Right Wing smears the Clintons

[MindMover]

Last edited Sun Aug 18, 2013, 09:15 PM - Edit history (1)

What will they not try to smear with there trashy media outlets ....?

President Clinton Refutes NY Times Errors In Foundation Story, But Will It Silence Right-Wing Smears?

A New York Times story on the philanthropic Clinton Foundation contained flawed details about the Foundation's finances, former President Bill Clinton clarified today. As a result of its errors, the story provided predictable fodder for attacks from right-wing media -- rabid for new opportunities to smear former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in anticipation of a yet-unannounced 2016 presidential campaign.

The Clinton Foundation, recently renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, was the subject of an August 13 Times report which speculated the non-profit was experiencing "unease" over financial and management issues. The paper noted that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff will soon move into the Foundation's Manhattan headquarters, and questioned the capabilities of senior Foundation employees. The Times also asserted that the Foundation "ran multimillion-dollar deficits for several years, despite vast amounts of money flowing in." As purported evidence, the paper claimed the charity ran a $40 million deficit in 2007 and 2008 and an $8 million deficit in 2012, citing tax returns.

But the Foundation corrected the record today in a letter from former President Bill Clinton. He explained that the Times failed to provide the context and facts essential to its story and misconstrued the Foundation's basic accounting according to the law, casting a shadow based on a false premise. That is because the IRS requires tax-exempt organizations such as the Foundation to report multi-year financial commitments occurring in the year the commitment was made. So in 2005 and 2006, the Foundation reported a surplus exceeding one hundred million dollars. In subsequent years, that money is reported as spending, but not cash inflow. Clinton also pointed out the difficult reality all non-profits face fundraising during a recession.

The Times was also incorrect in its assessment of 2012 deficits, Clinton stated. The paper relied on unaudited numbers from the 2012 annual report, but audited financials will reveal a surplus.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/16/president-clinton-refutes-ny-times-errors-in-fo/195451

[SummerSnow]

1. Smears for Fears...

Right wing afraid of the Clintons

[OnyxCollie]

2. There are good reasons to smear the Clinton's.

But the RW won't mention them, because it tarnishes the image of capitalism, and it contradicts the message that the Clinton's are Communists.

The Clinton Foundation - About
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/our-work/by-initiative/clinton-foundation-in-haiti/about.html

The Clinton Foundation has been actively engaged in Haiti since 2009, focusing on economic diversification, private sector investment and job creation in order to create long-term, sustainable economic development. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, President Clinton formed the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund and raised $16.4 million from individual donors for immediate earthquake relief efforts. Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation has raised a total of $34 million for Haiti, including relief funds as well as projects focused on restoring Haiti's communities, sustainable development, education and capacity building. In 2012, the Clinton Foundation concentrated on creating sustainable economic growth in the four priority sectors of energy, tourism, agriculture, and apparel/manufacturing, working to bring new investors, develop and support local organizations and businesses, and create access to new markets. The Clinton Foundation also continued working to support government efforts to improve Haiti’s business environment and supported programs in education and capacity building.

Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti’s Minimum Wage Increase
http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-47/Washington%20Backed%20Famous.asp

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi’s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.

The factory owners refused to pay 62 cents an hour, or $5 per eight-hour day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. Behind the scenes, the factory owners had the vigorous backing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Embassy, show secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Haïti Liberté by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks.

The minimum daily wage had been 70 gourdes or $1.75 a day.

The factory owners told the Haitian parliament that they were willing to give workers a mere 9 cents an hour pay increase to 31 cents an hour – 100 gourdes daily – to make T-shirts, bras and underwear for U.S. clothing giants like Dockers and Nautica.

[MindMover]

4. If your argument is that Haitian workers should get a minimum wage or

that there government should be forced into a democracy and that if all that happens all will be well with there world .... I caution you to rethink your rationale.

Anyway, I really do not understand your comment, "there are good reasons to smear the Clintons"

I am not naive enough to think that the Clintons are not without fault but to have as a goal to improve the quality of life of Haitians, is not an evil goal...now if you are all over with capitalism as the driving economic force, we can further discuss that thinking....

[OnyxCollie]

5. "...to have as a goal to improve the quality of life of Haitians, is not an evil goal..."

Did you actually read what I wrote?

While the Clinton Foundation appears to have altruistic goals, behind the scenes the Hillary Clinton-led State Department, acting on behalf of Hanes and Levi-Strauss, put pressure on the Haitian government to keep wages at near-slave labor levels. Isn't that nice?

The Clinton's are neoliberal assholes; do not be mislead.

Spawned from the concept of the charitable trust, the foundation is what Friedmann (1957) characterizes as “the most important modern institution in the field of group power” (p. 157). A chiefly American invention, the foundation is a permanent charitable institution that provides a tax shelter to donors, primarily heads of corporate empires (Friedmann, 1957). The foundation accomplishes this in multiple ways: through gifts exempt from gift taxes, which are then allowed to be deducted from income; through bequests deductible from estate taxes; and through the exemption of the foundation itself from income tax, property tax, and other taxes (Friedmann, 1957). The foundation allows for large sums of wealth to be diverted from tax collection, while simultaneously awarding control, credibility, and a perception of social responsibility (Friedmann, 1957).

