So this morning here comes yet another Foundation story, this from Politico.
And as I read, I realised that the Clintons can actually lose.
So the story details the games they were playing with staff between the foundation and the staff Clinton gets for being an ex-President.
It is your usual Clinton non-scandal scandal in a way. A story of lawyers who studied the rules and came up with a complicated scheme – that was legal. And of course given the complexity they didn’t follow the rules 100% of the time, and so the GSA raised questions about a server that cost 7700 dollars.
And this is why they can lose. In paragraph SIX of the story it is noted that ” their foundation grew into a $2 billion organization credited with major victories in the fights against childhood obesity and AIDS”
It takes until paragraph 6 to mention what the Foundation actually did. And it is this way because the Clintons are always playing the chicken shit games. The e-mail server. The Travel office. None of this shit matters. There was no reason to do any of it.
This is who they are. They get caught in little details they can’t explain, and which have nothing to do with what they want to accomplish.
And so we wind up talking about a 7700 server and not the Foundation work on Aids.
It is absolutely self-inflicted. You hand your enemy a knife you don’t get to act surprised that they use it.
And this shit IS hurting. The race HAS closed. And if these stories keep coming and she remains at private fundraisers in the fucking Hamptons she will run the risk of losing.
She said she was a fighter. She needs to get out of these fucking private fundraisers and get into the public.
Because if she doesn’t blow Trump away it will be a failure. The Democratic Party had been handed a golden opportunity to hammer the GOP into submission.
And Hillary right now is blowing it.
Disagree. They get caught in these games, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have anything to do with what they intended or did accomplish. We’re just not privy to the reasons whys and the outcomes.
Sort of like the Watergate break-in (to use an example of a well-known operation that was busted). To this day we don’t know what the mission was intended to accomplish. It was the GOP spin machine put out that it was “a third rate burglary” of no import or consequence and therefore, Americans should ignore it. That’s a standard PR cover-up method. One I didn’t buy in real time, and I’m not buying the e-mail “oops — convenience” cover-up either.
Highly calculating people always have an advantage over the rubes because even when they get busted, rarely does more then the tip of the iceberg get exposed.
wrt “Clinton can actually lose” — big stretch considering her opponent. If all the people that don’t want to vote for either stayed home, she’d still win.
I seem to recall that they thought they could find documented proof of conspiracy with the Soviet Union. IMHO, then and now, that was absolute fruitcake land. They really thought McGovern was a Soviet agent? One so dumb as to leave documented evidence? Those idiots didn’t belong in jail. They belonged in a rubber room.
Robert Parry provides the best guess as to what the burglars were after, but it’s still a guess.
The issue that came up in my conversation with a cab driver from Haiti, who, told me the Clintons belong in jail, is what the Foundation actually has accomplished besides publicizing its good intentions – I fear there may be a there there and that is my worry re: dem chances this round, given that wikileaks has it in for HRC. Cab driver did not give details.
Why worry?
If an impeachment coup is good government and good enough for Brazil, how could we object to it here?
A lonely voice (but consistently doesn’t waver regardless of US pressure to get in line:
well, you missed my point, i.e. pushing down her support below the win threshold before Nov,
Lots of things are possible, but generally improbable. Perhaps I missed your point because I’ve played around with the numbers in scenarios in which HRC and Trump only hang onto their core support. One assumption is that soft Trump supporters wouldn’t default to HRC if he were, for example, indicted. They’d either leave the top line blank, vote third party, or stay home. Same assumption for HRC core support. That core support for HRC is really strong enough along with fear of loathing for Trump in just enough states that a Trump EC win remain unlikely. It could (again a real stretch) change the EC numbers just enough that nobody wins a majority and then it defaults to the House and dares them to select Trump. If they do, that could foretell a GOP House bloodbath in 2018.
Besides, the Bernie diehards will come home to the (D) party if there is any actual chance that Trump will win. I see the signs at caucus99percent.
Possible scenario for you amusement (5% probability), Johnson/Stein take enough to throw the election into the House which selects Paul Ryan.
Well, 12th amendment precludes Ryan, unless there is a conspiracy among Electors to vote for him, putting him in the top three. I find it very possible that republican Electors would abandon Trump and vote Johnson or Romney or Ryan or whoever Charles Koch prefers, probably Johnson. House Republicans would definitely prefer Johnson to Trump. Voting one vote per state definitely alters the landscape. The (R)’s have 13 right there in the Confederacy plus how many western states? California and New York are reduced to only 2% of the votes apiece. Wyoming would have as much influence as California. Montana as New York.
