The financial issues plaguing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign have become too much even for liberal groups, and now Common Cause is calling for an independent audit of donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Amid suggestions that foreign governments donated to the foundation in hopes of getting special treatment from President Obama’s State Department when Clinton was his top diplomat, the group on Friday said a “thorough review” is needed.
“Six years ago, at Mrs. Clinton’s confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of state, then-Sen. Dick Lugar observed that ‘that foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary of state.’ He was right, and his remarks remain relevant today as Mrs. Clinton seeks the presidency,” said Common Cause President Miles Rapoport.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is drawing a populist bead on lavish Wall Street pay packages as she revs up her march to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, but in some respects the fat-per-speech fee she can charge puts her far ahead of the top 10 highest-paid American CEOs.
“I think it’s fair to say that if you look across the country, the deck is stacked in favor of those already at the top. There’s something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the American worker…,” Clinton said during her first campaign swing last week at an Iowa community college.
Bashing Wall Streeters is part of Clinton’s strategy of remaking her image to appear more sympathetic to middle class voters, while also appealing to left-wing Democrats who are attracted to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and the even more radical supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who talks of seeking the 2016 nomination.
The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.
The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.
“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.
Columnist Andrea Peyser says Hillary sets back the battle for “girl power’’ by decades
By Andrea Peyser
April 9, 2015 | 10:55pm
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first dame ever to have clawed her way to the dizzying heights of American politics through a combination of ruthless cunning and the unabashed pity doled out by gullible voters, most of them Democrats.
She’s a lady whose star power is not based on her intellect or contributions to the common good, but on her willingness to excuse randy husband Bill Clinton for turning her into a fool.
Widely considered the Democratic Party’s best hope for keeping the White House in 2016, the former first lady, US senator from New York and secretary of state sets a rotten example for her sisters everywhere.
So why can’t feminists, Hillary’s fellow Democrats and even some Republicans face the truth? Supporting the candidacy of this calculating symbol of Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand By Your Man’’ represents a grotesque insult to the fairer sex.
No Copies of Clinton Emails on Server, Lawyer Says
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMARCH 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — An examination of the server that housed the personal email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used exclusively when she was secretary of state showed that there are no copies of any emails she sent during her time in office, her lawyer told a congressional committee on Friday.
After her representatives determined which emails were government-related and which were private, a setting on the account was changed to retain only emails sent in the previous 60 days, her lawyer, David Kendall, said. He said the setting was altered after she gave the records to the government.
“Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com emails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized,” Mr. Kendall said in a letter to the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The committee subpoenaed the server this month, asking Mrs. Clinton to hand it over to a third party so it could determine which emails were personal and which were government records.
At a news conference this month, Mrs. Clinton appeared to provide two answers about whether she still had copies of her emails. First, she said that she “chose not to keep” her private personal emails after her lawyers had examined the account and determined on their own which ones were personal and which were State Department records. But later, she said that the server, which contained personal communication by her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “will remain private.” The server was kept at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., which is protected around the clock by the Secret Service.
Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure on Friday only heightened suspicions by the committee’s chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, about how she handled her emails, and it is likely to lead to more tension between her and the committee.
Mr. Gowdy said in a written statement that it appeared that Mrs. Clinton deleted the emails after Oct. 28, when the State Department first asked her to turn over emails that were government records.
The Cultural Critic Discusses Sexuality, Race, Gender, Feminism, and Hillary Clinton
Nick Gillespie & Todd Krainin|Mar. 22, 2015 8:30 am
Growing up as “a gender nonconforming entity” during Eisenhower’s America wasn’t easy for cultural critic and best-selling author Camille Paglia. Her adolescence in small-town, upstate New York was marked by rejection, rebellion, and cross-dressing—all in reaction to the stultifying social norms of the 1950s and early ’60s.
So what does Paglia think of contemporary culture, with its openness to a wide variety of ever-proliferating gender, racial, and sexual identities?
Not much.
“I do not feel that gender is sufficient to explain all of human life,” Paglia tells Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie. “This gender myopia, this gender monomania, has become a disease. It’s become a substitute for religion. It is impossible that the feminist agenda can ever be the total explanation of human life.”
