GOP has only phony scandals to push

As we’ve discussed here before, the GOP has a history of trying to create phony scandals to win elections.  The GOP knows that if the election is about Trump, the GOP platform and the GOP’s bad record, they will lose – and lose badly.  That’s why they try to falsely convince voters that Hillary Clinton is some kind of crook.  The last thing the GOP wants is an election about the real issues facing the country.

 

Over the years, the Republicans have directed an inordinate amount of their wrath at Bill and Hillary Clinton.  The GOP will never forgive Bill for breaking what they believed to be their lock on the electoral college.  Before 1992, the GOP had won 5 out of the last 6 Presidential elections.  Moreover, the great economic successes of the first Clinton Administration further exacerbated the GOP’s already unhealthy hatred of the Clintons.

 

The Republicans are still incensed that Hillary Clinton wasn’t charged in conjunction with the phony email controversy. (Hillary has never been charged with anything after twenty four years of GOP scandal mongering.)   Everybody but the hard core Republican base have moved on and are “sick of hearing” about Hillary’s “damn emails.”  A recent Marist poll indicated that only 34% of the voters are still interested in this issue.

 

Now that the email controversy turned out to be a dry hole for the GOP, they have now shifted their focus to the Clinton Foundation.   Already, the GOP is making numerous false allegations about this successful charity.  I expect the bogus charges to escalate between now and November 8.  As Democrats we need to be ready to rebut them.

 

What Trump and the Republicans don’t tell you is that the Clinton Foundation is a model charity.  According to CharityWatch.org, the Clinton Foundation has an “A” rating.  Moreover, 88% of the donated funds are spent on good works and it only costs the Clinton Foundation $2.00 to raise $100.00.

 

The Clinton Foundation is also the most transparent of the Presidential charities.  The Clinton Foundation has released the names of all of its donors and the general amount of each donation.  In contrast, the foundations set up by George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush lack a policy of full disclosure for it’s donors.  A contributor to one of the Bush foundations who wishes to remain anonymous is allowed to do so.

 

We can thank the Clinton Foundation for saving and improving the lives of millions of people every year.  The Clinton Foundation’s accomplishments are many and can be found on its website: “Because of our work, more than 31,000 American schools are providing kids with healthy food choices in an effort to eradicate childhood obesity; more than 105,000 farmers in Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania are benefiting from climate-smart agronomic training, higher yields, and increased market access; more than 33,500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced annually across the United States; over 450,000 people have been impacted through market opportunities created by social enterprises in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia; through the independent Clinton Health Access Initiative, over 11.5 million people in more than 70 countries have access to CHAI-negotiated prices for HIV/AIDS medications; an estimated 85 million people in the U.S. will be reached through strategic health partnerships developed across industry sectors at both the local and national level; and members of the Clinton Global Initiative community have made more than 3,500 Commitments to Action, which have improved the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries.”

 

The radical right has tried to falsely disparage the undisputed accomplishments of the Clinton Foundation by alleging it is a phony charity that is functioning as some kind of pay to play scheme.  The most widely publicized allegations involve the sale of a controlling stake in a Canadian company named Uranium One to the Russian atomic energy agency.  These allegations can be found in a book riddled with inaccuracies that was written by Peter Schweizer – a long time Clinton hater.

 

Schweizer has alleged that Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State unilaterally authorized this transaction.  That charge is patently false since State was one of nine federal agencies that was required to approve this deal.  Moreover, the State Department individual who actually acted on this deal has said that Hillary Clinton “never intervened with me” on the matter.  Peter Schweizer himself has admitted that he has no evidence proving that Mrs. Clinton had anything to do with it.

 

The most recent “revelations” surrounding the Clinton Foundation are every bit as specious as the ones regarding the uranium transaction.  Last week, the media breathlessly reported that a Clinton Foundation executive had recommended that the State Department consider hiring a young man who worked on Clinton’s 2008 campaign and served in Haiti after the devastating 2009 earthquake in that country.  As it turned out, this recommendation was never acted on.

 

The other “revelation” discussed was a request from a wealthy donor of Lebanese descent who wanted to discuss his perspective on Lebanon with the appropriate State Department officials.  This donor stood to gain nothing financially from this request and as it turned out, it was never acted on.  In addition, the donor never followed up on this ignored request.

 

Since 1992, the Republicans have tried to create a false narrative of scandal surrounding the Clintons and President Obama.  We’ve heard all about Whitewater, FBI files, Rose law firm files, Vince Foster, the IRS controversy, Benghazi, the Clinton email controversy and the Clinton Foundation.  In every instance, the mainstream media initially gave credence to these false allegations being pushed out by the right wing.   And on every occasion, nobody was ever charged with anything and after a decent interval, the allegations were only considered to be legitimate in the fever swamps of the far right.

 

As Democrats, we need to be well informed and in a position to knock down these phony allegations.  The Republicans know that their backs are to the wall and that they are facing political oblivion this year.   We need to beat – and beat badly – Trump and the Republicans this year.  If we are successful, we could win control of the White House and the Congress in 2016.  We could very well be on the verge of an era of Progressive reform similar to what we saw during the FDR and Obama Administrations.  We need to work hard to make this a reality.  Let’s do it!

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