Mr. Transparency?

This note is on par with that stupid NY Times article from this weekend – which shocked the world by reporting that Obama’s teenage friends didn’t remember Obama being much of a drug user, and actually suggested that Obama had embellished his drug use for policital gain. Truly the dumbest thing ever written …
…until ABC News weighs in with a year-old story about how Obama put $100K in a blind trust, whose investment manager made poor investments, netting Obama a $13,000 loss.
So, the big headlines seems to be that Obama did not use drugs very much as a teenager and his meager blind trust has lost money.
If manufacturing bogus controversies like these is the best that the hard-nosed investigative journalists of NY Times and ABC News can find, then I’m confident that there’s nothing bad out there.

This is what I think ABC’s agenda is:
Don’t worry Hillary, ABC is here helping you distract voters attention from what you are trying to hide by not releasing your tax teturn. Lets rather question Barak about his finances…
And.. its jus pure and sacred that walmart executives donated to your campaign… after all you helped them by keeping your mouth shut when those exectives labeled union membere as “Blood Suckers”, or sent jobs overseas. If anybody ask you about that just ask another question in reponse to distract voters and we will help you then as we are helping you now with your “distraction response”.

All things are not equal. It is pretty irresponsible to suggest that this losing investment, which Obama has disclosed in considerable detail, is on a par with the Clintons’ refusal to disclose the sources of tens of millions of income which Hillary is now plowing back into her campaign, much of which seems to have come from foreign governments/investors with business before the senate, including her armed services committee.

In response to vote4BO:
Jake’s post does remind me of a recent NY Times article, but not the one you mentioned. Instead of the article on Obama’s supposed youthful indiscretions with pot and cocaine, try the February 3rd cover story on radioactive leaks from an Excelon Corporation Illinois nuclear plant, the contributions that Obama took from Excelon, and Excelon’s input on leak notification legislation that died. Note also that Obama told voters in Iowa that he passed the reporting legislation, though that was patently untrue.
It also reminds me of the “boneheaded” deal involving Tony Rezko in the purchase of Obama’s chicago home. Obama got a 300,000 dollar discount on his house and Rezko paid full price for the adjoining lot. What a bargain!!! At the time of the transaction, Rezko was already embroiled in scandal–now he is scheduled to go to trial for fraud and corruption this month.
Looks like Obama may have a little problem with judgment. I’m sure the swift boat teams will be happy to explore that for us in the general. And let’s not kid ourselves, when golden boy fatigue sets in, the media will be happy to turn on its new toy.

LOL – turn the tables on Obama and he and his supporters STILL blame Hillary. This is so funny -
But at last someone in the media is brave enough to bring out a negative on obama. Hopefully, it won’t come back and hit him in the head by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton screaming that the author of the article is racist.
Thank you Jake Tapper.

In keeping with the Clinton family tradition of proudly accepting cash from the shadiest of sources, Hillary Clinton has raised more money from lobbyists than any other presidential candidate—Democrat or Republican.
The former First Lady took $823,097 from registered lobbyists and members of their firms last year, nearly double the amount of the second-biggest recipient (Republican presidential candidate John McCain) who accepted $416,321 from lobbyists in 2007.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Clinton’s incredibly strong rival for the Democratic nomination, doesn’t take cash from registered lobbyists but he did accept nearly $100,000 from employees of firms that do quite a bit of lobbying.
Clinton took the money even though she, along with other presidential candidates, vowed to quash special interests. In fact, during a debate last month the New York senator insisted that she won’t be swayed by her support from lobbyists, saying that she withstood the “full force of corporate lobbyists” while working on her disastrous universal health care plan in the 1990s.
In addition to accepting big bucks from the lobbyists themselves, huge sums are also bundled for Clinton which means the lobbyists raise money from other sources and bring it to her campaign. Not surprisingly, Clinton refuses to disclose which donations are brought in by lobbyist bundlers.
For the lobbyists the payback comes when their candidate wins because it practically guarantees access and influence after the victory. For example Heather Podesta, a Washington lobbyist who is the sister-in-law of Bill Clinton’s chief of staff (John Podesta), has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for Hillary Clinton and donated an additional $4,600 of her own money.
If the New York Senator moves into the White House again, she will certainly remember Heather Podesta and all the cash that the lobbyist injected into her campaign.
SOURCE: Judicial W

