That Florida Big Sugar Money sure is sweet for Hillary Clinton---hope it makes tonight's debate.

[seafan]

And she and Bullhorn Bill certainly love them some Sugar.


Calendars show Clinton made time at State for supporters, November 30, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton opened her office to dozens of influential Democratic party fundraisers, former Clinton administration and campaign loyalists, and corporate donors to her family's global charity, according to State Department calendars obtained by The Associated Press.

The woman who would become a 2016 presidential candidate met or spoke by phone with nearly 100 corporate executives, Clinton charity donors and political supporters during her four years at the State Department between 2009 and 2013, records show. Many of those meetings and calls, formally scheduled by her aides, involved heads of companies and organizations that were pursuing business or private interests with the Obama administration at the time, including with the State Department while Clinton was in charge.

In addition, at least 60 of those who met with Clinton have donated or pledged program commitments to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. A dozen have been among Hillary Clinton's most reliable political fundraisers, bundling more than $100,000 in donations during her failed 2008 presidential campaign or providing larger amounts to Clinton-allied super political action committees this time. And at least six entities represented in the meetings paid former President Bill Clinton lucrative fees for speeches.

.....

But the difference with Clinton's meetings was that she was a 2008 presidential contender who was widely expected to try again in 2016. Her availability to luminaries from politics, business and charity shows the extent to which her office became a sounding board for their interests. And her ties with so many familiar faces from those intersecting worlds were complicated by their lucrative financial largess and political support over the years — even during her State Department tenure — for her campaigns and her husband's, and for her family's foundation.

.....

The calendars offer hour-by-hour depictions of Clinton's hectic diplomatic schedule in Washington and her foreign tours crammed with meetings with dignitaries. Even so, she found time to meet CEOs, loyalists and donors.

"It shows Hillary Clinton marrying her political interests with the business and policy interests of powerful people," said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. "These are the people you cultivate to lay the groundwork for running for president."

.....

Another was Alfonso Fanjul, one of four brothers who run a Florida-based sugar and real estate conglomerate and are politically active in the state's Cuban-American community.

Fanjul, whose family subsidiaries include Domino Sugar and Florida Crystals, was a Florida co-chairman for Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992, supported Hillary Clinton's 2008 run and has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Florida Crystals spent $1 million lobbying the Obama administration in 2011 and nearly that amount in 2009, 2010 and 2012 on issues related to sugar and its use as a biofuel.

Fanjul met Hillary Clinton for a half hour in October 2009. Gaston Cantens, a spokesman for the firm, said Fanjul sought the 2009 meeting because he was having "customs issues coming in and out of the country and wanted help." Cantens said Fanjul's entry and exit problems eased.

Clinton met Fanjul again at a 10-minute "pull-aside" during a Brookings Institution luncheon in June 2012. The event honored Saban and his wife, Cheryl, who both bundled donations to Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign and whose family foundation has donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.

..... link

Wonder how that multi-pronged FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation/Clinton Global Initiative is going, examining how she used her power as Secretary of State....

Funny, she's not mentioning it on the campaign trail.

[rgoop]

1. Trump will use it against her in November

[CorkySt.Clair]

7. Who cares

Spoiler alert: they're going to say and use a lot of things against each other in the general.

[Mufaddal]

2. Hillary Clinton in a Sugar Paradise

[nashville_brook]

3. interesting -- wonder if this comes up at the debate

or on the blogs or anywhere in FL media this week.

[seafan]

4. 'Democratic Ties To Big Sugar Make Sticky Business ...'

EyeOnMiami has been documenting for years, the poisonous relationship between Big Sugar and the grave health of our waterways in Florida.

The gargantuan sugar subsidy that Big Sugar demands from Congress is the epitome of Corporate Welfare.

Floridians have had ENOUGH of Big Sugar's toxic morass and the slimy politicians who keep that taxpayer money flowing to their friends, who then turn around and give mega contributions back to their political campaigns. It all just makes you sick.


Alfie Fanjul and the Clintons: friends through thick and thin (via EyeOnMiami)


Here is a clip from EyeOnMiami's stellar work on this:

As the Democratic Primary debate rolls into Miami, this evening, moderators ought to ask the question of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders: do you support the sugar subsidy in the Farm Bill? It is like the question recently asked of the Democratic candidates about fracking: yes or no?

Floridians are sick and tired of paying the heavy costs of the industry's pollution, now coating both Florida coasts. There are no secrets about Big Sugar's influence-peddling in both political parties.

