(Headline USA) For the first time since 2016, the Clinton Foundation, long regarded as a slush fund for the political family’s personal and campaign expenses, is undertaking a major capital campaign.
With disaster imminent in the upcoming November midterm election, President Joe Biden backed off his former pledge to run again in 2024, opening the door for the likelihood that another Clinton will be in the ring.
60 Min: "Are you committed to running again?"
Biden: "My intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again. But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” pic.twitter.com/3R3W3I8e9Z
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 19, 2022
But with failed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton having recently given an unequivocal “no” to the thought of running again, that would leave only former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton, unless her mom was parsing her words or outright lying.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we have a president who respects our democracy and the rule of law and upholds our institutions,” said Hillary after indicating she would not run.
The Clintons have foisted themselves back into the mainstream media spotlight on several fronts recently.
Former President Bill Clinton was trotted out in an apparent effort to clean up the impending midterm catastrophe, claiming that Republicans would find “some new way to scare the living daylights out of swing voters,” The Hill reported.
Hillary and Chelsea both have been on the attack also while promoting a new podcast.
Moreover, with former special counsel Ken Starr having died mysteriously last week during surgery, another leading Clinton critic has been conveniently dispatched.
But the biggest indicator yet of their political scheming is the fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation, conveniently taking place as both the UN Summit and the funeral for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II drew focus away from their side hustle.
Despite the other events drawing world leaders together, interest in the two-day meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative has been so intense that the foundation had to turn away more than 1,000 potential attendees.
It is convening a spectrum of luminaries, including Jordan’s Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and actor and water access activist Matt Damon.
“The world’s on fire in a lot of different ways,” Bill Clinton told the Associated Press in an interview. “But there are a lot of things that businesses, non-governmental groups and governments working together can do to help with a lot of these problems.”
The CGI, established in 2005, required attendees to create a Commitment to Action, a measurable project that addresses a global issue, though for this year that requirement has been waived.
“I think there is a longing for people to get together and meet with an end in mind,” Clinton said. “Not just talk about it, but knowing that when they walk away, they will have committed to doing something.”
Chelsea Clinton, who acts as vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, said the COVID-19 pandemic has energized interest in public health and addressing health disparities because people outside of the field could see the impact.
“Health is interconnected to anything and everything that anyone may care about,” Chelsea said. “There are a lot of people who now are mobilized to do something with what they have come to newly understand and which they now feel responsible for helping to solve.”
The panel discussions scheduled for the initiative focus on potential solutions. Hillary Clinton will discuss approaches to creating gender equality with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, actor and philanthropist Robin Wright and others.
The Clintons also will be joined in that by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization; U2 singer Bono; and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The initiative convened annually until 2016, during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, when questions were raised about the appearance of potential conflicts of interests if donors then had business before her administration.
Bill Clinton said the initiative is counting on the special energy of its participants to tackle a growing number of issues.
“We’ve got the largest number of migrants since World War II,” he said. “And the most publicity they get in America is when one governor or two turns it into some political issue and tries to make problems for other people. Sensible countries work together and try to figure out the best way to deal with it.”
The attack on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent move to send illegals to popular Clinton vacation destination Martha’s Vineyard may be yet another tea leaf signaling a 2024 run with DeSantis widely regarded as the GOP frontrunner should former President Donald Trump opt not to run.
Bill Clinton also hocked a new venture to install solar panels in rural schools following a report from so-called nonprofit Generation180. The deal bore strong ressemblance to the prior green-energy grifts by extended members of the Clinton syndicate including electric car company GreenTech.
Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, along with former Clinton campaign bundler Terry McAuliffe—who also served as a chair of the Clinton Foundation—sought to exploit Obama era green-energy subsidies in the company, bringing along with them a number of wealthy Chinese investors who were granted permanent-residency visas for their efforts.
But Bill Clinton suggested his new scheme should enjoy nonpartisan support.
“The energy is here. The jobs are here. The benefits are here. The kids win,” Clinton said. “That shouldn’t be a political issue.”
Apart from wielding political influence, the Clintons also sought to leverage woke investors like Fink, who have played a more brazen role in attempting to influence public policy with the recent surge of the ESG movement. BlackRock officials have been closely affiliated with both the national security and financial advisories in the current Biden administration.
Bill Clinton said philanthropy can help bust through political and cultural gridlock by showing what can be done. For example, he said that when President Barack Obama proposed hiring 100,000 new STEM teachers and Congress turned him down, philanthropy stepped in to make it happen.
“We got the Carnegie Corporation and the American Federation of Teachers and more than 20 other partners together and they said, ‘We will raise the money,'” Clinton said. “Nobody ever thought of that as being a purpose of philanthropy. But it got the job done, and it demonstrated why Republicans and Democrats should cooperate on such things.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
