WHOA! NYR is no RW rag! THIS IS A MUST READ! "The Clinton System"

[snagglepuss]

This is an excellent investigative piece about the Clinton's donor machine and the questionable Clinton Foundation.



snip

...a larger question concerns how Hillary and Bill Clinton have built their powerful donor machine, and what its existence might mean for Hillary Clinton’s future conduct as American president. The following investigation, drawing on many different sources, is intended to give a full sense of the facts about Clinton and not to endorse a particular candidate in the coming election.


snip

It’s an axiom of Washington politics in the age of Citizens United and Super PACs that corporations and the very rich can channel almost unlimited amounts of money to candidates for high office to pave the way for later favors...But Hillary and her husband have other links to big donors, and they go back much further than the current election cycle. What stands out about what I will call the Clinton System is the scale and complexity of the connections involved, the length of time they have been in operation, the presence of former president Bill Clinton alongside Hillary as an equal partner in the enterprise, and the sheer magnitude of the funds involved.

snip

Among the most important, and lucrative, business friendships the Clintons have formed through the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiatives has been that with Canadian energy billionaire Frank Giustra. A major donor to the foundation for many years, Giustra became a member of its board and since 2007 has been co-sponsor of the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, or CGGI. In turn, Bill Clinton’s political influence and personal contacts with foreign heads of state have been crucial to Giustra’s international business interests.

In September 2005, Bill Clinton and Giustra travelled to Almaty, in southeast Kazakhstan, to meet with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. At their meeting Clinton told Nazarbayev that he would support Kazakhstan’s bid to become chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE is a body with the responsibility for verifying, among other things, the fairness of elections among member states. According to multiple sources, including the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, Nazarbayev coveted this position for Kazakhstan, primarily as a mark of European diplomatic respectability for his country and himself.

Clinton’s endorsement of the Kazakh bid was truly bizarre in view of Kazakhstan’s ranking by Transparency International as among the most corrupt countries in the world...

SNIP

Possible reasons for Clinton’s support become clearer when we scrutinize the activities of Frank Giustra. In a January 31, 2008 article in The New York Times, Jo Becker and Don Van Natta, Jr., provided detailed evidence that Nazarbayev brought his influence to bear to enable Giustra to beat out better-qualified competitors for a stake in Kazakhstan’s uranium mines worth $350 million.

snip

The deal was closed within forty-eight hours of Clinton’s departure from Almaty. Following this successful visit to Central Asia, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation. He then made a further donation of $100 million to the foundation in June 2008.





http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-2016-election/

[think]

1. Love this nugget from the article:

Among the corporate sponsors of the 2014 and 2015 CGI conferences in New York City, for example, were HSBC, Coca Cola, Monsanto, Proctor and Gamble, Cisco, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobile, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard. For sponsorship of $250,000 or more, corporate executives attending the CGI meetings can enjoy special privileges up to and including direct access to the Clintons.

[snagglepuss]

7. Quite the nugget. nt

[Baobab]

144. The one that bugs me the most was BC being paid $600,000 to make a speech for Dutch insurer Achmea

while the second of the two arbitral investor v. state lawsuits between them and the Slovak Republic (over single payer health care!) was still pending.

You can read a summary of the case starting around Page 13 here:

http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw3207.pdf

Its my strong conviction that thanks to our membership in the WTO something quite similar could easily happen to us in the near future. And there would be nothing we could do about it at that point. It would hijack democracy successfully, forcing us to keep a system that kills 100,000 Americans unnecessarily each year.

Then they will claim that its caused by what they of course will allege are "high wages in US health care" (but thats not really so true nor is THAT the problem causing high costs, its the huge waste created by the complexity and extra useless layers of the insurance system)

and allege that a law passed to get the US to allow foreign health insurance firms and a globalization of service jobs at low wages would supposedly lower health care costs (as opposed to its real goal, keeping the current tiered insurance system, which adds absolutely no value, and the need less addition of delay on people seeking care and the systems pointless addition of time spent arguing with the insurance industry bean counters adds complexity and stress and delays and failure to diagnose until its undeniable increases the cost of health care substantially.)

For 20 years they have been setting up GATS to dismember services globally (the last addition to the body count has been India's constitutional right to education) Vastly expanding the use of GATS "Mode Four" (irreversible global privatizations followed by procurement changes - (such as mandating something like the WTO's Government procurement Agreement's e-portal) to force millions of current public sector jobs into privatization and then global competitive bidding by subcontractors - forcing big chunks of large service sectors like health care and education into what is in effect a big international jobs for markets scheme) is the goal sabotaging what they will soon claim are dysfunctional health care and education and IT systems unnecessarily to 'justify' these really badly advised changes in high paid skilled services, with the intent of chopping wages in teaching and nursing and IT way down, changes which would hurt millions of skilled Americans' families and ruin our faith in our nation's leadership.

But by then it would have become too late to change it.

