How Donations to the Clinton Foundation Led to Tens of Billions in Weapons Sales to Autocratic Regimes

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Another day, another Clinton Foundation related scandal. In the latest expose by International Business Times’ David Sirota, we learn about the explosion in weapons sales to certain nations during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Billions of dollars in sales went to autocratic regimes notorious for human rights abuses who donated generously to the Clinton Foundation. Should we be surprised? No. Should we be outraged and disgusted? Absolutely. Of all the Clinton scandals, the following is the most dangerous to peace on earth.

Here are some excerpts from the IBT article detailing how taxpayer money is being used to arm the world into oblivion:

Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East.

Israeli officials were agitated, reportedly complaining to the Obama administration that this substantial enhancement to Saudi air power risked disrupting the region’s fragile balance of power. The deal appeared to collide with the State Department’s documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family.

In the event you want a highlight reel of heinous Saudi behavior, click here.

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 — contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

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More Hillary Cronyism Revealed – How Cisco Used Clinton Foundation Donations to Cover-up Human Rights Abuse in China

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In her 2014 memoir “Hard Choices,” Clinton reiterated her support for human-rights advocates in China. She specifically criticized the Great Firewall, writing that after she made comments about the right to dissent in China in 2011, “censors went right to work erasing mentions of my message from the Internet.”

But the issue of Chinese repression — and Cisco’s role — was already known by then. In 2009, weeks after Clinton’s State Department had named Cisco a finalist for the secretary of state’s Awards for Corporate Excellence (ACE), a report from the Electronic Freedom Foundation noted “Cisco’s deep involvement” in building the Chinese government’s censorship system. The report pointed out that “Cisco engineers gave a presentation acknowledging the repressive uses for their technology.”

Daniel Wade, an attorney who represented Chinese dissidents in a lawsuit against Cisco, told IBTimes that “Cisco knew full well that its products were going to be used to suppress and facilitate the torture of democracy activists.” 

“Crony capitalism has defined Clinton’s career, from her tenure on the board of Walmart, to the Wall Street execs whom she surrounded herself with at the State Department, to her allegiance to Cisco, even as it violated principles on which she staked her tenure,” said David Segal, executive director of the Internet freedom advocacy group Demand Progress.

– From the International Business Times article: Hillary Clinton, Cisco And China: Company Funded Foundation, Was Lauded By Clinton Despite Role In Repression

As many suspected, it turns out that the Clinton Foundation is indeed a tepid cesspool of crony corporate and government donations used to buy influence at the highest levels of Washington D.C. This shouldn’t surprise anyone paying attention, but it will hopefully wake up some Democrats still buying into the deep rooted myth of Hillary Clinton.

David Sirota and his colleagues at International Business Times have been relentless in uncovering several extremely important examples of her pathological cronyism. I highlighted his very important work just last week in the post, This is How Hillary Does Business – An Oil Company, Human Rights Abuses in Colombia and the Clinton Foundation. Here’s an excerpt:

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This is How Hillary Does Business – An Oil Company, Human Rights Abuses in Colombia and the Clinton Foundation

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The details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation — supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself — Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it “strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.” The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra.

The details of her family’s entanglements in Colombia echo talk that the Clintons have blurred the lines between their private business and philanthropic interests and those of the nation. And Hillary Clinton’s connections to Pacific Rubiales and Giustra intensify recent questions about whether big donations influenced her decisions as secretary of state.

– From the International Business Daily article: As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations

Decades ago, Bill and Hillary Clinton made a conscious decision to prioritize money and power over the struggles of the poor, weak and dispossessed. The key to their success has been the ability to continue to falsely portray that the commitment to the less fortunate is the guiding principle of their lives.

The other day, I wrote about the dangerous myths people tell themselves (see: The Stock Market Myth and How the Japanese Middle Class is on the Precipice Thanks to Abenomics). For most Democrats, the myth of the Clinton family remains an unassailable tale they tell themselves to this very day, despite piles of evidence to the contrary.

As I read more and more about the Clintons in the run up to her 2016 coronation, it has become clear that the Clinton Foundation represents the clever and core vehicle used to funnel ever more money and power to the family, all the while looking charitable. It’s pretty genius actually.

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Obstruction of Justice – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Begins Purge of State Employee Emails

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I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

– Lord Acton, in his famous letter to Bishop Creighton, 1887

The following article is the latest from investigative journalist David Sirota, a man who isn’t afraid to expose corruption, even when the guilty happen to be rich and powerful. With New York State public officials, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, in the midst of a federal investigation into corruption, state officials apparently deem it the right time to go ahead and initiate a mass deletion of emails. Simply incredible.

From the International Business Times:

In a memo obtained by Capital New York, Cuomo officials announced that mass purging of email records is beginning across several state government agencies. The timing of the announcement, which followed through on a 2013 proposal, is worth noting: The large-scale destruction of state documents will be happening in the middle of a sprawling federal investigation of public corruption in Albany. That investigation has been looking at state legislators and the Cuomo administration.

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Teachers’ Retirement Funds are Piling into Manhattan Real Estate at Record High Prices

Screen Shot 2015-01-28 at 11.55.34 AMRather than buying equity interests in buildings, TIAA-CREF and KTCU are seeking to invest in mortgages backed by office towers, retail properties, warehouses and apartments in major U.S. cities. The venture between the two companies, which manage teachers’ savings in their respective countries, is 51 percent owned by TIAA-CREF and 49 percent held by Seoul-based KTCU.

