Suit Cites Plane Trips for Clintons

[bobthedrummer]

Source: AP via Guardian Unlimited

A longtime Clinton benefactor used corporate jets to fly the former president and Hillary Rodham Clinton on business, personal and campaign trips that a lawsuit brands as wasteful company spending.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6663030,00.html

[Demeter]

1. It Will Interesting to See If This Gets Farther Than The Washington Post

[bobthedrummer]

4. What is most interesting is researching the backgrounds of all of these venture capitalists

and their professional and social networks.

I'm looking at who is in the Dolphin camp currently-then that leads to Genesis Capital, AT&T and a lot of so called "boutique" investment groups down in Georgia, Texas and other places.

I'll post what I can dig up later.

[jody]

2. "'All flights were reimbursed and disclosed in accordance with the prevailing FEC (Federal Election

Commission) and Senate ethics rules,' said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign" the article said.

[Straight Shooter]

3. Unlike bush's "freebie" trips on Enron corporate jets. *cough* Kenny Boy who? n/t

[bobthedrummer]

6. Kenny boy flew Taliban "leaders" to Texas in 1998 to "discuss" an oil pipeline.

[Miss Chybil]

5. Amazing how that was left out of the OP. nt

[papau]

7. How the heck is a suit filed a year ago "late breaking news" - you can sue anyone for anything in

the US - and the fact the Guardian decided to rehash the story does not make it "late breaking news".

[w4rma]

8. This article is from the AP wire, not the Guardian. (nt)

[papau]

10. below is the AP link - the AP wire has it as "political" news - not in "breaking" - indeed it was

never in "breaking news" - at least at the AP it was never put in that category.

I guess the DU breaking news forum is appropriate as it was a "new" story by the AP today

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLINTONS_CONTRIBUTOR?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=

[w4rma]

13. DU Latest Breaking News comes from any source as long as they were written in the past 24 hours.(nt)

[bobthedrummer]

14. Yep.

[NYC]

9. Suit Sheds Light on Clintons’ Ties to a Benefactor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Today's Times had a similar article.

...The disclosure of the trips and the consulting fees is just a small part of a broader complaint about the way Mr. Gupta has managed his company. But for the former president, and for the senator who would become president, it offers significant new details about their relationship with an unusually generous benefactor whose business practices have lately come under scrutiny.

In addition to the shareholder accusations, The New York Times reported last Sunday that an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised call lists with titles like “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” or “Suffering Seniors,” a compilation of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. The company called the episodes an aberration and pledged that it would not happen again.

Asked to describe Mr. Clinton’s consulting services, an infoUSA official said they were limited to making appearances at one or two company events each year. Jay Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, would not elaborate on what the former president does for infoUSA, but said that he shared the public’s concern about misuse of personal information...

Aides to Mrs. Clinton were at pains to distance her from infoUSA, pointing out that she had sponsored legislation that would strengthen privacy rights of consumers. As for the flights on infoUSA’s plane, Phil Singer, Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, said the senator “complied with all the relevant ethics rules” on accepting private air travel...

The International Herald Tribune had an article on May 22nd and another today.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/26/america/NA-GEN-US-Clintons-Contributor.php

Longtime Indian-born benefactor embroiled in suit that cites his plane trips for the Clintons

From the May 22nd article:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/22/technology/tele.php

2 companies pledge to avoid telemarketing criminals

...InfoUSA was singled out Monday by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, as deserving scrutiny.

"Senator Obama has serious concerns that InfoUSA perpetuated a fraud on seniors, and he has contacted the appropriate executive agency to ensure that consumer protection laws are being vigorously enforced and seniors are protected from telemarketing schemes," said Ben LaBolt, a spokesman...

[papau]

11. LOL - 5/22 &5/26 in the International Herald Trib. and today in the NYT - I expect to see

this year old court suit article every week for the next 18 months.

I think we can safely say the the media is trying to take Hillary down. Indeed that story line fits the news blackout of any coverage of her rather excellent health care cost savings plan this week.

And that leads to the question - who do they want. My best guess is that media has settled on Obama. Which leads to the question - why Obama.

So many things to sleep on tonight.

[bobthedrummer]

12. Well a couple of things are clear about this Guardian article

in that it reflects the ongoing perception management campaigns of Senators Clinton and Obama.

Phil Singer is working for Clinton, he did opposition research for John Kerry in 2004, Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, also did work in 2004 for the Kerry campaign-Mr. Gibbs was part of the group that produced the ad featuring alternating shots of Osama bin Laden and Howard Dean.

The MSM emphasis is on money raised by these Presidential contenders-$$$ which has trumped everything else and so every campaign is making assertions about rivals.

This is while the criminal administration of the Decider and its murderous "policies" continue despite the general knowledge of the corruption, the "resignations", refusals to comply with requests and subpoenas and other tactics and techniques of the shadow government that has harmed all of US and the world.

This behavior continues because the new Congressional leadership has stated that impeachment is off the table and so many of them are involved in power struggles and Presidential campaigns.

Mr. Gupta and infoUSA (Nebraska based yet much of it outsourced) is being sued by the Dolphin group-all of these privateers suck and should be held accountable for crimes and their assets seized imho and this emphasis on campaigning and $$$ while the worst administration in US history is destroying, by design, whatever its extreme criminal ideologues deems an enemy is beyond my (and many other citizens) understanding.

The priorities should be on removing this criminal administration ASAP and restoring what can be salvaged under our Constitution, which is US-not a "piece of paper".