Is it irresponsible to speculate that the Clinton Foundation took millions from a Canadian firm after the State Department signed off on selling the firm’s uranium assets to Russia? Why, the liberal NY Times says “It’s irresponsible not to.”
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.
Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
Gosh, this seems all scary and stuff. Where did this speculation come from? A meticulously researched source, correct?
The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.
Well okay then. So, the Times, researching Schweizer’s information and doing their journalistic due diligence by taking it with an entire mine’s worth of salt based on the source’s antipathy towards the Clintons, and all but accusing Hillary Clinton of taking money for State Department favors, wouldn’t print this without solid evidence of payola, right?
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.
Oh. So now the NY Times is working for News Corp marketing, after making a shady deal with Schweizer to print his book’s speculation as news and to advance the author’s agenda without actually being able to corroborate the accusations. The news story is literally “We think this makes Hillary look bad.” She should probably resign as Secretary of State or something.
The story behind this deal with Schweizer seems like a story that should be checked out by an actual news outlet, yes?
But it gets better. (or worse?)
You see but this is just part one of Schweizer’s plan for 24/7 irresponsible to not be speculating from all the major news outlets, because his next target is apparently Jebby according to Bloomberg’s Joshua Green.
“What we’re doing is a drill-down investigation of Jeb’s finances similar to what we did with the Clintons in terms of looking at financial dealings, cronyism, who he’s been involved with,” Schweizer told me on Thursday. “We’ve found some interesting things.”
Schweizer says he and a team of researchers have been pouring over Bush’s financial life for about four months. Among other things, they’re scrutinizing various Florida land deals, an airport deal while Bush was governor that involved state funds, and Chinese investors in Bush’s private equity funds (something I wrote about for Bloomberg last year).
As he did with the Clinton book, Schweizer is hoping to partner with media organizations interested in reporting on and advancing his examination of Bush’s finances—an arrangement Schweizer feels has been mischaracterized in the media. “With the Clinton book, we didn’t just give it to reporters with the expectation that they would report on the book,” he says. “We shared it early on with investigative reporters at ABC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post because we wanted that additional scrutiny [of the book’s subjects]. And we want similar scrutiny for this project.”
It’s a pretty good con, Hillary vs Jeb is booooooooring and we’ve got 18 months of this crap to fill, so let’s make things interesting for both sides, right?
It would be irresponsible not to.
SP
the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department,
That’s some serious weasel shit right there. Several department representatives (Who else? Who cares!) had to sign off and none of them objected either, but clearly because State was one of them and Hillary was in charge of State it was a bribe. The logical gaps would embarrass a fourth grader.
germy shoemangler
If the NYTIMES isn’t bad enough, Sharyl Attkisson will now be appearing on all tv stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.
They own a news station in my town, and the “journalists” have NOTHING good EVER to say about John Kerry. One time I had it on in the background while reading, and they were discussing some American soldiers who’d been killed, and they claimed “Kerry said it didn’t matter” which made me look up and say whaaat??
So expect Attkisson’s “reports” to be flooding the tv stations of low info voters all over the U.S.
JPL
Earlier I started to read the article and I stopped after this sentence..
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. From then on, it was pure speculation.
Villago Delenda Est
So, the fucktards of the Grey Lady learned NOTHING from Whitewater.
High time to kick some “journamalists” to the curb.
Betty Cracker
@germy shoemangler: Is that the same Sharyl Attkisson who once cited a stuck delete key as evidence that Obama, Hillary Clinton or their NSA minions had personally hacked her laptop to delete a Benghazi article while she was typing it? Yes, it’s that Sharyl Attkisson.
Every Democratic presidential candidate gets savaged to some extent by the default-Republican corporate media. But for my money, no one got personally shit on by the mainstream outlets more than Al Gore. This deal with sleaze merchant Schweizer tells me they plan to outdo themselves to take down Hillary Clinton. Oh well. At least she knew what she was getting into…
raven
You better watch you ass on this shit or Mika will get you for your “jihad”.
benw
Meanwhile, billionaires pour millions of $ *directly* into the Super PACs that are *directly* controlled by candidate’s campaigns, not at-least-one-step-removed charitable foundations, and we hear squat. I need BoBo to help explain this one to me.
OzarkHillbilly
@benw: Money flows up. Shit flows down.
D58826
ot but here we go again. Two hostages were killed in an attack on an AQ target. I assume that all of the usual parties will start screaming but it’s a war zone. Bad stuff happens. Its tragic but has been happening since the first ape picked up that bone.
