2016 elections - because it's never too early

[jimmy olsen]

Hillary sold uranium to the Russians!

Links can be found here
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read-foundation-questions-continue-plague-clinton-n346821

irst Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Appearance of Scandal: Why Today Isn't a Good Day For The Clinton Campaign: Well, today isn't a good day for the Clinton campaign. Here are all of the negative stories as it relates to the Clinton Foundation and money:

•The New York Times reports that a Canadian mining company - whose principals donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation over the years -- sold its uranium business to Russians, which had to be approved by Hillary Clinton's State Department and other U.S. agencies;
•The Washington Post writes about the overlap between the companies and organizations that paid former President Bill Clinton millions in speaking fees but also donated to the Clinton Foundation;
•And Reuters says that the Clinton charities are refilling their tax returns "after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments."

Now all of these stories are complex and murky. But what they all reveal -- especially the New York Times' piece on the uranium deal -- is the APPEARANCE of a scandal. Even if you take the Clintons at their word that there was no quid pro quo with these donations to the Clinton Foundation to buy influence, that's not what the donors may have been thinking. As former Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) described it at Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing to be secretary of state: "The core of the problem is that foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary of state." That's the problem.

How would the Clinton Foundation operate if Hillary becomes president? The question that Hillary Clinton herself has yet to answer is this: How would the Clinton Foundation operate if she BECOMES president, especially -- as Lugar put it -- with foreign entities believing it's a way to gain favor with the Clinton? It's a question she needs to answer. As we reported earlier this week, the Clinton Foundation has laid its procedures during the campaign. Those procedures: The Clinton Foundation is no longer accepting new donations from foreign governments. But it is still CONTINUING existing programs that were up and running before Hillary began her campaign. There are six countries that had EXISTING programs -- Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K. As a Clinton Foundation official tells NBC News, "You just can't pull the plug" on existing programs, especially when they involve multi-year grants. Also under current policy, all disclosures will be listed quarterly instead of yearly (as was the case under the older Memo of Understanding). And after the Clinton Global Initiative completes its already-planned Morocco conference, it will no longer have foreign countries sponsor or co-sponsor CGI events.



The real damage here for the Clintons: All of these stories unite around a few indisputable facts:

1.The Clintons became wealthy due to paid speeches, and the Clinton Foundation raked in millions due to celebrity/access reasons.
2.They didn't seem concerned about appearances. If they believed they weren't being bought off then they didn't see a problem with an appearance. The problem: Can the same be said for the folks who spent the money either lavishing the foundation or paying for a speech/appearance?
3.These stories do undermine - politically -- Hillary's attempt to refashion herself as an economic populist. The Clintons made it because of power and access. And now they want to argue for fairness. Do these stories make them more or less credible?
4.We are an electorate burned out on the polarizing political wars. These new stories are a reminder that the war isn't going anywhere.

House Republicans might not release their Benghazi findings until 2016: With these stories the Clinton campaign now has to contend with, Benghazi now looks to be the easiest one for it to swat away - because it looks the most political. Per NBC's Alex Moe, "The House Select Committee on Benghazi might not release its findings about the 2012 attacks until 2016 - in the midst of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 'Factors beyond the committee's control, including witness availability, compliance with documents requests, the granting of security clearances and accreditations—all of which are controlled by the Executive branch—could continue to impact the timing of the inquiry's conclusion,' committee spokesman Jamal Ware said in an email." More from Moe: "House Speaker John Boehner dismissed accusations that the report's timing is politically motivated, telling NBC News that it has been pushed back due to stonewalling by the Obama administration. '[The Committee] could clean this up a whole lot quicker if the administration and former Secretary Clinton were in a position to actually cooperate with the committee and turn over the kind of information that we have been seeking for some time,' Boehner said Wednesday morning." But back to the APPEARANCE thing: Given all of the other Benghazi-related reports and investigations, anything that looks timed to hit in 2016 seems to be politics at work. And that will lessen the impact. That said, any day the Clinton campaign is spending fending off allegations about the Foundation or Benghazi is a bad day for her campaign.

The Democratic trade war: On Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, President Obama said that Elizabeth Warren is "wrong" in her opposition to the free-trade agreement he's trying to reach. "I love Elizabeth. We're allies on a whole host of issues. But she's wrong on this," Obama said. Now Warren is firing back, citing the deal's "rigged" process in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. But here's the thing: Trade is on the fast track through the Senate. As NBC's Frank Thorp reports, the Senate Finance Committee advanced the fast-track Trade Promotion Authority by a 20-6 vote last night.