[Avalon Sparks]

151. And this Government employee gets fired for accepting a 20 dollar tip...

As a Compliance Officer for a US company, I've used this example when training our sales people about bribing government employees for bids....


http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2014/02/04/Garbageman-forced-out-fined-1500-for-accepting-20-tip/51391391545480/

I honestly don't know how the Clintons get away with it.....

[AgerolanAmerican]

155. compliance is for thee, not for Her Majesty

for her it's "convenience"... and oh how convenient it is

[Avalon Sparks]

165. In other countries it's bribery....

For Bill and Hillary, it's just capitalism....

[Baobab]

167. arrgh

He probably was tipped for doing a good job.

[Avalon Sparks]

174. But the CLintons walk away with a cool 150 million

[H2O Man]

17. Yikes!

[Jefferson23]

21. Yay, corruption. n/t

[Rockyj]

43. Do you think Rachel Maddow is too sold out...

to pick this up?

[Jefferson23]

44. I don't watch her show, nor any of msnbc...so I don't know.

It is slim pickens on msm. My schlock network is CNN but I get Al Jazerra and
BBC through our satellite provider too.

[CrispyQ]

177. I'm going into withdrawal when Al Jazerra is gone.

End of the month, I think.

I have no idea what I'll watch for news.

[rhett o rick]

62. Rachel has gone over to the dark side. nm

[RufusTFirefly]

67. Nearly EVERYONE prominent is gonna go over to the Dark Side...

... unless we change our rigged system soon.

Those who steadfastly resist the siren song are usually demonized or, worse, completely marginalized. (Of course, there's an even worse outcome: e.g. 4/4/68.)

That's what makes Bernie and his supporters so special.

[BillZBubb]

102. Uh, YES!

[noamnety]

136. Yes, she's too sold out.

There's a reason we are reading it here, and wondering if she would ever report it - instead of hearing about it from her and coming here to post about her report.

[appal_jack]

42. At a Quarter-mill a pop, per corp?

At a Quarter-mill a pop, some of the Wall St. Speaking gig fees look like comparative small potatoes. Of course, that's only because we have multiple, six-figure level compromisings of the Clintons in-play at present. Monsanto was cetainly willing to pony-up the big bucks. I wonder what they expect in return? How about Goldman Sachs & Price Waterhouse Cooper? These companies only make investments, and never give gifts...

-app

[peacebird]

53. Another juicy nugget. Foreign govt $$$ to Clinton Foundation while Clinton was SecState, quid pro?

Among the most striking and troubling aspects of the Clinton System are the large contributions corporations and foreign governments have made to the Clinton Foundation, along with Bill Clinton’s readiness to accept six-figure speaking fees from some of them, at times when the donors themselves had a potential financial interest in decisions being made at Hillary Clinton’s State Department. An investigation published in April 2015 by Andrew Perez, David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook at International Business Times shows that during the three-year period from October 2009 through December 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, there were at least thirteen occasions—collectively worth $2.5 million—when Bill Clinton received a six-figure speaking fee from corporations or trade groups that, according to Federal Government records, were at the time engaged in lobbying at the State Department.

These payments to Bill Clinton in 2010 included: $175,000 from VeriSign Corporation, which was engaged in lobbying at the State Department on cybersecurity and Internet taxation; $175,000 from Microsoft, which was lobbying the government on the issuance of immigrant work visas; $200,000 from SalesForce, a firm that lobbied the government on digital security issues, among other things. In 2011, these payments included: $200,000 from Goldman Sachs, which was lobbying on the Budget Control Act; and $200,000 from PhRMA, the trade association representing drug companies, which was seeking special trade protections for US-innovated drugs in the Trans-Pacific Partnership then being negotiated.

[840high]

109. .^that

[Avalon Sparks]

152. The US Foriegn Corrupt Practice Act says...

You cannot offer something of value to a Government Official, (or their close relatives) with the intent to influence a favorable business decision.

Again, I don't know how they get away with it.

I'm a Compliance Officer for a large company in the US that is owned by a foreign entity. I train employees on the FCPA rules, and review/approve contributions (including donations to foundations) and gifts & hospitality offered to government employees or entities.

I would never approve speaking fees for a government employee, we would only cover their travel costs.

Again, I don't know how the Clintons get away with it.

Yes former government officials get offered speaking fees, and sometimes even cushy jobs when they retire from government.

But the revolving Clinton door in and out of government, and the acceptance of these 'gifts' is preposterous to me.

[UglyGreed]

66. Nice bunch there

real progressives types for sure......

[farleftlib]

99. Hillary's base, IOW

Good article. It's blatantly obvious what we're getting ourselves into here. Direct access to the Clintons. That money is not a gift that comes with no strings. We all know that.

[840high]

108. +a zillion - what a racket.

[Agony]

2. clearly, Clinton supporters DO NOT care about corruption.

don't blame me.

