The face of things to come.

 
Don't ask me, kiddies. I just work here.

The AmericaLast Media finally begin to hunt the elusive Sacred Cow.

Just say no to the Sacred Cow, kiddies!
How did a redneck left-fascist and his ignorant shrew of a wife become multi-millionaires by starting a charitable [only 15% of the funds they raise go to actual charitable causes, BTW] foundation? Here are three long-overdue stories about bribery, influence peddling, and treason that should give you a clue.

From the Old Gray Whore:

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.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

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.

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.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.

 Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.

In a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added.

American political campaigns are barred from accepting foreign donations. But foreigners may give to foundations in the United States. In the days since Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy for president, the Clinton Foundation has announced changes meant to quell longstanding concerns about potential conflicts of interest in such donations; it has limited donations from foreign governments, with many, like Russia’s, barred from giving to all but its health care initiatives. That policy stops short of Mrs. Clinton’s agreement with the Obama administration, which prohibited all foreign government donations while she served as the nation’s top diplomat.

Either way, the Uranium One deal highlights the limits of such prohibitions. The foundation will continue to accept contributions from foreign individuals and businesses whose interests, like Uranium One’s, may overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds with the United States.

When the Uranium One deal was approved, the geopolitical backdrop was far different from today’s. The Obama administration was seeking to “reset” strained relations with Russia. The deal was strategically important to Mr. Putin, who shortly after the Americans gave their blessing sat down for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko. “Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of U.S. reserves,” Mr. Kiriyenko told Mr. Putin.

Now, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, the Moscow-Washington relationship is devolving toward Cold War levels, a point several experts made in evaluating a deal so beneficial to Mr. Putin, a man known to use energy resources to project power around the world.

“Should we be concerned? Absolutely,” said Michael McFaul, who served under Mrs. Clinton as the American ambassador to Russia but said he had been unaware of the Uranium One deal until asked about it. “Do we want Putin to have a monopoly on this? Of course we don’t. We don’t want to be dependent on Putin for anything in this climate.”

 The path to a Russian acquisition of American uranium deposits began in 2005 in Kazakhstan, where the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side.

 

The two men had flown aboard Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they dined with the authoritarian president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton handed the Kazakh president a propaganda coup when he expressed support for Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid to head an international elections monitoring group, undercutting American foreign policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, his wife, then a senator.

Within days of the visit, Mr. Giustra’s fledgling company, UrAsia Energy Ltd., signed a preliminary deal giving it stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.

If the Kazakh deal was a major victory, UrAsia did not wait long before resuming the hunt. In 2007, it merged with Uranium One, a South African company with assets in Africa and Australia, in what was described as a $3.5 billion transaction. The new company, which kept the Uranium One name, was controlled by UrAsia investors including Ian Telfer, a Canadian who became chairman. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Giustra, whose personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million, said he sold his stake in 2007.

Soon, Uranium One began to snap up mining companies with assets in the United States. In April 2007, it announced the purchase of a uranium mill in Utah and more than 38,000 acres of uranium exploration properties in four Western states, followed quickly by the acquisition of the Energy Metals Corporation and its uranium holdings in Wyoming, Texas and Utah. That deal made clear that Uranium One was intent on becoming “a powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” the company declared.

Still, the company’s story was hardly front-page news in the United States — until early 2008, in the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, when The Times published an article revealing the 2005 trip’s link to Mr. Giustra’s Kazakhstan mining deal. It also reported that several months later, Mr. Giustra had donated $31.3 million to Mr. Clinton’s foundation.

Though the article quoted the former head of Kazatomprom, Moukhtar Dzhakishev, as saying that the deal required government approval and was discussed at a dinner with the president, Mr. Giustra insisted that it was a private transaction, with no need for Mr. Clinton’s influence with Kazakh officials. He described his relationship with the former American president as motivated solely by a shared interest in philanthropy.

As if to underscore the point, five months later Mr. Giustra held a fund-raiser for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project aimed at fostering progressive environmental and labor practices in the natural resources industry, to which he had pledged $100 million. The star-studded gala, at a conference center in Toronto, featured performances by Elton John and Shakira and celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Robin Williams encouraging contributions from the many so-called F.O.F.s — Friends of Frank — in attendance, among them Mr. Telfer. In all, the evening generated $16 million in pledges, according to an article in The Globe and Mail.

 

"None of this would have been possible if Frank Giustra didn’t have a remarkable combination of caring and modesty, of vision and energy and iron determination,” Mr. Clinton told those gathered, adding: “I love this guy, and you should, too.”

But what had been a string of successes was about to hit a speed bump.

 

By June 2009, a little over a year after the star-studded evening in Toronto, Uranium One’s stock was in free-fall, down 40 percent. Mr. Dzhakishev, the head of Kazatomprom, had just been arrested on charges that he illegally sold uranium deposits to foreign companies, including at least some of those won by Mr. Giustra’s UrAsia and now owned by Uranium One.

