Unfortunately, the Intercept uses a lot of photos of text as part of its
articles. But in this case, I think we get the gist, anyway.
Miriam
Greenwald writes: "As the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding
the Clinton Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of
Clinton-loyal journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the
foundation, and then insinuate - or even outright state - that anyone
raising these questions is opposed to its charity."
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: Reuters)
Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the
Clinton Foundation?
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
27 August 16
As the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton
Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of Clinton-loyal
journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the foundation, and
then insinuate - or even outright state - that anyone raising these
questions is opposed to its charity. James Carville announced that those who
criticize the foundation are "going to hell." Other Clinton loyalists
insinuated that Clinton Foundation critics are indifferent to the lives of
HIV-positive babies or are anti-gay bigots.
That the Clinton Foundation has done some good work is beyond dispute. But
that fact has exactly nothing to do with the profound ethical problems and
corruption threats raised by the way its funds have been raised. Hillary
Clinton was America's chief diplomat, and tyrannical regimes such as the
Saudis and Qataris jointly donated tens of millions of dollars to an
organization run by her family and operated in its name, one whose works has
been a prominent feature of her public persona. That extremely valuable
opportunity to curry favor with the Clintons, and to secure access to them,
continues as she runs for president.
The claim that this is all just about trying to help people in need should
not even pass a laugh test, let alone rational scrutiny. To see how true
that is, just look at who some of the biggest donors are. Although it did
not give while she was secretary of state, the Saudi regime by itself has
donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, with
donations coming as late as 2014, as she prepared her presidential run. A
group called "Friends of Saudi Arabia," co-founded "by a Saudi Prince," gave
an additional amount between $1 million and $5 million. The Clinton
Foundation says that between $1 million and $5 million was also donated by
"the State of Qatar," the United Arab Emirates, and the government of
Brunei. "The State of Kuwait" has donated between $5 million and $10
million.
Theoretically, one could say that these regimes - among the most repressive
and regressive in the world - are donating because they deeply believe in
the charitable work of the Clinton Foundation and want to help those in
need. Is there a single person on the planet who actually believes this? Is
Clinton loyalty really so strong that people are going to argue with a
straight face that the reason the Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti and Emirates
regimes donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation is because
those regimes simply want to help the foundation achieve its magnanimous
goals?
Here's one of the Clinton Foundation's principal objectives; decide for
yourself if its tyrannical donors are acting with the motive of advancing
that charitable goal:
All those who wish to argue that the Saudis donated millions of dollars to
the Clinton Foundation out of a magnanimous desire to aid its charitable
causes, please raise your hand. Or take the newfound casting of the Clinton
Foundation as a champion of LGBTs, and the smearing of its critics as
indifferent to AIDS. Are the Saudis also on board with these benevolent
missions? And the Qataris and Kuwaitis?
Which is actually more homophobic: questioning the Clinton Foundation's
lucrative relationship to those intensely anti-gay regimes, or cheering and
defending that relationship? All the evidence points to the latter. But
whatever else is true, it is a blatant insult to everyone's intelligence to
claim that the motive of these regimes in transferring millions to the
Clinton Foundation is a selfless desire to help them in their noble work.
Another primary project of the Clinton Foundation is the elimination of
wealth inequality, which "leads to significant economic disparities, both
within and among countries, and prevents underserved populations from
realizing their potential." Who could possibly maintain that the reason the
Qatari and Emirates regimes donated millions to the Clinton Foundation was
their desire to eliminate such economic oppression?
It doesn't exactly take a jaded disposition to doubt that these donations
from some of the world's most repressive regimes are motivated by a desire
to aid the Clinton Foundation's charitable work. To the contrary, it just
requires basic rationality. That's particularly true given that these
regimes "have donated vastly more money to the Clinton Foundation than they
have to most other large private charities involved in the kinds of global
work championed by the Clinton family." For some mystifying reason, they
seem particularly motivated to transfer millions to the Clinton Foundation
but not the other charities around the world doing similar work. Why might
that be? What could ever explain it?
Some Clinton partisans, unwilling to claim that Gulf tyrants have charity in
their hearts when they make these donations to the Clinton Foundation, have
settled on a different tactic: grudgingly acknowledging that the motive of
these donations is to obtain access and favors, but insisting that no quid
pro quo can be proven. In other words, these regimes were tricked: They
thought they would get all sorts of favors through these millions in
donations, but Hillary Clinton was simply too honest and upstanding of a
public servant to fulfill their expectations.
