Fiorina’s ties to Clinton Foundation closer than disclosed

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has repeatedly criticized the Clinton Foundation for accepting foreign donations, yet she has a larger relationship with its offshoot, the Clinton Global Initiative, than previously reported.

The former Hewlett Packard CEO has addressed reports she spoke at Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, events on two occasions. However, WND has found that Fiorina currently serves on the boards of two non-profits that have partnered with CGI.

One of the non-profit organizations, the National Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, was launched at a CGI event June 14, 2013, and that same year also pledged a two-year, $3.7 million commitment to CGI to foster interest in entrepreneurship.

Fiorina serves on NCEI’s four-member advisory board.

Find out who the true Hillary is in “Hillary Unhinged: In Her Own Words,” the raw and humorous collection of quotes that pitilessly underscores her hypocrisy and endless pandering

An NCEI press release recounts how the non-profit was launched at CGI.

“We looked across the country and thought about the places that we could launch, and we loved the CGI model and their notion of making commitments to act,” NCEI’s chief executive, Laurie Westley, told Entrepreneur magazine. “There are very few places where we can do that quite so publicly, with the same kind of affection for new ideas and respect for the actions that it takes to bring them to fruition.”

NCEI’s $3.7 million pledge includes plans to construct an exhibition space at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., celebrating entrepreneurship that is expected to open in 2024.

Fiorina separately serves as chairman of the board of directors of Good360, a consortium of non-profits with a mission statement that boasts it “transforms lives and strengthens communities by mobilizing companies to donate critically needed goods.” She has been on the board since 2012.

In 2013, Good360 partnered with Hilton Worldwide to back a CGI project called RePurpose, which says it supports “members of the hospitality industry in finding alternative ways to recycle, donate, or reuse waste instead of sending it to the landfill.”

Fiorina’s campaign did not return a request for comment on the two non-profits’ ties to the Clinton groups.

Fiorina did not mention her role at the two CGI-supporting non-profits when she appeared on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show last month to address her associations with CGI.

Fiorina was responding to reports she appeared on a panel with Bill Clinton at a June 23-25, 2014, CGI event in Denver. At that meeting, Fiorina debated Clinton and opposed a plan to hike the minimum wage.

In response to her attendance, she told Hannity that “with regard to the Clinton Global Initiative, yes, I went and spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative on two occasions. On one occasion, I was asked by ‘Meet the Press’ to debate President Clinton on the stage. I was happy to do so.

“And in the second instance, I went to lead a panel on entrepreneurship. I thought it was important to do that, because Democrats are trying to claim that they are the party of small business and entrepreneurship; and every policy they pursue, crushes small business and entrepreneurship, and I thought the audience needed to know the other side of the story.”

Fiorina has repeatedly criticized the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s role as the group that has faced criticism for its acceptance of foreign contributions.

“How can we trust Mrs. Clinton?” Fiorina asked at a May campaign stop in South Carolina. “We now know that her family foundation has had to refile five years’ worth of returns because it failed to disclose donations from foreign governments. We know that she only had one email in her server, that she put a server in her basement, that it was convenient not to rely on federal government emails.”

In her address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Fiorina called on Clinton to “please explain why we should accept that the millions and millions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments doesn’t represent a conflict of interest.”

Related stories:

Fiorina’s ties to Clinton Foundation closer than disclosed

Trump on O’Reilly: ‘I’m back’

Hillary vows repeal of Obamacare aspect

Weak: Kerry begs Russians for ‘de-confliction talks’

Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the United Nations Security Council in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015.

Secretary of State John Kerry did the diplomatic equivalent of groveling on his hands and knees before his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Wednesday.

Faced with reports of Russian warplanes in Syria attacking non-ISIS positions near Homs, Kerry called for “de-confliction talks” with Russia from the United Nations Security Council in New York.

