Bill Clinton Gave a Six-Figure Speech to a Controversial Vulture Fund as His Wife Ran for President

[Jester Messiah]

On May 12, 2015, the private equity firm Apollo Global Management announced that it was unloading the remainder of its stake in Noranda Aluminum. Apollo had gained control of the Tennessee-based company in a 2007 leveraged buyout and had subsequently followed a familiar playbook in the cutthroat world of corporate takeovers: It saddled Noranda with the debt it had used to buy the company and then extracted large dividends. As Noranda struggled to stay solvent, Apollo eventually cashed out of the firm. In early 2016, the debt-riddled aluminum company declared bankruptcy, shut down its largest smelting plant in Missouri, and laid off hundreds of employees.

That same day in 2015 that Apollo disposed of its stake in Noranda, Bill Clinton pocketed $250,000 for a speech to one of its subsidiaries, Apollo Management Holdings.

The Clinton family. Fighting for you. Oh, uh wait... nope, just fighting you.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/bill-clinton-gave-six-figure-speech-vulture-fund-apollo

[SFnomad]

1. The 16th can't get here soon enough n/t

[Jester Messiah]

2. Yes, all dissent must be silenced and punished, mustn't it?

Hail Hydra.

[SFnomad]

5. Nope, just crap OP after crap OP ... this place won't look like a right wing sewer much longer n/t

[Matt_in_STL]

12. Maybe if the Clintons stopped doing shady shit there wouldn't be these things to post?

Just a thought.

[SFnomad]

21. The right wingnuts always find something to post, even if they have to make it up n/t

[Matt_in_STL]

22. Damn FBI and State IG, making shit up.

[SFnomad]

23. Right wingnuts making shit up out of whenever the FBI or State IG posts n/t

[GRhodes]

33. Why are you posting in a thread

in which you admit you refuse to read the contents of the OP that started the thread?

[SFnomad]

34. So now you're stalking me from thread to thread ... buh bye

[GRhodes]

35. Good

get the hell out, bye. Defending him getting paid by fucking vulture funds. There's no bottom you people won't sink to, and you can't even be bothered to at least read the contents of the article that started this thread. Why post in the first place? I can't imagine supporting a candidate that leads me to defending stuff like this, then talking drivel about "free markets". When I first heard about this, I was shocked, but then again, I have a moral compass.

[SFnomad]

36. Man you BS cheerleaders sure are angry, bitter people that have a superiority complex n/t

[GRhodes]

37. I thought bye

I am angry at people like you, because you defend immoral things and provide cover for things any moral and progressive person should challenge. Anyone with a moral compass is superior to you. Bye.

[SFnomad]

38. And you people sink deeper and deeper into the sewer n/t

[GRhodes]

27. How would an article like this not get posted in 14 days?

The right wing thing isn't pointing how horrible it is that he did this, the right wing thing is what he did! How is this not clear to you? Why would you want to be shielded from this information? You should be challenging him on this, even if you support his wife. How utterly pathetic.

[Miles Archer]

43. So once again Mother Jones is right wing crap.

And Bill Clinton DID NOT pocket $250,000 for a speech to a vulture fund group.

Thanks for setting the record straight.

By the way...what is your source that proves this is right wing crap?

[GRhodes]

44. Brock headquarters

That's where all of their ideas emerge. It's a shitty idea factory.

[chascarrillo]

3. Posts hidden by Jury: 8

[SFnomad]

4. And you have 2 posts hidden by Jury ... n/t

[TheSarcastinator]

6. Camp Coward HATES Criticism

Shameful.

[SFnomad]

10. And Camp Loser would rather #BernDownTheHouse n/t

[Jester Messiah]

14. Nice Trump impression you got there. n/t

[SFnomad]

16. It was a reply to the "Camp Coward" crack ... of course, you don't care about that tRump impression

If you're going to dish it out, you better learn how to take it.

[GRhodes]

28. Can you comment on the contents of the OP?

It's relevant, it's important, it's something anyone even on the moderate left should have to address. You've gotten your evading and name calling out the way, we get it. Now, address the right wing thing that Bill Clinton did, pretend YOU are a progressive for arguments sake, and respond to what he did.

[SFnomad]

29. No, because I'm not going to have you try to tell me what I should be outraged over

That's so right wing.

What Bill Clinton did wasn't "right wing" .. no matter how you try to define it as such. He gave an address to a group and they paid him for it ... that's called the free market. Why do you hate it so much?

[GRhodes]

30. No...

pathetic and cowardly. Do you know what vulture funds are? Bill Clinton is insanely rich, doesn't really need any more money, but he still went and spoke to people that make money off of screwing over poor countries and governments, and they paid him lots to do so, while his wife is running for president. Stupid and arrogant.