Publicly, the company tried to reassure shareholders. Its chief executive, Jean Nortier, issued a confident statement calling the situation a “complete misunderstanding.” He also publicly contradicted Mr. Giustra’s contention that the uranium mining deal had not required government blessing. “When you do a transaction in Kazakhstan, you need the government’s approval,” he said, adding that UrAsia had indeed received that approval.

But privately, Uranium One officials were worried they could lose their joint mining ventures. American diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks also reflect concerns that Mr. Dzhakishev’s arrest was part of a Russian power play for control of Kazakh uranium assets.

At the time, Russia was already eying a stake in Uranium One, Rosatom company documents show. Rosatom officials say they were seeking to acquire mines around the world because Russia lacks sufficient domestic reserves to meet its own industry needs.

 It was against this backdrop that the Vancouver-based Uranium One pressed the American Embassy in Kazakhstan, as well as Canadian diplomats, to take up its cause with Kazakh officials, according to the American cables.

“We want more than a statement to the press,” Paul Clarke, a Uranium One executive vice president, told the embassy’s energy officer on June 10, the officer reported in a cable. “That is simply chitchat.” What the company needed, Mr. Clarke said, was official written confirmation that the licenses were still valid.

The American Embassy ultimately reported to the secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton. 

Though the Clarke cable was copied to her, it was given wide circulation, and it is unclear if she would have read it; the Clinton campaign did not address questions about the cable.

What is clear is that the embassy acted, with the cables showing that the unnamed energy officer met with Kazakh officials to discuss the issue on June 10 and 11.

Three days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom completed a deal for 17 percent of Uranium One. And within a year, the Russian government would substantially up the ante, with a generous offer to shareholders that would give it a 51 percent controlling stake. But first, Uranium One had to get the American government to sign off on the deal.

 

When a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a secretive review process in Washington, where officials raised concerns primarily about the mine’s proximity to a military installation, but also about the potential for minerals at the site, including uranium, to come under Chinese control. The officials killed the deal.

Such is the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee comprises some of the most powerful members of the cabinet, including the attorney general, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state. They are charged with reviewing any deal that could result in foreign control of an American business or asset deemed important to national security.

The national security issue at stake in the Uranium One deal was not primarily about nuclear weapons proliferation; the United States and Russia had for years cooperated on that front, with Russia sending enriched fuel from decommissioned warheads to be used in American nuclear power plants in return for raw uranium. Instead, it concerned American dependence on foreign uranium sources. While the United States gets one-fifth of its electrical power from nuclear plants, it produces only around 20 percent of the uranium it needs, and most plants have only 18 to 36 months of reserves, according to Marin Katusa, author of “The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped From America’s Grasp.”

“The Russians are easily winning the uranium war, and nobody’s talking about it,” said Mr. Katusa, who explores the implications of the Uranium One deal in his book. “It’s not just a domestic issue but a foreign policy issue, too.”

When ARMZ, an arm of Rosatom, took its first 17 percent stake in Uranium One in 2009, the two parties signed an agreement, found in securities filings, to seek the foreign investment committee’s review. But it was the 2010 deal, giving the Russians a controlling 51 percent stake, that set off alarm bells. Four members of the House of Representatives signed a letter expressing concern. Two more began pushing legislation to kill the deal.

Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, where Uranium One’s largest American operation was, wrote to President Obama, saying the deal “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.”

“Equally alarming,” Mr. Barrasso added, “this sale gives ARMZ a significant stake in uranium mines in Kazakhstan.”

Uranium One’s shareholders were also alarmed, and were “afraid of Rosatom as a Russian state giant,” Sergei Novikov, a company spokesman, recalled in an interview. He said Rosatom’s chief, Mr. Kiriyenko, sought to reassure Uranium One investors, promising that Rosatom would not break up the company and would keep the same management, including Mr. Telfer, the chairman. Another Rosatom official said publicly that it did not intend to increase its investment beyond 51 percent, and that it envisioned keeping Uranium One a public company.

 

American nuclear officials, too, seemed eager to assuage fears. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote to Senator Barrasso assuring him that American uranium would be preserved for domestic use, regardless of who owned it.

“In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the export of uranium for use reactor fuel,” the letter said.

Still, the ultimate authority to approve or reject the Russian acquisition rested with the cabinet officials on the foreign investment committee, including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions of dollars in donations from people associated with Uranium One.

 Before Mrs. Clinton could assume her post as secretary of state, the White House demanded that she sign a memorandum of understanding placing limits on her husband’s foundation’s activities. To avoid the perception of conflicts of interest, beyond the ban on foreign government donations, the foundation was required to publicly disclose all contributors.

To judge from those disclosures — which list the contributions in ranges rather than precise amounts — the only Uranium One official to give to the Clinton Foundation was Mr. Telfer, the chairman, and the amount was relatively small: no more than $250,000, and that was in 2007, before talk of a Rosatom deal began percolating.

But a review of tax records in Canada, where Mr. Telfer has a family charity called the Fernwood Foundation, shows that he donated millions of dollars more, during and after the critical time when the foreign investment committee was reviewing his deal with the Russians. With the Russians offering a special dividend, shareholders like Mr. Telfer stood to profit.

His donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011; and $500,000 in 2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr. or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

The Clinton campaign left it to the foundation to reply to questions about the Fernwood donations; the foundation did not provide a response.

Mr. Telfer’s undisclosed donations came in addition to between $1.3 million and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the Kazakhstan mines. Without those assets, the Russians would have had no interest in the deal: “It wasn’t the goal to buy the Wyoming mines. The goal was to acquire the Kazakh assets, which are very good,” Mr. Novikov, the Rosatom spokesman, said in an interview.

 Amid this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One.

The $500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to speak at its annual investor conference.

Renaissance Capital analysts talked up Uranium One’s stock, assigning it a “buy” rating and saying in a July 2010 research report that it was “the best play” in the uranium markets. In addition, Renaissance Capital turned up that same year as a major donor, along with Mr. Telfer and Mr. Giustra, to a small medical charity in Colorado run by a friend of Mr. Giustra’s. In a newsletter to supporters, the friend credited Mr. Giustra with helping get donations from “businesses around the world.”

A Renaissance Capital representative would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton’s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal. According to a Russian government news service, Mr. Putin personally thanked Mr. Clinton for speaking.

 A person with knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising operation, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about it, said that for many people, the hope is that money will in fact buy influence: “Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?” But whether it actually does is another question. And in this case, there were broader geopolitical pressures that likely came into play as the United States considered whether to approve the Rosatom-Uranium One deal...

 From Roto-Reuters:

Clinton charities will refile tax returns, audit for other errors

Hillary Clinton's family's charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in case of other errors.
The foundation and its list of donors have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks. Republican critics say the foundation makes Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, vulnerable to undue influence. Her campaign team calls these claims "absurd conspiracy theories."

The charities' errors generally take the form of under-reporting or over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government donations entirely when reporting revenue, the charities confirmed to Reuters.

The errors, which have not been previously reported, appear on the form 990s that all non-profit organizations must file annually with the Internal Revenue Service to maintain their tax-exempt status. A charity must show copies of the forms to anyone who wants to see them to understand how the charity raises and spends money.

The unsettled numbers on the tax returns are not evidence of wrongdoing but tend to undermine the 990s role as a form of public accountability, experts in charity law and transparency advocates told Reuters.

"If those numbers keep changing - well, actually, we spent this on this, not that on that - it really defeats the purpose," said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a government transparency advocacy group.

For three years in a row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the IRS that it received zero in funds from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars in foreign government contributions reported in preceding years.

Those entries were errors, according to the foundation: several foreign governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the foundation's work on climate change and economic development through this three-year period. Those governments were identified on the foundation's annually updated donor list, along with broad indications of how much each had cumulatively given since they began donating.

"We are prioritizing an external review to ensure the accuracy of the 990s from 2010, 2011 and 2012 and expect to refile when the review is completed," Craig Minassian, a foundation spokesman, said in an email.

The decision to review the returns was made last month following inquiries from Reuters, and the foundation has not ruled out extending the review to tax returns extending back 15 or so years.
 
Minassian declined to comment on why the foundation had not included the necessary break-down of government funding in its 990 forms. He said it was rare to find an organization as transparent as the foundation.

"No charity is required to disclose their donors," he said. "However, we voluntarily disclose our more than 300,000 donors and post our audited financial statements on our website along with the 990s for anyone to see."

Separately, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the foundation's flagship program, is refiling its form 990s for at least two years, 2012 and 2013, CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley said, describing the incorrect government grant break-outs for those two years as typographical errors.

CHAI, which is best known for providing cheaper drugs for tens of thousands of people with HIV around the world, began filing separate tax returns in 2010, and has previously refiled at least once both its 2010 and 2011 form 990s. For both those years, CHAI said its initial filings had over-reported government grants by more than $100 million.

Some experts in charity law and taxes said it was not remarkable for a charity to refile an erroneous return once in a while, but for a large, global charity to refile three or four years in a row was highly unusual.

"I've never seen amendment activity like that," said Bruce Hopkins, a Kansas City lawyer who has specialized in charity law for more than four decades, referring to the CHAI filings.

Clinton stepped down from the foundation's board of directors this month but her husband, Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, remain directors.
The foundation said last week after Hillary Clinton became a candidate that it would continue to accept funding from foreign governments, but only from six countries that are already supporting ongoing projects. CHAI will also continue to receive foreign government funding, again with additional restrictions.

Nick Merrill, Clinton's spokesman, has declined to answer inquiries about the foundation and CHAI.

 From Washington's other newspaper:

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.

Bill Clinton was paid more than $100 million for speeches between 2001 and 2013, according to federal financial disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her years as a senator and as secretary of state.
 
A spokesman for Bill Clinton declined to comment on the overlap between speech sponsors and foundation donors, saying only that the former president’s speaking schedule has been largely consistent since he left the White House.
Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the foundation, said it makes sense that supporters of the foundation would also be eager to hear from the former president.

“It’s not surprising that organizations who believe strongly in the Clinton Foundation’s mission and are impressed by its results are genuinely interested in President Clinton’s perspective,” Min­assian said. “The president often says the foundation is his life today, and he welcomes any opportunity to educate people about it and encourage more people to work together to solve some of the most critical global challenges we all face.”

