Posted on 04/02/2008 12:54:30 PM PDT by doug from upland
This should go to the ping list. Thanks.
Guess the Clintons have got trouble...right here in River City.
Website Reveals Names of ‘Secret’ Clinton Foundation Donors
Officials with the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation steadfastly refuse to release the names of its donors, though on Thursday a lawyer for multimillionairess Denise Rich revealed she’d ponied up “an enormous amount.”
And last September, the Chicago Sun-Times confirmed that James H. Levin, a former strip-club owner and now president of TVR Link, had pledged to raise or donate $1 million.
But despite the supposed secrecy that shrouds the identity of other high-rolling foundation backers, the website FEC Info (www.tray.com) identified 20 supporters, including Rich and Levin, as early as a year ago.
Those names include California developer Walter H. Shorenstein, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Haim Saban - Chairman of Fox Family Worldwide, Universal Studios President Lew Wasserman, New York businessman John Catsimatides, Mattel’s William Rollnick, New York designers Vera Wang and Nicole Miller, Dreamworks partners Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, Global Crossing Chairman Gary Winnick, Former DNC Finance Chairman Alan Solomont, New York investor Stanley Shuman, fashion industry executive Arnold Simon, Massachusetts financier Tom Lee, aviation executive Farhad Azima, and internet tycoon Vinod Gupta.
In fact, the “secret” names exposed by FEC Info were reported by the Washington Post way back in October 1999. The contribution amounts listed by the website were also reported by the Post.
Burkle, Saban and Wasserman pledged to personally donate a whopping $5 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, reported the paper.
Those pledging to raise or donate at least $1 million include Shorenstein, Winnick, Solomont, Shuman, Simon, Lee, Levin, Azima and Gupta. Pledge figures were not listed for other donors, including Ms. Rich.
Time.com reported Friday morning that Ms. Rich gave $400,000. But that figure seems improbably low.
No other donor has pledged less than $1 million, which, according to the Post, is the minimum Clinton Foundation contribution.
[ NewsMax ]
TCN Comment: How many of these donors are you helping to financially enable? It might be a good time to rethink our spending habits.
Walter H. Shorenstein is Chairman of The Shorenstein Co., a real estate management company, Shorenstein is a Forbes 400 member ($450 million net worth) and a onetime adviser to President Johnson. He benefits from congressional “passive loss” tax policies that allow real estate investors to take tax credits on empty properties.
Ron Burkle is chairman of Yucaipa Companies, Food 4 Less Supermarkets, and Ralphs Grocery Co., the largest grocery chain in California.
Haim Saban is the chairman and CEO of Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. The company evolved from a strategic alliance between the Fox Kids Network and Saban’s own company Saban Entertainment. Fox Kids Worldwide has been the leading American children’s channel since its takeover of International Family Entertainment and its 70,000,000 household-strong Family Channel. Saban has strong ties to Germany, the home of Saban Entertainment.
Lew Wasserman, president of Universal Studios, is the Hollywood mogul who brought us Gene Kelly, Jimmy Stewart, and Alfred Hitchcock. He is now MCA’s chairman emeritus. His contributions to the Democrats may have helped ease regulatory fears over the Seagram/MCA deal.
John Catsimatidis owns Red Apple Group. Red Apple Group sells apples (and more) in the Big Apple. Most of the Gotham-based company’s sales come from subsidiary United Refining, which produces 65,000 barrels a day of oil and distributes it to its 350 KwikFill gas stations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The company controls Gristede’s Foods, New York City’s largest supermarket company, which operates 41 supermarkets under the names Sloan’s and Gristede’s in the greater New York City area. Red Apple Group has real estate operations in New York, Florida, and the Virgin Islands. The name John Catsimatidis shows up on donor lists for both Bill and Hillary Clinton and was a sleep-over guest at the White House as well as attending at least one of the notorious fund-raising coffees at the White House. Catsimatidis has strong ties to Greece.
William Rollnick is CEO of Mattel and has strong ties to Germany. He is a regular donor to Clintonian causes and another regular at Clinton White House fund-raisers.
Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen founded Dreamworks. Dreamworks is a major Hollywood studio. It has cranked out dozens of major productions in recent years with an emphasis on animations like Prince of Egypt, ANTZ, and others.
Gary Winnick is the Founder and Chairman of Global Crossing Ltd. which provides global broadband, Internet, data, voice and image communications for business and consumers worldwide. Through its state-of-the-art, owned and operated undersea and terrestrial fiber optic network, Global Crossing is connecting five continents, 27 countries and over 200 cities around the world. Since its founding in 1997, Global Crossing has raised over $20 billion in capital. Mr. Winnick is also the Chairman of Asia Global Crossing. Asia Global Crossing is building one of the first truly pan-Asian networks that in combination with the worldwide Global Crossing Network, will provide the Asia Pacific region with seamless access to major business centers worldwide. He is also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Capital Group, a merchant bank that is a principal investor in such fields as telecommunications, media, real estate, financial services, health care and biotechnology. Pacific Capital owns a significant equity interest in Colony Capital, Inc., a private, international investment firm with over $6 billion in assets under management. His international ties are primarily Jewish and Asian.
