The Bigly 2016 US Presidential Election Thread, Part XV

[deep]

Originally Posted by BVS

Integrity: 0%

Recharging may not be an option.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

Yes, the Clinton team, it is sad.

[Oregoropa]

Originally Posted by Axver

Plus, you know, this ONE email scandal of hers, plus the sexual indiscretions of people WHO ARE NOT ON THE BALLOT, are outweighed by the ABSOLUTE FUCKING TRUCKLOADS of Trump scandals.

Proportionality must be flipped on its head in the Southern Hemisphere

Hillary is under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Wikileaks reveals Clinton and her entourage . . .

- Rigged election against Bernie
- Getting questions in advance of debates
- Gave closed door speeches proposing selling out America's sovereignty through Open Borders
- Outright Bribery and profiteering in the wake of the Haitian Earthquake
- According to investigative notes released by the FBI, Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy offered a “quid pro quo” — allowing more FBI agents in countries where they are presently forbidden in exchange for declassifying an email marked “secret.”
- Podesta says we need to "dump" the emails before a subpoena

There are 7 crimes Hillary can be charged with over this "one email scandal"

- Perjury
- Obstruction of Justice
- Bribery
- Pay for Play
- Illegal Use of a Non-Profit Organization
- Racketeering
- Fraud

Last I checked saying grab pussy in a hypothetical scenario is not a crime.

[deep]

Originally Posted by iron yuppie

What might be most sad about this whole cycle is that Trump has succeeded in reducing political discourse to a simple binary of loving or hating him. I won't claim that this country has ever engaged in widespread, meaningful thought around elections, but I've never seen it ever remotely this way in my entire life.

Looking at what the Clintons, DNC, Brazzile, Loretta Lynch did in this election cycle, one would have to admit they added more shit than Trump ever did.
With Trump, there is no filter, he is like Torrets on display, we know too much.

With the Clinton team are complete frauds, going back looking at all her different statements about the email server. She has bald face lied. But she thinks admitting it was a mistake just makes it all ok. If that was the case no one would be in jail.

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by Axver

How is any of this relevant when the opponent is an authoritarian with fascist, racist, and misogynistic views?

I know you keep on pushing this, but I'm not entirely sure Trump has any real consistent ideology as opposed to making outrageous shit up as he goes along. I'm beginning to think he's a bit more of a Zhirinovsky than a Mussolini.

[bobsaget77]

Originally Posted by BVS

Integrity: 0%

Recharging may not be an option.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

Originally Posted by Oregoropa

Proportionality must be flipped on its head in the Southern Hemisphere



Hillary is under criminal investigation by the FBI.



Wikileaks reveals Clinton and her entourage . . .



- Rigged election against Bernie

- Getting questions in advance of debates

- Gave closed door speeches proposing selling out America's sovereignty through Open Borders

- Outright Bribery and profiteering in the wake of the Haitian Earthquake

- According to investigative notes released by the FBI, Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy offered a “quid pro quo” — allowing more FBI agents in countries where they are presently forbidden in exchange for declassifying an email marked “secret.”

- Podesta says we need to "dump" the emails before a subpoena



There are 7 crimes Hillary can be charged with over this "one email scandal"



- Perjury

- Obstruction of Justice

- Bribery

- Pay for Play

- Illegal Use of a Non-Profit Organization

- Racketeering

- Fraud



Last I checked saying grab pussy in a hypothetical scenario is not a crime.

[Oregoropa]

Looks like Hillary is dumping all her resources into blocking Trumps path in North Carolina. Battle Royale in the Tarheel state. Bringing in the heavy hitters . . . Ne-Yo, Lena Dunham, and Will Ferrell to get the youth vote out on college campuses.

[gump]

Originally Posted by Vlad n U 2

I know you keep on pushing this, but I'm not entirely sure Trump has any real consistent ideology as opposed to making outrageous shit up as he goes along. I'm beginning to think he's a bit more of a Zhirinovsky than a Mussolini.

He very clearly has a number of authoritarian tendencies, including a complete disregard for separation of powers and an independent press. Combined with his blatant ethnocentric and patriarchal worldview, it is accurate to call him a fascist.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

[bobsaget77]

Originally Posted by Oregoropa

Looks like Hillary is dumping all her resources into blocking Trumps path in North Carolina. Battle Royale in the Tarheel state. Bringing in the heavy hitters . . . Ne-Yo, Lena Dunham, and Will Ferrell to get the youth vote out on college campuses.