“We would have grave concerns should Russia strike areas where ISIL and al-Qaida-affiliated targets … are not operating,” Kerry said, Fox News reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to ramp up Moscow’s military presence in Syria to support President Bashar Assad caught the Obama administration flat-footed and complicates its stated goal of simultaneously ousting Assad’s regime while degrading and destroying ISIS.

“Russia has played a horrible hand brilliantly. We folded what could have been a pretty good hand,” retired U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker and Middle East expert told the Washington Post on Tuesday. “The Russians were able to turn a defensive position into an offensive one because we were so completely absent.”

Republican Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, echoed Crocker’s sentiment while appearing on MSNBC Wednesday with Andrea Mitchell.

“What we should be doing and saying to the Russias is that we’re going to fly anywhere, anytime, anyhow we want to in order to stem the flow of ISIS. … Instead, we’re talking about trying to have some accommodation with Russian aircraft. Again, an incredible sign of weakness. … Isn’t it clear yet that Putin is going to do what he wants to do because he believes he can do it with impunity?” said the Arizona senator.

McCain also took time to explicitly blast Kerry.

“John Kerry and his spokesperson said it is not clear what Russia’s intentions are. It was perfectly clear what Russia’s intentions are!”

The senator said Putin is asserting Russian military might in a way not seen since 1973 in order to protect his military base in Tartus and prop up Assad.

The free WND special report “ISIS Rising,” by Middle East expert and former Department of Defense analyst Michael Maloof, will answer your questions about the jihadist army threatening the West.

Kerry’s speech Wednesday also asserted U.S. warplanes would continue to operate in Syrian airspace despite Russian requests to cease all flights.

“The United States and the coalition will continue our ongoing air operations as we have from the very beginning,” Kerry said.

“It did not have to be this way,” McCain said earlier in the day from the U.S. Senate floor. “This is the inevitable consequence of hollow words, red lines crossed … and a total lack of American leadership. … This is a very, very, very sad day for America and the world,” Fox News reported.

 

Video shows Hillary campaign worker violating election rule

A new video released by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas organization shows a staff member of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign using an image of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to “scare” voters into signing up.

It was the third video O’Keefe has released of his undercover investigation into the Clinton campaign.

The video shows Henry Engelstein, a Hillary for America fellow, using an image of Trump to “scare” people into signing up and then bragging about it.

In a previous video, Engelstein boasted he was chastised by a librarian for openly displaying a Clinton sign while conducting voter registration in the library.

The Project Veritas Action project demonstrates that illegal conduct by Clinton campaign workers such as Engelstein is not unusual, the organization said.

Engelstein is recorded saying, “There’s like hundreds and hundreds of people, and I just flash a picture of Donald Trump on my phone and they all sign up.”

See the WND Superstore’s library on Hillary Clinton, including the amazing “Hillary Unhinged.”

However, as O’Keefe notes in the video, state law in Nevada says, “A county clerk, field registrar, employee of a voter registration agency or person assisting a voter … shall not solicit a vote for or against a particular question or candidate [or] speak to a voter on the subject of marking his or her ballot for or against a particular question or candidate.”

Soliciting a vote is a felony, with a penalty of up to $20,000, O’Keefe said.

In a previous video, Christina Gupana, a Las Vegas attorney and Hillary for America fellow, said regarding soliciting registrations: “Do whatever you can, whatever you can get away with, just do it. Until you get kicked out totally.”

Project Veritas reported, “She is now under investigation by the Nevada secretary of state and a complaint has been filed against her with the Nevada Bar Association.”

O’Keefe also noted a complaint was filed with the FEC alleging Clinton campaign staffers accepted campaign contributions from a foreign national at her campaign kickoff, which was revealed in the first video.

“Our investigation of Hillary’s campaign has just begun,” said O’Keefe. “At this very moment there are individuals working as paid staffers for the Clinton campaign that are in fact Project Veritas Action journalist.

