms in America. We know that Saudi Arabia is one of the major contributors
to the Clinton Foundation. On the other hand, Hillary's in a position to go to Raytheon, to
Boeing, and say look, do I have a customer for you. Saudi Arabia would love to buy your arms. Maybe
we can arrange something. I'm going to do my best. By the way, you know, my foundation is–you know,
I'm a public-spirited person and I'm trying to help the world. Would you like to make a contribution
to my foundation?
Well, lo and behold, the military-industrial complex is one of the big contributors to the
Clinton Foundation, as is Saudi Arabia, and many of the parties who are directly affected by her
decisions. Now, my guess is what she didn't want people to find out, whether on Freedom of Information
Act or others, are the lobbying she's doing for her own foundation, which in a way means her wealth,
her husband's wealth, Bill Clinton's wealth, and the power that both of them have by getting a quarter
billion dollars of grants into the foundation during her secretary of state.
JAY: As far as we know, there's no direct evidence that she did precisely what you're saying.
And
That they actually say–"Give money to the foundation; I will facilitate such-and-such a contract."
There's no evidence of that, correct?
HUDSON: That's right. And partly there's no evidence because her private emails are not subject
to [inaud.]. They're not subject to finding out this. We don't have any evidence one way or the
other. So certainly there is no evidence. There is only the appearance of what looks to me to be
an inherent conflict of interest with the foundation.
JAY: And there's no direct evidence that any abnormal amount of money has gone to Bill Clinton,
in terms of fees and expenses. One can assume he's well-compensated. But it does have charitable
status, it has to file a 990. They are under charitable law regulations, and so far I don't know
of any reporting that says that they have violated the–.
HUDSON: You're right. The advantage of being under charitable law is it's in a foundation that–you
can look at it in effect as your savings account. And you can treat it–you can do with a foundation
whatever you want.
Now, if you or I had a quarter billion dollars, what we'd want to do is influence policy. Influence
the world. Well, that's what they want to do. They want to use the foundation to support policies
that they want. And here we're not dealing with unexplained enrichment. This isn't money that comes
into them that goes into an offshore account in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. It's hidden in
plain sight. It's all the foundation. It's tax-exempt. It's legitimate. So she's somehow been able
to legitimize a conflict of interest, and what that used to be called corruption in office. Or at
least the appearance of what could be corruption in office.
And the fact is, that is what there has been a blacked-out screen painted over it, and we don't
have any idea what she's been saying to these affected parties that not only has she been dealing
with, the secretary of state, but it turned out to be major contributors to her and Bill's foundation.
JAY: Now, the reason the emails rose to such prominence is because it was the potential of criminal
charges. That seems to have ended now. The Clinton foundation certainly has been reported upon in
various places in the mainstream press. It never rose to the same level of attention as the emails.
But why do you think that is? Because you think there's enough fodder there that that could have
been quite a media fest. Feast, I should say.
HUDSON: Well, there's no direct link between the foundation that says it's existing to promote
various social purposes, and Hillary's actions as secretary of state. But there's such overlap there.
I can't think of any public official at cabinet level or above, in memory who's ever had an overlapping
between a foundation that they had and had control, personally, and their public job. So there's
never been so great a blurring of categories.
JAY: So why isn't this a bigger issue in the media? Corporate media?
HUDSON: I don't–I think the media are supporting Hillary. And that's a good question. Why are they
supporting her so much with all of this? Why aren't they raising this seemingly obvious thing? I
think the media want two things that Hillary wants. They want the trade agreements to essentially
turn over policy to, trade policy to corporations, and regulatory policy to–.
JAY: You're talking
about TTIP and [TTP].
HUDSON: [They're neocons.] They're the agreement of politics. If the media agree with her politics
and says, okay, we want to back her because she's backing the kind of world we want, a neocon world,
a neoliberal world, then they're going to say, this is wonderful. We can now distract attention onto
did she leak a national secret. Well, the secrets that are really important aren't the national classification
secrets. They're the personal, personal, the big-picture secrets. And it's the big picture we don't
have a clue of as a result of all of these erasures.
JAY: Okay, thanks very much for joining us, Michael.
HUDSON: Good to be here.
JAY: And thank you for joining us on the Real News Network.
Investigators with the State Department issued a subpoena to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
Foundation last fall seeking documents about the charity's projects that may have required approval
from the federal government during Hillary Clinton's term as secretary of state, according to people
familiar with the subpoena and written correspondence about it.
The subpoena also asked for records related to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide who for six
months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation, Clinton's personal
office, and a private consulting firm with ties to the Clintons.
The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department's inspector general,
were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.
[Democratic debate: Clinton receives key endorsement, but faces new questions]
A foundation representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing inquiry,
said the initial document request had been narrowed by investigators and that the foundation is not
the focus of the probe.
joeshuren, 2/24/2016 1:02 PM EST
Washington Free Beacon Staff
March 20, 2015 8:27 am
Haitian activists protested outside of the Clinton Foundation in New York over the loss of
"billions of dollars" that was meant to help rebuild after the devastating 2010 earthquake.....
"We are telling the world of the crimes that Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for in Haiti,"
said Dhoud Andre of the Committee Against Dictatorship in Haiti. "And we are telling the American
people that the over 32,000 emails that Hillary Clinton said she deleted have evidence of the
crimes they have committed."
Five years, later a majority of Haiti is still in disrepair. The capital's main hospital has
yet to be finished, and there is a major rise of cholera.
_____
HR 3509, To direct the Secretary of State to submit to Congress a report on the status of post-earthquake
recovery and development efforts in Haiti, failed to pass the Senate in 2013. Where is the accounting?
ZZ44, 2/17/2016 12:28 PM EST
Best news I've heard in a long time... And I'm a Democrat! They should also investigate the
CGI and State Dept. (under Hilary) links with Aidmatrix and solicitation of funds after the Haiti
earthquake. That will be an eye-opener for sure.
Mistery Mahn, 2/16/2016 2:48 PM EST [Edited]
The Clintons represent everything that is wrong with American politics with their countless,
criminal wrong doings. Yet by pandering to a sea of uneducated fools to blindly prop them up,
here we are with someone who should be behind bars running for POTUS. If Hillary is elected, I
have little hope for what is left of this once great country.
2001-2013: Bill Clinton's work for the Clinton Foundation brings him personal wealth.
The Washington Post will later report that between the end of Bill Clinton's presidency in
2001 and 2013, he is paid at least $26 million to speak for groups that are also major donors
to the Clinton Foundation. This is one-fourth of his overall speaking fees (at least $100
million) in that time period, demonstrating "how closely intertwined Bill and Hillary
Clinton's charitable work has become with their growing personal wealth."
Many groups paying for his speeches also have interests affected by Hillary Clinton's State
Department when she is secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. (The
Washington Post, 4/22/2015)
Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra formed a
company called Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. for business in Colombia. From
2005, former President Bill Clinton arranges a series of meetings between
Giustra and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, in which Clinton is frequently
present. In 2007, Clinton even meets Uribe and Giustra at the Clintons'
home in Chappaqua, New York. Also in 2007, Pacific Rubiales signs a $300
million deal to build a pipeline in central Colombia, gains control of
Colombia's largest oilfield, and acquires the right to cut timber in a
biologically diverse Colombian forest. Giustra will later insist that was
purely coincidental, and he has traveled frequently with Bill Clinton without
business deals. (Clinton has flown for free on Giustra's private jet at least
25 times.) But Bloomberg News will later note, "Giustra's globe-trotting
adventures with Bill Clinton have coincided with lucrative business deals."
In 2007, Giustra and Bill Clinton cofound
a Canadian offshoot of the Clinton Foundation called the Clinton Giustra
Enterprise Partnership (CGEP). It will later be alleged that this is a "slush
fund" allowing foreigners to donate money indirectly to the Clinton Foundation
in the hopes of getting favorable treatment from the Clintons.
In 1991, the US Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) issued a secret intelligence report showing that Uribe "worked for
the Medellin [drug] cartel" and is "a close personal friend of Pablo
Escobar Gaviria," the notorious drug lord. Uribe continues to be linked to a
variety of scandals and human rights abuses during his presidency. (Harper's
Magazine, 11/17/2015) (The
New York Review of Books, 1/30/2016) (The
Wall Street Journal, 2/14/2008)
September 6, 2005: Bill Clinton helps Kazakhstan's president while Giustra gets a sweet
deal in Kazakhstan and donates to the Clinton Foundation.
Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra and former US President Bill Clinton
meet with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. Clinton publicly
expresses support for Nazarbayev's bid to head the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. This
undercuts US foreign policy against that bid, due to Kazakhstan's poor human rights record and
flawed elections.
Two days later, Giustra's company signs agreements giving it the right to buy shares of
three uranium projects controlled by the Kazakh government. The New York Times will later
report that "[t]he monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company
into one of the world's largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of
millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said."
