For all of its successes, the Clinton Foundation had become a sprawling concern, supervised by a rotating board of old Clinton hands, vulnerable to distraction and threatened by conflicts of interest. It ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in.
August 14, 2013
"Is the New York Times being guest edited by Rush Limbaugh? Today it runs with a fascinating takedown of the Clinton Foundation..."
"... that vast vanity project that conservatives are wary of criticising for being seen to attack a body that tries to do good. But the liberal NYT has no such scruples. The killer quote is this:"
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A nice coda to the travelling post.
Can we just go ahead and say it: These huge foundations are ways for celebrities and rich people to mix and feel important and virtuous.
If you want to mitigate poverty then work in a food pantry or a crisis ministry. If you want to change someone's life then get involved with them on a personal level. Sitting around a $10,000 table watching a computer presentation and snacking from a hospitality table is not virtuous.
You can't have piety by proxy.
Don't be fooled by the NYT's "hit piece" on the Clinton Foundation. It serves two purposes:
1. it gets the mismanagement out there so that it is old news when HIllary! runs again.
2. When it gets reined in and cleaned up Hillary will get the credit for her responsible stewardship and Mad Management Skillz. Just watch, it's coming.
Could the NYT be building a "Hillary to the rescue... again" narrative?
Over a year ago Bill Clinton met with some aides and lawyers to review the Foundation's progress and concluded that it was a mess... But what complicated this review – what made its findings more politically devastating – is that the Clinton Foundation has become about more than just Bill. Now both daughter Chelsea and wife, and likely presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton have taken on major roles and, in the words of the NYT "efforts to insulate the foundation from potential conflicts have highlighted just how difficult it can be to disentangle the Clintons’ charity work from Mr Clinton’s moneymaking ventures and Mrs Clinton’s political future." Oh, they're entangled alright.
A trip down (bad) memory lane for those of us old enough to recall: Bruce Lindsey, Doug Band, Ira Magaziner - talentless cronies all.
Headline in 2016: "Republican keep dragging out old news on Clinton Foundation"
It's always amazed me just how well-compensated and rich people can become running a non-profit. They feel they should be paid as well as for-profit corporate execs. The,n when you can use one as part of a larger rent-seeking scheme for personal benefit, it has gone from unseemly to disgusting to immoral.
There are many people (on their side of the political aisle, mind you) who stand to benefit from harming the reputations (such as they are) of the Clintons. What is it the lawyers ask? Cui bono? It's not a short list.
Clintons have always been hiding in plain sight taking huge bribes to broker the appearance of power in the US Government.
NYT must think exposing this truth early will help Hillary deal with it before it can be exposed later.
She is still running as the Socialist who is also an Anti-Obama realist. She cannot come on as a delusional magic Messiah like Obama did without his black skin. So Bill's straddle of the issues will have to be her approach until the day she assumes power.
"Kinda Sleazy Political Family's Charity is Kinda Sleazy"
Not sure how this is news. I'm glad it's being mentioned, but the acolytes won't be impressed.
This country is utterly boned because we keep running these same corrupt little shits who love not having to do a real job.
If Hillary Clinton is in fact using her position at the head of a 501(c)3 corporation as a platform for a Presidential campaign, she ought to be in massive trouble with the IRS.
My daughter spent 6 months working as an UNPAID intern on 125th street in New York. She helped coordinate relief deliveries to Haiti. In the end, she acquired a photograph with Billy Jeff, and an understanding of just how futile international disaster relief can be.
Of course, the story of the rather large black man being tossed through the window at Starbucks, and landing at her feet is priceless.
I was going to ask the same question of Althouse, given this line from the Kathleen Parker post: "Isn't it time for substance and not mere symbolism?"
("Symbolism over substance" is, or was, one of Limbaugh's great refrains.)
((And, before you ask, Ms. Parker is no relative of mine, so far as I know and I hope I'm right on this.))
If it was unusual for private family foundations to be poorly managed and misdirected I would call this newsworthy - but it isn't.
Rather it is the rule that wealthy, charitable people, who establish these entities to assuage their social guilt, or out of genuine benevolence, or more likely for the immediate tax benefits - it is the rule in these entities that they are poorly managed.
Donors are good at whatever they did to accumulate their wealth. They are good at organising and leading groups of people who help to increase their wealth. They Are good at selling contrbutions to their foundations. It does not necessarily follow that these same people are good managers of these arcane institutions, nor that they are good at delegating authority and control over them to experts at running them.
It certainly is common that these same people are egotistical, competitive, climbers and schemers. After all, those are character traits of many wealthy people.
This is also the press trying to be "fair" by "viciously" attacking Democrats...
...for a day or two...
...2 years before an election.
You can't say they don't fight both sides.
I wonder if Hillary will be able to survive all the stuff that will surface during the next campaign cycle. Personally, I think she is as radical and as poorly prepared for the office as Obama.
It will be interesting to see if she can pull it off. I'm pretty much in a gotterdammerung state of mind anyway these days, so it doesn't matter much.
I think Romney was the last chance to reverse things short of calamity.
Those of us who listen to No Agenda with Adam Curry and John C Dvorak (In the morning to you all) have known about this for a couple of years.
www.noagendashow.com
Much of this story can be had by simply looking up the Foundations 501 filings that they are supposed to make every year.
"Don't send blankets or water, just send cash"
Good to see that the Times is finally starting to take notice, though.
Note the large amounts of Saudi cash to the Foundation, Huma's employer and how much money Huma has to throw around.