[How the Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ to rich]

 

The Post analysis shows that, among the approximately 420 organizations that paid Bill Clinton to speak during those years, 67 were also foundation donors that each gave the charity at least $10,000.
 
Many of those funders were major financial institutions that are viewed suspiciously by liberals whom Clinton has been courting as she seeks to secure the Democratic nomination — and avoid a vigorous primary challenge from the populist left.

Four major financial firms — Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup — collectively have given between $2.75 million and $11.5 million to the charity, which is now called the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Between 2001 and 2013, their combined speech payments to Bill Clinton came to more than $3 million.

The Post analysis also revealed aspects of Bill Clinton’s paid speaking career during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not clear from her public filings.

Those included:

●The role played by dozens of companies and organizations, some of them associated with foreign governments or with interests before the U.S. government, in serving as secondary hosts for a number of the speeches. In her filings, Hillary Clinton typically disclosed only the primary sponsor of each speech.
One such “sub-sponsor” was Boeing, a major government contractor whose interests Hillary Clinton promoted in her official duties at the State Department.

●Four speeches delivered by Bill Clinton did not appear in Hillary Clinton’s filings. One such speech was a 2012 address to an annual meeting of the Carlyle Group, a politically connected private-equity firm.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said the former president at times spoke to benefit the foundation, which would not trigger a disclosure requirement for Hillary Clinton. None of the four speech sponsors are listed as foundation donors. The spokesman said the proceeds were classified as non-tax-deductible revenue — not donations.

The Clintons’ finances have already become a political flash point with the much-anticipated release next month of a new book examining the foundation and the family’s personal wealth. The Clinton campaign has dismissed “Clinton Cash,” written by conservative author Peter Schweizer, as a partisan attack.

The Post received a copy of the manuscript after signing a non-disclosure agreement with publisher HarperCollins. This article is based on reporting and documents collected independently from Schweizer’s book.

The foundation itself has also emerged as an issue. In recent weeks, some Democrats have expressed anxiety about the foundation’s receipt of millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Records show that the foundation accepted contributions from seven foreign governments during that time, including one donation that the foundation has acknowledged violated an ethics agreement with the Obama administration designed to limit new foreign-government donors.

[Foreign governments gave millions to Clintons’ foundation]

Clinton aides have said the foundation goes beyond legal requirements and industry standards in its transparency. Its Web site lists donors and their contribution amounts, expressed in ranges.

It is not unusual for former presidents to boost their income through an active schedule of paid lectures; records show Bill Clinton has often shared the stage with former president George W. Bush or delivered speeches in front of groups that had previously hosted Bush or his father, former president George H.W. Bush.
Clinton has been in particular demand as a speaker because of his renowned oratory and growing popularity in post-presiden­tial life, partly based on the widely respected work of the foundation. Speech organizers, which have included universities, charities and major lecture series, report that the former president is a major draw and that he often boosts attendance for annual events.

What sets the Clintons apart is the vast reach of their donor network and the extent to which they have tapped it for the broad range of their personal, political and charitable work.

The Post’s analysis, based on foundation disclosures, State Department documents, financial filings and other records, shows that the lines between Clinton’s paid speeches and his work for the foundation often blurred as he traveled the world promoting the charity and reaping millions in payments.
Technology companies Microsoft and Cisco Systems, for instance, donated at least $1 million each to the foundation. The two companies paid Bill Clinton a total of $1.02 million in speaking fees for a series of lectures.

In September 2012, the Italian fitness equipment company Technogym paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in the northern Italian city of Cesena at a conference devoted to “creating a better and more sustainable world through people’s health,” according to financial disclosures and documents Bill Clinton’s office submitted to the State Department.

Technogym, which has also given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the foundation, reported in a news release that the speech came about in part because of the foundation’s work fighting childhood obesity.

Clinton spent much of his remarks discussing the work of the foundation to improve global health and comparing it to efforts by the company and its affiliated charity to promote the same ideas. “So I’m very interested in all these things that the Wellness Foundation and that this conference and that Technogym does — because we are trying to do this,” Clinton said, according to a YouTube video of his remarks.

Technogym did not respond to a request for comment.

The intermingling of foundation and paid work was also apparent earlier that year when Bill Clinton addressed an advertising festival in Cannes, France.

Grupo ABC, a major Brazilian advertising company, paid Bill Clinton $450,000 for the June 2012 appearance. Foundation records show that the firm has given the charity between $1.5 million and $6 million.

Excerpts from the event posted on YouTube show that Clinton was introduced with a video devoted to the work of the charity. “I personally believe that if the American people give you the honor of serving them, you should keep doing it after you leave office,” Clinton says in the video.

State Department records show that Bill Clinton gave a speech and participated in a moderated question-and-answer session in Cannes for 1,000 advertising employees and then attended a reception for 75 at a luxury hotel.

