Posted on April 12th, 2008
Does Clinton have a conflict of interest? Ha ha ha.
by Cameron
Q. Your husband received 800 thousand dollars for four speaking agents ostensibly in support of the trade deal or by a group that supports the trade deal. You’ve given your money to your campaign. Is that a conflict of interest?
A. Hahahaha. And how many angels dance on the head of a pin? I mean really–How do you answer that?
Not a tough question. Yes, it’s a conflict. And to answer her question, 800,000 angels should be conflicted off that pin. Okay, that one didn’t work.
4 Responses to “Does Clinton have a conflict of interest? Ha ha ha.”
http://lots-o-thoughts.blogspot.com/
Under 2 USC 441e, “It shall be unlawful for. . . a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make. . . a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value. . . in connection with a Federal. . . election.”
I know that this certainly wasn’t a direct contribution, and that it probably wouldn’t qualify as an indirect contribution so much as a speaking fee, but it really seems like one could make an end-run around the federal election laws by charging exorbitant fees for a two-hour speaking engagement (how much work did Bill have to do to get the $800,000?).
I’m not suggesting that this is some secret bribe from Bogota to get Hillary to lie about free trade and then support the super-secret Columbia agenda once in office, but things like this seem to squarely fit into the sort of systematic corruption that people like Lawrence Lessig (my hero) have been rightfully highlighting for some time now. Is it a conflict of interest? The answer is yes. How many angels could dance on the head of a pin? The answer is “angels don’t exist.”
Samuel, angels may not exist, but corruption does, and as how do you avoid a question like Hillary was asked, you say “ha,ha,ha” maybe because she was choked by the question or simply because it’s true as she couldn’t denied it.
http://overbreadth.com
Sam, I agree with you, it made me think of Larry Lessig also and the Change Congress movement. As Lessig argues, the problem with taking money from lobbyists is that, whether or not it influenced policy-making (it does), it certainly gives the appearance of impropriety.
As a hypothetical: Imagine if Clinton were to win the nomination and went on to win the general election and become president (not bloody likely, but suspend disbelief for a moment). Imagine if she continued to campaign, as she has, against the Columbian trade deal. And then, upon taking office, she changed her mind, say, her experts convinced her that she had been wrong about it. And lets imagine further that her advisers were right–that in fact the trade deal was a good thing for America. Could she make the case to the American people? Or would we all suspect this was what the $800k from the Columbians really bought?
http://ilpopolosovrano.splinder.com/
Please help italians!! We have Silvio Berlusconi again! Please do something! Invade Italy !
http://ilpopolosovrano.splinder.com/
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