America's Age Of Impunity

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/17/2016 11:30 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-16/americas-age-impunity
Authored by Jeffrey Sachs, originally posted at The Boston Globe,
The Panama Papers opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shell companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view.
Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish “dreamer.” The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors — because everybody does it. And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from “predatory governments” trying to collect taxes. No kidding.
Our major institutions, the ones that should know better, are often gross enablers of impunity. Consider my alma mater, Harvard University, and its recent nuptial with hedge-fund manager John Paulson. Paulson was the coconspirator with Goldman Sachs of one of the most notorious scams of the recent financial bubble.
Paulson and Goldman constructed and marketed a portfolio of toxic assets to sell to unwitting investors so that Paulson could bet against the portfolio. Goldman and Paulson thereby turned the sucker investors’ quick $1 billion loss into an equivalent $1 billion gain for Paulson, with Goldman collecting on fees. The SEC fined Goldman but left Paulson untouched. As one disillusioned SEC investigator put it: The SEC is “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors.” Yet Harvard was delighted last year to take $400 million of Paulson’s ill-gotten gains, leave Paulson with the rest, name its engineering school after Paulson, and declare Paulson to be “the epitome of a visionary leader.”
Impunity. Paulson remains a much-celebrated figure on Wall Street. He has many kindred spirits, such as his partner in crime, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who has described himself as just a banker “doing God’s work.” Or consider JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank has paid well over $30 billion in fines while Dimon remains CEO with a $27 million salary for 2015. The hedge-fund industry itself is a case study of impunity. With few exceptions, it is domiciled in tax and secrecy havens, enjoys crass tax breaks brokered by cronies in Congress (such as Wall Street Senator Chuck Schumer), and pays itself billion-dollar-plus paychecks even while leaving investors with below-market returns or outright losses over the years.
The recourse to cheating within the financial industry now seems to be deeply ingrained, part of the corporate culture, and enabled by the prevailing impunity. An ingenious scientific study published in December 2014 showed the rot. Employees of a major international bank were divided into a control group and a treatment group. All subjects were asked to flip a coin 10 times and report truthfully on the number of heads, with more heads resulting in a bigger monetary prize. The treatment group was subtlety reminded they were bankers, while the control group was not. Simply reminding them that they were professional bankers was enough to induce the employees to cheat by exaggerating the number of heads they flipped.
Impunity is of course not limited to banking. Consider the poster-child of impunity in Big Pharma, Gilead Sciences. Gilead brazenly bought the patents on a life-saving cure for Hepatitis C and then gouged patients and taxpayers by charging $1,000 per pill — for a drug that costs $1 per pill to manufacture. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are unable to afford treatment, and many are dying, while Gilead earns far more in profits each year than it paid for the patents. Gilead adds to this deadly effrontery by booking its profits in an offshore tax haven.
Or consider another tech company in the health sector, Theranos, led by Elizabeth Holmes, until recently much lionized on Wall Street. Holmes, it now seems, may have been lying about Theranos’s supposed high-tech blood-testing technology and reporting faulty blood test results to boot. Yet when confronted with these serious concerns, Theranos board member and famed lawyer David Boies expressed his view that the board has “complete confidence in Elizabeth Holmes as a founder of the company, as a scientist, and as an administrator.” It seems not to have dawned on Boies and the board to call for an urgent, impartial, and complete investigation of the serious allegations swirling around the company.
Impunity is not an accidental or incidental defect of American society. It is a system foisted on us by the rich and powerful, and it continues to work its magic. It has enabled Hillary Clinton to come within reach of the presidential nomination without releasing the transcripts of her highly paid speeches to Wall Street banks. The Clintons long ago perfected the art of impunity, becoming rich and powerful by blurring the lines between their campaign fund-raising, public policies in office, Clinton Foundation work, big-money speeches, and off-the-record favors for foreign governments.
This week British Prime Minister David Cameron hosted an Anti-Corruption Summit in London in the wake of the Panama Papers. He was speaking accurately when he was caught on an open microphone telling the Queen that leaders of two “fantastically corrupt countries,” Nigeria and Afghanistan, would be at the summit. Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, himself a corruption-fighter, concurred with Cameron’s assessment, but called on the UK to return the money stolen by Nigeria’s former leaders and deposited in British and other Western banks. He might well have added the historic role, for more than a half century, of Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria’s oil-sector corruption.
Buhari is, in fact, making a much larger point. While there is enough top-level political corruption to go around — from Afghanistan and Nigeria to Malaysia, Brazil, South African, FIFA, and many more places — the channels of corruption and secrecy havens are largely owned and operated by the big boys — the United States and the UK — and depend absolutely on the gross impunity that prevails at the highest reaches of power and finance in the United States.

21 New ‘Clinton Cash’ Revelations That Have Imperiled Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

by Breitbart News3 Jun 2015

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/03/21-new-clinton-cash-revelations-that-have-imperiled-hillary-clintons-campaign/ 

Prior to the release of the New York Times bestselling investigative exposé Clinton Cash by Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer, Hillary Clinton and her supporters claimed she was among the most vetted political figures in America—a candidate about whom everything was known.

