COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Question: Is there anything not corrupt about the Clintons?

Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State

Hillary Clinton

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.

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. 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.

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; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem and 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.

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. But 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.

The AP's findings represent the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting interests of Clinton foundation donors and people who met personally with Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs.


The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP's calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties.
Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected.

On Monday, Bill Clinton said in a statement that if his wife were to win, he would step down from the foundation's board and stop all fundraising for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities.

Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000.

"There's a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems," said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University's graduate fundraising management program. “ he point is, she can't just walk away from these 6,000 donors."

Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department.

"If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she's tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done," said Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s top ethics counsel and later worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama administration's current ethics commitments and oversight, which include lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors.


Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon did not respond to the AP’s questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a statement Tuesday the standard set by the Clinton Foundation's ethics restrictions was "unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some critics."

Some of Clinton's most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband's political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.

S. Daniel Abraham, whose name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton's planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues.

Big Clinton Foundation donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP’s review showed.

Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest "microcredit" for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank's board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him.

American affiliates of his nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in microloans for the poor. 

Grameen America, the bank's nonprofit U.S. flagship, which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution's annual fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000.

As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until 2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department's foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton’s tenure.

By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton's top aides about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh's government. His bank was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money a charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer, a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State Department for help in pressing his case.


"Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a friendly way," he asked Verveer. Yunus sent "regards to H" and cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend.
Clinton ordered an aide: “ ive to EAP rep," referring the problem to the agency's top east Asia expert.

Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh’s prime minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert "ASAP."

Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by email that "the situation does not allow me to leave the country." By mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the bank's board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: “ ad indeed."

Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011 and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton's arrival in Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen Bank's effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton warned the Bangladesh government that "we do not want to see any action taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the Grameen Bank."
Grameen America’s Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his office, but he had not responded by Tuesday.

Earlier this month, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau acknowledged that agency officials are "regularly in touch with a range of outside individuals and organizations, including nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks and others." But Trudeau said the State Department was not aware of any actions that were influenced by the Clinton Foundation.

In another case, Clinton was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the attendees. Schwarzman's firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman's request. In December that same year, Schwarzman's wife, Christine, sat at Clinton's table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzian  then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke.


Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone's charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials did not make Schwarzian available for comment.

Clinton also met in June 2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time.

The MAC AIDS fund donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a commitment to CGI since 2011.

Estee Lauder executive Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual slavery in Cambodia.

MAC AIDs officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment.
When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama’s transition team.

Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from the foundation.

“The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public that there will not be favoritism," Lugar said.

Associated Press

101 comments:

  1. It's really quite unbelievable, but true none the less -

    HALF OF HILLARY MEETS AT STATE GAVE CASH TO FOUNDATION....DRUDGE

    If we elect this political whore to the White House, the United States of America has really really lost its way.

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    1. Or is it all inevitable ?

      August 23, 2016

      Approaching the end point of the cycle of democracy

      By Earick Ward


      One of my favorite quotes, which I believe accurately describes our current circumstances, is attributed to Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler.

      Cycle of Democracy


      A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

      From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

      The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

      From bondage to spiritual faith;
      from spiritual faith to great courage;
      from courage to liberty;
      from liberty to abundance;
      from abundance to selfishness;
      from selfishness to apathy;
      from apathy to dependence;
      from dependency back again into bondage.

      Is there a more accurate depiction of today's Democrat politician than the promise of more benefits from the public treasury? Or the voters' realization that they can vote themselves largess from the same said public treasury?

      Free college. Waiving student debt. Money (more money) for education. Money (more money) for the inner cities. Health care for all. A fifteen-dollar minimum wage. Amnesty. Reparations. On and on and on. The appetite is insatiable.

      The Democrat pol is only too happy to stoke envy and resentment of the voter base, with the promise that he will make things right. Of course, making things right demands that he be voted into office, and likewise be granted "more power" to level the playing field. In parlance, leveling the playing field means take from the rich and give to the poor.

      Having been founded 240 years ago, we have surpassed the average age of history's great democracies. With $20T in national debt and over $100T in unfunded liabilities, we are well on our way to collapse.

      Today, we are somewhere between selfishness and dependency, and well on our way to bondage.

      Progressives have been on a 100-year tear. When socialists couldn't win over the electorate in the early part of the 20th century, they ingeniously began the process of "giving the American people a taste." As most addicts, they start with a taste. Soon they progress to casual use, and a before you know it, they're strung out, desperately looking for their next hit. The pusher, in this instance, our Democrat politician is only too happy to provide, at someone else's expense.

      We as a nation have a decision, and a pressing one: will we continue our drug-addled binge, or will we pull back the reins before it's too late?

      Our answer relies on the aforementioned voters. I don't hold out much hope in our ability to break free from our own vicious cycle.

      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/approaching_the_end_point_of_the_cycle_of_democracy.html#ixzz4IBocylEU

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  2. Neither Bill, nor Hillary, ever took a salary, or any other compensation, from The Clinton Foundation (Rated A by Charitywatch.

    And, we know that, because Hillary and Bill Clinton, unlike the donald, have released their Tax Returns for the last 35+ Years.

    So, where's the Quid Pro Quo?

    Where's the "scandal?"

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    1. You really are the dumbest old fool in the universe.

      Delete
    2. :-)
      Yep, no missile technology for the Chicoms, no Uranium for the Russians...

      Pure as the driven snow.

      ...and Bill's Dick.

      Delete
  3. A big slush fund for the Clinton Foundation

    Hillary assures voters she’s done nothing wrong and won’t do it again

    By David Keene - The Washington Times - Monday, August 22, 2016

    ANALYSIS/OPINION:

    Hillary Clinton, after learning there is a chance that hackers could release potentially embarrassing Clinton Foundation emails before the November elections, has announced that if she is elected president the foundation will no longer accept the foreign and corporate donations that have convinced all but her most loyal sycophants that she may well have been peddling influence to the highest bidder as secretary of state.

    It is as if Willie Sutton, after robbing enough banks to ensure a comfortable retirement, had announced that bankers and their depositors could stop worrying because he would stop if given the key to the city.

    An apology and a promise to go straight in the future does not excuse one’s past transgressions, even if such a promise might influence a parole board to give a criminal who has served a good portion of his or her sentence an early release and a second chance. Mrs. Clinton, for her part, apologizes for nothing, but is now promising to stop doing something that she has always defended as legitimate and above board.


