If Jeb is going to air Rubio’s dirty laundry, he better do it soon and thoroughly. As for how Rubio should feel about it, if he can’t survive the attack in a Republican primary, he’d never survive it in the general. And, he might actually get some inoculation and immunity on his scandalous behavior and personal connections if they are hashed out this winter instead of in the heat of a presidential campaign.
In other words, Rubio should welcome Jeb’s challenge.
I’d feel better about Rubio’s many absences if I knew he was clearing brush somewhere.
Meanwhile, I’ve decided to embrace Krugman’s meme of current-day Republicanism as operating under the “grifters’ ethos.”
Maybe he was “sleeping it off”? Don’t see other evidence though like W always licking his lips.
Rubio is a crook, he used the party credit card for personal expenses and then tried to skate off. No fixing thievery, sorry.
Sorry about Andrew, Martin. Lost my Mom just this year, it’s kind of why I haven’t been around, taking care of 3 sets of aging parents.
Whether he should welcome it or not depends on what’s in it, seems to me.
Other than using the state party credit card for personal expenses, what’s wrong with his wife getting a sinecure with a major donor or participating with a sleazebag in a real estate investment that went sour? It’s not as if Rubio’s sleazebag business partner bankrupted a S&L that cost the feds more than $60 million.
And Jeb? has his own history of sleazy deals. irrc ripping of Medicare.
And maybe the credit card “theft” isn’t such a big deal either, because he did later pay for what he’d misappropriated from his political party coffers. It’s not as if he was stealing from the public.
Rubio could enter the White House “dead broke.” A temporary financial condition for a future multi-millionaire.
Why does it sound like you’re talking about the Clinton’s? Hillary’s one time commodities “speculation” comes to mind.
Just offered equivalence and it’s not false. However, didn’t include the futures trading done on her behalf b/c nothing equivalent has surfaced wrt Rubio — somewhat surprisingly considering one of his sugar daddies.
On the debate stage Rubio had an effective comeback to Jeb’s charge so it won’t surprise me if he’s lined up some shallow twists to deflect Jeb.
Of course with the WH’s announcement this morning that there will now be Special Forces’ boots on the ground in Syria, attention will be focused on that instead of Rubio’s failings. Rubio just may be a candidate who has a lucky streak when it comes to opposition.
With the promise of boots on the ground in Syria, while Obama’s request for authorization has languished on Congress’ desk, the ’16’s will be blowing some heavy smoke this weekend.
Look on the bright side. At least we’ll fix Syria now.
Who of them…DemRats + RatPubs both…is not “a crook?” The Clintons? Just slicker than the rest. Bet on it. This is now a totally corrupt governing system. In order to get ahead, you have to cooperate w/the corporate. That’s the name of the game, the only league in town that’s really big-time. The sole reason to snipe at Rubio for his hustle is partisanship. The sole reason not to snipe at say HRC for her own involvement in the hustle is also partisanship.
What’s that you say? She hasn’t been “caught?”
Please.
She’s just bigger league.
If you want to say that her success in the corporate-owned political world is the best reason to support her…if you wish to be that pragmatic, you have a point. She’s good at what she does. The problem is…what she and the rest of the big-leaguers have been doing is something like the use of PEDs in sports. The sport…governance in this case…suffers because it is based on lies. Lies that multiply geometrically as other lies are created to hide the initial ones.
“Mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor.” Cicero (“A liar is not to be believed even when he speaks the truth.”)
And so it goes.
Down like a motherfucker.
AG
HuffPo U.S. Will Reportedly Send Some Special Forces To Syria.
Well, there goes the DINOs dismissal of lefties “slippery slope” argument. Not that they’ll own being wrong on this anymore than they ever own any of their demonstrably prove wrong calls.
Yes and the possibilities of an armed clash with Russian forces, whether by accident or by design, increase tremendously.
Has Obama figured out what he will do if a Russian warplane “accidentally” bombs US troops? or they shoot down a Russian plane with a ground to air missile? Or what happens when a response is greeted with an escalation by Putin? There is a reason that Cold War conflict was waged with proxies. Maybe Obama thinks HST really should have followed MacArthur’s advice and crossed the Yalu and nuked bases there.
Oh, I’m sure contingency military plans exist for practically any scenario, even if an actual event has to be massaged into one they want to happen.
And I’m sure they are playing with fire.
Shouldn’t that be playing with firepower? Unless one is in the line of fire.
When one plays with fire, one tends to be burnt. When one plays with firepower, one tends to shot. Same thing. They are like a kid playing with matches – inside an ammunition bunker.
