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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On September 08 2016 06:13 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:55 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear. Why would you grow up fearing the India Pak conflict? Even I didnt grow up fearing that. We've gotten over full scare war stupidity in the 60's and 70's and realized there were worse ways to fuck with each other.
Well I grew up in the early 80s and 90s. My grandfather CEO company did military contracting all through the cold war, developing optics for spy planes, subs and other stuff. He worked for Israel and Germany too. That was the only conflict he was afraid of because he didn't know what would happen. And he, being sort of an irresponsible grandfather, instilled me with that fear. That thing was still sort of scary up into the early 2000s.
Of course I am not from either country, but this was before the era of the internet. But the widely accepted opinion in that era of poor information was that both India and Pakistan did not share our fear of the bomb. Like at all. It could be unfounded of course, but we didn't have the current version of the internet where I could ask people about it in 1995.
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Another piece that is spot-on about the differences in treatment of Clinton and Trump in the media:
Trump’s history of corruption is mind-boggling. So why is Clinton supposedly the corrupt one?
In the heat of a presidential campaign, you’d think that a story about one party’s nominee giving a large contribution to a state attorney general who promptly shut down an inquiry into that nominee’s scam “university” would be enormous news. But we continue to hear almost nothing about what happened between Donald Trump and Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. [...]
The big difference is that there are an enormous number of reporters who get assigned to write stories about those issues regarding Clinton. The story of something like the Clinton Foundation gets stretched out over months and months with repeated tellings, always with the insistence that questions are being raised and the implication that shady things are going on, even if there isn’t any evidence at a particular moment to support that idea.
When it comes to Trump, on the other hand, we’ve seen a very different pattern. Here’s what happens: A story about some kind of corrupt dealing emerges, usually from the dogged efforts of one or a few journalists; it gets discussed for a couple of days; and then it disappears. Someone might mention it now and again, but the news organizations don’t assign a squad of reporters to look into every aspect of it, so no new facts are brought to light and no new stories get written.
The end result of this process is that because of all that repeated examination of Clinton’s affairs, people become convinced that she must be corrupt to the core. It’s not that there isn’t plenty of negative coverage of Trump, because of course there is, but it’s focused mostly on the crazy things he says on any given day.
But the truth is that you’d have to work incredibly hard to find a politician who has the kind of history of corruption, double-dealing, and fraud that Donald Trump has. The number of stories which could potentially deserve hundreds and hundreds of articles is absolutely staggering.
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A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997.
I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising).
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On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses."
Isn't this the case for a lot of similar organizations? Overhead is really expensive and they need really expensive people for some of this stuff. Not to say I don't think there is some degree of shittiness going. But it's not as simple as 131/140 being used on corruption or some such stuff.
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Ortel has been working on smearing the Clinton campaign for a number of months now; I'll see if I can find a good critique of his approach thus far. The foundation definitely keep sloppy books, that much we can be sure of.
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On September 08 2016 07:00 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." Isn't this the case for a lot of similar organizations? Overhead is really expensive and they need really expensive people for some of this stuff. Not to say I don't think there is some degree of shittiness going. But it's not as simple as 131/140 being used on corruption or some such stuff.
Yes, but it's usually a very bad sign to have that much overhead compared to aid being given. We can't see the numbers that he's citing yet (they'll be released in subsequent batches [the exhibits]).
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On September 08 2016 07:04 farvacola wrote:
Ortel has been working on smearing the Clinton campaign for a number of months now; I'll see if I can find a good critique of his approach thus far. The foundation definitely keep sloppy books, that much we can be sure of.
Well, we can't even see his approach until he releases the full report, so I'm not sure what valid critique you're going to find.
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On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997. I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising).
These numbers are "damning" if you take them out of context and ignore how the Clinton Foundation actually operates. The line of attack about the Foundation's 2013 expenses that you just cited has actually repeatedly been brought up dishonestly by the GOP -- here's a thorough debunking.
Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”
That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”
“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).” [...]
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.
By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina “is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations,” Borochoff said. “She’s thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation.” Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.
“What she’s doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups,” Borochoff said. “If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet.”
In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation’s consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
“Otherwise,” he said, “you are looking at just a piece of the pie.”
Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89 percent of its budget is spent on programs. That’s the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.
We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3 percent of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can’t vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6 percent of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work.
Also, for the record, here's how the Foundation is graded by charity watchdogs:
Charity Watch score: A
Charity Navigator score: 4/4 stars
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All of those foundations are equally crooked. I am yet to hear about even a single one of them that is not keeping 75% (or more) of the money to themselves. These stories pop up every other month.
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Releasing information piecemeal, particularly when the author's conclusion seems foregone, can be critiqued in itself. Out with it already, I say.