Grupo ABC spokesman Sergio Malbergier said the company has worked with a series of global charities and nongovernmental organizations as part of a belief in being a “socially responsible organization.” He said the company has supported the Clinton Foundation “because of the importance and effectiveness of its work.”
Bill Clinton was invited as a keynote speaker to help celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary, Malbergier said, because company leaders have found his vision “a great source of inspiration.”

A Clinton Foundation official said organizations that pay for the former president to speak are often interested in the work of the charity and request that Clinton address it in his remarks.

The Post analysis also found other previously unreported aspects of Bill Clinton’s speaking career.

While Hillary Clinton named the sponsoring organization for each of her husband’s speaking engagements, separate documents show that Bill Clinton’s office listed 97 additional sub-sponsors that had been proposed to help with these speaking events.

Bill Clinton disclosed the additional information as part of a voluntary ethics process undertaken when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. He agreed to seek State Department approval of his paid speaking engagements to avoid conflicts of interest for his wife.

The correspondence between Bill Clinton’s office and the State Department was released in July after the conservative group Judicial Watch sought the records, ultimately filing suit to force their release.

Hillary Clinton was not obligated to disclose the sub-sponsors in her annual filings. The State Department’s correspondence with Bill Clinton’s office provides the only indication of the additional interests that helped support the former president’s paid speaking career.

In 2010, for instance, Hillary Clinton disclosed that her husband had been paid $250,000 to address the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

But Bill Clinton’s office alerted the State Department that other sponsors for the event were proposed to include Etisalat, a large Middle Eastern telecommunications company whose majority owner is the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Likewise, in 2012, Hillary Clinton’s disclosures show, Bill Clinton was paid $250,000 for a Boston speech to the Global Business Travel Association.
But the documents filed by Bill Clinton’s office show that a proposed sub-sponsor was the aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing. During a 2009 trip to Russia, Hillary Clinton made a personal pitch for a state-owned airline to buy Boeing jets.
Gordon Johndroe, a Boeing spokesman, said the company has sponsored the major travel event for several years, regardless of its invited speakers.

[For Hillary Clinton and Boeing, a beneficial relationship]

 

Some sub-sponsors also were foundation donors, including Boeing, which has given more than $1 million to the charity.

In addition, the Post analysis found that Bill Clinton delivered some paid speeches during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not publicly disclosed.

By law, Cabinet members and lawmakers must disclose speeches for which their spouses were paid at least $200. And the foundation has voluntarily updated its donor list on its Web site each year since 2008.

But four speeches were not disclosed in either fashion.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said that the former president “complied with disclosure requirements in every case” and that any speech fee not disclosed as personal income by Hillary Clinton went to the foundation.

But he said those fees were not tax deductible for the sponsoring organization and thus were not considered donations to the charity. He said they were included in the revenue figure provided in the foundation’s tax filings.
The examples The Post found were:
 
●A speech delivered in October 2011 in front of 9,000 at the University of Rochester’s Meliora Weekend, the school’s annual reunion and parents weekend. University officials confirmed that he delivered the speech for a fee, which they would not disclose.

●An appearance at the Minneapolis Heart Institute’s annual gala, also in October 2011. Event organizers said Clinton was supposed to attend in person but appeared via video link after a snowstorm confined him to Washington. They said a $25,000 fee was paid for his appearance at the event that, according to State Department records, was also sponsored by the Land O’Lakes dairy company.
“We wanted a speaker who could speak personally about heart disease and heart treatment,” said Minneapolis Heart Institute spokeswoman Melissa Hanson. “In addition, we wanted someone with first-class credibility. President Clinton was a natural fit.”

●A September 2012 question-and-answer session at the annual investors meeting of the politically connected private-equity company the Carlyle Group. A spokesman would not comment on Bill Clinton’s fee. According to Politico, Hillary Clinton was paid to appear at the same event a year later, after she stepped down as secretary of state.

●Bill Clinton’s participation as the guest of honor at a dinner in Limerick, Ireland, in November 2012 at which scholarships were awarded to Irish students. A spokeswoman for the organizing group confirmed Clinton traveled to Ireland to take part in the dinner.

ATTACK OF THE REDHEADED STUNNERS!

In order to help us all get through the latest bout of global warming/nuclear winter/climate change/alien abduction/yeti infestation/global flattening, here are some smoking hot redheads, yet another reason why it is stupid for mohammedans to try to kill us or enslave us.

From the pages of The King Abdullah Gazette:








Mmmmm...redhead with a gun...

































































And now, the greatest redhead of all time, Ann-Margaret!









Three ginger wallpapers for your perusal...

Have you ever noticed how the British are always on the cutting edge of perversion?

From Roto-Reuters via Yahoo News:

Britain votes to allow world's first ' three-parent babies

 Britain voted on Tuesday to become the first country to allow a "three-parent" IVF technique which doctors say will prevent some inherited incurable diseases but which critics see as a step towards creating designer babies.


The treatment is known as "three-parent" in vitro fertilisation (IVF) because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor.

It is designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases, incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide.
After an emotionally charged 90-minute debate that some lawmakers criticised as being too short for such a serious matter, parliament voted 382 to 128 in favour of the technique, called mitochondrial donation.