Yet as media outlets across the ideological spectrum have confirmed and verified the book’s explosive revelations about Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State and the influx of hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign sources into the Clinton Foundation, the nation has learned much it did not know. Subsequent reporting by national news outlets has expanded on the book’s findings using its investigative methodology.
Indeed, the dizzying flurry of resulting Hillary Clinton Foundation scandals has been difficult to keep up with. As CNN’s John King put it on Sunday, “You can’t go 20 minutes in this town, it seems, without some sort of a story about Clinton Foundation that gives you a little bit of the creeps.”
Early on, as Clinton Cash bombshells began appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Bloomberg, and elsewhere, Hillary Clinton’s campaign sought to calm nervous campaign donors by announcing the creation of a special “rapid response” War Room aimed at combating a book, an unprecedented move in the annals of modern presidential campaigning. The Clinton campaign team built a website called “The Briefing,” issued memos, and tasked an eight-person team to create videos featuring embattled Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon as he awkwardly and unsuccessfully attempted to smear Peter Schweizer. Team Clinton’s message: all of Clinton Cash’s revelations are incorrect or merely “coincidences.”
Yet as the nation’s largest news organizations began to confirm finding after finding, the Clinton campaign did the only thing it could: it gave up in its attempts to refute the swelling avalanche of now well-established facts. Indeed, the Clinton campaign’s last video response on its “The Briefing” YouTube page is dated May 5^th—Clinton Cash’s official launch date.
To date, Hillary Clinton has yet to substantively answer a single question from the mountain of Clinton Cash questions that continue to pile up with each passing day.
The result: according to Tuesday’s CNN poll, the “Clinton Cash Effect” has rendered Hillary Clinton historic new lows in her favorability with American voters.
Below we chronicle just 21 of the myriad Clinton Cash-related revelations that have emerged since the book’s publication—all of which have been confirmed and verified as accurate by national media organizations.

1. Huffington Post: Clintons Bagged at Least $3.4 Million for 18 Speeches Funded by Keystone Pipeline Banks

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and TD Bank—two of the Keystone XL pipeline’s largest investors—fully or partially bankrolled eight Hillary Clinton speeches that “put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate’s pocket,” reports the Huffington Post.
Moreover, according to Clinton Cash, during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State, Bill Clinton delivered 10 speeches from Nov. 2008 to mid-2011 totaling $1.8 million paid for by TD Bank, which held a $1.6 billion investment in the Keystone XL pipeline.
The Clintons’ speaking fees windfall, which has infuriated environmental groups, have yet to be addressed by Hillary Clinton.

2. New York Times: Clinton Foundation Shook Down a Tiny Tsunami Relief Nonprofit for a $500,000 Speaking Fee

Bill Clinton refused to give a speech for a tiny nonprofit seeking to raise money for tsunami victims until the group agreed to pay a $500,000 speaking fee to the Clinton Foundation. The Times reported that the Clinton Foundation “sent the charity an invoice,” which “amounted to almost a quarter of the evening’s net proceeds—enough to build 10 preschools in Indonesia.”

3. New York Magazine: Clinton Foundation “Strong-Armed” Charity Watchdog Group

When “the Clinton Foundation wound up on a ‘watch list’ maintained by the Charity Navigator, dubbed the ‘most prominent’ nonprofit watchdog,” reported New York Magazine writer Gabriel Sherman, “the Foundation attempted to strong-arm them by calling a Navigator board member.”

4. International Business Times: Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. Gave Clinton Foundation Donors Weapons Deals

“Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data,” reports IBT. “That figure—derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012)—represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.”
Salon, MotherJones, HuffingtonPost, Slate, and several other liberal publications reported on IBT’s findings.

5. Washington Post: Clintons Hid 1,100 Foreign Donor Names in Violation of Ethics Agreement with Obama Admin.

Clinton Cash revealed five hidden foreign donations. On the heels of the book’s publication, the Washington Post uncovered another 1,100 foreign donor names hidden in the Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership—a Clinton Foundation initiative Bill Clinton erected with controversial billionaire mining executive Frank Giustra.
“A charity affiliated with the Clinton Foundation failed to reveal the identities of its 1,100 donors, creating a broad exception to the foundation’s promise to disclose funding sources as part of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration,” reports the Washington Post. “The number of undisclosed contributors to the charity, the Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, signals a larger zone of secrecy around foundation donors than was previously known.”
In a follow-up story, the Post reports that only 21 of Frank Giustra and Bill Clinton’s secret 1,100 foreign donors have subsequently been revealed. If and when the other 1,079 hidden donors names will be revealed is presently unclear—and will be the subject of forthcoming investigative reports by Breitbart News.

6. Vox: At Least 181 Clinton Foundation Donors Lobbied Hillary’s State Dept.

“Public records alone reveal a nearly limitless supply of cozy relationships between the Clintons and companies with interests before the government,” reports Vox. “There’s a household name at the nexus of the foundation and the State Department for every letter of the alphabet but “X” (often more than one): Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, Chevron, (John) Deere, Eli Lilly, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, HBO, Intel, JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Monsanto, NBC Universal, Oracle, Procter & Gamble, Qualcomm, Rotary International, Siemens, Target, Unilever, Verizon, Walmart, Yahoo, and Ze-gen.”