I see these possible strategies for the USA in Syria.
We seem to be following strategy #4. We’ve already sent in the “advisers”. Next we topple our ally for a more malleable ally? When do we start winning the hearts and minds?
Difficult to Stay completely out. when one has been involved for at least four years (and it was on the drawing board at least as far back as 2001). That was the fix JFK and LBJ found themselves in wrt Vietnam.
Maybe I should have said “Get out”. #3 was included for completeness. I don’t advocate it. Maybe John McCain would.
Yes, “get out.” The resolution of the US in Vietnam was always as simple as clicking our heels three times. A government existed that was favored by a majority of the people in both the north and south, a temporary division concocted in the west. But no, millions had to die or be injured and lands had to be destroyed without a majority of Americans or the USG ever appreciating that the solution was so simple.
Peoples do better at resolving their own internal differences enough that they reach some acceptable level for co-existing when outside countries and agitators don’t interfere. The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
HuffPo Clinton To Focus On Drugs, Policing And Incarceration In Criminal Justice Proposal.
Cool. Let’s hire those that broke it to fix it. Jeb? might want to use that tactic for his campaign.
How about fixing telecom dereg, restoring Glass-Steagall, and un-modernizing commodity futures trading. Much “evolving” still to be done.
In reference to my above comment:
Read this from Counterpunch:
Is Rubio any different?
Read the rest of the article.
It’s an eye-opner.
Bet on it.
AG
And try this one for dessert: https://www.byline.com/project/27/article/520.
Generally I trust Ken Silverstein to present accurate reports with little obvious bias and without inclusion of extraneous and negatively loaded facts or charges.
How Do You Spell Apparent Fraud? The Clinton Foundation, Shady Accounting and AIDS is so marred with unnecessary aspersions that it won’t get the attention it deserves for its intended charges.
Several months ago, I trawled through the Clinton Foundation publicly available financial statements. Almost an exercise in futility because too much seems to be missing or distorted. IRRC, my takeaway based on my limited read is that it’s not serving much of a purpose other than operating the Clinton library and giving the appearance that the charitable foundation is a giant in the industry. How that latter is accomplished is by being a middle-man. For example, if say the Gates Foundation chose to give a million dollars to say the Red Cross, it could instead give the money to the Clinton Foundation that would then pass it along to the Red Cross. The size of the Clinton Foundation can also be inflated through “pledges.” Using the same “Gates/Red Cross” example, instead of a one-time million dollar donation, Gates pledges five million over five years. That quintuples the size of Clinton’s charitable trust fund, but doesn’t change the amount that the Red Cross receives that first year.
As a charity that does authentic new, unique, innovative, and/or valuable good works, it seems to me to be as inflated as Bill Clinton’s ego. But it fools a lot of people.
Yes.
Show instead of go.
The entire government is running the same game. Money switching hands; bureaucrats taking a cut; then on to the next bureaucracy. It’s gotta end sometime. When? How? Damned if I know. Some sort of radical collapse, I’m thinking. Sooner or later it’s got to end.
AG
Can you explain to me why Gates would give money to the Red Cross through the Clinton foundation rather than donating it directly. What’s in it for Gates and Clinton? Yes, the article is a bit tendentious but the substance remains. Do the Clintons really have to clean up their tiff with the IRS by November 16? We can drop the pretence ‘foundation’ and see it for the family business that it is.
They wouldn’t — I should have labeled it a “fictional illustration” instead of an example. Although it is correct that big charities that have few difficulties raising large sums of money often pass big chunks of that money onto other charities that also have strong donation fundraising of their own.
The dilemma of mega-bucks charities is how to disburse the monies to reach the intended purpose of the charity or one of it’s missions. The mega-bucks charities don’t have any ground delivery operations. A real example. There were/are many important people with access to many other wealthy and/or important people recognized that AIDS/HIV infections were out of control in many countries that didn’t have the financial and health care infrastructure to treat infected people and reduce the spread of the infection. The development of the antiviral “cocktail” therapy increased the impetus among “important” people that something not only should but could be done.
There were but three challenges: 1) How much and from where could funds be raised 2) How to reduce the cost of the medication (recall it was thousands of dollars/year/patient at that time) to treat a a meaningful number of those infected 3) identification of those infected and delivery of the medication.
The Global Fund and Unitaid led on raising real money with low fundraising costs, problem #1 down. Pharmaceutical companies in countries like India reduced the cost to $100/year/person,problem #2 down. #3 is the sticky-wicket.