The vote paves the way for a medical world first for Britain -- which along with the United States has been at the forefront of scientific research on the treatments -- but one that is fiercely disputed by some religious groups and other critics.
The process involves intervening in the fertilisation process to remove mitochondria, which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and which, if faulty, can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy.

Mitochondrial DNA is separate from DNA found in the cell nucleus and does not affect human characteristics such as hair or eye colour, appearance or personality traits.

"I wouldn't stand here and defend the concept of designer babies -- choosing the colour of the eyes and all the rest of it. This is about purely dealing with those terrible, terrible illnesses," opposition Labour lawmaker Andrew Miller, chair of parliament's science and technology committee, told the debate.

Said the fool from the middle of the slippery slope.

International charities, advocacy groups and scientists had urged Britain to pass laws to allow the treatment, saying it brought a "first glimmer of hope" for some families of having a baby who could live without suffering.

"We have finally reached a milestone in giving women an invaluable choice, the choice to become a mother without fear of passing on a lifetime under the shadow of mitochondrial disease to their child," Robert Meadowcroft, chief executive of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, said following the vote.


In an open letter to lawmakers, 11 international campaign groups, including the U.S. United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, described the condition as "unimaginably cruel".

"It strips our children of the skills they have learned, inflicts pain that cannot be managed and tires their organs one by one until their little bodies cannot go on any more," they wrote.

Lawmakers were given a free vote on the issue, and Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said the British leader had voted to support it, adding it was not "about playing God".

Said the dumbass politician with the god complex.

"He has a particular sympathy with those parents whose children are born with very serious illnesses, that in nearly all cases end their lives prematurely," the spokesman said, referring to Cameron's son Ivan who suffered from cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy and died aged six in 2009.

Proposed new laws allowing the treatments to be carried out in Britain still have to be approved by the upper house, which commentators expect to endorse parliament's support.

Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility clinic and a reproductive ethicist, urged the scientists developing the techniques to continue "to educate and reassure those who continue to have anxieties".

The Bishops Conference of England and Wales said the Church opposed the destruction of human embryos as part of the process and hoped treatments for mitochondrial disease could be found.

"The human embryo is a new human life with potential; it should be respected and protected from the moment of conception and not used as disposable material," Bishop John Sherrington said in a statement.

Other critics say the technique will lead to the creation of genetically modified "designer babies", with Conservative lawmaker Fiona Bruce saying it would amount to letting "the genie out of the bottle".

"Where will it lead? The answer has to be that we stop here. The answer has to be that we say this is a red line in our country, as in every other country in the world, that we will not cross," she said during the debate.

Welcome to the slippery slope, you stupid sheep.

From New York Magazine comes another tale of modern [and ancient - get it? So much subtlety and so little time.] "love":

What It's Like to Date Your Dad 

I'd make another Fifty Spades of Shit joke here - you know, "daddy" and "spanking" and stuff like that, but I can't see my keyboard for the tears.

In the late '80s, the founder of a support group for adopted children who had recently reconnected with their biological relatives coined the term “Genetic Sexual Attraction” (GSA) to describe the intense romantic and sexual feelings that she observed occurring in many of these reunions. According to an article in The Guardian, experts estimate that these taboo feelings occur in about 50 percent of cases where estranged relatives are reunited as adults (GSA’s discoverer had herself become attracted to the son she’d adopted out when she met him 26 years later, but her feelings were not reciprocated).

Though the research is scarce, those who have studied GSA offer a range of possible explanations for it, including a primordial feeling of always having “belonged” to the estranged relative, a sense of wanting to experience the bonding missed out on during childhood, or simply an overwhelming closeness based on similarities: like meeting a mate who was designed for you in a science lab. Perhaps GSA accounts for Kevin Gates’s attraction to his first cousin.
 
Consensual incest between fathers and their daughters remains the least reported and perhaps the most taboo sort of GSA relationship. Keith Pullman, who runs a marriage equality blog, has personally talked to over 20 GSA couples and notes that he’s only had a few father-daughter couples speak out, speculating that many of them fear that others will assume the daughter must have been abused in childhood (it should be said that when these unions lead to children, those children can face potentially serious difficulties as a result of the genetic implications of incest, even if some online communities downplay these risks).

Here, an 18-year-old woman from the Great Lakes region describes her romantic relationship of almost two years with the biological father she met after 12 years of estrangement.

What was your family like when you were growing up?My parents had me when they were 18 — they met in high school and I was conceived on prom night. They were serious for about six months but broke up while my mom was still pregnant with me. My dad wasn’t there when I was born. I think my mom’s psychological problems meant the relationship never really worked out. She has bipolar disorder and some other mental health issues. They just weren’t happy and didn’t really keep in contact after I was born. She wanted to do it alone. When she’s manic it’s hard to know what she’s going to say. After I was born she had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t take care of me, so I lived with her grandparents until I was about 2. I think that’s part of the reason we’ve never been close: We didn’t bond when I was a baby.

Did you have any contact with your father when you were a child?He briefly came back into my life when I was about 3 or 4 and I saw him on weekends until I was about 5. He lived about an hour away from us and my parents constantly argued about visitation. He was always doing the drive to see me because my mom wasn’t very fond of it — she wouldn’t even meet him halfway.