Whether the subject is feminism or the fate of Western civilization, Paglia is no Pollyanna. In this wide-ranging discussion, she says higher education is going to hell, the Fourth Estate is an epic FAIL, millennials are myopic, contemporary criticism has croaked, and Hillary Clinton might singlehandedly destroy the universe. Even Madonna, once Paglia’s ideal of sex-positive feminism, seems to have lost her way.
Does the celebrated author of Sexual Personae and Break Blow Burn have any reason to get out of bed in the morning? Does she have any hope for the universe at all? Watch the video to find out.
Lew employs the “Sargent Schultz” defense “I know nothing”
Garrett Grills Treasury Secretary Lew on Clinton Emails
Treasury Secretary Lew: No Recollection of Clinton Email System
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was pulled into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email controversy Tuesday as House Republicans grilled him on what he knew as her top operations officer .
Mr. Lew, who was Mrs. Clinton’s deputy secretary of state for management and resources between 2009-2010, said he had no recollection of conversations about Mrs. Clinton’s private email system.
“While you were at state, were you also responsible for enforcing the department policy regarding the use of personal email accounts and record retention?” Rep. Scott Garrett(R., N.J.) asked at a House Financial Services hearing on U.S. international financial policy.
Mr. Lew said he was “responsible for a vast array of responsibilities.”
When Mr. Garrett asked if he was responsible for the State Department’s policy regarding emails, Mr. Lew said: “I don’t recall having a lot of conversations, any conversations that I remember, on that.”
State Department challenges Clinton claim that emails to officials ‘immediately’ saved
Published March 14, 2015
FoxNews.com
A State Department spokeswoman said Friday that the department did not start automatically archiving emails from senior officials until February of this year — raising questions about Hillary Clinton’s claim that her emails were “immediately” saved whenever she corresponded with colleagues.
The former secretary of state made that assertion during her press conference earlier this week — and in a lengthy statement put out by her office — as she defended her exclusive use of personal email. Clinton downplayed concerns that official emails could have been lost by suggesting anytime she emailed anyone with a “.gov” address, that email would be stored for posterity.
“The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department,” she said Tuesday.
But department spokeswoman Jen Psaki made clear on Friday that this was not the way the system worked.
She said the department only started automatically archiving emails for other senior officials in February.
“They have long been planning to do this. It’s just something that it took some time to put in place,” Psaki said, adding that they’ll “continue to … take steps forward.”
Hillary Clinton Says She Used One Phone and Private Email While Secretary of State for ‘Convenience’
Yet just a few weeks ago, she said she used two different phones.
Peter Suderman|Mar. 10, 2015 4:38
In a press conference at the United Nations today, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded for the first time to questions about her decision to conduct all of her email business from a single, privately run account during her tenure at State. The heated session, which lasted roughly twenty minutes before coming to an abrupt end, left more questions than answers.
First, Clinton claimed that her decision to rely on a single email account was so that she could carry a single phone. This, she said repeatedly, was for “convenience.” Many of her emails, she noted, were sent to government employees at government addresses and recorded that way. At the time the decision was made, it “didn’t seem like an issue.”
At best this excuse suggests that Clinton is willing to prioritize personal convenience over transparency and accountability, which is probably not a great look for someone who is expected to announce a presidential campaign in the near future.
Martin O’Malley sticks with Plan A: try to upend Hillary Clinton
Former Governor O’Malley of Maryland announced Tuesday he will not run for Senate, a signal he is still running for president. Clinton’s latest woes could give O’Malley hope.
By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer MARCH 3, 2015
WASHINGTON — Former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) of Maryland isn’t running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D), who is retiring at the end of her term.
“I am hopeful and confident that very capable public servants with a desire to serve in the Senate will step up as candidates for this important office,” the former governor said Tuesday, in a statement. “I will not be one of them.”
Mr. O’Malley, it appears, is keeping his eyes on the prize: the presidency. O’Malley has been quietly preparing for months to run for president, despite the appearance that Hillary Rodham Clinton has the Democratic nomination all but locked up, without even having announced.