Maybe a connection? Naaaah. Move along folks. Nothing to see here. Just some shadow puppet theatre.
John Henry
Squire of Fajardo
Don't forget there's an important election in between here, which is the 2014 House and Senate elections. It's possible Team Hyde Park has some inside data that suggest the Senate could go red, which would really drag down both Bo's chance for a legacy, expose a lot of people -- including possibly Hillary! to uncomfortable questions in both the House and Senate about just WTF has been going on in Caligula's baths these past 5 years -- and set up a bit of platform onto which some young Republican could vault in 2016.
Consider the recent sally by Crony General Holder to rally the hood and the college airheads by promising not to persecute them for pot. In that light, the Times could just be rallying the Hillbuzz crowd a little, or at least discourage them from crossing over next November. You shifted from the grande dame to the youthful magical negro, and you were 100% right to do so. Stay the course.
It's the signature Obama style: rally the troops, demonize and discourage the potential opposition. Purely tribal stuff. For my money, this is the result of a few phone calls from Valerie Jarrett to the Times.
It's not like there isn't plenty of time to pass the sceptre from First Black Prez to First Girl Prez in late 2015. The kind of anxious vacuous potheads who are influenceable by Times headliners both now and then are not likely to remember late 2013 in early 2015.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
If Hillary Clinton is in fact using her position at the head of a 501(c)3 corporation as a platform for a Presidential campaign, she ought to be in massive trouble with the IRS.
Only Tea Party types get into IRS trouble with 501 (c)3 entities. Democrats can do whatever they want with 501c corporations--
From the IRS website: To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.
The NYT may not get into all the incriminating stuff. Let me also suggest that you read the Breitbart piece: NY TIMES : CLINTON FOUNDATION RIFE WITH CRONYISM.
What is interesting to me, and pointed out above, is that this is a scheme for massive influence peddling, bringing in close to maybe a quarter of a billion dollars so far. I, for one, am concerned that the Gulf oil states gave many millions, the daughter of two prominent Muslim Brotherhood leaders was hired as Hillary's deputy chief of staff (Huma Abedin - wife to NYC mayoral candidate Carlos Danger), and then our State Department sided with that organization during the Arab Spring to bring that group to power in several countries, including Egypt, and in that case doing so by dumping one of our long term allies in the region.
The reason that it is so scary, at least to me, is the magnitude of the influence peddling. Hundreds of millions of dollars coming in, and the Clintons getting political favors done for the contributors. All in the name of charity, except for the lavish lifestyle that it provides for the Clinton family.
How does Hillary! run for President with a straight face here? Is she going to deny contracts or favors to those who gave to the foundation so generously, and esp. since her family has benefited so greatly from running the foundation? Doubtful. Will the Clintons even shut the foundation down upon her election?
Carl said:
"...Caligula's baths these past 5 years."
Well said sir, well said
This isn't hard folks. Just remember to apply the inviolable Fundamental Law of Human Nature - everyone acts in their own self interest, all the time.
Are the Clinton's Homo Sapiens? Yes?
Then the Clinton Foundation exists solely to promote the self interest of the Clinton's. It can be no other way.
And what could that be? For starters, how about a front for crony capitalism, graft, varying forms of laundering, bribes-by-any-other-name, etc.
Same as the mafia, only 'hiding' in plain sight.
I do not think Hillary!'s non-profits are badly managed at all; rather they seem to be very successful money laundering operations.
Bill Clinton was without question the most talented politician of his generation. Love him or hate him, he was an effective president.
That said, he and his wife lack personal character. We all know about Bill. We also know about Hillary's shady (okay, corrupt) futures trading profits, about her shoving her way to the front of the line as a "New York citizen" to get into the Senate, about her running from gunfire in Bosnia, and about her convenient illness to avoid talking about Benghazi.
This Times article just tells us more of what we already understand, a tale of their well-funded, deficit-riddled foundation run from TWO FLOORS of the Time-Life building in Manhattan and poised to act as the central agency for a Hillary campaign.
At this point, 2016 is shaping up as a choice between a Republican moved to the extreme right by the primaries and a Clinton restoration that, with Bill's help, might work with Congress and get things done.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I do not think Hillary!'s non-profits are badly managed at all; rather they seem to be very successful money laundering operations.
By poorly managed I meant not managed to commonly accepted fiduciary standards.
The NYT running this hit piece on St. Hillary? It can only be that The Powers That Be in the Democrat Party know a lot about Hillary they don't want coming out in the 2016 and have started to get her out of the way. If the Democrats lose next November Plugs Biden will also get the hammer from the NYT. That will mean the party will want to run a candidate that has no ties to Barry.
SomeoneHas...
" the self interest of the Clinton's... And what could that be?"
Well, I see you left out Babes for Bill.
MCD said . . .
At this point, 2016 is shaping up as a choice between a Republican moved to the extreme right by the primaries . . .
You write that as if it is a bad thing.
An extreme Islamist is to be feared, but an extreme Jainist is not. An extreme Republican pushed to the 'right' by primaries would be a strong Constitutionalist, would highly value free markets and individual liberty, and would seek a smaller and less intrusive Fed with government much more local and closer to the people.
That sounds pretty good to me.
Ann, this is an obvious attempt to set Hillary up as the able executive, the cost cutting, budget balancing wizard who can do the same thing with Washington's budget.
Only problem is, who is going to be her Gingrich, because Boehnor is not up to it.
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