Bono incensed as Hillary plays politics at U2 gig

[emad]

By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 16/10/2005)

The Irish rock star, Bono, has been angered by Senator Hillary Clinton's use of a U2 concert this week to raise funds for her political campaign coffers - even though he is a good friend of her husband, Bill.

"U2 concerts are categorically not fund-raisers for any politician. They are rock concerts for U2 fans," said his close associate, Jamie Drummond, who runs Data, the Third World advocacy group set up by Bono with Sir Bob Geldof.

"If any political fund-raising events take place at a U2 concert, it is without the involvement or knowledge of Data, U2 or Bono."

Mrs Clinton, the frontrunner to be the Democrat candidate for the White House in 2008, is charging 18 guests $2,500 (£1,400) a head to join her in a luxury box for the sold out show in Washington on Wednesday. Despite U2's public criticism, she is pressing on with the fund-raiser, which will bring in $45,000 for an outlay of about $7,000 on the box, and her staff are unapologetic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/16/wbono16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/16/ixworld.html

[JI7]

1. this is from a right wing source

looks like an attempt to distract from Santorum's lie that U2 was supporting him.

in fact it seems like rather than report the truth that their problem was with Santorum they are making it into Hillary.

i think the quotes are in response to what Santorum was doing.

[shance]

4. You might be right, but who's the right winged source?

n/t

[JI7]

6. i'm talking about the website

the telegraph is right wing.

[Leilani]

16. Try reading the entire article...

Santorum is also discussed.

[Pepperbelly]

22. actually...

I did and saw absolutely nothing in quotations referring to Hillary. Did you?

[henslee]

2. After Arnie took flack for charging folks to hang in his box during Stones

show, how could Hillary miss this PR collision?

[opihimoimoi]

3. Bono is not paying attention...its not him, its HER..he is the artist

[RoBear]

5. So now he wants control of who uses the tickets?

[leesa]

7. Good for him. Cut the Corporate Clinton's off at the pass.

DON'T want this woman in the White House or it will be business as usual.

[AntiCoup2K4]

8. Bono has every right to be pissed

First, ticket scalping is a crime, so the fact that corporations and now politicians do so now so openly should be enough to piss off any artist. It certainly pisses off the fans who can't get a decent seat, even if they're first in line at the ticket outlet.

And Hillary copying the tactics of Man On Dog is just another flaming example of what's wrong with the DLC.

[MrSlayer]

9. Scumbag Santorum is doing the same thing here.

If I was Bono I'd take the opportunity to rip him from the stage.

[AntiCoup2K4]

10. Yep. It's time to bring back the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" extended rant.

..only instead of blasting the IRA and Reagan and whomever else from the 80's, he can go off on politicians scalping concert tickets.

"Where's the glory in takin' good concert tickets from our fans and selling them to political hacks for obscene prices?? Where's the glory in that? FUCK fundraisers!!"

[WA98296]

11. "frontrunner" Well, there's another press example, selecting our candidate

"Mrs Clinton, the frontrunner to be the Democrat candidate for the White House in 2008."

Exactly how do they think that? Certainly not the choice of the majority of dems on this board and others I frequent. However, the press (controlled by repubs) gets to decide on who will run...just watch.

[karynnj]

14. She is the overwhelming favorite in real polls

But Al Gore, then Liberman were leading by similar amounts ... and we all saw how Lieberman did in the primaries (Kerry polled below Sharpton at one point).

The media and many (Bill Clinton) Democrats back her. She is staying pretty quiet - which like it or not - might be the best poll driven strategy.

[AntiCoup2K4]

17. "Real polls?" What are those, exactly?

What seperates a "real" poll from a fake poll anymore? Gallup polls used to be the standard by which all others were mentioned, but they are now another branch of the Whore media. What polls are "real" anymore?

[karynnj]

19. What I am meaning is one that at least purports

to have a valid statistical sampling methodology. Although these polls can have design flaws. The design is often documented. The polls I am critising are any polls where a question is given and all respondents who care to answer are tabulated.

Years ago, one of the most respected statisticians at AT&T was asked to comment on the accurary of the company's then new business offering which provided 2 800 numbers that a company could use to get a "yes/no" vote - for a question on TV. The answer was there was no way it could be deemed scientifically valid and the marketeers couldn't get him to say otherwise.

Posting a poll on DU or Daily KOS, first of all reachs only a small self selected group of people. Second, nothing prevents people from having more than one id (except sanity). Third, only a small number of people even bother.

[high density]

23. It's called name recognition

And it's October 2005 for crying out loud.

[IndianaGreen]

12. The corruption of the Big Female Dog

will make the corruption of Big Dog seem tame by comparison.

Although both Dogs will be hard-pressed to match the corruption of His Holiness Tom DeLay, this is not enough reason to endorse Big Female Dog's presidential ambitions.