    The Clinton Foundation has from the beginning appeared to be just what the Sunlight Foundation — a “progressive” foundation promoting nonprofit transparency — described it as some years ago: “a slush fund.” Its mission has not been to vanquish disease and poverty as Hillary and Bill have claimed, but to allow the Clintons to keep their political army housed, clothed and fed as they prepared for Hillary’s presidential campaign.

    Last year, Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog that rates charities, put the Clinton Foundation on its “watch list” as a warning to potential contributors because so much Clinton Foundation money was going to salaries, overhead and luxury travel rather than to fulfilling its stated mission.

    To finance all this, the Clintons sought and accepted huge contributions from foreign interests wishing to influence U.S. policy. After all, a former president and a sitting secretary of State are in a better position to deliver than your average influence peddler. The aforementioned Mr. Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks and answered straightforwardly that he did so because “that’s where the money is.” The Clintons milked foreign interests for precisely the same reason and had to know that doing so would, when revealed, look smarmy at best and would raise questions about what these folks got for their money....

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/22/a-big-slush-fund-for-the-clinton-foundation/

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  4. Question: Is there anything not corrupt about the Clintons?

    No.

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    1. Question: Is there anything not corrupt about the Clintons?

      No.

      And they've groomed little innocent Chelsea to carry on the tradition.

      Delete
  5. The Clinton Foundation is back in the spotlight, with Donald Trump charging this month that the “Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return." A range of other critics have piled on, including the Capital Research Center, which calls the foundation a “cauldron of conflict and cronyism.”

    There are lots of good reasons for digging into the Clinton Foundation right now. But one question that gets surprisingly little attention is the most basic: What does this place actually do?

    As far as I can see, most people—including in nonprofits, politics and the media—know little about how the Clinton Foundation operates. That’s understandable, since the foundation ranks as one of the more complex nonprofits around. Yet grasping the mechanics of this place is a precondition for unraveling the controversies around it, relating to its effectiveness and possible conflicts of interest. I’ll get into those controversies in later posts. Here, I focus on the foundation’s mechanics.

    The Clinton Foundation is best understood as an umbrella entity that is carrying out several very different missions. It’s a lot like the Carter Center in key respects, but more complex. Let’s walk through each of its core missions.

    Mission One: Traditional Nonprofit Program Work

    One quick way to understand any nonprofit is to look at its budget and see what it’s spending money on. If you look at the Clinton Foundation’s consolidated expenses for 2014, which totaled $249 million, you’ll find that the biggest part of those expenses—57 percent—was for running the Clinton Health Access Initiative, or CHAI. Technically, CHAI is a freestanding nonprofit, and it files its own 990 tax return, but it is still roughly under the Clinton Foundation umbrella. CHAI was started in 2002 to focus on saving the “lives of people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world by dramatically scaling up antiretroviral treatment.” It has since expanded to address other health issues like malaria and maternal health, operating in some 35 countries. The Gates Foundation is CHAI’s biggest funder. It gave it over $60 million last year alone.

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    1. Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation directly runs various programs tackling other problems. The largest of these, dollar-wise, is the Clinton Climate Initiative, which works to prevent deforestation, develop clean energy, and help island nations meet the climate challenge (as we’ve reported). As with CHAI, there’s nothing all that surprising about this effort, which is similar to other nonprofit work in the climate space. The government of Norway, which gives large amounts of money globally to slow deforestation, is among the top funders of CCI.

      Continuing down the program list, we find the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which focuses on poverty alleviation by supporting “impact entrepreneurs” who are are creating “new enterprises to generate both social impact and financial returns” by addressing market gaps in developing countries. If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because lots of groups are now using these same strategies as impact investing takes off. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, here. (Except the donor to the program, Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman whose ties to the Clintons have come under scrutiny. More about him in a future post.)

      The Clinton Foundation runs a bunch of other programs. I could keep going through them, but you can check out the full list yourself. What you’ll find, by and large, are more activities of the sort that any other nonprofit might be undertaking. And, like other nonprofits, the Clinton Foundation is chasing after grant money from the real foundations that have it, like Gates and Rockefeller, as well as foreign governments, most of which also donate to other major nonprofits.

      Mission Two: Convener and Matchmaker

      Of course, the other big thing the Clinton Foundation does is bring people together through the Clinton Global Initiative. While this is the best-known part of its work, CGI actually accounted for less than 10 percent of the foundation’s consolidated expenses in 2014.

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    2. The Clinton Global Initiative emerged after Bill Clinton had the idea of creating a Davos-type event that focused on global problems. CGI has now been around for over a decade and is itself a bit complicated, with three parts: the annual global convening, CGI America (which focus on U.S. issues), and CGI University, which works to engage college to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world.

      You can dig into all the details on CGI here, if you want. But the best way to understand CGI is that it’s a glitzy membership operation that fosters partnerships to tackle various problems. Members come together at the meetings, and make commitments to engage in projects—often involving tens of millions of dollars in pledges.

      One thing that confuses people about CGI is that none of the pledged money runs through this organization. As the foundation describes it, “Rather than directly implementing projects, CGI facilitates action by helping members connect, collaborate, and make effective and measurable Commitments to Action.” Often, though, you’ll hear pledges made at CGI described as outright donations to the Clinton Foundation. Even veteran reports seem easily confused by this model, while some . . .

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    3. Here is what Bill Clinton has to say about the future of the Foundation:

      www.clintonfoundation.org/…

      When I left the White House in 2001 and returned to life as a private citizen, I wanted to continue working in areas I had long cared about, where I believed I could still make an impact. That’s what the Clinton Foundation has tried to do, by creating opportunities and solving problems faster, better, at lower cost so that more people are empowered to build better futures for themselves, their families, and their communities. I am grateful to everyone in the U.S. and across the world who has been involved in our work, and especially grateful to Chelsea for her role in increasing scope and impact.

      From day one, the Foundation has pursued its mission through partnerships with governments, the private sector, other foundations, and philanthropists, creating networks of cooperation that are focused on results. In 2005, we convened the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to give people all over the world the chance to do the same thing.

      These efforts have improved millions of lives around the world. For example:

      • More than 11.5 million people in over 70 countries have access to lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs at 90 percent lower cost through our affiliated Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), including more than 800,000 children. That’s more than half the adults and three quarters of the children on treatment today.

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    4. • CHAI has also organized the training of thousands of health care workers as part of an effort to address critical shortages in poor countries and help others build strong, self-sufficient health systems, and expanded access to high-quality, low-cost treatment and diagnostics for many other diseases and conditions.

