Saturday, April 16, 2016

WHO'S SIDE IS HILLARY ON? VERIZON OR THE WORKERS?

Verizon paid Hillary $225,000 for speech and poured money into Clinton Foundation. Executives give to her campaign

Hillary Clinton rakes in Verizon cash while Bernie Sanders supports company’s striking workers  

According to a recent report by CNN, Hillary Clinton was paid more than $21 million for making speeches to private concerns from April 2013 to March 2015, and thus a mere one month prior to her formal announcement as a candidate for president in April 2015.

Of the $21 million, she was paid $1.8 million by Goldman Sachs, UBS, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank.

Her husband, Bill Clinton, according to CNN, was paid at least $5.9 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS.

This adds up to Clinton-household income of at least $7.7 million from “big banks” prior to Hillary Clinton’s 2015 announcement as a candidate for president.

Furthermore, according to an online list of all Hillary Clinton speeches from 2013 to 2015, she was also paid $225,000 and upwards per speech by;


 Fidelity Investments, 

Verizon Communications

Sanford C. Bernstein, 

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, 

CME Group, 

Boston Consulting Group, 

SAP Global Marketing, 

Accenture, 

General Electric, 

Xerox Corporation, 

Cisco, 

Qualcomm, 

Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies, 

California Medical Association, 

Healthcare Information and Management Association, 

Biotechnology Industry Organization, 

Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, 

National Association of Chain Drug Stores, 

and many others.

It is difficult to imagine no breach of ethics when a high-profile, presumptive candidate for president is paid more than $21 million in less than two years for almost no work from corporate, healthcare, investment banks and other concerns, only to announce one month after the speaking tour has ended that she is indeed running for president.

It is very likely, given the tight chronology, that she was planning to run for president while taking the money for the speeches, contrary to her denial on that count to Anderson Cooper during a recent town hall event.

Clinton has claimed no conflicts of interest in accepting speaking fees, for example, from Wall Street investment banks. However, on February 8, CNN reported that “Hillary Clinton won’t rule out appointing a Wall Street veteran to the top economic post in the White House.” CNN also noted that “when Clinton was pressed [on NBC’s Meet the Press] on whether she would appoint someone from Wall Street to be her Treasury Secretary, she refused to say no.”

Doesn’t this at least look like a pay-to-play arrangement orchestrated by a leading candidate for the presidency? 

With more of the same likely to follow if she’s elected?

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