The media has the Clinton Foundation story upside down

[aggiesal]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by mcar (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: DailyKos


By Mark Sumner
Wednesday Aug 24, 2016 · 10:51 AM PDT

What’s the real story of the Clinton Foundation?

How does the philanthropic world see the Clinton Foundation? They're rock stars.

It’s one of the top-rated charities, with a an "A" grade from Charity Watch and a "Platinum" rating from GuideStar. It’s also a charity that does important work on education, women’s rights, climate change and especially on health care. More than half the people being treated for AIDS around the world receive medication from the Clinton Foundation.

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When Hillary Clinton was nominated to be secretary of state, she assured the Senate that she would place a “firewall” between the foundation and her work for the United States. Not one piece of evidence has been put forward that suggests that firewall was ever breached.

The real story of the Clinton Foundation is that there is no scandal. That’s just it. It’s not just “nothing to see here” it’s “nothing but good to see here.” It’s an un-scandal. An anti-scandal. Something of which the whole Clinton family can be justly proud.

That is, unless you’re determined to make the data fit your story.

The Associated Press has just shown us why it is important to be vigilant in how we consume the news as it is reported. They took some interesting information they gathered and spun it into something it wasn’t…scandalous. …

That is basically what most every drummed up “scandal” against Hillary Clinton comes down to: from the perspective of the people judging her – it looks bad. Welcome to the world of optics as scandal.

Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/8/24/1563436/-The-media-has-the-Clinton-Foundation-story-upside-down

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A good read.

[msongs]

1. Trumpists have found a subject good to take the heat off themselves...with media

compliance. diverts attention and the media whores love scandal more than their own mothers

[liberal N proud]

2. The media just does whatever the right wing puppet masters tell them

The right wing puppet masters want to destroy anything that helps anybody. Anybody but the rich that is.

[sheshe2]

3. I can't rec this enough!

[fleabiscuit]

4. K&R bookmarked.

[Hekate]

5. KnRnBk

[deurbano]

6. "More than half the people being treated for AIDS around the world receive medication from Clinton

Foundation."

I didn't know that. That's pretty huge. That info and other foundation achievements/contributions need to be "out there." The Trumpeters and their media helpers have been pretty successful in making the Foundation sound questionable, if not downright sleazy. Even some non-Trumpeters argue the foundation should be shut down! Why?! Because of the crass and cynical opportunism of Judicial (gag!) Watch, desperate congressional Republicans, grasping-at-straws Trumpeters... and all the media enablers? (So, fck people with AIDS who are getting medication from the foundation... and fck those being helped in other ways by the foundation?)

[Hortensis]

7. Clinton Foundation: Rock star charity!

Last edited Wed Aug 24, 2016, 04:28 PM - Edit history (1)

How come Andrea Mitchell is pushing for the Clintons to shut down a charitable foundation they don't take one dime from, just in case a donation might make them feel grateful --

yet no one in the Senate Multi-millionaires' club, even when they run for and become president, is asked to sell off his ownership in corporations that earn him vast amounts of money while he's in office? Just in case people might curry favor by funneling handsome profits to him through business contracts? Simply putting it all temporarily into a trust while business deals are made and the money continues to roll in is fine for them.

Is it way past time to shut down corrupt pseudojournalist Andrea Mitchell and those like her?

[Blue Idaho]

15. Andrea Mitchell hates the Clintons...

She is nothing more than an attack dog for the conservative movement. She might as well be Sean Hannity in drag.

[Hortensis]

21. She needs to be retired in disgrace.

[Blue Idaho]

23. How she has a national cable TV show is beyond me.

She gives journalism a bad name.

[Hortensis]

24. Very well connected, a leader of the DC "inner circle."

But she's not "news," and that helps her get away with a lot.

I'm really sick of the lot of them, spouting their group-stupid, group-safe, sometimes group-malicious group-think. Even when they're not trying to smear Hillary, the group-think they all end up fastening on and pushing is usually profoundly wrong. They care nothing for betraying all those who really want and need to know what's really happening. And she's always in the middle of it.