[bjo59]

26. Human beings are extremely skilled

at shutting out of their minds anything they do not want to know about, at substituting fantasies for reality. The effects of this human characteristic have been, and will continue to be, tragically self destructive. Damn it.

[Phlem]

92. I get this just about every post.

"See no evil hear no evil"!

Also got this nice nugget too from the fountain of Clinton supporters: "There aren't anymore politicians that care about governing".

So basically, get in line and do the march.

Exactly what Democracy is all about!

[FarPoint]

51. Dysfunction is in every job.....

There is the standard and then the reality... This applies to politics as well. One must be adult enough to weed through it and weigh out what is being accomplished and we're you fit into the job....I apply this to politics as well. I do not have unrealistic expectations. I'm fine with Hillary.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

87. I think your statement only serves to reinforce the point you're responding to. nt

[Phlem]

96. ugh.

[Peace Patriot]

154. This goes TOO FAR!

This is way beyond "everybody does it."

This, in my opinion, is WHY the FBI has 150 agents on the Clinton case, and, believe me, they are NOT after mere classification errors.

There is "playing the game" and there is crime. There is "taking their money and voting against them" and there is your husband "taking their money" and you, as Sec of State, handing out the rewards.

There are CORPORATE 'ethics' vs the ethics of a PUBLIC SERVANT.

I don't know if you have any idea what I'm saying. It is this: Business ethics may stink to high heaven. Should the ethics of public service IMITATE that stink?

You say "I'm fine with Hillary." Have you ever known what a public servant is? Are you too young to know? Or are you just blind?

[CorporatistNation]

146. The Facts On Hillary Are Readily Available... The Problem Is The Lemmings...

[bkkyosemite]

3. We need to stand behind Sanders now. MSM is out to make him step out..Enough

Corruption!

[KoKo]

69. ...! n/t

[Baobab]

145. the real problem is neoliberalism and a cover up of its real goal, which is reversing the good.

changes which occurred in the 20th century.

For example, this paper describes the biggest and least known reason our health care system is so broken and remains broken through Administration after Administration- a trade agreement!- and explains how and why this is the case. It also indirectly explains one of the main causes of the 2008 financial disaster, again - thats not commonly known)

Can you folks look at the linked paper (the PDF at the page linked) maybe download it- and let me know you have it and will read it ?

When you have a bit of time to read it, you will see that the situation it describes is likely one of the major reasons Bernie Sanders is being kept out of the media.

They are afraid he will spill the beans on that. A really horrible situation that demands some kind of national discussion, that the media has successfully hidden from the country for 20+ years.


Contrast the lack of discussion here with the quite active discussion in India about the very same deal forcing them to give up their Constitutional right to education, just last year.

[think]

4. Good read. Thank you /nt

[tk2kewl]

5. But it's all for charity

[monicaangela]

93. Charity?

[snagglepuss]

125. Hillary was paying Sidney Blumenthal something like $120,000 from the Foundation

for his secret advisory role to her when she was SoS. Interesting charity, that.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

164. OMG!

this is worse than what I thought

[snagglepuss]

169. Simon Head nails it when he calls this a "system" because it is so massive and complex.

This complexity makes it hard to see the whole picture. Easy to think one has a handle on it and then bam more crap is revealed. It's all so devious yet neither of them bat an eye, a fact that I find very disturbing.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

170. I see there is a long article in the WP today

is something going to blow?

[snagglepuss]

171. Do you mean an article about the Foundation? I think it's scandalous that the NYT

ostensibly hid Head's article in Book Reviews. I wonder if Head's article brought this to a head (no pun intended). The shocking thing about Head's article is that over the years these various stories have been reported but no one else seems to have connected the dots.

[AtomicKitten]

6. She doubled arms sales to dodgy countries as SOS following donations to the Clinton Foundation.

Further research done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state, arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s second term. There was also an additional $151 billion worth of armaments sold to sixteen nations that had donated funds to the Clinton Foundation; these were deals organized by the Pentagon but which could only be completed with Hillary Clinton’s authorization as secretary of state. They were worth nearly one and a half times the value of equivalent sales during Bush’s second term.

[FlatBaroque]

8. Some call it influence peddling

I call it prostitution.

[nc4bo]

9. If she's elected, good times for Hill, Bill, Barack, Donald and all their 1% er friends.

One bignhappy family!

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[thereismore]

10. The Clintons are in it for the money. I hope I won't

have to witness the merger of the WH and the Clinton Foundation. Can you imagine how much money will flow if she becomes President?

[noretreatnosurrender]

11. Author of the Piece

Simon Head is an Associate Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford and a Scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. His most recent book is The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age. (January 2011)

[vintx]

12. Clearly just another RW hit piece, hence the lack of any commentary by Clinton's supporters.

[noretreatnosurrender]

15. Oh don't be so hard on them

they have to wait until the Clinton campaign gives them the right spin to address this information.

