Since we all want TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABLITY IN OUR LEADERS, WHY NO TAX RETURNS FOR CLINTON?

[mod mom]

I'm just wondering why Clinton supporters think there should be a double standard in accountability. Are they afraid of something?

No Disclosure: Presidential Candidates Defy Tradition, Refuse to Release Taxes
Since Watergate, Only Clinton Refused to Release Income Information

-snip
Tax Release Common Post-Watergate

The release of candidates' tax forms has become common practice in presidential campaigns since the Watergate era of the early '70s.

Since 1984, only one major-party presidential candidate -- Bill Clinton in 1992 -- has refused to release the tax forms he sent to the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1996, Clinton did release his forms, and Republican nominee Bob Dole released his tax returns going back 30 years.

-snip
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3165953

[HereSince1628]

1. All those blue collar dems would be unhappy to see that politicians

leverage themselves into millionaires based on the power and connections to power that they forge during their life times of experience in service to America.

I expect there is nothing illegal about any of this. It's all a matter of perception.

[jakem]

9. LOL. 'service to America"

makes one weep.

[panader0]

2. Hillary better lay off the Rezko bizness

She has a multitude of skeletons in her closet. If Obama decides to take the gloves off, she's in deep do-do.

[babylonsister]

3. Because she thinks she's special and rules don't apply?

:shrug:

Gawd, who does that sound like?

[lumpy]

4. Candidates are not required to release their tax records and

most of the presidential candidates have not done so. Clinton says she will release hers if she is nominated for the presidency.

[Justitia]

13. BULLSHIT! She is the ONLY candidate who has NOT released her returns. Get your shit straight. -nt

[mod mom]

18. "The release of candidates' tax forms has become common practice in presidential campaigns since the

Watergate Era"

[blm]

5. What does the US have to fear from old BCCI money ending up in Clintons' bank accounts

Really? How have Jackson Stephens, GHWBush, Dubai and Saudi royals, Bin Ladens, AQ Khan, Adnan Khashoggi, Marc Rich, James Bath, and their BCCI dealings ever hurt anyone in this country?

Why shouldn't any of that money have landed in Clintons' bank accounts?

[mod mom]

8. Wouldn't you think supporters would want to do a little research into these connections?

Ask Hillary About This Tonight. I Dare You.
by Zwoof

Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 03:40:46 AM PST


Instead of duplicating the diary, I have added some new developments, and data. While I was writing the original piece on the history of this foul project, a new ruling from the Ohio EPAallowed this incinerator, located 1,100 feet from an elementary school, to accept even more hazardous waste (anthrax, radioactive waste, infectious medical waste and mixed hazardous waste from Hurricane Katrina) than the original permit that was shrouded in corruption and approved by the Clinton Administration
Clinton and Al Gore promised the residents of East Liverpool, Ohio that they would not allow this incinerator originally approved by Bush '41 to operate. However, a Clinton EPA appointee, recommended by his classmate Hillary Clinton, approved the permit.
This is a tangled tale of corporatism, broken promises and an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
It's long, so hang with me below the fold.
.
Zwoof's diary :: ::
Background on East Liverpool, Ohio:

East Liverpool is a small town on the Ohio River in an economically depressed area. The incinerator was first proposed in 1979 and marketed to the community as a way to bring jobs to East Liverpool.
The WTI facility is one of the world's largest capacity hazardous waste incinerators. It sits on the banks of the Ohio River where Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia converge. It is in a flood plain and over a high-yielding aquifer, and was built on an already-polluted site owned by the Columbiana County Port Authority. There are homes within 320 feet of the facility and a 400-pupil elementary school on a hill just 1100 feet from, and slightly below, the stack.
The facility is in a valley that experiences air inversions, which trap the air and inhibit the normal rise of fog and pollution, as often as two of every three days. In short, it is about the worst place you could imagine siting a giant hazardous waste facility. Ohiocitizen.org

THE PLAYERS
Background on Jackson Stephans and Von Roll America:
By the most conservative estimates, the four partner companies that signed the incinerator's original permit application changed their names some nine times between 1981 and 1990. According to other estimates, the changes number more than forty... Mother Jones
Stephens Inc. and WTI According to the Ohio Attorney General's report on WTI in 1993: "It was 'Waste Technologies, Incorporated' in the late seventies, a group of companies owned by Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas that became interested in the possibility of developing industrial waste incinerators which could be used to generate power.

