markm
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DNC sought to hide details of Clinton funding deal
Leaked emails show officials tried to obscure fact that Clinton allowed states to keep only a tiny fraction of proceeds from joint fundraising.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf
PHILADELPHIA — Leaked emails show the Democratic National Committee scrambled this spring to conceal the details of a joint fundraising arrangement with Hillary Clinton that funneled money through state Democratic parties.
But during the three-month period when the DNC was working to spin the situation, state parties kept less than one half of one percent of the $82 million raised through the arrangement — validating concerns raised by campaign finance watchdogs, state party allies and Bernie Sanders supporters.
The arrangement, called the Hillary Victory Fund, allowed the Clinton campaign to seek contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend extravagant fundraisers including a dinner at George Clooney’s house and a concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Katy Perry and Elton John. That’s resulted in criticism for Clinton, who has made opposition to big money in politics a key plank in her campaign platform.
Clinton’s allies have responded publicly by arguing that the fund is raising big money to boost down-ballot Democratic candidates by helping the 40 state parties that are now participating in the fund.
But privately, officials at the DNC and on Clinton’s campaign worked to parry questions raised by reporters, as well as Sanders’ since-aborted campaign, about the distribution of the money, according to a cache of hacked emails made public late last week by WikiLeaks.
The emails, released the day before the opening of the Democratic National Convention here, exposed DNC staffers seemingly undermining Sanders’ insurgent campaign against Clinton. The leak hampered the convention’s mission of uniting the party by convincing fervent Sanders supporters to get behind Clinton. And the controversy forced the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a close Clinton ally accused by Sanders backers of using the party apparatus to undermine them.
The emails show the officials agreeing to withhold information from reporters about the Hillary Victory Fund’s allocation formula, working to align their stories about when — or if — the DNC had begun funding coordinated campaign committees with the states. They also show one official blaming Sanders for putting the DNC between “a real rock vs hard place” by forcing “a fight in the media with the party bosses over big money fundraising.”
The DNC’s deputy communications director Eric Walker in late April emailed a group of top officials asserting that the party shouldn’t “discuss funding allocations in the press for the RNC to see what we’re doing.” His boss Luis Miranda responded “There's been no coverage that we've found, which is what we wanted.”
Miranda argued in the emails that the committee should try to shape any coverage by claiming that “while the funds are going to the DNC right now to build tools and capacity for the general election, there will be a point when the funds stay in the states to fund coordinated campaigns that are now beginning to get organized.” But in a subsequent email in early May he admitted he wasn’t sure if the coordinated campaigns with the state parties were already getting started “or does it start later in the summer?”
Wasserman Schultz responded: “It starts now.”
But a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission records shows that very little money from the victory fund went to the states after that point.
Between the creation of the victory fund in September and the end of last month, the fund had brought in $142 million, the lion’s share of which — 44 percent — has wound up in the coffers of the DNC ($24.4 million) and Hillary for America ($37.6 million), according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC reports filed this month. By comparison, the analysis found that the state parties have kept less than $800,000 of all the cash brought in by the committee — or only 0.56 percent.
Officials from the DNC and the Clinton campaign did not respond to questions about why so little of the cash raised by the fund has gone to — and remained with — the participating state parties. But they have previously argued that, even when state parties aren’t receiving cash transfers, they are benefiting from the political infrastructure paid for by money raised by the fund.
The fund represents one of the most ambitious hard-dollar fundraising efforts in modern presidential politics. It was made possible by a 2014 Supreme Court decision in a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission that struck down aggregate limits on total giving to federal campaigns. They had capped donations to joint fundraising committees to $123,200 per person per year.
3,400 for the DNC, and $2,700 for Clinton's campaign.Clinton’s GOP rival Donald Trump started a joint committee called Trump Victory with the Republican National Committee and 11 state parties. By including various sub-funds within the RNC, it can accept donations as large as $449,400. But Trump has not shown an ability to raise big checks, and Trump Victory and another Trump joint committee had raised only $32.4 million combined through the end of last month, FEC filings show.