Several months later, the Clinton Foundation will get a $31 million donation from Giustra
that will remain secret until it is discovered by reporters in 2008. Both Clinton and
Giustra will later claim that this chain of events was merely coincidental. However, Moukhtar
Dzhakishev, the head of the Kazakh government company, will later say that Giustra did discuss
the deal with President Nazarbayev, and Giustra's friendship with Clinton "of course made an
impression."
Giustra's company will be sold for $3.1 billion in February 2007, despite being worth only a
small fraction of that prior to the Kazakhstan deal. Dzhakishev will meet in private with
Clinton and Giustra in Clinton's New York house the same month Giustra's company is sold. Both
Giustra and Clinton will deny that such a meeting ever took place. But after reporters point
to other accounts of the meeting, both of them will say they remember it after all. (The New
York Times, 1/30/2008)
Later in 2007, Giustra and Clinton will cofound a Canadian branch of the Clinton Foundation
called the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP). In 2015, it will be alleged this in
fact is a "slush fund" allowing foreigners to anonymously donate money to the Clinton
Foundation in hopes of getting political influence with the Clintons. (Harper's Magazine,
11/17/2015)
... ... ...
December 17, 2008: The Clinton Foundation's donor list includes foreign
governments as well as business leaders.
Since it began in 1997, the Clinton Foundation had never revealed who its donors
were, as it is not legally required to do so. But on this day, with conflict of interest an
increasing issue due to Hillary Clinton about to become President Obama's secretary of state,
the foundation releases its list of donors for the first time. Over 200,000 people and
entities gave over $500 million to the foundation since it was created. Some of these
donations do show conflict of interest concerns, especially in relation to Hillary's new
secretary of state role.
In 2015, the Washington Post will report that the 2008 list of donors "included foreign
governments, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which could ask the State Department to take
their side in international arguments. And it included a variety of other figures who might
benefit from a relationship-or the appearance of a relationship-with the secretary. A
businessman close to the ruler of Nigeria. Blackwater Training Center, a controversial
military contractor. And dozens of powerful American business leaders, including some
prominent conservatives, such as Rupert Murdoch." Additionally, "[i]t appeared that some
wealthy donors-who traveled with [Bill] Clinton or attended his events-also had made valuable
business connections at the same time." For instance, Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra
"attended Clinton-related events and met the leaders of Kazakhstan and Colombia, countries
where he would later make significant business deals." (The Washington Post, 6/2/2015) (The
New York Times, 12/18/2008)
Former US Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt says donations from "countries where
[the US has] particularly sensitive issues and relations" will invariably raise conflict of
interest concerns. "The real question is to what extent you can really separate the activities
and influence of any husband and wife, and certainly a husband and wife team that is such a
powerhouse."
Hillary Clinton's spokesperson says the disclosure of donors should ensure that there would be
"not even the appearance of a conflict of interest." (The New York Times, 12/18/2008)
Early 2009: The State Department can't find out if sponsors of Bill Clinton's paid
speeches donated to the Clinton Foundation.
When Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Clintons agreed with the
White House that State Department ethics officials would review all offers for Bill Clinton to
give paid speeches, to avoid potential conflicts of interest. When the first few speech
requests come in, Jim Thessin, the department's top ethics approver, writes in an email: "In
future requests, I would suggest including a statement listing whether or not any of the
proposed sponsors of a speaking event have made a donation to the Clinton Foundation and, if
so, the amount and date."
However, Politico will report in 2015, "released documents show no evidence that the question
was addressed." (Politico,
2/25/2015)
January 15, 2009: The Clinton Foundation releases its list of donors for the first time.
The foundation is not legally obliged to do so, but there is political pressure,
with this being the first day of Hillary Clinton's Senate confirmation hearing for her to
become the next secretary of state.
The list shows that over 200,000 donors gave at least $492 million dollars since the
foundation was founded in 1997. Exact contribution amounts are unknown because the list only
gives ranges. At least $46 million comes directly from foreign governments such as Saudi
Arabia. The foundation promises to reveal all future donors on a yearly basis, and new foreign
government donations will be scrutinized by "government ethics officers." Some donations come
from sources that could lead to controversy or conflicts of interest.
For instance, the Blackwater security firm donated between $10,001 to $25,000. The Associated
Press notes the company is "at risk of losing its lucrative government contract to protect US
diplomats in Iraq."
The Internet company Yahoo, as well as its top executives Jerry Yang, Frank Biondi, and Terry
Semel donated as well. The Associated Press comments that the company has been "involved in
disputes over surrendering Internet information to Chinese authorities that led to the
imprisonment of dissidents there."
Also, Victor Dahdaleh gave between $1 million to $5 million. He is a Canadian investor
involved in aluminum production. He has been sued for fraud and bribery by a Bahrain aluminum
company, and the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation about it. (The
Associated Press, 1/18/2009) Dahdaleh will be acquitted in the legal case in 2013. But he
will be implicated in a different financial scandal in 2016.(Yahoo
Finance, 5/25/2016)
January 21, 2009-February 1, 2013: While Clinton is secretary of state, at least 181
companies, individuals, and foreign governments that donate to the Clinton Foundation also lobby
Clinton's State Department.
Bill Clinton also collects $26 million in speaking fees from Clinton Foundation
donors. These numbers will be calculated by Vox in 2015. Vox will comment that no one "has
produced anything close to evidence of a quid pro quo in which Hillary Clinton took official
action in exchange for contributions to the Clinton Foundation."
However, "public records alone reveal a nearly limitless supply of cozy relationships between
the Clintons and companies with interests before the government. […] That's not illegal, but
it is scandalous." Vox adds, "Ultimately, it is impossible to tell where one end of the
two-headed Clinton political and philanthropic operation ends and where the other begins." (Vox,
4/28/2015)
... ... ...
January 21, 2009-February 1, 2013: During Clinton's four years as secretary of state, the
State Department dramatically increases the sale of military weapons to countries that are large
donors to the Clinton Foundation.
The department has to authorize all such sales, and can turn them down for a
variety of reasons, such as documented human rights abuses in those countries. But the
department authorizes $151 billion in military sales to the 16 countries that are large donors
to the foundation, a 143% increase to those nations compared to the last four years of the
Bush administration.
By comparison, military sales to all countries, including those countries, increase 80% during
the same time period. US defense contractors also donate heavily to the Clinton Foundation
during this time, as well as paying for speeches given by Bill Clinton.
Many countries the State Department approves for these sales are also criticized by the
department for various problems such as corruption, political repression, and poor cooperation
on terrorism. Such countries include Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and the
United Arab Emirates. The 16 large donor countries give between $54 million and $141 million
combined to the Clinton Foundation during this time, as well as paying big speaking fees to
Bill Clinton.
Meredith McGehee, policy director at the non-profit Campaign Legal Center, will later say,
"The word was out to these groups that one of the best ways to gain access and influence with
the Clintons was to give to this foundation. This shows why having public officials, or even
spouses of public officials, connected with these non-profits is problematic."
Gregory Suchan, who was a State Department official for over 30 years, will say that while
foreign governments and defense contractors may not have made donations to the foundation
exclusively to influence weapons sales, they were clearly "looking to build up deposits in the
'favor bank' and to be well thought of." (The International Business Times, 5/26/2015)
January 21, 2009: After Hillary Clinton becomes secretary of state, the speaking fees
for her husband Bill Clinton dramatically increase.
According to ABC News in 2015, "Where he once had drawn $150,000 for a typical
address in the years following his presidency, [Bill] saw a succession of staggering paydays
for speeches in 2010 and 2011, including $500,000 paid by a Russian investment bank and
$750,000 to address a telecom conference in China." Furthermore, many of the groups
paying him higher fees have interests pending before Hillary's State Department. However,
there is no direct proof that Hillary takes any direct action to benefit the groups paying her
husband.
Before becoming secretary of state, she agreed to a process whereby State Department ethics
officials would review and approve her husband's speaking requests. But ABC News will report,
"In practice, there were few if any instances where ethics officials inside the State
Department asked the former president to refuse to accept payment for a speech." (ABC
News, 4/23/2015)
Mid-February 2009:Bill Clinton wants a consulting job with a man who openly aims to
use money to influence US policy towards Israel.
Bill Clinton seeks approval from the State Department for 3 three-year
consulting arrangements, and he wants an answer for all 3 within five days. Due to a deal with
the White House, he needs to get approval from department ethics officials while his wife
Hillary is secretary of state. All three deals are with companies headed by Bill's longtime
friends:
Shangri-La Industries, led by California investor Steve Bing.
Wasserman Investments, led by entertainment executive Casey Wasserman.
Saban Capital Group, led by entertainment executive and multi-billionaire
Haim Saban.
For all three deals, Clinton would be paid for general advice but not specific
investment advice, since that could come from his knowledge of his wife's work as secretary of
state.
