Hillary trades Pork for Donations, Rolling Stone article link

[MattP]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20306341/the_queen_of_pork

[grantcart]

1. ouch

[MidwestTransplant]

2. So does McSame. Maybe the could be running mates. Hillary sure seems to like him.

[anonymous171]

3. McCain would get her on this. He's going to be playing Reagan in the GE.

"Cut wasteful spending" and "Less taxes!"

[blogslut]

4. Taibbi

Thanks for the link. I love his stuff.

[mcctatas]

5. scariest part...

No wonder why she wants to nuke Iran...
disgusting!
*snip*
Hillary's defense earmarks benefited some of the world's largest weapons producers, many of which have factories in New York. Among the most prominent include Northrop Grumman, which Hillary singled out for $6 million to develop a new radar system; Plug Power, for whom Hillary secured $3 million for a backup power system for Pentagon operations; and Telephonics, which Hillary gave $5 million for an intercom system for Black Hawk helicopters.

[anigbrowl]

7. and more in the same vein...

Her biggest coup of all was a multi-billion-dollar contract she helped to secure for Lockheed Martin to build the Marine One presidential helicopter — a project derided by insiders as a typical example of Pentagon waste. "Oh, the presidential-helicopter thing is a classic boondoggle," says one congressional source. "They could have taken any old Black Hawk helicopter, put a nice interior in it and a decal on it, and it would've been OK. Instead, we got this thing that costs four times as much. It's nuts."

Indeed, the Pentagon confirmed in March that the helicopter Hillary made sure would be built at Lockheed's plant in Owego, New York, would, in fact, cost $400 million per unit — more than the modified Boeing 747 used as Air Force One. You heard right: $400 million for a single fucking helicopter.

Awesome.

[mcctatas]

8. God I hope the MSM runs with this story...

this alone would make her unelectable against St. McCain, slayer of pork (even if it is a bullshit meme his people dreamed up)

[forintegrity]

12. MSM must be her latest earmark

cuz they sure are supporting her lately!

[Coexist]

15. "$400 mil for a single f*cking helicopter"

is that because she wanted a really special one to ride on one day?

[TLM]

6. She already auctioning off influence.... and the primary isn't even over.

And her supporters wonder why people say she's just like a repug.


Obama should hit her hard with this.... selling influence to the highest bidder.

[polpilot]

14. I know democrats and Hillary Clinton is no democrat.

[charlie]

9. $2.2 billion

Took to it like a fish to water, she did.

What's always galling about these congressional pork stories is that the returns are so paltry compared to the eye-popping largesse the idiots hand out. I was a teen when I found out that You, Me, Anyone could buy a senator's vote and solicitous attention for a mere couple grand, and become richer than Croesus on the public dime. I was gobstopped that such outsized influence could be bought so cheaply. I've often thought since then that the only way it can be ended is if everybody got in on the gravy train. In fact, it may be our patriotic duty to ante up and demand our pork, so the whole sleazy process finally becomes untenable and crashes.

[MADem]

10. So does Obama. Check out his earmark for General Dynamics, and then

have a look at the CROWN family donations, in the hundreds of thousands, to Obama's many campaigns.

On edit--Taibbi covered it, though it was buried in the article:

Hillary isn't alone among the candidates in selling us down the river for a few campaign contributions. Unlike Clinton, who has only disclosed the pork she actually succeeded in doling out, Barack Obama has supplied reporters with a list of every earmark he requested. But the list only served to highlight Obama's own pork, including $8 million for a "High Explosive Air Burst Technology Program" that would have been overseen by General Dynamics. Obama's Illinois finance chairman, James Crown, not only sits on the board of General Dynamics, he and his wife are both Obama bundlers who have raised more than $200,000 for Obama's campaign. Obama was also alone among the remaining candidates last year in using his leadership PAC to hand out money to politicians whose support he sought in his presidential run.

[mcctatas]

11. ...

:kick:

[jordi_fanclub]

13. OUCH.... The "foreign" Queen of Pork

Best part beside the article's title is when we read that Rolling Stone article:

Her biggest coup of all was a multi-billion-dollar contract she helped to secure for Lockheed Martin to build the Marine One presidential helicopter — a project derided by insiders as a typical example of Pentagon waste. "Oh, the presidential-helicopter thing is a classic boondoggle," says one congressional source. "They could have taken any old Black Hawk helicopter, put a nice interior in it and a decal on it, and it would've been OK. Instead, we got this thing that costs four times as much. It's nuts."

