5 Points On The Conservative Author Dishing Clinton Dirt To NYT and Fox News
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Here are some details, some lesser known, about the author of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”
1. He's A Self-Styled Conservative Corruption-Buster
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2. He Had To Retract An Allegation Against A U.S. Senator
His 2011 book wasn't an entirely clean shot. In fact, Schweizer later had to acknowledge and retract a substantial allegation against Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Schweizer had suggested that Whitehouse gained inside trading info from top executive branch officials during a private session amid the 2007 financial crisis before going on to sell a mass of stock just before its value plummeted.
But an article in the The Providence Journal, flagged by Media Matters on Monday, fisked Schweizer's account and revealed that Whitehouse been absent from the committee that met with the officials. What's more, Schweizer failed to report on publicly available information that could have informed Whitehouse on when to sell is stock.
Schweizer later said he had misfired and would not have taken a swipe at Whitehouse if he had had the facts right.
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3. He Once Warned That Disney Is Turning America Gay
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In passages of the book reviewed by TPM, Schweizer argued that Disney World had become ground-zero for gay infiltration. Among the betrayals of Mickey Mouse, and traditional America, were rampant "gay activism," cases of gay employees receiving health benefits, and park performers dressing in drag. He also included an appendix titled, "Disney's Pedophile Problem."
An excerpt, describing one "cross dressing Minnie Mouse":
Schweizer wrote with some urgency about the "gay subculture that is today blossoming at Disney."
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4. He Also Co-Wrote A Book About Iranian Terror And Nukes
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5. His Institute Is Funded By The Kochs And Company
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From Crooks and Liars:
Of the total $2.2 million received in 2012, $2 million came from the Franklin Center, the Koch-funded "watchdog" organization. Perhaps coincidentally, the Franklin Center also received a $2 million contribution in 2012 from Donors' Capital, the sister organization to Donors' Trust.
Next is the Mercer Family Foundation, headed up by the eponymous hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer. As Crooks and Liars noted, Mercer's main targets are usually congressmen trying to roll back the power of Wall Street. Mother Jones reported that Mercer is currently the top bankroller for Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) presidential campaign.
Full article
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/peter-schweizer-clinton-cash-5-points
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And why, pray tell, would the Koch brothers not LOVE Hillary? Uh?
I wish the left media would have responded in the same way against the 2011 book. It was not just Whitehouse who was slimed based on no real information. It was - the entire Congress - and 60 minutes helped. It was easy pickings because the idea that politicians benefit from their tenure is common wisdom on both sides. (Not to mention, things like Dodd's insider Countrywide loan and the revolving door of legislators becoming lobbyists, really DO happen. The end result was that many do give Sweitzer credit for legislation passed that "stopped" this.
I suspect that the Clinton book does the same thing that that book does. To take two things that happened and claim that there was a causal relationship. I read the accusations against a few Democrats, who I trusted. In general, the attacks were things like: In 2003 when designing the Medicare Drug bill (forget that that was done by the Republicans who controlled both House and the Bush administration) or in 2009 when designing ACA, they bought healthcare stocks based on the insider information they had. (because, of course, no one outside Congress could have known these bills were being worked on. and they knew what the final form (and the passage itself) would be. ) Then they sold for a profit in 2004 or 2010.
I assume no one needs a link to the DJIA to understand that almost everything bought in 2009 would have gone up by 2010. (2004 was less dramatic, but Bush did everything he could to lift the market in 2004 including actions by the SEC chief that allowed the big banks to engage in much more speculation.) However, in his book - a purchase of a healthcare stock in 2009 and and a sale with a gain in 2010 was due to insider trading!
His book then included some Republicans, already identified as corrupt, and many Democrats who were never seriously considered ethically challenged. So, the hit was on the ENTIRE CONGRESS - something the Palin type Republicans are happy with.
However, beyond 60 minutes, there was a rush of legislators on both sides in both houses to introduce legislation (similar to legislation that Louise Slaughter worked on - with little support - for years.) At the SOTU, Obama himself made it a priority for Congress to pass a bil on this that he could sign.
At this point, many things could happen with the media. The media could abdicate any role it might have assumed in the past and just report the accusations - and when disproved, print another set of them. ( Consider they did this in 2004 even when the official Navy record backed John Kerry 100% - it was never the SBVT story vs Kerry's - it was the SBVT against the official Navy record.)
In 2008, it was clear that being able to point to Corsi's past helped prevent his anti-Obama nonsense from gaining any traction. (It also might have been that none of the charges really fit any preconceived bias. Where in 2004, the "American patriots" could not fathom that a member of one of some of the oldest East coast elite families, a Massachusetts liberal at that, could really have been a genuine war hero - no matter what the Navy said. So, they had to believe that somehow at 26 he tricked the Navy into giving him medals because otherwise their heads would explode.)
One thing that is reassuring about this article is that it signals that the Democratic leaning media/blogs etc will point out both the partisan nature of the writer and his past "errors" and will actively counter any story as it begins to gain ground.
It will be interesting to see if these charges which clearly overreach the facts might even immunize Clinton against any real negatives that are exposed that could be seen as in the same vein as the charges that will almost certainly be discredited. (ie clearly the Clinton Foundation has at minimum been plagued by poor management of their public documentation and the Obama/Clinton agreement may not have operated in practice as the Senate and public expected it to. Note neither are illegal.)
The scariest possibility is that the real negatives being proven could feed the "where there is smoke" logic AND be added to any 1990s negatives not completely disproved to create an image of near corruption. The sad thing is the Clinton reaction of building walls of secrecy actually could further that view - even when there is nothing of substance behind it. (ie consider the SD will do a ton of work to allow ALL 55000 pages of email to be available on line AND I will bet that within minutes, before anyone could even look at a small portion of it, the right will be claiming that it proves nothing - because it was her team that sorted out what they gave the SD. They don't even need to say what could have been hidden! )
