Good Morning!!
The New York Times and Washington Post are out with their initial stories based on the upcoming book by Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash. The Times article by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire is very long and detailed, and I’ve only skimmed it so far. The authors strongly suggest that in her role as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped arrange for the sale of a uranium production company to Russia.
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company.
The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”
The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain….
At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.
Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
That’s the introduction. Read the rest at the NYT link above.
Apparently, the press is going to act as if Bill Clinton were running for president, not Hillary Clinton. They seem to see her as indistinguishable from her husband; and she is going to be held responsible for his past and present policies, actions, and indiscretions. I wonder if they’ll even report Hillary’s own ideas and the policies she argues for during her campaign? At least that’s my read based on this morning’s Washington Post article.
For Clintons, speech income shows how their wealth is intertwined with charity.
Bill Clinton was paid at least $26 million in speaking fees by companies and organizations that are also major donors to the foundation he created after leaving the White House, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records and foundation data.
The amount, about one-quarter of Clinton’s overall speaking income between 2001 and 2013, demonstrates how closely intertwined Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable work has become with their growing personal wealth.
The Clintons’ relationships with major funders present an unusual political challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now that she has formally entered the presidential race, the family may face political pressure and some legal requirements to provide further details of their personal finances and those of the foundation, giving voters a clearer view of the global network of patrons that have supported the Clintons and their work over the past 15 years.
The multiple avenues through which the Clintons and their causes have accepted financial support have provided a variety of ways for wealthy interests in the United States and abroad to build friendly relations with a potential future president. The flow of money also gives political opponents an opportunity to argue that Hillary Clinton would face potential conflicts of interest should she win the White House. Though she did not begin delivering paid speeches or join the foundation until 2013, upon ending her tenure as secretary of state, the proceeds from her husband’s work benefited them both.
Read the rest at the link. Again, I’ve only had time to briefly skim this article so far.
I’ll be interested to see reactions to the Times and Post pieces as the day wears on.
Another story that is getting quite a bit of attention George Packer’s latest at The New Yorker.
American Politics: Why the Thrill Is Gone.
Packer begins by referring to a piece by Nate Cohn at the NYT blog The Upshot in which Cohn examined the possible GOP candidates and picked two who have emerged as leaders.
Jeb Bush and Scott Walker—have quickly moved to the head of the pack. Perhaps only Mr. Rubio has a good chance to join them at the top.” The reasons have to do with fundraising, positioning, élite support, broad acceptability—that is, with the roles spelled out in the piece. The author, Nate Cohn, concluded, “It will be fun to watch.”
Fun? Not for Packer.
That was when he lost me.
It might not be wise for a sometime political journalist to admit this, but the 2016 campaign doesn’t seem like fun to me. Watching Marco Rubio try to overcome his past support for immigration reform to win enough conservative votes to become the Mainstream Alternative to the Invisible Primary Leader—who, if there is one, will be a candidate named Bush—doesn’t seem like fun. Nor does analyzing whether Chris Christie can become something more than the Factional Favorite of moderate Republicans, or whether Ted Cruz’s impressive early fundraising will make him that rare thing, a Factional Favorite with an outside chance to win. If this is any kind of fun, it’s the kind of fun I associate with reading about seventeenth-century French execution methods, or watching a YouTube video of a fight between a python and an alligator. Fun in small doses, as long as you’re not too close.
American politics in general doesn’t seem like fun these days. There’s nothing very entertaining about super PACs, or Mike Huckabee’s national announcement of an imminent national announcement of whether he will run for President again. Jeb Bush’s ruthless approach to locking up the exclusive services of longstanding Republican political consultants and media professionals far ahead of the primaries doesn’t quicken my pulse. Scott Walker’s refusal to affirm Barack Obama’s patriotism doesn’t shock me into a state of alert indignation. A forthcoming book with revelations about the Clintons’ use of their offices and influence to raise money for their foundation and grow rich from paid speeches neither surprises me nor gladdens my heart.
Packer longs for the good old days:
Since I was eight years old, and the Republican candidates were named Nixon, Rockefeller, and Reagan, and the Democrats were Humphrey, Kennedy, and McCarthy, I’ve been passionate about American politics, as a student, a witness, and a partisan. Politics was in my blood, at the family dinner table, in my work and my free time. But at some point in the past few years it went dead for me, or I for it. Perhaps it was week thirty-eight of the Obama-Romney race (a campaign between “Forward” and “Believe in America”), or the routinization of the filibuster, or the name Priorities USA Action, or the fifty-eighth vote in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act—something happened that made it very hard to continue paying attention. I don’t take this as a sign of personal superiority: I’ve always disliked people who considered themselves to be “above” politics. I mourn my lack of political passion as I would if I were to lose interest in reading fiction, or to stop caring about someone who’d been important to me for most of my life. And I count on getting back the feeling—the intense mix of love, hatred, anxiety, astonishment, and gratification—because life, public life, is impoverished without it. Perhaps it will return sometime before November 8, 2016. But for now—I have to be honest—it’s gone.