Indeed, the Pentagon confirmed in March that the helicopter Hillary made sure would be built at Lockheed's plant in Owego, New York, would, in fact, cost $400 million per unit — more than the modified Boeing 747 used as Air Force One (!!!). You heard right: $400 million for a single fucking helicopter.

With most of her earmarks, Clinton makes sure to get a return on her investment of taxpayer money. Lockheed donated $10,000 to Hillary's Senate campaign in 2006 and provided her with plenty of free rides on its planes.

And add from the first paragraph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VH-71_Kestrel

The VH-71 Kestrel, a variant of the AgustaWestland EH101, is being developed to replace the United States Marine Corps' Marine One Presidential transport fleet. It is being produced by the Lockheed Martin-led "US101 Team" of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration - Owego, AgustaWestland, AgustaWestlandBell and Bell Helicopter.

And from the second paragrapg here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_EH101

The designation "EH101" is a typographical error that stuck: the aircraft was originally designated EHI (European Helicopter Industries) - 01. The aircraft is manufactured at the AgustaWestland factories in Yeovil, England and Vergiate in Italy.

[City Lights]

16. Taibbi kicks ass. And he'll be on with Maher his week!

on edit - Hillary, where are your earmarks?

[NJmaverick]

17. Yet more proof that nothing would change if Hillary was in charge

[KittyWampus]

18. By the time Hillary got to Woodstock

But Hillary's most brazen earmark this presidential-election season had nothing to do with defense. It had to do, oddly enough, with rock music. Back in June 2007, Hillary attempted to write a $1 million earmark for a museum commemorating the Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York. Not that anyone should have anything against Woodstock, but it seems weird to ask taxpayers to pay for it — especially when the project is principally funded by one of America's richest men, a media mogul named Alan Gerry.

Listed as number 297 on the annual Forbes list of wealthy Americans, Gerry reportedly has a net worth of $1.6 billion. Beyond the fact that he hardly needs the money, there is this to consider: On June 30th of last year, exactly three days after the earmark was officially inserted into an appropriations bill, Gerry and his wife both made maximum donations to Hillary's presidential campaign, totaling $9,200.

The deal stank, even by congressional standards. When Republican opponents introduced an amendment to kill the earmark, the measure passed easily. "Most of our amendments fail by fifty or sixty votes," says John Hart, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, an anti-earmark crusader who introduced the amendment to kill the handout. "But this one passed with no problem. It was so over-the-to

[KittyWampus]

19. What Hillary's Earmarks Say About Her- she's whoring for the MIC & short-changing troops.

Earmarking is only one small slice of the political cash game, but it has the advantage of being a slice we can actually see and quantify. And what we see of Hillary's record here suggests a couple of things. One: She has no qualms whatsoever about trading your tax money for personal political capital. And two: She likes to trade much of that money for favors in the defense sector, even if it hurts the people doing the defending.

As is often the case with defense earmarks, some of Hillary's pork spending is taken out of the Army's Operation and Maintenance budget, which is supposed to be used for troop-support initiatives like body armor. In simple terms, Hillary's rampant marauding of the defense budget takes money away from troops in the field. Soldiers wind up short on equipment, and Clinton winds up with hefty campaign contributions and free flights on private jets. Carrying charges, my boy, carrying charges!

If earmarks are just a little slice of the pie in the Washington cash game, imagine what would happen if Hillary got to serve up the whole meal. It's been so long since the Clintons were in office that we scarcely remember all those funny-sounding names of scandal-plagued campaign contributors — names like Roger Tamraz, "Charlie" Trie, Wang Jun and John Huang. When it comes to the Clintons and money, there was always somebody with a story buried beneath the line item, a hard-to-find dollar figure stuck to every Calvin Butts or Robert Congel. Are we really ready to go back to those days full time?

[MattP]

20. bump

I hate to bump my own thread but this was up late this morning.

[bigbrother05]

21. Kick

[Catherina]

22. If that's not a political whore, I don't know what is n/t

[bhikkhu]

23. Going back the the old request: Where are HRC's earmarks?

Obama released his awhile back, but HRC has shown no inclination to. Which just means that the stuff will leak out, bit by slimey bit.

[SoxFan]

24. But Obama doesn't wear a flag pin!

[gmudem]

25. Hillary the corporate candidate

How naive her supporters must be if they can't see this.