Tag: Wall Street Journal

Bubba Defends Hil’s Mid East Campaign Donations. By the Way, Obama Had ‘Em in 2008.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

 

BBerry-Grandma-NRD-6002Money makes the world go ’round.

And, in the cause of Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s possible Candidacy for the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, that money has literally come from around the world.

The Wall Street Journal reports that

Former President Bill Clinton defended his foundation’s decision to accept money from foreign governments in an appearance Saturday, saying the charity does good work and that people can judge for themselves since the contributions are disclosed.

“You got to decide when you do this work whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country,” he said at the closing session of a Clinton Global Initiative event at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. “My theory about all this is disclose everything and then let people make their judgments.”

When Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the foundation agreed to limit contributions from foreign governments. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the foundation, now called the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, resumed accepting these contributions after Mrs. Clinton left her post in 2013.

Mr. Clinton made his remarks in an onstage interview with comedian Larry Wilmore, who asked about the matter at the top of the session but didn’t press him on it. Outside observers have questioned the practice, saying foreign governments could be making contributions in hopes of currying favor with Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president in 2016.

Mr. Clinton didn’t address that point. Rather, he said that he doesn’t have to agree with every policy of a country to accept contributions.

“We do get money from other countries and some of them are in the Middle East,” he said. “For example, the U.A.E. gave us money. Do we agree with everything they do? No, but they are helping us fight ISIS, and they built a great university with NYU.” Similarly, he said, “Do I agree with all the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia? No.” But he said that country is making advances in education for women and girls.

He said the money will be used for an endowment to provide for the foundation’s future support. “The money that we raise for next couple years for an endowment so all these programs will run forever even when I get to the point when I can’t raise the money every year,” he said. Some of it, he added, is from “people who have helped us before.”

The Journal reported that the foundation has set a goal of establishing a $250 million endowment, aimed at decreasing reliance on the former president’s personal fundraising efforts.

If Hillary Clinton chooses to run and is nominated as the Democrat Party’s Presidential Candidate, she will be the second candidate in a row to have accepted possibly illegal, certainly influence-peddling, anonymous Middle Eastern Campaign Money.

Back on December 18, 2008, judicialwatch.org gave background details on The Clintons’ then-Secret Donor List…

As expected, Bill Clinton’s foundation has accepted millions of dollars from numerous governments, companies and private parties that have obvious interests in U.S. foreign policy.

How convenient for the wealthy benefactors that the former president’s beloved wife is about to become the nation’s secretary of state. The list of more than 200,000 donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation has for years been top secret, but the commander-in-chief turned philanthropist gave into Barack Obama’s condition of disclosing it before Hillary’s confirmation.

The idea, according to Camp Obama, is to eliminate any conflict of interest concerns created by an unprecedented situation; the spouse of the cabinet member in charge of foreign policy has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign interests.

The list’s disclosure doesn’t necessarily accomplish Obama’s goal, but rather accentuates that there is indeed a rather large conflict. Of the $500 million the Clinton Foundation has raised over the last decade, big chunks came from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Norway and Oman as well as a variety of shady individuals with business abroad.

Among them is a Vancouver businessman (Frank Giustra) that donated more than $31 million to Clinton’s foundation after the former president helped him seal an unheard of uranium deal with the communist dictator of a former Soviet Republic (Kazakhstan).

A Ukrainian tycoon, Victor Punchuk, who is the son-in-law of that country’s former authoritarian president (Leonid Kuchma) has also given Clinton several millions dollars as has an Israeli media mogul (Haim Saban) who donates big bucks to pro-Israel politicians. 

Of course, as the first article stated,whenHil accepted the Cabinet Position as Obama’s first Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation “decided to limit contributions from foreign countries”.

Uh huh. Suuure, they did.

Back on April 26, 2010, in a blog I posted, titled, “Obama’s Money Motivations”, I reported that

…Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.

Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.

And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.

According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more.

Talk about your “tangled web”…

Well, from my computer desk down here in Dixie, it appears that the entire premise of “Smart Power” Foreign Policy, in which the Obama Administration has alientated our friends and embraced our enemies, grew out of the generosity of Hillary and Obama’s mutual campaign donators, those “not-so-anonymous” benefactors in the Middle East who donated to both their campaigns.

also. in a possibly related story, there are now big gaps in the timeline of the e-mails which Hillary’s staff has turned over for review.