      • Through our work with the affiliated Alliance for a Healthier Generation, more than 18 million students in over 31,000 American schools, in every state, now have healthier food and more physical activity options, and our agreements with the beverage industry have reduced the caloric intake from drinks by 90 percent in the vast majority of U.S. schools.

      • Our Health Matters Initiative is working in six communities to improve health and has worked with innovative drug companies to help reverse opioid overdoses and combat prescription painkiller misuse by lowering the cost of autoinjection naloxone and making naloxone nasal spray available to every high school in the U.S. at no cost.

      • The Foundation’s Haiti initiative has promoted sustainable investment resulting in the planting of more than 5 million trees, the development of 5 new agricultural supply chains benefiting more than 4,000 smallholder farmers, and support for more than 20 entrepreneurial businesses. And members of CGI’s Haiti Action Network have made more than 100 Commitments to Action to strengthen the health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors.

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    5. • Our climate change projects have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 33,500 tons annually across the U.S. We’ve also partnered on reforestation and land restoration efforts in South America and East Africa, and are working with island nations to develop renewable energy projects and reduce dependence on expensive imported diesel and petroleum.

      • More than 500,000 people in Latin America are benefiting from social enterprises that connect people to job training, supply chains, and entrepreneurship opportunities.

      • More than 105,000 farmers in East Africa have dramatically increased their yields and their incomes.

      • And, through Too Small to Fail (TSTF), we are working with the faith-based community, pediatricians, community and business leaders, and Head Start educators to provide parents with resources in everyday settings to support their young children’s early brain and language development, and have reached 155,000 parents with tips through direct text messages.


      snip

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    6. If she is elected, we will immediately implement the following changes: The Foundation will accept contributions only from U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and U.S.-based independent foundations, whose names we will continue to make public on a quarterly basis. And we will change the official name from the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation to the Clinton Foundation.

      While I will continue to support the work of the Foundation, I will step down from the Board and will no longer raise funds for it.

      Much of the Foundation’s international work, like that of most global NGOs, is funded in part by donor governments’ bilateral aid programs. If Hillary is elected, we will transition those programs out of the Foundation to other organizations committed to continuing their work. Doing this in a way that ensures continuity and is respectful of all the employees working around the world will take time. We will complete these transitions as soon as we can do so responsibly.

      With respect to CHAI, I will step down from the Board. We, along with the CHAI Board, are additionally considering a range of options to ensure that its vital work will continue and will announce details soon.

      The Clinton Foundation was originally established to build the Clinton Presidential Center and Library in Little Rock, and the work there will continue regardless of the outcome of the election. Since opening its doors 12 years ago, more than 4 million people have visited the Center and it has helped to inspire new generations of leaders—including through the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, a bipartisan educational partnership with the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation. The Center has lived up to my vision and much more, including as an important educational and cultural resource and driver of economic growth for the Little Rock community.

      Finally, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has accomplished even more than I dreamed when it began in 2005, and we’ve made the decision that the Annual Meeting this September will be the last, and that we will no longer hold our CGI America meetings.

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  6. The Clinton Foundation has from the beginning appeared to be just what the Sunlight Foundation — a “progressive” foundation promoting nonprofit transparency — described it as some years ago: “a slush fund.” Its mission has not been to vanquish disease and poverty as Hillary and Bill have claimed, but to allow the Clintons to keep their political army housed, clothed and fed as they prepared for Hillary’s presidential campaign.

    Last year, Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog that rates charities, put the Clinton Foundation on its “watch list” as a warning to potential contributors because so much Clinton Foundation money was going to salaries, overhead and luxury travel rather than to fulfilling its stated mission.

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    1. The Crown Prince of Bahrain paid $$32 million to talk to Hillary.

      He probably wanted some USA equipment for the military, which supply had been slowed due to human rights abuses.

      What he got, other than access, which is itself a quid pro quo, I haven't read, but Hillary waltzed with $$32 million.

      It's really a gas watching Rufus struggle to defend the indefensible.

      Delete
  7. I'm nearly resigned to seeing Hillary win. The nation being chock full of Rufuses. But I'd love to see John Bolton as Secretary of State. There would not be any of this shit.

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  8. The only "Money Trail" that I've seen is the trail that leads from the Clintons TO the Clinton Foundation (they Gave $1,000,000.00 to the charity, last year, alone.)

    There is NO evidence of a money trail leading the opposite direction.

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    1. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has to be in Federal Court in November, where he faces trial for the Trump U. scam.

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    2. And that's another thing. The Clintons had that phony international university, what was it called ?

      You can remember, if you try.

      The only "Money Trail" that I've seen is the trail that leads from the Clintons TO the Clinton Foundation

      You are the blind old boar that never ever finds an acorn.

      Rufus, proving himself The Fool, day by day....

      Delete
  9. Access IS quid pro quo.

    NEW EMAILS SHOW HUMA ABEDIN EXPEDITING PAY FOR PLAY SCHEMES FOR THE CLINTON FOUNDATION

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/new_emails_show_huma_abedin_expediting_pay_for_play_schemes_for_clinton_foundation.html

    It's textbook extortion.

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  10. Just caught a clip of Gary Johnson on "The Five." I think he hit the bong a few too many times in his younger days. Down right goofy.

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  11. .

    If she is elected, we will immediately implement the following changes: The Foundation will accept contributions only from U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and U.S.-based independent foundations, whose names we will continue to make public on a quarterly basis.

    If she is elected?

    If it's the right thing to do why wait?

    A conspiracy theorist might assume ol Bill is figuring that once she is in office the money flood gates will be opened and money coming in will be so large that the Clinton Foundation will be more trouble than its worth.

    .

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    1. If she should lose, the donations immediately dry up, so maybe The Clinton Foundation is going out of business either way.

      As Doug said, the only thing she'll have left to sell is her body, and nobody wants that.

      Delete
    2. Except maybe Rufus, who seems to have 'a thing' for her, only God knows why.

      Delete
  12. Someone on Fox News suggested it would be a good move for Hillary to have The Clinton Foundation immediately donate a big wad of money to the flood victims in Louisiana.

    She hasn't seemed to care much about it though, beauty sleeping through it, as she has been doing.

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  13. Rufus:

    Where's the "Quid Pro Quo?"