Apparently two Americans fighting for Aq were also killed even though they were not specifically targeted. This will reignite the debate about targeting Americans without trial. I have yet to see in all of these debates what the alternative is. These two guys decided to join AQ. No one forced them to go to Pakistan and make war on the US. To me it is simply the fortunes of war. If you take up arms against the US, citizen or not, you just have to take your chances. What is the alternative – wait till they come back to the US and blowup a shopping mall?.
Bobby Thomson
Not the end of her campaign but not a nothing burger, either. The failure to disclose smells very bad.
WaterGirl
In happy news, I get to go see Joe Biden speak today!
charluckles
Who does this garbage play too? Is there a segment of the population that doesn’t realize that you take the same magnifying glass to nearly any politician, big fish or little, and find some evidence of “corruption”? Does this segment overlap at all with the segment that believes that the Citizen United ruling would not lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption?
MDC
@Bobby Thomson:
Agreed. This is not great. It’s unfortunate that the knee-jerk reflex here is to attack the messenger. The Clintons have in fact taken money from a lot of sleazy people.
benw
@OzarkHillbilly: Shortest BoBo ever. All it needs is, “and it’s the hippies fault”.
Booger
What exactly has Schweitzer and his team of researcher been pouring over BushCo’s financial records? Maple syrup?
Or did this crack team of hard-hitting journamalists mean ‘poring?’
D58826
@MDC: And the Bushes and Romney haven’t?
Gene108
@MDC:
One of the major investors in George w. Bush’s early business failures were members of the bin Laden family.
It did not receive nearly this much coverage.
The fact they are attacking the Clintons for the appearance of impropriety, when the entire Republican Presidential field is openly being bought by billionaires is bullshit.
The messenger needs to be attacked.
This sort of uneven and partisan reporting is one reason we cannot have nice things.
Edit: And clearly the Clinton Foundation has done a lot of sleazy things in return for contributions…which is where this speculation is heading …despite the actual good things they do…
benw
@Betty Cracker: It’s hard to tell who got it worse, Kerry or Gore. I feel like Gore died from a thousand little cuts and mischaracterizations, e.g. “invented the internet”, that each would have taken any real news outlet about 10 minutes to fact-check, while Kerry got blindsided by one massive lie. In either case the American media failed miserably.
Zandar
@Gene108:
A trillion times this.
Hillary is far from being my favorite politician, but with the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson and others openly bragging about how they plan to purchase candidates for President, I’m going to come out swinging.
feebog
From the article:
2007. Hmm. Who was President in 2007? Some cowboy from Texas if I recall. And the Secretary of State sure as hell was not Hillary Clinton. Uranium One was buying up mines and mining rights in the U.S. well before HRC ever became SoS. The times should be ashamed to be printing this drivel.
Snarkworth
@Booger: I know! I’d be royally miffed if someone poured anything over MY financial records.
Roger Moore
@benw:
When in doubt, try IOKIYAR as an explanation.
Paul in KY
@benw: I thought Gore had it worse. Sen. Kerry could have responded a lot better to that 1 repulsive lie & maybe changed his fate. VP Gore had it coming from everywhere.
qwerty42
@Betty Cracker: … But for my money, no one got personally shit on by the mainstream outlets more than Al Gore. …
Hey! Bush was a great guy you could have a beer with and what about his courageous rescue of the little girl from the burning house (I think we can all thank Peggy Noonan for that one. it was one of her imaginary profiles of an imaginary person). As far as I’m concerned, the national press covered itself in crap in 2000 and was still doing it when it credulously accepted the administrations line on Iraq. It hasn’t recovered yet. Josh Marshall has often ridiculed them, and I’m sure they have no clue why that would happen.
Roger Moore
@charluckles:
It’s the big lie in action. Knowing that some kind of smear is possible is different from seeing a smear in action. Even people who know that you could do the same thing to any politician will react to seeing it done.
Cervantes
@Gene108:
Do you have a list?
MDC
@D58826: Yes, the Bushes and Romneys have too, and it’s been investigated and reported on. “Everyone does it” is not a justification.
Cervantes
@feebog:
When Giuliani and company cleaned up 42nd and 8th, they forgot to do anything about the occupants of the Times building.
MomSense
I was just commiserating with a friend yesterday that what I find so frustrating is that it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to explain why ____________________[insert Republican talking point or media story] isn’t accurate or means something different in practice than what it sounds like. For all our faults, we are all trying to read this NYT article critically to find the errors or weasel statements. Most people do not do this which is why it takes so much effort to get our message out.
This narrative of HRC engaging in handing out favors to contributors scheme at State is what people will remember unless we come up with a more compelling narrative and even then it is really hard to counter because you know the media will play clips on an endless loop of Republican candidates and operatives saying this over and over again. Even if the media offer an opposing view, often what people remember is hearing that baseless charge repeated until it is believed to be fact.
p.a.
