Paul Krugman, "America Becomes a Stan": What About the Clintons, Rosatom and Uranium One?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "America Becomes a Stan," Paul Krugman would have us know that "America is rapidly turning into a stan." Claiming that James Comey's "intervention almost surely swung the election," Krugman writes (my emphasis in red):

"I know that many people are still trying to convince themselves that the incoming administration will govern normally, despite the obviously undemocratic instincts of the new commander in chief and the questionable legitimacy of the process that brought him to power.

. . . .

Everything we know suggests that we’re entering an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever.

. . . .

People tend to forget how much of the 2016 playbook had already been used in earlier years. Remember, the Clinton administration was besieged by constant accusations of corruption, dutifully hyped as major stories by the news media; not one of these alleged scandals turned out to involve any actual wrongdoing."

Give me a break! Obama was Mr. Clean? Have another look at his real estate deal with Tony Rezko.

"[T]he questionable legitimacy of the process that brought [Trump] to power"? Care to be more explicit, Paul? Comey? Russian hacking? The electoral system?

None of the Clinton administration's scandals "turned out to involve any actual wrongdoing"? Oh really? What about Monica Lewinsky, or was this just a "vast right-wing conspiracy," as Hillary told the nation. In fact, Bill was disbarred from practicing law before the Supreme Court.

Let's get real. Hillary was not elected because she was distrusted, and rightfully so. She lied about her emails, and the Clinton Foundation took donations from countries just as bad as the "stans." Moreover, as reported in an April 23, 2015 New York Times article entitled "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal" concerning Rosatom's acquisition of Uranium One," Jo Becker and Mike McIntire wrote (my emphasis in red):

"At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

. . . .

The path to a Russian acquisition of American uranium deposits began in 2005 in Kazakhstan, where the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side.

The two men had flown aboard Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they dined with the authoritarian president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton handed the Kazakh president a propaganda coup when he expressed support for Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid to head an international elections monitoring group, undercutting American foreign policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, his wife, then a senator.

. . . .

Amid this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One.

The $500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to speak at its investor conferences."

Bottom line: Enough of the sour grapes, Paul.

Paul Krugman, "Hillary Clinton Gets Gored": Want to Vomit This Morning?

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You need to vomit this morning? I have the answer. Read Paul Krugman's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton Gets Gored," in which this Nobel Prize winner, who in 2011 promoted the virtues of Occupy Wall Street, attests to Hillary Clinton's character. Yes, I'm serious. Krugman writes:

"Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.

. . . .

Now, any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or, alternatively, Mrs. Clinton using her positions in public office to reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the foundation’s operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation 'raises questions.'

But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, 'no.'"

"[V]ery clearly, 'no'"? Consider an August 30, 2016 New York Times editorial entitled "Cutting Ties to the Clinton Foundation," which informs us:

"Mrs. Clinton became involved in State Department deals and negotiations that also involved foundation donors or board members. She prompted multiple investigations with an arrangement that allowed Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff at the State Department and now vice chairwoman of her campaign, to be paid simultaneously by the State Department, the foundation and Teneo, a consulting firm run by Doug Band, the former adviser to Mr. Clinton who helped create the foundation — and who sent emails to Ms. Abedin seeking favors for foundation donors.

The newly disclosed emails show that some foundation donors and friends, like Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin al-Khalifa of Bahrain, used foundation channels to seek access to Mrs. Clinton.

. . . .

The Clinton Foundation has become a symbol of the Clintons’ laudable ambitions, but also of their tangled alliances and operational opacity."

Oh, those nasty right-wingers from the Times editorial board, who question the "tangled alliances and operational opacity" of the Clinton Foundation, are obviously up to their nefarious tricks again!

Krugman concludes:

"And here’s a pro tip: the best ways to judge a candidate’s character are to look at what he or she has actually done, and what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president; Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s policy lies gave me a much better handle on who he was than all the up-close-and-personal reporting of 2000, and the contrast between Mr. Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness speaks volumes today.

In other words, focus on the facts. America and the world can’t afford another election tipped by innuendo."

