Scandal Report from the Imperial Court: Clinton crony aided by State Department in 2010.

Ooh. Somebody’s been bad: “A federal agency rushed to approve funding for a Clinton donor’s sham Haiti recovery project that ended up defrauding the U.S. government out of millions, according to court transcripts and internal government documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.” The short version is that Bill and Hillary Clinton crony Claudio Osorio exploited his relationship with both individuals (which included having State Department resources on call from Secretary Clinton) while going about the business of cheating the US government and private lenders out of 40 million dollars (30 million of which got diverted to offshore banks). The whole thing stinks on ice, particularly since the government agency that got bilked (the Overseas Private Investment Corporation*, or OPIC) approved the 2010 loan with remarkable haste and numerous cut corners. Continue reading Scandal Report from the Imperial Court: Clinton crony aided by State Department in 2010.

Think Progress inadvertently sums why the Clinton Foundation is problematical.

Obviously, they were trying to debunk. The problem is that… well, it’s that the Clinton Foundation is a pretty suspect shop. There’s no way around it.

Also: I harp on Buzzfeed a lot, but it was pretty helpful of Ben Smith to present this in a nice, concise chunk for later dissemination. I didn’t have to do anything except scoop it out of the box, and onto the plate. Thanks, guys!

Elizabeth Warren’s, ahem, ‘Crony Capitalism.’

Don’t watch a politician’s lips. Watch his or her hands.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) may market herself as a progressive populist, but when forced to choose between everyday Americans and billion dollar international corporations, Warren sides with the corporations.

Senator Warren believes that the Export-Import Bank helps create American jobs and spur economic growth,” Warren spokeswoman Lacey Rose wrote in an e-mail to Bloomnberg News, “She looks forward to reviewing re-authorization legislation if and when it is introduced.”

Townhall goes on to note the bit about how the Export-Import Bank is “little more than a fund for corporate welfare” – and if you don’t like that characterization, take it up with Barack Obama: that’s what he called it.  But the corporations that use the bank in question know how to reward their friends… and I guess that Elizabeth Warren wants to be those corporations’ special-special friend.

The funny part is, I don’t care too much that yet another progressive politician out there can’t sustain her own movement’s rhetoric. But you’d think that this would start bothering actual progressives after a while.  Well, actually, you wouldn’t: everybody knows that progressives have no self-esteem when it comes to politicians who lie to them, after all…

Via

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Obama for America… taking out $15 million dollar loan… from BANK OF AMERICA?

This is a situation where the traditional “…Wait. WHAT?” seems a bit… understated: “Obama For America took out a $15 million loan from Bank of America last month, according to the campaign’s October monthly FEC report. The loan was incurred on September 4 and is due November 14, eight days after the election. OFA received an interest rate of 2.5% plus the current Libor rate.”

Now, I could say a lot of things about this.  I could say that it is passing strange for a campaign to borrow walking-around money when it’s supposedly a fundraising mega-machine (the Government Accountability Institute is a little concerned about that, actually).  I could say that it’s remarkably awkward that Bank of America apparently has a much cozier relationship with Obama for America than the latter’s faux-populist message might imply.  I could even say that Warren Buffett may have found a fairly clever way to dump fifteen million into the Obama campaign without having to answer to those pesky finance laws that Obama once supported, until they all got in the way.  But I won’t.

Instead I’ll say: I really hope that Bank of America has some good collateral on that loan, because they ain’t seeing that money paid back any time soon.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) under ethics investigation for medical crony capitalism.

OK, here’s the background: back in 2011 it came out that in 2008 Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) intervened to prevent the shutdown of a Nevadan kidney transplant program that was killing patients.  It’s important at this point to distinguish between proper and improper responses: for example, it is proper to be concerned about what was reported as being “the only transplant center in Nevada” at the time, which is why a number of Nevadan Members of Congress (including Rep. Dean Heller – this will be important later) joined Rep. Berkley in intervening with the program. Is this clear?  Good.  Because the problem here – the possibly improper problem – is that the method of intervention involved just happened to involve hiring more medical personnel from a company that just happens to be owned by Berkely’s physician husband (kidney specialist) who also just happens to be a co-owner of one of Berkley’s major corporate campaign contributors.

Funny how it always seems to work out that way, huh? Continue reading Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) under ethics investigation for medical crony capitalism.