Two of the deals are quickly approved, but the Saban deal meets resistance by department
lawyers. Jim Thessin, the department's top ethics approver, writes in an email to Bill
Clinton's office, "We have an objection to the [Saban Capital Group proposal] based on the
fact that Haim Saban, a founder of this entity, is actively involved in foreign affairs
issues, particularly with regard to the Middle East, which is a priority area for the
Secretary." As a result, the Saban deal does not get approved. However, Saban had donated
generously to the Clinton Foundation and he continues to do so, giving $7 million in 2010 and
2011, and more after that. (Politico, 2/25/2015)
In a May 2010 article, Saban will explain that his main political interest is supporting
right-wing political parties in Israel by influencing US politics. He lists three ways he does
this: making donations to political parties, establishing think tanks, and controlling media
outlets. (The
New Yorker, 5/10/2010)
In June 2016, the Associated Press will finally gain access to some
planning schedules from when Clinton was secretary of state. A comparison of these planning
schedules with Clinton's official calendar from that time will show that at least 60 meetings
with Clinton's donors and other outside interests were omitted. The Associated Press
will give one specific example of a meeting on this day that is omitted from the calendar, even
though the names of attendees to other meetings on the same day are not. Clinton meets with 13
major business leaders for a private breakfast discussion at the New York Stock Exchange:
David M. Cote, CEO of Honeywell International Inc.;
Fabrizio Freda, CEO of the Estee Companies Inc.;
Lewis Frankfort, chair of Coach Inc.;
Robert Kelly, CEO of the New York Bank of Mellon;
Ellen Kullman, CEO of DuPont;
Harold McGraw III, chair of McGraw Hill Companies;
Duncan Niederauer, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange;
Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo;
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Corp;
Steven Schwarzman, chair of the Blackstone Group;
James Taiclet, chair of the American Tower Corp.;
James Tisch, president of Loews Corp.; and
John D. Wren, CEO of Omnicom Group.
All the companies represented except Coach Inc. lobby the US government in 2009.
Four companies-Blackstone, Honeywell, Omnicom, and DuPont-lobby the State Department that year.
All the companies except for American Tower and New York Bank of Mellon donate to the Clinton
Foundation, and two attendees-Schwarzman and Frankfort-personally donate to the foundation. Four
of the companies-PepsiCo, the Blackstone Group, DuPont, and Honeywell International Inc.-also
donate to what the Associated Press calls "Clinton's pet diplomatic project of that
period," the US pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo. (The
Associated Press, 6/24/2016)
In 2012, WikiLeaks publishes over five million e-mails from the US-based
private intelligence company Stratfor. Stratfor provides confidential intelligence to major
corporations and branches of the US government.
At some unknown point in either 2010 or 2011, Bart Mongoven, vice
president for Stratfor's public policy intelligence group, writes in an email to Rodger Baker,
Stratfor's vice president of geopolitical analysis: "[Bill] Clinton's biggest project on
climate change comes through the Clinton Global Initiative, which has climate among its top
priorities. The CGI acts as a funnel for money from wealthy individuals and corporations toward
programs and policies that Clinton supports (or that support his or his wife's political
objectives). CGI has raised more than $100 million for climate change organizations. […] CGI and
the Clinton Foundation are suspected of being shakedown operations for the Clintons, and
especially for Hillary Clinton from 2001 to 2008. If a corporation wanted to be on
the Clintons' good side, it had to show up at CGI or give money to the foundation. The money from
CGI or the foundation would go to non-profits that promoted issues of importance to Hillary
Clinton's political calculus. In other words, if she needed something to be an important national
issue, he would pressure a corporation or billionaire to fund activists who would promote the
issue that she needed. CGI has been a good way to read the tea leaves on Hillary Clinton, and it
may still be. Either way, the future priorities of CGI are important to understand. Other, less
cynical people, say that the CGI and the Clinton Foundation are simple, well-meaning
organizations dedicated to funding good works and making the world a better place. (I'll let you
come to your own conclusions.)" (WikiLeaks,
10/19/2012)
June 2010-October 2010:Secret donations to a Clinton Foundation offshoot are given
around the same time Clinton's State Department allows Russia to buy a company that controls much
of the uranium production in the US.
In 2009, a branch of Rosatom, a Russian company linked to the Russian
government, buys a 17 percent stake in Uranium One, a Canadian mining company. In 2010, it
wants to increase that to a controlling 51 percent stake. Some US politicians are concerned,
because Uranium One owns uranium mines around the world, and uranium is a strategic asset due
to its use in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. For instance, Senator John Barrasso (R)
writes to President Obama, saying the deal "would give the Russian government control over a
sizable portion of America's uranium production capacity. Equally alarming, this sale gives
[them] a significant stake in uranium mines in Kazakhstan."
According to the Clinton Foundation's disclosure records, Ian Telfer, the Canadian head of
Uranium One, donates less than $250,000 to the foundation, in 2007. However, Canadian tax
records show that Telfer gives $2.4 million more from 2009 to 2012. Additional millions in
donations are given around this time by other people with ties to Uranium One.
In June 2010, former President Bill Clinton is paid $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow, one
of his highest speaking fees. He is paid by a Russian investment bank with ties to the Russian
government. That same month, Rosatom makes its deal to get a majority stake in Uranium One.
However, the deal can't go forward without approval from a group of US cabinet officials
called the Committee on Foreign Investment, including Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
In October 2010, the committee gives its approval. The committee's decision-making process is
shrouded in secrecy, but it is said the approval goes relatively smoothly.
By 2013, the Russian company will own 100% of Uranium One, and they will have control of
one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the US. The New York Times will later comment,
"Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the
episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed
by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets
even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over
decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation's donors."
Furthermore, Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra built a company that later merged with
Uranium One, and he gives at least $31 million to the Clinton Foundation. (The New York Times,
4/23/2015) In 2007, Giustra cofounded a Canadian offshoot of the Clinton Foundation called the
Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), which has been accused of being a "slush fund"
that allows politically toxic foreign contributors to anonymously donate money to the Clinton
Foundation in the hopes of gaining political influence with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
(Harper's Magazine, 11/17/2015) The secret donations from Telfer and others connected to
Uranium One all appear to have gone through the CGEP. (The
New York Times, 4/23/2015)
July 14, 2011:Blumenthal tells Clinton about a company he's invested in helping
Libya's rebels when he would need Clinton's approval.
Libya is in the middle of a civil war which lasts most of 2011.
Sid Blumenthal emails Clinton about a security company called Osprey Global Solutions, headed
by retired Army Major General David Grange. Blumenthal tells Clinton about Osprey's attempt to
get a contract to give "field medical help, military training, organize supplies and
logistics" to Libyan rebels currently fighting Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi.
He adds, "Grange can train their forces and he has drawn up a plan for taking [the Libyan
capitol of] Tripoli… This is a private contract. It does not involve NATO. It puts Americans
in a central role without being direct battle combatants. The TNC [the rebel Transitional
National Council] wants to demonstrate that they are pro-US. They see this as a significant
way to do that. They are enthusiastic about this arrangement." Furthermore, "Tyler, Cody, and
I acted as honest brokers, putting this arrangement together through a series of connections,
linking the Libyans to Osprey and keeping it moving."
Blumenthal is a private citizen, journalist, and Clinton Foundation employee at the time.
"Tyler" is Tyler Drumheller, who worked for the CIA until 2005. "Cody" is Cody Shearer, a
longtime friend of Clintons. Blumenthal, Drumheller, and Shearer formed a business
relationship to help Osprey. Clinton's State Department would have to give its approval to a
deal between this company and the Libyan rebels.(Yahoo,
10/8/2015) (US
Department of State, 1/7/2016)
June 1, 2012:Clinton aide Huma Abedin holds four paid jobs at once with obvious
conflicts of interest.
Abedin is Clinton's deputy chief of staff during Clinton's time
as secretary of state. For the last six months of Clinton's tenure, she participates in a
"special government employee" six-month program that allows her to simultaneously work four
paid jobs: the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, Clinton's personal office, and Teneo,
a private consultancy with close ties to the Clintons. In autumn 2015, the State Department's
inspector general will subpoena the Clinton Foundation, requesting records about Abedin's
possible conflicts of interest. (The Washington Post, 2/11/2016)
Senator Charles Grassley (R) will later say he has "fundamental questions" about Abedin's
multiple jobs, asking her in a letter, "How can the taxpayer know who exactly you are working
for at any given moment?" (The Washington Post, 8/27/2015)
July 11, 2012 and July 28, 2012:Clinton's chief of staff Cheryl Mills emails
government information to the Clinton Foundation that will later be deemed classified.
Former President Bill Clinton is traveling in Africa at the
time, including to Rwanda. On July 11, 2012, and then again on July 28, Mills emails
information about Rwanda and Congo, a country having a conflict with Rwanda at the time.
Details are unclear, because large sections of the emailed information will later be deemed
classified and redacted due to "national security" and "foreign policy." The July 28 message
is titled "Developments in the Eastern Congo."
Mills emails the information to Amitabh Desai, the foundation's director of foreign policy.
Mills was on the foundation's board of directors before joining the State Department, and will
return to its board as soon as she leaves.