The reason is the stuckness of American politics. Especially in the years after 2008, the worst tendencies of American politics only hardened, while remaining in the same place. Beneath the surface froth and churn, we are paralyzed.
You can sense it as soon as you step out of the train at Union Station in Washington, the instant you click on a Politico article about a candidates’ forum in Iowa: miasma settles over your central nervous system and you start to go numb. What has happened is that the same things keep happening. The tidal wave of money keeps happening, the trivialization of coverage keeps happening, the extremism of the Republican Party keeps happening (Ted Cruz: abolish the I.R.S.; Rand Paul: the Common Core is “un-American”). The issues remain huge and urgent: inequality, global warming, immigration, poorly educated children, American decline, radical Islamism. But the language of politics stays the same, and it is a dead language. The notion that answers will come from Washington or the campaign trail is beyond far-fetched.
For Packer, it’s about having fun following politics, and he isn’t having fun anymore. I think quite a few people feel that way, but unlike George Packer most of us don’t have a platform we could use to stir things up. Why doesn’t Packer get out there and do some investigative reporting on the candidates and write in detail about the paralysis of our system?
Here’s Ed Kilgore at The Political Animal:
It’s worth noting when a public affairs writer of George Packer’s quality announces he’s bored with politics. He does so at the New Yorker at considerable length and with the passion he claims to have lost for the subject itself….
Packer’s lament reflects a mixed conception of the “fun” in politics being generated by a sense of forward momentum on policy ideas and by competitive churn and unpredictability. Thus in his “wish list” of things he’d like to happen in 2016 to revive his interest in politics, he includes both a far-fetched bipartisan ticket (a bad idea, IMO) and a serious lefty challenge to HRC, the former presumably to reduce “gridlock” and the latter to reduce the dull predictability of a campaign for and against a Clinton.
You could certainly make the argument that Packer’s two impulses are incompatible. The most consequential presidential elections in American history have not often been very close. 1800, 1828, 1860, 1912, 1932, 1964, 1980 and 2008 were not nail-biters. Yet some of the most “exciting” contests as measured by turnout were the very close elections of the late nineteenth century when aside from patronage tariff levels were the main policy battleground between the two parties. And in terms of politics being less interesting than those of Packer’s childhood—well, some of that is a deception of memory, probably, and some of it the product of knowing now how much of the “magic” of politics isn’t magical at all. In the twenty-first century, we’ve had one of the three presidential elections in American history to go into overtime; a very close election in which the two parties polarized to an extent rarely seen in the previous few decades; and then the historic election of an African-American after a historic primary against a woman and competitive nominating processes in both parties. Even 2012, which left Packer cold, was relatively unpredictable, if you look at how close the general election contest became after the first debate and consider the perils experienced by the obvious Republican nominee in the primaries facing challengers who might have been wearing full clown regalia.
Read the rest at the link above.
And from Brad DeLong: A Suggestion for the Burned-Out Political Reporter George Packer.
Does George Packer really think the purpose of American politics is to thrill him? ….
Like Kilgore, DeLong points out that Packer’s desired changes are self-contradictory; and he has ideas for how Packer could change things:
[H]e should pick 500 American adults at random, and every day he should talk to ten of them, asking them:
- If they have registered to vote.
- Why they have or have not registered.
- Who among the candidates they think would make the best president.
- Why they think that.
- Whether they are actually going to vote.
- Who they are going to vote for.
And he can write up what they say. There’s time between now and November 2016 for him to interview each one ten times. It would produce a much more interesting narrative than it currently looks like he is going to offer us.
If only Packer would try that instead of just whining at his high-profile media perch. I have a few more links to post down there as well.
See more political art here: 50 Stunning Political Artworks
What else is happening? Please post your thoughts and links in the comment thread below.
Comments
70 responses to “Thursday Reads”
TPM:
Ray-Ban Asks Rand Paul To Remove Its Shades From His Campaign Store
LOL
More laughs.
