Another Clinton in the White House?

• Dirty money, rampant mismanagement, influence peddling haunt presidential hopeful and underscore why many believe Hillary  must be stopped.

• With millions in her war chest and the liberal media pushing for her to become the U.S.’ first female president, many pundits predict Hillary could return to the White House in 2016.

By Victor Thorn —

Dean Levinthal, the manager of the Center for Public Integrity’s (CPI) federal political team, spoke these words to this reporter during a July 8 interview: “Bill and Hillary are the consummate fundraisers. People open their wallets whenever they show up, not only in politics, but also with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the fees obtained for their speeches. Money trails them wherever they go.”

 
 
 

Founded in 1989, CPI is well known for investigating charges of corruption and abuse of power on the part of politicians and public and private institutions.

“Bill and Hillary . . . are the most powerful political couple in U.S. history,” added Levinthal. “Their arsenal of financial resources and army of supporters extend back to the 1970s.”

In regard to the upcoming 2016 national election, Levinthal said: “Hillary’s super PACs have already raised millions, and her donor lists are almost endless. Add to that various non-profit organizations, unions, corporations, special interest groups and billionaires pouring untold amounts of money into her coffers. The sky’s the limit for her political fundraising.”

Levinthal pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which ruled the government cannot restrict contributions made by corporations, as a game-changer.

“It’s absolutely frightening that candidates can raise and spend as much money as they want,” he said. “For 2016, Hillary can call in all her political chits and bring to bear an overwhelming amount of campaign firepower. It’s the way of politics today, making it that much more difficult for any other Democratic candidate to oppose her.”

And it is not just the Clintons’ political fundraising that is raising eyebrows.

Since its founding in 1997, the Clintons’ globalist group, CGI, has managed to raise $492 million in 15 years.

Somehow, though, from 2007-2008, this so-called non-profit organization managed to rack up $40 million in debt. In 2012, the Clintons’ foundation rang up another $8 million deficit despite making $214 million in revenue that year.

With $17 trillion in national debt looming over this nation, Hillary’s inability to balance even her own books should concern every taxpayer.

Charges of crony capitalism and influence peddling with shady corporations, government officials and unscrupulous donors continue to plague the Clintons.

The New York Times reported on August 13, 2013, “As of 2008, the Clinton Foundation raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman and other foreign governments.”

The bulk of this fundraising took place before Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state, so who’s to say that when Mrs. Clinton cut deals for foreign aid with states like Afghanistan, where drug-running is rampant, millions of dollars in illegal drug money were not clandestinely funneled into her own bank account at CGI?

Interestingly, during her tenure as secretary of state from 2009-2010, foreign aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to Afghanistan skyrocketed from $470 million to $1.4 billion.

Considering the extent of fraud that has taken place under Afghan President Hamid Karzai, no one knows where this money actually went.

On April 20, The Washington Times confirmed these suspicions.

“Confidential 2012 and 2013 USAID memos show that none of the seven Afghan ministries receiving money could be trusted to spend it effectively,” said the Times.

The person responsible for securing these transactions to Afghanistan was Mrs. Clinton.

Kickbacks from foreigners aren’t the only likely sources for CGI’s money pit. When controversy ensued about Mrs. Clinton receiving $200,000 for speaking engagements, she brushed off criticisms by claiming that many of the fees were donated to a worthwhile cause—CGI.

What prevents the Clintons from conveniently pledging substantial amounts of resources to areas where they need votes in 2016?

CGI has already been accused of Chicago-style pay-to-play tactics with certain developers and philanthropists in order to redirect payments that could be used to build new malls, hospitals or green-energy initiatives. Mrs. Clinton could leverage these projects as a means of garnering more votes in economically depressed areas.

These types of schemes even extend to Mrs. Clinton’s recent $14 million advance from publisher Simon & Schuster for her biography Hard Choices. Selling 160,000 copies to date at a cover price of $35 each only brought in $2.4 million. Compared to the $14 million she’s already pocketed, was this arrangement nothing more than an illegal campaign contribution disguised as an author’s advance?

In light of Hillary’s past windfall from cattle futures where she turned a $1,000 investment into $100,000, the Journal of Economics and Finance concluded the odds of such an occurrence were 1 in 31 trillion.

Amid charges of bribery and conflict of interest, nothing with this woman is beyond the realm of dirty tricks and underhanded schemes.