A "pro tip"? Got it! Krugman is now also an expert on "speaking style and body language." Speaking style? Apparently Krugman likes the way Hillary nods her head for hours at a time, like a bobble head doll. But more to the point, how does one judge Hillary's speaking style, when it's been 275 days since her last press conference? It is a bit akin to a quarterback taking a knee to run out the clock, but with more than two months to go before the election, this strategy could prove ill-advised.

Hillary's character? Needless to say, Krugman couldn't bring himself to mention that Hillary, a stickler for detail, told the FBI 39 times that she couldn't "recall" details concerning her email practices, or how her aides destroyed her mobile devices with a hammer.

I'm no fan of Trump, whose little fingers shouldn't be allowed anywhere the launch buttons of America's nuclear arsenal, but Hillary a paragon of honesty, integrity and transparency? Yup, Krugman's op-ed is the perfect emetic.

Paul Krugman, "Obamacare Hits a Bump": How About Falls Into a Sinkhole?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obamacare Hits a Bump," Paul Krugman begins:

"More than two and a half years have gone by since the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, went fully into effect. Most of the news about health reform since then has been good, defying the dire predictions of right-wing doomsayers. But this week has brought some genuine bad news: The giant insurer Aetna announced that it would be pulling out of many of the 'exchanges,' the special insurance markets the law established."

Whoa, Aetna is the only bad news? As reported by Javier E. David in an August 6, 2016 CNBC article entitled "Obamacare users in New York brace for double-digit 2017 premium hikes":

"Come 2017, thousands of New York's Obamacare users will wake up to double-digit premium hikes, the latest group of consumers affected by Affordable Care Act cost increases as insurers hemorrhage money from healthcare exchanges.

In a statement on Friday announcing 2017 premiums, NY's Department of Financial Services (DFS) said after weighing insurer requests, the state settled on an average hike of 16.6 percent for individual exchange users in the state, while small group users will see a lower average increase of over 8 percent."

This comes on the heels of a July 19, 2016 Los Angeles Times article entitled "California Obamacare rates to rise 13% in 2017, more than three times the increase of last two years" by Melody Petersen and Noam N. Levey.

Problems only in New York and California? I don't think so. As we are told by Sally C. Pipes and Thomas W. Smith in an August 17, 2016 CNBC piece entitled "Aetna's Obamacare pullout means the 'insurance death spiral' has arrived":

"Insurers that haven't pulled out of Obamacare are requesting premium hikes averaging 24 percent next year. And some states have it far worse. Many Georgians could see a hike of 65 percent. The 600,000 Texans enrolled in Blue Cross Blue Shield may face a 59 percent premium increase."

Krugman goes on to say in his opinion piece:

"This doesn’t mean that the reform is about to collapse. But some real problems are cropping up. They’re problems that would be relatively easy to fix in a normal political system, one in which parties can compromise to make government work. But they won’t get resolved if we elect a clueless president (although he’d turn to terrific people, the best people, for advice, believe me. Not.). And they’ll be difficult to resolve even with a knowledgeable, competent president if she faces scorched-earth opposition from a hostile Congress."

Ah yes, a "knowledgeable" and "competent" Hillary, who has suddenly decided that the Clinton Foundation will no longer accept foreign and corporate donations if she is elected president.

Got it: It was okay for the Clinton Foundation to receive foreign and corporate donations while she was secretary of state, and it is okay for the Clinton Foundation to receive donations while she is a candidate for president, but these donations will no longer be accepted after January 20, 2017.

Or stated otherwise, if foreign governments and corporations wish to influence the executive branch of America's government after Hillary's election, they had best make their donations NOW.

Disgusting.

Paul Krugman, "Wisdom, Courage and the Economy": Honesty Is the Best Policy

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Wisdom, Courage and the Economy," Paul Krugman concludes (my emphasis in red):

"When conservatives promise fantastic growth if we give them another chance at Bushonomics, one main reason is that they don’t want to admit how much they would have to cut popular programs to pay for their tax cuts. When centrists urge us to look away from questions of distribution and fairness and focus on growth instead, all too often they’re basically running away from the real issues that divide us politically.

So it’s actually quite brave to say: 'Here are the things I want to do, and here is how I’ll pay for them. Sorry, some of you will have to pay higher taxes.' Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of policy honesty became the norm?"

