2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I can only figure out one reason the press would be so solidly behind Hillary. [View all]delrem
(9,688 posts)100% controlled by the private interests of one political family?
OK, I'll grant that it's defined legally within some very lenient, not quite to say totally unregulated, bounds.
But Clinton =/= Gates, or even the sleazy Zukkerberg. Clinton private income all derives from politics, a massive amount from speeches given with exorbitant prices, to the tune of $160 million plus since Bill Clinton was president and Hillary was advertised as having it in the bag to be next, so there isn't the same intrinsic base for the Clinton Foundation as the Gates Foundation. People should think about this, about what is happening here.
For example, what Clinton Foundation monies are spent for what? How are contracts awarded? Who profits from the contracts? Are they no-bid? And so on. I'm sure that all the charitable spending is on worthy causes, but I question how it is done. I also question whether this is the best way for a politician to be pro-active about bettering the world, rather than putting her ass on the line and declaring that Single Payer Universal Health Care is the goal, regardless of the loss of potential profits for capital investment in the health care insurance business.
It's something to think about, at least.
But also, who is donating, and when? For example The House of Saud is a big donor, but nobody in a rational universe thinks that The House of Saud is at all "progressive" in any sense, not even some of the crazy senses that the term is endowed with in some of the more outlier of DU posts. So, when did the Saudi despots donate? Were they doing arms deals with the US gov't in that window of time, and were those deals assisted by a Clinton, acting as a politician? Are wars fought for profit being eased into existence by war profiteers, who donate to the Clinton Foundation charitable fund?