What I’m Reading Clinton Cash 1

Bear with me on this book review. I am going to experiment a bit. Instead of writing one long review, I will give thoughts and comments piecemeal as I read. Then I will give a full wrap later.

I am listening to Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash on Audible.com.

I am now about 40% done.

My takes:

• Schweizer piles on lots of accusations. Are any of them proof of illegalities by Hillary? No. Even Schweizer admits that. But Hillary is beginning to look like Christie and Bridge-gate. How can you not know about this stuff or realize how it will look?
  
• Schweizer paints himself as a non-partisan. And he has gone after political corruption in both parties. But don’t forget he has been mostly a political operative for the GOP. That should be a filter for your reading not an excuse not to read this.
  
• Hillary needs a strong point-by-point rebuttal of the points Schweizer raises – especially the links to deals favorable to Kazakhstan, Russia, and India that involve nuclear weapons and possibly actions that put the world in peril.
  
• Republicans will howl about this book showing Bill and Hillary’s corrupt ways. And there is evidence they have used their power and prestige to make millions (billions?) to create “their brand,” as opposed to really helping the world. But we should all see this book as an indictment of our system and the politicians in both the Republican and the Democratic parties who rail about all this but do nothing to change it.
  

There are solutions but neither party wants to see them – because it will take money out of the pockets of the politicians on both sides.

• First, we need tax reform. Everyone has to pay a certain percentage of what they make before deductions – including political donations. We also need a Value Added Tax (VAT) where money goes to the government at the point of sale for each product and service.
  
• Second, the only deductions can be taken by people with incomes less than $75,000. You make more, you can’t deduct your mortgage, charity, or political donations.
  
• Third, businesses will get a higher deduction for hiring someone compared to other deductions.
  
• Fourth, former members of Congress and former Presidents can only have a foundation for their libraries.
  
• Fifth, no person or business entity can donate to a political campaign.
  
• Sixth, if a politician receives any money from a person or entity then that politician cannot vote on any matter relating to that person or business.
  

Some of my biases.

• I think any politician that takes a dime of donor money looks corrupt.
  
• I am suspicious of both parties as money making machines not real political entities. They have made politics into a business; worse they’ve made it into an oligarchy that excludes the majority of Americans since you have to have huge amounts of cash or connections to cash to even think about running or office.
  
• The fact that not one politician who has either run or won office has done anything but lip service to this proves my point.
  
• I have never contributed to anyone’s campaign.
  
• Why do I as a broadcast journalist have to announce to the US government and my bosses if I have taken money or been approached by someone who offers me money to do a favorable story, and a judge is forced to recuse himself from a case involving personal money interests, but an elected official can make millions of dollars and then vote in favor of the donors of those millions — and that is the law of the land boggles my mind.
  
• If you read this book and side with one side or the other, then you are missing the big point of this book – and you don’t care about the solutions we need in this country.