Jackson Stephens raised at least $100,000 for Bill Clinton's first Presidential campaign (Source: Seattle Times, November 6, 1993)
Stephens "extended a $3.5 million line of credit to campaign through the Worthen Bank, which is partly owned by the Stephens family. The Clinton campaign deposited up to $55 million in federal election funds in this bank." (Source: The Nation)

-snip
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/21045/9822/688/446786

[Skwmom]

6. Excellent point.

[Tarc]

7. Because no one cares about tax returns?

[Justitia]

10. Then why did Clinton demand them OVER and OVER from Rick Lazio in 2000? -eom

[mod mom]

15. Those of us who care about TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY CARE-Heres 1 reason why:

After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton

By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: January 31, 2008

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

-snip


"Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent."

"Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy."

-snip


Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html

DOESN'T IT BOTHER YOU THAT HER HUSBAND WAS WILLING TO BID OUT INTERNATIONAL ELECTIONS FOR A FINANCIAL RETURN? THESE ARE THE PEOPLE THE CLINTONS ASSOCIATE WITH.

[Iggo]

11. Say, I'd never heard anyone bring this up before.

Thanks!!!

[ORDem]

12. K&R n/t

:kick:

[TheZug]

14. It's okay for her to keep them secret, because she's a "fighter."

[rndmprsn]

16. proud to be reccomend #5 - off to the greateds page with you

...let the vetting of hillary clinton begin =]

[tabasco]

17. She knows it is harder to beat Obama than to beat McCain.

She is hiding her records from Democratic voters but will have to disclose them if she is nominated.

She would give us a compromised, wounded candidate in the general election AS LONG AS IT IS HER!!

edit: There must be some damning information in her tax records and her White House records or they would be public already.

[Laurab]

24. EXACTLY!

I would imagine there are a lot of nefarious connections - there is no other reason she would not release the records. She "says" she'll release them on 4/15 according to some, but I would bet money that she won't.

It's a shame she's not forward-thinking enough to realize that a compromised, wounded candidate will NOT win the election.

"AS LONG AS IT IS HER" - indeed, but she won't win the prize she wants, so basically, she is willing to ruin the dems chances just for her own selfish pursuit of power.

[mod mom]

19. "Hillary INC.":

ARTICLE | posted May 17, 2007 (June 4, 2007 issue)
Hillary Inc.

ARI BERMAN


-snip
It's a rousing speech, though ultimately not very convincing. If Clinton really wanted to curtail the influence of the powerful, she might start with the advisers to her own campaign, who represent some of the weightiest interests in corporate America. Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies. A bevy of current and former Hillary advisers, including her communications guru, Howard Wolfson, are linked to a prominent lobbying and PR firm--the Glover Park Group--that has cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry and Rupert Murdoch. Her fundraiser in chief, Terry McAuliffe, has the priciest Rolodex in Washington, luring high-rolling contributors to Clinton's campaign. Her husband, since leaving the presidency, has made millions giving speeches and counsel to investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. They house, in addition to other Wall Street firms, the Clintons' closest economic advisers, such as Bob Rubin and Roger Altman, whose DC brain trust, the Hamilton Project, is Clinton's economic team in waiting. Even the liberal in her camp, former deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes, has lobbied for the telecom and healthcare industries, including a for-profit nursing home association indicted in Texas for improperly funneling money to disgraced former House majority leader Tom DeLay. "She's got a deeper bench of big money and corporate supporters than her competitors," says Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals, but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.

