President Signs Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill into Law
portman.senate.gov
portman.senate.gov
Clinton Foundation donors 2015
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundati...
$1,000,000-$5,000,000
Carlos Slim - Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder
James Murdoch - Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox
Newsmax Media - Florida-based conservative media network
Thomson Reuters - Owner of the Reuters news service
$500,000-$1,000,000
News Corporation Foundation - Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent company
"The Clintons don’t take a salary from this work, and they don’t receive any other direct monetary benefit."
"The Clinton Foundation is a public charity that, as we have reported, allocates about 80-90 percent of its expenditures to charitable programs, while the rest goes to fundraising and overhead."
So, I'm trying to work how this matches up with what basically became a mass meme, that the foundation was utterly corrupt. It certainly doesn't sound like a particularly valuable "income stream", as you call it. What am I missing? I can see it being an example of the Clintons being too close to the rich donor class, but then, Trump met Carlos Slim the other day (describing him as a great guy) so it's hardly as if there was only one candidate guilty of that.
(http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/sep/01/...)
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046
Aren't these non-profit P&L/expense reports on file with the IRS and public record?
They don't have to disclose full (itemised) expenditures or income IIRC and even if they did someone needs to take a very deep look at it, the clinton foundation issues 1000's of invoices on a monthly basis if not more it's not like they would mark "-150,000$ - Chelsea's wedding" in the books.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/bill-cli...
https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-...
As an example, in South India, many rich cloth mill owners converted their land into schools and colleges when they realized they would not be competitive in the global market. In India, schools and colleges are not allowed to be profit making institutions. Guess who owns all the service companies that provide services to these institutions?
Not bad for people who claimed to be "dead broke" 10 years earlier. [3]
Of course, it's not usually donation to pocket. It was donation, to $500k speech from Putin affiliated bank, to State Department deal for 20% of the US uranium [4]
Then again, there's the occasional $1m birthday gift from Qatar that helps pay the bills [5]
“[Qatar] would like to see WJC ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday in 2011,” an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous aides, including Doug Brand. “Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti — particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are happy to consider projects we suggest. I’m collecting input from CF Haiti team.”
[1] http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-most-shoc...
[2] http://nypost.com/2016/11/06/chelsea-clinton-used-foundation...
[3] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/...
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-...
[5] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/13/wikileaks-em...
Why is this my favorite? Because it defines a word which has an obvious meaning, "invasion" in this case in such a way that it excludes situations that any reasonable person would identify as a referent of that word. For example, according to this article, the United States didn't invade Afghanistan. It also does not count use of air power to enforce a no-fly zone as an invasion. This definition is very in tune with the legal and linguistic shenanigans the US goes through in order to justify their military intervention all over the world.
Fact checking can be propaganda too. The idea that the United States' propaganda is justified and others' is not is pure doublethink. This bill claims that it'll preserve democracy by giving the US government the power and resources to create its own propaganda networks (which, by the way, it has been running clandestinely for decades anyway). The people who will enshrine totalitarianism in the law will do it while honestly believing they are saving something they call freedom.
New counter-propaganda law was put in place
- provides grant funding for NGOs working to reduce disinformation from propaganda
- institutionalize the support of a free-press overseas, particularly around Russia/China
This just doesn't seem to make much diplomatic sense.
If it's the same as the House bill, the citations to Russia and China occur only in the "Sense of Congress" section (which isn't legally binding) and include only:
(1) foreign governments, including the Governments of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, use disinformation and other propaganda tools to undermine the national security objectives of the United States and key allies and partners;
(2) the Russian Federation, in particular, has conducted sophisticated and large-scale disinformation campaigns that have sought to have a destabilizing effect on United States allies and interests;
(3) in the last decade disinformation has increasingly become a key feature of the Government of the Russian Federation’s pursuit of political, economic, and military objectives in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Balkans, and throughout Central and Eastern Europe;
I would dispute that this constitutes an identification of Russia as an "enemy".
Edit
Further: my understanding now is that this was an amendment on the 2017 NDAA. I read the text of the 2017 NDAA (or, at least, searched it for all clauses pertaining to "Russia" and "propaganda") and it's not the same bill, nor does it call out Russia or China.
Oh, it's about foreign propaganda? Never mind...
it's good to refuse to play that game altogether, and focus instead of facts such as the the fact that WMDs were not found, the CIA torture report was not discussed by talking heads, drone bombings aren't personal interest stories, and that bird's eye view kind of stuff.
They may not have any control de jure, but the government (federal or otherwise) has de facto gained a lot of control by threatening the media's "access". Yes, this should be an empty threat that the media shouldn't submit to so easily, but in practice it has been extremely effective in keeping some topics off the news.
Journalists have been complaining for at least 10-15 years about having to self-censor their coverage under threat of losing access to politicians and other "insiders". You should have seen many examples of this yourself.
The problem isn't any specific story. This kind of self-censorship creates a culture based on never challenging authority. Did you notice, for example, that CNN has slowly fired anybody that regularly "threatens their access" by acting like a real reporter? What about the people claiming[1] that the job of a journalist is to only act as a stenographer?
[1] http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-wolff-says-journalist...
Either the government is constantly acting sub rosa to manipulate media narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the US government has no formal control over the media.
It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here, signed) legislation take this form.
In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.
If it's a for-profit organization selling lies that aren't sourced by any government (domestic or foreign), I don't see how any existing law prevents it. Stupid people and businesses will end up paying for the spread of falsehood, which seems like an eventual dead end. But if they're being fed (dis)information from government(s) then certainly that should be illegal and should come with very punitive sanctions. Disinformation gets people killed.