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Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s Kremlin Connection
- d33 11y agoYes, I'm pretty sure that's what Americans want - a big scandal around Clinton that would land Trumpet in charge.
- 1024core 11y agoIt's not a dichotomy. You're forgetting Bernie Sanders.
- Absentinsomniac 11y agoYa, pretty sure Sanders does better in polls against Trump than Clinton anyways.
- kbenson 11y agoI assume you were downvoted because people thought you were making a snide remark or joke. Sanders polling better against Trump is supposedly[1] a fact, and has been repeated often. Not sure why people would jump to downvoting you for something they didn't really know much about. 1: "Supposedly" because the polls I just looked up seemed to be nearly identical for Sanders or Clinton vs Trump, with Democrats at ~50% and Trump at ~38%.
- michaelmrose 11y agohttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/ge... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/ge... spread is an average of clinton +10% vs sanders at +16%
- kbenson 11y agoAh, thanks. The Clinton Poll you referenced is one that I saw, the Sanders one was from another source (which I tried to avoid, but I was only willing to put so much effort into it).
- SyneRyder 11y agoWhile this isn't polling as such, I've found the FiveThirtyEight Facebook map of candidates to be intriguing. When you drop out the other candidates, Trump vs Sanders is still a competition as you'd expect, but Trump vs Clinton... she barely shows up. Her number of Likes is surprisingly low. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/facebook-primary/ http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/facebook-primary/ I'd usually ignore Facebook likes, and FiveThirtyEight insists it's for fun as well. However, their throwaway comment "If Facebook likes were votes... Donald Trump [would] garner more support than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined" has actually proven to be accurate.
- astaroth360 11y agoIf Facebook likes were votes Sanders would be trouncing Clinton in the polls and Trump would be the only person left running for the Republicans. However, people discussing politics on Facebook tends to be completely toxic and representative of the most enthusiastic, sometimes vitriolic, people around. It's very, very different than the layout of voters as a whole.
- SyneRyder 11y agoI agree with your opinion of politics & Facebook, it's one of the reasons I ended up closing my Facebook account. But the Facebook likes on the Republican side are closer to the current delegate counts (as of April 6) than I would have expected. If you narrow down to Trump, Cruz, Rubio & Kasich: Trump: 48% Delegates, 53% Republican Likes Cruz: 32% Delegates, 28% Republican Likes Rubio: 11% Delegates, 16% Republican Likes Kasich: 9% Delegates, 3% Republican Likes Though if you add Carson back in, it stops matching up. And certainly the Facebook Like counts don't match delegate counts on the Democrat side. But I thought it was odd how closely the Facebook figures were matching for the Republicans.
- grej 11y agoThat is a false choice that the Clinton campaign would love for you to believe. In actuality, the FBI investigation alone would have derailed any other candidate, now this... For all the talk about Trump being teflon, it sure seems Hillary has the some of the same "teflon-ness" Sanders has won 7 out of the last 8 primaries and yet Clinton, with all her legal baggage and ethical issues, is still the presumed frontrunner.
- maxerickson 11y agoHis required take of the remaining delegates has increased after several of those primaries/caucuses. So he has won the supposed coin flips that the media talks about and lost ground when you analyze the delegate counts.
- yolesaber 11y agoI was talking about this with a friend last night. Think of all the scandals the Clintons have endured - from Whitewater to Travelgate to Lewinsky to Benghazi...and yet nothing has impeded them. That either means they are in fact predominantly innocent (I think we can rule this out, mostly...) or that they are just such masters of politic and influence that they are able to fend off any investigations into them. Seriously, Clinton lied about cheating on his wife on national television and yet people still love him. They are a very intriguing couple. I eagerly await a Caro-esque look at their role in US history.
- burkaman 11y agoIt's not "presumed", she is literally the frontrunner by definition, with more votes and more pledged delegates. You're still winning a race even if someone is catching up.
- HelloMcFly 11y agoClinton leads in pledged delegates, superdelegates, and the popular vote. Her presumption as the front-runner is factual and earned. Take away the superdelegates and she's still clearly the frontrunner.
- jonknee 11y ago> In actuality, the FBI investigation alone would have derailed any other candidate, now this... In actuality the investigation would never have happened for any other candidate. The Clintons are scrutinized far more than any other American politicians. (The email scandal came out of the ridiculous Benghazi investigations that the GOP kept running again and again.)
