To Help US Veterans Charity, George W. Bush Charged $100,000
By MEGAN CHUCHMACH and BRIAN ROSSJuly 8, 2015 8:10 PM
Former President George W. Bush charged $100,000 to speak at a charity fundraiser for U.S. military veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and former First Lady Laura Bushcollected $50,000 to appear a year earlier, officials of the Texas-based Helping a Hero charity confirmed to ABC News.
The former President was also provided with a private jet to travel to Houston at a cost of $20,000, the officials said.
The charity, which helps to provide specially-adapted homes for veterans who lost limbs and suffered other severe injuries in “the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the total $170,000 expenditure was justified because the former President and First Lady offered discounted fees and helped raise record amounts in contributions at galas held in 2011 and 2012.
“It was great because he reduced his normal fee of $250,000 down to $100,000,” said Meredith Iler, the former chairman of the charity.
However, a recent report by Politico said the former President’s fees typically ranged between $100,000 and $175,000 during those years.
One of the wounded vets who served on the charity’s board told ABC News he was outraged that his former commander in chief would charge any fee to speak on behalf of men and women he ordered into harm's way.
“For him to be paid to raise money for veterans that were wounded in combat under his orders, I don’t think that’s right,” said former Marine Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket attack in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.
“You sent me to war,” added Wright speaking of the former President. “I was doing what you told me to do, gladly for you and our country and I have no regrets. But it’s kind of a slap in the face.”
Former U.S. Presidents have turned the speaker’s circuit into a major source of income for their post-presidential years. Ronald Reaganfaced criticism in 1989 for accepting $2 million for speeches in Japan. Bill Clinton has brought in more than $100 million in post-presidential speaking fees. Bush, similarly, recognized the opportunity, reportedly telling author Robert Draper he planned to "replenish the ol' coffers" on the lecture circuit. But as the commander-in-chief responsible for the prosecution of two bloody wars, Bush has faced a unique dilemma when it has come to addressing military veterans groups.
A spokesperson for former President Bill Clinton said he "has never received" a speaking fee for addressing a veterans' group. A spokesperson for former President Bush’s father, George Herbert Walker Bush, said it has been several years since the elder Bush had given a speech, but said that he did not recall a fee being requested for charity events. On a “handful of occasions” Bush Sr.'s appearance may have been underwritten to cover costs for the charities, spokesman Jim McGrath said. H.W. Bush reportedly appeared at a Helping a Hero event in 2008.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the featured speaker at last year’s Helping a Hero charity fundraiser and did not charge a fee. A representative for former President Jimmy Carter said he does not have a specific policy but often donates his honoraria to the Carter Center.
A lawyer for Helping a Hero, Christopher Tritico, said he could not answer why former President George W. Bush did not speak for free.
“I think it's a valid question for the former President,” he said. “It's not a valid question for a charity who raised an extra million dollars.”
According to the charity’s yearly reports to the IRS, it raised about $2,450,000, after expenses, from the 2012 gala where President Bush spoke. The following year, the gala netted the charity substantially less, about $1,000,000.
Speaking and traveling fees for the former President were paid by the charity, but the amount was underwritten by a private donor, the charity lawyer said.
A spokesperson for the former President, Freddy Ford, confirmed the payment but declined to comment on the criticism over the $100,000 speaking fee from the veterans' charity.
In an e-mail statement, Ford said, “President Bush has made helping veterans one of his highest priorities in his post presidency.”
He said the former President has hosted golf tournaments and mountain bike rides for veterans and was working on the Bush Institute’s Military Service Initiative to help “give returning veterans the first-class support they deserve.”
Few argued when the 20th Century was dubbed the “American Century”, a term first coined in the early 1940s when the country was still overcoming its isolationist instincts.
ReplyDeleteEven the New Year’s fireworks, which illuminated the obelisk of the Washington Monument in a way that made it resemble a giant number one, projected the country's supremacy as the world's sole superpower.
Over the past 15 years, America’s fortunes have changed with dizzying speed.
First came the tremors: the dot-com bust and a disputed presidential election in 2000. Then came the massive convulsions: the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have exacted an enormous blood price - the lives of 6,852 American military personnel - not to mention immense financial expense, estimated to be as high as $6 trillion (£3.9tn).
The detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has undermined American ideals, just as the NSA and Wikileaks spying scandals have undercut American diplomacy.
George W Bush, a president with a Manichean worldview, was widely seen as over-eager to project America’s military might, without adequately considering the long-term consequences.
Barack Obama, who campaigned in 2008 on a platform of extricating America from its unpopular and exhausting wars, has drawn criticism for disengaging too much.
Under both presidents - the first an impulsive unilateralist, the second an instinctive multilateralist content sometimes to lead from behind - America’s global standing has been diminished.
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DeleteLost fear factor
Polls regularly show that Americans recognise that their country’s international standing has waned.
Among the young, this trendline has fallen sharply. Only 15% of 18-29-year-olds believe that America is the “greatest country in the world", according to Pew, down from 27% in 2011.
Tellingly, however, there has been no great public outcry.
No longer is there much appetite for America playing its long-standing role of global policeman, even in the face of the rise of the group calling itself Islamic State.
The cost, human and financial, is considered too great. Americans increasingly think that other countries should share the burden.