The Hillary Victory Fund still had $42 million in the bank at the end of June, and it seems likely that more money will be moved to the state parties in the coming months. Typically, though, national parties steer disproportionate resources to the handful of states that are legitimately competitive in presidential years, often leaving the party committees in other states grumbling.
But what happens to the cash in the Hillary Victory Fund after its initial distribution is left almost entirely to the discretion of the Clinton campaign’s chief operating officer, Beth Jones, who serves as the treasurer of the victory fund.
FEC filings show that, since the inception of the Hillary Victory Fund, participating state parties have received $7.7 million in transfers, but within a few days of most transfers, almost all of the cash — $6.9 million — was transferred to the DNC.
The only date on which most state parties received money from the victory fund and didn’t pass any of it on to the DNC was May 2, the same day that POLITICO published an article exposing the arrangement. But those deposits were token by comparison: each state received $10,000, compared with transfers that were passed on to the DNC as large as $300,000, FEC records show.
Beyond the transfers, much of the fund’s $42 million in direct spending also appears to have been done to directly benefit the Clinton campaign, as opposed to the state parties.
The fund has paid $4.1 million to the Clinton campaign for “salary and overhead expenses” to reimburse it for fundraising efforts. And it has directed $38 million to vendors such as direct marketing company Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey and digital consultant Bully Pulpit Interactive — both of which also serve the Clinton campaign — for mailings and online ads that sometimes closely resemble Clinton campaign materials.
Campaign finance watchdogs and the Sanders campaign had argued that the arrangement represented a circumvention of campaign contribution limits by a national party apparatus intent on skewing the process to help Clinton defeat Sanders, and then win the White House.
And some participating state party officials and their allies grumble privately that Clinton is merely using the state parties to subsidize her own operation, contending that her allies overstate the fund’s support for their parties.
The fund is a bad deal for state parties, said one operative who works with state party committees. State party officials have been buzzing about the WikiLeak emails, said the operative, arguing they show that “the extent to which the game has been rigged goes much deeper at the DNC than what many of us expected.”
In April, when POLITICO began asking state parties about why they weren’t keeping the money being transferred to them from the fund, officials looped the DNC and urged the states to stonewall, according to the leaked emails.
“There is no reason to share that level of strategic information with a reporter,” wrote Ohio Democratic Party communications director Kirstin Alvanitakis.
But the emails show that officials and lawyers at the DNC and the Clinton campaign became frantic after POLITICO’s May 2 story, which led to substantial follow-up coverage that put the Clinton campaign and the DNC on the defensive. It led the Sanders campaign to accuse the Clinton campaign of “money laundering” and prompted Politifact to downgrade its rating — from “mostly true” to “half true” — of the claim that the bulk of the money collected by the victory fund would go to down-ballot Democrats.
“The DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful to the Democratic party,” Marc Elias, an attorney who advises the DNC and the Clinton campaign, wrote in an email to DNC officials.
CEO Amy Dacey responded “I do think there is too much of this narrative out there — I also worry since they are emailing to their list (which has overlap with ours!)”
In another email, Miranda, the communications director, suggested that the campaign tell other journalists seeking to follow POLITICO’s story that “Politico got it wrong.” But the rest of his email failed to indicate any errors in POLITICO’s story, nor did the DNC or the Clinton campaign seek a correction.
Miranda did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191#ixzz4FY5vzb6e
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
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We're all going to go in and vote for a corrupt system and a corrupt woman just so we don't vote for Donald.
That's such a message being sent.
And we can dress it up (in my love) anyway we like but that's the truth.
The DNC was working with Hillary. Racist, anti gay shit and misogynist comments all within those emails.
Everything they accuse the far right of.