It's not exactly an advertisement for the working-class hero, or a picture her campaign freely displays. Her lengthy support for the Iraq War is Clinton's biggest liability in Democratic primary circles. But her ties to corporate America say as much, if not more, about what she values and cast doubt on her ability and willingness to fight for the progressive policies she claims to champion. She is "running to help and restore the great middle class in our country," Wolfson says. So was Bill in 1992. He was for "putting people first." Then he entered the White House and pushed for NAFTA, signed welfare reform, consolidated the airwaves through the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (leading to Clear Channel's takeover) and cleared the mergers of mega-banks. Would the First Lady do any different? Ever since the defeat of healthcare reform, Hillary has been a committed incrementalist, describing herself as a creature of the "moderate, sensible center" whom business admires and rewards. During her six years in the Senate, she's rarely been out front on difficult economic issues. Given her proximity to money and power, it's not hard to figure out why she keeps controversial figures close to her--even if their work becomes a liability for her campaign.

-snip

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

[MagickMuffin]

20. Because she and her husband have something to hide

Otherwise they wouldn't be so reluctant to release them.

[closeupready]

21. Very good question. She must be hiding something.

Uncle Sam wants you to release the tax returns! :rofl:

[jillan]

22. She will release them by 4/15 - per her campaign.

[mod mom]

23. After years of SECRECY in Govmt-here's another reason to want transparency:

White House Had Ended System of Checking Foreign Guests

By TIM WEINER
Published: February 3, 1997

Ten years ago the Reagan White House adopted a rule about foreign businessmen, lobbyists and consultants who wanted to get in to see the President without the blessing of their embassies: they shouldn't.

But President Clinton's aides did not follow that rule. In their eagerness to raise campaign money, they invited friends of the President's fund-raisers -- including China's biggest arms merchant, favor-seeking Indonesian businessmen, a reputed Russian mobster and other dubiously credentialed dealmakers -- to meet with Mr. Clinton. Nor did the White House check the suitability of Americans invited by the Democratic National Committee to meet the President, allowing, among others, a twice-convicted felon to sip coffee with Mr. Clinton.

-snip

And that is why nobody on the White House political team saw fit to ask the National Security Council staff a year ago about a man named Wang Jun, who showed up on a guest list for a White House coffee with the President. The question of exactly how Mr. Wang got into the White House has a simple answer: ''Nobody ever asked anybody,'' a National Security Council official said.

So, at the behest of a tireless political fund-raiser from Arkansas, Charlie Yah Lin Trie, Mr. Clinton wound up sipping coffee with Mr. Wang, who runs the Chinese Government's weapons manufacturing and procuring agency, which is involved in secret arms deals around the world. These coffees for fund-raisers and donors began as a way to raise morale among party loyalists after the Democrats' disastrous showing in the 1994 election. By 1995, they became a way to reward big donors and prospect for new ones, according to Democratic fund-raisers.

-snip

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E2DC103DF930A35751C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all





New York Times, May 17, 1998



How Chinese Won Rights to Launch Satellites for U.S.

(BY JEFF GERTH AND DAVID E. SANGER)
On Oct. 9, 1995, Secretary of State Warren Christopher ended a lengthy debate within the Clinton Administration by initialing a classified order that preserved the State Department's sharp limits on China's ability to launch American-made satellites aboard Chinese rockets.

Both American industry and state-owned Chinese companies had been lobbying for years to get the satellites off what is known as the `munitions list,' the inventory of America's most sensitive military and intelligence-gathering technology. But Mr. Christopher sided with the Defense Department, the intelligence agencies and some of his own advisers, who noted that commercial satellites held technological secrets that could jeopardize `significant military and intelligence interests.'

There was one more reason not to ease the controls, they wrote in a classified memorandum. Doing so would `raise suspicions that we are trying to evade China sanctions' imposed when the country was caught shipping weapons technology abroad--which is what happened in 1991 and 1993 for missile sales to Pakistan.

-snip

Other powerful Chinese state enterprises also had multibillion-dollar stakes in getting access to American satellites. Among them was the China International Trade and Investment Corporation, whose chairman, Wang Jun, gained unwanted attention in the United States last year when it was revealed that he attended one of Mr. Clinton's campaign coffee meetings in the White House. The day of Mr. Wang's visit, Mr. Clinton, in what Mr. Rubin said was a coincidence, signed waivers allowing the Chinese to launch four American satellites--though they were unrelated to the business interests of China International Trade.

-snip

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/china/1998/h980618-prc5.htm