NY Daily News:
John McCain rips Rand Paul, calls him worst GOP candidate running for President
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/john-mccain-rips-rand-paul-presidential-bid-article-1.2195289
McCain says Ted Cruz would be better, and McCain hates Cruz’s guts.
whoa … well Rand Paul is stupid and nonteachable. Cruz is crazy. Kinda comparing apples to oranges imho.
Pretty much spot on. I want no part of either as President of the USA.
I think McCain meant that sarcastically.
Must read article by Gene Lyons at The National Memo.
Hillary Clinton And The Burden Of Authenticity
Lyons is always great.
That was excellent. Thank you.
Very good article!
Bloomberg Business:
Half of U.S. Fracking Companies Will Be Dead or Sold This Year
Low gas prices are putting frackers out of business. Good!
As far as the WaPo/NYT/Schweizer stuff, I’m sorry, I’m not giving any of it a click. Clinton detractors would have us believe that she is a devious, calculating, opportunist who has been running for POTUS since Bill left office yet at the same time, the Clintons are supposed pulling off some stupid conspiracy that is so simple in its nature that a hack author could uncover it. Which is it? They just keep throwing crap at the walls to see what will stick. I refuse to look at it.
Ever notice the whining about boredom in politics increases whenever Hillary Clinton runs? So Rockefellers and Kennedys are fine, but let Hillary Clinton run and the whining begins again. Because heaven forbid we should see a repeat of the 8 years of peace and prosperity we enjoyed during the first Clinton administration. Boring!
I’m with you, Janicen.
Do you think that’s why Sulzberger fired Jill Abramson? I don’t think the Clinton Cash stories would have passed her smell test.
That’s fine. I just thought I should say something about it.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was crapping on your post. We have to keep paying attention. I just don’t want to give the Times and the WaPo the click because I think they use these anti-Clinton stories as click bait. The Koch brothers pay a lot of trolls to jump into any discussion of the Clintons and they help to drive online publications to post more of them. The only way I feel I have any say in the matter is to not click. However, I do appreciate the fact that you did and can give us your analysis. You, I trust. Them, not so much.
As I said, I haven’t read the articles yet. I don’t know if I can stomach it. But I’ll try just so I can combat the lies.
I read yesterday that the Kochs are financially supporting NYT/WaPo/Fox News to use “information” in Schweizer’s book to kill Hil’s campaign, of course Schweizer’s has been
Oops, got ahead of myself – Schweizer’s books in the past have been found to not be well researched, using falsified quotes and just downright untrustworthy. But, the brothers Koch are funding the agreement among NYT/WaPo/Fox News.
I am recalling a famous Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”.
Susie Madrak has posted a response to the New York Times piece.
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/new-york-times-would-you-believe-their
It appears to be a lot of hot air pretending to be smoke in order to convince readers there’s a fire. In another words, it’s a typical press smear-job on the Clintons.
Thanks so much. Going to read it right now.
As Dakinikat predicted:
LSU drafting ‘academic bankruptcy’ plan in response to state budget crisis
Thanks to Bobby J and the Koch brothers.
Pathetic NYT op-ed page publishes bullsh##t from Bobby Jindal.
“I’m holding firm against gay marriage.”
I’d hardly call it “holding firm” when you’re trying to clamp your version of religion down over other people’s lives. He’s holding firm against education too, I see.
Yep. Even though he benefited from an ivy league education and a Rhodes Scholarship.
and taking down a state economy and its people in the process.
It just kills me that he’s been continually willing to use the economy, the welfare of the people, and the state’s budget as collateral damage in his search to be relevant to a few Iowa Republican caucus goers. If that’s what being pro-life and hyper christian means, give me the Pagans and Heathens any day!
and meanwhile, back in Real America:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/poll-gay-marriage-support-at-record-high/2015/04/22/f6548332-e92a-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/23/gops_corrupt_bigoted_bargain_exposed_how_bobby_jindal_let_the_mask_slip/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
Charles Pierce on the NYT and WaPo “ratf**king.”
On the Post article:
Man that Charlie always does a nice job. What more can we expect from Peter Schweizer and his plastic production book, Clinton’s Cash. He’s been piling that garbage on the Clintons for years, and not a thread of truth to be found, not even in the tea leaves. He needs to dock his ship with Sarah Palin aboard somewhere on the Antarctica Sea.
Great article by Pierce. Clinton Rule No. 2 is worth hanging on my fridge.
I don’t recall much outcry about Cheney and his links with Halliburton/Blackwater and etc. Of course, he was a Republican, not a Clinton.
Exactly. If the Clintons do it, it’s automatically corrupt and evil, even if every other politician is doing the same thing. As Pierce says, now that we have to deal with Citizens United all of this “conflict of interest” stuff is irrelevant anyway.