[karynnj]

13. Bono praised Kerry from the stage earlier this month and gave him a guitar

So that may indicate the politician he respects most. (From stage he credited Kerry as being the Washington politician to first demand action on Aids in Africa.

(scroll town to about town) - Let's see if Hillary or Santorum get guitars or anything else.

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2005/10/13/logan_radar_woes_cause_bumpy_rides/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Living+/+Arts+News

[Zen Democrat]

15. Man, what a bait and switch!

LOTS of people for various reasons buy boxes to events or concerts and sell them for big bucks for charity or social/political causes. That's not new. Hillary's doing it, too. So what? Hillary's not the one who blasted out to the press that she was teaming with U2 for a political fundraiser ... that was Rick Santorum's group and it made a big splash last week after being reported as such by NewsMax. CNN was snookered into reporting that Bono was doing a concert for the Santorum campaign. That very day the DATA organization issued the denial. It was directed to Santorum and not the Hillary Clinton.

Just another day at the office for the right-wing spin machine.

[Neil Lisst]

18. Hil-lar-y, Bloody Hillary! Hi-lar-ry, Bloody Hillary!

How long, how long must I sing this song?
How long, how lonnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg?

[Cocoa]

20. there's no "anger" and there's even no "Bono" in this story

the quotes provided by the story don't support in any way the claim that Bono or anyone else had any emotional reaction to, or even knowledge of, whatever Hillary did.

[omega minimo]

21. Hillary's a scalper?

:shrug:

I hope Bono tells em to "rat-tle yer jewelry."

:bounce:

[gulfcoastliberal]

24. Maybe Saudi Citigroup owners - source of her largest crooked campaign $$$

Those are her biggest campaign contributors, after all. Look at her top contributors on opensecrets.org:

2006:

1 Citigroup Inc $110,470
2 Metropolitan Life $85,000

2004:

1 Citigroup Inc $190,150
2 Goldman Sachs $137,170

Much of Citigroups shares are owned and controlled by the Saudi royal family. And Citigroup is one disgusting, crooked, and criminal corporation; they have had to pay billions after being sued for their complicity in the Enron and Worldcom crimes. They support terrorism. Hillary should return that tainted money. Maybe this is why the Clintons and Bushes are such good buddies; they are both "good friends" of the Saudi royals and their $$$? Personally, I don't want another good friend of the Saudis in the White House.

Terror Inc.
Robert Lenzner and Nathan Vardi, 10.18.04

A tale of suicide bombers, Saudi princes, cash payments to terrorist groups--and how Citigroup got caught up in all of it.
On America's war on terror, cutting off the financial flow to the bad guys is a key goal. But it is a particularly elusive one. Even when a patriotic U.S. bank spots something suspicious, it may be hard-pressed to do much about it.

And so it is that Citigroup, the world's largest financial institution, finds itself confronting the fact that a bank it partly owned and managed in Saudi Arabia may have funneled thousands of dollars to terror groups and to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers--at the behest of the Saudi royal family.

The allegations involve Saudi American Bank, also known as Samba, the Riyadh-based affiliate in which Citi had a 20% stake. In late 2002 Samba was added as a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by relatives of Sept. 11 victims against prominent Saudis and charities to which they appeared to be connected.

The suit, prosecuted by Washington, D.C. lawyer Allan Gerson, among others, alleges that Samba "participated in the fundraising campaign in Saudi Arabia for collecting donations to the heroes" of the Palestinian uprising. Samba has filed a motion to dismiss.

http://www.forbes.com/business/global/2004/1018/016.html

Citigroup Defendants To Pay $2.65 Billion In Settlement Of All Claims Against Them In Worldcom Securities Class Action
Largest Settlement Ever From A Third Party
Suit To Continue Against Other Defendants

The Citigroup Defendants in the WorldCom securities class action have agreed to pay a total of $2.65 billion to settle all claims asserted against them in that action, Alan G. Hevesi, New York State Comptroller and sole Trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund and Court-appointed Lead Plaintiff, announced today. This is the second largest settlement in securities class action history, and represents the largest amount ever recovered in a securities class action from a party other than the company that issued the subject securities.

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/may04/051004.htm

Citigroup pays $2bn to settle Enron case

Citigroup has agreed to pay $2bn (£1.1bn) to settle a lawsuit brought by investors in Enron, by far the largest payout stemming from the collapse of the energy firm amid a huge accounting fraud in 2001.

Charles Prince, chief executive of Citigroup, said the settlement was helping to "put a difficult chapter in our history behind us".

Citigroup has been at the centre of the some of the biggest financial scandals of the past few years which battered confidence in corporate America and Wall Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,1504278,00.html

Is this who we want running in 2008?