[vintx]

18. LOL no shit, it's hilarious how the posts are so similar, and come in waves...

the latest talking point - the one about his campaign being manned by a corrupt group of money-grabbers - that one has to be the best one yet

[noretreatnosurrender]

23. I like the one

that says don't give your money to Bernie give it to Hillary. I posted in another thread that anytime the Hillary supporters post those kind of horseshit threads that everyone should donate to Bernie. Don't even bother posting a comment except to say you donated.

[Bjornsdotter]

54. Exactly

...what I did!

[tex-wyo-dem]

105. Sheesh...I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that :)

Their comments are worded almost exactly the same. They must also get a prize if they are the first poster on an OP.

[snagglepuss]

57. 14 hours and not a peep. They want to bury this story because they

can't spin the meticulous research and the GLUT of damning facts.

This story needs to kicked regularly. I wish someone could make a short video, just the Kahzakh story with the 100 million dollar kickback to the Clinton Foundation would be eyeopening for those millions who have tuned out or denied the momumental degree of corruption.

[MADem]

50. This article is from JANUARY. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I know recycling is good for the environment, but you're going to have to find new complaints, eventually.

It was plastered all over DU ages ago. It was met with a ho-hum back then, too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016143438

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016137429#post10

SS,DD.

[astrophuss42]

58. Thanks for those links

As a new member though I was very interested to read the op.

[yodermon]

64. "It's old news!"

[RufusTFirefly]

68. It's not like milk, you know. It doesn't expire.

Besides, the glut of information on this site and the sometimes refreshingly equitable treatment of all threads means this story could've been overshadowed by Oscar picks, the upcoming Super Bowl, or perhaps even breaking news about Justin Bieber.

https://m.

[MADem]

71. No, it's like bread--it becomes stale, and moldy.

After a time, you just have to accept that some dogs aren't hunting, and trying to make them so do is seen as forced, at best.

Better to sell a candidate with a positive, uplifting message than try to trash the opponent. All that does is solidify the loyal supporters and make the fence sitters wonder why that's the go-to tactic. From many reports, that aggressive bullying, dire prognostications of frog marching, indictments (not in any number of "business hours" fortunately) and dismissive attitude (to include the finger wagging and tut-tutting) just didn't make the sale in the Five State Sweep. In fact, it quite viscerally turned a LOT of people off.

Unless Beiber has pulled a Ted Cruz, joined our party, and filed nomination papers, I'm hopeful we won't see him in GD-P....I suppose it could happen if he's being thrown out of a candidate town hall/rally!

[RufusTFirefly]

70. Case in point: One of the day's more high-minded threads is sinking like a stone

Please consider giving it a rec

Why do you support your candidate?

[SMC22307]

117. LOL... two threads in Good Reads is "plastered all over DU."

Thanks for the links. Missed them the first go-round.

[stevenleser]

129. All the Clinton foundation based attacks on Hillary have a similar structure

Something bad happened in the world, and somehow, someone related to that bad thing made a donation at some point to the Clinton foundation. Oh and there is a shocked surprise that the Secretary of State, who basically travels everywhere and meets with the most powerful people in each country making deals and conducting diplomacy on behalf of the US, at some point either met or was in the same location as that person. So without any evidence, quid pro quo and all kinds of other scurrilous accusations are made.

The problem is, as we have told folks posting these things several times, the plural of anecdotes is not data and quid-pro-quos have to be proven by direct evidence, not innuendo and scurrilous accusations.

[Peace Patriot]

157. "...conducting diplomacy on behalf of the US..." ?

Right.

Like toppling the democratically elected president of Honduras, and unleashing fascist death squads on women like Berta Caceres (winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize)--hundreds of women murdered, raped, imprisoned for peacefully opposing the coup?

THAT totally fucked up President Obama's intention to improve U.S. relations with Latin America right at the beginning of his presidency (June '09). He and Kerry are trying to repair that damage now--with Obama's visit to Cuba and support for the Colombia/FARC peace talks.

Or how about the "diplomacy" Clinton "conducted on behalf of the US" by spreading the Islamic civil war from Iraq to Libya to Syria? That was just brilliant! Now Obama is sending U.S. troops over there again, because the entire region has been destabilized!

Clinton is being advised by Henry (2 million slaughtered in Southeast Asia) Kissinger and Robert (PNAC) Kagan (designer of Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld's horrific disaster in the ME)!!! What are they planning to use Clinton for? NOT "diplomacy"!

By defending Clinton's corrupt and murderous "diplomacy," you've earned another donation to Bernie Sanders.

[Aerows]

13. I find your lack of support

for enriching yourself and your fellows via colonialism and empire disturbing.

[Jefferson23]

22. lol

That really does work in this thread.

[felix_numinous]

14. This represents the foreign policy we would vote into the WH

and we need to be aware that Hillary AND Bill would be in the WH, and only a fool would believe Bill will not be an active participant in making policy.

[H2O Man]

19. Required reading.

Recommended.

[noretreatnosurrender]

25. Yes it is

But don't read it if you are going to be eating soon.

