Clinton Fund Pissing You Off?

How about Dick Cheney's Halliburton $35.5 billion payoff during the Iraq Invasion?

Cheney's Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War
By Angelo Young, International Business Times

20 March 13

he accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.

Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.

Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.

The No. 1 recipient?

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.

The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.

Who were Nos. 2 and 3?

Agility Logistics (KSE:AGLTY) of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. contracts.

As private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.

According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)

Even though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. government contracts. For example, the U.S. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad.

The costs of paying private and publicly listed war profiteers seem miniscule in light of the total bill for the war.

Last week, the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University said the war in Iraq cost $1.7 trillion dollars, not including the $490 billion in immediate benefits owed to veterans of the war and the lifetime benefits that will be owed to them or their next of kin.

Quid pro quo: republicans accuse Clinton of illicit profiting, with no actual proof....so what about Cheney's windfall profits?

Source.

 

Maybe I am missing something, but just where does it say Cheney is profiting FROM his charities?

 

I see. You find it acceptable for a Vice President to lie to everyone about a country, invade and occupy it, and rake in the $$$ when their companies are awarded no bid contracts.

And by the way, Clinton isn't profiting from her charity. If you believe otherwise, site a reputable source. Note: Trump's word isn't reputable.

 

Why not also mention BO's Haliburton no bid contracts?

Cheney belongs in prison.

 

Neither is Hillary's . . . stop making it out to be.

 

Because I knew you, or someone else, would ...and if someone did, I'd address it, as I am now.

When Obama was elected in 2008, I saw him as naive to believe that the people who supported him would somehow grant him the power to change Congress's bad habits. I was also disappointed that many of his appointees were the same people who got us into the financial mess we were in at the time, the Great Recession.

Long before Obama was elected, it was clear to me that much of the political machinery in DC was geared to do it's thing no matter who was President, and that meant that the shameless profiteering occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan was going to continue, no matter what. Part of the reason for that was that the contracts were already signed, and the likelihood that they could be cancelled by Obama, if he even bothered trying, was dismally small.

The Presidency is powerful, but it isn't magical. No President can wave a magic wand and make things better. Obama soon learned that as Congress stonewalled his every effort. Mitch McConnell infamously declared that he, and all Congressional republicans, were determined to block Obama's every move. The intent was clear, and they succeeded in a large part, particularly with judicial and executive nominations.

So yeah, the profiteering continues. I'd like it to stop, but I don't have the authority to do so. Obama might have the authority, and likely wants it stopped as well, but the political machinery in DC probably wouldn't let him.

 

Trump is selfish, egotistical, grandiose and belligerent. He says anything that's on his mind, no matter the harm it causes. He thinks only of himself. Clinton is generous, caring, empathetic and chooses her words carefully, knowing that words matter.

You probably think she's a chronic liar, and possibly a serial murderer. I've witnessed the republican attempts to harm her public image for 25 years now, and I weigh the evidence of their bombastic accusations carefully. True, she has a habit of being secretive and privacy is very important to her, but the vast majority of the allegations that have been hurled at her have lacked merit.

Ever since Mitt Romney lost, it's been obvious that the republican propaganda machine was geared to harm Clinton's public image. Prior to Romney's loss, that shit was aimed at Obama, but with Clinton being his obvious successor, the decision was made to attack her instead. They used the deaths of four men in Libya as an excuse to delve deep into her records. That act, imo, should be illegal. However, they write the laws, and they abused their power with little regard to the unforeseen consequences of it.

Enter Trump.

The republican party made a major mistake. They caused too much hatred to flourish in the public, hatred that eventually turned on them. Trump is using that hatred for personal gain. Clinton is fighting an uphill battle, one created by a concerted effort to harm her public image. Yeah, she's made mistakes, but I don't consider them to be of any great concern. My true concern is that she's too centrist, and would bargain with the very people who have so maliciously slandered her for decades.

Enter Sanders.

Sander's run has hopefully changed her position on some issues.

The irony is that, despite all the effort that has gone into discrediting her, the people that implemented those plans are now beginning to understand that she's someone they could work with. My hope is that she tells them to go to hell, but I know she isn't going to do that. She's going to attempt to build bridges between the parties, and she is going to negotiate away some progressive plans that I wish she wouldn't.

So it's not that I support her without pause. I consider her too right-leaning, too eager to sit down with enemies (republicans) and work with them. I fear she's going to water-down too many progressive goals, in order to gain support from people that are despicable (republicans).

 

To herself

About her Wall Street and Arab donors

But not about anyone outside her family. Just look at her primary donors (Saudis) treatment of women.

Elsewise she would wind up in jail

She had better.

 

All that you write cannot change how America feels about her, and that will be her undoing. . . . She has already denied herself the presidency, but will not face that fact until after the results are in.

 

With a paper resume, Hillary is by far very qualified, probably the most qualified ever.
She sunk herself. She did this. Not Republicans, not conspiracy theorists, not right wingers.
The woman carries the stench of corruption. She stinks of corruption. She lies about lying about lies.
I am a one issue voter. Supreme Court.

 

Oooooh, but it's a "vast right-wing conspiracy", dontcha know? That woman certainly is a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

I'm not sure what really "qualifies" a person to be president, though. The quality I think is most important in a president is "leadership". I supposed she has, as you pointed out, a decent resume, but it doesn't really mean shit. I've known some college-educated idiots who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag.

She doesn't possess any leadership qualities whatsoever. Not a single iota. She's never led as much as even a Girl Scout troop. She makes terrible decisions based solely on what she believes will benefit her personally. She can't handle her finances (she said she was "dead broke" when she left the White House). She's trusted by less than half the country. She's a career, establishment politician. She's a proven liar.

No, these are not qualities that anyone should want in a leader regardless of the candidate's education or job history (of which Hillary has little).

I'll take someone like Harry Truman over Hillary in a heartbeat. Truman didn't have much political background, but he possessed a ton of common sense. Common sense is necessary for a doing a good job in the presidency and Hillary has proven, time and again, that she doesn't possess the common sense God gave a pig.

And, yes, I agree that the Supreme Court is the most important issue before us and why it's imperative that a Republican be elected. If Hillary is allowed to appoint the next Justice, the damage will last a generation... or more.

 

Wanna bet on it?

 

Pride yes, money no . . . I'm a conservative, remember? We don't like wasting money on unworthy causes.

 

True. Trump is an unworthy cause.

 

You got that wrong D'IQless1 . . . you are.

 

That's the best you can do?

Pathetic.

You want to play the bs game? No problem. I fucked your mom.

 

I've been telling him the same thing for years. Most of the time, he doesn't hear me because his Internet is off because whoever is paying the bill for him (probably his mom/girlfriend) cuts him off. Either that or the snow is melting where he lives in Michigan and the water subsequently floods his mom's/girlfriend's basement that he's living in.

You must realize that when you're dealing with Diqless1, you're not dealing with someone who's firing on all cylinders. He says he can travel in time (cue Twilight Zone theme song) and can predict the future. Strange that with all those superpowers, he hasn't made the world a better place.

 

I always knew I was the better half, bro.

 

That's quite a claim, oh anatomically deprived one . . .

 

Not from what your mom says.