Other emails show that she also continues to advise the foundation while working at the State
Department. (Politico, 9/30/2015)
October 10, 2012:Blumenthal appears to be secretly working with the State Department
to influence the media's portrayal of Clinton and the department on Benghazi.
Clinton confidant Sid Blumenthal sends Clinton an email with
the message, "Got all this done. Complete refutation on Libya smear. Philippe can circulate
these links. Sid." The email also includes links to four recent Media Matters stories
questioning aspects of the House Benghazi Committee's investigation of the government's
response to the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that is very critical of Clinton and her State
Department. For instance, one of the stories, published the same day Blumenthal's email is
written, has the title: "Right-Wing Media's Libya Consulate Security Mythology Falls Apart."
None of the articles have a Blumenthal by-line, but his "got this done" comment suggests he is
somehow involved in making them. Media Matters is a pro-Clinton media watchdog group chaired
by David Brock, who will later head Clinton's main Super PAC for her 2016 presidential
campaign.
Clinton replies with the message "Passing on," and forwards the email to Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Philippe Reines, as Blumenthal requested. (US Department of State,
11/30/2015) (Media Matters, 10/10/2012) (Media Matters, 10/10/2012) (Media Matters, 9/26/2012)
(Media Matters, 10/9/2012)
In June 2015, Blumenthal will reveal under oath that he was paid around $200,000 a year by
Media Matters for a part-time consulting beginning in late 2012, or around the time of this
email. (Fox News, 6/19/2015) (The Los Angeles Times, 6/27/2016)
In early 2009, President Obama banned Clinton from giving Blumenthal a State Department job,
but this email suggests the ban was not entirely effective.
Shortly After February 1, 2013: The ethics agreement with the Clinton Foundation ends;
donations from foreign governments increase.
As soon as Clinton's term as secretary of state ends, the
"memorandum of understanding" between the Clinton Foundation and the Obama White House also
comes to an end. As a result, the Clinton Foundation resumes accepting increased donations
from foreign governments. For instance, shortly after Clinton resigns, the foundation receives
a $2 million donation from a conglomerate run by a member of China's National People's
Congress.
The Wall Street Journal will report that news of such donations from foreign governments
"prompted criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, who said it represented a conflict
for a potential future president," given the anticipation that Hillary Clinton would run for
president again in 2016. (The Wall Street Journal, 3/19/2015)
United Arab Emirates and Germany begin donating to the foundation for the first time, and
other countries such as Saudi Arabia resume donating after holding off during Clinton's time
as secretary of state. (February 25, 2015)
April 2013-March 2015:Hillary Clinton is paid more
than $21 million for 92 speeches given between April 2013 and 2015.
That averages $235,000 per speech. The speeches are given
between the end of her time as secretary of state in February 2013 and the formal start of her
2016 presidential campaign in April 2015.
In 2016, Clinton will comment, "Time and time again, by innuendo, by insinuation, there is
this attack that…really comes down to, you know, anybody who ever took donations or speaking
fees from any interest group has to be bought. And I just absolutely reject that…" (CNN,
2/6/2016)
... ... ...
July 11, 2014:Nonprofit Quarterly publishes a story
with the title, "The Philanthropic Problem with Hillary Clinton's Huge Speaking Fees."
It points out that both Bill and Hillary Clinton has
recently been paid speaking fees that are sometimes "astronomical," and significantly greater
than other prominent politicians, including former US presidents. Furthermore, the Clintons
often give speeches at public or private universities. These speeches are usually paid by
private individuals or foundations, not by the universities themselves.
For instance, in March 2014, Hillary was paid $300,000 to speak to students and faculty at
UCLA [The University of California, Los Angeles]. The entire fee was paid through a private
endowment by Meyer Luskin, president of Scope Industries, a food waste recycling company. In
2012, Bill Clinton was similarly paid $250,000 for a UCLA speech paid by Luskin. In both
cases, the money allegedly went to the Clinton Foundation. (Nonprofit Quarterly, 7/11/2014)
However, ABC News has tried and failed to get any documentation from the Clintons proving the
speaking fees went to the foundation. (ABC News, 7/9/2014)
Nonprofit Quarterly then suggests this means the Clintons' speeches to universities could be a
way for rich donors to give well over the usual campaign spending limits to Hillary's "all but
inevitable presidential campaign" by effectively "repurposing" money through these large
speaking fees. "It would be terribly disappointing to imagine that the colleges and
universities paying the Clintons these sums might be fronting, hopefully unknowingly, for
individual donors supporting these colleges' lecture series, but individually have personal or
political agendas that would benefit from being associated with an institution of higher
education that pays Bill or Hillary Clinton a couple of hundred thousand for a speech-even if
the money ends up in the Clintons' family foundation." (Nonprofit Quarterly, 7/11/2014)
February 25, 2015: Bill Clinton won't tell the State Department how much he's being
offered to give speeches, making it difficult for the department to reject any offers.
Politico reports, "In hundreds of documents released to
Politico under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA], not a single case appears where the
State Department explicitly rejected a Bill Clinton speech." They raised serious questions
about only two speech proposals. "Instead, the records show State Department lawyers acted on
sparse information about business proposals and speech requests and were under the gun to
approve the proposals promptly."
The Clintons made a deal with the White House to require State Department ethics officials to
give their approval of all of Bill Clinton's paid speech offers. However, the deal didn't
require Clinton to reveal how much he would be paid for any speech, and he didn't voluntarily
disclose this, so the officials were unable to judge if he was being overpaid and thus
essentially bribed. He also didn't reveal potential conflicts of interests with those paying
for the speeches, such as donations to the Clinton Foundation or other relationships with the
Clintons.
Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer, says that since the department officials
didn't know the specific speech fees in advance, he doesn't see how they could have fairly
judged whether to approve the speech or not. "That would be a gap if they didn't find out at
all." (Politico, 2/25/2015)
March 3, 2015: Republican National Committee (RNC) chair
Reince Priebus suggests Clinton could have mixed diplomacy and private fundraising in her emails.
Responding to news reports that Clinton used only a private
email and private server while secretary of state, Priebus attempts to tie them into previous
reports scrutinizing the Clinton Foundation and its fundraising from foreign governments. "It
makes you wonder: Did she use the private emails so she could conduct diplomacy and
fundraising at the same time?" (Politico,
3/3/2015)
March 4, 2015:A non-profit watchdog suggests Clinton hid her emails because her
government work and Clinton Foundation work was intertwined.
The New York Times reports that a Clinton spokesperson has
declined to comment on Clinton's "use of clintonemail.com for matters related to the Clinton
Foundation, which has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments."
However, John Wonderlich, policy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit
organization that advocates transparency in government, comments, "It seems her intent was to
create a system where she could personally manage access to her communications" both relating
to her secretary of state work and the Clinton Foundation. "Given all the power she had as
secretary of state, a lot of that work would be jumbled together. Her presidential ambitions
and the family foundation would be wrapped up technically in email." (The
New York Times, 3/4/2015)
April 26, 2015: "It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the
Clintons."
This comment is by Bill Allison, who is a senior fellow at
the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit government watchdog group. Law professor Zephyr Teachout,
a Democratic candidate for governor of New York in 2014, was an organizing director there.
(The
Daily Mail, 4/27/2015) It is headed by Chris Gates, who
was chairman of the Democratic Party in Colorado. (The
Colorado Independent, 9/9/2014)
May 15, 2015:Dozens of media organizations and journalists have donated
to the Clinton Foundation.
The foundation's records show that there are not many news outlets who would
report on the foundation and didn't donate some money to it. The following have given at least
$1 million:
•Carlos Slim, the Mexican multibillionaire who is also the largest New York Times shareholder.
•James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, and the son of media mogul
Rupert Murdoch.
•Newsmax Media, the conservative media outlet.
•Thomson Reuters, the owner of the Reuters news service.
Others to donate smaller amounts include Google, Bloomberg, Richard Mellon Scaife, Mort
Zuckerman, AOL, HBO, Viacom, Turner Broadcasting (CNN), Twitter, Comcast, NBC Universal, PBS,
the Washington Post, and many more. (Politico, 5/15/2015)
May 21, 2015:The Clinton Foundation confirms that it received millions in
previously unreported payments by foreign governments and corporations for speeches given by Bill
and Hillary Clinton.
The foundation won't give the exact amount, but it is somewhere between 12 and
26 million dollars. Foundation officials say the income was not disclosed publicly because it
was considered revenue, rather than donations. CNN calls this "the latest in a string of
admissions from the foundation that it didn't always abide by a 2008 ethics agreement to
disclose its funding sources publicly." (CNN, 5/21/2015)
May 26, 2015:The Clintons are criticized for mixing government work with
fund raising.