[bluedigger]

8. Good reads belong in "Good Reads", not LBN.

[Cracklin Charlie]

9. Kick to show my husband.

He is having trouble refuting some guys in his golf league. They are driven to distraction over the CGI.

[SunSeeker]

10. Great article! K&R & bookmarked!

[Francis Booth]

11. Sorry, but getting face time with the US Secretary

of State while contributing to her and her husband's Foundation, while not strictly illegal, is at least ethically sketchy. So much so, that the Foundation no longer will accept contributions from foreign sources if Hillary is elected president. This is a smart move. If it looks bad, even if it isn't, it becomes a distraction that will make governing difficult.

The AP found that more than half of major donors to the foundation got access to Hillary or her department aides. Does this seem appropriate?

As the Democratic candidate for POTUS, Hillary has to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. I'm completely baffled as to why so many people don't see this as an issue.

Surely our candidate can exhibit better behavior than Trump, who most certainly has many ethical skeletons rattling around inside his closet.

[Tempest]

14. Dig deeper

"The AP found that more than half of major donors to the foundation got access to Hillary or her department aides."

You'll find the majority of those contacts were from Clinton supporters and contributors from before the foundation's creation. And many of the contacts were people who belonged to organizations and groups the State Department has supported and done business with for years before Clinton became secretary.

The AP’s big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12618446/ap-clinton-foundation-meeting

What I don't understand is why this is considered a scandal when there is a direct pay-to-play relationship between Republicans and the NRA and oil and gas industry that gets no real attention.

[Blue Idaho]

17. The painful truth is...

The AP story is a hatchet job. The "firewall" between the Foundation and the State Department worked exactly as it should. The requests for special access fell on deaf ears. Yet the MSM is determined to flog this story even though the specifics prove nothing untowards really happened here.

[Tempest]

18. Poorly written and poorly researched

The AP’s big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12618446/ap-clinton-foundation-meeting

[Blue Idaho]

20. And yet the MSM chased the bright shiny object

Without any fact checking. This story is going to blow up in their faces and we should all remind them just how bad they are at their jobs.

[Francis Booth]

19. Thanks for expanding on that.

this is why people don't trust any news outlets these days. Everything is catered towards short attention span readers.

[Blue Idaho]

22. No - the MSM is full of bias.

And they are bad at what they do. Two idiots write a story that doesn't hold water yet the entire gaggle of hacks that make up the MSM breathlessly repeat the lies without doing any fact checking. Now either they are dumber than a sack of hammers or they have a dog in this fight. My money is on both of those things being true.

[hughee99]

27. I'm a little confused by this argument...

If you're talking with someone who believes that the CGI is a "slush fund" or personally benefits Bill and Hillary, why does it matter if they were supporters before the CGI was set up in 1997 (while Bill was currently president). The argument implies that before the CGI was setup there was no mechanism for people looking to pay for access to do so, but those same people could have been donating to the Clinton campaign, the presidential library or even the legal defense fund before this was setup.

I'm not saying these were all entities that people used to buy access, but if someone were willing to believe the CGI is used this way, why wouldn't they also believe the other funds were used that way as well? It's not going to matter to the sort of people you'd argue about this issue with.

In keeping with that line of thought though, many republicans were supporters of (and supported by) the NRA, big oil and gas before they were even elected. If they were "involved" with these organizations before they had any power to do something for them, wouldn't that mean it's all okay?

[yallerdawg]

12. Another feather in the cap for rightwing extremism.

People will die because the Republicans are constitutionally incapable of conceding that a Clinton or a Democrat can do good in the world.

It is a tragedy that the right and the M$M can get away with this for partisan and financial gain.

[pamela]

13. Classic Swiftboating

Attack their strength with trumped up "charges."

[SunSeeker]

25. Exactly. nt

[Tempest]

16. The AP’s big exposé on Hillary meeting with Clinton Foundation donors is a mess

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12618446/ap-clinton-foundation-meeting

[Bill USA]

26. once again, M$M doesn't disappoint, maintaining a narrative that the Clintons MUST have done

something wrong, even when the facts don't provide any evidence of wrongdoing!


recommended!

[mcar]

28. Locking

Violates the Statement of Purpose for this forum. Consider reposting in GD16.