@Villago Delenda Est: No. No. They learned everything from Whitewater. They learned that ‘consequences’ is now only a theoretical concept for those above a certain social level.
askew
I don’t care about this. I care that the Clinton Foundation “accidentally” filed 5 years of taxes wrong about foreign government donations and have to refile taxes. They’ve known since 2008 that Hillary was going to run for office and they still make all these boneheaded decisions. The Clintons and their need to play in the gray area and then act surprised when caught doing it is exhausting.
askew
@WaterGirl:
I’m jealous. Have fun and enjoy the experience.
Cervantes
@p.a.:
Jeff Gerth, who spear-headed their Whitewater coverage, and their Wen-Ho Lee coverage, went on to win a Pulitzer for an unrelated topic.
Plus he subsequently blamed his editors at the Times for mistakes found in his Whitewater articles.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: Ask him to jump into the 2016 race!
Nutella
Both sides do it!
They love this stuff. Print it, teach the controversy, pages get filled with words, and nobody has to do any work.
Mike in NC
At this point the New York Times is about as reputable as the Washington Times.
germy shoemangler
Did HRC learn anything from John Kerry refusing to take the swiftboaters seriously enough to challenge them?
Cervantes
@askew:
The sloppiness is disheartening, I agree.
Also, the excerpt you provided from Reuters suggests tens of millions of dollars in under-reported government grants but does not mention “more than $100 million” in “over-reported government grants.”
catclub
@Bobby Thomson:
Some rules only matter after the Clintons have broken them. Everyone else has been breaking them for years. SuperPacs
have great disclosure policies, right?
aimai
This is going to be the Tony Rezko line of attack on Obama all over again: they shot their bolt too early. Sure, Askew and other pathologically anti Clinton people are going to throw it into the Benghazi mix, but 18 months from now the voters who are going to vote for HRC won’t give a shit because the alternative is people so much more corrupt and so much more horrifying that its like comparing a gnat bite to having your leg bitten off by a shark. And for the others–the Askews on the supposed left and the right wing tea baggers? What do they care? Nothing can increase their poutrage meter.
DK
How much more obvious could it be that the Republicans and Hillary’s rabid haters are getting embarrassingly desperate now that Hillary has risen to a double-digit lead on every Republican in the latest CNN/ORC poll? Benghazi crashed a burned, and so did Emailghazi — and as with all these baseless, desperate, reaching right wing attacks the witch hunt has only made Hillary more popular.
So having failed miserably with their fake outrage, theyre now attacking an international nonprofit for taking international donations and Bill Clinton’s speaking fees — including attacks on speaking fees he didn’t even accept haha. Meanwhile, Hillary is out talking about issues that actually affect the American people’s lives. And they can’t figure out why she has more credibility with Americans than the media and why she keeps rising in the polls.
By the time this latest non-scandal is over she should be up by triple digits.
Keith G
I have no problem with the idea that the Clinton’s financial arrangements get examined with a very strong magnifying glass. I also assume that once the field gets whittled down, such efforts will be exerted on whoever the one or two Republican front runners are. (Even though we know who the finalists will be I think the field is still too big right now for any one of them to command the same amount of attention that is paid to Hillary Clinton who is the candidate for the Democratic Party.)
I also think that once this is all said and done there will be some mistakes found in the Clinton financials. And I also think it’s not going to matter particularly if Secretary of State Clinton is able to run a strong campaign. Who she is as a person and what she hopes to do as president when compared to the opposition will be the most important matter. What forensic accountants find out about the Clinton Initiative is going to put a lot of people to sleep no matter how much noise Rush Limbaugh makes of it.
benw
@Roger Moore: Between IOKIYAR and punching hippies, you’ve covered 99% of Brooks’ drivel these days. (The other 1% is uncritically repeating conservative economic lies that poor Krugman has to waste his time slapping down).
askew
@Cervantes:
I extracted the parts that I am worried about. Either the accounting team at CF are morons or their change in reporting 0 in foreign governments to the IRS was intentional. I am more frustrated by the amateur hour crap the Clinton camp has produced already – the dumb e-mail decision, playing fast and loose with tax forms and disclosures, etc. They’ve known since Obama won the primary that Hillary would be running again, they’ve been through this process 3 times already between Bill and Hillary and they still can’t seem to stop making these kind of mistakes. And they still don’t have a good answer besides no comment and it is a distraction.