The reality is that there is ample evidence uncovered by journalists
suggesting that regimes donating money to the Clinton Foundation received
special access to and even highly favorable treatment from the Clinton State
Department. But it's also true that nobody can dispositively prove the quid
pro quo. Put another way, one cannot prove what was going on inside Hillary
Clinton's head at the time that she gave access to or otherwise acted in the
interests of these donor regimes: Was she doing it as a favor in return for
those donations, or simply because she has a proven affinity for Gulf State
and Arab dictators, or because she was merely continuing decades of U.S.
policy of propping up pro-U.S. tyrants in the region?
While this "no quid pro quo proof" may be true as far as it goes, it's
extremely ironic that Democrats have embraced it as a defense of Hillary
Clinton. After all, this has long been the primary argument of Republicans
who oppose campaign finance reform, and indeed, it was the primary argument
of the Citizens United majority, once depicted by Democrats as the root of
all evil. But now, Democrats have to line up behind a politician who, along
with her husband, specializes in uniting political power with vast private
wealth, in constantly exploiting the latter to gain the former, and vice
versa. So Democrats are forced to jettison all the good-government
principles they previously claimed to believe and instead are now advocating
the crux of the right-wing case against campaign finance reform: that large
donations from vested factions are not inherently corrupting of politics or
politicians.
Indeed, as I documented in April, Clinton-defending Democrats have now
become the most vocal champions of the primary argument used by the Citizens
United majority. "We now conclude," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the
Citizens United majority, "that independent expenditures, including those
made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of
corruption." That is now exactly the argument Clinton loyalists are spouting
to defend the millions in donations from tyrannical regimes (as well as Wall
Street banks and hedge funds): Oh, there's no proof there's any corruption
going on with all of this money.
The elusive nature of quid pro quo proof - now the primary Democratic
defense of Clinton - has also long been the principal argument wielded by
the most effective enemy of campaign finance reform, GOP Sen. Mitch
McConnell. This is how USA Today, in 1999, described the arguments of
McConnell and his GOP allies when objecting to accusations from campaign
finance reform advocates that large financial donations are corrupting:
Senate opponents of limiting money in politics injected a bitter personal
note into the debate as reformers began an uphill quest to change a system
they say has corrupted American government. .
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the legislation's chief opponent, challenged
reform advocate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to name Senate colleagues who
have been corrupted by high-dollar political contributions.
"How can there be corruption if no one is corrupt?" McConnell asked, zeroing
in on McCain's frequent speeches about the issue in his presidential
campaign. "That's like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the gangsters
are."
When McCain refused to name names, Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, confronted
him. Standing just eight feet from him on the Republican side of the
chamber, Bennett charged that McCain had accused him of corruption in
seeking pork-barrel spending for his home state.
"I am unaware of any money given that influenced my action here," Bennett
said. "I have been accused of being corrupt. . I take personal offense."
The inability to prove that politicians acted as quid pro quo when taking
actions that benefited donors has long been the primary weapon of those
opposing campaign finance reform. It is now the primary argument of
Democratic partisans to defend Hillary Clinton. In Citizens United, Justice
John Paul Stevens wrote a scathing dissent on exactly this point, one that
Democrats once cheered:
So if you want to defend the millions of dollars that went from tyrannical
regimes to the Clinton Foundation as some sort of wily, pragmatic means of
doing good work, go right ahead. But stop insulting everyone's intelligence
by pretending that these donations were motivated by noble ends. Beyond
that, don't dare exploit LGBT rights, AIDS, and other causes to smear those
who question the propriety of receiving millions of dollars from the world's
most repressive, misogynistic, gay-hating regimes. Most important, accept
that your argument in defense of all these tawdry relationships - that
big-money donations do not necessarily corrupt the political process or the
politicians who are their beneficiaries - has been and continues to be the
primary argument used to sabotage campaign finance reform.
Given who their candidate is, Democrats really have no choice but to insist
that these sorts of financial relationships are entirely proper (needless to
say, Goldman Sachs has also donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, but
Democrats proved long ago they don't mind any of that when they even
insisted that it was perfectly fine that Goldman Sachs enriched both
Clintons personally with numerous huge speaking fees - though Democrats have
no trouble understanding why Trump's large debts to Chinese banks and
Goldman Sachs pose obvious problems). But - just as is true of their
resurrecting a Cold War template and its smear tactics against their critics
- the benefits derived from this tactic should not obscure how toxic it is
and how enduring its consequences will likely be.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: Reuters)
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-gulf-
tyrannies-donate-millions-to-the-clinton-foundation/https://theintercept.com
/2016/08/25/why-did-the-saudi-regime-and-other-gulf-tyrannies-donate-million
s-to-the-clinton-foundation/
Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the
Clinton Foundation?