Stephen Walt, a Harvard University professor of international affairs, says that
the intertwining financial relationships between the Clintons, US defense contractors, and
foreign governments who buy US weapons is "a vivid example of a very big problem-the degree to
which conflicts of interest have become endemic. […] It has troubled me all along that the
Clinton Foundation was not being more scrupulous about who it would take money from and who it
wouldn't. American foreign policy is better served if people responsible for it are not even
remotely suspected of having these conflicts of interest. When George Marshall was secretary
of state, nobody was worried about whether or not he would be distracted by donations to a
foundation or to himself. This wasn't an issue." (The International Business Times, 5/26/2015)
June 2, 2015: The Washington Post reports on the controversial
reputation of the Clinton Foundation.
"Today, the Clinton Foundation is unlike anything else in the history of the
nation and, perhaps, the world: It is a global philanthropic empire run by a former US
president and closely affiliated with a potential future president, with the audacious goal of
solving some of the world's most vexing problems by bringing together the wealthiest,
glitziest, and most powerful people from every part of the planet. […] The foundation now
includes 11 major initiatives, focused on issues as divergent as crop yields in Africa,
earthquake relief in Haiti, and the cost of AIDS drugs worldwide. In all, the Clintons'
constellation of related charities has raised $2 billion, employs more than 2,000 people, and
has a combined annual budget of more than $223 million."
According to the independent watchdog group the American Institute of Philanthropy, the
foundation spends about 89 percent of its money on its charitable mission. Thus that group has
given it an A rating (with A-plus being the best). However, Charity Navigator, the other
leading watchdog group that rates charities, has not issued a grade for the foundation, saying
its structure makes it too complex to grade. In 2015, it put the foundation on its "watch
list," due to negative media reports. (The
Washington Post, 6/2/2015)
June 5, 2015:Robert Reich criticizes Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Reich, who was the secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, says Hillary
Clinton "hasn't yet given a convincing explanation for why she used a private email account
when she was secretary of state, and why she and her husband have made so many speeches for
hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop from special interests that presumably want something
in return. In other words, she needs to be more open and transparent about everything." In
2013, he said he would support Hillary for president, but now he says he's neutral.(ABC
News, 6/5/2015)
September 2, 2015: Congressional committees are
interested in the Clinton Foundation's financial dealings.
The Daily Beast reports that regardless of what
becomes of the FBI's investigations into Clinton's emails and private server, "more
than one [Congressional] committee is interested in Hillary's emails, far
beyond the Benghazi investigation. Congressional investigators are looking into
issues beyond classification, to include possible dirty financial deals" that
benefitted Bill and Hillary Clinton and/or their Clinton Foundation.
An unnamed senior Congressional staffer says, "This
was about a lot more than just some classified emails, and we'll get to the bottom of
it. But we're happy to let the FBI do the heavy lifting for right now." The staffer
adds, "[N]ow the media won't let go-and the Bureau definitely won't. I wouldn't want
to be Hillary right now." (The
Daily Beast, 9/2/2015)
September 27, 2015:Clinton claims she did not have any work-related emails regarding
the Clinton Foundation while secretary of state.
Clinton is asked by journalist Chuck Todd on Meet The Press about her decision
to delete 31,000 emails because they were allegedly personal in nature: "I'm just curious,
would anything having to do with the Clinton Foundation, would that have been personal or
work?"
Clinton replies, "Well, it would depend. You know, I did not communicate with the foundation.
Other people in the State Department did. In accordance with the rules that had been adopted."
Then Todd asks, "So any of these deleted emails are not going to be foundation-related at
all?"
Clinton responds, "Well, they might be, you know, 'There's going to be a meeting,' or,
'There's this.' But not anything that relates to the work of the State Department. That was
handled by, you know, the professionals and others in the State Department."
(NBC
News, 9/27/2015)
Autumn 2015:State Department investigators issue a subpoena to the
Clinton Foundation.
They are "seeking documents about the charity's projects that may have required
approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton's term as secretary of state,"
according to the Washington Post. The subpoena includes a request for records about Huma
Abedin, "a longtime Clinton aide who for six months in 2012 was employed simultaneously by the
State Department, the foundation, Clinton's personal office, and a private consulting firm
with ties to the Clintons." Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector general, is behind
the subpoena.
In February 2016, the Post will report that the "full scope and status of the inquiry" is not
clear. Inspector general investigative powers are limited. For instance, they can obtain
documents, but they cannot compel testimony. (The
Washington Post, 2/11/2016)
November 17, 2015: The Clinton Foundation is accused of
being a money laundering front to benefit the Clintons.
Longtime investigative journalist Ken Silverstein writes an
expose about the foundation for Harper's Magazine. He asserts: "If the Justice Department and
law enforcement agencies do their jobs, the foundation will be closed and its current and past
trustees, who include Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton, will be indicted. That's because
their so-called charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich
Clinton family friends."
As one example, Silverstein notes that the Clinton Foundation has received more than $1
billion to purchase HIV/AIDS drugs for poor people around the world. "However, a unit set up
to receive the money…clearly spent far, far less than it took in. In fact, the unit's
accounting practices were so shoddy that its license was revoked by the state of
Massachusetts, where it was headquartered."
An unnamed "money-laundering expert and former intelligence officer based in the Middle East
who had access to the foundation's confidential banking information" claims that all
investigators would have to do "is match up Hillary's travel as secretary of state with Bill's
speaking arrangements. Bill heads out to foreign countries and he gets paid huge amounts of
money for a thirty-minute speech and then she heads out for an official visit as a favor. She
racked up more miles than any secretary of state [other than Condoleezza Rice] and that's one
of the reasons why. How can they get away with that?" The Clinton Foundation has not commented
on the allegations. (Harper's
Magazine, 11/17/2015)
November 19, 2015:The Washington Post publishes an in-depth analysis of the history
of Bill and Hillary Clinton's political fundraising.
It reveals that the Clintons "have built an unrivaled global
network of donors while pioneering fundraising techniques that have transformed modern
politics," raising more money than any other politicians in US history. All their fundraising
combined over four decades in politics has raised at least $3 billion. $2 billion of that has
gone to the Clinton Foundation and another billion has gone to their various political
campaigns, especially presidential races. Additionally, since 2000, the Clintons were directly
paid more than $150 million from giving speeches. The Clintons have a loyal core of about
2,700 rich political contributors who make up less than one percent of donors who gave more
than $200 but have given 21 percent of all the money. The Post comments, "The Clintons' steady
cultivation of financial benefactors-many of whom had interests before the government-has led
to charges of conflicts of interest and impropriety, such as Bill Clinton's end-of-term
presidential pardons sought by donors. […] Most of all, the Clintons have excelled at
leveraging access to their power and celebrity." (The
Washington Post, 11/19/2015)
January 28, 2016: Clinton's email scandal could be linked to Clinton Foundation
corruption.
John Schindler, a former National
Security Agency (NSA) analyst and counterintelligence officer, writes, "Why Ms. Clinton and
her staff refused to use State Department email for official business is an open and important
question. Suspicion inevitably falls on widespread allegations of pay-for-play, a corrupt
scheme whereby foreign entities gave cash to the Clinton Global Initiative in exchange for Ms.
Clinton's favors at Foggy Bottom [State Department headquarters]. […] Regardless of whether
Ms. Clinton was engaged in political corruption, she unquestionably cast aside security as
secretary of state." The Clinton Global Initiative is one of the Clinton Foundation's major
projects. (The
New York Observer, 1/28/2016)
March 23, 2016:A Congressperson calls the Clinton Foundation a "sham" charity.
Representative Marsha Blackburn (R) sends a letter to the FTC
[Federal Trade Commission], asking it to investigate the Clinton Foundation's nonprofit
status. "The FTC has a history of investigating 'sham' charities for false and deceptive
statements and should initiate a review of the foundation. […] Consistent with the FTC's
mission and precedent, we request that you review [my] allegations to determine if the
Foundation is a 'sham' charity." (The
Seaton Post, 3/23/2016)
April 6, 2016:Best-selling political author Naomi Klein criticizes the
Clinton Foundation.
In an article for the Nation, she writes, "The mission of the Clinton Foundation
can be distilled as follows: There is so much private wealth sloshing around our planet…that
every single problem on earth, no matter how large, can be solved by convincing the ultra-rich
to do the right things with their loose change. […] The problem with Clinton World is
structural. It's the way in which these profoundly enmeshed relationships-lubricated by the
exchange of money, favors, status, and media attention-shape what gets proposed as policy in
the first place. In Clinton World, it's always win-win-win: The governments look effective,
the corporations look righteous, and the celebrities look serious. Oh, and another win too:
the Clintons grow ever more powerful. At the center of it all is the canonical belief that
change comes not by confronting the wealthy and powerful but by partnering with them. Viewed
from within the logic of what Thomas Frank recently termed 'the land of money,' all of Hillary
Clinton's most controversial actions make sense. Why not take money from fossil-fuel
lobbyists? Why not get paid hundreds of thousands for speeches to Goldman Sachs? It's not a
conflict of interest; it's a mutually beneficial partnership-part of a never-ending
merry-go-round of corporate-political give and take." (The
Nation, 4/6/2016)
This just one case of Clinton's family corruption and probably not the most outrageous one. It is
now more clear why she deleted so many emails. Clinton faces many questions about whether she helped
her family foundation collect millions of dollars from questionable people, countries and organizations
when she was secretary of state.