7. BuzzFeed: Two of Hillary Clinton’s Top Donors Were Major Felons

When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, two of her biggest fundraisers were conducting massive Ponzi schemes. One was Hsu, who posed as a garment tycoon, and is now serving a 24-year sentence in federal prison in Milan, Michigan. The other, Hassan Nemazee, is serving a 12-year sentence in Otisville, New York, for bank fraud. He used fake documents and nonexistent loans to trick bankers into extending him more credit,” reports Ben Smith of BuzFeed. “Those two convictions cast light on a central perplexity of the 2016 presidential cycle, and its ‘Clinton Cash‘ phase: Why are shady people with murky interests always hanging around political superstars, and particularly Bill and Hillary Clinton?”

8. Daily Beast: Clintons’ Charity Scored Millions from Qatar and Donations from Corrupt FIFA Soccer Organization

“The Clinton global charity has received between $50,000 and $100,000 from soccer’s governing body and has partnered with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association on several occasions, according to donor listings on the foundation’s website,” reports The Daily Beast. “Qatar 2022 committee gave the foundation between $250,000 and $500,000 in 2014 and the State of Qatar gave between $1 million and $5 million in previous, unspecified years.”

9. Associated Press: The Clintons’ Have a Secret “Pass-Through” Company—WJC, LLC

“The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family’s finances,” reported the AP. “The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president’s finances on the record, said the entity was a ‘pass-through’ company designed to channel payments to the former president.”
Hillary Clinton has yet to release the names and amounts of the payments that flowed through the hidden WJC, LLC, company.

10. New York Times: Hillary Funneled $10K Monthly Payments to Sidney Blumenthal Through Clinton Foundation

“An examination by The Times suggests that Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement was more wide-ranging and more complicated than previously known, embodying the blurry lines between business, politics and philanthropy that have enriched and vexed the Clintons and their inner circle for years,” reports the Times. “While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed by her family’s philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation…and worked on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge, organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign.”

11. New Yorker: Bill Clinton Scored a $500,000 Speech in Moscow Paid for by a Kremlin-backed Bank

The New Yorker confirms Clinton Cash’s reporting that Bill Clinton bagged $500,000 for a Moscow speech paid for by “a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin.”
“Why was Bill Clinton taking any money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of State?” asks the New Yorker. To date, Hillary Clinton nor her campaign have answered that question.

12. Washington Post: Hillary Clinton’s Brother Sits on the Board of a Mining Co. that Received a Coveted Haitian “Gold Exploitation Permit” that Has Only Twice Been Awarded in 50 Years. Rodham Met the Mining Executive in Charge of the Company at a Clinton Foundation Event.

“In interviews with The Washington Post, both Rodham and the chief executive of Delaware-based VCS Mining said they were introduced at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative—an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation that critics have long alleged invites a blurring of its charitable mission with the business interests of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their corporate donors.”
“Asked whether he attends CGI meetings to explore personal business opportunities, Rodham responded, ‘No, I go to see old friends. But you never know what can happen.’”

13. New York Times: Court Proceedings Reveal Hillary’s Brother Claimed Admits Clinton Foundation and the Clintons Are Key to His Haiti Connections

“I deal through the Clinton Foundation,” Tony Rodham said according to a transcript of his testimony obtained by The Times. “That gets me in touch with the Haitian officials. I hound my brother-in-law [Bill Clinton], because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from. And he can’t do it until the Haitian government does it.”

14. Wall Street Journal: Clinton Foundation Violated Memorandum of Understanding with the Obama Admin. By Keeping Secret a Foreign Donation of Two Million Shares of Stock from a Foreign Executive with Business Before Hillary’s State Dept.

Clinton Cash revealed that Canadian mining tycoon Stephen Dattels scored an “open pit mining” concession at the Phulbari Mines in Bangladesh where his Polo Resources had investments. The coveted perk came just two months after Polo Resources gave the Clinton Foundation 2,000,000 shares of stock—a donation the Clinton Foundation kept hidden.

15. New York Times: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Claims She Had No Idea Her State Dept. Was Considering Approving the Transfer of 20% of U.S. Uranium to the Russian Govt.—Even as the Clinton Foundation Bagged $145 Million in Donations from Investors in the Deal

In a 4,000-word front-page New York Times investigation, the Times confirmed in granular detail Clinton Cash’s reporting that Hillary’s State Dept. was one of nine agencies approving the sale of Uranium One to the Russian government. “The sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States,” reports the Times.
The Times then published a detailed table and infographic cataloging the $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation made by uranium executives involved in the Russian transfer of 20% of all U.S. uranium.

16. Bloomberg: A For-Profit University Put Bill Clinton on Its Payroll and Scored a Jump in Funding from Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. When Clinton Cash Revealed the Scheme, Bill Clinton Quickly Resigned.