Beware the Neocons

By Victor Thorn

With countries like Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Palestine in ruins and America deeply in debt, neoconservatives, who advocate even more interventionism, have been cozying up to Hillary Clinton in a bid to return to power should she win the White House in 2016.

This view was voiced on July 5 by The New York Times’ Jacob Heilbrunn, who posited that diehard neocons like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Paul Bremer may actually consider switching parties in the next presidential election if the GOP doesn’t offer a candidate willing to advance their Israel-first agenda.

Mrs. Clinton seems capable of fitting their bill perfectly, especially since she embraces big-government spending coupled with global militarism. On July 9, this reporter spoke with Michael McPherson, executive director of the antiwar group Veterans for Peace.

“Hillary has a track record of being willing to take the U.S. into war,” said McPherson. “If this issue is your primary optic, it’s difficult to accept her as the Democratic nominee.”

McPherson expanded on this rationale: “After voting in support of the 2003 Iraq war, it appears she hasn’t learned a lesson and still advocates the same policies as 15 years ago.”

Directing his attention to Mrs. Clinton’s advocacy of the U.S.-North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led strike on Libya and sending arms to Syrian rebels, McPherson added: “Hillary was very hawkish as secretary of state. Her stance on Libya and Syria are exactly the same track she’d follow as president. I’m very concerned that her past solutions are the same ones she’d follow in the future.”

On July 9, this reporter spoke with Ali Issa, the national field organizer for the War Resisters League. “Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama claim to oppose war, yet they both supported vast troop increases in Afghanistan,” Issa said. “They’re both excellent examples of how elected officials haven’t exerted influence on the Pentagon’s military expenditures. To truly oppose war, Hillary and Obama wouldn’t keep spending 45 cents of every dollar on the Defense Department.”

Issa added: “Hillary represents that side of the Democratic Party that still wants to intervene militarily. When she okayed the strike on Libya, it was in the interest of weapons manufacturers who are constantly seeking new markets.”

The same applies to Syria, according to Issa. “Clinton expresses a belief in U.S. foreign policy where we strike first and ask questions later,” he said. “She’s unwilling to admit that our policy in the Middle East has been disastrous. Rather, Hillary clings to a notion that the U.S. should be the world’s policeman. This is a very destructive way of thinking.”

When the discussion turned to Mrs. Clinton and former Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus engineering a weapons-running program centered in Libya, Issa said: “Benghazi was a catastrophic and dismaying situation at a covert level. We’ll never see any policy changes until the weapons industry and lobbyists quit profiting from the status quo.”

On July 10, this newspaper reached out to Maria Santelli, director of the Center on Conscience & War, a Washington, D.C.-based anti-war organization.

Bringing an element of stark realism to the discussion, Ms. Santelli said: “You don’t get to be a potential candidate for president unless you play the game of war-profiteering. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton wasn’t courageous enough to stand up against the culture of war. The same applies to Obama, who’s continued some of the Bush administration’s worst policies on war. If someone’s disillusioned about Obama now, it’s because they had illusions about him before.”

Hillary’s War on Women

By Victor Thorn

In 1975, attorney Hillary Clinton defended a 41-year-old child rapist who she knew was guilty. Mrs. Clinton can be heard on recently unearthed tapes laughing about how, due to a technicality, she pleaded her client down to a two-month sentence of time already served after he got a 12-year-old girl drunk on whiskey and abused her in his car.

As she had done to innumerable women that her husband Bill had raped or preyed upon, Mrs. Clinton viciously attacked this preteen victim as being “emotionally unstable” with a “tendency to seek out older men and engage in fantasizing.”

Mrs. Clinton added, “I’ve been told by experts in child psychology that children in early adolescence exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences.”

That girl, now aged 52 and speaking on condition of anonymity, responded to reporters about Mrs. Clinton’s tactics.

“I realize the truth now, the heart of what she did to me,” she said. “She’s supposed to be for women? You call that being for women? I heard her on tape laughing. I don’t think [Hillary’s] a role model at all. If she had been, she would have helped me at the time. . . . How many other lies has she told to get where she’s at today? If she becomes president, will she tell the truth? No. She’s going to tell lies. . . . I’m a little scared of her. I’m worried she might try to hurt me.”

Writer Onan Coca summed it up best on June 21: “This is the woman Democrats want leading our nation. An unscrupulous liar who will do whatever it takes to get her way. Even if it means terrorizing, demeaning and destroying a little girl who was an innocent victim to a violent and disgusting crime.”