Notable quotes:
"... A major Democratic donor personally lobbied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office for a seat on a sensitive government intelligence board, telling one of her closest aides that if appointed he would make Clinton "look good." ..."
"... The emails shed new light on how Fernando got a spot on the International Security Advisory Board . He resigned in 2011, days after his appointment and after his selection was questioned. ..."
"... In recent weeks, emails obtained by Citizens United show the appointment perplexed the State Department's professional staff, according to ABC News , and that dozens of State Department officials worked overtime to quickly obtain Fernando's security clearance, according to Fox News . ..."
"... Reines appeared to mock the appointment by responding to Samuelson: "Not the most compelling response I've ever seen since it's such a dense topic the board resolves around. Couldn't he have landed a spot on the President's Physical Fitness Council?" ..."
Rajiv Fernando lobbied top Clinton aide for a seat on sensitive intelligence board. He had
little experience in the field and resigned after appointment was scrutinized. The Chicago businessman
donated to Clinton, Obama and the Clinton Foundation.
A major Democratic donor personally lobbied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office
for a seat on a sensitive government intelligence board, telling one of her closest aides that if
appointed he would make Clinton "look good."
Rajiv Fernando acknowledged that he may not have
the experience to sit on a board that would allow him the highest levels of top-secret access, but
he assured deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin in newly released 2009 emails that he was talking to
two professors who were "getting me up to speed on the academics behind the field."
Fernando, who contributed to Clinton, her
family's foundation and Barack Obama,
described himself as one of "Hillary's people" and mentioned that he recently had sent an ailing
Clinton flowers to wish her a speedy recovery.
The emails shed new light on how Fernando got a spot on the
International Security Advisory Board.
He resigned in 2011, days after his appointment and after his selection was questioned.
... ... ...
In recent weeks, emails obtained by Citizens United show the appointment perplexed the State
Department's professional staff, according to
ABC News, and that dozens of State Department officials worked overtime to quickly obtain Fernando's
security clearance, according to
Fox News.
Reines
appeared to mock the appointment by responding to Samuelson: "Not the most compelling response
I've ever seen since it's such a dense topic the board resolves around. Couldn't he have landed a
spot on the President's Physical Fitness Council?"
Fernando founded Chopper Trading, a high-frequency trading firm that was acquired by the Chicago
firm DRW Trading Group in 2015. In an economic speech last year, Clinton criticized high-frequency
traders. Providence, Rhode Island, sued Chopper Trading and other financial companies, charging they'd
defrauded the city, which managed funds for its employees.
Top Democratic donors in the financial industry are threatening revolt after
news broke that top Wall Street critic and progressive darling Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is one of the leading candidates for vice
president under Hillary Clinton.
An in-depth
report
published by
Politico
on Monday cites a dozen interviews
with Clinton's Wall Street backers-of which there are
many
-warning that the coffers will dry up if Warren is chosen.
"If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave
her," one top Democratic donor told
Politico
reporter Ben White.
"They would literally just say, 'We have no qualms with you moving left,
we understand all the things you've had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but
if you are going there with Warren, we just can't trust you, you've killed
it,'" added the anonymous bundler, who has reportedly helped raise millions
for Clinton.
"... Prior to Hillary's being approved as Secretary of State, a detailed agreement was worked out requiring public notification of gifts from foreign entities and businessmen, as well as prior approval for donations from foreign government-owned businesses. Unfortunately, this agreement was almost immediately violated. ..."
"... There, when the government needed to help a Clinton supporter/cause was, naturally, a despot, Bill Clinton would even praise that person for his 'enlightened rule.' Another damning observation - 'In his first eight years on the global lecture circuit, Bill had never been paid to speak in Nigeria. But once Hillary was appointed secretary of state, he booked two of his top three highest-paid speeches ever by traveling to Nigeria, pulling in a whopping $700,000 each.' ..."
"... Read the book for yourself and not allow the Clinton Attack Machine to divert your attention from the important questions raised ..."
"... Mind you, Hillary was the one claiming poverty when trying to get mortgages (plural) for their homes (also plural). They were part of the political wing that vilified Romney for his wealth without ever blushing at their being in the same ball park as him. Romney at least made his money in the private sector. The Clintons seem to have made theirs by trading on the political connections and power while dancing on a razor's edge away from the legal definition of illegality. ..."
Tens of millions of dollars have gone
to the Clinton Foundation, and tens of millions more to the ex-president in the form of speaking
fees from around the world. Both fundings have primarily come from foreign governments and businessmen,
and quite often are temporally associated with deals involving U.S. actions that benefit the donors
and required approvals from our government.
It has long been illegal for foreigners to contribute to U.S. political campaigns. Yet, that
hasn't deterred the Clintons from this parallel practice. Further, the amounts of these donations,
per Schweizer, are often far larger than allowable campaign contributions. Thus, the Clintons
have become quite wealthy - Bill Clinton receiving $105 million in speaking fees through 2012..(Also
donations to the Clinton library, the Democratic Party, etc.) This pattern of major donations
followed by major beneficial U.S. government acts (eg. dropping proposed regulations, DOJ investigations,
and the Marc Rich pardon) began in 1999 while Clinton was still president.
An obvious question - Why haven't these foreign donors (eg. in India) given money directly
to local charities instead of to the Clinton Foundation? Another - Doesn't this make Hillary's
deleting innumerable official emails while Secretary of State especially suspicious?
Prior to Hillary's being approved as Secretary of State, a detailed agreement was worked
out requiring public notification of gifts from foreign entities and businessmen, as well as prior
approval for donations from foreign government-owned businesses. Unfortunately, this agreement
was almost immediately violated.
The bulk of Schweizer's excellent report consists of detailing various donations and possibly
associated U.S. government actions. The most glaring - selling control of a major US uranium resource
to Russia, while we don't even have enough of that invaluable fuel for our own current power needs.
He also points out that the Clinton's most 'profitable' responses don't occur in nations where
business and politics are separated by rules (eg. Germany, G.B.), but 'in despotic areas of the
world where the rules are very different.'
There, when the government needed to help a Clinton supporter/cause was, naturally, a despot,
Bill Clinton would even praise that person for his 'enlightened rule.' Another damning observation
- 'In his first eight years on the global lecture circuit, Bill had never been paid to speak in
Nigeria. But once Hillary was appointed secretary of state, he booked two of his top three highest-paid
speeches ever by traveling to Nigeria, pulling in a whopping $700,000 each.'
D. Buxman TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on May 5, 2015
Hillary's Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds
I purchased this book understanding the flaws that permeate the modern American Political System
on both sides of the aisle. At this point in my life, it is hard to be shocked by the moral depravity
of our leaders. Bill and Hillary Clinton, however, have crafted a legal structure through the
Clinton Foundation that brings to bear the worst aspects of public fraud and influence peddling
imaginable.
As Hillary says, the Clinton's started this century, "Dead Broke," and yet today, having engaged
in no productive business activity beyond public speaking engagements and poorly received books,
they have accumulated untold personal wealth and control billions through a "charitable" foundation.
Along the way, they have accepted millions of dollars from foreign donors who just happen to have
business interests that could be advanced through Hillary's activities as a Senator or Secretary
of State and Bill's lobbying efforts as an ex-President. To see one instance where a donation
was followed by a favorable outcome might be a coincidence, but Schweizer provides dozens, in
what could only be described as a concerted scheme of bribery and influence peddling.
To rail against the Republican War on Women, while accepting millions in "donations," from
despotic foreign regimes that stone women for adultery is the height of hypocrisy. In a world
of equal justice, Bill and Hillary would be headed to prison, not on the campaign trail. This
book is extensively researched and footnoted. It is a well-written and cogent depiction of facts
that the Clinton Spin Machine seems unable to rationally dispute, from an author who has a history
of justifiably attacking both Democrats and Republicans.
Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on May 5, 2015
Read the book for yourself and not allow the Clinton Attack Machine to divert your attention
from the important questions raised
No matter what I write about this book someone will take offense, dismiss and attack what I
write without reading a word of it. So, when you look at the votes and read the comments, take
it all with a box of Morton Salt. This is a book that was written to draw lightning. Some of the
writers who defend the Clintons, such as Newsweek, review this book as a hatchet job. Others will
dismiss any examination of the author's motives as unfair and irrelevant. I say, let the facts
speak and judge the author on whether he is asking serious questions, presenting honest evidence,
and drawing reasonable conclusions. In my view, he is. He is not making claims beyond what the
evidence supports, but he does ask why there are always a preposterous number of coincidences
around Bill and Hillary and everything they do. And how something that enriches this couple so
fabulously can also somehow be characterized as both public service and charity.