Even as Hillary Clinton and Democrats continue to blast for-profit colleges and universities, Hillary Clinton’s campaign continues to stonewall questions about how much Bill Clinton was paid by Laureate International Universities, one of the largest for-profit education companies in the world—and an organization that has underwritten Clinton Foundation events. As soon as Clinton Cash revealed Bill Clinton spent years on Laureate’s payroll, the former president quickly resigned.
According to an analysis by Bloomberg: “in 2009, the year before Bill Clinton joined Laureate, the nonprofit received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID. In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million. The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department.”
Hillary Clinton has refused to answer questions about the Clintons’ income from the for-profit education company.

17. New York Times: The Head of the Russian Govt’s Uranium Company Ian Telfer Made Secret Donations Totaling $2.35 Million to the Clinton Foundation—as Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. Approved the Transfer of 20% of All U.S. Uranium to the Russians

Ian Telfer, the former head of the Russian-owned uranium company, Uranium One, funneled $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation—donations that were never revealed until Clinton Cash reported them and the New York Times confirmed them.
Hillary Clinton has yet to answer a single question about Uranium One.

18. Washington Post: Bill and Hillary Clinton Have Made at Least $26 Million in Speaking Fees from Entities Who Are Top Clinton Foundation Donors

According to the Post’s independent analysis, “Bill Clinton was paid more than $100 million for speeches between 2001 and 2013, according to federal financial disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her years as a senator and as secretary of state.”
The Post added: “Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records and foundation date.”

19. Washington Free Beacon: Former Clinton Campaign Operative-Turned-ABC News Host George Stephanopoulos Failed to Disclose His $75,000 Donation and Deep Involvement in the Clinton Foundation Before Launching an Attack Interview Against Clinton Cash Author

Clinton political operative-turned-ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos infamously hid his $75,000 Clinton Foundation donation from ABC News viewers before launching a partisan attack “interview” with Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer.
Roundly condemned by numerous journalists, Stephanopoulos apologized and received zero punishment from ABC News. Hillary Clinton’s campaign then used footage from the Stephanopoulos’ attack “interview” with Schweizer in its political campaign videos.
“It was outrageous,” said former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson.
Hillary Clinton has yet to answer whether her  campaign coordinated with Clinton Foundation donor George Stephanopoulos.

20. CNBC: Clinton Foundation Mega Donor Frank Holmes Claimed He Sold Uranium One Before Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. Approved the Russian Transfer—Despite His Company’s Own SEC Filings Proving Otherwise

In a highly embarrassing CNBC grilling, Clinton mega donor and uranium executive Frank Holmes claimed he sold his Uranium One stock well before Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. greenlit the transfer of 20% of all U.S. uranium to the Russian government in 2010.
However, according to his company’s, U.S. Global Investors, own 2011 SEC filing, Holmes’ company did, in fact, still hold Uranium One stock, a point he later conceded.

21. Politico: Hillary’s Foundation Accepted $1 Million from Human Rights Violator Morocco for a Lavish Event

“The event is being funded largely by a contribution of at least $1 million from OCP, a phosphate exporter owned by Morocco’s constitutional monarchy, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the event,” reports Politico. “But in 2011, Clinton’s State Department had accused the Moroccan government of ‘arbitrary arrests and corruption in all branches of government.’”
ABC News similarly confirmed the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of the unseemly funds.
————
Hillary Clinton has refused to substantively answer a single question related to the above 21 revelations, or the scores of others not reflected above.
In answer to a question about Clinton Cash, Bill Clinton said the book “won’t fly.” The book has remained on the New York Times bestseller list three weeks in a row after debuting at number two.
Now, with Hillary Clinton’s poll ratings at all-time lows, Americans and the nation’s journalists eagerly await the chance to hear Hillary Clinton’s answers to the growing mountain of Clinton Cash-related revelations, investigative findings that have consumed and imperiled her candidacy.

Hillary Clinton Emails Reveal More Shameless Cronyism

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/16/2016 11:11 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-16/hillary-clinton-emails-reveal-more-shameless-cronyism
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
When it comes to raking in questionable dough via the abuse of political power, the Clintons are in a league all to themselves. In fact, their shamelessness is so rampant and sloppy, the only explanation is they simply thought no one would ever dare hold them to account.
Here’s the latest example, from Raw Story:

Student loan debt continues to be one of the largest economic issues plaguing the U.S., with the total amount topping $1.3 trillion. Hillary Clinton’s higher education policy touts debt-free degrees for underprivileged students. But is she being genuine in her efforts to address the issue?

While Hillary loves to rail against shady for-profit colleges on the campaign trail, she does have some financial ties to them that are likely to shape whether or not she holds them accountable for ripping students off.

It was recently revealed through Hillary’s emails that during her first year as Secretary of State she insisted that Laureate Education be included in the guest list for an education policy dinner hosted at the U.S. Department of State.

“It’s a for-profit model that should be represented,” she wrote in the August 2009 email, and as a result, a senior vice president at Laureate was added to the guest list. Several months later, former President Bill Clinton became an honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, which turned out to be incredibly lucrative. He was paid a cool $16.5 million between 2010 and 2014 for his role with the for-profit college.

Also consider that while 12 percent of the country’s students go to for-profits, a whopping 96 percent of them have to take out federal loans. As a result, for-profit colleges account for 25 percent of all federal financial aid dollars and half of all Department of Defense Tuition Assistance funds.