Breaking the law doesn’t come with the same consequences for government officials as it does for the rest of us.
An explosive report from The New York Timesreveals that while she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did not have a government e-mail address. Instead she used her own private e-mail address and her staffers made no effort at the time to retain those e-mails on government servers, a violation of federal law.
The Times reports:
It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department.
What difference, at this point, does it make, most transparent administration in history and all that.
Clinton is not the only government official to use her personal email for official business—Lois Lerner was found to have done the same as questions arose over what kind of inappropriate communications the former IRS bureaucrat was engaged in. Using personal email for government business, while it may be against the law, is relatively popularamong government officials who don’t fear repercussions from breaking government laws.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of helping to spur unrest in the Middle East that led to the current battle against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“One of the people I blame for a lot of this, frankly, is Hillary Clinton,” he said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”
“The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and also a breeding ground for armament. I really do blame Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading throughout the Middle East.”Paul has repeatedly needled Clinton ahead of the two politicians’ potential 2016 bids, this time when host Bill Hemmer asked for his take on President Obama’s proposed authorization to fight ISIS, sent to Congress Wednesday. The proposal includes vague language that limits the president from “enduring offensive ground combat” but would allow him to authorize limited ground operations and have soldiers target ISIS forces and their associates.
But the plan hasn’t been welcomed with open arms on Capitol Hill. Some Democratic lawmakers told The Hill that the language may still be too broad, while Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement that he’s concerned the president’s language isn’t broad enough to give “our military commanders the flexibility and authorities they need.”
Visas, Hillary Clinton, and the Ecuadorean ‘alien smuggler.’
By: Moe Lane (Diary) | December 17th, 2014 at 10:00 PM
I wonder if the New York Times is not entirely comfortable with the idea of a Hillary Clinton candidacy: “The Obama administration overturned a ban preventing a wealthy, politically connected Ecuadorean woman from entering the United States after her family gave tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to finance records and government officials.” Specifically, the woman (Estefanía Isaías) got a visa from Clinton’s State Department (the Times was very careful to note that) despite involved in, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised here, what was called ‘alien smuggling.’ Apparently the Isaias family is made up of very rich people with severe entitlement issues and at least two fugitives from Ecuadorean justice; but perhaps I’m being unfair about the ‘entitlement’ bit. The article makes it clear that the Isaias family has bought a time-share in US Senator Bob Menendez (D, NJ)… and I have to admit that if I had this kind of access I’d be severely tempted to use it to fix parking tickets (or extradition requests), too.
Clinton says America should ‘empathize’ with its enemies
Published December 05, 2014
FoxNews.com
Hillary Clinton is taking heat for saying America should “empathize” and show “respect” for its enemies.
The former secretary of State, who is considered a likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, made the remarks during a speech Wednesday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Touting an approach she calls “smart power,” Clinton urged America to use “every possible tool and partner” to advance peace.
This, she said, includes “leaving no one on the sidelines, showing respect even for one’s enemies, trying to understand and insofar as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view.”
At a time when the U.S. military is launching airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, some called the comments out of place.
Ouch! Hillary Clinton Blames Rise of Islamic Militants on Obama Policies
Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, August 10, 2014, 7:30 PM
In September 2011 in an interview with VOA Hillary Clinton said,
“Al-Qaeda was on the path of defeat.”
Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, August 10, 2014, 7:30 PM
In September 2011 in an interview with VOA Hillary Clinton said,
“Al-Qaeda was on the path of defeat.”
This was before the Benghazi massacre one year later.
But now she’s singing a different tune…
In an interview published Sunday, Hillary Clinton blamed the rise of Islamic militants in Iraq-Syria including ISIS on Barack Obama’s foreign policy.
AFP reported:
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton blamed the rise of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria on failures of US policy under President Barack Obama, in an interview published Sunday.
Clinton specifically faulted the US decision to stay on the sidelines of the insurgency against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad as opening the way for the most extreme rebel faction, the Islamic State.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad —- there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle -— the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton told the Atlantic.
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