If 30 million people are infected and can be treated at $100/year, then only $3 billion/year would be required. The Global Fund alone raised close to $3 billion/year. Unitaid approximately $300 million/year. However, neither has the ability to deliver the meds for HIV, TB, and malaria. If those infected lived in countries with an existing public health infrastructure (clinics and clinicians), getting the meds from the manufacturer to the clinics would have been easy and not added much to the total cost. Absent that, the mega-bucks had to partner with others to get the meds to the patients. The mega-bucks then had to evaluate those seeking to be partners (added costs) or they could distribute large chunks of money to existing health care operations that did operate on the ground or had a track record to evaluating ground operation grantees. Such as WHO, MSF, Partners in Health, etc. Clinton, CGI, was added to the list of those that could evaluate grantees and iirc set up some on-the-ground partnership clinics.
Now I’m going to be a bit cynical, the great thing about setting up oneself as a big cheese in the HIV charity industry is that the job or charity can go on for a very long time. Unlike say, WHO’s eradication of smallpox (two decades), and The March of Dimes that effectively completed its mission in the US within a couple of decades with most of that time consumed with developing a vaccine and once that was done US public health agencies quickly delivered it to the population. HIV treatment isn’t one-shot but apparently lifetime and there aren’t adequate medical resources on the ground to contain and eradicate it anytime soon, in part because of the crappy governments where HIV is prevalent. The government of Brazil has been the most responsible in tackling this health issue. In the early 1990s the prevalence and infection rate within the population was similar to that in S. Africa. Today, the prevalence in S. Africa is 19.1%; whereas its 0.6% in Brazil. Still there are 44,000 new annual infections in Brazil, but far better than S. Africa with 340,000 new annual infections. (Population S. Africa 55 million; Brazil 200 million.)
Sorry for such a long-winded response that may not even have answered your question.
Thanks a lot. Now I get it more or less. The charities earn money by allocating and funneling the money of other charities to the designated recipients. So the Clinton Foundation, so to speak, is in line to become the Goldman Sachs of charities.
Many charities, particularly family foundations, invest their reserves to generate earnings that then fund their charitable operations. Generally the earnings less foundation operating expenses and some small percentage of its principle is required to be disbursed annually for charitable purposes. The investment assets that fund The Gates Foundation are held in a separate trust.
The difference between Gates, Ford, Rockefeller etc. foundations and Clinton’s is that the former started with huge endowments and/or pledges from their founders. Clinton began his operation the same way all former presidents today do — seeking bucks from wealthy folks to build and operate his presidential library. Adding a charity operation to that foundation (because it was so comparatively easy to raise money for the library) was a questionable decision from day one for various legal, financial, and tax reasons. That decision has been exacerbated by “sloppy” and non-transparent accounting and operational management (including who is hired and what they actually do and how the foundation may be facilitating private ventures by related persons). One example, from day one the size of CGI has been inflated by the cost and endowment for the library. So, very roughly, that’s a couple hundred million that is not income producing and cannot now or ever be used for the stated charitable purposes of the Clinton Global Initiative. Then there’s the issue of conflict of interest while Hillary was SOS and will get worse, not better, if she’s elected POTUS. Short of shutting it down, there is no way to eliminate that very real problem.
Her presidency will be very sticky. The Clintons thrive on stickiness. The DC gridlock wil make today’s look like child’s play. Her only achievable objectives will be neoliberal predations on the domestic populace and state violence abroad: belligerence and outright war. It suits her to a T. If she wins the election, she will do so by such a small margin that the difference will not be noticeable in Congress. What a clusterfuck. And today our most recent favorite dictator Erdogan of Turkey has realized his divine appointment with destiny. How depressing.
Think of Erdogan’s victory as a future target for the US MIC when a new enemy to keep them in business and prop up a crappy US POTUS is needed. Beats taking on China or Russia or even Pakistan as long as it has that arsenal of nukes that TPTB though was an okay thing for it to possess.
If TPTB don’t fully rally around a GOP nominee, we might be spared the intense mud-slinging at Clinton during the GE. Mud — because it’s always minor or untrue crap and never what voters should find objectionable about the Clintons in public office. They’ll wait until she’s elected to begin the mud-slinging, just to keep her in line with the wishes of corporate America and the Pentagon. And Democrats will will rally to her defense as they did with Bill (and Obama) without having a clue about the real social/economic damage being done off-stage.
I thought that teflon was maybe a carcinogen.
It’s only a “likely human carcinogen.” Takes a while for humans to figure out the healthfulness or harmfulness of certain substances and people.
Even if he sufficiently discredits Rubio, Jeb? will still be stuck with his exceedingly noninpirational persona.