 

After all, without the sucker U.S. taxpayer, how would rent-seeking politicians get paid?

Some may argue that not all for-profit colleges are created equal, and it’s unfair to group Laureate together with the now defunct Corinthian Colleges, which was forced to cease all U.S. operations due to various state and federal investigations. But Laureate seems to be plagued with similar issues. That’s why the company decided to expand in Latin American countries rather than the U.S. with the help of Bill Clinton.

There are five schools in the U.S. that operate under Laureate’s umbrella. Walden University is a Laureate school in Minneapolis, and even though its parent company had the money to pay our former president $4 million a year, Walden charges students nearly $60,000 in tuition and fees for most undergraduate degrees.

Laureate gets 84 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S., and mostly from Latin American countries. The company faced a great deal backlash in Chile and Brazil, leading to the loss of accreditation for one of its Chilean schools in 2014.

Hillary’s biggest challenge against Bernie Sanders is how much money in politics has influenced her policy decisions. While both candidates address combating student loan debt and college affordability in very different ways, it’s critical to follow the money and figure out who is being sincere about solving the problem.

The truth is that Hillary’s higher ed policy isn’t very different from what we have in place now, which I will delve into in my upcoming column.  Now her ties to the for-profit college industry make me question whether she’ll hold them accountable if she got elected.

Clinton herself was paid $225,000 for speaking at a 2014 event sponsored by Academic Partnerships, a for-profit education company that helps public and private not-for-profit universities move degree programs online. Jeb Bush was also one of its investors.

Let me guess, she did it because of 9/11, or because “it’s what they offered.” The only federal building this woman is fit to occupy is a penitentiary.

Over 80,000 People Want Bill Clinton Arrested For Violating Election Laws On Super Tuesday

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/03/2016 09:25 -0500
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-03/over-80000-people-want-bill-clinton-arrested-violating-election-laws-super-tuesday
Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,
More than 80,000 people are calling for the arrest and prosecution of former president Bill Clinton, alleging he violated election laws by entering multiple polling stations in Boston and other Massachusetts areas on Tuesday. A Change.org petition launched that same evening calls on the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, to take action against Clinton, though the Secretary of State insists his behavior was lawful.
The petition says the Bill Clinton made a “clear, knowing and egregious violation of the campaign laws to swing an election in a significant way,” alluding to Massachusetts General Laws and procedures that prohibit “[c]ampaigning within 150 feet of a polling station, or in any way interfering with the right to vote.“ According to state voting procedures, “no person shall solicit votes for or against, or otherwise promote or oppose, any person or political party or position on a ballot question, to be voted on at the current election.”
Secretary of State William Galvin told the New York Times his office “had to remind some of our poll workers that even a president can’t go inside and work a polling place. He can go in, but he can’t approach voters.”
He continued: “We just took the extra precaution of telling them because this is not a usual occurrence. You don’t usually get a president doing this.”
WVBC, a local ABC affiliate, reported that Brian McNiff, a spokesperson for Galvin, “clarified that Clinton broke no laws during his visits to the interior of polling places because he was not handing out any flyers or voting materials for Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton also entered polling centers in West Roxbury and Newton, and attended an event outside a polling center in New Bedford. In West Roxbury, Clinton visibly spoke to a poll worker and agreed to take a picture with her, remarking, “As long as we’re not violating any election laws.” McNiffsaid of the New Bedford appearance that “No one was prevented from voting. The city and voters were notified well in advance of the event.”
He admitted that Galvin’s office notified Clinton’s campaign of possible violations. “We have heard about it, and the clerks have been instructed and the campaign has been instructed that 150 feet is the rule.”
Clinton supporter and mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, declined to acknowledge any illegal activity. Rather, he shook poll workers’ hands with the the former president in West Roxbury. “President Clinton joined Mayor Walsh to thank poll workers in West Roxbury this morning,” a spokesperson for his office said, adding that Clinton did not campaign inside the polling place.


The Massachusetts’ state brass is defending the Clintons in spite of unethical and possibly illegal behavior, and the petition disputes the apparent free pass.

“Bill Clinton was not only electioneering within the boundary. Although the spokesperson for Bill Clinton denies that he was ever inside a polling place, photos and video show him clearly greeting and talking up election workers inside,” it says.

The statement continues:

“After being told to refrain from this activity, which is a 3rd degree Voter Violation Felony, for which Clinton indeed must have known the law and chose to violate it, Bill Clinton does not vote in Massachusetts, and would have no other business in a polling station on election day besides campaigning for his wife.”

A spokesman for Clinton directed inquiring CNBC reporters to the WCVB article, where McNiff asserted Bill had committed no wrongdoing. Even if Clinton did not technically violate election laws, it seems apparent his presence at polling centers was intended to promote Hillary’s campaign.
Bernie Sanders supporters and others have raised concerns throughout the campaign cycle regarding the integrity of the process, and the Clintons’ most recent apparent transgression has attracted a great deal of scrutiny. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Change petition calling for Clinton’s arrest and prosecution had attracted over 63,000 signatures, closing in its goal of 75,000.
Though the Clintons have recently been accused of even more serious criminal conduct — including rape and war crimes — they have not faced prosecution.