People are numb to these out of touch, privileged, liberal celebrity buffoons telling them how to vote.
Trump wins NC by 6-8 points. New poll today has him +7.

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by bobsaget77

People are numb to these out of touch, privileged, liberal celebrity buffoons telling them how to vote.

I love it when conservatives gripe about celebrities getting involved in politics and "telling people how to vote". You DO remember Trump was a TV celebrity before running for president, right?

And then there was Schwartzenegger being a Republican governor, and Reagan was an actor before he became president, and Fred Thompson ran for president, too...

(Also, "out of touch" and "privileged" are terms that certainly describe Trump, but hey...)

[Oregoropa]

Originally Posted by gump

He very clearly has a number of authoritarian tendencies, including a complete disregard for separation of powers and an independent press. Combined with his blatant ethnocentric and patriarchal worldview, it is accurate to call him a fascist.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

How would characterize Hillary's control of the State Department in action . . .?

Authoritarian and Corrupt to the hilt. Acting outside the law. Using the CGI as a giant slush fund. Total top-down control in secret.

Trump wants two federal regulations cut per every one added. Shrinking the executive branch. Ballsy enough to run on term limits to decentralize the power structure in DC. An idea supported by 75% of Americans.

Hillary has the fascist globalist track record in action. Just because Trump is braggadocios does not make him a Fascist. His plans do not demonstrate a proclivity towards Authoritarianism

[deep]

Trump wants to make America great again
Hillary wants to make America Mexico

[Oregoropa]

Originally Posted by bobsaget77

People are numb to these out of touch, privileged, liberal celebrity buffoons telling them how to vote.
Trump wins NC by 6-8 points. New poll today has him +7.

Trump supporters are the new counter-culture on campus. Dunham and Ferrell will get trolled hard.

[deep]

Dunham should just just go home
she will do more harm by being there.

[bobsaget77]

Originally Posted by Oregoropa

Trump supporters are the new counter-culture on campus. Dunham and Ferrell will get trolled hard.

People love Will Ferrell.....but he hasn't had a good movie since The Other Guys.
Lena Dunham is sleazy trash.
Does anyone still listen to Ne-Yo?

Originally Posted by deep

Dunham should just go home and moleste her little sister

Or falsely claim that Odell Beckham called her fat and ugly just to get attention.

[Caleb8844]

Originally Posted by bono_212

For the love of God, will someone PLEASE tell me what the fuck has she actually done to warrant all this? I feel like I am going to slam my head into a fucking wall with this bullshit, fuck.

Originally Posted by Axver

In answer to Caleb's question, unless Clinton suddenly becomes a fascist or another form of authoritarian, then nothing is relevant. She is not an authoritarian with fascist, racist, and misogynistic views. Simple.

Plus, you know, this ONE email scandal of hers, plus the sexual indiscretions of people WHO ARE NOT ON THE BALLOT, are outweighed by the ABSOLUTE FUCKING TRUCKLOADS of Trump scandals.

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

The party if Reagan is actively supporting a puppet of the Russian government.

But yea, no, Hillary is soooo much worse.

*Deep breath*

This is going to be long. Apologies for what is undoubtedly going to be a fucking ridiculously lengthy post, but there's no way to explain the Clinton Corruption Saga laconically.

I definitely understand how the "Clinton is corrupt" meme can be really hard to follow and can often seem like Republican witch hunts. Mainly because the Republicans have engaged in quite a few Clinton witch hunts, haha.

That said, they're not all witch hunts.

In short, I believe Clinton is running a pseudo-pay-to-play organization with the Clinton Foundation/CGI.
I believe that the organization was used to house her staff in between election runs.
I believe that foreign dignitaries donated to curry favor. I believe the donations were used -- in addition to funding some admittedly good charity work -- to line the Clintons' pockets, benefit the Clintons' friends, and pay returns to Foundation donors for their investments, all the while fleecing both the US tax payer -- whose money funded governmental grants given to the Clinton Foundation for charity purposes -- and poor citizens of third world countries -- who were the intended beneficiaries of that grant money.