    ---

    New Abedin Emails Reveal Hillary Clinton State Department Gave Special Access to Top Clinton Foundation Donors ...

    https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=more%20hillary%20pay%20to%20play%20revealed

    ReplyDelete
  14. Clean-gov’t alert: Hillary and Lobbyists

    Lobbyists “are part of Clinton’s deep network of Washington contacts [and] have raised millions of dollars for her campaign,” notes Catherine Ho at The Washington Post. Her “campaign chairman, John Podesta, co-founded . . . one of Washington’s top lobby firms with his brother, prominent Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta — a top Clinton bundler.” So it’s not unreasonable to suspect that she “may be more open to appointing lobbyists to positions in her administration” — despite President Obama’s executive order “largely barring lobbyists from working in the executive branch.” But she can simply issue her own order overriding Obama’s policy.

    http://nypost.com/2016/08/23/iran-ransom-questions-a-hillary-controlled-scotus-and-other-notable-commentary/

    ReplyDelete
  15. Naval Support Activity Bahrain (or NSA Bahrain) is a United States Navy base, situated in the Kingdom of Bahrain and is home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and United States Fifth Fleet.

    Home of the 5th Fleet.

    What would be utterly amazing would be if the 'Crown Prince of Bahrain' didn't get a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Arab Spring in Bahrain, which attracted more than 100,000 peaceful protesters, was put down violently in February-March 2011 with the assistance of the Saudis.

      Remember when Saudi troops crossed the causeway?

      On 14 March 1,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and 500 troops from UAE entered Bahrain and crushed the uprising. A day later, King Hamad declared martial law and a three-month state of emergency

      Clinton was asked about Bahrain during a press conference in Cairo on March 15, 2011.

      Well, we call for calm and restraint on all sides in Bahrain. We’re particularly concerned about increasing reports of provocative acts and sectarian violence by all groups. The use of force and violence from any source will only worsen the situation and create a much more difficult environment in which to arrive at a political solution.

      So our advice to all sides is that they must take steps now to negotiate toward a political resolution. The security issues are obviously important because there has to be an environment of stability and security in order for these talks to proceed. But it is important that everyone abide by that. And we know that the Government of Bahrain requested assistance from their fellow members in the Gulf Cooperation Council. We regret that the dialogue that was attempted had not started, and we call on all sides immediately to begin that dialogue and to look for ways to compromise to arrive at a peaceful resolution.

      Her remarks seem to blame the democracy protesters for “provocative acts.” Clinton began her remarks that day by celebrating the Egyptian revolution of a month before:

      - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/foundations-without-protest/#sthash.9uykOHSv.dpuf

      Delete
    2. IT GOT WORSE



      Crooked Hillary: I want to begin by saying very clearly and directly to the people of Egypt that this moment of history belongs to you, that this is your achievement and you broke barriers and overcame obstacles to pursue the dream of democracy, and the United States and President Obama and I will stand with you as you make this journey.

      Bahrain went ahead with a full-on crackdown on the democracy protests. Wikipedia says 80 died in the crackdown, and journalists were imprisoned and tortured.

      Clinton had plenty of time to reflect as she prepared her 2014 memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices. The 495-page paperback version includes only a brief, confusing criticism of the Bahraini repression. In the original hardback edition, some 100 pages longer, Clinton does say more about Bahrain. She says she didn’t criticize the Bahraini monarchs because she needed their help to build an international coalition to go into Libya and “prevent a much larger abuse — a full-fledged massacre.” She wrote, “We continued to speak out in the months that followed, emphasizing that mass arrests and brute force were at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens and would not make legitimate calls for reform go away.” (Why did she remove even this mild criticism from the paperback version?)

      - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/foundations-without-protest/#sthash.9uykOHSv.dpuf

      Delete
  16. Aside from just about everywhere, where's the Quid Pro Quo?

    Jeeze.

    As the future will reveal, we ain't seen nuthin yet.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Salman has directed $32 million to a Clinton Foundation program, and the Kingdom of Bahrain has donated up to $100,000 more. As Bahrain money flowed into the Clinton Foundation, State Department documents showed that between 2010 and 2012 the Clinton-led State Department approved $630 million worth of direct commercial arms sales to Salman’s military forces in Bahrain.

    ...

    During those Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 — when Bahrain was accused of using tear gas on its own people — the Clinton-led State Department approved more than $70,000 worth of arms sales classified as “toxicological agents.” That compared to just $700 worth of such sales in the immediate prior period.

    In the same period, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced proposals to sell missiles and armored vehicles to Bahrain. The office notes that “the Department of State approves individual programs on a case-by-case basis.”

    ReplyDelete
  18. Bahrain forbids female human rights activist from traveling to workshop in Tunisia

    Enas Oun, who is the head of the Monitoring and Documentation Department at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), was stopped at the Bahrain International Airport on Monday morning as she was on her way to a human rights workshop in Tunisia, Arabic-language Lualua television network reported.

    Authorities told her that she could not travel abroad based on an order issued by the Criminal Investigation Department the previous day.

    Bahrain has been heavily cracking down on political dissent for almost five and a half years.

    On August 18, Bahraini officials handed down a three-year prison sentence to human rights activist Ghada Jamshir.

    An ardent campaigner for the reform of judicial system in Bahrain and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Jamshir was charged with engaging in political activities against the Manama regime, and publishing posts critical of the Al Khalifah dynasty on social media.

    Last month, Bahraini officials prevented more than 16 human rights activists from attending the 32nd session of the Human Rights Council, which took place in the Swiss city of Geneva from June 13 to July 8.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.albawaba.com/news/bahrain-forbids-female-human-rights-activist-traveling-workshop-tunisia-876012

      Delete
    2. HILLRY CLINTON

      CLINTON: You know, I’ve devoted a lot of my public life to advocating for women’s rights being human rights, and making the case that we have to do everything we can, through laws, regulations, culture, to change the still-existing stereotypes that hold women back.

      Delete
  19. Maybe, I used too many Big words, or something. Let me try again.

    Bahrain is Home. Port. of The. U.S. 5th. Fleet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Therefore Clinton requiring money for the Clinton Foundation to gain access to Hillary is A-OK.

      ...in YOUR "mind."

      Delete
    2. Rufus is really humorous, once you get used to him.

      He's no expert on extortion, though, and that is for sure.

      A babe in the woods....

      Delete
  20. It's illegal for a foreign leader to give money to an elected politician, but when Bahrain was denied access through normal channels, they gave to the Clinton Foundation, and Voila!

    ...got access to Hillary.

    No quid pro quo there.

    Pretty Much.

    ReplyDelete
  21. After Hillary became Secretary, Bill's speaking fees went from tens of thousands to tens of MILLIONS.