As David Corn said on twitter: “@DavidCornDC: I’ve never understood why the Clintons didn’t seem to understand potential problem of hobnobbing w/ foreign interests, Goldman Sachs, etc.”
catclub
@aimai: I agree. The Clintons have been regularly attacked for almost 25 years, and they are more popular now than when they started. They are pretty fixed quantities.
catclub
@askew:
Ha, ha. The most recent complete disaster that would CERTAINLY sink her. Is forgotten by everyone but you and me.
25 years of attacks and they are more popular now. Get used to it.
Original Lee
@askew: This. The needless drama that could have been avoided if they had just listened to a competent straight-shooter!
Bobby B
For news I go to “Democracy Now!” All the other “sources” are just to feed my hate jones.
askew
@Keith G:
What these stories about the Clinton Foundation are going to do, whether true in the case of filing incorrect tax returns or BS like the NYT story, is to reinforce the negative opinion many voters have of Hillary’s trustworthiness (she is already underwater in polls on this issue) and turn the CF from an asset to a negative for Hillary.
There is no comparison to Obama and the Rezko story because the Obamas are squeaky clean and that was literally the only questionable issue they could find on them. The Clintons have scores of questionable issues regarding money and influence. Yes, the MSM has ginned up scandals on the Clintons but they aren’t helping themselves by constantly playing so fast and loose ethically.
gene108
@Cervantes:
I do not think they have done anything sleazy, but I think the chain of thought that is being formed – by both right-wingers and liberals, who hate the Clintons, and are willing to believe the worst rumors about them – with regards to the Clinton Foundation is:
1. Clintons get money from “undisclosed”, “sleazy”, etc. foreign donors.
2. SoS Clinton and/or former President Bill Clinton do favors for these donors
3.The Clinton foundation is a quasi-criminal enterprise, slush fund and/or tax dodge for the Clintons to enrich themselves and sell favors.
This is laying the groundwork for 2016, when and if Hillary is the nominee and Bill’s tooling around being charismatic and connecting with folks struggling to make a living, because he came from a lower middle-class background himself, the Republicans will say, “yeah, but look at all the criminal things he’s done while out of office with his Foundation,” and everyone on the Right will believe it along with many on the Left.
Get the media to pick up on the “criminal” Clinton Foundation and you have a way to push low-info and undecided voters towards Republicans.
Belafon
@askew:
Because those rules only seem to apply to Democrats. When are Republicans going to get punished for bowing down to Wall Street, the Kochs, Sheldon Anderson, being willing to take money and not disclose where it’s coming from, etc?
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: The forensic accountants in the press certainly had a field day with Mitt Romney’s years and years of tax returns, didn’t they? Oh, wait…
I’m sure the $100 million that Bill and Hill have stashed in the Caymans will become an issue, too. Oh, wait…
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson:
Sorry, there is not much of a story here. For example, another poster noted that a number of agencies had to sign off on the deal. But the sleazeballs who planted this story want people to see a direct “money for favors” deal done solely by the Clintons or even just Hillary alone.
This nonsense also waffles on the fact that during this period Putin and the Russians went from being our best buds ever to “Cold War 2: The Commie Force Awakens.”
And, as always, there is the attempt to slime Hillary Clinton and the Democrats as just not caring about Real America’s Real Interests.
I’m just waiting for some Tea Party Asshat to demand a Congressional Investigation.
gene108
@MDC:
But when the messenger, the New York Times, focuses on one person rather than “everyone [who] does it”, the messenger needs to be taken to task for cherry picking facts about an issue.
From the “everybody does it” file, I think the Clintons getting donations to their foundation – which has done some very good work around the world – is a helluva a lot different than billionaires throwing undisclosed millions into Super PACs to buy Republican candidates or whatever favors Romney and Bush, Jr. got because their fathers were/are bigshots.
Just compare and contrast: Clintons get money to Foundation that does charity work around the world, whereas Republicans get money and favors to personally enrich themselves and their closest friends.
It really ain’t the same, when you look at what the output for the monetary input is.
Beeb
According to someone (Howard Dean?) on Morning Joe (ptui), Schweitzer is being bankrolled by Ted Cruz’s billionaire(s). So going after Bush too doesn’t mean Schweitzer is somehow bipartisan. It means he’s a hired gun who has been aimed at Cruz’s opponents.
UncomfortableTruth
Interesting how we all just ignore that Dave Sirota has been writing about her pay to play scandal for some months, and has her essentially caught red handed on the Colombia free trade deal, and the software deals with China.
But Sirota since Sirota can’t be dismissed, we just ignore him and pretend only the right wing goons care about this stuff.
