Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Why 'Crooked Hillary' is likely to stick


Donald Trump has a knack for nicknames. Low-energy Jeb caught something of Jeb's entitled aura. "Little Marco" got at something truly juvenile and naive about Marco Rubio. And "Lyin' Ted" was an effective way of branding Ted Cruz's dishonesty. Lately, Donald's been trying new nicknames for Hillary Clinton, but he seems to like his original "Crooked Hillary" best.

And his first instinct is best. The Clinton Foundation and other associated concerns really are a kind of globalist grift.

Funded by the rich, the foundation allows the Clintons to travel around the world and to network with other high net worth individuals. It even pays the salaries of Clinton friends and other flunkies. And where does the money come from? Bill Clinton would often raise it from people who had direct financial interests at play in the U.S. State Department when Hillary was there. One such deal resulted in a Russian company, Uranium One, obtaining control over one-fifth of the world's uranium production.

As Peter Schweizer's book Clinton Cash details, Hillary's loyalty could be well-bought. Consider the financial interests of Mohammed al-Amoudi, who committed $20 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2007. Al-Amoudi profits from the Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies, which could have been harmed by U.S. policy changes in Ethiopia, particularly if the U.S. government scrutinized Ethiopia closely for human rights violations, as required by U.S. rules on foreign aid. Clinton dutifully gave a waiver to Ethiopia during her time as secretary of state. Bill Clinton would praise Ethiopia's leaders as a new guard for the continent, even if their rule included extra-judicial killing and plunder.

There are dozens of other sordid little tales, like that of Claudio Osorio, currently in federal prison for fraud. The Clintons, to whom he donated generously, helped his firm InnoVida obtain a $10 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. More evidence of financial corruption may be coming now that Charles Ortel, who uncovered wrongdoing at General Electric, is examining the Clinton Foundation's disclosures. He's already describing their work as "charity fraud."

There's also the matter of Hillary's speaking fees. In just the two years between leaving the Obama administration and launching her bid for the presidency, she made nearly $22 million from speeches. Right after her service to Obama, Hillary Clinton began giving one to two speeches a month at around $225,000 or more per speech. Who wanted to hear Hillary speak? Lots of financial services companies, including Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Fidelity Investments. Goldman Sachs even hired her to speak in South Carolina in June of 2013, and then again in New York and Arizona that October. Her clients included major investors in government projects, like TD Bank, which had major investments in the Keystone Pipeline. [...]
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How corporate America bought Hillary Clinton for $21M


“Follow the money.” That telling phrase, which has come to summarize the Watergate scandal, has been a part of the lexicon since 1976. It’s shorthand for political corruption: At what point do “contributions” become bribes, “constituent services” turn into quid pro quos and “charities” become slush funds?

Ronald Reagan was severely criticized in 1989 when, after he left office, he was paid $2 million for a couple of speeches in Japan. “The founding fathers would have been stunned that an occupant of the highest office in this land turned it into bucks,” sniffed a Columbia professor.

So what would Washington and Jefferson make of Hillary Rodham Clinton? Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that, in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state collected $21,667,000 in “speaking fees,” not to mention the cool $5 mil she corralled as an advance for her 2014 flop book, “Hard Choices.”

Throw in the additional $26,630,000 her ex-president husband hoovered up in personal-appearance “honoraria,” and the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief that the former first couple — who, according to Hillary, were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001 with some of the furniture in tow — can finally make ends meet.[...]

As “Clinton Cash,” a new documentary based on Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, shows in excruciating, irrefutable detail, it’s always “pay to play” with the Clintons, whether personally or via their family racket, the Clinton Foundation (which includes the Clinton Global Initiative). They’ve sucked up vast sums of “contributions” from some of the most unsavory folks on the planet, including Nigerian dictators and Kazakhstani despots.

But it’s their parlaying of “public service” by two career “civil servants” into personal enrichment that’s shameless.

Bill Clinton’s speaking fees skyrocketed just days after Hillary’s nomination as secretary of state in 2009. Corporations, such as TD Bank, that had never paid a dime to hear him speak suddenly bellied up to the bar, waving fistfuls of cash. Coincidentally, TD Bank was the largest investor in the Keystone XL pipeline, which needed approval from the new secretary of state. Hillary dodged and weaved and Obama later nixed it — but the Clintons kept the cash. It makes sense to make friends with the woman who might just be the next president. But what does that say about what the office has become? [...]

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