[H2O Man]

29. Seriously ....

It is disturbing.

[noretreatnosurrender]

31. Agree

It is Very disturbing.

[Onlooker]

20. Wow, wonder how many kickbacks Carter got from the Clinton Foundation

Are these kinds of sleazy attacks on the Clintons all the Sanders people have left? My goodness, they are taking the low road. If Sanders stooped so low, I think he'd be losing by even larger numbers.

http://www.nfid.org/awards/clinton.pdf

[Raster]

27. Probably none. At that time many believed the Clinton spin...

...now many of the very same people see things quite differently.

Go ahead, turn away, pretend "The Hillary Era" will be a shining beacon of political transparency and morality.

And yes, faced with the prospect of "The Donald" in the White House or "The Clintons," most logical, thinking persons will go for the Clintons...

...and then the investigations, "witch hunts," and vast conspiracies will begin. Hillary Clinton's ONLY FOUR YEARS IN OFFICE, will mirror her husband's last four. The new rethuglicans will have their four years to purge their party of Trump and his brownshirts and modify their message, to a kinder, gentler form of facism. The AC (after Clinton) Era will be dark times indeed.

[snagglepuss]

40. You obviously did not read the article so its pointless to respond.

[Politicalboi]

86. The Clinton's stooped so low

But you can't or don't want to see it.

[AzDar]

24. Covered in slime...

[revbones]

28. There's a surprising absence

of Hillary supporters yelling "right wing conspiracy" and trying to discredit the source.

[Gwhittey]

30. Hmm

Not one Hillary supporter in here?

[Raster]

33. No. The Borg Queen has not given the "defend" signal.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. More like the "Rat" signal

[tomm2thumbs]

32. power corrupts and obviously it knows not the D from the R

[amborin]

147. +10000

[xloadiex]

34. With all the Clinton power

and the smarmy characters involved with that campaign, are we really to trust these election results?

[grasswire]

36. are you talking about election fraud?

Why wouldn't they do it? With all the wealth of the world at stake for them?

[glinda]

47. They copy the Conservative playbook times 10.

[druidity33]

48. Well, I have noticed

That when watching the polls roll in, the "Initial Results" from urban areas always favor Clinton 3 to 1 or more. Do write-ins and absentees really favor her that much?

[grasswire]

35. sickening sickening

And we used to think the USSR was corrupt.

This is very, very sad stuff.

And it underscores how very brave Bernie is, because surely he knows all this and still puts himself into the fray to stop it.

[kgnu_fan]

37. It never ends, it seems.... deeper you dig, more ugly stuff... nt

[840high]

110. 20+ YEARS OF IT.

[kgnu_fan]

111. sigh.... and ppl get used to it

[RoccoR5955]

39. Here's another good one from the same source.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/12/23/bernie-sanders-quiet-revolt/



"Sanders is unusual because he brings together three kinds of radicalism, each with very different roots. First is Sanders’s commitment to bringing the progressive ideas of Scandinavian social democracy to the United States, including free and universal health care, free higher education at state colleges and universities, mandatory maternity and sick leave benefits, and higher taxes on higher incomes. In American political history you have to go back to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society or even to the early New Deal to find anything comparable."

"The second strand of Sanders’s radicalism is his excoriating account of contemporary American capitalism, and with this he neither looks nor sounds like a consensus-minded Scandinavian social democrat. Here Sanders is willing to name and denounce the new economic royalists—what he calls collectively the “billionaire class”—in a way that Hillary Clinton, who has relied heavily on their financial backing, has not."

"the third and perhaps least understood strand of Sanders’s radicalism comes into play: his ability to organize a previously unrecognized constituency—one that embraces the shrinking middle class, both white- and blue-collar, the working and non-working poor, as well as young, first-time voters with large student-loan debts. One thing that comes over strongly in interviews of those attending Sanders rallies is their sense that they are no longer alone, that they’re joining with thousands who are in much the same predicament as they are, and that together they can change things for the better.

Sanders’s success in bringing these people together comes from his grounding, as a student at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s, in the grass-roots politics of Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), the founder of modern American community organizing. Alinsky’s crucial insight was that people at the bottom of the system could fight for local political and economic power by forming alliances with sympathetic community groups sharing many of their interests. From the late 1930s through the 1960s, Alinsky focused on the black ghettoes and white working-class districts of Chicago, Rochester, Buffalo, Oakland, and many other cities."


This is an excellent one!

[snagglepuss]

41. Thats a terrific piece. It really deserves it's own thread. nt

[Jefferson23]

45. Thanks, Rocco. Recommend. n/t

[ALittleBirdie]

83. I like this picture of Bernie

[surrealAmerican]

46. kick

... I had no idea.

[Casandia]

49. K & R nt

[astrophuss42]

52. Great article

I got the feeling that this is one of those that will go over most voters heads. Imagine this is one reason for denying its importance. I went d to get away from cronyism.

