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Salon Columnist: How Bill Clinton Is Like Bill Cosby

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Camille Paglia, the political and cultural critic, has been a brave and brilliant provocateur on Salon for almost 20 years now. Paglia seemed to be on the winning side of the wars over feminism and political correctness in the 1990s, but recently those battles have been reopened. Suddenly we’re talking again and in very different ways about sexual culture on campus. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher talk about the return of a stifling political correctness. And we’re staring at the potential rematch of a Clinton and a Bush.

There were so many stories that we wanted Paglia’s take on: Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, the state of the Democratic Party. So we spent two hours discussing all of them on Monday, and we’ll present her thoughts over the next three days. Stand back: Paglia does not hold back on anything.

Over the next two days, she’ll hold forth on the GOP presidential field in devastating ways, and offer surprising thoughts on how she thinks Clinton vs Sanders will end. We start today with thoughts on Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, campus political correctness and modern feminism.

The banner on the Drudge Report this morning is that Kathleen Willey is starting a site to collect harassment claims against Bill Clinton. New York magazine, meanwhile, has the stories of 35 women who say they were raped or assaulted by Bill Cosby. I wonder if you see a connection between the two stories: Would Bill Clinton’s exploits be viewed more like Cosby’s if he was in the White House now, instead of in the 1990s?

Right from the start, when the Bill Cosby scandal surfaced, I knew it was not going to bode well for Hillary’s campaign, because young women today have a much lower threshold for tolerance of these matters. The horrible truth is that the feminist establishment in the U.S., led by Gloria Steinem, did in fact apply a double standard to Bill Clinton’s behavior because he was a Democrat. The Democratic president and administration supported abortion rights, and therefore it didn’t matter what his personal behavior was. (Read more from “Camille Paglia: How Bill Clinton Is Like Bill Cosby” HERE)

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What Bill’s Sex Accuser Just Did Has the Potential to Cripple the Clintons for Good

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Earlier this year, Western Journalism reported that one of Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual assault victims transitioned into a vocal opponent of his wife’s current presidential campaign.

In April, Kathleen Willey said of Hillary Clinton: “I haven’t seen one single accomplishment that would give her the credentials to be president of the United States.”

The scathing critique went further, as Willey called Clinton a “serial liar” who would attract scandals daily as the 2016 campaign drags on.

“Women should pay attention to what she’s done to other women,” Willey concluded, “and not just the women who were unfortunate to cross paths with her husband.”

According to a recent BizPac Review article, Willey has compounded her anti-Clinton stance by launching a new website to solicit accusations from other potential sexual assault victims.

“I think it’s time for people to start coming forward,” she said of those she believes were victimized by the former president. “I know I’m not the only one.” (Read more from “What Bill’s Sex Accuser Just Did Has the Potential to Cripple the Clintons for Good” HERE)

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Clintons Facilitated Donor’s Haiti Project That Defrauded US out of Millions

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A federal agency rushed to approve funding for a Clinton donor’s sham Haiti recovery project that ended up defrauding the U.S. government out of millions, according to court transcripts and internal government documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Miami businessman Claudio Osorio, who is currently serving 12 years in federal prison on fraud charges, leveraged his relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton to help his company InnoVida obtain a $10 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) for a Haiti housing project in 2010.

OPIC is an independent government agency that submits its annual budget requests through the State Department and works closely with the agency.

Bill Clinton helped arrange for a high-powered Florida law firm to represent Osorio during loan negotiations with OPIC, according to court testimony. An internal OPIC memo said Hillary Clinton was prepared to marshal State Department resources to assist with the donor’s project.

InnoVida was supposed to use the funding to build houses in Haiti after the earthquake, but it defaulted on the loan and the homes were never built. (Read more from “Clintons Facilitated Donor’s Haiti Project That Defrauded US out of Millions” HERE)

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‘Don’t Let Bill Back in the White House, He Abused Women and He’ll Do It Again.’ Paula Jones Warns Against Voting for Hillary

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She was the woman who almost brought down the president, with her allegations of sexual harassment.

But 21 years after Paula Jones accused Bill Clinton of lurid behavior, she is speaking out against Hillary and insisting that his wife is not fit to be President either – because of her husband’s history of bad behavior.

In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online Jones delivers her own verdict on Hillary’s bid to become president, saying that her husband’s attitude towards women disqualifies Bill from re-entering the White House – while what she calls Hillary’s ‘lies’ disqualify her from the Oval Office.

‘There is no way that she did not know what was going on, that women were being abused and accosted by her husband,’ she says. ‘They have both lied’ . . .

Her lawsuit led to Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky being uncovered and led to Clinton being impeached, accused of lying about the nature of his relationship with the White House intern. (Read more from “‘Don’t Let Bill Back in the White House, He Abused Women and He’ll Do It Again.’ Paula Jones Warns Against Voting for Hillary” HERE)

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Clintons Have Made More Than $25 Million for Speaking Since Jan. 2014

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2014-06-11t155415z1813105711gm1ea6b1uc101rtrmadp3usa-politics-clintonHillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton earned in excess of $25 million for delivering 104 speeches since the beginning of 2014, a huge infusion to their net worth as she was readying for a presidential bid.

The Clintons revealed their recent income as paid speakers and other aspects of their personal finances in disclosure forms filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.

Hillary Clinton also earned more than $5 million in royalties for her book, “Hard Choices,” which was released in June.

One of her Republican rivals for the presidency, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, also filed his financial information Friday, revealing a far more modest portfolio. It showed that last year he cashed out his retirement accounts, which were worth between $60,000 and $195,000; a campaign spokesman declined to comment on why. Rubio and his wife hold at least $450,000 in home mortgage debt.