Michael Tomasky:
The Clintons Still Aren’t Corrupt.
The NYT trotted out the same story in 2008 and Fortune Magazine debunked it at the time. But they just can’t let go, like they couldn’t stop pushing the lies about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.
Tomasky killed the WaPo story as well. It was a great piece. The NYT public editor got a piece of my mind this morning!
You know the Clintons must be doing something right for the establishment to hate them this much. I think I’m going to start sending a small donation the HRC every time there is another baseless attack. I might be broke by the end of all of this! 😀
Good for you, Ralph! And great idea, janicen (although agree with you about the going broke part)!
Susie Madrak’s article is great too. I can’t copy and paste from C&L, but please go read the list of agencies that had to approve the uranium co. deal–and none of them was the State Department. Linked in comment above. Here it is again:
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/new-york-times-would-you-believe-their
One of the commenters on this post asks the ultimate question. If someone wanted to buy influence, why wouldn’t that person donate millions of dollars to her PAC in secrecy rather than donate to the foundation where it becomes a matter of public record? Thanks to Citizens United the PAC donation would definitely be the smart way to go.
Definitely. But the hate-crazed Clinton attackers don’t think logically.
BB, this is also great..Brian Fallon, a Hillary for America spokesman, beats up the NYT.
medium: ‘Clinton Cash’ & NYT Fail to Prove Any Connection Between Hillary Clinton & Russian Purchase of Uranium Assets
Wow, that’s a tremendous takedown. Thanks, Ralph!
This is creepy. The NYT is joining the WaPo on the neocon right.
https://twitter.com/JesseLehrich/status/591328277991526401
Thanks RalphB.
Or the lies about Whitewater.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/239878-senate-votes-to-confirm-lynch-as-attorney-general
Senate votes 56-43 to confirm Lynch as attorney general
We finally have our first black woman attorney general!!!
And sadly it’s getting very little play with so much pearl clutching about the Clintons. It’s an historic day for America. That’s what the media should be talking about.
Yay! About time!
The FBI convicted this man using hair analysis. It was a dog’s hair.
http://fusion.net/story/123382/fbi-forensics-once-brought-dog-hair-to-a-mans-murder-trial-to-use-against-him/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=desktop+top
Dog. Man. Both mammals. Sure makes you think about the FBI’s expertise, if any.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/are-republicans-at-war-with-their-own-future-bobby-jindal-gay-marriage-20150423
Wow what a post.
Hi JJ!
Hey BB, This Hillary hatefest and shit-spread festival is like some kind of Déjà vu do you think it will one day stop and then we can finally get on with it…
Just wait till she gets elected President! I hate the hatefest, but it will be worth it to see Hillary in the WH.
Agree!
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121584/hillary-clintons-pumas-once-die-hard-supporters-arent-sold-2016
Not sure what to say about this … But here it is
Um . . . Will Bower never spoke for me. He’s a loony-tune.
I actually got this from Will. He said this “I consider myself more of a Hillary supporter than the tone of this article might suggest.” I was always surprised that he gets the nod as the spokesperson. They must’ve been out searching for people with specific approaches because a few of them are not what I considered central to anything at all. Frankly, more of them were a lot more like right wing plants. Jennifer Lyon responded on Will’s FaceBook with a good comment. I think she’s right in saying that most of us are still strongly with Hillary and came along eventually when she joined the Obama Cabinet.
Yes, except for the ones who were Republicans in PUMA clothing.
Yup. It was tea party fest when I started complaining about elseblog.
It’s a superficial article. Big surprise, not.
So, they interviewed someone who’s exhausted mainly because of economic problems; quite understandable. And then move on to “many” who turned to the Rs. Some of those were just Rratfuckers plain and simply even back then.
I don’t take that article too seriously. Really, the only one in the article who’s not for Hillary still is a Republican for Rand! Anyone who’s for Rand could never seriously have supported or even been aware of, Hillary’s policy stances.
Here is a couple of stories from Georgia:
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/gsu-students-made-a-huge-impact-on-hospital-staff-/nk2qW/
Gay teens attacked at Atlanta school not hate crime: police – NY Daily News
Fatal crash? How terrible. What happened?
So sad, on the way back from their last day of clinicals, they would be graduating this term. Semi did not slow down, it was driver error.
Heartbreaking.
This makes it maddening. Feds: Truck company in deadly Georgia crash fared poorly in… | http://www.ajc.com
Disgusting!
So sad. Both.