Here's how I believe this system is set up:

I. The Clinton Foundation Racket:

1. Foreign actors/dignitaries give a "down payment," if you will, in the form of speaking fees. For instance, when a foreign actor could benefit from Clinton's State Department, generally this foreign actor would coincidentally book Bill Clinton for a speech at an exorbitant price. Politifact confirms that, though Bill Clinton has received over $500,000 for speeches 13 separate times, only 2 of these times occurred when Hillary Clinton was not secretary of state.

Fact-checking 'Clinton Cash' author on claim about Bill Clinton's speaking fees | PunditFact

2. After the down payment, the foreign actor then gives millions to the Clinton Foundation shortly before the State Department acquiesces to the foreign actor's requests. This can be seen in how Bahrain received drastic increases in approved weapons deals, how the Russian company Uranium One got access to large percentages of North American uranium, and how Saudi Arabia's weapons requests made their way to becoming one of Clinton's "top priorities."

Saudi Arabia Has Been Hillary Clinton's 'Top Priority' for Years—Showering Missiles and Fighter Jets on an Extreme Human Rights Abuser | Alternet

3. The Clinton Foundation then uses its position as a charity to benefit its other wealthy donors. Here's where things get a bit more complicated. In order to run a proper money laundering scheme, your front business actually does have to do what it claims to do, to some extent. So, the Clinton Foundation does do a lot of good. But if you look closer at how the charity funds are distributed, you'll find some interesting things.

II. The Evidence:

Consider how the Haitians view the Clintons and their foundation, after having first hand experience with how the Clinton Foundation operates when they came in after the earthquake to help:

There’s real frustration among Haitians over failures in progress promised to them, not just by the Clintons but from the international community at large. In 2015, Haitian activists protested outside the Clinton Foundation in New York, claiming the Clintons mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer money through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-never-built/

The reason the Haitians are angry is because they believe that, instead of using the money they raised to rebuild Haiti, the Clinton Foundation simply funneled useless "charity" project contracts to friends of the family. There is at least some degree of evidence to support this. Below is in reference to email threads from the time period of the Haiti rebuilding.

FOB = "Friend of Bill"

“Need you to flag when people are friends of WJC,” wrote Caitlin Klevorick, then a senior State Department official who was juggling incoming offers of assistance being funneled to the State Department by the Clinton Foundation. “Most I can probably ID but not all.”

“Is this a FOB!” Klevorick writes later, when a Clinton Foundation aide forwards a woman’s offer of medical supplies. “If not, she should go to cidi.org,” she adds, directing the person deemed not to be a Clinton friend to a general government website.

'FOBs': How Hillary's State Dept. Gave Special Attention to 'Friends of Bill' After Haiti Quake - ABC News

Right off the bat, we see that it's not only the Clinton Foundation that sees its interactions with Billl's friends as different from its interactions with others -- it's HRC's State Department, too. According to Haitian policy analysts, there was very little difference between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Clinton was there:

“I think when you look at both the State Department and the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, that line was pretty faint between the two,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research. “You had a lot of coordination and connection between the two, obviously. And I think that raises significant questions about how they were both operating.”

So, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department were operating with very little breathing room between them. But is there any evidence that Clinton friends/donors benefited from this? Yes.

One series of messages chronicles efforts by billionaire Denis O’Brien, a longtime donor to the Clinton Foundation and the CEO of the Jamaica-based telecom firm Digicel, to fly relief supplies into Port-au-Prince and get employees of his company out.

“This WJC VIP just called again from Jamaica to say Digicel is being pushed by US Army to get comms back up but is not being cleared by [the U.S. government] to deploy into Haiti to do so,” [Amitabh] Desai [director of foreign policy for the Clinton Foundation] wrote in an email with the subject line “Close friend of Clintons.”


Later, O’Brien writes to longtime Clinton aide Doug Band to express frustration. “We’re finding it impossible to get landing slots,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you but I am not making any progress through conventional channels.”

Band tasks Desai to “pls get on this,” telling O’Brien, “Never a bother.”

Remember that Denis O'Brien is a "WJC VIP," as well as a "Close friend of Clintons." This will be important later on.

So far, all we see is that the Clinton Foundation operated in tandem with the State Department and helped Clinton friends/billionaires out of catastrophe-related binds. So far, not so bad. However, with the Clintons, always follow the money.