Screw the facts though right? By all means keep inoculating your readers even before the primaries! Dissent must be stamped out!!
sparrow
@Betty Cracker: I have to say I’ve never been a huge Hillary fan (don’t think she’s a great politician, disagree on some issues), but the more the estabishment attacks her, the more I am like, YOU GO GIRL, RIP THEIR THROATS OUT AND FUCKING DESTROY THEM ALL.
Seriously, if this continues I may end up going door to door for Hillary after all (never thought I’d say that).
Mike E
A call I’ve been working on actually worked: an attempt to repeal our state’s renewable energy plan (a modest 12.5%) failed in committee, twice, due to constituent calls I helped to generate…small victory, but I’ll take it :-)
rikyrah
The Clinton Foundation is nothing but messy
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
What fun! What’s the event?
Elizabelle
@sparrow: I’m hoping that’s the dynamic that will set in.
The Kochs and Schweitzer are not subtle.
Violet
@sparrow:
Yeah, me too. I think John Cole said something like that on a front page post recently as well. Talk about an unlikely person to feel that way.
Just wait until the misogynist attacks start. Women who never thought they’d support Hillary will be staunch supporters.
D58826
@gene108: If everyone who has done it were disqualified then I suspect the only candidates left would be porky pig and pluto the dog
the Conster
@askew:
I am so in agreement. Exhausting is the exact right word. On the upside, maybe O’Malley is getting some traction – a friend who’s largely non-political sent me an email link to O’Malley’s speech on NPR talking about balance instead of pitchforks. Maybe someone else will get off the sidelines because of all this shit and provide an alternative.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You guys need to figure some shit out here, here’s some hints:
We have a two party system.
Hillary will be the Dem nominee.
Some Republican asshole will be their nominee.
You can either help tear down the only person standing between you and an all-three branch Republican government, or you can do nothing until November of 2016 (or even, God forbid, help out) and then vote for the only choice you’re going to get. Probably Jeb, or Hillary.
Any other option you’re considering assumes a form of government that does not exist in this nation.
Keith G
@askew: You are right. There are negative opinions of the Clintons that will be reinforced. I do not think that this is going to matter a whole hell of a lot because the division of the American politics is severe and mostly already locked in. The competition is for a small slice of voters who are are much more amenable to Hillary Clinton then they are to Jeb or Scott or Marco.
Even if the Clintons are further bruised a bit by some disclosures you seem to be salivating at, it’s not going to be a big issue except for the regular cast of conservative mouthpieces and newspaper reporters who sprout wood hoping to get a byline on an article about a scandal.
Peale
@Belafon: Yep. Let’s just consider that this “coming together of captains of industry and politicians” along with “thought leaders” represents a kind of thinking that the press falls over itself to take part in each winter at Davos. The Clinton foundation taps into that vibe. You can think of it as you wish, but for the press to be shocked that wealthy around the world hob-nob over a charity is kind of precious.
Violet
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Hillary will likely be the nominee but things happen. Accidents, illnesses, scandals too big to ignore. Whatever. Someone else needs to be running in case for some reason Hillary can’t run. Someone else also needs to be running so Hillary has some primary opponents. She needs debate practice or she’ll be rusty when it comes time for the debates against the Republican.
Democrats also don’t want a coronation. People want ideas discussed. That’s only fair and is the right thing to do. I hope other candidates in addition to O’Malley jump in. Bring on the Biden.
Violet
@Keith G:
I think the competition really is which party can GOTV better.
Brachiator
@catclub:
Yep. These weak ass smears always make me think of one of Darrell Hammond’s best Clinton impersonations (could not find the video clip, but here’s the transcript):
[ Open on still of “NBC Special Report” ]
Male V/O: And now, an NBC Special Report with Tom Brokaw.
[ Fade to Tom Brokaw, in front of a title backdrop that reads “The President on Trial” ]
Tom Brokaw: On Friday, after months of impeachment turmoil, William Jefferson Clinton was acquitted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Shortly after the Senate took the final votes on the articles of impeachment, President Clinton held a press conference in the White House rose garden. Let’s take a look at this historically moving address.
[ Fade to Clinton walking up to the podium. He gives thumbs-up as he declares … ]
Bill Clinton: I … am … bulletproof. [ walks off the podium, then walks back to say one more thing ]
Next time, you best bring Kryptonite! [ gives thumbs-up and walks off ]
askew
@the Conster:
While it will continue to be a longshot, O’Malley has been positioning himself well as a contrast to Hillary. And it sounds like he is going to jump in to the race in May. I’ll be curious to see if he can gain any traction by the fall in early states. I expect him to remain a blip in national polls until January 2016 when everyone else starts paying attention.
Gin & Tonic
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Indeed.