The second video in the series:

In the first video, a Project Veritas member approached a Hillary Clinton booth at the event on New York’s Roosevelt Island with a Canadian, who asked if she could purchase some campaign gear.

The campaign staff at the booth informed her that since she was not a U.S. citizen, she could not legally contribute to the campaign.

Molly Barker, the director of marketing for the campaign, was videoed saying, “She’s Canadian and so we can’t take it.”

The undercover Project Veritas member then volunteered to act as an intermediary, offering to take the Canadian woman’s cash, purchase a T-shirt and other campaign merchandise and make the contribution for her. The journalist paid $75 and was given $40 by the Canadian tourist for the shirt.

“Canadians can’t buy them, but Americans can buy it for them?” the journalist asked.

“Not technically,” says Barker. “You would just be making the donation.”

Anti-gun groups want to defund child-safety initiative

The Newtown Action Alliance and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are working to strip government funding from Project Childsafe, a safety initiative dedicated to making sure that gun owners do everything they can to prevent firearm accidents and keep guns out of the wrong hands.

For the first time since 2008, Project Childsafe received a Justice Department grant, worth $2.4 million, to help it continue its mission of “promoting firearms safety among firearms owners through the distribution of safety education messages and free firearm safety kits.”

The program, which is headed up by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, has since come under fire from anti-2^nd Amendment groups because it promotes firearm safety and responsibility rather than unconstitutional gun bans.

This month, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and its allies began circulating a petition to have federal funds to the group blocked.

“It’s difficult to understand why the Obama administration would possibly want to bankroll a radical lobby that has accused it of being ‘willing to try virtually anything to pursue its gun control agenda in defiance of Congress and existing law,” the groups said in a statement. “Whatever good might be done by Project ChildSafe is vastly outweighed by the harm NSSF does in lobbying for reckless gun laws. No taxpayer in America should have to foot the bill for a profit-focused lobby looking to improve its public image.”

Meanwhile, the anti-gun groups have run a largely ineffective campaign to demonize guns and gun owners without doing a single thing to decrease firearm tragedies.

Here’s a helpful graphic that details some of the good Project Childsafe has done in the past decade:

The post Anti-gun groups want to defund child-safety initiative appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

Watch Hillary supporters unwittingly endorse Donald Trump’s tax plan

ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel isn’t necessarily the first media person you think of when making a short list of Hollywood types who don’t mind making Hillary Clinton look foolish.

But there he was Tuesday, setting up a pretty funny man-on-the-street segment in which Hillary Clinton supporters were told about Donald Trump’s tax plan … without being told that the plan was Trump’s idea instead of Hillary’s.

In other words, they thought they were hearing Hillary’s ideas — so they naturally agreed with them. But after learning a) they’re ignorant about their own candidate and b) they actually like Trump’s plan, some of these folks’ reactions appeared surprisingly honest.

Here’s the Kimmel show’s “Lie Witness News” clip, straight from Hollywood Boulevard:

One guy even comes around and says “I support Donald Trump, then,” after learning Hillary wasn’t the (wo)man behind the tax plan.

For his part, Kimmel did what he could to ensure no one mistook the segment as an endorsement for Trump.

“I wonder if voters pay attention to the specifics of those plans. It seems to me that most people pick a candidate and go along with whatever that candidate says,” he qualified.

Sounds like he’s describing low-information voters without saying “low-information voters” — a phrase too dirty to air on late-night TV.

But ignorance was what made the skit so effective. “None of us deserve to vote!” Kimmel joked.

Not to beat this ignorance thing to death here, but … shouldn’t that be “None of us deserves to vote?”

Just saying.

The post Watch Hillary supporters unwittingly endorse Donald Trump’s tax plan appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

NPR social engineers propose a replacement version of the Confederate flag

Runaway cultural phenomena — the kind that adsorb into the fabric of social history and remain vital after decades and centuries — never have a chance at longevity unless they’re birthed by eggheads whose sole aim is to artificially influence human tendencies and behaviors.