SMH
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Day One: Mayhem breaks out at Democratic convention
Under fire, Wasserman Schultz backs out of convention role, as Sanders supporters boo the senator for his call to back Clinton
Democrats on Monday struggled to contain the chaos that threatened to take hold in Philadelphia, as Debbie Wasserman Schultz bowed out of plans to gavel in the Democratic National Convention and restless Bernie Sanders’ supporters lashed out.
A day after the resignation of the embattled party chairwoman over a massive leak of emails showing disdain for Sanders' campaign, the party could not escape the optics of a convention marred by discord, much like the Republicans' the week before. And once again, Hillary Clinton has found herself ensnared in another email-related controversy.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-hacking-democratic-convention-226112
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Donald Trump takes poll lead on Hillary Clinton as Democratic National Convention gets off to chaotic start
Donald Trump soared into a poll lead in the race for the White House as Hillary Clinton's plans for a "Convention of hope" descended into bitter infighting and angry protests, with some Democrats saying they would prefer to vote for her Republican rival.
Mrs Clinton is due to become the first female presidential nominee of a major US political party at the Democratic Convention which began in Philadelphia on Monday.
It was billed as a week of optimism laying out a vision of unity and progress for America, contrasting with Mr Trump's dark and foreboding descriptions of a country in crisis.
As the convention was set to open, a new poll from CNN showed Donald Trump leading Mrs Clinton by 44 per cent to 39 per cent.
Former President Bill Clinton is due to laud the abilities of his wife in a speech on Tuesday followed by a glowing endorsement from President Barack Obama on Wednesday setting out how she would secure his legacy.
But Mrs Clinton's message, captured in the slogan "Stronger Together," was immediately overshadowed by controversy and ugly scenes as thousands of angry party members loyal to Bernie Sanders, her left-wing rival for the nomination, took to the streets in 100-degree heat.
The protests were much larger than those against Mr Trump - considered one of the most divisive politicians in modern American history - at the Republican convention in Cleveland last week.
It followed a scandal in which leaked internal Democratic Party emails showed officials had plotted against Mr Sanders in favour of Mrs Clinton.
Mr Sanders addressed his delegates yesterday ahead of the opening of the convention, with raucous cheers turning to boos when he said: "we have got to defeat Donald Trump and we have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine."
He was almost pleading with the crowd as it broke into chants of "we want Bernie!"
"Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we leave in," he said.
A 1,200-strong group of pro-Sanders delegates have been exploring ways to make life difficult for Mrs Clinton at the convention, including by challenging the nomination of Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator, as her running mate.
Theres serious interest right now and exploration as we speak of a formal challenge, Norman Solomon, a California delegate said at a press conference on Monday for the Bernie Delegates Network.
Mr Kaine is opposed by many in the Sanders wing of the party for his policies on trade and Wall St regulations. A challenge to his nomination could see the infighting within the party played out on the convention floor.
The pavement on Broad Street in Philadelphia was flooded on Monday with supporters of Mr Sanders as they marched to the convention hall, cheered on by drivers passing by.
Among them was Corinne Dodge, a retired school teacher from New Hampshire who had travelled through the night by bus in order to take part.
"I really wanted to be here to support not only Bernie but the issues he stands for," she said. Ms Dodge said Mr Sanders had "absolutely" been robbed of the nomination by the Democratic National Committee, and she was still holding out hope of a convention coup to nominate him.
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Sanders Booed by Own Delegates for Urging Support for Clinton
Video
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Embattled DNC Chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz Won't Speak at Convention
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Bernie Sanders Supporters Chant Lock Her Up in Philadelphia Protest Against Clinton
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Everything's getting booed at the DNC breaky and The Berns are outside chanting LOCK HER UP!
Poor Hills.
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Video shows Hillary Clinton 'lying for 13 minutes
YouTube video entitled "Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight" has been viewed more than seven million times on the internet.
The video shows Mrs Clinton changing her positions on a variety of issues including Wall Street, healthcare, trade deals, and same sex
marriage
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/20/video-shows-hillary-clinton-lying-for-13-minutes/
So the video has been viewed 7 MILLION TIMES but apparently nobody is interested.