Hmmm…

I wonder if any of those missing e-mails originated in Saudi Arabia, Oman…or…maybe…Iran? 

Until He Comes,

KJ

Romney: Slipping in the Swing States

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Before I begin the subject of today’s post, let me re-iterate:  on Tuesday, November 6th, 2012, I am going to hold my nose and pull the voting lever for the Massachusetts Moderate, Mitt Romney, because I have no other legitimate choice.

Evidently, a lot of Americans aren’t as sure about their vote as I am.

USA Today reports that ol’ Mittens is having some trouble convincing folks in the Swing States:

In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of swing states, an overwhelming majority of voters remember seeing campaign ads over the past month; most voters in other states say they haven’t. In the battlegrounds, one in 12 say the commercials have changed their minds about President Obama or Republican Mitt Romney — a difference on the margins, but one that could prove crucial in a close race.

At this point, Obama is the clear winner in the ad wars. Among swing-state voters who say the ads have changed their minds about a candidate, rather than just confirmed what they already thought, 76% now support the president, vs. 16% favoring Romney.

“We gave them new information,” says Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. “Romney had been out there claiming success as governor,” but Democratic ads have prompted voters to “take a look at his record” on job creation and as head of the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Messina also credits a $25 million buy for a positive ad “about the challenges the president inherited and what we had to do to move this country forward.”

To be sure, Obama’s ads have done more to win back Democrats than to win over independents or Republicans: Thirteen percent of Democrats say their minds have been changed by ads, compared with 9% of independents and 3% of Republicans.

Romney pollster Neil Newhouse calls the findings unsurprising. “It is expected to find that more voters say their views have changed about Mitt Romney; they simply don’t know him all that well,” he says. “On the other hand, there are few voters who are going to say their views have changed about President Obama. They know him pretty damned well.”

Obama and his allies have outspent Romney’s side on ads so far by almost a third. Although the TV spots didn’t start earlier than in recent elections, there have been more than ever before — including a negative flood from the new breed of super PACs — and they are continuing without the traditional summertime letup.

On July 3rd, thehill.com reported that

Mitt Romney has a sizeable lead in 15 battleground states, according to a CNN/ORC poll released late Monday.

The Republican candidate leads President Obama 51 percent to 43 in 15 states that will be critical in determining the outcome of the 2012 election.

Obama won 12 of these battleground states in 2008 — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — and will need to keep about half of those in 2012 if he’s to secure reelection. The poll also included Missouri, Indiana and Arizona as battleground states.

Why is Scooter gaining ground on Mittens in these key states?

Last Thursday, after Romney aide, Eric Fehrnstrohm, earlier in the week, put both feet in his over-sized mouth, by stating that the Romney Campaign agreed with the Administration that Obamacare was not a tax, The Wall Street Journal posted the following:

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it’s Mr. Obama’s fault. We’re on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that “Obama isn’t working.” Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President’s policies aren’t working and how Mr. Romney’s policies will do better.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is assailing Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch rich man, and the rich man obliged by vacationing this week at his lake-side home with a jet-ski cameo. Team Obama is pounding him for Bain Capital, and until a recent ad in Ohio the Romney campaign has been slow to respond.

Team Obama is now opening up a new assault on Mr. Romney as a job outsourcer with foreign bank accounts, and if the Boston boys let that one go unanswered, they ought to be fired for malpractice.

All of these attacks were predictable, in particular because they go to the heart of Mr. Romney’s main campaign theme—that he can create jobs as President because he is a successful businessman and manager. But candidates who live by biography typically lose by it. See President John Kerry.

The biography that voters care about is their own, and they want to know how a candidate is going to improve their future. That means offering a larger economic narrative and vision than Mr. Romney has so far provided. It means pointing out the differences with specificity on higher taxes, government-run health care, punitive regulation, and the waste of politically-driven government spending.

Mr. Romney promised Republicans he was the best man to make the case against President Obama, whom they desperately want to defeat. So far Mr. Romney is letting them down.

The FACT is:  this country is looking for a leader, a man of conviction.

Governor Romney hasn’t told us yet what he stands for…and it does not help his poll numbers that, from week to week, his convictions seem to change.

Americans want another Reagan.  Unfortunately, right now, Romney seems to be acting more like Clinton.