By Mickey Friedman
April 28, 2016
Hillary, Billary, & Chillary. With offices in Little Rock, Chappaqua, and Panama City. And for you tweeters: hashtag ExperienceMatters.
I know you Bernouts are resentful. But “corrupt” is just your mean-spirited way of re-defining success. And when it comes to the Prez, don’t you want someone who can wheel and deal with Putin and that Chinese guy. Who knows a secret, sheltered tax haven when they see one?
Admit it, don’t you love it that Hillary, with just 12 speeches from 2013 to 2015 made more money than you’ll make in a lifetime? $2,935,000 talking to the big banks. Pretty impressive considering she was broke when she and Billary and Chillary left the White House.
That left-wing bloggy The Intercept, snidely compared Hillary’s hard-earned haul to a median American worker with a bachelor’s degree who’ll make about $2.4 million during his or her work life, and a high school graduate who’ll make just $770,000.
But if anyone can convince Goldman Sachs to be nice to its customers, it’s not some Jewish socialist from Vermont but someone on their payroll. Hashtag ExperienceMatters.
If you’ve ever influence-peddled, you know it can often be lonely. The Walmarts, the Various Bushes, and the Koch Brothers know there’s strength in numbers. The family that peddles together will together profit. So when Hillary was Secretary-of-Stating she never forgot whence she came or where she might be going.
Like the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Putting other people’s money where their mouths are. The Clintons made more than $28 million in 2014 and claimed $3 million in tax-deductible charitable contributions. $1.8 million to the Clinton Foundation. The gift that keeps giving. Because “At the Clinton Foundation, we work around the world – helping farmers lift themselves out of poverty, assisting island nations with renewable energy projects, empowering girls and women, and promoting healthier communities and nutritional food options at schools here in the United States.”
Like empowering Chelsea at NBC News for a cool $600,000 a year, just a bit more than the usual first year correspondents’ 100 to 200 grand. But she was worth it, snagging that groundbreaking interview with the GEICO Gecko. Then with her own investment banker/hubby Marc Mezvinsky, snagging a $10 mil NYC apartment with six and a half bathrooms and two sets of washer/dryers. With room for one of those African elephants she’s saving through the Clinton Global Initiative. Bernie, no surprise, has barely got room for a rescue Border Collie.
In 2014, the busy Clinton Foundation spent $95,887,139 on salaries and benefits, $17,249,876 on professional fees and consulting, $14,200,147 on conferences and events and $20,786,529 on travel. According to snippy Paul Mirengoff, “Eric Braverman, a friend of Chelsea Clinton, was paid nearly $275,000 in salary, benefits, and a housing allowance for just five months’ work as CEO that year …” Which leaves a whooping $33,689,239 for empowering girls and all that other good stuff. Because it’s just not that easy lifting farmers out of poverty. Especially if they’re heavy farmers. Or normal size African elephants, for that matter.
Despite the White House workload, Hillary, I hope, will continue to do everything she can to help the Clinton Foundation do this heavy lifting.
Snarky David Sirota, who probably doesn’t have to fund a David Sirota Foundation, puts his negative spin on Hillary’s good work: “As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations.” So people were pressuring Hillary’s State Department to intervene with Colombia’s military and the Canadian oil company operating in Colombia, Pacific Rubiales, on behalf of some pain-in-the-neck striking oil workers. But even though the military threatened the workers with violence – sticks and stones – Hillary knew it made more sense to protect our trade agreements. She certified Colombia’s progress on human rights, allowing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to the Colombian military. Sirota thinks its suspicious that Frank Giustra, head of Pacific Rubiales, sits on the Board of the Clinton Foundation Board and is one of their most generous donors.
Then Sirota, who unlike Frank Giustra, probably hasn’t ever lifted a heavy farmer, goes after Secretary Hillary and our Saudi friends. Just because, even if Israel wasn’t thrilled, Hillary, hastag ExperienceMatters, knew it made cents to give the Saudis $29 billion worth of Boeing’s fighter jets. So yes the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and so yes they don’t like women or democracy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve fighter jets.
And even if they don’t care about empowering girls, the Saudis obviously care about lifting farmers up, because they gave the Clinton Foundation $10 million. And Boeing, who loves African elephants, gave Hillary, Billary, and Chillary $900,000.
Snooty Sirota says Clinton’s State Department authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Sorry Bernster but #ExperienceMatters.
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Notes:
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/about
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/about/chelsea-clinton
“Hillary, Billary, and Chillary” was first published on April 14, 2016 in The Berkshire Record.