[Waiting For Everyman]

55. Well if this ties in with the email problem,

as I hear that it does, there's a train wreck coming.

You really need to read the whole article. Also there are links to the sources cited.

...
Among the most striking and troubling aspects of the Clinton System are the large contributions corporations and foreign governments have made to the Clinton Foundation, along with Bill Clinton’s readiness to accept six-figure speaking fees from some of them, at times when the donors themselves had a potential financial interest in decisions being made at Hillary Clinton’s State Department. An investigation published in April 2015 by Andrew Perez, David Sirota and Matthew Cunningham-Cook at International Business Times shows that during the three-year period from October 2009 through December 2012, when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, there were at least thirteen occasions—collectively worth $2.5 million—when Bill Clinton received a six-figure speaking fee from corporations or trade groups that, according to Federal Government records, were at the time engaged in lobbying at the State Department.
(lots of specific examples cited)
...
During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, US defense corporations and their overseas clients also contributed between $54 and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Because the foundation discloses a range of values within which the contributions of particular donors might fall, only minimum and maximum estimates can be given.) In the same period, these US defense corporations and their overseas government clients also paid a total of $625,000 to Bill Clinton in speaking fees.

In March 2011, for example, Bill Clinton was paid $175,000 by the Kuwait America Foundation to be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at its annual Washington gala. Among the sponsors were Boeing and the government of Kuwait, through its Washington embassy. Shortly before, the State Department, under Hillary Clinton, had authorized a $693 million deal to provide Kuwait with Boeing’s Globemaster military transport aircraft. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had the statutory duty to rule on whether proposed arms deals with foreign governments were in the US’s national interest.

Further research done by Sirota and Perez of International Business Times and based on US government and Clinton Foundation data shows that during her term the State Department authorized $165 billion in commercial arms sales to twenty nations that had given money to the Clinton Foundation. These include the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all of whose records on human rights had been criticized by the State Department itself. During Hillary Clinton’s years as secretary of state, arms sales to the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation ran at nearly double the value of sales to the same nations during George W. Bush’s second term. There was also an additional $151 billion worth of armaments sold to sixteen nations that had donated funds to the Clinton Foundation; these were deals organized by the Pentagon but which could only be completed with Hillary Clinton’s authorization as secretary of state. They were worth nearly one and a half times the value of equivalent sales during Bush’s second term.
...

[KoKo]

61. We have to wonder...Who would Proscecute this?

Who in our Government will take all this seriously enough to investigate? The Dem Party isn't about to investigate it's own and the Repubs have their own problems with Trump and their own hands in the till for decades.

Who will Investigate...Bring Charges of Massive Influence Peddling by a former President and his wife who is now running for President? Hillary and Bill will be living in the White House, if she is elected, and will have the ultimate power--probably beyond any President in our nation's history have ever had.

There were several investigative article about the Clinton Foundation that came out in February, this year. I have them bookmarked along with this one. They were posted on DU and pretty much died for lack of readership. Those investigative reports came out before the Primaries began as a warning from some of the few honest people left reporting who can still get their articles out in print media.

We have to believe there are concerned people in Government, MIC who are unhappy with what has been going on with the Clintons and have tried to get information out to reporters, but have gotten little exposure to the average American people who depend on Cable/Network TV for most of their news. We all know how lacking that is these days in giving people real information about anything that they need to know as voting citizens. At one time we had PBS, Discussion Shows, and Network features that focused on issues. Those days are long gone and most people under 50 wouldn't remember them.

What do those of us who are informed do when faced with such corruption and little hope of it ever being investigated once the Clintons are in the White House again?

[Waiting For Everyman]

63. I'm late to this, don't know why I missed it.

I'll dig up the other articles for a start and see what's there.

You raise a good point. I'm thinking that if Sanders loses he will still be a Senator, and maybe a Committee hearing of some type could be started, similar to the Watergate process. There's also a Special Prosecutor that could be appointed if need be.

On the other hand though, if enough of this story was put together, and written in a highly reputable source, it might be enough to change the election, which would be better than dealing with it afterward.

I'm guessing that the investigators who have it now will be using the emails as a lever to bring up the rest of it. The problem is how long it takes. The story needs to break before the investigation will be ready. Maybe the best thing we can do is try to make it go viral. We can send it to news people we think might be interested, that might help. Someone might pick it up.

If nothing else, we can post what we find here, and at any other similar sites, something may gel.

I dunno, I'll have to think about it more. I didn't know specifics before and didn't know it was nearly this bad.


Edit: It looks like something more is happening...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511524355

[alarimer]

56. This is bigger than the damn emails.

And I think the sort of thing the Clintons are famous for. Selling access and influence peddling is what they have done forever. And why Hillary cannot be trusted.

[snagglepuss]

114. It is bigger which is why NYT tucked it away in NYR. There is no reason this is in NYR

except to drive it into obscurity.