    ...and more.

    It'd be illegal (a felony) to give it to Hillary's campaign, but Bill and Hill are married, making that money hers, nonetheless.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh, The Big Guy from Bahrain got his meeting, alright.

    He just had to pay $32,000,000 to get it.

    Just normal diplomatic relations for the Clintons.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe the Crown Prince upped the rent for the base $32,000,000 in reply.

      So, WE, you and I Dear Reader, end up paying for the access to Hillary.

      Delete

  23. AP BOMBSHELL ROCKS CAMPAIGN
    STATE FOR SALE

    UPI POLL: CLINTON, TRUMP IN VIRTUAL TIE...

    LATIMES: IT'S A DEAD HEAT!....DRUDGE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Obama Blocks Congressional Inquiry Into $1.3 Billion Payment To Iran....

      Delete
    2. 13 payments of $100 million minus one cent....keeps Congress 'out of the loop'.

      Delete
    3. Yeah but we get 1/324,000,000 of a cent back each in savings thanks to his frugal negotiating.

      Delete
  24. In a much more glamorous missive, Ben Schwerin, another Foundation executive, wrote to Mrs Abedin about a request from Bono, the U2 frontman and international aid campaigner.

    “Bono wants to do a linkup with the International Space Station on every show during the tour this year,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out who the best contact is to talk to at Nasa or the congressional committee on science and technology.

    Any ideas? Thks.”

    ReplyDelete
  25. Bolton: I’d be happy to serve as Trump’s SecState


    posted at 8:41 pm on August 23, 2016 by Ed Morrissey

    John Bolton for Secretary of State? Trump could do a lot worse, and arguably not much better than the experienced diplomat and national-security analyst. Hugh Hewitt has been pushing the Trump campaign to start naming its Cabinet positions since Trump clinched the nomination, particularly when it comes to national-security appointments. Appearing on Hugh’s show this morning, Bolton endorsed Trump and said he’d be pleased to consider serving in that capacity, at least:


    "HH: John Bolton, the one that stands out to me is Gilbert Chagoury, the Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire that I referenced. He was a business partner of Marc Rich. Marc Rich was an international fugitive, 65 counts of indictment against him, including doing business in Iran when Americans were being held hostage there, that Chagoury is Marc Rich’s business partner. Is that a story, because it has not appeared in any major newspaper since the August 10th revelation that he used Doug Band in April of 2009 to reach the Clinton State Department?

    JB: Yeah, well, you know, it’s not surprising. Fox basically broke that story, and the mass, you know, the absence of any interest by the mass media is not at all surprising. If this were a Republican, if this had been something that I was involved in, by God, the baying hounds would have been after it in a heartbeat. This whole thing, the whole transaction, the real estate transaction they were looking at in Nigeria, sends up a lot of red flags to me. And I think the question you’re asking really reinforces the point I was trying to make a minute ago. The mechanisms within the State Department to watch out for conflicts of interest are quite vigorous. And you know, you’re supposed to be as a person of integrity working in a senior State Department position very aware of the potential conflict of interest. When there’s ever any doubt in your mind, you should go to the legal advisor’s office, go to the designated agency ethics official and say look, here are the facts, what am I supposed to do. There’s no evidence that any of that happened on Chagoury, on many of these other things. And I think it really is a character question. It’s a character question about honesty. It’s a question about integrity and ethics. And it’s not enough to say well, you know, this person may have done something like that in the past. This is a consistent course of conduct for four straight years while she was Secretary of State, and not only what she was doing, but what her aides were doing...."

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/23/bolton-id-be-happy-to-serve-as-trumps-secstate/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Say, didn't BillyGoat pardon the criminal Marc Rich ?

      Just what the hell is going on here ?

      Why do all these criminal names keep popping up ?

      The Clintons don't do business with criminals, and foreign friends of criminals, dooooo they ???

      Delete
    2. A pedophile is a criminal.

      Bill flies to Pedophile Island with a fellow pedophile.

      If Bill weren't also it would be "with a pedophile fellow."

      Cash Value of these trips/young rides has not been reported as yet.

      Delete
    3. Bill is Hillary's Women and Children Program's Enforcer.

      Delete
    4. HILLRY CLINTON

      CLINTON: You know, I’ve devoted a lot of my public life to advocating for women’s rights being human rights, and making the case that we have to do everything we can, through laws, regulations, culture, to change the still-existing stereotypes that hold women back.

      Delete
    5. Carolla likes to call it "Pedolph Isle"

      Delete
    6. Sounds like the whole lot of them are 'unsavory' characters, to me.

      Delete
  26. Since Quirk has said he doesn't like to think about Sweden, I'll devote this -

    "Q"Nit of the Day: Sweden Music Festival

    to Sweden.

    “40 sexual assaults in youth festival in Sweden – all perpetrators were immigrants,” Freie Zeiten (modified Google Translate), August 20, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

    The music festival “We are Stockholm”, the number of sexual assaults on girls has doubled compared to last year. This was reported by Stockholm police on request of Free Times. “And more is yet to come,” said police spokesman Mats Eriksson.

    To date, the police received no less than 40 reports of sexual assaults at the Stockholm Youth Event.

    “And more is yet to come. Last year there were 20 and now there are since this morning already 40,” says press spokesman Mats Eriksson of the Stockholm police.

    According to a report of the police were all sex offenders of foreign origin, particularly men from Afghanistan and Morocco last year....


    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/08/sweden-40-sexual-assaults-at-music-festival-all-by-muslim-migrants

    ReplyDelete
  27. Last year, The Clinton Foundation took in $140 million.

    $9 million went out to 'charity'.

    Source: Fox News

    ReplyDelete
  28. HYPO HELL....DRUDGE HEADLINE

    Hillary's hypothyroidism is back with a vengeance.

    It's why she doesn't have the energy to get off her ass.

    She takes meds every day and they don't seem to be working so well right now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Huma - and BillyGoat - and Chelsea - will end up running the country.

      Whether this is better or worse is a close question.

      Delete
  29. Let's talk Higher Education with Rufus -

    Clinton University: Bill pocketed $17.6 million from for-profit college Hillary assisted and now demonizes

    Aug 24, 2016 8:41 AM by Larry O'Connor

    Clinton University: Bill pocketed $17.6 million from for-profit college Hillary assisted and now demonizes


    posted at 8:41 am on August 24, 2016 by Larry O'Connor

    Emails show that as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton personally intervened on behalf of a for-profit college corporation that her husband then made over $17 million from. Now, she demonizes the very industry her family got rich off of.

