AP Discovers a Lot of Clinton Foundation Donars Got Special Favors

[bripat9643]

We've been operating like this in america forever. Perhaps it should be considered outrageous for all. Justa thought.

Can't agree. When the federal gov was small, as was intended, pols did not have this opportunity for corruption open to them.

..the federal government imposes an infinite number of rules and regulations purposely to make it difficult to do things, so that pols can get big money people to give them money to navigate through the maze. Its great for pols like Cankles and Bubba.

And when would you say that started exactly?

The Civil War.

 

[bripat9643]

Well, it's what you do in a Banana Republic.

News from The Associated Press

What?

This is the most interesting part of your article:

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009.

According to whom?

 

[easyt65]

Welcome to reality, AP.

 

[Conservative65]

We've been operating like this in america forever. Perhaps it should be considered outrageous for all. Justa thought.

The other guy did it excuse?

 

[Conservative65]

We've been operating like this in america forever. Perhaps it should be considered outrageous for all. Justa thought.

Can't agree. When the federal gov was small, as was intended, pols did not have this opportunity for corruption open to them.

..the federal government imposes an infinite number of rules and regulations purposely to make it difficult to do things, so that pols can get big money people to give them money to navigate through the maze. Its great for pols like Cankles and Bubba.

Only them "lefties" do it, yes, of course, I thought so.

No the lefties say it's wrong to do it then do it themselves and, like you, use the other guy did it, too excuse.

 

[Claudette]

Wait a minute.

According to Right Winger the Clinton Foundation is a philanthropic organization period.

Also according the Right Winger the GOP has investigated it thoroughly and found nothing.

Color me shocked and I'll just bet Right Winger is just as shocked as I am. LMAO.

 

[Dragonlady]

Criminal
Pay
To
Play

BULLSHIT. If you were a criminal would start be so publically brazen to set up a Foundation with your name on it, which publishes lists of donors, and how much they donate. How stupid would that be?

 

[easyt65]

AP:
" More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[easyt65]

AP:
"At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[easyt65]

AP:
"Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[easyt65]

AP:
"Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran"

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[320 Years of History]

I truly think all the Clinton Foundation recriminations exist and are even possible to make for the following reasons:

• Most people are not senior executives and have no clue of what a senior executive does, what their work days are like or anything else about how they live, other than that outwardly senior execs and principals appear to live "the live of Riley."
• Senior executives and principals are not about to publicly discuss what their work days and lives are like, other than perhaps to talk about interesting places, interesting people/conversations, hobbies, vacations or their kids or some other "polite" topic that somehow intersects with their work lives.

For all the Clinton Foundation hoopla, people are forgetting (or don't know) one thing:

People don't set up 501(c) foundations, which is what the Clinton Foundation is, to collect/make money; they set them up to give it away!!! ​

Can the creator of a 501(c) earn something from the Foundation? Yes, they can if the foundation pays them a salary. They can if the foundation buys their founder's goods and services. The Clinton's don't have any goods, and their only service offerings are honoraria and government service. Do you really think the Clinton Foundation is going to engage the Clintons to give a speech to the Clinton Foundation?

There's plenty of sensationalism about the Clinton Foundation and the people who met with Mrs. Clinton.

• Meetings:
  Out of curiosity, what the heck do you think a Secretary of State or any other senior executive mostly does? Well, I'll tell you: mostly, they go from one meeting to the next. In between "big" meetings, they read stuff to get prepared for the next meeting, they sign documents that lower level staff prepared as a consequence of prior meetings, they talk to folks on the phone to get details about a meeting that already took place or that will take place.
• Money:
  What money? Who gets rich saying, "Give money to this charity that does nothing for and buys nothing from me or my friends, and maybe I'll talk to you."?

In alleged the Clinton Foundation "pay to play" scheme, what personal financial gain did Hillary or Bill Clinton get?

• 2010 Clinton Foundation Tax Return
  • Page 7: Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors
    • No Clinton received compensation of any sort.
• 2012 Clinton Foundation Tax Return
  • Page 7: Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors
    • Chelsea Clinton and Terry McAuliffe are both listed. How much did they receive? $0.00.