Remember back in 2000 when the MSM postulated that GWB could win the majority of the vote and Gore could win the EC majority, and Republicans were up in arms that the popular winner wouldn’t be the winner? The pundits highlighted a possibility (because that’s what the polls/numbers were suggesting), but then got it wrong.
It would have to be a major conspiracy among electors for anyone else to get EC votes. But it wouldn’t benefit a GOP candidate if they don’t get enough faithless electors in blue states and don’t lose any of their electors in red states. The other problem for the GOP is if they had a good alternative to Trump, that person would their nominee.
Team Hillary is preparing for a landslide. An EC landslide is more likely than failing to get an EC majority (and none of the other possibilities come into play unless she doesn’t get an EC majority). Consider the recent polls -approximately- Johnson 10% and Stein 5%. If each held their support through election day, odds are better for flipping a red state blue than vice versa.
IIRC, 13% of expenditures are for actual charitable work. A pretty dismal record. I, myself, refuse to donate to any organization that doesn’t spend at least 50% and I prefer to choose those with over 80%.
wow!! 13%! there is a threshold considered acceptable, don’t recall what it is, but somewhere what you’re talking about, 80 90% I can find out.
where did you see the 13%? I found the web site completely opaque
I probably saw it at caucus99percent or Huffington Post although I can’t find that right now. Today’s research shows numbers ranging from 10% to 87% depending on the partisanship of the reporter. A crucial question seems to be “is the Clinton Presidential library a bona fide charity” as both sides seem to agree that they get about half the money.
half the money to the Clinton library? wow. and competes with earthquake victims in Haiti, for example, for outlays? imo awful
You need to understand that the original non-profit was organized to build and operate Clinton’s Presidential library/museum. Slightly different from Nixon and Reagan’s in that Clinton’s is nominally attached to the Univ of AR and Nixon and Reagan’s are stand-alone. I don’t know that anyone read through and followed the financial statements in real time and could therefore, shed more light on when and how the non-library foundation stuff was rolled into the library. I know there was some non-profit Clinton operation had to be shut down as a stand-alone operation because the accounting was such a mess.
In an attempt to look at the Clinton library component, I pulled up the Reagan library financial statements. The latter is straight-forward. Well heeled due to many large bequests at the deaths of wealthy friends. NARA only pays for the operation of the libraries and certain funding limitations is now keeping the size of this portion of the monuments to 70,000 sf and an endowment for the operating costs of the remainder must exist before NARA transfers the holdings to the library. So, the financial statements of the CF include roughly $300 million that has nothing to do with “good works.” It’s just his library/museum.
You are the accounting expert. I am not surprised that the Clinton Anything involves Byzantine accounting.
Also, heard today on the Radio that the FBI has revealed that the Clinton private server was accessed by 13 devices but they are sure (how?) that is was never accessed by foreign intelligence agencies. Not only an insecure unofficial server but accessed by more than a dozen devices! A Security nightmare! That’s an IT opinion, not an Intelligence opinion. I have no Intelligence training or experience, but I do have IT training and experience. I’m not an expert but I do know better than to access a secure server from a wireless device, which certainly most of those 13 devices had to be. I also remember that when I signed for my clearance (Secret/Crypto, a lower level than hers) the form said that I swore to follow all the handling regulations and that knowingly failing to do so was considered willful perjury and subject to five years in prison. I remember that kind of stuff.
Answering my own question (tongue in cheek, sort of), maybe they are sure because 12 of those devices belonged to domestic intelligence agencies.
I’m not an accounting expert. But I’m good enough to be very good at reading financial statements and piecing together whether or not the reporting is clean and accurate. Also, financial statements can present an operational narrative if one knows how to them for that.
Do check out this Daily Beast article as it’s more within your area of expertise than mine and I’d like to hear your take on this mess.
LOL Saw the comparison of Charity Navigator between Clinton and Carter.
Same one I saw there? Clinton is an angel and walks on water, Carter not eligible to be rated?
No. Charity Navigator is actually a pretty good organization. Carter got 97% transparency/ Clinton Foundation was unrankable.
OK. I was looking at the Carter Foundation (DC) rather than the Carter Center (GA).
CF gets a top flight rating now https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=16680
Right wing sources say this after a substantial donation from the CF to Charity Navigator.
Who knows who to believe anymore? I really wish I could find that post that had pie charts and all. Perhaps it was taken down.
Personally I think CN is mediocre in its analyses. But its competitors are worse and it’s scoring players in an industry that have a lot of leeway in categorizing many expense items.
That’s based on their review of a single financial statement — 2014. Prior to that it was on the CN watch list. (Guess it pays to use a brand name CPA instead of a local AR CPA that CN raters don’t know.)