Do you have a problem with that statement?

Apparently, the folks at National Public Radio don’t. In one of those top-down, sterile, abstract thought exercises — the kind in which the participants confuse their own gratification at being a part of the process with an expectation that the rest of the messy, self-willed world should care — NPR’s Studio 360 program has teamed up with a graphic design firm to come up with a modern-day replacement for the Confederate flag.

This is it:

What are you looking at here? The creators, Stefan Reddick and Gus Granger of the Dallas-based 70kft design firm, tried to explain it to NPR:

“We went through several hundred different symbols that could potentially represent the South — everything from magnolia trees to pecan pie, anything and everything,” offered Reddick. “That’s great for one small group, but is that telling the full story of everyone in the South? We didn’t want a mythical idea about what the South used to be, we wanted to look forward to the future.”

OK, so what about the design of the flag itself? It’s reportedly a quilt-based design. NPR asked Granger and Reddick about it:

When we heard from you last week, your design team had split into two groups: a rebel team and a quilt team. Who won?

Gus Granger: Team quilt ended up with the upper hand.

SR: We realized that the quilt worked best for the identity perspective, and the rebel theme became a great advertising moment. So the quilt informs the symbol most directly, but that rebel attitude is still a big part of our design treatment.

Where did the inspiration for the rebel idea come from?

GG: America has been informed by the act of rebellion since its earliest days, not just in the Civil War. And many of our proudest moments of social reform come from people rebelling against the status quo: the Civil Rights Movement, women’s suffrage, the Underground Railroad. All these things required rebelling against convention to help our nation get better.

Not sure where this new flag fits into any of that, nor of how it affixes itself to any historical context –something the real Confederate flag, as well as its many permutations, all have working in their favor.

… Or not, if you’re the design team.

“[T]he Confederate battle flag is a divisive symbol,” 70kft explains in its presentation. “Some see family and honor. Some see bigotry and hatred. If we can’t agree on the meaning, we can never be unified by it.”

Unifying all the people in the Deep South under any flag is kind of missing the point, though, isn’t it?

And if history offers any guidance, have these designers really thought about what they’re wishing for?

The post NPR social engineers propose a replacement version of the Confederate flag appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

Rubio: ‘Luckily’ women can access ‘abortion pill’

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s attempts to woo social conservatives just got a lot more complicated.

The Republican presidential candidate told the theSkimm, an email newsletter, on Wednesday of his support for the “morning-after” pill.

Rubio reiterated his stance against abortion to the publication, but said technology offers politicians a way to compromise on preferences without compromising on principles.

“Luckily, in the 21st century, we have treatments available early on after an incident that can prevent that fertilization from happening. And that’s why I support the ‘morning-after’ pill being available over the counter and I certainly support them being made available immediately for rape victims,” Rubio said, International Business Times reported.

The “morning-after” pill can block fertilization, but in those instances where fertilization does occur it stops the egg from implanting in the woman’s uterus.

Read the tested and proven strategies to defeat the abortion cartel, in “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time.”

Rubio last made national headlines talking about abortion during an animated Aug. 7 interview with CNN host Chris Cuomo.

Cuomo said Rubio’s stance against abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, was “backwards-looking.”

“Any time it happens, it’s horrifying, it’s a tragedy. But I personally and honestly and deeply believe that all human life is worthy of protection – irrespective of the circumstances in which that human life was created. I personally believe that you do not correct one tragedy with a second tragedy,” Rubio fired back, the Blaze reported.

High school questionnaire: Do your parents own guns?

High school students were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their families’ gun ownership.

Hendrickson High School officials in Pflugerville, Texas, have angered some parents with a questionnaire distributed to students that asks, point-blank, if their family members own guns.

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The questionnaire then goes on to probe what the guns are used for – hunting, self-defense, sports or something else entirely, EAG News reported.