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On September 08 2016 07:09 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997. I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising). These numbers are "damning" if you take them out of context and ignore how the Clinton Foundation actually operates. The line of attack about the Foundation's 2013 expenses that you just cited has actually repeatedly been brought up dishonestly by the GOP -- here's a thorough debunking. Show nested quote +Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”
That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”
“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).” [...]
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.
By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina “is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations,” Borochoff said. “She’s thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation.” Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.
“What she’s doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups,” Borochoff said. “If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet.”
In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation’s consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
“Otherwise,” he said, “you are looking at just a piece of the pie.”
Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89 percent of its budget is spent on programs. That’s the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.
We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3 percent of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can’t vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6 percent of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work.
The charge in the Ortel report is that the Foundation isn't doing valid 501(c)(3) charitable work, so it isn't a valid operating charity.
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On September 08 2016 07:07 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 07:04 farvacola wrote:
Ortel has been working on smearing the Clinton campaign for a number of months now; I'll see if I can find a good critique of his approach thus far. The foundation definitely keep sloppy books, that much we can be sure of. Well, we can't even see his approach until he releases the full report, so I'm not sure what valid critique you're going to find.
He has done other work on the Foundation in the past, is farva's point. He released another summary report on the foundation in February. And another last November. And that's just on the first page of his site (http://charlesortel.com/).
It's also really weird to me he intersperses these posts with letters and posts to people "not asking for money."
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On September 08 2016 07:12 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 07:09 kwizach wrote:On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997. I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising). These numbers are "damning" if you take them out of context and ignore how the Clinton Foundation actually operates. The line of attack about the Foundation's 2013 expenses that you just cited has actually repeatedly been brought up dishonestly by the GOP -- here's a thorough debunking. Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”
That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”
“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).” [...]
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.
By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina “is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations,” Borochoff said. “She’s thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation.” Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.
“What she’s doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups,” Borochoff said. “If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet.”
In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation’s consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
“Otherwise,” he said, “you are looking at just a piece of the pie.”
Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89 percent of its budget is spent on programs. That’s the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.
We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3 percent of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can’t vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6 percent of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work. The charge in the Ortel report is that the Foundation isn't doing valid 501(c)(3) charitable work, so it isn't a valid operating charity.
And surely an organization as big as the Clinton Foundation has never been checked for validity.
Surely this is the first time something like this has been done
Surely this is not yet another BS piece.
Call me when their charity status is revoked.
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Top US cancer scientists have urged the Obama administration to create a national cancer database for clinicians and patients as part of a slew of recommendations presented on Wednesday by the White House-supported cancer “moonshot” panel.
Vice-President Joe Biden assembled the scientists as part of the administration’s effort to make the US the country that cures cancer “once and for all”.
The Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel report said the recommendations, if implemented, “will transform our understanding of cancer and result in new opportunities to more effectively prevent and treat the disease”.
The 10 recommendations include existing programs that need more funding – such as research to update guidelines for patient symptom control – and brand new initiatives including a human tumor database to monitor and analyze multi-dimensional cell behavior.
The panel also called for the creation of a network of databases for patients to profile their cancers and pre-register for clinical trials; the organization of a cancer immunotherapy clinical trial network; and the study and development of therapies that prevent or overcome drug resistance.
The panel also recommended initiatives to improve the understanding of a protein tied to pediatric cancers; increase monitoring and management of symptom care and treatment; support development of new testing and treatment technologies; and improve prevention and early detection.
But the funding necessary to fulfill these recommendations has not been approved by Congress despite lobbying by the Obama administration, which said it hoped to spend $1bn on the program.
“Congress should seize this historic opportunity – when researchers are on the brink of so many new and potentially life-saving developments in diagnostic tests and treatments – to boost funding for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and NCI [National Cancer Institute],” said Gary Reedy, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the not-for-profit organization’s action network, ACS CAN, in a statement.
Source
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United States42024 Posts
On September 08 2016 07:10 RoomOfMush wrote:
All of those foundations are equally crooked. I am yet to hear about even a single one of them that is not keeping 75% (or more) of the money to themselves. These stories pop up every other month.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
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So I know this was a day ago and about 10+ pages by now probably, but I'm still waiting for xdaunt to give us some concrete evidence as to how Clinton is corrupt, and what specifically she has gone that's so horrible and corrupt. He's ignored the question twice now, which seems typical of the people screaming "but...but...but...corrupt! Ben Gratzi! Ishmails!"
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On September 08 2016 07:12 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 07:09 kwizach wrote:On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997. I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising). These numbers are "damning" if you take them out of context and ignore how the Clinton Foundation actually operates. The line of attack about the Foundation's 2013 expenses that you just cited has actually repeatedly been brought up dishonestly by the GOP -- here's a thorough debunking. Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”
That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”
“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).” [...]
