-By Warner Todd Huston
Just as she is considered a shoo-in for the Democrat nomination and thereafter purportedly President of the United States, Hillary Clinton’s “foundation” is seen floundering with invitations to its latest big time gala being turned down by celebs across the spectrum. One would think it would be just the opposite for someone everyone seems to think is about to become President.
Certainly I put “foundation” in quotes because it isn’t a real charity. Everyone knows that. But regardless of the fraud at its heart, the Clinton Foundation has always been treated like an important entity by celebrities and world leaders. That is until the last few years when it has started to go out of fashion among the fashionable.
Troubles started in 2013 when The New York Times dared to print a story that pretty much proved that this so-called charity is less a charity and more a bottomless pit of spending on the Clintons and their pals, a slush fund to keep the Clintons in enough cash for their high flying lifestyle and payoffs to their buddies.
Still, with Clinton running for president, donations have been up with the “foundation” making a very concerted effort to gain new donors in the first half of the year. But the fact that donations have swelled does not overshadow that the illiterati have begun to snub the Clinton Foundation and the failure of this year’s gala to attract the big names is telling.
A new report this month shows that some of the biggest names in politics and show business have ignored their invitations to attend and speak at the Clinton Foundation gathering starting this weekend. Further, many have also refused to renew their expensive memberships in the Clinton’s slush fund.
On Saturday, Politico reported that, among others, such luminaries as Pope Francis, Elton John, Federal Reserve head Janet Yellen, Facebook bigwig Mark Zuckerberg, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel all turned the Clintons down for speaking slots at the gala. And others are refusing to pay out the big dollars for renewed memberships.
“They’ve had a lot of rejections from people–both for membership renewals and speaking roles this year between the campaign, Hillary not being at CGI this year, bad press,” a Clinton insider told the online newser.
And despite the rise in donors earlier this year, by the second half of the year some corporate donors had begun to bow out of the Clinton Foundation.
All of this is very interesting and speaks to the idea that these movers and shakers are less interested in the foundation because they might think that the Clintons’ days are numbered. Otherwise, if they didn’t feel that way, these sorts of folks would be trying to become more involved in the foundation, not less. After all, if it seems inevitable that Hillary should become President it would be short sighted to dump her foundation only a year ahead of this purported inevitable election result.
These sorts of people are paying for access, after all, and what better use of your money than to buy that access from the soon-to-be president of the United States?
But instead they are abandoning the Clinton’s “charity” organization. Why is that if Hillary is such a shoo-in to become president? It does seem counter intuitive, doesn’t it? Or is it more likely that these movers and shakers feel that Clinton really isn’t about to become president and they’d rather spend their money elsewhere and more wisely?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Follow Warner Todd Huston on:
Twitter
Facebook
Tumblr
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
NOTE: If you want to comment, for some reason our Facebook comments section takes a bit of time to load. It’ll pop up soon. Thanks