Obama, while continuing to trumpet “American exceptionalism", regularly prefaces remarks on foreign affairs by acknowledging the limits of US power, again with little public outcry.
The upshot is that the United States is no longer so keen to exert leadership in an increasingly messy world.
Yet one of the reasons why the world has become so disorderly is because America is no longer so active in imposing order.
Over the course of this century Washington has lost its fear factor.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33440287
Just think..... No Bush presidents. We would not have any Wounded Warriors. No troops killed. No troops with PTSD. Would not have spent around 2 trillion dollars. Every time I see a Wounded Warrior I think of the lies the Bush presidents told when they started their fake wars. And we would not have, ISIS or Al Qadia. Looking to the day when they will be charged with war crimes. Along with Cheney.
ReplyDeleteI thought Bill Clinton was President for 8 years and conducted no fly zones in Iraq?
DeleteObama just reduced the size of the Army by 45,000.
ReplyDeleteOh, time for a Casualty Update for Iraq and Syria:
Killed in Action - 0
Wounded in Action - 0
Missing in Action - 0
Yeah, Election Do Matter.
Elections Do Matter.
DeleteSo you are saying that it's ok for the USA to incur no casualties while killing the enemy...
DeleteSO a lopsided kill rate is excellent?
Hmmm...
But when Israel killed a thousand hamas members and incurred just a dozen deaths you/others like you called it dissportionate.
Hmm...
Why is ok for the USA to drop bombs on headcutters (and not keeping score of the men, women and babies killed) But it's wrong for Israel to kill Hamas and yes, killing men, women and babies used as human shields?
I support the USA killing headcutters, but I also support Israel's right to fire back at Hamas targets, regardless of if civilians are used as human shields.
Hamas sits on Israel's border and has shot 17,000 rockets at Israel, America is flying 9000 miles to bomb headcutters that have never attacked the USA
You know, I don't think the Iranians would be at the table if they didn't "fear" the USAF.
ReplyDeleteThey are at the table because what is left of the sanctions still hurt.
DeleteObama has undone numerous sanctions in "good will" gestures.
The iranians do not fear Obama.
"Fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." -- Yoda
DeleteNational Uninsured Rate (includes illegal aliens) Down to 11.4%.
ReplyDeleteGallup
Obama just reduced the size of the Army by 45,000.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the World Policeman is laying off cops.
You know, I don't think the Iranians would be at the table if they didn't "fear" the USAF.
ReplyDeleteNaw, it's the sanctions taking a bite of their ass. If they want to drag out the negotiations, let 'em.
Yesterday, for my sins, I went to Freedomfest, the libertarian conclave in Las Vegas, to debate Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation. It went pretty much as you might expect: evidence, evidence, evidence versus Reagan, Reagan, Reagan. But in a way the most interesting thing was the audience reaction when I described Obamacare as a major success story so far: boos and hissing.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s amazing about this is that the good news about Obamacare isn’t really debatable. It’s a simple fact that there has been a stunningly rapid drop in the number of uninsured, coming from multiple independent sources. It’s also a simple fact that outlays on Medicaid and exchange subsidies are coming in well below projections.
You can argue that this is all temporary — that premiums will eventually skyrocket even though they haven’t yet, that the predicted death spiral will come back from the er, dead. But Obamacare is, by any measure, doing better so far than even its supporters expected.
But this wasn’t supposed to happen — and therefore, given the epistemology of the modern American right, it didn’t. Failure was inevitable, success inconceivable, and therefore failure must have happened.
Paul Krugman
I'll tell ya, son, that failure is the only option.
DeleteYesterday, 25% of California's electricity was produced by Renewables.
ReplyDeleteCaISO
So much power was produced by Denmark’s windfarms on Thursday that the country was able to meet its domestic electricity demand and export power to Norway, Germany and Sweden.
ReplyDeleteOn an unusually windy day, Denmark found itself producing 116% of its national electricity needs from wind turbines yesterday evening. By 3am on Friday, when electricity demand dropped, that figure had risen to 140%.
Interconnectors allowed 80% of the power surplus to be shared equally between Germany and Norway, which can store it in hydropower systems for use later. Sweden took the remaining fifth of excess power.
“It shows that a world powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for trade body the European Wind Energy Association. “Wind energy and renewables can be a solution to decarbonisation – and also security of supply at times of high demand.”
The figures emerged on the website of the Danish transmission systems operator . . . .
Denmark
Hmm, Sanctuary Cities are safer than non-sanctuary cities? Looks like it.
ReplyDeleteFor example, you're twice as likely to be murdered in Dallas as in San Francisco (two cities of approx. the same size.)
Safety in Sanctuary
Almost 3 times as likely in Indianapolis.
DeleteIf it was your daughter?
DeleteYou'd be screaming to high heaven..
after all you are the one who gave excuses to Hamas stating "if i lived there (in gaza) i'd be a member of Hamas)
What would you be if your daughter were murdered by an Illegal?
Charles Bronson?
.
ReplyDeleteAlmost 3 times as likely in Indianapolis.
So what does that have to do with anything? More correlation = causation. What the sheriff and the city of San Fransisco did is a felony under federal law. The only question is why isn't the DOJ hanging their ass.
.
index click reference read what he said their explanation visit this page look at this now
ReplyDelete