Here’s another view. The only Obama 2012 states where his margin of victory was less than 5% were VA, OH and FL. Give the R’s all of those plus all of the Romney states and HRC wins by 272 to 266.
burnspbesq
@SP:
Assuming that the “committee” involved is CFIUS, here is the list of agencies.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/foreign-investment/Pages/cfius-members.aspx
Betty Cracker
@MDC:
So did my mother, God rest her soul. For more than 30 years, she was on the payroll of an operating company associated with an openly misogynist parent organization that functioned as a child rapist protection racket and used loopholes to avoid paying taxes.
Put another way, my mom was a nurse at a hospital run by the Catholic church. My point? Sometimes guilt by association is bullshit.
Tree With Water
I believe Hillary unfit for the presidency. But I stand prepared to cancel my NY Times subscription (take that!) if/when they start this Whitewater bullshit all over again. Which is why I say that in terms of rallying the base around her, Hillary Clinton must thank her lucky stars every night for the caliber of her enemies.
I wonder if the Times realizes how stupid the paper looks? I mean, I’m sure the journalists do. And I don’t mean the paper’s newly professed (and hilarious) Claude Rains-like naivety about money and politics. No, I mean do the people at the Times who made the decision to throw in with a political hatchet man think people wouldn’t notice? Or care? I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if the same people rehired Judith Miller.
Brachiator
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Hillary may be the nominee. Pretty likely. But not Inevitable. And after the enthusiasm that voters had for Obama, Hillary still has to give people a reason to vote for her, and a sense that she is the right person to vote for.
All the cheerleading and false insistence of loyalty is premature. And even the somewhat logical assertion that any sensible person must vote the Democrat resonates more with true believers than anyone else.
Just One More Canuck
@D58826: I was at Disney World recently and met Pluto. Since I am a foreigner (Canadian) that makes Pluto highly suspect
burnspbesq
@Just One More Canuck:
Pluto was ALWAYS highly suspect.
Violet
@Betty Cracker: Beautiful. Love that.
mai naem mobile
Don’t forget we’ll also get the “Hillary is a cunning scheming politician who’s been planning on running for POTUS since 1996” but “oooh, looky here, she’s so stupid that she had furrin governments and furriners who donated to her husbands charity -hahaha didn’t she see the conflict of interest”
Bonus points for Dem ex presidents and president wanna bes should not have mad money or intend to make any money, they have to live in poverty.
Mandalay
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I think “You people” is the preferred term when you want to be a condescending asshole.
burnspbesq
OT, but can i get a chorus of “Fuck you, Mitch McConnell” from the congregation?
http://justsecurity.org/22348/senator-mcconnells-modest-proposal-reform-section-215-dont/
burnspbesq
@Mandalay:
Anybody who hasn’t figured that shit out is worthy of condescension.
Just One More Canuck
@burnspbesq: Yes, but Goofy is the one I would out for
Zandar
@burnspbesq:
Like the two-thirds of American voters who stayed home last November and gave the Senate and states like Maryland and Illinois to Republican governors.
You know.
Morons.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
What?
To quote Vincent, from “Pulp Fiction,” That’s a bold statement.
I have a few reservations with respect to Hillary. But unfit? No.
Xenos
@Betty Cracker: There is no way the Clinton Foundation has taken as much dirty money as Mother Theresa.
Calouste
@Keith G:
You’re funny. Or terribly naïve. Can’t tell really.
JustRuss
@askew:
Assuming that’s true, Clinton is either the most incompetent villain ever, or some bonehead at the Foundation screwed up. Yes, it’s sloppy, and it’s inexcusable that she doesn’t have someone doublechecking to make sure this kind of crap doesn’t happen, but I can’t see how anyone can construe this as HRC trying to pull a fast one when the damning evidence was published in plain sight in the CF’s donor list.
And that’s what put me off of HRC last time around: She didn’t seem to be able to put together a competent, disciplined team. I’ll still vote for here, since our other option will be incompetent and evil, but it’s hard to get enthused.
Calouste
The Guardian has a long article about Sheldon Adelson’s operations in Macau, which I can’t link to because it has a word in the title that FYWP doesn’t like.
askew
@JustRuss:
At this point you have to wonder if the problem is with HRC herself. The number of boneheaded mistakes that have already impacted her run. That was the one thing I expected to be fixed in this campaign. But, she’s turned over most of her staff and still the same fucking dumb mistakes. How did no one notice that the # of reported donations from foreign governments all of a sudden dropped to zero?
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: It is critical that we take Ohio in 16. No Republican has EVER been elected president, without winning Ohio.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Man, that’s a great analogy!