    Mrs. Clinton has been ripping the for-profit college industry during her campaign for president. As a way to connect her opponent, Donald Trump, and his troubled enterprise Trump University to the burgeoning industry, Clinton has called for a complete overhaul of the for-profit college industry while pushing her tax-payer funded “College Affordability Plan.”


    “As part of this New College Compact, Hillary will encourage and reward innovators who design imaginative new ways of providing valuable higher education to students while driving down costs. And she will crack down on the abusive practices of for-profit colleges that defraud taxpayers while burdening students with debt for educational programs of no value.”

    However, it appears her family has gained great wealth from this very industry she now seeks to “crack down” on for their “abusive practices.”

    Former President Bill Clinton cashed in to the tune of $17.6 million from Laureate Education, Inc. as the “honorary chancellor” of that institution. In April of 2015, the former president stepped down from his position as “honorary chancellor” of Laureate, the world’s largest for-profit college which, incidentally, is backed by none other than George Soros.

    According to NBC News, the stories of fraud emanating from victims former students of Laureate sound hauntingly similar to the ongoing lawsuit over Trump University:....


    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/24/clinton-university-bill-pocketed-17-6-million-from-for-profit-college-hillary-assisted-and-now-demonizes/

    ReplyDelete
  30. Stunning: Egyptian Foreign Minister Says Israel's Treatment of Palestinians Is Not Terrorism

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/stunning_egyptian_foreign_minister_says_israels_treatment_of_palestinians_not_terrorism.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Stunning?

      Hardly.

      The FM is a part of Sisi's military junta, a regime that brooks no criticism whether from the press or rival political groups. Egyptian prisons are filled with tens of thousands of political prisoners. It is little wonder they would approve of any harsh Israeli tactics. Heck, he even invented a new euphemism for it, a 'regime of force,’.”

      Lovely.

      .

      Delete
    2. Your first gruel of the day.

      You have two left.

      You're just upset because it contradicts your b.s. about the 'Palestinins'.

      Sisi is about the best Egypt can do. Morsi and the MB were beginning to remilitarize the Sinai....

      *********

      Read the very email where Hillary tells 'Diane Reynolds" - her daughter Chelsea's Nom de Guerra - that some al-Qaida type group had just killed the Ambassador in Benghazi here:

      http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/wikileaks-67-emails-hillary-chelsea-clinton-fake-name-diane-reynolds-foreign-police-mtgs/

      As we recall, Hillary went on later to blame the Benghazi attack on a 'video' by some unknown out in California.

      Delete
    3. .

      Don't mess up my posts changing the subject to other bullshit.

      .

      Delete
    4. Your posts are messed up to begin with, I'm only trying to help.

      Delete
    5. .

      By bringing them down to your level? No thanks.

      .

      Delete
  31. .

    The French Go Batshit Over Burkinis


    Armed French Police Order Women to Strip off Burkini on Nice Beach to Protect the Morals of the French People

    Photographs have emerged of armed French police confronting a woman on a beach and making her remove a burkini as part of a controversial ban on the swimwear.

    Authorities in several French towns have implemented bans on the garment, which covers the body and head, citing concerns about religious clothing in the wake of recent terrorist killings in the country.

    The images of police confronting the woman in Nice on Tuesday show at least four police officers standing over a woman who was resting on the shore at the town’s Promenade des Anglais, the scene of last month’s Bastille Day lorry attack

    After they arrive, she appears to remove a blue garment, although one of the officers appears to take notes or issue an on-the-spot fine.

    The photographs emerged as a mother of two also told on Tuesday how she had been fined on the beach in nearby Cannes wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.

    Her ticket, seen by French news agency AFP, read that she was not wearing “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism”.

    “I was sitting on a beach with my family,” said the 34-year-old who gave only her first name, Siam. “I was wearing a classic headscarf. I had no intention of swimming.”

    A witness to the scene, Mathilde Cousin, confirmed the incident. “The saddest thing was that people were shouting ‘go home’, some were applauding the police,” she said. “Her daughter was crying.”


    The French have gone batshit crazy. Now they are attacking symbols rather than problems.
    The last sentence reflects the same language we hear here.

    A hundred years ago if women ‘weren’t’ wearing something similar to a burkini on our beaches they would have been fined or arrested. It was an arrogant and disgusting display then just as the French are arrogant and disgusting in their current actions.

    The French say that the burkini doesn’t reflect their morals or culture. However, fat ass men wearing speedos and women wearing little or nothing evidently does reflect their ‘morals and culture’.

    IMO, the French irrational obsession with secularism in all walks of life even to the point of someone simply sitting and enjoying the view while taking in a little sun is a big part of their problems. Their obsession with religious symbols is inane and petty and worse is reflective of a darker past as in that of a decadent Germany in the 1930’s.

    The French, as with much of the western EU have succumbed to liberalism to the point where they have become ‘illiberal’ with no moral core to rally around. In the 8th century, the French had Charles Martell and a united Europe to stem the tide of a Muslim invasion. Today they use a burkini ban.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They need to be able to identify the possible suicide bombers.

      You wouldn't want your sweet ass blown up on the Riviera.

      Delete
    2. .

      You moron.

      These things are tight fitting and besides any covering can be used to hide a weapon or bomb or any beach towels or beach bag for that matter.

      Besides what don't you get about them being banned to protect French 'morals and culture'?

      You continue to make a fool of yourself.

      .

      Delete
    3. I was joking, dumbfuck.

      But I support the French.

      Delete
    4. I like the idea of Bridget Bardot on the beach, some years ago....

      Delete
    5. .

      But I support the French.

      Of course you do. You are a man who eschews thinking in favor of emoting.

      .

      Delete
  32. Britain’s supposedly close ally, Israel, armed Argentina as the South American nation was bombing Royal Navy ships and killing UK troops in the vicious 1982 war to reclaim the Falkland Islands, secret files indicate.

    The supply of arms and military equipment may have been fuelled by an old hatred of the British harbored by then Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin – himself a former Irgun terrorist who fought against British troops in Palestine.

    Israeli exports included Skyhawk jets that were responsible for bombing and sinking the RFA Sir Galahad, a troop ship, leaving 48 dead and numerous horrific injuries.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. The newly-released files that list evidence cited by British diplomats also reportedly note that Israel provided military equipment, including bomber jets, to Argentina's junta prior to the war

      PRIOR

      At the time, ties were strained between allies Britain and Israel over the First Lebanon War while charges emerged that then Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin had approved the weapons' supply to Argentina.