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We landed under SNIPER FIRE !!!! Nobody offered us TEA !!!
Well maybe there was no tea but hunty those videos are TRUTH TEA
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Trump demands Clinton Foundation return $25 million from Saudis
By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL 06/13/16 06:28 PM EDT
Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Hillary Clinton return $25 million the Clinton Foundation reportedly received from Saudi Arabia.
Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate, Trump posted to Facebook. I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation since it was created in 1999. Other donors included the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Australia and Germany.
Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays, Trump wrote in a separate post. Hillary must return all money from such countries!
In a national security speech she delivered Monday, the former secretary of state highlighted the disruption of radicalization and countering the Islamic State and other terrorist networks recruiting efforts in the U.S. and Europe as an area that demands attention.
For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations, Clinton said. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have sent too many young people on a path toward extremism.
Trump last week accused Clinton of turning the State Department into her private hedge fund. The Russians, the Saudis, the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return, he said then. It's a sad day in America when foreign governments with deep pockets have more influence in our own country than our great citizens.
In the same remarks, Trump had teased a major speech in which he would discuss all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. The speech, originally scheduled for Monday, was canceled in the wake of the Sundays deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Clinton acknowledged last week that some donations may have "slipped through the cracks" on "one or two instances" but insisted that the nonprofit had "overwhelming disclosure."
The Clinton Foundation didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-clinton-foundation-224287#ixzz4BWvuDSBa
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
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Soho vigil: Thousands of Londoners gather for tribute to Orlando nightclub massacre victims
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Exactly what I was thinking.
It doesn't make sense. They need to have proper robust systems in place that prevent this sort of thing happening though that wouldn't have stopped him he probably would have obtained a gun illegally.
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wow apparently the shooter had been investigated for terrorism twice before and bought his gun 2 days ago
How can someone who's been investigated for terrorism be allowed to buy a gun legally?
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NY post is reporting shooter pledge alliance to Isis before Florida massacre
http://nypost.com/2016/06/12/suspected-gunman-in-florida-gay-club-mass-shooting-idd/
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Clinton’s most lucrative year was 2013, right after stepping down as secretary of state. That year, she made $2.3 million for three speeches to Goldman Sachs and individual speeches to Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, Apollo Management Holdings, UBS, Bank of America, and Golden Tree Asset Managers.
The following year, she picked up $485,000 for a speech to Deutsche Bank and an address to Ameriprise. Last year, she made $150,000 from a lecture before the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
To put these numbers into perspective, compare them to lifetime earnings of the median American worker. In 2011, the Census Bureau estimated that, across all majors, a “bachelor’s degree holder can expect to earn about $2.4 million over his or her work life.” A Pew Research analysis published the same year estimated that a “typical high school graduate” can expect to make just $770,000 over the course of his or her lifetime.
This means that in one year — 2013 — Hillary Clinton earned almost as much from 10 lectures to financial firms as most bachelor’s degree-holding Americans earn in their lifetimes — and nearly four times what someone who holds only a high school diploma could expect to make.
Hillary Clinton’s haul from Wall Street speeches pales in comparison to her husband’s, which also had to be disclosed because the two share a bank account.
“I never made any money until I left the White House,” said Bill Clintonduring a 2009 address to a student group. “I had the lowest net worth, adjusted for inflation, of any president elected in the last 100 years, including President Obama. I was one poor rascal when I took office. But after I got out, I made a lot of money.”
The Associated Press notes that during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, Bill Clinton earned $17 million in talks to banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, real estate businesses, and other financial firms. Altogether, the couple are estimated to have made over $139 million from paid speeches.
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Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks Than Most of Us Earn in a Lifetime
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these damn sheep dont know shyt. they just blindly follow.
Rio 2016 Olympics
in Politics and World Events
Posted
So proud of Max Whitlock winning gold in both the floor exercise and pommel horse for GB.
Fantastic achievement.