Can you remember much from your time with your dad when you were little?I have some memories. He spoiled me rotten. I had this giant storage tote of Barbie dolls and I had my own Mary-Kate and Ashley bedroom. It was a little girl’s dream. We’d sit in the yard blowing bubbles together, and he took me to the zoo where he bought me a stuffed animal that I kept until I was 16. I ended up washing it and stupidly put it in the dryer, which melted all its fur. I remember he gave me a miniature tea set. I still have it.

So then there was zero contact or word from him?When I was about 15 he emailed my mom saying he’d like to see me. I vividly remember the moment she told me. I said I missed him and wouldn’t mind seeing him. She asked me how I could miss someone I hadn’t been with for such a long time. But what I missed was a fatherly figure. My mom’s always picked the wrong guy out of the crowd and she’s had a couple of divorces. I’m still not really close with my current stepfather even though they’ve been together for ten years. For whatever reason, my father and I didn’t end up meeting for two more years, so there was no contact for 12 years — we were reunited when I was 17.

So what were your feelings toward him when you were growing up? Did you think about him much?I’d wonder where he was, what he was doing. Why haven’t I seen him or heard from him? What did my mom do? What did he do? What did I do? My abandonment issues really hit when I was a teenager. My mom and my stepfather took a break because they were fighting so much and I cried the entire time he was gone. I missed him, which was weird because we didn’t have much of a relationship. I asked myself, Why am I crying over someone I’m not even close to?

Do you think it triggered the abandonment you felt from your own dad?Yeah. I think I was subconsciously replaying what I’d been through.

How many stepfathers have you had?Near the end of the time my parents had joint custody of me I had a stepdad. He took good care of my mom but she went through one of her stages again, so it ended. She had another husband who went crazy and tried to kill her. He was schizophrenic. Then she got with my brother’s dad and they dated for a while but when my brother was born the dad didn’t want anything to do with him, so I helped my mom raise him. Once he was about 3 she got together with my current stepdad and had my baby sister. My brother and I are 9 years apart and my sister is 12 years younger than me. I think of them as my brother and sister, and I also think of them as my babies because I helped raise them.


Why didn’t your father try to get in touch with you?
My mom said that he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But she was very controlling and kept me under Fort Knox–like conditions. She’s had my Facebook password since I’ve had an account. One day, after I got my Facebook privileges back, he added me as a friend. At first, I figured it was my grandpa because they have very similar names. I thought, Maybe Grandpa got techy?
Then I realized it was my dad. I was like, Oh my God, where have you been? I don’t know if I can get close to you. I told him I thought he was dead and asked why it took him so long to contact me. He said he’d been adding me on Facebook but I’d always decline his requests. But that was my mom controlling my account. After we reunited, he showed me emails he’d sent trying to contact me.

What happened next?We chitchatted online for a few days and found out we were similar. We shared the same favorite TV shows — The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory — and we both love to draw. He came to see me about a week later. You wouldn’t have believed we hadn’t been around each other for 12 years. The idea of “getting to know him” seemed strange because we are so much alike. He came and hung out all day and then I asked to come spend a week with him — he lived in a small town about 30 minutes away. I think my mom knew I was going to move out and it really was getting to the point where I needed to escape, she was so controlling.

Has she always been that way?
Not when I was younger — she was going through a wild stage and she wanted to be more of a friend than a mother. She was still in her 20s and she worked at a bar. When I turned 13, she cracked down military-style. I didn’t have a voice and I had to do everything she asked, just to keep the peace.

Did you date when you were a teenager?
I didn’t really have a social life. I stayed home a lot because my mom didn’t trust me, and most of the kids my age were hooked on heroin, so it was hard to find friends. I lived in such a small town where there was nothing to do. In fifth grade I dated a boy for two years. But one night he got drunk and had sex with a girl who ended up pregnant. It fucked everything up. I told him he had to go and be with this girl and take care of the kid.

She ended up falling asleep with a cigarette in her mouth and their house burned down, so she left town with the kid and never came back. I supported him through that and we ended up half-ass dating, then my mom found letters we had written to each other about making out. She said things were getting too serious and sexual and took me out of class and homeschooled me for a while.

Did you have sex with that boyfriend?No. I had a girlfriend in middle school and that was the most major sexual experience I’d ever had. But she was very religious and every time we were intimate she would sob and read me verses out of the Bible. It made me feel like I’d hurt her. The second time we did it she cried and said we’d done something wrong and she was worried her grandmother would find out. I was done after that. No more crying, and no more Bible transcripts. She had me in tears because I felt so guilty.

How do you define your sexuality?I’ve always identified as bisexual.

So can you remember what it was like the moment you and your dad were reunited? Was there an instant attraction?It was so weird and confusing. I was seeing my dad for the first time in forever but it was also like, He’s so good-looking! And then I was like, What the hell are you thinking? What is wrong with you? I saw him as my dad but then also part of me was like, I’m meeting this guy who I have been talking to over the internet and really connecting with and I find him attractive.