Bill Clinton Slams "Sexist" Sanders 'Trolling'... Yeah Seriously

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/08/2016 13:39 -0500
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-08/bill-clinton-slams-sexist-sanders-trolling-yeah-seriously
Following Madeleine Albright's ugly statements, it is very clear from today's outbursts from Bill Clinton that Hillary is growing more and more desperate as Bernie Sanders' bumbling socialism trumps a lying, cheating, crony capitalist... "Vicious trolling," Clinton dubbed apparent Sanders' comments made towards female Clinton supporters, "that are literally too profane often - not to mention sexist - to repeat."

 
Echoing President Obama's "peddling fiction" narrative deriding anyone who disagrees with the official narrative,  Bill Clinton also said Sanders' message was "hermetically-sealed" from reality and ridiculed its implication that "anybody that doesn't agree... is a tool of the establishment.'"
Perhaps this is why...


And we suspect it will get worse as the FBI investigation comes to a head.

Source: Townhall.com

Bernie Sanders Slams Clinton for Having Supported Slashing of America's Safety Net

The Vermont Senator takes aim at her husband's 1996 legislation.

By Michael Arria / AlterNet

August 7, 2015

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-slams-clinton-having-supported-slashing-americas-safety-net?sc=fb

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 9, 2015:- U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent -Vermont) speaks at a luncheon at the National Press Club
Photo Credit: Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com

Bernie Sanders is criticizing Hillary Clinton for supporting the gutting of the welfare system under Bill Clinton's watch. In 1996, Bill Clinton passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, with the advertised intention of "ending welfare as we know it." Many critics believe that's exactly what it did. Three assistant secretaries at the Department of Health resigned in protest of the act, claiming that it shredded the existing safety net. In her 2003 book, Living History, Clinton writes that she supported the legislation.
Bloomberg'sJosh Eidelson reports that Sanders is now taking aim at Clinton for this position. "I think that history will suggest that that legislation has not worked terribly well," Sanders told Bloomberg, "I mean, that’s what Ronald Reagan’s ‘welfare queen’ was all about. It was the illusion that we’re spending huge sums of money on people who are cheating, who are taking of the welfare system and so forth."
In her book Clinton insists welfare reform gave millions of parents jobs, but many see things quite differently In his Harper's essay on Hillary's campaign, economic analyst Doug Henwood writes about a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report that analyzed the long-term impact of welfare reform. "They found that [it's] serving fewer families despite increased demand, that the value of benefits has eroded to the point where beneficiaries can’t meet their basic needs, and that it does far less to reduce poverty than its predecessor, AFDC. In addition, the report noted that almost all of the early employment gains for single mothers have since been reversed."
Clinton's support of her husband's legislation briefly came up during the 2008 campaign as well. Then Senator Obama declared, "I won't second guess President Clinton for signing."

Michael Arria is an associate editor at AlterNet and the author of Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC. Follow @MichaelArria on Twitter.

Billary Clinton And The Perfection Of Consumerist Narcissism

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/04/2015 08:21 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-04/billary-clinton-and-perfection-consumerist-narcissism
Submitted by CHarles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
In this perfection of consumerist narcissism, the only goal is maximizing private gain by whatever means are available.
I don't think it's coincidence that Bill Clinton's presidency and Christopher Lasch's landmark analysis The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations both date from the same year, 1993.
Clinton solidified the modern presidency's narcissistic obsession with public approval (the political equivalent of "likes" on Facebook) and the exploitation of that popularity for maximum self-enrichment.
The relentless charm offensive and rapacious exploitation of Billary's proximity to power has yielded a fortune once reserved for tech titans and hedge fund superstars:
Hillary And Bill Clinton Report $139.1 Million In Taxable Income Since 2007
This sum doesn't include the tens of millions vacuumed up by the Clinton foundation machine, which distributes tribute to further the interests of the Clinton dynasty under the convenient guise of charity.
This is not to single the Clintons out as bad eggs in an exemplary system; it is to identify them as the stars of a thoroughly corrupt system. The Clintons did not make the political system; they have simply proven themselves the most adept at milking it for fame and fortune.
If the system encourages raking in millions, why not rake in millions? You'd be crazy not to. If we could skim $250,000 for a short speech on the travails of ageing Lotharios (or whatever else we wanted to blather on about), would we turn it down?
In this system, sincerity is what you spray-paint on whatever position that polls identify as popular. Hillary is especially adept at changing her accent to align with what her machine has identified as the dominant class in the audience of the moment.
Presidents in the culture of narcissism are caretakers, not leaders. When bank profits are at risk, the president OKs deregulation or bailouts to insure bank profits are unfettered by capitalism.
If the National Security State needs approval for more drone strikes, the president duly approves whatever the Deep State wants.
The party affiliation of the president makes little difference. The agenda remains the same: further state centralization of political and financial power, and expanding leverage of private wealth over this increasingly centralized power.
A citizenry reduced to narcissistic consumerism is unable to resist centralization and the financial oligarchy that controls the central bank/state machinery.
Lasch saw the rise of consumerism and the resulting rootless cosmopolitanism of the modern economy as the wellsprings of our culture of narcissism. For Lasch, the relentless commoditization of life disrupted the natural social relations of family, social reciprocity and the workplace, depriving individuals of these sources of meaning and replacing them with an empty consumerism that worshipped fame and celebrity.
The marketplace's commoditization of everyday life--both parents working all day for corporations so they could afford corporate childcare, for example--created two alienating dynamics: a narcissistic personality crippled by a fragile sense of self that sought solace in consumerist identifiers ( wearing the right brands, etc.) and a therapeutic mindset that saw alienation not as the consequence of large-scale, centralized commoditization and financialization but as individual issues to be addressed with self-help and pop psychology.
In Lasch’s view, both of these dynamics ignored the loss of authenticity that resulted from the commoditization not just of production but of every aspect of everyday life. In this sense, Lasch’s social analysis is an extension of Marx’s original insight into the alienating dynamics of commoditized wage-work, in which workers and their work were both interchangeable.
Lasch’s analysis brings us to the source of modern alienation: it’s not just employees who are interchangeable--employers are equally interchangeable. The interchangeability of work, employees, employers, products and services is the key characteristic of commoditization.
Politicians and political parties are interchangeable, too. That is the essence of commoditization: all the parts of the system are interchangeable.
Those closest to the sources of money and power reap the gains because proximity to power is the key point of leverage in a system of narcissistic self-absorption and commoditization.
The Clintons' phony sincerity, shameless self-aggrandizement and voracious appetite for cash offered in exchange for political favors is the perfection of a system in which authenticity has been commoditized and all social relations have been reduced to financial transactions.
In this perfection of consumerist narcissism, the only goal is maximizing private gain by whatever means are available.
Of related interest: The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power