Scarcely a month into the reconstruction process, it was being described in a diplomatic cable as a “gold rush” for government contractors and aid groups.

and here we have begun to find the money.

A week after the earthquake hit, Klevorick wrote to the USAID’s congressional liaison, Kate Beale, who previously served as a policy staffer in the offices of then–New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

“Wjc/hrc friends come to you now,” she writes. “Would be great since you likely get this paradigm.”

Paradigm: "a typical example or pattern of something; a model."

Klevorick knows that Beale, being a staffer of Clinton, knows how "WJC/HRC friends [coming] to you" when the Clinton Foundation is involved in charitable rebuilding of countries works.

Desai forwarded a note to Klevorick from Garry Mauro, who served twice as the Texas state chairman for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns and has donated $25,000 to $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The offer was for “major assets in Haiti” from a company called DRC Emergency Services. On its website, the company boasts of having performed emergency response work at disasters around the globe, with over $2 billion in disaster response contracts. Desai noted that Mauro was “a friend of WJC.”

Klevorick replied, “also note hrc friend,” using initials for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The email chain does not indicate if Mauro’s recommendation led to a contract for DRC, though the company’s website states, “Within 24 hours of the earthquake’s occurrence, DRC assembled and mobilized a team of highly experienced and dedicated personnel to Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas.”
...
“They wanted to get some of the business,” he said of DRC. “The Clinton Foundation was a facilitator. They didn’t have the money.”

If that's what $50,000 gets you...

But hold on -- we're still at chump change. Let's take a look at one of the major "accomplishments" of the Clinton Foundation in Haiti: The Caracol Industrial Park

In 2010, Haiti’s leaders unveiled a plan to spur growth beyond the capital city of Port-au-Prince. One project that emerged was to build an industrial park on the country’s northern coast a little over a mile from Caracol Bay. It was going to bring tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, government officials said.

Sae-A [a South Korean clothing maker involved with the project], under the name of S&H Global, would be the anchor tenant of the new industrial park, producing clothes for clients such as Target and Walmart. Bill and Hillary Clinton, champions of that vision, came to the park’s grand opening. In fact, both of them lobbied hard for the project. Bill Clinton in his role as special envoy to Haiti pushed for expanded garment making. Sae-A said Clinton herself invited the company to build a factory atthe industrial park.

The U.S. Agency for International Development allocated $170 million to support the industrial park by building a power plant and improving the port.

"What is happening here in Caracol is already having ripple effects that will create jobs and opportunities far beyond this industrial park," Hillary Clinton said at the Caracol opening ceremony.

But that really hasn't happened.

The industrial park has been besieged by criticism of millions of dollars wasted, displaced farmers and sluggish job growth. Today, four years, later, total employment is about 8,100. (The State Department told us after publication that new data show the facility now employs about 9,400 people.)

Trump mangles facts on Clinton and Haiti jobs project | PolitiFact

The linchpin is the $300 million, 600-acre Caracol Industrial Park, financed by U.S. taxpayer money and Inter-American Development Bank and geared toward making clothes for export to the United States

The Clintons were instrumental at nearly every step in its creation. The development program Bill came to sell as U.N special envoy, written by Oxford University economist Paul Collier, had garment exports at its center.

As only he can, Bill Clinton managed to tout the idea as an exciting departure from Haiti’s past. He successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to eliminate tariffs on textiles sewn in Haiti. (The powerful Association des Industries d’Haiti lobbied, too, paying at least $550,000 to a D.C. lobbying firm led by Andrew Samet, a former Clinton Labor Department official, and Ronald Sorini, who was the chief U.S. Trade Representative negotiator on textiles during the North American Free Trade Agreement talks.)

Secretary Clinton joined in too: She hired Collier’s research partner in Haiti, Soros Economic Development Fund consultant Jean-Louis Warnhoz, as a senior adviser. She and her key aide Cheryl Mills negotiated an agreement between the Haitian and U.S. governments, multilateral financiers and the South Korean textile giant Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd., which makes clothes for Old Navy, Walmart, Kohl’s, Target and other retailers.

The King and Queen of Haiti - Jonathan M. Katz - POLITICO Magazine

So the Clintons threw poor people under the bus, wasted tax payer and charity funds, and created a failed industrial investment project - all in the interest of getting cheap clothing exports to the US, enriching multi million dollar corporations like Target, and giving kickbacks to their lobbyist friends? Color me shocked.