Clinton has tripped politically in addressing her personal wealth, drawing criticism last year for indicating she and her husband were “dead broke” when his term as president concluded in 2001. Though saddled with debt because of legal fees arising from various White House scandals, Bill Clinton’s memoirs and frenetic speaking schedule quickly lifted the couple into the ranks of the uber-wealthy. (Read more from “Clintons Have Made More Than $25 Million for Speaking Since Jan. 2014” HERE)

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Bill Clinton Says Nothing ‘Sinister’ in Foreign Gifts to Charity

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Photo Credit: Personal Liberty

Photo Credit: Personal Liberty

Former President Bill Clinton said criticism over his family foundation’s donations from foreign governments is politically motivated and there is no evidence to support suggestions that the gifts influenced Hillary Clinton’s behavior as secretary of state.

“I asked Hillary about this and she said, you know, no one has ever tried to influence me by helping you,” the former president said in an interview with NBC News broadcast Monday. “No one has even suggested they have a shred of evidence to that effect.”

There has been a “deliberate attempt to take the foundation down,” Clinton said. But he doesn’t believe there was “anything sinister in trying to get wealthy people in countries that are seriously involved in development to spend their money wisely in a way that helps poor people and lifts them up.” He added that the foundation had never done anything “knowingly inappropriate.”

Donations to the Clinton Foundation have come under new scrutiny since the former first lady announced her decision to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. Last month, the nonprofit group conceded that it had made mistakes in how it disclosed foreign donors and said it would refile some tax forms. The organization also said it would limit gifts from foreign governments to six Western nations.

Former President Clinton said the policy change “absolutely” didn’t suggest that it was inappropriate to have accepted millions in donations from nations such as Saudi Arabia. (Read more from “Bill Clinton Says Nothing ‘Sinister’ in Foreign Gifts to Charity” HERE)

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How Hillary Clinton Is Running Against Parts of Her Husband’s Legacy

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imagesHillary Rodham Clinton isn’t just running against Republicans. She’s also running against parts of her husband’s legacy.

On issues large and small, the Democratic presidential contender is increasingly distancing herself from — or even opposing — key policies pushed by Bill Clinton while he was in the White House, from her recent skepticism on free-trade pacts to her full embrace of gay rights.

The starkest example yet came Wednesday, when Hillary Clinton delivered an impassioned address condemning the “era of incarceration” ushered in during the 1990s in the wake of her husband’s 1994 crime bill — though she never mentioned him or the legislation by name.

“We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance,” Clinton told an audience at Columbia University in New York, making references to unrest in Baltimore and elsewhere and elsewhere over actions by police. “And these recent tragedies should galvanize us to come together as a nation to find our balance again.”

The contrasts between some of Clinton’s positions and those of her husband from 20 years ago show the extent to which Democrats, and the country as a whole, have shifted to the left on a number of key issues. Indeed, Bill Clinton now says that some of his incarceration policies went too far and that he regrets backing a federal law that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. (Read more from “How Hillary Clinton Is Running Against Parts of Her Husband’s Legacy” HERE)

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STUNNING NEW CHART O’ THE DAY: How the Clinton Foundation Spent its Money in 2013

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BillHillBefore Hillary left office in 2013, the Clintons appeared bound and determined to slurp up as much money into their Foundation as possible, spending as little on direct aid as one could imagine for a “charity”. The New York Post reports:

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

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The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

In 2013, according to the Clinton Foundation’s IRS Form 1990 filing [PDF], the organization actually spent more than twice as much on travel, conferences, conventions and meetings than on actual, eh, grants.

Even the grants that were made were dubious “investments”. One such grant was nearly half a million dollars to a San Francisco-based group called “Architecture for Humanity”. Earlier this year the group announced it was closing its doors.

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The average compensation for the top Clinton Foundation executives we know of was roughly a quarter of a million dollars a year. In fact, as Karl Denninger explains:

You might be interested in knowing that the “charity” had 35 employees with reportable compensation (that is, over $100,000) and their top five combined had $2.6 million in direct (that is, cash) compensation and another $278,000 in benefits for approximately $3 million — or 1/3rd of all spending on “charitable causes”. On a grossed-up basis the charity spent $21.8 million on salaries and wages or approaching three times what it spent on “charity.”

In 2013 The Clinton Foundation employed 400 people, which means it doled out only $22,000 per employee.

In other words, it was — as the Sunlight Foundation describes it — “a slush fund”, not a charity. (See “STUNNING NEW CHART O` THE DAY: How the Clinton Foundation Spent its Money in 2013”, originally posted HERE)

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CHART O’ THE DAY: How the Clinton Global Initiative Used its Funds During Hillary’s Tenure at State

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imagesIn 2010, when Barack Obama said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” he definitely wasn’t referring to the Clintons.

Because it wasn’t enough for Bill Clinton to sell sensitive missile technology to the Red Chinese for campaign donations. It wasn’t enough for Hillary Clinton to sell America’s most valuable nuclear technologies to the Russians for “contributions” to her family’s personal piggy bank.

That piggy bank, otherwise known as “The Clinton Global Graft Initiative”, had an interesting way of doling out the “contributions” it received.

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The Clintons are a malignant tumor on the body politic. They have a history of doing anything for money — including selling out their own country — and when it comes to their personal bank accounts, there’s apparently never enough zeroes. (See “CHART O’ THE DAY: How the Clinton Global Initiative Used its Funds During Hillary’s Tenure at State”, originally posted HERE)

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