      Deuce, your attempt to slander israel once again falls short.

      But keep trying.

      But by your warped logic, every weapon sold by Britain, France, Russia and America should also be showd responsible for every death they caused.

      Delete
    3. .

      But by your warped logic, every weapon sold by Britain, France, Russia and America should also be showd responsible for every death they caused.


      Sometimes that's hard to do. It's been reported that hundreds of thousands of American weapons have gone missing in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one can account for them or say where they are or who has them though it is easy to speculate.

      .

      Delete
    4. The Brits, after ww2, expecting a swift victory by the arabs over the jews, supplied the arabs with army forts/bases and weapons of all sorts.

      So by deuce's logic? every dead Jew was the fault of the brits, not the arabs who wielded those weapons.

      Delete
  33. Armed men have attacked the American University in the Afghan capital Kabul, officials have confirmed. Officials say "hundreds" of people, including foreign staff, are stuck inside, as government forces have encircled the campus.
    "Several gunmen attacked the American University in Kabul and there are reports of gunfire and explosions," an interior ministry official told Reuters. "They are inside the compound and there are foreign professors along with hundreds of students."

    Local network TOLOnews reported there was an initial explosion before the gunmen infiltrated the high-walled campus, located in a relatively secure and upmarket part of Kabul.

    “Help we are stuck inside,” tweeted Massoud Hossaini, an AP photographer. “These may be my last tweets.”

    Twitter eyewitnesses said that some students were able to make it out in time, as soon as they heard the blast, while others were locked down in their classrooms and offices.

    "We're dealing with a complex attack inside the American University. Special forces are en route,” a representative of Kabul's rapid reaction force told local journalist Bilal Sarwary.

    Afghanistan’s 1TV news reported that there were “multiple” dead and wounded on campus. The channel also cited eyewitness reports claiming that some of the attackers may have entered Noor Hospital, located next door to the educational facility.

    The American University of Afghanistan was established in 2006 with the help of US funds and remains the country’s leading private university. All classes are taught in English, and there are currently over 2,000 students enrolled.

    Earlier this month, two professors, an American and an Australian citizen, were kidnapped from its campus.

    https://www.rt.com/news/357035-kabul-attack-american-university/

    ReplyDelete
  34. This is interesting to me. My Aunt was in a coma for 28 days from a traffic accident. I was the one with her when she woke up....

    Doctors wake coma patient by JUMP-STARTING his brain using ultrasound

    17:00, 24 Aug 2016
    Updated 17:11, 24 Aug 2016
    By Andrew Gregory


    Within 24 hours the patient's responses had improved and in just three days he was fully conscious and had fist-bumped a doctor.

    Martin Monti/UCLA/SWNS.com The technique uses ultrasound to target the thalamus

    The technique uses ultrasound to target the thalamus

    Doctors have woken a coma patient for the first time ever by jump-starting his brain using a pioneering ultrasound technique.

    A saucer-sized device was put against the side of the 25-year-old patient’s head over a 10 minute period.

    Each of the 10 half-minute, low-intensity pulses created acoustic energy to stimulate brain tissue.

    The patient’s responses improved measurably within 24 hours. In three days he was fully conscious and had complete language comprehension.

    He could nod his head “yes” or shake his head “no.” He even made a fist-bump gesture to say goodbye to one of his doctors.....

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/doctors-wake-coma-patient-jump-8697965

    ReplyDelete
  35. FAU Poll Finds Trump Edging Out Clinton in Florida

    Murphy and Rubio Poised for Tough Senate Race

    BOCA RATON, Fla. (August 24, 2016) –

    Republican nominee Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton in Florida 43 to 41 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson taking 8 percent and 5 percent undecided, according to a new survey by the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative (FAU BEPI).

    In the Florida race for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Patrick Murphy and Republican Marco Rubio lead by wide margins before their respective party primaries on Tuesday, Aug. 30, with Rubio leading Murphy 44 percent to 39 percent in a potential general election matchup in November....

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2016/FAU_Florida_August.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  36. .

    Your Government Keeping You Safe.

    This what we spend billions of dollars on each year.

    Strangely, I have never heard of the case of terrorists using a small boy with a pacemaker as a weapon though a TSA guard assured the mother it happens.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  37. "Q"Nit of the Day: International

    What a beautiful young woman, but just a nit to Q.



    'LIVING THE DREAM' Poignant final Facebook posts of British backpacker, 21, stabbed to death by French knifeman shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in horrific rampage at Australian hostel


    Mia Ayliffe-Chung killed in attack that left another Brit man in a critical condition


    Pictured


    By JAMES COX, SIMON TOMLINSON AND COREY CHARLTON

    24th August 2016, 6:31 am

    A BRITISH backpacker living her “dream” has been stabbed to death when a Frenchman shouting “Allahu Akbar” went on a rampage at a hostel in Australia.

    Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, who had been working as a bartender for the past six months, was knifed in a frenzied attack in front of 30 horrified witnesses.


    Mia Ayliffe-Chung


    English backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, was knifed by a Frenchman shouting “Allahu Akbar” at a hostel in Australia

    The 21-year-old was killed in front of about 30 witnesses

    Another Brit, named locally as Tom Jackson, is fighting for his life in hospital after reports that he was stabbed up to 15 times.

    Mia’s final Facebook posts show her enjoying her new life abroad as she declares she is “living my dream”.

    Only weeks ago, the backpacker posted on Facebook: “The hardest thing living my dream, missing the important home things. Graduations, people in hospital, funerals and birthdays.”

    Her mother responded: “You’ll be back in the blink of an eye, and we’ll all still be doing the same old stuff for the most part. Live your dream and know you’re in all our hearts.”

    It has emerged the knifeman also stabbed a dog to death as he rampaged through a room of around 30 people on Tuesday night.

    Cops have now arrested a 29-year-old man who they say screamed extremist Islamic prayers during the attack.

    The stabbing took place at an accommodation complex in the Home Hill area of Queensland, at around 11.15pm local time on Tuesday.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1663357/british-woman-21-who-was-living-the-dream-travelling-abroad-is-stabbed-to-death-by-french-man-shouting-allahu-akbar-in-horrific-attack-at-australian-hostel/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Right, just as you downplay the murder of millions through out the ME and Africa.

      Hypocrite.

      .

      Delete
    2. I'm the guy that wanted to put up a no fly zone and create safe zones in Syria.