Stanley Shuman, an executive at Rupert Murdoch’s deal maker, Allen & Company was mentioned in connection to a Clinton scandal in 1997 when it was discovered that he had bought a seat on a special foreign intelligence committee that Clinton had formed. Shuman has ties to China, but seems to have avoided the Chinagate scandal… ( Maybe the intelligence payoff paid off! )
Farhad Azima, aviation magnate and gun-runner, ran a charter airline called Global International Airways before it filed for bankruptcy in October, 1983. Azima made headlines in 1979 when a Global plane, said to be hauling relief supplies to Costa Rica, landed in Tunisia and was loaded up with weapons. The Kansas City Star reported in June, 1984 that Global jets frequently ferried weapons and military equipment disguised as medical or food supplies. In July, 1986, a Boeing-707 owned by Azima and leased to his brother, Farsin Azima, reportedly transported 23-tonnes of military equipment to Iran. Another major player in the world of international gun-running, Nationair rented airplanes and borrowed large sums of money from Farhad Azima. Farhad has close international ties to anyplace needing weapons with an embargo hanging over them. His political donations buy him the privilege of free passage for his aircraft.
Unfortunately this will never see the light of day. If this were a republican and or conservative republican it would be front page news 24/7. But, since it is a d’RAT and involves everybody’s favorite rogue ex-president, it will be swept under the rug as the rantings of a deranged nut.
While we all know that there is something not quite right about this whole thing, and Bubba and his bride have benefited financially makes it all the more reason that there is something illegal.
Reporting Jay Levine
CHICAGO (CBS) ― There are calls for impeachment if New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer refuses to step down after his alleged participation in an international prostitution ring.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports there are interesting parallels between the Spitzer scandal and a case back in the late 1980s brought by the state's attorney back then: Chicago's current Mayor Richard M. Daley.
The quickly leaked identity of Client Number 9 is in sharp contrast to the way Daley handled a little black book containing the names of politicians, athletes, businessmen and celebrities.
Daley on Tuesday expressed his regret for the victims of Spitzer's actions.
"You really feel sorry for the wife and children," Daley said.
Daley had investigated infamous Gold Coast madam Rose Laws two decades ago, but chose to protect her clients and their families.
"When I was state's attorney, a prominant madam had a book and I made sure that book was destroyed," Daley said. "You don't want to destroy peoples' lives."
Former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, who's now in private practice, said the information in that book would be valuable.
"If you raided a house and found a ledger that had the names of customers and amounts, you'd want to be able to corroborate that with the transactions," Collins said. "You wouldn't throw it out, not to ruin peoples' reputations, but to prove up my case."
But Collins says Spitzer probably isn't the real focus of the federal investigation.
"To the extent the federal government's interested in prostitution cases, it's not for the johns, it's for the financial flow of money," he said. "Unless they're gonna indict clients one through eight, they shouldn't reach down to indict client nine just 'cause of who he is."
Daley seemed to be saying the same thing in different words when he talked about his old case and the new one.
"You have to be very careful with this type of evidence," he said. "Remember if you disclose one have to disclose all of them."
According to what Collins told CBS 2, all the talk we're hearing about Spitzer stepping down, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, as part of a plea deal, may be off base. If the feds indicted him, they'd have to indict all the other so-called clients and that is something they rarely do.
Are the Clintons even capable of doing anything that isn’t illegal?
I think there might be a reporter or two interested if money scammed from a bank went to the library. I spoke with one from a major paper a few minutes ago. He is interested.
On Google, I see a few references to James Levin being on a “Board of Advisers” for the Clinton Library, which was not the actual Clinton Foundation board of directors. The Board of Advisers is just another useless FOB club invented by the Clintons as a fundraising gimmick.
In an unrelated Clinton scandal, InfoUSA stock plunged today for unknown reasons, then recovered somewhat later. We’re expecting interesting news as the Clintons release their tax records and the InfoUSA shareholder lawsuit progresses - assuming Hillary doesn’t drop out in the next couple of weeks.
My guess is that Hillary is going to only release the tax return that is due on April 15, not the previous ones.
Ping.
Bookmark...
I don’t mean to be jaded...but how many times do we need to have a smoking gun, with the preps fingerprints on it, gunpowder residue on the perp’s hand, and blood spater on his shirt and watched as Bill Clinton and his now U.S. Senator wife walk out of court with an adoring press fawning at their feet and no charges filed.
I just can’t get excited about it anymore. We have had the Clinton’s caught in the act, time and again and they lie and they walk.
I bet you never thought you’d see it, but I defended Hillary over the Bosnia sniper controversy. Well, sort of defended her. http://youtube.com/watch?v=hSjikYIofu0
Bump.
What you hadn't anticipated was that Hillary and her handlers were shooting her in the foot, one more time. Odds are, Levin knew you were after him, and Hillary or one of her flying monkeys told him to lay low until after the looming deadline.
What Hillary and the monkeys hadn't anticipated was that their tactic would drive you to use YouTube to find Levin, and that in the process you would flip over even more wet rocks, and even more of Hillary's frauds would slither out.
How's it feel to win round seven of a judo match against "the smartest woman in the world"? Maybe, due to your efforts, she might wind up as "the smartest women in bankruptcy court" and barred from the White House forever, like Teddy Kennedy, because the sleaze factor rose above the level that even Democrats can tolerate at the national level, anyway.
Ya done good. Ya done better than even you know. Congratulations.
Congressman Billybob
I wonder if they steal money to donate to their church.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.