For opponents of Hillary Clinton, the story published two days ago in the New York Times is a godsend:  a money trail of corruption and influence pedalling that culminated in Russia acquiring control of twenty percent of the world’s uranium supplies, including a large portion of those mining rights within the United States itself.  Unlike earlier “scandals” that bitter partisan enemies have spent millions of dollars looking for evidence of wrongdoing and relentlessly pursued unsuccessfully, like the attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, this story does not appear to be a witch hunt.  There is a money trail that is relatively easy to follow, and only the most ardent supporters of Hillary will be able to deny the overwhelming appearance of corruption at the highest levels.

To understand the story and controversy in the political storm that will be unfolding in the next few days and weeks, it is helpful to read the article in  full.  Here is the link to the New York Times article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?ref=politics

In short summary,  when Hillary Clinton agreed to become Secretary of State for the Obama Administration, she was asked to sign a memorandum of understanding with the White House, stating that Bill Clinton’s charity foundation  not accept money donations from foreign governments, and that all donors be publicly disclosed.  This was to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interests, since the State Department forms foreign policy.  It appears now that the public list the Clinton Foundation provided, concealed the true players behind the largest, multi-million dollar donations that flowed, by funneling the donations through the donor’s own “family charities.”  The result was that a relatively unknown Canadian mining company, whom BIll Clinton had accompanied in the acquisition of Uranium mining rights in Kazakhstan, a Soviet satellite country ruled by an authoritarian “president,” was able to grow into a one of the world’s largest mining companies of uranium, the material that is used to produce nuclear energy and nuclear bombs, gaining assets and uranium rights within the United States, that was eventually sold to the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, giving the vilified leader of Russia, Mr. Putin, control over large swaths of the world’s uranium supply.  The sale of the Canadian mining company to Russia had to be approved by the State Department, since uranium is considered a strategic and security asset, and since it involved mining rights within the United States.  The owners and operators of the Canadian company got U.S. approval, while Hillary Clinton was head of the State Department and one of the chairmen of the committee responsible for the decisions, reaping them millions of dollars in profits, of which more than a few million were donated to the Clinton Foundation.  At the same time, Bill Clinton received one of his highest paid speeches yet, to the tune of 500,000 dollars, or, half a million dollars, from a Russian Investment bank with ties to the Kremlin, who was also involved in the sale of the company.

It is no small secret that our public officials are now sponsored with big money from some of the most powerful and corrupt industries and corporations in the world, from the financial and energy sectors, as well as the monopoly protected pharmaceutical companies that control much of the world’s medicine supply.   Dick Cheney stepped down as head of Halliburton just in time to become the Vice President and help lead us into a war based on lies, which in turn reaped Halliburton billions in profits from the war, as well as the oil industry and other weapons and military industries with close ties to the Bush administration.  It is worth remembering that Hillary Clinton is a known war hawk and also voted for the Iraq war, now claiming that she was “mislead” through “faulty intelligence,” a lie that was obvious at the time and has been proven a lie since by a preponderance of evidence.

The response from the Clinton campaign so far been that there is no evidence that Hillary steered anyone at the State Department to approve the sale for the benefit of her husband’s donors.  But the fact that she was head of the State Department conducting U.S. foreign policy at the same time that her husband and their foundation was receiving millions of dollars from people of foreign countries who benefitted from U.S. policy should itself be considered an act of corruption.  The Clintons deliberately, through deceit in their reporting of donors, kept secret the obvious conflicts of interests that the Obama Administration was concerned about from the very beginning, when they had her sign the agreement before making her Secretary of State.

In the beginning of the email scandal regarding Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server to conduct State Department business, there was reason for suspicion but no real indication of anything that she might have been trying to hide.  But then Mrs. Clinton waited too long to address the issue publicly, and when she did address it, she informed the public that she and her team had separated her personal emails from official State Department emails, and deleted them.  Given the thirst for conspiracy theories surrounding her motives for using a private email server in the first place, this was the worst possible action she could have taken for anyone with nothing to hide, after being accused of hiding something.  The obvious theories that her political enemies were concluding was that the emails must have contained some secret regarding Benghazi.  This seems unlikely, however, since any real conspiracy regarding Benghazi would also involve the White House and the CIA, both of which would have the power to conceal anything from the public they deem classified due to “national security.”

Now there is real reason to suspect that those thousands of “personal” emails that Mrs. Clinton destroyed contained information regarding not family weddings, but family “business:” the flow of millions of dollars to her husband and the Clinton Foundation from donors of foreign countries that the White House would not have approved of, and which the Clintons went to some lengths to hide.

The campaign finance system we currently have amounts to legalized bribery.  It is laughable and makes a mockery of our Supreme Court that recently overturned our already weak campaign finance laws in the Citizen’s United split decision, on the grounds that it was “free speech.”  The conservative hacks on the Supreme Court who delivered this verdict to the billionaire club of private power, actually said that just because a corporation gave money to a politician, it didn’t mean their was any evidence of corruption or policy buying.  That is basically the Clinton team’s defense now: sure we took millions of dollars from foreign citizens, helped secure them uranium mining rights, and were the head of the State Department that ultimately approved the sale of the company to Russia and with it control of  20 percent of the world’s uranium supply; and yes Bill got a half million dollars from the Russian investment bank that helped broker the deal, but that doesn’t prove corruption.

This begs the question on those rare occasions now when a politician is charged with the crime of corruption:  what is the difference between criminal corruption and obvious corruption?  Does Hillary and BIll Clinton expect us to believe that all these donors who gave them millions of dollars, did so out of the goodness of their hearts? Are they really asking us to trust them, and believe that it’s all a series of unfortunate coincidences that their donors got richer after throwing a few million dollars in the Clinton’s direction while Mrs. Clinton headed the State Department?  Millionaires and Billionaires are always looking for a return on their investments, especially the politicians they “donate” to.

Americans are always complaining about how corrupt the politicians and government are, with good reason.  Here we have ample evidence, with an easy to follow money trail exposing the crony favoritism that infects our government.  The fact that the Clintons tried to hide this money trail from the Obama Administration should be more than enough evidence to persuade even the most die-hard Bill and Hillary fans of the greed and corruption that are part of the Clinton’s DNA.  This should be the last wake-up call anyone supporting a Hillary presidency needs.  I have always maintained through numerous policy examples, how Hillary Clinton is a phony liberal serving the needs of the uber rich and powerful.  Now we have a connect the dots road map of their corruption.

I sincerely hope the Democrats wake up before its too late and put forth a legitimate candidate that actually cares about the working class and poor of this country, instead of an oligarch who merely uses average Americans as props in a boring and insincere campaign video to support “their turn” at the throne of real power in the United States.