Why the hell do you post on threads in which you don't even read the contents of the OP? You either are paid to post here or you have issues. If this site protects you from information like this, it's doing its party a disservice, and I don't think it will. The message that was given said they would allow actual critiques, and this would qualify as that.

"that's called the free market. Why do you hate it so much?"

If I was paid to dump poison in the water you drink, and you got cancer, would it be okay to criticize the "free market"? If I was paid to steal money from you, would it be okay to criticize the "free market"? I don't hate the "free market", since that term has an actual definition that has nothing to do with this, I hate people that provide cover for this, post on threads without reading the contents of the OP and make excuses for immoral things like this.

I'd ask you for a definition of right wing, but you don't know what you're talking about, and I'd only be asking so that others could see further evidence of that.

[SFnomad]

31. tl;dr ... buh bye

[reddread]

11. and it wont.

[raging moderate]

8. Saddling a company with the debt used to buy it and then extracting dividends should be illegal.

Is anybody working to make that illegal? Also, they should undo that nasty little change they did in which they stopped counting the employee pension fund (with all those required employee contributions in it) as a debt owed to the employees and started counting it as an asset to be awarded to the cutthroat takeover con artists.

[Bonobo]

9. Them's good people! Nt

[MineralMan]

13. Breaking: Former President gives speech a year ago.

[Scuba]

15. Breaking: Another example of Clinton corruption brought to light.

[Lil Missy]

17. Good for him.

[GRhodes]

32. Do you know what vulture funds are?

What the hell do you mean good for him? Explain why it's good, and not something that should be roundly condemned even by his wife's supporters.

Do you people realize that there's already a right wing party in the US? Isn't one of the two major parties enough?

[Lil Missy]

39. it was a speech, ffs. He makes a lot of $$$.

It's time to stop condemning everything Clinton and use that energy against Donald and the GOP.

[GRhodes]

40. This isn't condemning everything

Last edited Fri Jun 3, 2016, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

This is condemning him speaking to vulture funds and selling his damn soul for money. Your defense of him says a lot about you and what your party has become. Why also should you stop critiquing and pushing whoever gets elected? There aren't gods, they should all be challenged, and that would be the case if Sanders won. You're arguing to give the right a monopoly on pushing Clinton, which is nuts. There isn't anything different about you from a right wing Republican on ideological or moral grounds. I hope you aren't one of those people that says stuff like this but still pretends to be progressive. I also hope you don't know what vulture funds are and what they've done, and are just reflexively defending Clinton.

[Octafish]

18. It's supposed to Trickle Down.

Been waiting 35 years now.

[Jester Messiah]

19. I'm just gonna avoid the obvious joke there.

But I did laugh.

[NorthCarolina]

20. Money is money. To those that worship it, they will do whatever it takes to acquire it.

eom

[Dems to Win]

24. The Clintons want it all -- to get rich AND return to the White House

Such ugly greed.

[think]

25. That same day in 2015 that Apollo disposed of its stake in Noranda, Bill Clinton pocketed $250,000

Birds of a feather....

[trudyco]

41. Thanks for bringing this to light Jester

Vulture Capitalism is another legal loophole we need to close. To me, stocks and investments should be about investing in companies and not gambling. I don't know if we should rid ourselves of Hedge Funds that don't have an actual commodity associated with it (like you can't hedge on a hedge), derivatives, selling short and other means of basically gambling instead of investing. Maybe it's like temperance, it will just go underground, so we should tax the hell out of it. I think that's Bernie's thinking. But we should protect pension funds, and I think we should eliminate vulture capitalism - maybe every state has a state bank and the venture group has to get their debt from that bank. If the bank deems it disastrous to the company then they can chose not to lend the money. If a company spans multiple states then the venture capitalists have to convince each state bank to loan them a percentage based on the size of that company's presence in the state. That should slow down mergers and swallowing of big companies. The bigger they are, the more states they span, the harder to get the debt. And the money is kept in the local areas.

Similarly if a company wishes to move into a neighborhood and build it's big box, it needs to get the capital for that from loans from the state bank. The company may lure local politicians into giving sweet deals on tax breaks, but the bank may decide to loan the company money at one rate if they make good on their promises of cash flow and jobs into the state, and a higher rate if the company doesn't make good on their promises. If the bank makes a profit for the year it can give out higher interest to the savers who bank there. So the money is given back to the residents of the state.

I think we need to bring the exchange of money back to the local level. Just like we need to bring CEOs and executive staff back into sharing the same pain as the other employees of a company. Exact same retirement plan, exact same layoff plan, exact same insurance, if the company is public then the exact same stock plan - just with a higher multiplier to recognize the higher position.

The 1% have been walling themselves off from the rest of us. It's time to tear down those walls and make them realize what neighborhood they live and work in. It's really the same neighborhood as us.

[Cobalt Violet]

45. what a complete asshole!