The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher's Council Results

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence." - Thomas Jefferson

"The Tea Party represents stakeholders in the American system; people who were never involved in politics or thought they had to be, yet realized that political corruption and incompetence threatened not only their families, but the future of the nation itself." - Tammy Bruce


"Politics, n: [Poly “many” + tics “blood-sucking parasites”]-Ambrose Bierce

“All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others" -New law posted by the pigs in George Orwell's Animal Farm

“If you hires you a thief, don't holler if they steals." -old black American saying in the Mississippi Delta


 


This week's winning essay,Joshuapundit's -How To Make Millions Off 'Public Service' -The Corrupt Clinton Cash Machine was occasioned by the furor surrounding the release of an important new book about the Clinton Foundation scandal. Here's a slice:

My old editor at Breitbart Peter Schweizer has a new book coming out May 5 entitled “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”

My review copy will be arriving shortly, so I haven't read it yet. But the New York Times has, and it's good enough that even Pravda-on-the Hudson had to pay it grudging attention,admitting, "He writes mainly in the voice of a neutral journalist and meticulously documents his sources, including tax records and government documents, while leaving little doubt about his view of the Clintons."

That's no news to anyone who has read Peter's other books on crony capitalism, which target pigs at the trough in both parties.

The subject of this particular book is a detailed 186 page investigation of how the U.S State Department would grant favors to foreign entities in exchange for high-dollar speaking fees and donations paid directly to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

As I pointed out previously, foundations are one of the most egregious scams to hide and shelter income and avoid taxation for the super rich:

Now, foundations are interesting creatures. As Jane Fonda shows us , if the foundation has 501(c) status (and the Clinton Foundation certainly does), they can be used as a place to park income so it isn't taxed and can be used for various 'expenses'..or even invested, tax free. Why else do you think that most of the super-wealthy in America like the Clintons have such foundations?

Another thing about foundations that's interesting is that according to the IRS rules, they're allowed to pay salaries and 'administrative costs' (pretty much anything you can think of) with any portion of the donor money, something that has attracted a lot of prominent politicians. Ex-president Jimmy Carter's Peace Foundation, for example provides a very nice income for him courtesy of his anti-Israel Arab friends. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is another prime example of how 'foundations' , 'libraries' and 'centers' can be used as cash cows by their 'owners'.

And here's the kicker about Hillary's 'charitable donation'. Anything the wealthy 'donor' to such a foundation donates likewise becomes a deduction against whatever taxes they might owe the IRS. So if Hillary Rodham Clinton actually did 'donate' all that money to the Clinton Foundation, she got paid two ways..first by reducing her taxable income significantly to lower her taxes and second by acquiring a huge deduction to leverage against the taxes on her other income. And since her husband 'owns' the Clinton Foundation, the money stayed in the family.

Both The New York Times, of all people, and The New York Post had some disturbing things to say about where the huge sums of money the Clinton Foundation collects were spent...and the Clinton Foundation's infrequent audits.

The Clinton Foundation's mission statement ought to be a tipoff:

"We convene businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for women and girls, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change."

Or as I would translate it, 'We actively pursue fundraising from governments, private enterprise and our well connected friends for various nebulous causes. Yeah, we got a few good things going on, a few programs we can point to, some conferences and some meetings so we have the slideshow as a marketing tool, but essentially, our real object is fundraising and covering our substantial expenses.'

Don't be surprised if some those 'expenses' end up being in kind, cash contributions to Hillary's 2016 campaign that not only evade McCain-Feingold but allow 'donors to get a nice tax deduction to a 501 C in the bargain. It's a dodge, just like the huge $14 million advance Democrat donor-owned Simon & Schuster ponied up for Hillary's failed book. Hillary will pocket the cash and Sumner Redstone and his friends will recoup it courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers after they deduct it as a loss against their other income.


More at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was David French in the National Review with a gripping piece, Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion submitted by Nice Deb .

This is the story of Wisconsin's 'John Doe' investigations where a rabidly Democrat prosecutor found a judge to sign off on targeting what the Left in Wisconsin saw as their political enemies and their families using methods more resembling the Gestapo or the NKVD than what we would think of as a free country. This story has to be read to be believed, and the court case that resulted is now headed to the Supreme Court.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Ask Marion was unable to vote this week but was not subject to the normal 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes!–Joshuapundit-How To Make Millions Off 'Public Service' -The Corrupt Clinton Cash Machine


• Second place with 2 1/3 votes –The Noisy Room – ISIS In Mexico, Means ISIS Is Here In The United States


• Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Bookworm Room – Yeah, yeah! I went AWOL again, but I still have energy to insult Hillary voters


• Fourth place with 1 vote –The Right Planet – Looking Under the Hood of an Article V Convention, Part I


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Nice Deb – Rush Limbaugh Names And Shames Perps In Wisconsin John Doe Scandal (Audio)


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –VA Right! - All Republican Hanover BOS Unlikely After November 2015 Election


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Rhymes With Right – What Is The Purpose Of Free Speech?


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Glittering Eye -The End Of The Dream


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Razor – What My Taxes Could Buy


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Don Surber – Thomas Jennings, invented dry cleaning


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote –GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – The Doolittle Raid


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Ask Marion – Earth Day 2015 – 45th Anniversary… Looking Back

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 1/3 votes! –David French/National Review - Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion submitted by Nice Deb


• Second place with 2 votes –Myron Magnet/City Journal – Free Speech In Peril submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Third place with 1 2/3 votes –Tablet/Lee Smith-Inside Obama’s Meeting With Jewish Leaders submitted by Bookworm Room


• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes –According To Hoyt – Take Your Nose Off My Fist submitted by Rhymes with Right


• Fifth place with 1 vote –IHS Janes 360 – Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State's attempts at cutting Damascus-Homs highway would threaten Assad's control of Syria submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Patti Davis –John Hinckley submitted by The Razor


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Frontpage Mag –Obama Accomplishment: Africans Being Doused w/Gasoline and Set on Fire in Libya submitted by The Independent Sentinel


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Publius-Huldah's Blog – Article V submitted by The Right Planet


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -wolf Howling – Wolf Bytes - The Hillary Follies submitted by The Watcher


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote - The Hollywood Reporter – The Introspective Roger Ailes (Interview) submitted by The Watcher


• Sixth place with 1/3 vote -Breitbart – Scott Walker Lays Out Pro American Worker Stance on Immigration submitted by Joshuapundit

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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