- zxcvcxz 11y agoI'm a strong believer that the Russians are manipulating public opinion through social media (and infiltration of the upper echelons of society) to cause unrest in the United States to deteriorate our standing as a world power. The ultimate goal is either civil war or a society that the Europeans no longer are in alliance with (i.e. ultra-nationalist like Trump). When a crazy person is in charge and European nations start to agree more with Russia and China than the US it will only be a matter of time before they create an Eastern alliance and come into America to take our nukes for fear that we'll elect another Trump. We'll have Russian and Chinese troops leading an effort in America to reform our government and little pockets of resistance will form leading to a half century of war and the devastation of the world economy, but it will only effect the poor and middle class. China and Russia will prosper as they plunder our resources and the resources of Africa and other regions with no one to hold them in check.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoWhen I was a child, people would say this kind of thing about the Soviet Union, and later it became the Japanese, the Mexicans, then the Chinese, and now I guess it's wrapped back around to Moscow.
- bitJericho 11y agoThis would make for a great novel.
- yolesaber 11y agoHow's the bunker coming along, fellow patriot?
- iLoch 11y agoInvasion of the US would be a lot more difficult than you make it out to be. A large portion of the US is surrounded by water, so Russian and China would have to overcome the two largest navies in the world (the US Navy and the US Air Force) in order to even set foot on land if they were to come that route. Of course the other option is to come over the top through Canada. But then you have to defeat the largest Air Force in the world: the US has 2x more aircraft than Russia and China combined. I'm Canadian so I'm not a patriot of the US by any measure, but I think it'd at least be a pretty fair fight. Russia and China understand their losses would be devastating, so I doubt they'd wage that war. Not to mention they'd likely be waging a two-front war with Korea and Japan as US allies.
- gefh 11y agoThis seems like a pretty tenuous 'connection'.
- saalweachter 11y agoIs this really the most interesting thing in the Panama Papers touching the Clintons? If I'm reading this right, there's a well-known group of lobbyists/Washington insiders (the Podestra brothers) with ties to the Clintons and Obama, and the new revelation is that the lobbying firm is also retained by Russia's biggest bank? (As opposed to, being retained by the US's biggest bank?) Does anyone else find that weak-sauce?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- xlm1717 11y agoThey don't just have ties, John Podesta is Clinton's campaign chairman. And the Podestas aren't just lobbying for Russia's biggest bank. As the article states, the majority shareholder in Sberbank is the Russian Central Bank. From the Wikipedia page on Sberbank of Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia#Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sberbank_of_Russia#Ownership): "The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, owning 50%+1 voting share of Sberbank's voting shares." Effectively, the Russian Central Bank controls Sberbank, but ostensibly Sberbank is a private institution. The Podesta Group registered as a lobbyist for Sberbank, which effectively gives the Russian Central Bank a lobbyist in Washington. If the Russian Central Bank had registered directly with the Podesta Group, as the article states the Podesta Group would have to register as agents of the Russian government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The wikipedia page on the Foreign Agents Registration Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...) states: "...[requires] that agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. The purpose is to facilitate "evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons."" Arguably, the Podesta Group is not facilitating evaluation of statements its making on behalf of Sberbank, and by extension the Russian Central Bank, because it registered as a lobbyist for a bank controlled by a state-owned bank. The Russians suffered heavy sanctions recently. It doesn't stretch the imagination that the Podesta Group received money from Russia to lobby Washington to drop those sanctions. As the article states towards the end, if Clinton wins the election, John Podesta stands to gain a position of power in a Clinton administration. If John Podesta benefited from money provided by a foreign government (again, Sberbank is controlled by the Russian Central Bank), then that's a relationship the Clinton campaign needs to explain.
- bplatta 11y agoSeem to be 2 camps here: 1. dismiss this as a tenuous connection which stems mainly from the fact that Lobbying firms have many big clients 2. grant this connection deserves some attention and perhaps some explanation For me, I think the author has some thoughts that are bleeding through . But I don't think its necessarily fair to judge an article mainly on its author's history (though an undeniable factor). While granting this is the nature of a lobby firm, it does seem odd they would agree to representing Sberbank. We're talking John Podesta (Clinton campaign chairman) -> Tony Podesta (CEO Podesta Group) -> Sberbank (Podesta Group client). Is the latter connection really not cause for suspicion?
- saalweachter 11y agoThe tricky thing is that it could be a cause for suspicion, but you could also read it other ways. Before John Podestra was the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, he was the Counselor to Barack Obama. Before that, he was the founder of the Center for American Progress (a left-wing think tank). Before that, Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff. Before that, Deputy Chief of Staff, Assistant to the President, and a senior advisor. Which is to say, he has been a big part of the Democratic Party / progressive movement for a long time. And before that, he co-founded a lobbying group, the Podesta Group, with his brother Tony Podesta, who still runs the Group. So, do I think that a giant bank / nefarious Russian secret agency is likely retaining the Podesta Group because it was founded and still run by the brother of a powerful and influential member of the Democratic Party, who has served in several Democratic administrations and is likely to serve in future ones? Yeah, totally. And it's probably worth being aware of the potential chain of influence and corruption -- client to lobbyist, lobbyist to advisor, advisor to politician -- but I find it far more likely that John Podesta is in Hillary's campaign (and potentially, future administration) because he's a good, useful guy who gets the right stuff done, rather than that he's there as some sort of corruption-conduit, proof (PROOF!) of Hillary Clinton's unworthiness.