And on top of that, students are then asked to identify their parents’ or caretakers’ political leanings, and to list, on a scale of 1-to-10, how conservative versus liberal they are.

Among the specific questions: “Does you family own any guns?” “If so, how many?” “What is their purpose?”

On that last, students are allowed to check “other,” but then asked to “please describe,” EAG News said.

The questionnaire then asks students what they “associate with guns,” and asked to check their top three: “Protection, danger, safety, law enforcement, hunting/sports, freedom, fear, military, fun.”

All you ever needed to know about guns and gun rights – right from the WND Superstore

One more question asks the students to detail if they support “no limits on gun ownership,” “some limits on gun ownership (no felons, some background checks, etc.),” or “moderate limits” that include “extensive background checks, no automatic weapons, etc.).” They could also check “strict limits” that only allow for ownership in “special circumstances,” or the “total prohibition of guns,” EAG News found.

This infallible argument for armed self-defense presents real stories of Americans fighting back against criminals – and surviving because they were armed. “America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense In A Violent Age” is a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered if concealed carry can actually save and protect.

And in the final question, students are asked to scale their own and their parents’ political ideologies as strongly liberal versus strongly conservative, and then explain if “anyone in your family ever used a gun in a self-defense situation,” the news organization reported.

 

Veterans and service members angry over combat patch that looks like it was designed by Islamic terrorists

A number of U.S. veterans and service members are angry that the Army approved a patch for soldiers fighting ISIS that bears a striking resemblance to a Muslim Brotherhood logo.

USA Today reported last week that soldiers in the fight against the Islamic State are receiving a new patch:

All told, there are about 3,335 troops in the region training Iraqi troops, providing security and conducing bombing missions on Islamic State targets in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The Army’s patch features crossed scimitars, a palm wreath and stars. The scimitars, short swords with curved blades, are meant to symbolize the twin goals of the U.S.-led coalition: to defeat the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIL, and to restore stability in the region, according to Army documents.

The palm wreath is symbol of honor. While the stars and the buff-and-blue colors on the patch indicate the three-star command and the land, air and sea forces involved in the fight.

Here’s what it looks like:

According to Military Times, soldiers fighting in Operation Inherent Resolve have been sewing the patch onto their uniforms since April.

But after the recent media attention, people began to notice that the new patch is disturbingly similar to symbols widely used by Islamic fighters.

For example, this patch, which is reportedly used by the Muslim Brotherhood:

The design for the new patch was most likely created in an effort to recognize the U.S.’s Iraqi partners in the fight against ISIS.

As USA Today noted:

Scimitars and palm wreaths have appeared on patches from previous periods of war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein also favored the look, building a grand sculpture called the Arc of Triumph to commemorate the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s. It became a favored back drop for soldiers, contractors and journalists to snap photos after the invasion in 2003.

But many U.S. veterans and service members are wondering why more effort wasn’t made to recognize the U.S. contribution and American lives at stake in the battle against Islamic terror.

“Such a pretty patch, did Obuma (sic) design it himself, or one of his kids?” one veteran said via social media. “Me, I’d rather it be the All-American Bird in white, being ‘flipped’ at ISIS on a background of black, symbolizing my true feeling for their existence, and mocking their colors. It’s the American way. Something Patton would do.”

Sounds like a pretty good idea.

The post Veterans and service members angry over combat patch that looks like it was designed by Islamic terrorists appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

New poll: Trump up 10 points over Carson, Fiorina

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump’s lead over the two other political newcomers in the Republican presidential pack is now at 10 percentage points, a new Suffolk University/USA Today poll shows.

The real estate mogul is the GOP’s front-runner with 23% support nationally. That’s ahead of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, who tie for second with 13% backing.

It’s more evidence that Trump has faded a bit from numbers that hovered slightly above 30% before the second Republican presidential debate three weeks ago. Yet he’s still managed to hold a significant lead — particularly over candidates with more political experience.