Xenos
@Calouste: Embedding that link for you re Adelson’s sleazy fortune.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Fuck you, Mitch. His ploy will probably work, though. The scumwad!
Xenos
@Calouste: I tried embedding the link, and had the same problem.
Try this link.
Mandalay
@JustRuss:
I find that very plausible. Just two months ago. Some decisions made by the foundation seem boneheaded rather than evil. For example, just two months ago….
What on earth were they thinking? And then, just last week…
People who are good at running foundations, and understand politics, and understand media scrutiny, are probably very thin on the ground. One would think Bill Clinton would fit the bill, but apparently not.
catclub
@Calouste: Yeah, the press really tore up Romney for only opening one year of tax returns.
Forensic accountants were more valuable than rubies, all hired by the press to track every penny.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: Given that count, the only election news of interest is: Can a GOP rep turn even more states than OH, VA and FL? And that is FAR too specific a question to keep up interest for the nest 18 months.
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: Unfit? Yes.
burnspbesq
@Xenos:
Next Tuesday, when Adelson is scheduled to testify in the wrongful-termination suit filed by a former Sands senior exec, should be really interesting. And IIRC, there is an ongoing Federal grand jury investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by Sands.
Adelson is so dirty that “dirty” doesn’t seem adequate to describe him.
burnspbesq
@Tree With Water:
Bill of particulars, please.
Xenos
@burnspbesq: Maybe a parade of horribles will do.
Still waiting, in any case. I am surprised someone has not been generating a list of scary-sounding stuff.
burnspbesq
@Xenos:
Google “sands macau fcpa.” It’s a gold mine. For openers, in Sands’ 2012 10-K it apparently disclosed that the audit committee of the board had determined that the company “probably” violated the FCPA.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mandalay: I thought it was obvious enough that I didn’t need a cue.
boatboy_srq
The saddest part of the NYT coverage is that it’s likely the most thoughtful, best researched and least biased coverage Schweizer’s book is likely to get.
Peale
@Mandalay: Does the Clinton Foundation do anything? I’ve heard that they actual do…in that case, we probably would be just as likely to be complaining about how the “cold hearted Clintons” stopped helping the poors just so she could run for President and how calculated and selfish those moves were. It’s all about her dontchyaknow.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
You’ve written this twice. Mere repetition is not the same thing as elaborating on your opinion.
JoyfulA
Congratulations, Zandar, on yet another link from Atrios.
UncomfortableTruth
Interesting how we all just ignore that Dave Sirota has been writing about her pay to play scandal for some months, and has her essentially caught red handed on the Colombia free trade deal, and the software deals with China.
But Sirota since Sirota can’t be dismissed, we just ignore him and pretend only the right wing goons care about this stuff.
Screw the facts though right? By all means keep inoculating your readers even before the primaries! Dissent must be stamped out!!
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: Well, first of all, Brach, I write what I damn well please. Secondly, and as those acquainted here are too well aware, I believe Hillary unfit for the presidency (that’s #3rd reference, since your keeping score). And if my saying so irks you, all the better- you deserve to be irked.
Brachiator
@Tree With Water:
This is more or less a blog about opinions, so it is a bit strange that you are unable or unwilling to express a coherent one (maybe not). This is not irksome at all. It is, rather, pointless.
I look forward to your next squeak of “Hillary is unfit for the presidency.” Do you have a schedule for this, or are your eruptions spontaneous?
EconWatcher
I’m not sure how all this will shake out, but it’s not a nothingburger (as Benghazi obviously was from day one). Bill was getting huge donations to his foundations and speaking fees for himself and his family from people who had a strong financial interest in State Department decisions, while his wife was SOS. This is a big conflict of interest, and it does not look like it was well managed,
And guys, I gotta say, some of the dismissive comments above are really silly:
1. If your approval is required, and you act while having a conflict of interest, it’s not a defense that other approvals were also required. You shouldn’t have to think too hard to see why this is so.
2. If you make a decision while having a conflict of interest, you can’t defend by saying “you have no proof my decision was actually motivated by personal gain.” The whole point of conflict of interest rules is that we can’t know, but you shouldn’t be the one making the decision if you have a conflict.
3. These allegations might have been surfaced by a rightwing nutjob, but that does nothing whatsoever to disprove them.
Chait has a good take. And no, the fact that he favors charter schools and agrees with his wife on some things doesn’t negate his analysis either. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/disastrous-clinton-post-presidency.html
Neo
… but hey, just because the Clintons forgot to mention this $2.35 million is no reason to believe that there is corruption afoot … it can all be easily explained as Alzheimer’s disease.
I guess those discussions into the 25th Amendment will begin sooner than we all thought.