Looking at the (as known) process of donations to the Clinton Foundation (CF) and meeting requests with HRC, the process would look as follows:

1. Donor gives "big money" to CF
2. CF spends money on needy people and various good/service providers
   • Was HRC one of those recipients of money? No.
   • The donor clearly wasn't.
3. Donor requests meeting with Hillary Clinton (HRC)
   • Meeting does not occur --> End.
   • Meeting occurs --> Go to #4.
4. Donor and HRC meet.
5. Donor ask for "something" from HRC/SecState, which by inference means U.S.
   • Donor receives what was requested --> Go to #6
   • Donor does not receive what was requested.--> Go to #6
6. Increase in HRC personal fortune?
   • Yes --> deposit is recorded and investigated
   • No --> nothing happens
7. End

So, somebody please show me some tangible proof that Hillary Clinton personally benefitted from anything having to do with the Clinton Foundation's fundraising. In other words, just what did the Clintons receive in exchange for all these donations and meetings? The CF is not like Trump Organization, which is a business. It's a charity, just like the Shawn Carter Foundation.

Seeing as Mrs. Clinton wasn't paid anything by the CF, that's not where she'd have gotten a personal financial gain. The next place to look is to see what outcomes took place subsequent to the meeting. I looked into one such donor, the first one noted in the AP's article.

What does the AP article say? (I have time right now to address only the first person noted.)

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included:An internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran.

• Bangladesh's GDP is $150B. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could together buy and sell the whole damn country. I realize that to most Americans, the idea that a private individual can have meaningful enough influence in a country like Bangladesh is absurd. Well, it's not, not by a longshot. In countries that have only very wealthy and very poor citizens, the wealthy folks there, be they part of the government or not, have tremendous say in the governance of the place. If they have a role in government or an arm of it, they have even more.
  
  The man who for some reason went unnamed in the AP's article is Muhammad Yunus. What help did he get from Mrs. Clinton? Apparently not enough...He was forced to step down from his position on the board at the Bangladeshi nonprofit organization involved.
  
  What organization? Grameen Bank, which is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning microfinance organization and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. The name Grameen is derived from the word gram which means "rural" or "village" in the Bengali Language.
  
  Now what do "Mr. and Mrs. Typical American" know about Bangladesh or the Grameen Bank? I suspect nothing for I doubt that most Americans even know where Bangladesh is, much less the name of its domestic development bank (it's essentially their version of the Small Business Administration); however, there's quite a lot to know about the bank and its role in Bangladesh governance.
  
  The first thing to know is that in countries as small and poor as Bangladesh, a single very wealthy (for that country) individual usually has a huge influence on the functioning and stability of the country. Here you'll find why Mr. Yunus and Mrs. Clinton had a U.S. government related reason to interact.
  
  There's more to Mr. Yunus and the bank than just that, however. I'll leave it to you to peruse the following and lean a bit on your own.

• Grameen Bank: Taking Capitalism to the Poor
• Yunus seeks people’s support for smooth transition of leadership in Grameen Bank
• Will the Government of Bangladesh Ruin Grameen Bank? | Grameen Foundation | Connecting the World's Poor to Their Potential

What is the value of the Grameen Bank? In addition to what you'll have found if you read the content at the links I provided, it, under Mr. Yunus, has pioneered a new approach to making the benefits of capitalism available to poor folks and has played a central role in bringing more wealth to the poorest people there.. Do you suppose there's a reason for Mrs. Clinton to want to understand?

More directly related to her role at State, are you aware of how ISIS preys on poor nations and inserts itself? Do you know where Bangladesh may fit in ISIS' designs? If ISIS were to have its way, Bangladesh could easily become a place where ISIS inserts itself. What about Myanmar right next door to Bangladesh?​

So, while it may massage one's feelings of disdain toward Mrs. Clinton for what her relationships looked like superficially, exercise just a little bit of intellectual integrity and at least look further than just what you see published in a newspaper article. Mrs. Clinton is quite like many senior execs in that she acts to do the right thing first and worries about optics later. That's hurting her right now given the acrimony over the CF. But if you read the content I've linked in this post, you'll find that at least one of the associations noted in the AP article the thread OP references is not one whereof there existed some untoward goings on.