By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
27 August 16
s the numerous and obvious ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton
Foundation receive more media scrutiny, the tactic of Clinton-loyal
journalists is to highlight the charitable work done by the foundation, and
then insinuate - or even outright state - that anyone raising these
questions is opposed to its charity. James Carville announced that those who
criticize the foundation are "going to hell." Other Clinton loyalists
insinuated that Clinton Foundation critics are indifferent to the lives of
HIV-positive babies or are anti-gay bigots.
That the Clinton Foundation has done some good work is beyond dispute. But
that fact has exactly nothing to do with the profound ethical problems and
corruption threats raised by the way its funds have been raised. Hillary
Clinton was America's chief diplomat, and tyrannical regimes such as the
Saudis and Qataris jointly donated tens of millions of dollars to an
organization run by her family and operated in its name, one whose works has
been a prominent feature of her public persona. That extremely valuable
opportunity to curry favor with the Clintons, and to secure access to them,
continues as she runs for president.
The claim that this is all just about trying to help people in need should
not even pass a laugh test, let alone rational scrutiny. To see how true
that is, just look at who some of the biggest donors are. Although it did
not give while she was secretary of state, the Saudi regime by itself has
donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, with
donations coming as late as 2014, as she prepared her presidential run. A
group called "Friends of Saudi Arabia," co-founded "by a Saudi Prince," gave
an additional amount between $1 million and $5 million. The Clinton
Foundation says that between $1 million and $5 million was also donated by
"the State of Qatar," the United Arab Emirates, and the government of
Brunei. "The State of Kuwait" has donated between $5 million and $10
million.
Theoretically, one could say that these regimes - among the most repressive
and regressive in the world - are donating because they deeply believe in
the charitable work of the Clinton Foundation and want to help those in
need. Is there a single person on the planet who actually believes this? Is
Clinton loyalty really so strong that people are going to argue with a
straight face that the reason the Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti and Emirates
regimes donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation is because
those regimes simply want to help the foundation achieve its magnanimous
goals?
Here's one of the Clinton Foundation's principal objectives; decide for
yourself if its tyrannical donors are acting with the motive of advancing
that charitable goal:
All those who wish to argue that the Saudis donated millions of dollars to
the Clinton Foundation out of a magnanimous desire to aid its charitable
causes, please raise your hand. Or take the newfound casting of the Clinton
Foundation as a champion of LGBTs, and the smearing of its critics as
indifferent to AIDS. Are the Saudis also on board with these benevolent
missions? And the Qataris and Kuwaitis?
Which is actually more homophobic: questioning the Clinton Foundation's
lucrative relationship to those intensely anti-gay regimes, or cheering and
defending that relationship? All the evidence points to the latter. But
whatever else is true, it is a blatant insult to everyone's intelligence to
claim that the motive of these regimes in transferring millions to the
Clinton Foundation is a selfless desire to help them in their noble work.
Another primary project of the Clinton Foundation is the elimination of
wealth inequality, which "leads to significant economic disparities, both
within and among countries, and prevents underserved populations from
realizing their potential." Who could possibly maintain that the reason the
Qatari and Emirates regimes donated millions to the Clinton Foundation was
their desire to eliminate such economic oppression?
It doesn't exactly take a jaded disposition to doubt that these donations
from some of the world's most repressive regimes are motivated by a desire
to aid the Clinton Foundation's charitable work. To the contrary, it just
requires basic rationality. That's particularly true given that these
regimes "have donated vastly more money to the Clinton Foundation than they
have to most other large private charities involved in the kinds of global
work championed by the Clinton family." For some mystifying reason, they
seem particularly motivated to transfer millions to the Clinton Foundation
but not the other charities around the world doing similar work. Why might
that be? What could ever explain it?
Some Clinton partisans, unwilling to claim that Gulf tyrants have charity in
their hearts when they make these donations to the Clinton Foundation, have
settled on a different tactic: grudgingly acknowledging that the motive of
these donations is to obtain access and favors, but insisting that no quid
pro quo can be proven. In other words, these regimes were tricked: They
thought they would get all sorts of favors through these millions in
donations, but Hillary Clinton was simply too honest and upstanding of a
public servant to fulfill their expectations.
