Tammany Hil
Campaign Finance: Some of the $500 million in secrets behind the Clinton Foundation and its ties to Hillary’s presidential campaign are now revealed. The charity seems to be a clearing house for buying political favors.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars Hillary took in campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists provoked a chorus of boos when she appeared at the Daily Kos’ summer gathering of liberal bloggers in Chicago.
But those direct donations, under the watchful eye of the Federal Election Commission, are mere chicken feed. The now over $500-million-rich Clinton Foundation is where the real action is.
The New York Times, which has discovered the identity of 97 donors who together gave or pledged $69 million early on, reports some of the million-dollar donors sought changes in policies and two of them were under Justice Department probes.
With the presidential election approaching, Clinton Foundation donations skyrocketed last year to $135 million, 70% more than the year before, with two-thirds of the booty from only 11 donors.
So much for Bill and Hil’s populist image.
The former president steadfastly refused to reveal the donors’ identities — including one super-rich donor giving $31.3 million.
We can certainly now see why. The $31-million-dollar man turned out to be Canadian mining mogul and founder of Lionsgate Entertainment (distributor of Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11") Frank Giustra, who plans to give another $100 million, plus half his future earnings.
Bill and Hillary’s latest intrique!
What is it about the Clintons and money? When it comes to Bill and Hillary’s finances, there’s always a sordid little back story - and loads of unanswered questions.
And that’s precisely the case with more than $500 million that’s been donated to the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Hillary and her hubby are now facing numerous - and entirely justified - queries about all the cash Bill is raking in for his charitable foundation and presidential library.
But the former prez apparently doesn’t want Americans to know who’s behind all that cash.
He says he can’t disclose their names because of confidentiality agreements.
Well, that just doesn’t cut it: With his wife a sitting senator and a presidential candidate, the opportunities for influence-peddling are great.
Bill Clinton may not be the only ex-president who’s shielded his benefactors. But, as part of a husband-wife team seeking a return to the White House, even he acknowledges that there are legitimate "questions about whether people would try to win favor with her by giving money to me."
With that in mind, The New York Times put together a list of 97 people who gave some $69 million toward the library before Bill Clinton left office.
It turns out that some were longtime Clinton friends. But others were folks who’d lobbied the administration for policy changes.
Still others were under investigation by the Clinton Justice Department.
Moreover, the paper’s research showed, many of the foundation’s donors have since been hit up for contributions to the Hillary for President campaign.
Guess who gave the Clinton’s MILLIONS?
The Clintons have long kept hidden the identities of the donors to their foundation, and now we know why. The New York Times finally got a look at the books, and they discovered millions of dollars coming from people with a lot to lose during the Clinton administration. Shockingly, the pace of donations has accelerated as Hillary comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination:
But an examination of the foundation demonstrates how its fund-raising has at times fostered the potential for conflict.
The New York Times has compiled the first comprehensive list of 97 donors who gave or pledged a total of $69 million for the Clinton presidential library in the final years of the Clinton administration. The examination found that while some $1 million contributors were longtime Clinton friends, others were seeking policy changes from the administration. Two pledged $1 million each while they or their companies were under investigation by the Justice Department.
Other donations came from supporters who had been ensnared in campaign finance scandals surrounding Mr. Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.
Before we get to the people who appeared to buy favor with the Clintons domestically, we should take a look at the Clinton foreign policy of donations. The foundation took money from the Saudi royal family, the king of Morocco, and the UAE, among others. Remember the fit that the potential sale of management rights for American ports to a Dubai company started? What will this UAE donation cause?
The Clintons And Their Donors
The Clintons have long kept hidden the identities of the donors to their foundation, and now we know why. The New York Times finally got a look at the books, and they discovered millions of dollars coming from people with a lot to lose during the Clinton administration. Shockingly, the pace of donations has accelerated as Hillary comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
At Heading Right, I take a look at some of the connections:
* The beer company that needed to protect its advertising
* The emirs whose bid for management for American ports created a firestorm
* The Hillraiser who managed to avoid perjury charges
* The CEO whose illegal tech transfers to China got ignored until the Bush administration
If this sounds familiar, just wait until the Clintons return to the White House.
Source: Captain’s Quaters
In Charity and Politics, Clinton Donors Overlap
Over the last decade, former President Bill Clinton has raised more than $500 million for his foundation, allowing him to build a glass-and-steel presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and burnish his image as an impresario of global philanthropy. The foundation has closely guarded the identities of its donors — including one who gave $31.3 million last year.
Now, the secrecy surrounding the William J. Clinton Foundation has become a campaign issue as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the Democratic presidential nomination with her husband as a prime source of strategy and star power. Some of her rivals argue that donors could use presidential foundations to circumvent campaign finance laws intended to limit political influence.
Mr. Clinton himself echoed those concerns this fall when he pledged to make public future donors if Mrs. Clinton was elected president. While disclosure is not legally required, failure to do so, Mr. Clinton said, would raise “all these questions about whether people would try to win favor with her by giving money to me.”
Even so, past donors should remain private, he insisted, “unless there is some conflict of which I am aware, and there is not.”
But an examination of the foundation demonstrates how its fund-raising has at times fostered the potential for conflict.
The New York Times has compiled the first comprehensive list of 97 donors who gave or pledged a total of $69 million for the Clinton presidential library in the final years of the Clinton administration. The examination found that while some $1 million contributors were longtime Clinton friends, others were seeking policy changes from the administration. Two pledged $1 million each while they or their companies were under investigation by the Justice Department.