 

[easyt65]

AP:
"(Donors who were granted time with Hillary included)...a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem..."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

"Hillary, you remember all those extremely lucrative speaking fees you got from us? Well I need a favor..."

 

[easyt65]

"(Donors who were granted time with Hillary included)...Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[easyt65]

"...the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

 

[AntonToo]

AP:
"Hillary, you remember all those extremely lucrative speaking fees you got from us? Well I need a favor..."

Can you source the quote?

Of course you can't, it's made up.

There is potential for conflict of interest here, but no one has brought any real evidence of corruption.

 

[easyt65]

AP:
"Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected."

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State



"I will stop taking millions from foreign / Islamic nations that support and fund terrorism, stop taking millions from Islamic nations that oppress/mutilate/murder women (for BEING raped), and stop taking millions from nations that murder gays...IF ELECTED PRESIDENT."

...and the million dollar question is 'WHY DOESN'T SHE STOP NOW?'

 

[Dragonlady]

I truly think all the Clinton Foundation recriminations exist and are even possible to make for the following reasons:

• Most people are not senior executives and have no clue of what a senior executive does, what their work days are like or anything else about how they live, other than that outwardly senior execs and principals appear to live "the live of Riley."
• Senior executives and principals are not about to publicly discuss what their work days and lives are like, other than perhaps to talk about interesting places, interesting people/conversations, hobbies, vacations or their kids or some other "polite" topic that somehow intersects with their work lives.

For all the Clinton Foundation hoopla, people are forgetting (or don't know) one thing:

People don't set up 501(c) foundations, which is what the Clinton Foundation is, to collect/make money; they set them up to give it away!!! ​

Can the creator of a 501(c) earn something from the Foundation? Yes, they can if the foundation pays them a salary. They can if the foundation buys their founder's goods and services. The Clinton's don't have any goods, and their only service offerings are honoraria and government service. Do you really think the Clinton Foundation is going to engage the Clintons to give a speech to the Clinton Foundation?

There's plenty of sensationalism about the Clinton Foundation and the people who met with Mrs. Clinton.

• Meetings:
  Out of curiosity, what the heck do you think a Secretary of State or any other senior executive mostly does? Well, I'll tell you: mostly, they go from one meeting to the next. In between "big" meetings, they read stuff to get prepared for the next meeting, they sign documents that lower level staff prepared as a consequence of prior meetings, they talk to folks on the phone to get details about a meeting that already took place or that will take place.
• Money:
  What money? Who gets rich saying, "Give money to this charity that does nothing for and buys nothing from me or my friends, and maybe I'll talk to you."?

In alleged the Clinton Foundation "pay to play" scheme, what personal financial gain did Hillary or Bill Clinton get?

• 2010 Clinton Foundation Tax Return
  • Page 7: Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors
    • No Clinton received compensation of any sort.
• 2012 Clinton Foundation Tax Return
  • Page 7: Compensation of Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, Highest Compensated Employees, and Independent Contractors
    • Chelsea Clinton and Terry McAuliffe are both listed. How much did they receive? $0.00.

Looking at the (as known) process of donations to the Clinton Foundation (CF) and meeting requests with HRC, the process would look as follows:

1. Donor gives "big money" to CF
2. CF spends money on needy people and various good/service providers
   • Was HRC one of those recipients of money? No.
   • The donor clearly wasn't.
3. Donor requests meeting with Hillary Clinton (HRC)
   • Meeting does not occur --> End.
   • Meeting occurs --> Go to #4.
4. Donor and HRC meet.
5. Donor ask for "something" from HRC/SecState, which by inference means U.S.
   • Donor receives what was requested --> Go to #6
   • Donor does not receive what was requested.--> Go to #6
6. Increase in HRC personal fortune?
   • Yes --> deposit is recorded and investigated
   • No --> nothing happens
7. End

So, somebody please show me some tangible proof that Hillary Clinton personally benefitted from anything having to do with the Clinton Foundation's fundraising. You wrote that -- "for personal gain" -- not I; it's your premise.