Bobby Thomson
@Brachiator: the failure to disclose looks very bad, and nothing you said to change the subject changes that. We also don’t know which agency took the lead on this.
Bobby Thomson
@EconWatcher: apart from your cite to eventheliberal Chait, who may be ignored, I agree with all of that.
Bobby Thomson
@UncomfortableTruth: actually, Sirota can be and is dismissed pretty regularly.
EconWatcher
@Bobby Thomson:
I don’t agree with some of Chait’s stuff, and he got a little weird with his riff on political correctness, which I thought started with some legitmate points and then just turned,,, odd. But Chait has done the best takedowns of Republican budgets that you can find anywhere, and has exposed Paul Ryan’s various frauds better than anyone. There is a reason why K-thug references Chait often.
I think a fair-minded liberal who reads Chait’s stuff regularly should recognize him as a useful citizen. Just skip his education stuff if you have to.
Brachiator
@Bobby Thomson:
Please don’t try to read my mind or guess at my motivations. I was not looking to change the subject.
If some official agency wants to look into what has been reported here, and finds something significant, so be it. But I don’t get too excited about “what looks bad,” especially if one of the primary sources is a political operative looking for mud to fling.
The Chait piece is interesting, but what are we supposed to do with stuff like this:
Is this sloppiness criminal or actionable in any way? How “greedy” is “greedy” and what does it have to do with Hillary’s presidential ambitions?
UncomfortableTruth
Clearly $500,000.00 for a speech to the spouse of a current official is not a bribe at all. These profit seeking entities composed of oligarchs and racketeers clearly just are genuinely interested in hearing Clinton give the same speech you can hear 500 different ways on youtube. Clearly.
Mcdonnell is in jail for much less.
EconWatcher
@UncomfortableTruth: @UncomfortableTruth:
yes
EconWatcher
@UncomfortableTruth: @UncomfortableTruth:
By themselves, the huge speaking fees don’t prove anything, They could be hiring Bill to speak for the same reason they hire Elton John to play at their birthday parties: for the prestige and snob appeal, just another example of conspicuous consumption.
The problem is on the other end, if Hillary did not recuse herself from decisions involving the interests of those who paid her husband the speaking fees or made big foundation donations. If that’s the case, she has a big, big problem–a potentially indictable problem–and I hope it all surfaces fast so there will be enough time for another nominee to build his or her case.
The NYT is doing its job, and may be doing Dems a favor getting this out now instead of mid 2016. The people bashing NYT on this one sound like our own version of wingnuts to me.
askew
@EconWatcher:
That is a damning article. Most troubling part for me:
I’d love to see Hillary answer why she didn’t comply with Obama administration requests since she worked for them. But, I doubt any reporter would ask that question and she doesn’t seem to be giving interviews right now.
burnspbesq
@EconWatcher:
Can you name a single documented example of this, or are you just making shit up?
UncomfortableTruth
@burnspbesq:
The Colombian oil case Sirota has written about.
UncomfortableTruth
@askew:
Between this and the emails, at what point does her break with the administration become a liability for her in the primaries?
I suppose if Biden runs it’ll be a thing.
UncomfortableTruth
@EconWatcher:
That’s the weird part about this. I kinda get the idea of closing ranks in the general election. But we’re not even close to the primaries yet! We need to deal with this seriously now rather than later.
askew
@UncomfortableTruth:
I think as long as Hillary backs Obama on the big things throughout the primary process (TPP, Iran) the admin won’t publicly distance themselves from her.
JWR
Very late to the thread, but on yesterday’s Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman actually cited the work of Schweizer in reporting on this Clinton Foundation brou-ha-ha. I thought, WTF, Amy?
But back to the point, the NYT reporters stated on the PBS News Hour that this story actually came up in 2008, and that Schweizer was just following up on their reporting. So essentially, Schweizer was cherry picking the story to write this “Clinton Cash” tome.
(Just adding that I’m probably the least enthusiastic supporter of another Clinton presidency you’re ever likely to meet.)
Procopius
@D58826: Well, let’s see. “Nobody made them go to Pakistan to wage war on the U.S.” You don’t see anything odd about that statement? Like, maybe, the U.S. is not supposed to be waging war in Pakistan? So it wasn’t actually a “war zone.” Anonymous White House officials are calling it an al Qaeda “base,” but what is that really? A house or barn where they say they’ve seen evidence of “extremists” entering and exiting. So, basically, that could be any place in the world because they call any male 14 years old or older an “extremist combatant.” Actually, one of them had been indicted for treason, which I thought was interesting. They never gave al-Awlaki the honor of actually charging him with any crime, so he never could have evaded his end by “turning himself in.”