Heck, wouldn't it be great if any semblance of honesty became the norm?

This in a Washington Post editorial today entitled "A porous ethical wall between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department" (again, my emphasis in red):

"Should Ms. Clinton win in November, she will bring to the Oval Office a web of connections and potential conflicts of interest, developed over decades in private, public and, in the case of her family’s philanthropic work, quasi-public activities. As secretary, she pledged to keep her official world and her family’s foundation separate, and she failed to keep them separate enough. Such sloppiness would not be acceptable in the White House."

"Sloppiness"? Heck, Hillary's "extreme carelessness" involving her home server, which placed US national security at risk, should have been enough to preclude her candidacy.

Mention of the Clinton Foundation or Hillary's home server in Krugman's op-ed of today's date? Fat chance of that coming from a partisan extremist omniscient progressive who wrote in an October 6, 2011 New York Times op-ed entitled "Confronting the Malefactors":

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

And then there was Krugman's trillion dollar platinum coin proposal, which even Jon Stewart labeled a "stupid f#cking idea."

Shakespeare wrote in "All's Well that Ends Well," "No legacy is so rich as honesty." Ah, but that was so long ago.

David Brooks, "Livin’ Bernie Sanders’s Danish Dream"; Paul Krugman, "On Economic Stupidity": The Times Ceases to Be a Newspaper?

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Let's play a game: Do a Google search using the words "state department," "subpoena," "Clinton Foundation" and "New York Times." What do you see? I see links to Washington Post (a "top story" on the home page), MSNBC, CNN, Yahoo News, Bloomberg and UPI articles concerning the State Department subpoena served on the Clinton Foundation, but nothing from The New York Times. I also did a search using Yahoo: Again, no sign of the Times.

The significance of the subpoena? Chris Cillizza writes in a Washington Post article entitled "Hillary Clinton’s week just went from bad to worse":

"There is, without question, a desire on the part of many Republicans to cast Clinton in the worst possible light using almost any means necessary. But it strains credulity to believe that Republicans somehow concocted a way to get the State Department and the FBI to look into Clinton's tenure at State."

Indeed, something is rotten in the State of Clinton. But more to the point, is the Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") a newspaper or has it become a highly politicized, self-serving propaganda machine?

Meanwhile, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Livin’ Bernie Sanders’s Danish Dream," David Brooks takes aim at the socialist from Vermont:

"American values have always been biased toward individualism, achievement and flexibility — nurturing disruptive dynamos like Bell Labs, Walmart, Whole Foods, Google and Apple — and less toward dirigisme, order and economic equality.

It’s amazing that a large part of the millennial generation has rejected this consensus. In supporting Bernie Sanders they are not just supporting a guy who is mad at Wall Street. They are supporting a guy who fundamentally wants to reshape the American economic system, and thus reshape American culture and values."

Okay, I'm no fan of Bernie Sanders, but it's Hillary Clinton who held herself above the law and who would reshape the American criminal justice system. (Why should she deign to use a secure State Department email address for official business?) Needless to say, no mention of service of the State Department subpoena on the Clinton Foundation in Brooks's opinion piece.

David's colleague, Paul Krugman, writing today in a Times op-ed entitled "On Economic Stupidity" also lashes out at Sanders:

"On the Democratic side, both contenders talk sensibly about macroeconomic policy, with Mr. Sanders rightly declaring that the recent rate hike was a bad move. But Mr. Sanders has also attacked the Federal Reserve in a way Mrs. Clinton has not — and that difference illustrates in miniature both the reasons for his appeal and the reasons to be very worried about his approach."

Krugman, who sang paeans to Occupy Wall Street, is telling us that we should be "very worried" by Sander's approach? Fascinating.

More to the point, Krugman also fails to mention the subpoena served upon the Clinton Foundation. You see, Hillary, having received the Times's endorsement, is now a sacred cow and appears to be immune from criticism. If the FBI recommends indicting Hillary and her aides, I can only wonder if the Times will choose to cover that story.

Frank Bruni, "Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton": Will Anyone Ever Again Pay Her $500,000 to Speak? No Way in Hell!