      What I got from the SMIRK'n'QUIRK TWINS was accusations of war mongering.

      Your ideas have saved so m a n y Syrians.....

      MegaHypocrite

      Delete
    3. .

      I'm the guy that wanted to put up a no fly zone and create safe zones in Syria.

      What I got from the SMIRK'n'QUIRK TWINS was accusations of war mongering.


      You are a silly old man. Think. Hillary supports a no-fly zone and safe zones. She was one of the first to suggest it.

      You do this all the time. Any lame-brained scheme and you jump on it. Trump's plan to ban all Muslims, for instance. Sounds simple. How the hell do you do it? You can't. Trump has changed his plans six or seven times with the latest coming this month. Now, his plans are inching perilously close to the simple naturalization oath taken by every immigrant trying to become a citizens. And gosh, who could possibly think that any would-be terrorist coming into this country might not lie when asked if he supports the laws and culture of this country?

      The same applies to the no-fly zones and safe areas. Can you do it? Sure although the term 'safe area' becomes an oxymoron when used in the middle of a civil war with multiple sides. We already have incidents where war planes (US and Syrian) have come in close proximity to each other. A Russian jet has been shot down by Turkey. And you want to institute a no fly zone pretty much encouraging a shooting war between the major powers.

      As for safe zones, there are no safe zones in Syria. Basically, after bombing out their towns and villages you propose moving them to newly created refugee areas. How do you feed and provide water and shelter to millions of people? ISIS may be the most powerful militant group operating in Syria with al Nusra close behind but there are estimates there are over a 1000 militant groups operating in Syria. Refugee camps have been attacked there on a number of occasions. How do you protect these safe zones? US or UN troops? You've got to be kidding. You certainly wouldn't get consensus for the plan. Who pays for it?

      Your ideas have saved so m a n y Syrians...

      My ideas have saved no lives. They haven't been implemented. My plan is simply do no harm. However, I am not the guy who was trying to rationalize US actions in Yemen yesterday.

      .

      Delete
  38. .

    Andrea Tantaros Files Lawsuit Against Fox

    It's obvious some of the women on Fox weren't hired for their brains or personality.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She wasn't hired for her looks as she wasn't that good looking.

      I think her law suit may well succeed.

      Delete
    2. I wish Google Images had a before and after collection of pictures of "Newswomen"

      Before Michelle Obama was touted for her "Toned Arms" and after.

      Sleeveless has been required for everyone ever since.

      Flabby Armed Farahs need not apply.

      Delete
    3. ...and before and after everyone got sprayed to flat white perfection with white primer/makeup.
      Make believe Megyns, all.

      Delete
    4. Local Newswomen have followed the National Trend toward Obesity as the new normal.

      Nationals, not so much.

      Delete

  39. Trump rally in Tampa, Florida comin' up on Fox.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Qayyarah fully liberated from ISIS control

    (IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Nineveh Council on Wednesday announced that Iraqi forces fully liberated the northern city of al-Qayyarah from ISIS control and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings.

    Nineveh Council member, Hossam El Din al Abbar in a statement, said, “Iraqi Army, supported by the Iraqi Air Force, liberated the northern city of al-Qayyarah from ISIS control and raised the Iraqi flag over its buildings”.

    “The sappers units have started dismantling the improvised explosive devices from roads and dismantling the booby-trapped houses”, added Alabbar.

    “There were 25,000 civilians inside Qayyarah during the liberation operation. The operation resulted in the death of dozens of ISIS members,” Alabbar further said.

    It may be mentioned here that the Iraqi army also informed about organizing a mass burial of dead ISIS men near Al Khalidiya city in central Iraq.

    Iraqinews

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Strikes in Syria

      Bomber, attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 17 strikes in Syria:

      -- Near Shadadi, 10 strikes struck 10 separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed six fighting positions, a tactical vehicle, three vehicle bombs, four mortar positions, an anti-air artillery system and an armored personnel carrier.

      -- Near Raqqah, a strike struck an ISIL weapons assembly area.

      -- Near Dayr Az Zawr, two strikes destroyed two ISIL oil tanker trucks, two cranes, three bulldozers and damaged another bulldozer.

      -- Near Manbij, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed a vehicle.

      Strikes in Iraq

      Fighter aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft and rocket artillery conducted four strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

      -- Near Hit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroyed a fighting position and damaged another fighting position.

      -- Near Ramadi, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit, and destroyed a fighting position and a mortar system.

      -- Near Sinjar, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

      Delete

  41. Mark Lippman ExpatGirl Aug 24 · 02:51:24 PM

    They are smearing the donors, including officials from countries that are important strategic partners.

    I’m referring to Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain, a tiny country with imperfections. It punches far above its weight. This man, seated across the table from President Obama in the photograph below, was accused of pay-to-play bribery by Judicial Watch.

    Who is he? Bahrain’s next in line head-of-state and current Commander in Chief of his country’s military. The US Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain and Salman meets regularly with President Obama, the Secretary of Defense, and NATO’s Secretary General.

    Here are the White House readouts from his 2011 & 2012 meetings.

    www.whitehouse.gov/...

    www.whitehouse.gov/…

    In 2009 and 2010 when skeptics road blocked Hillary’s efforts to advance Obama’s plan for nuclear non-proliferation with Iran, Salman was a key supporter. He invited Hillary and Iran’s Foreign Minister (under Ahmedinejad) to Bahrain’s annual Manama Forum. At the meeting, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister spelled out the P5+1 initiative and urged Iran to negotiate.

    It’s could be almost comical but plain ignorance for Judicial Watch to smear this man who doesn’t need to pay to play. It’s also possible that right wingers detest him for facilitating the Iran deal and helping to enforce in the Persian Gulf.

    Comment on This Article at Daily Kos

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've convinced me.

      I'm adding the Daily Kos and Pravda to my must read list.

      Delete
  42. http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=91212&siteSection=washexam590_ent_mus_sty&videoId=31258220

    ReplyDelete
  43. A powerful earthquake shook Myanmar on Wednesday, killing at least four people and damaging nearly a hundred ancient Buddhist pagodas in the former capital of Bagan, a major tourist site.

    The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.8 quake was centred about 25km west of Chauk, a town south of Bagan. It was located fairly far below the earth’s surface at a depth of about 84km, it said.

    ...

    The last major quake in the area — which is often affected by smaller tremors — occurred in April about 300km further north, and measured magnitude 6.9. It caused no reported casualties and only minor damage.

    ReplyDelete