KRUDD to Hillary "Let us know if we can help with anything". "Anything" was a $10M donation to the Clinton Foundation.
Thursday, 28 July 2016
There are no free rides with Clinton Inc.
If you want to play with the Clintons - you pay.
Here's the Clintons Pay to Play in action.
Kevin Rudd was always an easy touch - dazzled by star-power.
We'll pick up KRudd's story in November 2007. He'd just been elected Prime Minister and Hillary Clinton was running against Obama for the Democratic Party's presidential nod.
Climate change dominated Rudd's term in office - his first official act was to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
Ms Clinton clearly knew about Rudd and his pet projects. Climate Change was on her money -making mind too.
On 1 April 2008 our time, Rudd met with Hillary Clinton for a 40 minute private session. As they emerged the Australian media contingent gathered.
The Age's Michelle Grattan filed this report about the events of that day.
Grattan's report includes this account of the Rudd/Clinton meeting.
"As one candidate myself who knows what it’s like to be on the campaign trail, I have every, every, sympathy for what Hillary has ahead of her," he said after their meeting. To which she replied: "I appreciate that."
Bill Clinton has invited him to address a climate change function he is involved in.
It is said this was the context of Rudd’s intriguing, softly spoken sentence to Clinton: "Let us know if we can help with anything."
Rudd's "let us know if we can help with anything" to Hillary certainly raised eyebrows. It was a peculiar thing for an Australian Prime Minister to say to a US Senator notorious for aggressive fundraising in her campaign to beat Obama to the White House.
You can make out the audio in this report from the ABC
Apparently there was something Kevin could help the Clintons with.
After announcing the creation of the Carbon Institute, Rudd jetted off to New York.
One launch wasn't enough for Rudd. The G8 was meeting in L'Aquila, Italy the following July. The lure of Obama et al was too much for the star-seeker to resist.
It's painful to watch his fawning - and his dismissal by contemporaries.
And that is Rudd's fatal flaw. The lure of celebrity is irresistible to him. He had no hope of resisting the Clintons.
So did the Clintons take him up on his offer to
Apparently. Because Rudd's Global Carbon Capture Institute handed over a cool $10,000,000 in real, cold hard Australian taxpayer dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
A donation. Washed through Rudd's Global Carbon Capture Institute. A donation thinly disguised with a wafer thin cover story - the greatest load of waffly non-specific, non-tied, non-FOI-able bulltish you are ever likely to see.
William J. Clinton Foundation (CLINTON FOUNDATION)
The Institute provided AU$10 million to the Clinton Foundation to support the work being conducted through the Clinton Climate Initiative to accelerate key ‘Early Mover’ CCS projects around the world.
Established by former US President Clinton in 2001 the Clinton Foundation works to strengthen the capacity of governments and individuals to alleviate poverty, improve global health, strengthen economies, and protect the environment.
The Clinton Foundation work program includes:
- collaboration with ‘Early Mover’ CCS projects in the Netherlands and Australia to help overcome specific barriers;
- identification of potential future CCS projects and work to accelerate the development of these; and
- sharing ‘best practice’ and case studies from Early Mover projects that have been engaged.
Achievements
- Scoping work has been conducted in Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Germany, UK, Netherlands,Poland and Australia to identify and select potential future CCS projects for engagement.
- Studies undertaken for the Carbon Net project, Australia.
- Collaboration on stakeholder activities, Netherlands.
- Malaysian CCS scoping study due to be completed in November 2010.
ENDS
There is no legal entity known as the Clinton Climate Initiative. The money went into the consolidated and very flexible Clinton Foundation.
What did Australian taxpayers get for our $10 million?
Nothing.
What did Kevin Rudd get?
This.
Up until this breakfast Rudd had not met Bill Clinton.
So how much did Clinton know about the most well-informed, well-read, intelligent leader in the world today?
He certainly didn't know his name.
After their breakfast together Clinton saw Rudd for the second time at his Clinton extravaganza where he introduced our TEN MILLION DOLLAR MAN, as Mr Rude.
There is apparently no depth beyond which the Rudd will not descend to satisfy his craving for fame.
In exchange for our $10M The Rudd got to sit with the grown-ups at the Clinton extravaganza fun fest event.
What do you reckon is on Bill Clinton's mind? Detailed programmatic specificity or one of the sorts he funded with our $10M? Work with me - if you didn't laugh you'd have to go postal wouldn't you?
Check out this $10M snap.
The Rudd must have been knocked about something shocking at school - how is this shit-eating grin after Slick Willy mispronounced Mr Rude's name?
When I was at the Police Academy I'm sure we learned a special name for dishonestly appropriating property including money belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive the other of it. And there was one for dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage. Theft! And Fraud!
Some blokes get their kicks putting other people's money through the pokies.
Some go crazy on the porno channel and red turbo spa room.
Some use OPM for their reno when the boyfriend - while they're away - just rips the internals out of the house.
As a psychological case study, KRudd makes Hannibal Lector sound like a bit-too-excited weirdo who might flash the wedding tackle here and there.
Rudd gets his jollies from stringing big words together into phrases that are so long and unintelligible to most of his audience that by the time he gets to one of the paranthetical clause insertion points as a trademark rhetorical flair deployed for the fanciest and increasingly esoteric buffs in sufficient.............
Still sounds like knocking off other people's money for your own jollies no matter how you dress it up to me.