Clinton fundraising ties to terror group
On December 4, 2007, we reported that members of the terrorist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), more commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, were arrested in New York for their plot to use stolen credit card numbers and other methods to steal $250,000 in New York “and tens of millions from ATMs worldwide.”
One of the men arrested worked three jobs at Newark Airport as a security agent and baggage handler with complete security clearance. The Tamil Tigers are well known for their use and “perfection” of terrorists’ “suicide belts” and vests, and the use of females as suicide bombers as illustrated in our report published earlier this month.
Further investigation conducted by this investigator of Tamil Tiger activity in the U.S. confirmed published reports that at least one well-known supporter of that terrorist organization, 56 year-old New Jersey resident Ramanathan RANJAN is actively soliciting funds for New York Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Clinton’s corruption and the mainstream media’s treason
Electorates are generally known for having short memories. Unfortunately this kind of memory loss can be hazardous to the body politic and a nation’s economic welfare. This is why electorates need to be periodically reminded of the misdeeds and inordinate ambitions of those who lust for power. In a country that had an honest media this job could be safely left to crusading journalists. Unfortunately the American media are so thoroughly corrupt and politically bigoted that they have become a significant threat to America’s national security and the democratic process. In short, they have joined America’s enemies.
Let us now uncover some of the Clinton’s putrescent actions, things the media strove to permanently bury in case the American people voted in their ignorance for a Republican. And that is precisely what they did — confirming the media’s belief that the public cannot be trusted to make the right decisions.
Hillary Clinton is the woman who condemned the NYPD; who stood aside while her race-baiting anti-Semitic buddies demonised the men and women in blue and smeared Giuliani by comparing him to Adolf Hitler; the woman who made, as the instinctive collectivist that she is, the arrogant assertion that “it takes a village [meaning the state] to raise a child”. The woman who revealed her authoritarian nature and contempt for the rule of law by jumping out of her box to support hubby’s jackbooted abduction of Elian Gonzalez. This is the same woman who wrote:
The pretense that children’s issues are somehow above or beyond politics endures and is reinforced by the belief that families are private, nonpolitical units whose interests subsume those of children.
Unless, of course, the drug-running Fidel Castro says otherwise.
The woman who argued that little children should be allowed to sue their parents rationalised an assault by a heavily armed swat team on a defenceless American family, and all without due process. But since when did legal trifles like the Constitution bother a I-feel-your-pain Clinton? That Rudy came out fighting for Elian and demanding hearings into the latest Clinton outrage is no surprise considering Hillary was running against him. Nevertheless, I never doubt Rudy’s sincerity in this matter. He recognised, as did so many other thoughtful Americans, the terrible violence this raid did to the rule of law and the 4th amendment. Hillary and Bill, however, see amendments like promises and eggs — something to be broken.
Lacking any sense of shame or respect for the truth, Hillary had the gall to accuse Giuliani of politicising Elian’s situation, piously declaring to adoring journalists that the case should be dealt with in court. Quite so. But this is what Bill Clinton, Reno and Castro tried to prevent. It was Clinton, not Reno, who politicised the issue by turning it into a federal case. It was Reno, on Clinton’s instructions, who denied Elian due process. It was Clinton and Reno (and let’s not forget Castro) who mocked the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. It was Clinton’s appointee to the head of the INS, Doris Meissner, who instructed that a search warrant be fraudulently obtained. And Hillary Rodham Clinton, or whatever she called her self in those days, had the chutzpah to accuse Rudy of playing politics with Elian.
Hsu associates touted his connections
Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu reveled in his role as friend to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
As Hsu raised more than $800,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, the couple praised him at star-studded events and showered him with thank-you notes. Hsu often wore a bomber jacket that bore the presidential seal, a gift from the former president, he told associates.
But Hsu’s turn in the political limelight was about more than ego gratification.
Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show how Hsu’s business associates traded on his connections — going so far as to claim that former President Clinton was a Hsu client — to lure investors into a scheme that took in tens of millions of dollars nationwide.
A marketing brochure distributed by an Orange County firm to attract investors to Hsu’s business claimed the 56-year-old Hong Kong native’s "extensive political investment community includes former President Bill Clinton, who continues to invest to this day."
Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, denied that the former president had invested with Hsu. And Sen. Clinton’s financial disclosure statements show no investments or income from Hsu for her or her husband.
Still, as a marketing tactic, the claim may have worked all too well: A Southern California couple recently filed a lawsuit saying they lost more than $3 million in a Hsu-run Ponzi scheme — based in part on the brochure’s promises.
As the race for the White House moved into its final weeks in 1996, Republicans were accusing the campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore of unethical fundraising tactics, including Gore’s attendance at a fundraiser at a tax-exempt Buddhist temple in California.
Now, as Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks the White House, the indictment yesterday of a former chief fundraiser, Norman Hsu, may see her confront potentially harmful fundraising questions of her own.
"Will this help? Of course not," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Polling Institute at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn. "You accumulate enough hurts and you have a problem."
In September, Clinton returned $850,000 to Hsu after it was revealed he was a fugitive from a prison sentence following a ponzi scheme conviction.
In October, she returned more campaign cash after it was revealed her campaign took in some 150 donations of between $500 and $2,000 each from Chinatown dishwashers and street vendors - many could not be located or denied making donations.
Hsu was indicted yesterday on 15 counts of defrauding investors of at least $20 million, and of violating campaign finance laws by donating to candidates in other people’s names.
Clinton spokesman Blake Zeff refused to comment. Prosecutors said there is no indication the Clinton campaign knew Hsu may have been operating illegally.
Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, said that by reminding voters of the fundraising controversy surrounding the Clinton-Gore campaign, Hsu’s indictment could add to perceptions the Clintons cannot be trusted.