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Following Hillary's New Hampshire primary debacle, Frank Bruni writes in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton":

"Clinton’s gender indeed matters. Just as you couldn’t properly evaluate Obama’s arc without factoring in race, you can’t see her accurately without recognizing that she’s a woman of her time, with all the attendant obstacles, hurts, compromises and tenacity.

That informs — and, ideally, illuminates — her perspective. And her presidency would carry a powerful, constructive symbolism that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

But those are considerations among many, many others in taking her measure and in casting a vote. To focus only or primarily on them is more reductive than respectful, and to tell women in particular what kind of politics they should practice is the antithesis of feminism, which advocates independence and choices."

Thank you, Frank!

Hillary is toast. Will anyone ever again pay Hillary $500,000 for a speech? No way in hell.

The real loser in New Hampshire? Anyone who ever paid money to the Clinton Foundation, hoping to gain influence over or access to the next president. Sorry, boys and girls, a bad bet. Your horse just came up lame.

Joe, opportunity is knocking.

Gail, Collins, "Hillary and Bernie, Punching": Hillary Is "Uber-Qualified"?

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Labeling Hillary Clinton, in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary and Bernie, Punching," "[t]he uber-qualified woman who believes she knows how to make the real world better," Gail Collins would have us know:

"Hillary is the former first lady who survived her husband’s impeachment, became a senator, then lost a presidential bid and then became secretary of state. We expect more in the way of can-do and less in the way of elevated campaign tactics from her."

Uber-qualified? Yes, she is a former first lady, senator and secretary of state, but what were her achievements? As David A. Graham wrote in an Atlantic article entitled "Is It Unfair to Ask About Hillary Clinton's Accomplishments?":

"The Clinton campaign hasn’t solved the problem of finding a way to communicate just what it is that Clinton has accomplished—particularly during her most recent role as secretary of state, but also in the earlier stages of her career.

The folks Politico canvassed had no shortage of answers, but some are rather thin. Bill Burton, a former Obama aide, cited her 'women’s rights are human rights speech,' given 20 years ago; 'her role in killing Osama bin Laden' (a nebulous answer, though it’s true she counseled in favor of the raid); and an even vaguer 'management of the State Department.'

The multiplicity of answers may reveal the trouble: No one or two accomplishments rise to the top. (The most commonly cited answer is marshaling sanctions against Iran, an essential prerequisite for the nuclear deal that followed, and for which John Kerry has claimed most credit.) Clinton herself has struggled with the question."

Hillary's involvement in cobbling together Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Iran? More and more, this is becoming a dubious distinction. On the other hand, although Hillary may have trouble identifying her achievements, her disasters, which go unmentioned by Collins, are bountiful:

• Targeting the victims of Bills sexual "antics" (calling Monica Lewinsky a "narcissistic looney toon").
• Informing three of the families who lost loved-ones in Benghazi, "We are going to have the filmmaker arrested who was responsible for the death of your son," after telling the Egyptian prime minister, "We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film."
• Accepting donations to the Clinton Foundation from Muslim countries guilty of abominations against women and from banks guilty of conspiring to undertake currency manipulation.
• Maintaining a personal server for her email correspondence while secretary state, now the focus of a widening criminal investigation by the FBI.
• Engaging in sleazy cattle futures trading, by which she turned a $1,000 investment into almost $100,000 after 10 months. 

Clinton is "uber-qualified"? I don't think so. There is a reason why, given the paucity of Democratic contenders for the presidency, Bernie Sanders is rising in the polls. Depending upon the determinations of the FBI, Joe Biden, who is now questioning Hillary's "authenticity," might yet throw his hat in the ring.

Shame on you, Gail.

Alissa J. Rubin, "Flawed Justice After a Mob Killed an Afghan Woman": Care to Comment, Hillary?

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In an important lead New York Times article entitled "Flawed Justice After a Mob Killed an Afghan Woman" (avoid watching the video at the top of the article unless you have a cast-iron stomach), Alissa J. Rubin writes of the horrific murder of Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old woman falsely accused of burning a Quran, and of the lenient legal proceedings against the men who were responsible for her death. Rubin writes:

"Farkhunda’s death and the legal system’s response call into question more than a decade of Western efforts in Afghanistan to instill a rule of law and improve the status of women. The United States alone has spent more than $1 billion to train lawyers and judges and to improve legal protections for women; European countries have provided tens of millions more.