But this is STILL chump change. Who's making the big bucks, here?

To understand how this all ties together, Digicel is the key. Remember Digicel? The Jamaican telecommunications company -- whose CEO billionaire Clinton Foundation donor Denis O’Brien (that "WJC VIP," remember?) -- who reached out to the Clintons for help to "fly relief supplies" to Port-Au-Prince?

Two years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled Haiti's capital, a deal brokered by former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation will add new lodging for aid workers and other travelers to Port-au-Prince -- in the form of a $45 million hotel.

Caribbean cell phone provider Digicel will own the hotel, which will have 173 new rooms and create 175 new jobs.

Digicel claims to be Haiti's largest private investor and cell phone provider and touts its charitable contributions to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Clinton Foundation facilitates $45 million Haiti hotel deal - CNN.com

One Clinton Foundation donor receiving a contract for a luxury project that has nothing to do with recovery. With that in mind, let's take a little bit closer look at the financials of the companies who benefited from the failed Caracol Industrial Park. Any chance we'll find a similar pattern of a wasteful, State Department sponsored project neglecting to help the Haitians and instead helping Clinton Foundation donors?

The modern industrial park, with wide, clear roads connecting rows of low-slung warehouses, would be paid for by the Inter-American Development Bank, which provided $256.8 million in grants to support construction. The bank has donated $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to its website. Large American retailers, including Wal-Mart and Gap Inc., have served as buyers for the clothes shipped from Haiti to the U.S. with special U.S. tax breaks. Wal-Mart has given $1 million to $5 million, and Gap has given $100,000 to $250,000 to the foundation. And in 2012, SAE-A, the Korean garment company that was recruited to become the anchor tenant of the park, gave $50,000 to $100,000 to the foundation.

Of course. What else have we got. How about some favors that get repaid by some good old-fashioned nepotism?

[Angelo] Viard [a Democratic donor], said that he paid to become a member of CGI so he could attend two of the organization’s meetings.

In December 2012, VCS [Viard's company] won one of the first two gold-mining permits the Haitian government had issued in more than 50 years. The project was immediately slammed by members of the Haitian Senate, who called it a potential environmental disaster and “a waste of resources.”

Viard stressed that [Tony] Rodham was not involved in the effort to win the permit from the Haitian government, which was granted months before Rodham joined the board.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...506_story.html

Haiti awarded one of the only two gold-mining permits in the last 50 years to a Clinton Foundation donor who just so happens to hire HRC's brother, Anthony Rodham, immediately after the deal went through. Nothing suspicious here.

Now, let's meet the guy making the big bucks -- one of the main men behind the scenes of the Clinton Foundation: Frank Giustra, Bill's billionaire friend who very likely started the Clinton Foundation on its downward spiral to corruption back in 2005:

Giustra is a billionaire mining magnate from Vancouver who met Clinton in 2005 aboard his private jet, which he had lent the former president for a trip to South America. (Clinton really must like Giustra—or his jet—an awful lot, because he borrowed it 25 more times, according to the Washington Post.) Somewhere in the air between Little Rock and Bogotá, Giustra realized, as so many had before him, life would be more glamorous, important, and fun with more Bill Clinton in it: "I said to him, ‘Hey, tell me more about what the Clinton Foundation does.' "

Before long, Giustra had pledged $100 million, established a Canadian arm (the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership), and joined the Clinton Foundation's board.

After $100M in the Clinton Foundation's coffers and certainly some directly into the Clinton's pockets (we've already proven the Clintons and the foundation are corrupt - I'm not buying that this didn't go any further than some borrowed time with the private jet), where did things go from there? Well . . .

Things went to Kazakhstan:

Giustra and Clinton jetted in to dine with the country's authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.Days later, Giustra's mining company signed an agreement giving it stakes in three state-run uranium mines in addition to those it controlled in the U.S.

TheBillionaire Whose Clinton Foundation TiesCould BeTrouble for Hillary Clinton - Bloomberg Politics

. . . which then required them to take a metaphorical pit stop in Russia:

Rosatom’s acquisition of Toronto-based miner Uranium One Inc. made the Russian agency, which also builds nuclear weapons, one the world’s top five producers of the radioactive metal and gave it ownership of a mine in Wyoming.