Mind you, Hillary was the one claiming poverty when trying to get mortgages (plural) for
their homes (also plural). They were part of the political wing that vilified Romney for his wealth
without ever blushing at their being in the same ball park as him. Romney at least made his money
in the private sector. The Clintons seem to have made theirs by trading on the political connections
and power while dancing on a razor's edge away from the legal definition of illegality. And
somehow, for the Clintons and their acolytes, if they aren't on videotape actually admitting to
taking cash for delivering political favors it somehow never happened. As you read the evidence
around the transactions reported in this book, I think you have to have some pretty thick rose
colored lenses to not see some difficulty in the connections, arrangements, deals, payments, and
reporting of the transactions as required by law. But we can each judge for ourselves. The Clintons
hope you will reject the book. Hillary's opponents hope you will either embrace it, or at least
begin asking some probing questions of your own and go digging for more evidence.
The Clintons have a well-practiced and effective Method of dealing with an immediate crisis
caused when yet another scandal arises, and they always do with these two. It works like this:
The scandal breaks and Team Clinton immediately sends out people like Begala and Carville to attack
the reporters, whistleblowers, or regular folks who dare tell the world what is going on. Another
group of somewhat more removed Clintonistas hit the air, cable, and print media to deny the scandal
outright. The Clintons avoid speaking for as long as possible. The idea is to consume as many
of the information cycles as possible with their own accusations and denials to overwhelm the
scandal outright. If they can't do that and they must speak, they know it doesn't matter what
they say. It can be directly in conflict with the evidence because they have put so much by way
of denial in the media that the "fair" media will quote the denials as if they were legitimate
bits of evidence, too. Eventually, another event comes along and bumps this scandal from the headlines
and then it will either go away or, if it does come back into view, they just refuse to discuss
it as old news and declare that the public knows it was politically motivated and that there is
nothing to it. Really. This is their method. And it works for them. Absurdly; it works.
You can see a similar method used by those on the Left here on Amazon and right here with this
book. They will latch on to a book they hate and provide a vast number of one-star "reviews" of
a sentence or two that say nothing at all except claiming the book is all lies, or old and outdated
claims that have been disproven, or that the author is in thrall to the Koch brothers or some
other Conservative paymaster. They often use fake names so you can't even tell if the same person
is posting multiple attacks using multiple accounts. It is always the same. The idea is to overwhelm
the book with so many reviews that the real reviews get hidden in the clutter and people just
stop looking and reading. Do you see this pattern? Of course you do. It is right in front of your
eyes.
The Clintons have raked in billions for their foundation (The Family Business) by using another
well-oiled and smoothly running operation that works something like this. You can see a version
of it in every deal cited in this book.
A super rich person the Clintons want as a donor and who needs or wants a piece of influence
peddled for them by the Clinton Machine for their nation, oil venture, uranium deals, their for
profit university, their "non-profit" charity, telemarketing business, or whatever, walks into
the shadow of the great Sun of the Clinton Sphere of Influence. Checks are written to the Clinton
Foundations, fabulously rich speaking fees are paid, and lavish travel and accommodations are
provided to Bill and/or Hillary. While on scene giving the speech, photo opportunities and favorable
stories are provided on camera to great fanfare and wide media coverage for the charitable work
being publicized. Once the lights, cameras, and recorders are turned off and in the quiet after
the reporters go off to wherever it is reporters go when not flacking for the Clintons, deals
are worked out in quiet rooms without anything being done directly that breaks the law or at least
not recorded and becoming evidence for breaking the law. Remember, this is all about access to
the Clinton world. They provide connections to a vast entourage of connected influencers. The
price of admission are the big donations to the Clinton Foundation and the fees to Bill and Hillary.
But unseemly is not illegal and seems to be something the Clintons are very comfortable with
as they "do good" in the world for their Foundation. More money flows to the Foundation in seven
figures and more. Mere millions are minor donations according to Lanny Davis on Fox News Sunday
with Chris Wallace. Somehow, despite assurances of transparency by Bill and Hillary, these donations
are generally not reported until they are caught not reporting them. Even when they are caught
in a compromising position, the media barely talks about it because the Clintons declare them
an oversight and promise to fix them right away. And because the public is never told to care
it doesn't pay attention to the absurdity of this level of corruption by someone running for President;
essentially for a third and fourth term of the Clinton Machine.
The issues raised by Schweitzer in this book are serious and the Clintons need to answer for
the vast ocean of money raised. We have already seen them admit to more than $30 million raised
from more than a thousand donors that they never reported to authorities as was required by law
and their own promises of transparency. That seems far too systematic and large-scale to be the
mere mistake they want us to believe. Will the press hold them accountable? We shall see. I hope
so, but won't hold my breath. What I honestly don't get is how Progressives who honestly believe
in their agenda can stomach this kind of naked profiteering, money grubbing, influence peddling,
and corruption so enthusiastically. Over the years we have seen that there is no shame from the
Clintons; ever. But from the entire Democrat party? From all the Progressive Media? I mean the
way the Clintons behave would make a Tammany Hall blush and Huey Long stare at their operations
in admiration at the audacity of it all.
Those of us who remember the scandals from the first and second Clinton Administrations do
not want to go through them again. But their fans will forgive them anything. Anything. And the
Clintons have more than $2 billion raised by their vast machine to ensure they regain the Whitehouse.
Will we let them have it?
I hope not.
This book will never persuade anyone who is already worshipping at the altar of Hillary. Not
because it fails to present convincing evidence and powerful arguments, but because those who
already believe in Our Hillary - Right Or Wrong are not looking for evidence or weighing arguments.
While the book is interesting to those of us who could never be persuaded to vote for her under
any circumstance whatsoever, the more interesting question is whether this book can get the traction
with the public to start raising questions in the minds of those who might be leaning towards
Hillary but have concerns or are leaning away from her and need a little more to move further
away. I hope it does. In any case, I hope you get the book, read it with an open mind and think
about the ridiculous number of coincidences the Clintons want you to believe don't provide evidence
of corrupt dealing.
Pinchyuk in the largest donor to Clinton foundation. He donated $6.5 and pledged 20 million more.
Hillary Clinton blending her functions of Secretary State with her functions related to Clinton foundation.
clinton foundation is a front for money laundering and illegal cash flow.
Rolando Esparza
The Clinton are a couple that are no good for the American people, love for money and disregard
for the people, middle class and the poor!
me aul jazzer
so that interpipe owner paid a couple of mil to a corrupt whore...would that have anything
to do with the shit that's gone on in the Ukraine over the last few years? & if so, wudnt she
be liable for the cause of it, & of thousands of deaths?
If Clinton were to choose Warren, and put her so very close to a position of significant
influence, the finance industry would likely make the Democrats pay, up and down the ticket. In
effect, Wall Street has veto power over decisions like this. In other words Clinton in reality
is a puppet.
As Democrats aim to "unite the party" in the aftermath of the primary, speculation about Sen.
Elizabeth Warren as Hillary Clinton's choice for vice president has dominated the electoral news
cycle.
Powerful Democratic politicians have been discussing this possibility, including Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, who said he "wants Warren for VP." The Senate's number two Democrat, Dick
Durbin, said Warren would be an "excellent choice." The Boston Globe has reported that Reid has
been assessing contingency plans for Warren's Senate seat, should she be selected as Clinton's
running mate. This, according to the Globe, is an "indication of the seriousness" with which the
Democrats are considering this possibility. This speculation is occurring soon after Warren
endorsed Clinton and had a high-profile meeting with her in front of television cameras.
... ... ...
Progressives, however, should take note: Warren, sadly, will probably not be named as
Clinton's running mate. The reason? The Democrats, and Clinton in particular, depend on the
financial support of Wall Street. And they have been receiving it in droves.
"Hillary Clinton is consolidating her support among Wall Street donors and other businesses
ahead of a general-election battle with Donald Trump, winning more campaign contributions from
financial-services executives in the most recent fundraising period than all other candidates
combined," reported The Wall Street Journal.
This is not a new phenomenon. In 2008, Obama got more money from the finance sector than any
candidate in history. Wall Street may generally prefer GOP policies, but they also like to be on
the side of the winner. In 2008, when regulatory changes were inevitable and Obama was favored to
win the White House, the finance industry wanted to have a friendly relationship with the
soon-to-be President. This support continued in 2012. "Mr. Obama's record in drawing money from
Wall Street tracks his political evolution. No longer an insurgent challenger, he is now an
incumbent president soaking up support from well-heeled interests," reported the Wall Street
Journal during the 2012 campaign. Moreover, the industry's donations are highly coveted in
down-ticket races for Congress.
Warren, however, is different from most Democrats in one significant way. According to the
Center for Responsive Politics, Warren (like Sanders) gets no money from Big Finance. In this
they are basically alone among their peers in the Senate. Even Sherrod Brown, whom many view as
the third most liberal Senator, gets some money from the industry. If Clinton and the Democrats
choose someone like Warren -- someone who owes the banks nothing and has devoted her career to
fighting against their greed -- the finance industry will probably take its money elsewhere, most
likely to the Republicans. The GOP has already been benefiting from the industry's donations
going increasingly to GOP candidates, at the expense of the Democrats. Despite this trend, Wall
Street seems far more comfortable with Clinton than with Trump. But adding Warren to the ticket
could change that calculus.