But like so many other Western attempts to remake Afghanistan, the efforts have foundered, according to Afghan and Western lawyers and officials. Afghan society has resisted more than 150 years of such endeavors by outsiders, from the British to the Russians to the Americans. This remains a country where ties of kinship and clan trump justice, and where the money brought by the West has made corruption into a way of life. The rule-of-law programs were often designed in ignorance of Afghan legal norms, international and Afghan lawyers say. And Western efforts to lift women’s legal status provoked fierce resentment from powerful religious figures and many ordinary Afghans.

Yet Afghan women most need the legal system to defend them: They are largely powerless without the support of male family members, and it is usually family members who abuse them."

However, Afghanistan is not the only country where women are subjected to such horrors which go virtually unpunished by the legal system. Although never captured on video and never disseminated on the Internet, as was the slaying of Farkhunda, "Honor killings" are endemic throughout the Muslim Middle East.

Let's also not forget that stoning to death for alleged adultery, a punishment usually reserved for Muslim women, is legal in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Yemen.

And then there's also that "minor matter" involving the lashing and imprisonment of Saudi women who have been gang-raped.

Saudi Arabia? Yes, that's the country that has donated between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Qatar has given the Clinton Foundation somewhere between $1 million and $5 million in the past, and Kuwait and the UAE have also made hefty contributions.) But let's just ignore all that cash. After all, Hillary has placed women's rights at the center of her agenda, and we all know that she never lies.

Gail Collins, "Gov. Walker and the Cool Thing": Walker's Anti-Abortion Agenda, Collins's Tunnel Vision

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Gov. Walker and the Cool Thing," Gail Collins derides Gov. Scott Walker's anti-abortion agenda. Collins writes:

"We’ve been wondering when a presidential candidate would say something incredibly insensitive about women and reproduction.

. . . .

Last week, Walker was on a radio talk show, praising a law he signed requiring women who want an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. Which they’re supposed to watch, while the physician points out the features of the fetus.
An ultrasound, he said, was 'just a cool thing.'"

Collins's conclusion:

"[W]e have here a potential president who justifies a law on how doctors treat their abortion patients by citing what we know from watching TV and movies.

Seventeen months to go. Lord knows what’s next."

Let me make myself clear: I believe abortion is a woman's right, and there can be no forcing women to view an ultrasound monitor before undergoing the procedure.

On the other hand, at least Walker is responding to questions from the press, even if we don't like the answers, unlike someone else we all know.

"Lord knows what's next"? Let me tell you, Gail, what's next.

Yesterday, in a New York Times article entitled "An Award for Bill Clinton Came With $500,000 for His Foundation" by Deborah Sontag, we learned that the Clinton Foundation received $500,000 from the Happy Hearts Fund, which rebuilds schools after natural disasters, in exchange for Bill's appearance at a fund-raiser marking the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami:

"The former president of the United States agreed to accept a lifetime achievement award at the June 2014 event after Ms. Nemcova offered a $500,000 contribution to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The donation, made late last year after the foundation sent the charity an invoice, amounted to almost a quarter of the evening’s net proceeds — enough to build 10 preschools in Indonesia.

. . . .

'The Clinton Foundation had rejected the Happy Hearts Fund invitation more than once, until there was a thinly veiled solicitation and then the offer of an honorarium,' said the former executive director, Sue Veres Royal, who held that position at the time of the gala and was dismissed a few weeks later amid conflicts over the gala and other issues."

Excuse me as I lose my breakfast.

Open Letter to Dean Baquet, Editor of The New York Times: Nicholas Kristof and the Clinton Foundation

Dear Mr. Baquet,

In his New York Times op-ed entitled "Polluted Political Games," Nicholas Kristof wrote on Thursday:

"I’ve admired the Clintons’ foundation for years for its fine work on AIDS and global poverty, and I’ve moderated many panels at the annual Clinton Global Initiative."