Hillary Clinton is coming under growing pressure to be more open about the sources of her family’s wealth after she revealed that she had been forced to loan her cash-strapped campaign $5 million.
Critics are claiming that her husband Bill Clinton’s lucrative financial dealings since leaving the White House may expose her campaign to conflicts of interest, and are calling for her to publish the full details of her earnings and assets.
Sen Clinton has made more than $9 million from her 2003 memoirs.
But the biggest earner in the family is the former president, who is finalising an estimated $20 million pay-out from a six-year stint as an investment fund advisor, and has raked in many millions more from consultancy deals, speeches and his writings.
The couple left the White House with $2 million in legal debts in 2001 but are now worth between $10 million and $50 million, according to her latest Senate financial disclosure filings, which allow candidates to list their assets in broad ranges.
Mrs Clinton can put half the funds held jointly with her husband towards her presidential bid under campaign finance laws.
By contrast, her rival Barack Obama emphasised last week that he released his annual tax returns, which break down earnings and assets in detail.
“I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from,” he said pointedly.
The Clinton campaign said that she would make her tax returns public if she won the nomination and that the Senate disclosures provided sufficient information about her finances.
Over the last six years, Mr Clinton has struck lucrative consultancy and advisory contracts with a playboy billionaire and done business with a Gulf emir.
He also courted figures ranging from a Central Asian autocrat to Arab sheikhs, as he built his charitable foundation and financed his glitzy presidential library in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In the process he has developed one of the world’s leading philanthropic organisations and made himself and his wife Hillary rich – just six years after they were so saddled in debts from investigations into the Whitewater land deal and Monica Lewinsky affair that they had to borrow money from Democratic fund-raising chief Terry McAuliffe to buy a home near New York.
The colourful cast of friends, donors and business partners accrued by Mr Clinton is now raising questions about potential conflicts of interest as the former First Lady aims to become the next Democratic president.
Mr Clinton has already started to disentangle himself from two high-profile deals.
Most notably, he is expected to receive about $20 million when he severs his ties with the Yucaipa investment funds headed by his friend Ron Burkle, a famously eligible bachelor who appears in the gossip columns as often as the business pages.
The Wall Street Journal reported that one of his partners in the global investment fund is an entity connected to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, also believed to be a major donor to the Clinton presidential library.
Mr Clinton’s ties to the sheikh have already put him at odds with political stances adopted by his wife.
Two years ago, she was outspoken in her denunciation of the Bush administration’s plan to sell control of six major US ports to Dubai Ports World, but it later emerged that her husband was advising the Arab emirate how to handle the furore.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Mr Clinton flew to Kazakhstan on the executive jet of Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and multi-million dollar backer of the Clinton Foundation who was also seeking a contract with the Kazakh government.
Mr Clinton was there to see the work of his Foundation on an Aids project, but also praised President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been widely criticised for human rights violations, for “opening up the social and political life of your country”.
Mr Giustra, who organised a lavish charity dinner for Mr Clinton’s 60th birthday, was subsequently awarded a lucrative uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan ahead of more experienced industry competitors.
Mr Clinton’s aides have denied that he influenced the deal or behaved improperly.
Mr Clinton has also resisted pressure to name donors to his presidential library.
But newspaper investigations have uncovered many foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia, and an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, The New York Times reported.
“The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat, who has introduced legislation requiring the disclosure of donors to presidential libraries.
Dick Morris, the former Clinton strategist who is now a fierce critic of the couple, recently accused Mrs Clinton of facing “a massive conflict of interest” for her family’s financial ties to Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
“The Clintons should be required to divulge the extent of their involvinvolvement with foreign interests and exactly how much money their personal bank accounts and their Library/Foundation have received,” he said.
SOURCE: Telegraph UK

….and then I read in the news today on another website that bush comes out and says— (months after the initial incident happened–after NOT saying anything about this until NOW)—-that “the noose displays are deeply offensive–they are wrong—they have no place in America today”—–now WHY didn’t he speak out about this when it happened months ago, and why didn’t he initially take the lead in condemning these acts? This is politically motivated, of course. The republicans want Obama to win the nomination so they can swiftboat him in the first week…….and it won’t be hard to do……

Thank you, Irma, for that wonderful post—–you said it much better than I could have…. : )

I almost forgot that Senator Obama is the candidate without all the incriminating political baggage of Senator Clinton.

I agree with andy’s comments: Sen. Clinton should divulge her tax returns and her funding sources so that the question about her finances is finally put to rest. But having said that, I also believe that Sen. Obama should reveal how he discovered that his trust wasn’t really blind to settle the matter once and for all. Transparency opf their finances should be something both candidates offer freely, not like a carrot on a stick.

How come on Clintons web site if you are an American living overseas and want to donate you have to fill out a form, submit a photo copy of your passport or green card to show you are an American.
On Obama’s site there does not seem to be any restriction in making a donation by anyone any where in the world. Mr. Obama’s Web site allows donors to choose an address in one of 227 possible countries or territories, including Iran, Iraq, Zimbabwe, and Yemen.
This is a bit surprising to me and strange seems like the Obama camp dont have a problem with where they get money from especially place like Iraq and Iran, no check and balances as to who contributes to this election it is also rather strange that the media let this one pass.