The deal, approved by a committee that included then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also followed donations from Uranium One’s Canadian chairman to the Clinton Global Foundation, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Ian Telfer, the former Uranium One chairman and current chairman of Goldcorp Inc., said he pledged a donation of $3 million to the Clinton charity in March 2008.

The company that became Uranium One was founded in 1997 and merged with two competitors in 2005. In 2007, it bought UrAsia, a company co-founded by Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra that owned uranium mining assets in Kazakhstan

How Putin’s Russia Gained Control of a U.S. Uranium Mine - Bloomberg

Mr. Giustra, whose personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million, said he sold his stake in 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us...pany.html?_r=1

. . . and then they went to Colombia:

In Colombia, where his investments include oil, timber, and coal mines, Giustra dined one evening in 2010 with Bill and Hillary Clinton, who both met with Colombia's president the next day. Soon after, one company in which Giustra holds a stake "acquired the right to cut timber in a biologically diverse forest on the pristine Colombian shoreline," Schweizer writes, and another was granted valuable oil drilling rights.

TheBillionaire Whose Clinton Foundation TiesCould BeTrouble for Hillary Clinton - Bloomberg Politics

At this point, it's readily apparent what Frank Giustra gets from this relationship: loads of cash. But. other than millions upon millions in donation money, personal favors like borrowing his private jet over 20 times, and more likely than not some personal financial stake in the above dealings, what do the Clintons gain from the relationship?

A way to avoid disclosing foreign donations to the foundation:

Aides to former President Bill Clinton helped start a Canadian charity that effectively shielded the identities of donors who gave more than $33 million that went to his foundation, despite a pledge of transparency when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

The nonprofit, the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (Canada), operates in parallel to a Clinton Foundation project called the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which is expressly covered by an agreement Mrs. Clinton signed to make all donors public while she led the State Department. However, the foundation maintains that the Canadian partnership is not bound by that agreement and that under Canadian law contributors’ names cannot be made public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/us...oundation.html

III. Outlining the Corruption:

Let's recap. There're four main categories of actions taking place that make the Clintons and Clinton Foundation corrupt:

1. Foreign donations buying State Department favors,

2. Corporate donations buying Clinton Foundation funds and contracts.

3. Favors and donations buying Clinton Foundation influence over foreign governments.

4. Clinton using her Secretary of State position to OK any deals resulting from elements 1-3 that require governmental approval.

5. Partners who help the Foundation hide donors being rewarded with all of the above.
The I separated the above actions into separate categories, none of these actions exist in a vacuum. Researching this, other than giving me a pretty large amount of disgust for the Clintons' ethical cores, has given me quite a bit of respect for both WJC's and HRC's intellects. All of the above actions work together to create what is a pretty impressively opaque, innocuous, and in the end insanely profitable racket that is better referred to as the Clinton Corporation than a charity foundation.

Finally, let's see precisely how the above actions interact in order to create this operation:

IV. The Clinton Foundation Formula:

1. Favors: The Clintons sell State Department favors to foreign actors (Saudi deals, increase in weapons deals to Bahrain, Uranium One, etc).

2. Speech Down Payments: Bill Clinton then collects "down payments" for these deals through speaking engagements (11 of his 13 $500,000+ speaking arrangements occurred when HRC was Sec. of State).

3. Foreign Donations: These foreign actors then donate millions to the Clinton Foundation (Saudi donated millions, Bahrain donated millions, Russia donated millions, etc.), and Clinton uses her Sec. of State power to benefit them (see point 1. for examples).

4. Giustra and Hidden Donors: In order to hide some of the more distasteful foreign donors, the Clintons formed a mutually beneficial bond with mining billionaire Frank Giustra. The Clintons help Giustra out with mining ventures in third world countries by bringing him into the picture, leaning on foreign governments, and using the State Department's power to approve anything in need of approval. In return, Giustra funnels all overly suspicious donations though their shared venture, Clinton Giustra Entrerprise Partnership, a Canadian company who is not beholden to revealing donor lists.