Can you please inform me if Mr. Kristof was paid to moderate these panels, and if so, how much? I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with being paid to moderate panels, but if Mr. Kristof, a Times columnist, was paid by the Clinton Foundation, can we please know how much?

I have previously asked Andrew Rosenthal and Margaret Sullivan to answer this question, but I have not received any responses to my emails to them.

Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.

Best regards,
Jeffrey

Paul Krugman, "The Big Meh": And the Currency Rigging Banks Which Donated to the Clinton Foundation?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Big Meh," Paul Krugman writes about the effect of new technologies on the economy. Paul would have us know:

"So what do I think is going on with technology? The answer is that I don’t know — but neither does anyone else. Maybe my friends at Google are right, and Big Data will soon transform everything. Maybe 3-D printing will bring the information revolution into the material world. Or maybe we’re on track for another big meh.

What I’m pretty sure about, however, is that we ought to scale back the hype."

I don't agree with Paul. The three hi-tech companies with which I work (two as an outside consultant, one as chairman of the board) all have the potential to change our world: revolutionary new drug candidates, a chip capable of restoring vision to persons blinded by age-related macular degeneration following a 30-minute minimally invasive procedure, and a new generation of super-strong fibers for ultra-thin life-saving surgical sutures. I work hard and late every night, and if I didn't believe in these companies, I wouldn't waste the time. No need for hype. Let's wait and see the results.

However, something else is troubling me today: On Friday, in an editorial entitled "Banks as Felons, or Criminality Lite," The New York Times informed us:

"As of this week, Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are felons, having pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges of conspiring to rig the value of the world’s currencies. According to the Justice Department, the lengthy and lucrative conspiracy enabled the banks to pad their profits without regard to fairness, the law or the public good.

. . . .

In all, the banks will pay fines totaling about $9 billion, assessed by the Justice Department as well as state, federal and foreign regulators. That seems like a sweet deal for a scam that lasted for at least five years, from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2013, during which the banks’ revenue from foreign exchange was some $85 billion."

However, what the Times didn't tell us was the connection of some of these banks (not Royal Bank of Scotland) to the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative ("CGI"). The Clinton Foundation lists Barclays Capital and the Citi Foundation as donors in the $1,000,001 to $5,000,000 range. It also lists JPMorgan Chase as a donor in the $100,001 to $250,000 range.

In addition, with regard to Barclays, a March 3, 2015 CNN article entitled "Base wary of Clinton Foundation's ties to troubled banks" by Alexandra Jaffe states:

"British banking giant Barclays emerged as a 'strategic partner' with CGI for its 2010 annual meeting, and gave the same level of support every year after that.

. . . .

In August of 2010, the Justice Department announced Barclays would pay nearly $300 million in fines for breaking sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Sudan and others.

. . . .

According to a Justice Department statement issued in June 2012, Barclays "admitted and accepted responsibility for its misconduct" at the center of a scheme to manipulate global interest rates, which in turn affected prices for consumer lending.

The bank agreed to pay $450 million in total to the Justice Department, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the UK's Financial Services Authority to resolve the violations.

. . . .

In July 2014, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused both Barclays and Deutsche Bank of helping hedge funds avoid paying more than $6 billion in taxes."

Isn't it a bit peculiar how Paul ("The Conscience of a Liberal") Krugman has nothing to say about the aforesaid abomination? Or is it really not so terrible in our brave new world? What do you think?

New York Times Editorial, "Banks as Felons, or Criminality Lite": No Mention of the Clinton Foundation

In an editorial entitled "Banks as Felons, or Criminality Lite," The New York Times informs us:

"As of this week, Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are felons, having pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges of conspiring to rig the value of the world’s currencies. According to the Justice Department, the lengthy and lucrative conspiracy enabled the banks to pad their profits without regard to fairness, the law or the public good.

. . . .

In all, the banks will pay fines totaling about $9 billion, assessed by the Justice Department as well as state, federal and foreign regulators. That seems like a sweet deal for a scam that lasted for at least five years, from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2013, during which the banks’ revenue from foreign exchange was some $85 billion."

Got it: These banks will pay fines of $9 billion on foreign exchange revenue of $85 billion. Sweet!