The reality is that there is ample evidence uncovered by journalists
suggesting that regimes donating money to the Clinton Foundation received
special access to and even highly favorable treatment from the Clinton State
Department. But it's also true that nobody can dispositively prove the quid
pro quo. Put another way, one cannot prove what was going on inside Hillary
Clinton's head at the time that she gave access to or otherwise acted in the
interests of these donor regimes: Was she doing it as a favor in return for
those donations, or simply because she has a proven affinity for Gulf State
and Arab dictators, or because she was merely continuing decades of U.S.
policy of propping up pro-U.S. tyrants in the region?
While this "no quid pro quo proof" may be true as far as it goes, it's
extremely ironic that Democrats have embraced it as a defense of Hillary
Clinton. After all, this has long been the primary argument of Republicans
who oppose campaign finance reform, and indeed, it was the primary argument
of the Citizens United majority, once depicted by Democrats as the root of
all evil. But now, Democrats have to line up behind a politician who, along
with her husband, specializes in uniting political power with vast private
wealth, in constantly exploiting the latter to gain the former, and vice
versa. So Democrats are forced to jettison all the good-government
principles they previously claimed to believe and instead are now advocating
the crux of the right-wing case against campaign finance reform: that large
donations from vested factions are not inherently corrupting of politics or
politicians.
Indeed, as I documented in April, Clinton-defending Democrats have now
become the most vocal champions of the primary argument used by the Citizens
United majority. "We now conclude," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the
Citizens United majority, "that independent expenditures, including those
made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of
corruption." That is now exactly the argument Clinton loyalists are spouting
to defend the millions in donations from tyrannical regimes (as well as Wall
Street banks and hedge funds): Oh, there's no proof there's any corruption
going on with all of this money.
The elusive nature of quid pro quo proof - now the primary Democratic
defense of Clinton - has also long been the principal argument wielded by
the most effective enemy of campaign finance reform, GOP Sen. Mitch
McConnell. This is how USA Today, in 1999, described the arguments of
McConnell and his GOP allies when objecting to accusations from campaign
finance reform advocates that large financial donations are corrupting:
Senate opponents of limiting money in politics injected a bitter personal
note into the debate as reformers began an uphill quest to change a system
they say has corrupted American government. .
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the legislation's chief opponent, challenged
reform advocate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to name Senate colleagues who
have been corrupted by high-dollar political contributions.
"How can there be corruption if no one is corrupt?" McConnell asked, zeroing
in on McCain's frequent speeches about the issue in his presidential
campaign. "That's like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the gangsters
are."
When McCain refused to name names, Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, confronted
him. Standing just eight feet from him on the Republican side of the
chamber, Bennett charged that McCain had accused him of corruption in
seeking pork-barrel spending for his home state.
"I am unaware of any money given that influenced my action here," Bennett
said. "I have been accused of being corrupt. . I take personal offense."
The inability to prove that politicians acted as quid pro quo when taking
actions that benefited donors has long been the primary weapon of those
opposing campaign finance reform. It is now the primary argument of
Democratic partisans to defend Hillary Clinton. In Citizens United, Justice
John Paul Stevens wrote a scathing dissent on exactly this point, one that
Democrats once cheered:
So if you want to defend the millions of dollars that went from tyrannical
regimes to the Clinton Foundation as some sort of wily, pragmatic means of
doing good work, go right ahead. But stop insulting everyone's intelligence
by pretending that these donations were motivated by noble ends. Beyond
that, don't dare exploit LGBT rights, AIDS, and other causes to smear those
who question the propriety of receiving millions of dollars from the world's
most repressive, misogynistic, gay-hating regimes. Most important, accept
that your argument in defense of all these tawdry relationships - that
big-money donations do not necessarily corrupt the political process or the
politicians who are their beneficiaries - has been and continues to be the
primary argument used to sabotage campaign finance reform.
Given who their candidate is, Democrats really have no choice but to insist
that these sorts of financial relationships are entirely proper (needless to
say, Goldman Sachs has also donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, but
Democrats proved long ago they don't mind any of that when they even
insisted that it was perfectly fine that Goldman Sachs enriched both
Clintons personally with numerous huge speaking fees - though Democrats have
no trouble understanding why Trump's large debts to Chinese banks and
Goldman Sachs pose obvious problems). But - just as is true of their
resurrecting a Cold War template and its smear tactics against their critics
- the benefits derived from this tactic should not obscure how toxic it is
and how enduring its consequences will likely be.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