Rubio to participate in Koch Brothers-backed call to oppose the Export-Import Bank: If Democrats are divided by trade, Republicans are divided on the issue of the Export-Import Bank. And guess who's jumping on an Americans for Prosperity (read Koch Brothers) conference call at noon ET to oppose the Export-Import Bank's reauthorization -- Sen. Marco Rubio, who just happens to be one of the five GOP 2016ers in contention for Koch Brothers support. Asked for a response, a Rubio campaign spokesman tells First Read, "They asked us. Marco's happy to help."

Lynch's final confirmation to take place around 2:00 pm ET: Finally, NBC's Thorp reports that the Senate will hold its final vote to confirm Loretta Lynch as attorney general around 2:00 pm ET. Per Thorp: "At 11:45am ET the Senate will hold their first procedural vote (cloture) after which there will be two hours of debate time. After that debate time is completed they will vote to confirm Lynch. Currently there are five Republicans who have publicly said they support Lynch's nomination, so with 46 Democrats and five Republicans, Lynch already has the 51 votes needed to be confirmed."

[Sheilbh]

There's a new book coming out soon detailing the connections between the Clinton foundation and some favorable deals made for foreign governments. NY Times called the writer meticulous in supporting his work, and I assume the NYT will also be looking into things. We'll see what comes up over this now. Maybe Hillary should hurry and find all those deleted emails on her server and give the media something more shiny to peruse, to deflect attention from this new shiny bauble.

I've heard the sentiment expressed before this and server gate of how Dem operatives worry over what else may come out, especially if they put all their eggs in the Hillary basket. It's still early but I have to think that more Dems will run against Hillary. They almost have to it would seem, as even if a candidate is a good one it's very odd not to have a strong primary race.

I wouldn't expect much from this book.

But I think there's a lot of money-grubbing with the Clintons. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a scandal, even if there's not it seems the Democrats are generally more interested in inequality than they were a few years ago so it's not great to have Chelsea buying a little $10.5 million pied a terre.

The other side is that I don't think she's a great candidate. She's best when vulnerable and has been out of electoral politics for 6-8 years. Her press conference was dreadful. Her strategy to win the nomination is to stop anyone else running. All of that may be fine in a primary. I'm not sure it'll cut it in a national election.

[KRonn]

There's a new book coming out soon detailing the connections between the Clinton foundation and some favorable deals made for foreign governments. NY Times called the writer meticulous in supporting his work, and I assume the NYT will also be looking into things. We'll see what comes up over this now. Maybe Hillary should hurry and find all those deleted emails on her server and give the media something more shiny to peruse, to deflect attention from this new shiny bauble.

I've heard the sentiment expressed before this and server gate of how Dem operatives worry over what else may come out, especially if they put all their eggs in the Hillary basket. It's still early but I have to think that more Dems will run against Hillary. They almost have to it would seem, as even if a candidate is a good one it's very odd not to have a strong primary race.

I wouldn't expect much from this book.

But I think there's a lot of money-grubbing with the Clintons. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a scandal, even if there's not it seems the Democrats are generally more interested in inequality than they were a few years ago so it's not great to have Chelsea buying a little $10.5 million pied a terre.

The other side is that I don't think she's a great candidate. She's best when vulnerable and has been out of electoral politics for 6-8 years. Her press conference was dreadful. Her strategy to win the nomination is to stop anyone else running. All of that may be fine in a primary. I'm not sure it'll cut it in a national election.

You might be wrong about the book. Many news outlets and pundits, including those on the left, are looking into this stuff. And it's snowballing, getting bigger and bigger. The uranium deal saga is getting a lot of attention, and is a huge deal, not just for the Clintons but possibly for Obama also as it occurred during his admin. But for Obama the questions will be as to why such a deal with Russian firms over so much of US uranium, not likely the spector of corruption on Obama's part as the questions will be with the Clintons.  Hundreds of millions of dollars flowed into the Clinton Foundation coffers from the movers and shakers in this deal. Another news sources, Reuters I believe, found another money trail from a Canadian corp involved in the uranium deal but the money was not disclosed and/or incorrectly accounted for on the Foundation's tax docs. So that opened up a lot more about what money from whom and where. The fit is hitting the shan on this, and that's only one of the allegations from the book and just the beginning of things.
That's just a brief summary, there's a helluva lot more on just this one deal. Bill getting very lucrative speaking fees in Moscow and Kazahkstan from the banks and others involved in the financing and deal making.

WTF did the US do to allow one-fifth and possibly more in the future of US uranium reserves to be sold to Russian firms? The deal supposedly says it can't be transported outside the US but Senators are saying it's being done through shell corps and such. Probably some US uranium winds up in Iran via Russia, while the US tries to get a nuke deal with Iran! Lol. Lenin was right - the West will sell them the rope to hang themselves.     