However, what the Times doesn't tell us is the connection of some of these banks (not Royal Bank of Scotland) to the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative ("CGI"). The Clinton Foundation lists Barclays Capital and the Citi Foundation as donors in the $1,000,001 to $5,000,000 range. It also lists JPMorgan Chase as a donor in the $100,001 to $250,000 range.

In addition, with regard to Barclays, a March 3, 2015 CNN article entitled "Base wary of Clinton Foundation's ties to troubled banks" by Alexandra Jaffe states:

"British banking giant Barclays emerged as a 'strategic partner' with CGI for its 2010 annual meeting, and gave the same level of support every year after that.

. . . .

In August of 2010, the Justice Department announced Barclays would pay nearly $300 million in fines for breaking sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Sudan and others.

. . . .

According to a Justice Department statement issued in June 2012, Barclays "admitted and accepted responsibility for its misconduct" at the center of a scheme to manipulate global interest rates, which in turn affected prices for consumer lending.

The bank agreed to pay $450 million in total to the Justice Department, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the UK's Financial Services Authority to resolve the violations.

. . . .

In July 2014, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused both Barclays and Deutsche Bank of helping hedge funds avoid paying more than $6 billion in taxes."

Can't wait for Hillary to field questions concerning her foundation's ties to the banking industry from a journalist who didn't donate to the foundation. Yes, I know, I shouldn't hold my breath.

The Washington Post, "Does Rubio have a spending problem?": Rubio's Refrigerator on WaPo's Homepage

In an article entitled "Does Rubio have a spending problem?" by Sean Sullivan, which appears online on the homepage of The Washington Post, we are informed:

"In new disclosure forms filed by Rubio last week, he revealed that he sold $68,241 worth of retirement funds last September. Experts say such a move tends to reflect an extraordinary need for immediate cash, since it comes with a sizable tax penalty.

. . . .

In an interview on 'Fox News Sunday,' Rubio said that he needed 'access to cash' for personal expenses and in anticipation of running for president. He said he has at least two other active retirement accounts.

'My refrigerator broke down,' Rubio said. 'That was $3,000. I had to replace the air-conditioning unit in our home. My kids all go to school, and they are getting closer to college, and school’s getting more expensive.'"

So, Rubio needed to repair and replace his expensive refrigerator. Sound familiar? I recently had to replace my GE refrigerator which gave up the ghost.

Rubio is having trouble paying for his four children's private schooling? What a surprise . . . not! For many years our three children's upbringing constantly threw us into debt (yes, we always wanted the best for them).

Solution? Maybe Rubio's wife needs to be giving speeches on behalf of the Clinton Foundation. That would rectify their finances in the blink of an eye.

Paul Krugman, "Ideology and Integrity": Obamacare Is a Success?

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Ideology and Integrity," Paul Krugman tells us that the 2016 US presidential election "should turn almost entirely on the issues," but "intellectual integrity" should also matter. Regarding Hillary, Krugman writes:

"The press, I’m sorry to say, tends to punish open-mindedness, because gotcha journalism is easier and safer than policy analysis. Hillary Clinton supported trade agreements in the 1990s, but now she’s critical. It’s a flip-flop! Or, possibly, a case of learning from experience, which is something we should praise, not deride."

Of course, no mention by Krugman of issues of "intellectual integrity" arising from the management and conduct of the Clinton Foundation, or Hillary's refusal to answer questions regarding Uranium One.

Instead, Krugman would have us examine the positions of Republican presidential candidates, who have yet to flip-flop on Obamacare:

"Meanwhile, as far as I can tell no important Republican figure has admitted that none of the terrible consequences that were supposed to follow health reform — mass cancellation of existing policies, soaring premiums, job destruction — has actually happened."

Ah yes, that remarkable revolution in American health care. Needless to say, Krugman makes no reference to a lead article in today's Washington Post by Lena H. Sun and Niraj Chokshi, whose title "Nearly half of Obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future" speaks for itself.

And as long as we're talking about intellectual integrity, I'm still waiting for Krugman to explain away his declaration in an October 6, 2011 Times op-ed entitled "Confronting the Malefactors":

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

Sorry, Paul, but "intellectual integrity" in politics and journalism ceased to exist many, many years ago.