"Everyday Americans" Hillary And Bill Clinton Report $140 Million In Taxable Income Since 2007

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/03/2015 09:46 -0400

Clinton told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in a June interview, “We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-03/everyday-americans-hillary-and-bill-clinton-report-140-million-income-2007
Ever since Mitt Romney's tax disclosure fiasco in which allegations of tax avoidance and usage of offshore tax shelters played a major part in the democrat counter campaign, there has been great interest in the Adjusted Gross Income reported by presidential candidates. Which is why to avoid any surprises on the primary circuit, Hillary Clinton released the full data of her and Bill's tax income going back to 2007.
So without further ado, here is the Clinton family's adjusted gross income since 2007. The summary: $139.1 million in income since 2007, most of it thanks to speeches starting at $225,000 and going much higher.
And that is your "everyday Americans."


Over this period, the dynastic presidential family paid $43.9 million in Federal Tax:


A spread of just the Federal and Combined tax rate reveals the following picture:


Here is what Hillary posted on her disclosure statement:

As the returns detail, since 2007, the Clintons have paid $43,885,310 in federal income taxes. In the two most recent years, 2013 and 2014, the Clintons paid an effective federal tax rate of 35.4 percent and 35.7 percent, respectively. When accounting for state and local taxes, the Clintons’ combined effective tax rate was 44.6 percent in 2013 and 45.8 percent in 2014.

Since 2007, the Clintons have also made $14,959,450 in charitable contributions. In 2013, charitable giving represented 11.4 percent of their income. In 2014, it represented 10.8 percent.

To supplement the disclosure of her tax returns, Clinton posted a complete inventory of paid speeches delivered by both her and her husband in 2013. The disclosure includes the amount earned for each speaking engagement. The same information was released for her husband annually during Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Corresponding data for 2014 and the early part of 2015 was released in May on Clinton’s financial disclosure report.

Some more amusing soundbites:

Families like mine that reap rewards from our economy have a responsibility to pay our fair share. And it’s not just the right thing to do—it’s also good for growth. To create jobs and raise incomes, our country needs resources to make big investments in infrastructure, innovation, clean energy, and education. That’s vital if we’re going to make the economy work for everyone, not just those already at the top.

And here is the bribery, pardon speech breakdown for 2013, first Hillary:


Then Bill:

Note the biggest contributor year in and out for both: Wall Street.

Goldman Paid Bill Clinton $200K Before Lobbying Hillary On Export-Import Bank

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2015 21:20 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-28/goldman-paid-bill-clinton-200k-lobbying-hillary-export-import-bank
As documented here on several occasions of late, there are new questions surrounding charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation. Most notably, a Reuters investigation revealed that the Clinton family charities may have suffered what we called a “Geithner moment” when they failed to report tens of millions in contributions from foreign governments on tax documents. The foundation will now refile five years worth of returns and hasn’t ruled out the possibility that it may need to amend returns dating back some 15 years.
This prompted acting CEO Maura Pally to pen a lengthy blog post in which she explains the “mistakes” and attempts to reassure the public that the Clinton Foundation is taking special care to guard against “conflicts of interest” as Hillary begins her run for The White House. Pally also notes that similar measures were taken when Clinton was Secretary of State although, as we noted, the charity accepted donations from the likes of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman while she was the nation’s top diplomat.
Now there are new questions as IBTimes suggests there may be a connection between a $200,000 payment made to Bill Clinton by Goldman Sachs in 2011, and the bank’s efforts to lobby the State Department ahead of legislation involving the Export-Import Bank which was set to provide a loan that would end up financing the purchase of millions of dollars in aircraft from a company partially owned by Goldman. Here’s more:

Goldman Sachs paid former President Bill Clinton $200,000 to deliver a speech in the spring of 2011, several months before the investment banking giant began lobbying the State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, federal records reviewed by International Business Times show.