Wall Street has already made threats over such matters. When Warren made harsh critiques of
the big banks in 2015, they responded with the threat of cutting of the flow of money to the
party. "Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call
for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate
Democrats in symbolic protest," reported Reuters at the time. Citigroup decided to withhold
donations to the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, "over concerns that Senate Democrats
could give Warren and lawmakers who share her views more power." A 2015 Bloomberg article
reported that Warren, and her advocacy of breaking up the big banks, "makes Wall Street tremble."
"... Simons has pumped more than $2 million into Clinton's campaign to date. And his family office, Euclidean
Capital, has poured more than $7 million into supporting Clinton, the Guardian noted. ..."
"... Many other financial executives have joined Simons in funding Clinton. Powerful figures on Wall Street
who formerly backed failed Republican candidates have instead thrown their weight behind the Democratic
presidential front-runner, hoping she can defeat presumed GOP nominee Donald Trump. ..."
James Simons and Kenneth Griffin were the world's top two hedge fund managers in 2015. Each made
$1.7 billion last year alone, and have used their massive wealth to bankroll the campaigns of Hillary
Clinton and Rahm Emanuel, the Guardian reported.
Simons is the 50th richest person in the world, according to Forbes. The mathematician has made an
estimated $15.5 billion as CEO of the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund, and is individually richer
than many countries.
Employees at his hedge fund, primarily right-wing co-CEO Bob Mercer, donated $13 million to support
Ted Cruz's failed presidential campaign. Since then, donations from employees at Renaissance Technologies
have gone to Hillary Clinton.
Simons has pumped more than $2 million into Clinton's campaign to date. And his family office, Euclidean
Capital, has poured more than $7 million into supporting Clinton, the Guardian noted.
Many other financial executives have joined Simons in funding Clinton. Powerful figures on Wall Street
who formerly backed failed Republican candidates have instead thrown their weight behind the Democratic
presidential front-runner, hoping she can defeat presumed GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Kenneth Griffin, the other top hedge fund manager in 2015, is the founder and CEO of Citadel. He
has an estimated $7.5 billion, making him the richest man in Illinois.
DFA = Democracy for America. This was Howard Dean's organization and
part of his 50 state strategies. During non-campaign seasons, he sent
campaign organizers touring the country giving short classes on how to
organize and manage a political campaign. They came to Wichita and it was
something to see, a lot of local Democratic office holders, some even in
the State House had signed up. One guy had held his house seat for 8
years and much of the information they were bringing was completely new
to him. Yes, a state level Democrat had won 4 election cycles without
even knowing the basics. This was the state of the Democratic Party back
then – and is largely that way now.
Now I am going from memory here, but Clinton's "intersectional" was
covered in these classes, with at least the basic idea. The idea was to
consider how different elements within your campaign plank are connected.
And where those connections are poor, to build up a rhetorical foundation
on how to address the contradictions. As I said, the idea is not to build
connections between different parts of the planks, but how to present
separate planks to the voter as being relevant.
It's a good exercise, a way of organizing your issues and thinking how
they all might fit together.
Now Clintion's hairball – good word by the way – likely takes it to
the absurd degree. With polling data being quantized and plugged into
sophisticated computer models allowing Clinton to tailor her message for
each region and for each venue. –KACHING-
As I said before, this is
likely something that is being fed to her by her no doubt well paid
consultants.
Still, I have made an interesting observation that I wonder if you
noticed. You presented two charts, one with holding corporations
accountable placed at the top, and the other placing decline in
manufacturing jobs at the top in the same position.
They are the same network; point by point. I even compared them using
paint and found them to be a perfect match. The only difference is that
one is negative and the other is positive.
As another untrained clown in intersectional feminism, I'm skeptical about
Clinton, especially reading Thomas Frank's description of the International
Women's Day event at the Clinton Foundation one year ago:
"What this lineup suggested is that there is a kind of naturally occurring
solidarity between the millions of women at the bottom of the world's pyramid
and the tiny handful of women at its very top …The mystic bond between
high-achieving American professionals and the planet's most victimized people …
is a recurring theme in [Hillary Clinton's] life and work … What the spectacle
had to offer ordinary working American women was another story.
She enshrined a version of feminism in which liberation is, in part, a
matter of taking out loans from banks in order to become an entrepreneur … the
theology of microfinance … Merely by providing impoverished individuals with a
tiny loan of fifty or a hundred dollars, it was thought, you could put them on
the road to entrepreneurial self-sufficiency, you could make entire countries
prosper, you could bring about economic development itself … What was most
attractive about microlending was what it was not, what it made unnecessary:
any sort of collective action by poor people coming together in governments or
unions …The key to development was not doing something to limit the grasp of
Western banks, in other words; it was extending Western banking methods to
encompass every last individual on earth.
Microlending is a perfect expression of Clintonism, since it brings together
wealthy financial interests with rhetoric that sounds outrageously idealistic.
Microlending permits all manner of networking, posturing, and profit taking
among the lenders while doing nothing to change actual power relations-the
ultimate win-win."
I'm too confused with all of this, but it sounds to me like a concept called
"interlocking systems of oppression" and your figure two seems to provide
useful diagrammatic example.
The diagram offers no understanding of the intersectional dynamics of
oppression, carefully cropping out the oppressors - most of whom are Hillary
backers - along with the oppressed, who
are all affected differently in
their lived experiences
by their
particular
relationship to
oppressive conditions.
Lumping these focus-tested ill conditions together with a rat's nest of
undistinguished connections misleadingly equates the interests of persons
with their set of group memberships (Fascism is Italian for bundle-ism) and
sets the stage for those conditions to be traded off and weighed against
each other on net in the future. I believe this is the essence of what is
called "triangulation".
Theoretically, understanding intersectionality should help us understand
where our interests coincide, and thus aid in coalition building.
Clinton is standing that notion on its head by attempting to reduce
"intersectionality" to a rhetorical gimmic, supposedly indicating she's the
"intersectional" cadidate, the one who represents everybody!
Intersectionality if properly understood would offer us an important tool, a
key if you will for freeing us from the isolation and powerlessness inherent in
the siloed environment of identity politics.
The politicians on the other hand have a much easier job if we ignore, or
misunderstand intersectionality, and stay in our silos.
The people, working together because they understand where their interests
intersect is the last thing that our 'rulers' want to see happening,
considering how much work they've devoted to divide and conquer.
Watt4Bob - In Intersectionality, the things which
intersect seem to be terms of oppression as applied to
persons (as opposed to corporations, organizations,
states, etc.) A person is the focus of one or more of
racism, sexism, ageism, class prejudice, religion,
national origin, homophobia, and so on. Most of the
categorizations through which these forms of oppression
are implemented are irrational and some have no real,
physical definition whatever. That is, the deprecation
of such persons has no real value. No doubt most
persons oppressed in these ways have an interest in
escaping from their oppression. However, they have
other, positive interests as well, independent of or
orthagonal to the ways in which they are oppressed. For
me, this makes the idea that Intersectionality alone
can automatically provide a kind of framework for
positive collective action rather dubious. We already
have anarchism and egalitarianism; now what?
Wait a minute… that tangle of buzz phrases connected helter-skelter by lines
is a REAL post from the Clinton campaign? Until I read the whole piece I
thought it was well done satire. I guess The Onion being bought out doesn't
really matter much. In modern American politics satire now seems roughly as
difficult a task as exceeding the speed of light in a vacuum or measuring the
position and velocity of an electron simultaneously.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Is that Huma in a blue dress under the Resolute desk?Pairadimes d Here2Go •Aug 27, 2016 9:14 PMRamirez is a genius.zeronetwork d debtor of last resort •Aug 27, 2016 8:15 PMThe thought process Donald has started is not going to fade very soon. Still few weeks before election. I am sure Donald got some more cards in his sleeve.are we there yet •Aug 27, 2016 8:36 PMI have a solution for Hillary's in-continuance and mobility declining problems. The chair behind the presidents desk should be a wheelchair with a bedpan. Otherwise the term 'campaign trail' will take on a whole new meaning.
RE: Joint FBI-US Attorney Probe Of Clinton Foundation
This morning I saw an article saying that the DOJ has rebuffed the FBI request to investigate the Clinton Foundation. Quick search turns up a lot of articles – here's one from the Washington Times:
"The Obama administration rejected requests from three FBI field offices that wanted to open public corruption probes of the Clinton Foundation, according to a report that added to headaches for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Alerted by banks to suspicious transactions, the FBI wanted to investigate conflicts of interest involving foreign donors to the foundation while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. But the Justice Department put the kibosh on the it, CNN reported."
So now I'm confused – aren't US Attorneys part of the DOJ? Can anyone shed some light on this?
My twitter is saying Bharara could claim jurisdiction and the probe is an end run around DOJ. It is all based on one anonymous source for now, grain of salt and so forth.