[MindMover]

8. Your choice of a Friedmann quote is interesting to say the least ... I would prefer Keynes

You sound more like a libertarian...

I will suggest reading more about what Friedmann stood for ... here is a start ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/opinion/krugman-milton-friedman-unperson.html?_r=0

and, If neoliberalism is currently the best economic system to distribute charitable donations from greedy bastards then so be it .... unless, of course, you have something better....?

and, please remember not every countries economy is the same as the USA, meaning that its citizens live on less income and are very happy to have jobs at all....

[OnyxCollie]

9. W.G. Friedmann, not Milton Friedman.

Friedmann, W. G. (1957). Corporate power, government by private groups, and the law. Columbia Law Review, 57(2), 155-186.

"You sound more like a libertarian... "

You sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

[MindMover]

11. You must have studied his works well because you quote him often without clarity to

his position in British society, Wofgang was a professor and wrote essays on law and social change....BFD

You sound like a blathering baboon with nothing other than Pollyanna type ideals encased in libertarian ideals...

Now, go out and feed someone this week and give them a job big boy ....

[OnyxCollie]

12. Yawn.

Blah, blah, blah.

Be sure to tithe a tenth of your yearly earnings to the Clinton Foundation; they're saints.

[MindMover]

13. Libertarians .... just another word for Pollyanna ism

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6551756645/][img][/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6551756645/]magical[/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6657578499/][img][/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6657578499/]libertarianism-anarchy-for-rich-people[/url]

[OnyxCollie]

14. Neoliberal slave labor.

Hanes 2011 net income was $266.7 million.

Sixty-two cents an hour? Fuck that. You'll get thirty-one cents an hour, you greedy Haitians. -Love, Bill & Hill

[MindMover]

15. Let us agree that 62 or 31 cents an hr is not YOUR ideal wage ....

guess what, YOU do not live in Haiti ....

[OnyxCollie]

16. You're cool with 31 cents an hour?

31 cents more than NOTHING an hour?

Tom DeLay, is that you?

[MindMover]

17. LMAO ... again you are not paying attention because you are so filled with your

own righteousness....

When I was living in California, I paid over $ 5 a gallon for gasoline. When I moved to Arkansas, I thought I had moved to a third world country, where for the same gallon of gas I am now paying $ 3. My automobile licensing in California cost over $200 and in Arkansas it is $27 .... I could go on ad naseum ....

the point is again that the Haitian economy is not YOUR economy ....

[OnyxCollie]

18. The Haitian economy is not the US economy.

So why is the State Dept meddling in Haitian affairs on behalf of Hanes et al.?

[MindMover]

19. So your alternative is to what ....?????...maybe your alternative is to do what

Last edited Mon Aug 19, 2013, 07:13 PM - Edit history (1)

the Dutch (Belgium) did in the Congo ......

[davidpdx]

3. I wouldn't hold my breath for a correction

I read the article in another thread. Clinton's explanation made sense about having to book donations when they actually happen. I'm sure that the downturn in the economy hit all charities as it usually does. Fortunately most of the gifts he gets are from big donors like Bill and Melinda Gates.

It is just an attempt to smear Hillary Clinton by proxy.

[bigdarryl]

6. Blah Blah Blah what else is new

They have been smearing the Clinton's for 20 plus years.And they still Couldn't defeat them except for that stupid ass impeachment for a blow job

[Beacool]

7. The NY Times's article is being quoted by RW sites and talk radio.

Today Limbaugh started his show by commenting on it and on that perpetual Clinton hater's weekend column (Maureen Dowd).

[big_dog]

10. dowd refuation

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/18/maureen-dowds-empty-calorie-attack-on-the-clint/195456

[Beacool]

20. MoDo is obsessed with the Clintons.

She particularly seems to hate Hillary with a passion. The NY grapevine always wondered if MoDo had a thing for Bill and he didn't look her way. We all know that Michael Douglas dropped her like a hot potato once he met Catherine. Dowd is a bitter and nasty woman.

Dowd's animus for the Clintons goes back decades and in that time, she's never shied away from peddling conservative lies about Hillary. In 2008, Clark Hoyt, then the public editor of the Times, noted the volume of Dowd's "gender-laden assault on Clinton" which was the focus of "28 of 44 columns" written before June of that year.

Yep, that's how I remember her columns of that period. Week after week of vile and putrid pap directed at Hillary.

Yet nowhere does she mention the product of the Clinton Foundation's efforts, like the fact that "5 million people" and "500,000 children" around the world now "have access to low cost, high quality AIDS treatments." That is insignificant compared to Dowd's disgust for having to "read the words Ira Magaziner again."

The above is IMO the greatest achievement of the foundation. Millions of people are alive today thanks to its efforts in getting pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of ARVs (From $600 to $60 per person).

Thanks for the link.