Was there a single moment you realized that you were sexually and romantically attracted to your dad?After I had stayed with him for about five days.

What happened?He was living with his girlfriend. On the first night he slept on the couch and I slept on the floor, just to make sure that I was okay.

Why was that?
Sleeping in new places makes me very anxious so I asked him to stay with me in case I had one of the terrible nightmares I usually experience. The second night I had him sleep on the couch again and then the third night I fell asleep with him on the floor lying on his chest, in his arms. The fourth night rolled around and we ended up on the floor again. This time we actually cuddled. When he woke up, we were spooning. I didn’t know this at the time but later, after we admitted our feelings, he told me he had had “morning wood” and had gone to fix it.

Did you feel it?No, I was asleep and he quietly snuck off to the bathroom.

Do you mean he went to masturbate?No, he just went to pee. He didn’t want me to see that he had an erection. Later that day, we went shopping because I had grown out of all my shorts, so I asked him if he could buy me some new ones. I was trying them on and asked him how I looked and he said I looked good and I felt like I was picking up on something more, but I pushed it out of my head. That night we were play-wrestling in the room I was going to sleep in and I bit him. He was wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top and after I bit him I could see goose bumps pop up from his toes to his shoulders. Then he pinched my inner thigh and I got goose bumps.
We stopped and said that we didn’t know what was going on but admitted that we had strong feelings for each other. We discussed whether it was wrong and then we kissed. And then we made out, and then we made love for the first time. That was when I lost my virginity.

Did you tell him you were a virgin?Yes. I told him I wanted him to be the first person I made love to. We talked about how it could be awkward if it didn’t end up working out. He also said that if I didn’t feel comfortable at any point I should tell him.

What was it like?
There’s a reason I lost my virginity to him — because I’d never felt comfortable with any other man. It was insanely sensual. It lasted for about an hour and there was a lot of foreplay. We both had orgasms. We are so similar, so it’s so easy to sexually please each other. For example, we both love neck-biting. I’ve never been in a more passionate, loving, fulfilling situation.

Even the first time, because often it’s not the best sexual experience …
That’s what I said! I’d heard that it would hurt so I was expecting pain, but we were both so careful with each other. I think it was also a good experience because most guys my age are only interested in having sex with you. I could tell that wasn’t the case with him.

I’m curious, given the age gap and the perceived power dynamic, did you feel forced or coerced at all?Absolutely not. He made sure I wanted to do it. We both initiated it and he kept asking me if I was okay, not because he thought I was distressed but because he wanted me to know that we could stop at any point. It was like any other man and woman having sex after they had each admitted their feelings.

What was it like afterward?It wasn’t weird at all. It felt so natural. It didn’t even feel taboo. I felt like I had just made love with a man who I’d been with for years.

There's more, but why bother? See what happens when we allow perverts to redefine marriage?

 "Oh no he didn't!"

 

FUCK the murderous mohammedans, FUCK the God-haters at Charlie Hebdo, and FUCK the sanctimonius, hypocritical French.

1) "FUCK the murderous mohammedans"

Obviously. You can't be allowed to murder people who disagree with you, even if they are...

2) "FUCK the God-haters at Charlie Hebdo"

...left-fascist haters of Love Itself. I have nothing against the cartoons that sparked 
 The Great Cartoon War,but this Charlie Hebdo stuff is something other than a political protest and I won't be posting it here. Suffice it to say that bestiality isn't funny or clever.

3) "FUCK the sanctimonius, hypocritical French"

Free speech and the French? Don't make me laugh. It is illegal in the Frog Republic to try to persuade someone not to have an abortion.

From EuroNews:

Dieudonné: freedom of expression is no joke in France

French comic Dieudonne is expected in court on Wednesday to answer to charges of ‘apology for terrorism’ after appearing to praise the suspect who killed four people in a kosher supermarket in Paris, Amédy Coulibaly by writing “Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly” (I feel like Charlie Coulibaly) on his Facebook page.

It came on the same day as millions of people stood behind the motto “JeSuisCharlie” at rallies across France following the deadly Charlie Hebdo attack. The message generated a wave of angry responses online and was referred to the police.

Dieudonné is well known in France and is a particularly divisive figure. He already stirred controversy last year over his signature gesture, the “Quenelle”, a modified Nazi-style salute. His comedy tour was cancelled last year as a threat to public order. He also has a long history of heading to court for judgements on various anti-semitic statements.

The latest incident has opened up debate about freedom of expression and where to draw the line. In the wake of the attacks, the defence of free speech took on a quasi-religious status and yet it is well defined in French law. Supporters of Dieudonné have claimed France has double standards when it comes to freedom of expression. The cartoonists of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo have lampooned various religious and political figures over the years, but have never been charged. Muslim organisations did attempt to take the magazine to court over the reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2007 but the court ruled it did not constitute inciting racial hatred. To understand why Dieudonné has fallen foul of French law on freedom of expression we take a look at the comic’s previous cases and how the law defines and limits speech...

 From Washington's other newspaper:

In France, a growing debate over why some speech is protected and some isn't