From Factcheck:
Factcheck includes the following — and this is a relevant difference if one compares CF to other big name foundations:
That also presents a problem because who is “on the ground” looking at and evaluating the actual “implementer” activities?” For example, its easy to see MSF activities “on the ground.”
I probably should spend some time poring through the 2014 financial statements to see if it’s easier to put the different activities into the various and correct pots.
Did you see this?
“If none of the scandals associated to the Clintons over the years have brought them down, why does Ortel believe that this one can? Because in corporate fraud, it is required to prove intent, implying that the onus is on prosecutors to prove a crime was committed. This is not true with charity fraud, where it is the charity’s responsibility to prove that there is no fraud, implying that their paperwork must always be comprehensive, up-to-date, and publicly accessible. In other words, if someone at a charity commits fraud, they can go to jail even if they didn’t mean it. “And these rules are crystal-clear… It’s not like they’re buried in thousands of pages. They are crystal-clear.”
https:/proudberniesandersdemocrat.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/charlesortel
Starting on September 6, 2016, and for 40 days, Charles will be releasing a series of one article per day on the Clinton Foundation, on his website.
http://charlesortel.com/
Hmm, never mind. Seems this dude might be hinky.
Unfortunately, he is hinky. A shame because without his rabid anti-liberal/Clinton blinders he might be capable of doing quality forensic accounting analyses. As it is, his biases so contaminate his work on this that he’s about as worth listening to as those that claim the WTC implosions were done with pre-placed explosives.
What I will mention is that many years ago when I did embezzlement, burglary, robbery loss control analyses, I detested analyzing non-profits/religious/charitable operations. (Law firms were a distant second on my “me-no-like” list.)
thanks, hadn’t seen it. I think the server and Clinton Foundation issues are related and there is a there there. imo there’s a good chance of an October surprise; this doc dump may be an effort to get out ahead of it, but the idea that other countries didn’t hack the Clinton server. or didn’t know about it is simply naive. and all that back and forth with PlatteRiver – how insecure is that?
If often strains credulity among “lessers” that those in powerful positions would be reckless in their behavior. So, it’s difficult for me to posit that obvious and unacceptable email communications between HRC/Abedin and CF exist or ever existed on her server. That sort of thing, if it were done, would be done in person and very privately without creating a tangible record.
(Just a note. Not all verbal agreements without a paper trail are nefarious. Institutional red tape can get in the way of implementing something that is a benefit to an operation and causes no harm to anyone or the institution. In writing is preferable, but in very rare instances, skipping that step is simply practical.)
It does appear that subordinates Abedin and Mills crossed the line at least a few times. But that was limited to scheduling face time between HRC and someone at the behest of a CF senior official. Several steps removed from any demonstrable quid pro quo.
After decades of being subjected to GOP dirty tricks and possibly barely dodging a bullet with Edwards in ’08 (an issue that may warrant another look), it’s understandable that Democrats/liberals are a bit jumpy about HRC. I honestly can’t say one way or the other if that should be a valid concern. At this point it doesn’t matter; Democrats made their choice and will live with whatever happens. But it is difficult for me to imagine any other Democratic nominee in the past sixty odd years faring this poorly against a total joke of a GOP candidate at this stage of the general election.
Priceless.
I’d like to get excited about this, really really excited, but there’s simply no there there. see page ten of this report In 2005 the one term GHWB received $794 thousand in former president’s pension and expenses funding. Clinton $924 thousand and GWB $1,098. Apparently former presidents get a lot of mail from the public. Round filing it would be my solution, but as I’m often reminded, that sort of response isn’t polite and not how we want our former presidents to act.
Plus these GSA costs are likely dwarfed by the amount spent for Secret Service protection of these guys and their spouses. (That cost is not publicly available.) On the plus side, putting the Clintons back in the WH won’t require an increase to this SS budget.
And as for the charity work:
http://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-gulf-tyrannies-donate-millions
-to-the-clinton-foundation/
Agree that the operation of the CF is stinky, but the much larger issue for me, and one that goes completely unaddressed, is the Clintons (and independently several multi-billioniares) push to privatize social services or reduce the one of of the major reasons we have government in the first place. It’s that creepy belief that the private sector is always superior to the public sector, except for the ability of the latter to collect tax receipts.
That is now Revealed Truth to both parties and shows how the Democratic Party is not the Party of Franklin Roosevelt but of Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, the Republican party is not the Party of Theodore Roosevelt but of Billy Graham.
“is beyond dispute” doesn’t answer it; precisely what has it done, that is the issue. what funds were actually given out and for what/ to whom? basic.