[CrispyQ]

59. I had no idea they were this corrupt.

The more I find out about her the less I think I can vote for her if she's the nom.

Sending a little extra to Bernie today.

~kick

[cantbeserious]

81. Agreed - How Could Any Democrat - In Good Conscience - Vote For Such An Unethical Candidate

eom

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

60. Alert! Baggage car overflow! Alert the CYA writers!

[Doctor_J]

65. They are as corrupt as the Bush family

I dislike her as a candidate because of her right wing policies. Now I see she's also completely corrupt. The country is heading for a disaster.

[LiberalArkie]

72. K&R

[CharlotteVale]

73. K&R

[AzDar]

74. Ugh.

[ms liberty]

75. Kick and rec. n/t

[Ed Suspicious]

76. K&R

[dana_b]

77. Holy hell!!

I need to read more on this. Has Thom Hartmann talked about it? It seems like something that he would be up on.

Thank you, OP. This kind of dirty crap has to stop!!

[snagglepuss]

85. According to google searches no one has covered this brilliant, damning piece of

journalism. Perhaps it escaped noticed because it was in the NYR. Whatever the reason this story needs to get out to there and get the attention it deserves.

[dana_b]

122. it sure does. This is

so blatant and dirty.

[Uncle Joe]

78. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, snagglepuss.

[cantbeserious]

79. The Corporatist Clinton Corruption Exposed For All The World To See - Yet The DNC Looks Askance

What message does that send - to this voter the message is clear.

[RepubliCON-Watch]

80. K & R

[StandingInLeftField]

82. K&R

This deserves to be widely disseminated.

[wendylaroux]

84. k & r

[Jenny_92808]

88. K&R

[rhett o rick]

89. Their followers don't care what they've done or will do. There new motto is "The Ends Justify The

Means."

[snagglepuss]

94. A handful of those on DU may not care but many other Clinton supporters assume all

negative stories are complicated RW conspiracies so they don't bother to dig deep. And this has been so hidden. I practically fell off my chair when I read about the Canadian billionaire giving the "foundation" a 100 million kickback after Bill helped him close a deal with the Kazhak president.It's shocking this didn't get any attention.

[astrophuss42]

98. It truly is shocking

Maybe it's just what they offered.

[snagglepuss]

101. Such a nice man, the Kazahk prez. How could anyone refuse. It would be an insult.

[monicaangela]

90. Wow! The wheels of justice sure turn slow in some cases

What is taking the FBI so long? Excellent article, I believe my mouth was open so much while reading it I had to put my hand under my chin to keep it closed. Speed up the investigation!!!

[pa28]

91. This, not her emails is the real scandal.

Democrats should know about this ahead of the general election and factor it into their voting decision. This is going to follow her.

[snagglepuss]

97. For some reason this piece written almost 2 months ago has got no attention. Everyone needs

to email a link to Cenk, Goodman, Hartmann etc. This is indeed the real scandal.

[FlatBaroque]

95. From the article - just oozes trustworthiness

[leveymg]

100. And poor Hill was so broke she had to be driven in a 2 year old armored limo

Poor girl. The sacrifices she's made to run the world.

[appalachiablue]

103. K & R Thanks, very informative. And serious.

[farleftlib]

104. Just Wow!

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, US defense corporations and their overseas clients also contributed between $54 and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Because the foundation discloses a range of values within which the contributions of particular donors might fall, only minimum and maximum estimates can be given.) In the same period, these US defense corporations and their overseas government clients also paid a total of $625,000 to Bill Clinton in speaking fees.

In March 2011, for example, Bill Clinton was paid $175,000 by the Kuwait America Foundation to be the guest of honor and keynote speaker at its annual Washington gala. Among the sponsors were Boeing and the government of Kuwait, through its Washington embassy. Shortly before, the State Department, under Hillary Clinton, had authorized a $693 million deal to provide Kuwait with Boeing’s Globemaster military transport aircraft. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had the statutory duty to rule on whether proposed arms deals with foreign governments were in the US’s national interest.

K & R and Bookmarked.

[Kalidurga]

106. I think this ties in with her SOS gig.

It certainly seems she made business opportunities in Libya a high priority and Sidney Blumenthal was more than helpful in that regard.

[Peace Patriot]

159. Obama banned Blumenthal from his administration...

...told Clinton he didn't want Blumenthal in the State Department. She spit on that order by hiring Blumenthal for big bucks at the Clinton Foundation and communicating with him via her private server. The classification problems that that raised (Blumenthal, with no security clearance, sending her top secret information, and that info being hackable) is not the most serious problem that she faces, in my view. Nor is her affront to Obama (although that may earn her the absence of his protection, when and if this goes to a grand jury). I think the real core of the FBI's investigation is the money--the pay-to-play--especially with scabrous entities like the Saudis and the ones revealed in this article.