5. Profiting Off the Third World and Catastrophes: The Clintons then use both the Clinton Foundation funds and the power of the State Department to take advantage of catastrophic events (like the Haitian earthquake) to give their friends and donors a route into the money-making extravaganza that is catastrophe response (see: O'brien's email), help these friends negotiate with the relevant country's government and the US for property rights and funding (see: Digicel's Marriott Hotel), and even directly push for development contracts and fund projects for them (see: Caracol Industrial Park).

6. State Department Profiteering: On top of all of the above, Clinton used her position as Secretary of State to directly influence policy in favor of large foundation donors. Below are just a few examples:

V. Additional State Department Favors:

“And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”

It was only after Hillary became Secretary of State that Bill Clinton gave two speeches in Nigeria in 2011 and 2012. Both times, he was paid $700,000. What did Nigeria get in return?

It was only after Hillary Clinton left the State Department in 2013 that Boko Haram was listed as a terrorist organization. In 2012, the State Department was resisting pressure from Congress and outside groups to list Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.

In 2014, Robert Jackson, the State Department’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, testified before Congress that, “The government of Nigeria feared that designating these individuals and the organizations would bring them more attention, more publicity and be counterproductive.”

In 2011, the Clinton Foundation lobbied the State Department to transfer funding away from AIDS programs to a training program for health professionals in Rwanda. This idea was approved over the explicit objections of some State Department officials.

Although Secretary Clinton officially recused herself, she had her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills decide the issue. The problem is that before Mills got her job in the State Department, she was a board member at the Clinton Foundation.

In 2006, then-Senator Hillary Clinton voted for three amendments designed to put limits on the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement.

In October 2008, Senator Clinton voted for the deal. It passed the U.S. Senate 86-13.

In September 2008, Hillary Clinton met with Amar Singh to discuss the legislation. In 2008, the Clinton Foundation also received a donation between $1 million and $5 million from Singh.

Shut It Down: The Clinton Foundation Is Too Corrupt to Exist | The American Spectator

In conclusion, I'm not trying to say that Trump is a better choice than Clinton, or that Trump isn't a know-nothing, bigoted, insane, likely sexual assailant. I'm not even saying don't vote for Clinton -- I ended up voting third party, but even I considered it for awhile.

All I am saying is read the above. Very little of that is conjecture - for each point, I've given a legitimate source as a citation, more often than not a major newspaper or media organization. No one really disputes any of these individual claims. When you take all these claims as a whole, though, and when you began to start trying to trace the outline of it, something arguably nefarious is revealed. I'm not telling anyone that Trump is the better choice, but I am saying that this choice is much more difficult than people here are letting on.

Again, apologies for the length. I'd love to engage on this. If any of the above seems unfair or inaccurate, call it out - I believe I can defend it all.

[bono_212]

Originally Posted by Caleb8844

*Deep breath*

*snip*

Again, apologies for the length. I'd love to engage on this. If any of the above seems unfair or inaccurate, call it out - I believe I can defend it all.

No apologies necessary, I sincerely appreciate this. I did a VERY quick skim, will read the whole thing later. I will admit that while I do see a TON of good out of the foundation, I have been reticent myself to donate to it based on things I've seen lately. I have been open and honest when I've said that I don't think HRC is perfect or beyond suspicion, I just wanted to know what she's done that's *actually* illegal, and I really appreciate a honest and thought out response.

[Caleb8844]

Originally Posted by bono_212

No apologies necessary, I sincerely appreciate this. I did a VERY quick skim, will read the whole thing later. I will admit that while I do see a TON of good out of the foundation, I have been reticent myself to donate to it based on things I've seen lately. I have been open and honest when I've said that I don't think HRC is perfect or beyond suspicion, I just wanted to know what she's done that's *actually* illegal, and I really appreciate a honest and thought out response.

I have definitely noticed you as one of the most intellectually honest contributors to HRC-related subjects. You seem like someone who is willing to engage in a worthwhile discussion on this, so I figured now was as good a time as any to get that all out there. Hope to discuss it further with you in the future

[DaveC]

edit: never mind. the trump supporters here should be ashamed of themselves for how they've come back into this thread. be adults and have some integrity, for fucks sakes. honestly, i truly can't wait till you all get embarrassed and shut the fuck up in a weeks time.

[deep]

Are you voting for Hillary?

[DaveC]

it's going to be a 50+ electoral college margin and you fucking know it, so have your stupid fun now, idiots.