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.
By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina “is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations,” Borochoff said. “She’s thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation.” Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.
“What she’s doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups,” Borochoff said. “If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet.”
In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation’s consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
“Otherwise,” he said, “you are looking at just a piece of the pie.”
Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89 percent of its budget is spent on programs. That’s the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.
We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3 percent of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can’t vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6 percent of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work. The charge in the Ortel report is that the Foundation isn't doing valid 501(c)(3) charitable work, so it isn't a valid operating charity.
Here is what you wrote in your post:
On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:
[...] For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." [...]
A quick google search reveals that you directly copied that line (and not only the part in quotes), with minimal edits, from one of the numerous pages that include it, mostly blog posts by conservatives and/or conspiracy theorists that have tried to push that false narrative about the Clinton Foundation. Perhaps was it taken from this post from zerohedge (written by "Tyler Durden" no less, because of course he picked that username), which was put online yesterday to mention Ortel's analysis? In any case, I literally just presented you with an analysis which utterly debunks this line of attack about the Clinton Foundation being a "slush fund". Your entire post, and your comment that the "raw numbers" are "damning", are built on a complete misunderstanding (or, perhaps, from the actual authors of that narrative, a deliberate lie) of how the Clinton Foundation operates.
Now that we've cleared this up, there remains the information that a random individual named Charles Ortel believes the Clinton Foundation doesn't qualify as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and that he has yet to explain why that is the case. It seems like the government and private experts who've looked into the Foundation have never brought up this charge, so I would argue the reasonable thing to do would be to wait for him to actually release his analysis of why that would be the case, and see how it's assessed by experts. I would add that a two-minute look at his website should tell you all you need to know about how serious and unbiased you can expect his "analysis" to be, but what do I know 
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Gingrich, speaking on Sean Hannity’s radio show, said Monday that he hoped Clinton was OK, and recalled former President Bill Clinton’s cough during the 1990s that Gingrich said was caused by acid reflux.
“Her cough is much deeper than his and lasts much longer, so I don’t know what her problem is,” said Gingrich, who unsuccessfully ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. “But I would think both for her own help and to reassure the country, that she ought to do something about this. And I’m really surprised her doctors are not more aggressive.”
[..]
Minutes later, as the pair discussed the presidential campaign, Gingrich abruptly coughed in a dry, hacking manner.
“Now you sound like Hillary. Can I get you a drink of water?” Hannity said before adding that Gingrich’s cough “didn’t last 4 minutes and 20 seconds, thank God.”
“No, I’m in good shape. At least I’m in better shape than Hillary,” Gingrich replied.
His throat dries out because he flies so much, Gingrich said.
www.latimes.com
You can't make this shit up, this election is funnier than any political comedy
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On September 08 2016 06:53 xDaunt wrote:A Wall Street Analyst has turned his talents on the Clinton Foundation. His report is less than flattering. Finding that the Clinton Foundation doesn't appear to meet the criteria of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, he basically concludes that it's a giant slush fund where the vast majority of its proceeds were sent to family and friends for their own gain through one means or another. For example, in 2013, the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million in grants and pledges, but spent just $9 million on direct aid, with the vast majority of the funds being spent on "administration, travel, salaries, and bonuses." From 1997 though 2014, $2 billion has been donated to the Clinton Foundation. His most interesting conclusion is that the Clinton Foundation and affiliated entities created "illegal private gains" in the amount of $100 billion or more since 1997. I can't speak to the validity of the analysis (and the full analysis isn't available yet), but the raw numbers that he cites in his report are damning if nothing else. I also think that it is interesting that the Clinton Foundation has never been audited (not that the lack of an audit is surprising).
I mean, the Clinton Foundation's application for tax exempt status is on their website. He doesn't really address that or the IRS's determination letter (also on their website). This "report" (or rather preview of a report) is just a big ole gish gallop.
Beyond that, I don't see how his credentials mean anything in relation to his "analysis".
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On September 08 2016 03:11 KwarK wrote:
You know I might quite like a Trump presidency. It'd be hilarious and I could probably convert all my hoarded pre-tax dollars to post-tax at 0% in his term. If it got too bad I could fuck off back to Europe and take advantage of the weak pound to set myself up pretty nicely. Political satire would be of the highest quality and the first of the great meme wars would emerge between the alt-right and the old conservatives. We'd all get to say Merry Christmas on every holiday without fail and we wouldn't have to bake cakes for anyone.
Is this where I point out that being able to say such a thing is what white privilege looks like?
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EPT