And whether this goes to a grand jury or not (it's possible that Obama and the FBI will protect her anyway), it bodes very ill, indeed, for her tenure in the White House, if she gets there. I think that partisan investigations by the RW Congress and impeachment will paralyze the government and she will be unable to deliver on any promises (for instance, as to her lame, "incremental" me-too-ism on Sanders' ideas). And I frankly think that this will lead to social/political meltdown in this country, as climate change starts hitting hard and poverty grows.

I think she is a disastrous candidate. With Sanders, I think we have a chance to survive the storms to come. He will rally us to address the most serious crisis humanity has ever faced--the habitability of our planet--and will help alleviate the poverty and dislocation, and social chaos, that is coming, due to climate change and due to demagogues like Trump, our very rigged Congress and other disreputable public officials and the Corporate Rulers who control them. We have a chance with Sanders. That's all. A chance. With Clinton, we don't have that chance.

[Kalidurga]

160. She is a disastrous candidate.

That is certain. If a Republican was running with the FBI investigating him or her, most Democrats would be gleeful and think it's crazy if that Republican was a very popular Republican and a front runner for the nomination.

[Juicy_Bellows]

107. Kicking again, for posterity!

[Stardust]

112. K&R

[EndElectoral]

113. Tough to read this stuff. But people just don't want to hear it, or even entertain believing it.

[snagglepuss]

124. Interesting observation. I've always wanted to know the darker side of practically everything,

so it's surprising to be reminded that others don't have that same desire, that they want to stay with the manufactured image.

[IDemo]

115. K&R

[Autumn]

116. Marking to read later

[senz]

118. K&R

Thanks, snagglepuss.

[Impedimentus]

119. One of the most disturbing articles I've ever read about politics and corruption

This article should be read by every voter in the country.

[Impedimentus]

120. K&R

A MUST read !!!!

[GreatGazoo]

121. a worldwide marketplace selling influence and legislation

[ghostsinthemachine]

126. K&R

[dreamnightwind]

127. K & R, extremely important! - eom

[TheFarS1de]

128. K&R

They used to call it bribery . Now it is considered a consultancy fee . No wonder they don't want money out of politics .

[grasswire]

130. K&R

Apparently the word has gone out to let this sink. It's really damaging.

[w4rma]

131. K&R (nt)

[snagglepuss]

132. knr

[tabasco]

133. Our so-called democracy is sick.

Our society is rotting from within. Corruption is rampant. The people are indoctrinated. There will be no easy solution.

[Impedimentus]

134. Every Adult In America Should Read This Article

There is no way the Clinton supporters can defend this - unless, perhaps, their moral compass is broken beyond repair.

FEEL THE BERN- 2016

[snagglepuss]

135. This should have been on the NYT's front page but instead it got hidden in NYR Daily.

I totally agree everyone should read it. Over the yrs one reads stories about the Clinton deals but it's been hard to get the whole picture. This gives that whole picture. It needs to be posted as many places as possible on line.

[artislife]

137. Kick.

[snagglepuss]

138. kicked

[merrily]

139. Bookmarking to read another day.

[amborin]

140. staggering corruption

[Impedimentus]

141. I don't understand how any Clinton supporter can read this and not reconsider their position.

This is one of the important articles published during the campaign. Dogma and emotions should not trump ethics; otherwise our democracy could fall under the weight of corruption.

PLEASE PEOPLE, READ THIS ARTICLE !!!

Thank you.

[amborin]

142. it's a well-researched and shocking article

[snagglepuss]

143. Kickety-kick.

[Lone_Wolf]

148. Interesting!

Doesn't surprise me at all either.

[baran]

149. K&R n/t

[delrem]

150. There seems to be nothing else to Hillary Rodham Clinton, but this amoral shit.

So sad that it's eaten right to the heart of the Dem party.

[AZ Progressive]

153. K&R

[Cobalt Violet]

156. K & R!

So disgusted. I can't vote for her ever.

[quantumjunkie]

158. Curious - Why Do Hillary Supporters avoid these facts?

Are they even democrats?

[IDemo]

163. For an all too common human failing

Namely, Confirmation Bias, the same mechanism that protects true believers against facing the facts of climate change and evolution.

[Sunlei]

161. should the movers & shakers of the world stop making social contacts with each other?

even in a local society contacts are everything.

[quantumjunkie]

162. A MUST READ nt

[TransitJohn]

166. Adding another k&r

N/t

[azmom]

168. Shared

[amborin]

172. this is required reading

[HughLefty1]

173. kick

Sad. The MSM just keeps ignoring the corruption when it comes to corporatists like the Clintons and Bushes. At this point I don't see the difference between the two. Our country is seriously screwed.

[Avalon Sparks]

175. Corruption!

[KPN]

176. Just gotta follow the money!

It's actually mind boggling how many trails lead to the Clinton's. They are so damned prodigious in this regard -- like moles digging their tunnels.

[mrdmk]

178. Kicking this up top for another review a month later!

OK donkey, do your stuff

[senz]

179. K&R -- this should be shared widely

[snagglepuss]

180. kickiing