Goldman’s objective in lobbying the State Department could not be immediately discerned. The lobbying disclosure filings note only that Goldman sought to “monitor deficit reduction issues” -- specifically, a bill known as the Budget Control Act -- and the bank declined to answer questions about the precise nature of its interests…

In recent days, attention to overlapping interests that have donated to the Clinton family’s private interests while also allegedly seeking to influence State Department policy has reached a fever pitch amid leaks from a forthcoming book on the subject, “Clinton Cash,” by Peter Schweizer.

The involvement of Goldman Sachs seems certain to amplify that scrutiny. The bank brings a reputation as uniquely well-connected in Washington given that many of its former executives have landed in the uppermost ranks of the Treasury Department…

State Department records show that Bill Clinton’s $200,000 Goldman Sachs speech was delivered April 11, 2011, to “approximately 250 high level clients and investors” at a United Nations dining room in New York.

In federal disclosure documents, the Duberstein Group is listed as lobbying the Clinton State Department on behalf of Goldman Sachs between July and September 2011. Goldman Sachs paid the Duberstein Group $100,000 during that time.

Those records show that the firm was specifically lobbying the department on “proposed legislation” linked to a series of budget bills. One bill continued congressional authorization for the Export-Import Bank, a government-backed lender whose financing was critical for the prospects of a company in which Goldman owned a stake. 

The original budget bill was introduced in July and did not include an extension of the Export-Import Bank, but the bank reauthorization was added in late September, during the same period Goldman was lobbying the State Department on the bill.

In August 2011, the bank authorized a $75 million loan enabling a Chinese firm to purchase aircraft from Beechcraft (known before emerging from bankruptcy in February 2013 as Hawker Beechcraft), a company that was part-owned by Goldman. Beechcraft had lobbied the Clinton State Department on issues relating to foreign military sales in 2009 and 2010, according to its lobbying disclosures.

Readers can draw their own conclusions here, and we don't think it's any surprise that Wall Street lobbyists wield considerable power in Washington, but the takeaway is that, as we've said on a number of occasions recently, you can expect to learn much, much more in the coming months about the degree to which the Clinton Foundation — and any other avenue through which foreign governments, Vampire squids, and a whole host of other state and non-state actors can channel money — is used as a means of buying influence with America's maybe next President.
And because we can't help ourselves, here is how we imagine Hillary would respond to the above:

University paid Bill while Hillary steered State Dept. money to its nonprofit affiliate: book

By Geoff Earle

April 29, 2015 | 1:44am

http://nypost.com/2015/04/29/university-paid-bill-while-hillary-steered-state-dept-money-to-its-nonprofit-affiliate-book/

"Clinton Cash" reveals that the Clintons received compensation from both the for-profit and nonprofit affiliates of Laureate University. Photo: AP

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Bill Clinton collected hefty speaking fees as the “honorary chairman” of a for-profit university, but suddenly ended his relationship last week after Hillary Rodham Clinton attacked for-profit colleges and the money flow to Bill was threatened.
The new book “Clinton Cash” says government grants to the school’s nonprofit affiliate soared when Hillary became secretary of state.
As Bubba played pitchman for Baltimore-based Laureat University, the State Department steered a $1.9 million grant to the nonprofit, the book claims.
“Isn’t it troubling that while Bill Clinton was being paid by a private corporation, the corporation was also benefiting from State Department actions . . . Isn’t it troubling that this seeming conflict of interest was not disclosed?” writes author Peter Schweizer.
Bill Clinton severed his ties to the university last week — just days after Hillary on the campaign trail in Iowa charged that some for-profit colleges were ripping off students.
She said on April 14 that it was important to look at “some of the for-profit schools, some of the scandals that have arisen in these places where they take all the money and put all these young people and their families into debt.”
Hillary’s populist tone was a shift from her days at Foggy Bottom, where the State Department embraced Laureate with open arms, according to the book.
“Shortly after Bill become honorary chancellor in April 2010, Hillary made Laureate part of her State Department Global Partnership,” the book says.
Laureate insisted that Bill Clinton left only because his five-year deal had come to a close.
But the ties between the two were deep.
Laureate and its not-for-profit ­affiliate, the International Youth Foundation, are headed by Doug Becker, and the school donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The parties never disclosed how much Bill was paid for speeches around the globe promoting the institutions.
But Schweizer estimated that Bill made at least $1 million based on his usual fees.
In 2012, IYF received its first grant directly from the State Department — $1.9 million for work on a Middle East initiative.
“This is yet another false allegation in a book that is fast being discredited,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon.
“The International Youth Foundation was funded by the Bush administration well before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. And government records show that in the year after President Clinton joined Laureate, [IYF] . . . grants actually went down, not up.”