In 2014, the Tampa Bay Times reported on secret trips offered to only GOP elected officials including Gov. Rick Scott and Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam by US Sugar Corporation to the King Ranch in Texas. The King Ranch, that state's largest land owners, are strategic land owners in the Everglades Agricultural Area.

US Sugar Corporation thought nothing of ferrying legislators by private jet to secret meetings with Republicans because the Fanjuls -- their co-cartel "competitors" -- have been doing the same for many, many years at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic. The relationship between the Clintons and the Fanjuls is not exactly news.

The ultimate solution to stopping the endemic pollution of both Florida coasts, affecting millions of property owners and businesses dependent on tourism, is to take lands out of sugar production in the Everglades Agricultural Area and convert those money pits into massive pollution cleansing marshes.

A more pointed question to ask of the Democratic candidates in tonight's televised debate: "Big Sugar is the symbol of corporate welfare in the U.S. The industry controls Tallahassee and Washington, DC through massive campaign contributions. Have you ever accepted free travel or trips to the Dominican Republic from sugar billionaires? Yes or no."

.....

Big Sugar's pollution of national politics runs deep and strong through both political parties. One Fanjul brother, Pepito, takes the Republicans. The other, Alfie, takes the Democrats. It's all about making billions and the maximum profit possible by spreading campaign cash like fertilizer across America's political landscape. Owning a hide-away resort in the Dominican Republic doesn't hurt, either.

Let's see if CNN and Univision can bring that point closer to home, tonite.

(emphasis added)


Yes, we will see. One of these candidates is very vulnerable on this issue.

[nashville_brook]

5. nice! thanks for the links :)

[seafan]

6. You're welcome nashville_brook. She's even 'sweeter' than we know.

Add PepsiCo, SlimFast, CocaCola to the mix.


Using her unique position as Secretary of State to facilitate deals, favors and financial benefits for herself and her family is what the FBI is investigating right now:

Among those she met with or spoke with by phone were chief executives such as General Electric Co.'s Jeff Immelt, PepsiCo Inc.'s Indra Nooyi, FedEx Corp.'s Fred Smith, former Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack and former Citigroup Inc. chairman Sanford Weill. There were also billionaires: investors George Soros and Warren Buffett and diet pioneer S. Daniel Abraham. Major Democratic Party fundraisers included entertainment magnate Haim Saban, real estate developer Stephen J. Cloobeck and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.

.....

Clinton favored a select group of visitors — at least two dozen — for repeated meetings. Abraham, the billionaire behind SlimFast diet products and chairman of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, met with Clinton at least three times and was slated to meet her three other times, according to her calendars and schedules. Clinton's calendars showed they met at her office in May 2009 and October 2010. Clinton also spoke at an Abraham Center event in April 2010.

Abraham has given $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and donated $1.2 million in 2012 to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Clinton in 2016. Abraham told the AP that he assumed that he and Clinton discussed Mideast policy during their contacts.

.....

Long-standing ties, these are.



FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2006 file photo, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is greeted by S. Daniel Abraham, benefactor of a chair in Middle Eastern studies, at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. As secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton opened her office to dozens of influential Democratic party fundraisers, former Clinton administration and campaign loyalists and corporate donors, including Abraham, to her family’s global charity, according to State Department calendars obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Photo/ Jose F. Moreno, File)


Wonder if she'd already decided to run for president then, as she embraced billionaire Abraham...


More:

PepsiCo CEO Nooyi also had at least three scheduled contacts with Clinton. In February 2010, Nooyi and GE's Immelt met Clinton as part of the State Department's efforts to secure corporate money for an American pavilion in China's Shanghai Expo in May of that year.

PepsiCo spent $6.8 million in 2010 on government lobbying. Nooyi talked twice with Clinton by phone in 2012, a year when PepsiCo spent $3.3 million on lobbying Congress and federal agencies, including State Department officials, on issues such as trade pacts and Russia legislation.

PepsiCo spokesman Jon Banner declined to discuss conversations or meetings the firm's senior leaders may have had. A top executive with PepsiCo's main rival, Coca-Cola, which donated $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, also discussed the Shanghai event with Clinton in a 2009 conference call along with executives from PepsiCo and several other firms.

Nooyi is not a prominent Clinton political supporter, but PepsiCo has been active with the Clinton Foundation. PepsiCo's foundation pledged in 2008 to provide $7.6 million in grants to two water firms as a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. The Clinton charity also listed a PepsiCo Foundation donation of more than $100,000 in 2014, the same year the soda company's foundation announced a partnership under the charity to spur economic and social development in emerging nations.

.....

This kind of information is so damaging to her credibility. We saw that last night in Michigan.


Voters deserve to know the truth when she asks for our votes.