The same author is also doing a book on Jeb Bush. We'll see what he's been up to but I wouldn't see how it could possibly match the Clinton's and their Foundation with the many hundreds of millions of dollars and deals. But it could certainly be big enough to harm Jeb in his Pres run.

[Admiral Yi]

It's not like Russia doesn't already have access to uranium.

[Valmy]

It's not like Russia doesn't already have access to uranium.

Well right. They have plenty of Uranium why is it big deal if they bought some from us? I am not even sure why they did so.

But it looks like all they did is sell their business to Russians, not the Russian government so...

[The Brain]

Selling a uranium business to Russians is a problem how?

[KRonn]

My take from what I understand, is that the US has to import some uranium for its own use, doesn't have enough of its own so selling access to Russia gives a non-friendly government control of what is labeled a strategic resource. The deal was made that the US mined uranium can't be moved out of the country, which would seem to be fine, but some Congress members are saying that it does get transported out. Use of shell companies, etc. This may give the Russkie government control of more of the resource, which means Putin will have that control.  Putin wants to get more control of the world market. As a strategic resource I'd think it would be assumed that strict control would be kept over it and that may not be the case. I think that's what the stink is about. On top of the Clinton Foundation involvement in the whole dealings in it all and the massive mega million contributions, etc. The NY Times has been running articles on it all, as well as other news outlets.

[The Minsky Moment]

My take from what I understand, is that the US has to import some uranium for its own use, doesn't have enough of its own so selling access to Russia gives a non-friendly government control of what is labeled a strategic resource. The deal was made that the US mined uranium can't be moved out of the country, which would seem to be fine, but some Congress members are saying that it does get transported out. Use of shell companies, etc. This may give the Russkie government control of more of the resource, which means Putin will have that control.  Putin wants to get more control of the world market. As a strategic resource I'd think it would be assumed that strict control would be kept over it and that may not be the case. I think that's what the stink is about. On top of the Clinton Foundation involvement in the whole dealings in it all and the massive mega million contributions, etc. The NY Times has been running articles on it all, as well as other news outlets.

Yes, the US probably imports.  My guess is that it imports from a notoriously unstable country plagued by internal unrest and separatism.

Canada.

[grumbler]

The other side is that I don't think she's a great candidate. She's best when vulnerable and has been out of electoral politics for 6-8 years. Her press conference was dreadful. Her strategy to win the nomination is to stop anyone else running. All of that may be fine in a primary. I'm not sure it'll cut it in a national election.

I agree that she's not a great candidate.  Her charisma is low, and I agree that her main strategy seems to be to appear inevitable.  She's kind of a non-nasty Pelosi.

That said, I think she'd be a decent chief executive along the lines of Merkel if she can muster the energy for the job at her age.  She's a wonk, like Merkel, and will probably make decisions based on merit, not ideology.  She's probably the best-qualified of the democratic hopefuls and hoped-for, again, caveated for age (and, to be fair, she isn't really all that old).

I personally wish she'd just rest on her laurels. 

[alfred russel]

There are odds here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/odds-win-2016-election-194156170.html

Hillary is 11/10 to be next president, the next closest is Jeb Bush at 4/1. The next closest democrat is O'Malley at 20/1.

I think that overestimates Hillary's chances of getting the nomination. No doubt she is the front runner, but she is showing some age and isn't that great of a campaigner to begin with. If i was going to bet with those odds, I'd put money on O'Malley.

[DGuller]

The problem with Hillary is that at the end of the day, everyone has that tacky feeling that everything involved with Clintons is shady.  They're just very shady operators, and the whole foundation of theirs is probably a vehicle to cash in on the influence that they have or had in the past.  Any Democratic candidate with half a chance may very well get desperately embraced, just so that we wouldn't have Hillary.

[garbon]

I don't see how the Clintons are really more shady than any of our other career politicians.

[derspiess]

I bet you don't.

[garbon]

You bet that I don't see something that I just said I don't see?

[KRonn]

The problem with Hillary is that at the end of the day, everyone has that tacky feeling that everything involved with Clintons is shady.  They're just very shady operators, and the whole foundation of theirs is probably a vehicle to cash in on the influence that they have or had in the past.  Any Democratic candidate with half a chance may very well get desperately embraced, just so that we wouldn't have Hillary.

Agreed. More and more comes out and it just continues to look as you say and worse.

Surely there must be a democrat out there, an African-American female or male senator, who will challenge her.