Another phony scandal...our media is a ratings mad disgrace...
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/paul-wa...a4887f82d.html
"There’s a new round of “revelations” concerning Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department, and since it involves some people sending emails to other people, it gets wrapped up with that other story about Clinton.
Are you ready for the shocking news, the scandalous details, the mind-blowing malfeasance? Well, hold on to your hat, because here it is: When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, many people wanted to speak with her.
Astonishing, I know.
Let’s briefly summarize what’s so earth-shaking that it gets front-page treatment on both the New York Times and the Washington Post, not to mention untold hours of breathless cable news discussion. There are actually two stories in one.
The first is that a federal judge has ordered the State Department to speed up its review of approximately 15,000 previously undisclosed emails that the FBI retrieved off of Clinton’s server.
We have no idea what’s in them. It could be something horrifying, or it could be utterly banal. My money’s on the latter.
The second story is that Judicial Watch, an organization that has been pursuing Clinton for years, has released a trove of emails it obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, emails that supposedly show how donors to the Clinton Foundation got special access, and presumably special favors, from Clinton while she was at State.
The only problem is that the emails in question reveal nothing of the sort. What they actually reveal is that a few foundation donors wanted access but didn’t get it.
Let’s look at that story. It mentions three specific requests sent to Clinton aide Huma Abedin by Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, on behalf of people who had contributed to the foundation:
» A sports executive who had donated to the foundation wanted to arrange for a visa for a British soccer player to visit the United States; he was having trouble getting one because of a criminal conviction. Abedin said she’d look into it, but there’s no evidence she did anything and the player didn’t get his visa.
» Bono, who had donated to the foundation, wanted to have some kind of arrangement whereby upcoming U2 concerts would be broadcast to the International Space Station. Abedin was puzzled by this request, and nothing was ever done about it.
» The Crown Prince of Bahrain, who had donated to the foundation, wanted to meet with Clinton on a visit to Washington. Abedin responded to Band that the Bahrainis had already made that request through normal diplomatic channels. The two did end up meeting.
And that’s it. So: Nobody got special favors and nobody got “access,” except for the second-highest-ranking official of an important U.S. ally in the Middle East (Bahrain is, among other things, the site of an American naval base that is home to the 5th Fleet and the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command).
While Bahrain has donated money to the Clinton Foundation to fund a scholarship program, it’s safe to say that the Crown Prince meeting with the U.S. secretary of state is not an unusual occurrence."
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/paul-wa...a4887f82d.html
"There’s a new round of “revelations” concerning Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department, and since it involves some people sending emails to other people, it gets wrapped up with that other story about Clinton.
Are you ready for the shocking news, the scandalous details, the mind-blowing malfeasance? Well, hold on to your hat, because here it is: When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, many people wanted to speak with her.
Astonishing, I know.
Let’s briefly summarize what’s so earth-shaking that it gets front-page treatment on both the New York Times and the Washington Post, not to mention untold hours of breathless cable news discussion. There are actually two stories in one.
The first is that a federal judge has ordered the State Department to speed up its review of approximately 15,000 previously undisclosed emails that the FBI retrieved off of Clinton’s server.
We have no idea what’s in them. It could be something horrifying, or it could be utterly banal. My money’s on the latter.
The second story is that Judicial Watch, an organization that has been pursuing Clinton for years, has released a trove of emails it obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, emails that supposedly show how donors to the Clinton Foundation got special access, and presumably special favors, from Clinton while she was at State.
The only problem is that the emails in question reveal nothing of the sort. What they actually reveal is that a few foundation donors wanted access but didn’t get it.
Let’s look at that story. It mentions three specific requests sent to Clinton aide Huma Abedin by Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, on behalf of people who had contributed to the foundation:
» A sports executive who had donated to the foundation wanted to arrange for a visa for a British soccer player to visit the United States; he was having trouble getting one because of a criminal conviction. Abedin said she’d look into it, but there’s no evidence she did anything and the player didn’t get his visa.
» Bono, who had donated to the foundation, wanted to have some kind of arrangement whereby upcoming U2 concerts would be broadcast to the International Space Station. Abedin was puzzled by this request, and nothing was ever done about it.
» The Crown Prince of Bahrain, who had donated to the foundation, wanted to meet with Clinton on a visit to Washington. Abedin responded to Band that the Bahrainis had already made that request through normal diplomatic channels. The two did end up meeting.
And that’s it. So: Nobody got special favors and nobody got “access,” except for the second-highest-ranking official of an important U.S. ally in the Middle East (Bahrain is, among other things, the site of an American naval base that is home to the 5th Fleet and the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command).
While Bahrain has donated money to the Clinton Foundation to fund a scholarship program, it’s safe to say that the Crown Prince meeting with the U.S. secretary of state is not an unusual occurrence."