Seeing as Mrs. Clinton wasn't paid anything by the CF, that's not where she'd have gotten a personal financial gain. The next place to look is to see what outcomes took place subsequent to the meeting. I looked into one such donor, the first one noted in the AP's article. In other words, just what did the Clintons receive in exchange for all these donations and meetings? The CF is not like Trump Organization, which is a business. It's a charity, just like the Shawn Carter Foundation.

What does the AP article say? (I have time right now to address only the first person noted.)

Donors who were granted time with Clinton included:An internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran.

• Bangladesh's GDP is $150B. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet could together buy and sell the whole damn country. I realize that to most Americans, the idea that a private individual can have meaningful enough influence in a country like Bangladesh is absurd. Well, it's not, not by a longshot. In countries that have only very wealthy and very poor citizens, the wealthy folks there, be they part of the government or not, have tremendous say in the governance of the place. If they have a role in government or an arm of it, they have even more.
  
  The man who for some reason went unnamed in the AP's article is Muhammad Yunus. What help did he get from Mrs. Clinton? Apparently not enough...He was forced to step down from his position on the board at the Bangladeshi nonprofit organization involved.
  
  What organization? Grameen Bank, which is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning microfinance organization and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. The name Grameen is derived from the word gram which means "rural" or "village" in the Bengali Language.
  
  Now what do "Mr. and Mrs. Typical American" know about Bangladesh or the Grameen Bank? I suspect nothing for I doubt that most Americans even know where Bangladesh is, much less the name of its domestic development bank (it's essentially their version of the Small Business Administration); however, there's quite a lot to know about the bank and its role in Bangladesh governance.
  
  The first thing to know is that in countries as small and poor as Bangladesh, a single very wealthy (for that country) individual usually has a huge influence on the functioning and stability of the country. Here you'll find why Mr. Yunus and Mrs. Clinton had a U.S. government related reason to interact.
  
  There's more to Mr. Yunus and the bank than just that, however. I'll leave it to you to peruse the following and lean a bit on your own.

• Grameen Bank: Taking Capitalism to the Poor
• Yunus seeks people’s support for smooth transition of leadership in Grameen Bank
• Will the Government of Bangladesh Ruin Grameen Bank? | Grameen Foundation | Connecting the World's Poor to Their Potential

What is the value of the Grameen Bank? In addition to what you'll have found if you read the content at the links I provided, it, under Mr. Yunus, has pioneered a new approach to making the benefits of capitalism available to poor folks and has played a central role in bringing more wealth to the poorest people there.. Do you suppose there's a reason for Mrs. Clinton to want to understand?

More directly related to her role at State, are you aware of how ISIS preys on poor nations and inserts itself? Do you know where Bangladesh may fit in ISIS' designs? If ISIS were to have its way, Bangladesh could easily become a place where ISIS inserts itself. What about Myanmar right next door to Bangladesh?​

So, while it may massage one's feelings of disdain toward Mrs. Clinton for what her relationships looked like superficially, exercise just a little bit of intellectual integrity and at least look further than just what you see published in a newspaper article. Mrs. Clinton is quite like many senior execs in that she acts to do the right thing first and worries about optics later. That's hurting her right now given the acrimony over the CF. But if you read the content I've linked in this post, you'll find that at least one of the associations noted in the AP article the thread OP references is not one whereof there existed some untoward goings on.

Exactly, not that the conservatives here care or will even bother to read it. They think they've got something on the Clintons this time. And they'd be wrong.

 

[Dragonlady]

AP:
"Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected."

"I will stop taking millions from foreign / Islamic nations that support and fund terrorism, stop taking millions from Islamic nations that oppress/mutilate/murder women (for BEING raped), and stop taking millions from nations that murder gays...IF ELECTED PRESIDENT."

...and the million dollar question is 'WHY DOESN'T SHE STOP NOW?'

Why are you so offended that she takes money from nasty people? What matters is what the Clintons do with that money, which is use it to help the people harmed.

 

[Iceweasel]

Criminal
Pay
To
Play

BULLSHIT. If you were a criminal would start be so publically brazen to set up a Foundation with your name on it, which publishes lists of donors, and how much they donate. How stupid would that be?

Further evidence you know nothing about American politics.