“You invest in a huge office tower in New York because you want a safe place to put your money and a decent return,” over the long-term, he said. “This is more a capital preservation play than it is a capital appreciation play.”

– From the Bloomberg article: Manhattan Towers Lure Koreans in $1 Billion Joint Venture

As soon as I woke up this morning, I saw an email from a very smart friend of mine in the finance industry. He forwarded me an article from the New York Post, about how TIAA-CREF had paid $3,158 per square foot for a building in the Meatpacking area of Manhattan (a record for the area), which isn’t far from where I lived for several years in the mid-2000s.

For those of you who aren’t aware, TIAA-CREF stands for Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund. According to the company’s own website, it:

We specialize in the distinctive needs of those who work in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. We’re here to listen to you, to advise you, and to help you feel confident about making financial decisions.

So it essentially manages the investments of people who know the least about investing, i.e., muppets. As such, it came as no surprise that TIAA-CREF might serve as an important bag-holding vehicle for bubble assets just before a fall, tempted by juicy 4% yields. As my friend noted: “In other words, teachers and nurses are shattering property records to fund their retirement.”

Here are some excerpts from the article:

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Pensions and Private Equity – A Letter to the New York Times Editor

Screen Shot 2014-10-26 at 5.23.56 PMThe ongoing racket between private equity firms and public pension funds in which they work together to earn billions of dollars in excessive fees at the expense of retirees across the country has been a key theme at Liberty Blitzkrieg this year. My most recent piece on the topic was published last week and titled, Another Pension Scandal – The Crony Love Affair Between North Carolina, Credit Suisse and Erskine Bowles.

Here’s an excerpt:

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Another Pension Scandal – The Crony Love Affair Between North Carolina, Credit Suisse and Erskine Bowles

Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 11.38.33 AMIn North Carolina, managing the retirement savings of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees is big business. As the sole fiduciary of the state’s $90 billion pension fund, Treasurer Cowell, a Democrat, was recently named the world’s 18th most important institutional investor by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. The State Employees Association of North Carolina (Seanc) estimates that North Carolina is on track to spend a billion dollars a year of retirees’ pension money on fees to private financial firms. Roughly half of all North Carolina pension deals involve placement agents, and Seanc estimates that has generated roughly $180 million in placement agent fees — costs that are effectively paid by the pension fund, according to critics.

Credit Suisse’s own internal regulations say the company aims to “establish a management organization that avoids the creation or appearance of conflicts of interests.” But the North Carolina agreement (the provisions of which were secret until Seanc’s open records request earlier this year) explicitly allows Credit Suisse to engage in “actual and potential conflicts of interest.” The agreement noted Credit Suisse could receive “placement fees” from the firms in which it invests North Carolina pension money.

– From David Sirota’s excellent piece in Investors Business DailyPension Deal Spotlights ‘Placement Agent’ Business, Raises Conflict-Of-Interest Questions

When it comes to how the U.S. economy of fraud functions in 2014, the following article has it all. A government official, a global investment bank and a businessman/politician, all working together to enrich themselves at the public’s expense. It demonstrates how big bucks are really earned by insiders in the new American Dream, characterized by extreme cronyism and corruption.

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Consultant the San Francisco Pension Fund Asked Whether it Should invest in Hedge Funds, Runs a Hedge Fund

Screen Shot 2014-10-09 at 11.40.21 AMMost Liberty Blitzkrieg readers will be familiar with the common fee structure for hedge funds known as “2 and 20.” What this simply refers to is the fact that a manager will take as a fee 2% of the assets under management, as well as 20% of the profits (above a high-water mark). While many people would balk at giving up such a high percent of profits, when the industry first got going several decades ago the managers were so few and the returns so huge, that high net worth individuals were happy to pay up for alpha.

Fast forward several decades, and the hedge fund industry is extremely crowded and competitive. What’s worse, in such a central bank manipulated market, it has become extraordinarily difficult for hedge funds to outperform and generate the desired “alpha.” Nevertheless, people that go into this business generally go into it for one reason. To make a shit-ton of cash.

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New Jersey’s Debt is Downgraded by Fitch as Chris Christie Funnels Pension Money to Private Equity and Hedge Funds

Screen Shot 2014-09-08 at 2.25.48 PMDavid Sirota must be commended for his incredible work this year exposing the insidious relationship between public pension funds and “alternative asset managers,” namely private equity firms and hedge funds. It is the private equity component that has captured my attention the most due to the industry’s notoriously opaque and seemingly illegal fees.

One example I highlighted earlier this year was: Leaked Documents Show How Blackstone Fleeces Taxpayers via Public Pension Funds. The reason this relationship between public pension money and private equity is so incredibly important is because so many in the private equity world are so incredibly shady. Let’s not forget what SEC official Drew Bowden said back in May:

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Meet Janet Cowell – The North Carolina Treasurer Desperately Pushing to Keep Criminal Public Pension Fees Secret

Screen Shot 2014-06-30 at 11.07.57 AMOne of the most important revelations to emerge in 2014 to-date, is the fact that public pensions are taking on an increasing amount of irresponsible risk in order to meet return targets. The primary way they are doing this is by investing a larger and larger percentage of assets with “alternative investment” managers such as hedge funds and private equity firms.

Specifically, states have increased allocations to alternatives to $460 billion, or 15.3%, from only 3.3 percent in 2001, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. What is really shocking, and extraordinarily disturbing, is the fact that the deals these public pensions enter into, and associated fees paid, are intentionally kept secret from the public, and the people’s whose assets are at stake have absolutely no idea how their money is being invested.

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