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| Home Front: Politix |
| The Clintons, the Ex-Im Bank, and the aristocracy of pull |
| 2015-08-03 |
| h/t Instapundit The news today had its uplifting moments. Vox choked out a spectacular story about the arresting wealth gathered in by Bill and Hillary Clinton since 2007, and graced it with a headline so snarky that Donald Trump might have written it: "Hillary Clinton has paid more in taxes than Jeb Bush has ever earned." The short version is that the Clintons have "earned" -- more about the use of that word in a moment -- $141 million since 2007. I don't care who you are, that's some decent coin. ...Is there a single person alive who believes that corporations, trade associations, NGOs, unions, and the like pay the Clintons enormous sums for speeches because they believe their members actually want to hear the Clintons say the same tedious talking points they have been spewing for years? If that were the only value received no profit-minded enterprise would pay the Clintons these vast fees because they would earn, well, a shitty rate of return. No, the Clintons are not paid to speak. Businesses and other interest groups pay them for the favor of access at a crucial moment or a thumb on the scale in the future, perhaps when it is time to renew the Ex-Im Bank or at a thousand other occasions when a nod might divert millions of dollars from average people in to the pockets of the crony capitalists. The speaking is just a ragged fig leaf, mostly to allow their allies in the media to say they "earned" the money for "speaking," which is, after all, hard work. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 You know things are bad when Rolling Stone reports an interview with Jimmy Carter and he says: Jimmy Carter: U.S. Is an 'Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2015-08-03 06:50 |