- leecarraher 11y agoIs this a sentence or just a collection of words: Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image—leading Moscow financial institutions not exactly being known for their propriety and wholesomeness—and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.
- kbenson 11y agoI ended up reading that sentence four or five times before I finally interpreted every word and was able to parse it. I kept accidentally skipping words that changed how it parsed.
- swombat 11y agoI found it pretty clear... just ignore the bit in the em dashes: > Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian) engaged the Podesta Group to help its public image and specifically to help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.
- kbenson 11y agoI kept getting tripped on on some specific word being missing in the aside, but I can't identify what it was anymore. It's less that it was "just a collection of words" and more that I'm fairly sensitive to reading grammatical errors (even if I'm often rushing too much to prevent them in my own comments), and I kept interpreting one where there wasn't one. That's not necessarily supporting evidence for the original comment, as even though I did remember having some problem with that sentence specifically, the fault could easily have been with me.
- kafkaesq 11y agoIt's a sentence (albeit a bit of a run-on). If you omit the part between the long dashes (which act exactly as parentheses), it's perfectly parseable. In simplified form (subtracting a few subordinate clauses here and there): "Sberbank engaged the Podesta Group to help its image, and specifically to help lift the pain of sanctions placed on Russia, which have caused real pain to the country's financial sector."
- r721 11y agoThe author of this piece (John R. Schindler) is a pretty interesting person: http://20committee.com/about/ http://20committee.com/about/
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago"Admit nothing; deny everything; make counter-accusations." Man is obviously insane, needs urgent help. ;-)
- Grue3 11y agoSo the choice is between Putin's favorite Trump and now apparently Clinton as well? Though Bernie would probably practice appeasement toward Putin too. Can't you Americans elect a strong leader for once?
- krapp 11y agoYou want another Bush? We have another Bush.
- Grue3 11y agoHe dropped out unfortunately. You guys may hate GWB, but he sure kept Putin in check. I think he used to call him something like "pooty-poo", in person!
- salgernon 11y ago"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship," Bush said.
- logicallee 11y agoYou need to add your analysis when you quote political statements to make your point... I have no idea how you read that exactly.
- vkou 11y agoA collapsed economy kept Putin 'in check'. Oh, and have you forgotten about the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War That one was on Dubya's watch - whereby he proceeded to do nothing. It's pretty clear to everyone that Great Powers will do as they please in 'their' sphere of influence. If Canada and Mexico were on the verge of joining a military alliance with China, there would be Abrams tanks in Ottawa, and F-22s bringing democracy to Mexico City before the week would be out.
- apocalyptic0n3 11y agoThis is the biggest non-story I've seen from the Panama Papers. There are a lot of revelations in there, but this has no place in the news at all. A lobbyist group connected to the Clintons is also connected to a Russian Bank. They're a lobbyist group. They take money to lobby the government from many different people. That's their purpose. Total non-story trying to sound like a huge deal, though.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoThe people, whom represent a Russian bank, deliver money to Clintons. It's apparently not uncommon for banks or their representatives to deliver money to Clintons, but saying it's a non-huge, non-story sounds like what you would expect from apologist propaganda.
- leroy_masochist 11y agoHow about if we put it in layman's terms: the man who is likely going to be President Hillary Clinton's chief of staff is being paid by the Russian government to lobby on behalf of the (nominally private) bank used most of the Russian intelligence services' operations abroad. That doesn't bother you?
- salgernon 11y agoWell, maybe he won't be now? I don't see this as a reflection on Clinton at all.
- stonemetal 11y agoBy itself it isn't that big a deal but considering the .5 million she was paid to give speeches to Russian investment firms, or the 2.35 million she received from a Uranium mining company that she helped sell to Russia. It is starting to be a pattern of behavior.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoOf what? Being involved with Russia? Is that bad?
- mig_ 11y agoThe Clintons use Windows, The Russians use Windows. "Microsoft's Financial Reports Reveal Clinton's Kremlin Connection"
- astaroth360 11y agoWoohoo, the Sanders people found some lobbyists that have a connection with a foreign bank that happen to be connected to the Clinton's. By their logic, this proves Clinton is a pawn of Vladamir Putin. This has got to be about the least interesting thing to come out of the Panama Papers.