Maggie's Farm

"Gladhanding," otherwise known as criminal political corruption, bribery and extortion. What the Clintons routinely did was blatantly illegal and a federal felony--ten years in prison for each offense.** Every time I work on a government project, I and my clients have to sign affidavits and declarations up the wazoo, under penalty of perjury, that we didn't do this kind of stuff.

The Clintons, on the other hand, took hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, either individually or through their phony Foundation which was used to maintain their lifestyle and their political machine. There are thousands of us out here who see this and can only think, how bad has corruption gotten in the U.S. and why will no one do anything about it? Instead, we have this phony Russia scandal, still without any proof anything wrong was done, day after day after day. Distraction you think?? Trump's biggest mistake was indicating after the election he would not go after the Clintons and other politicians engaged in this kind of corruption.

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**E.g., from DOD Procurement Handbook:

Bribery
The term “bribery” means offering or giving something of value to a Government official
or for a Government official to solicit or receive something of value in return for
preferential treatment. Bribery is a criminal offense.

Anti-Kickback Act

The Anti-Kickback Act of 1986 modernized and closed the loopholes of previous statutes
applying to Government contracts. The act does the following:

Prohibits attempted as well as contemplated kickbacks, which include any money,
fees, commission, credit, gift, gratuity, thing of value, or compensation of any
kind. The inclusion of kickback amounts in contract prices is prohibited conduct
in itself.

Makes illegal the acceptance of a kickback “for improperly obtaining or rewarding
favorable treatment.”

Prohibits kickbacks to prime contractors, prime contractor employees,
subcontractors, and subcontractor employees.

Congress intended the act to embrace the full range of Government contracting.

Note: “Any person who knowingly and willfully engages in conduct prohibited by the
Anti- Kickback Act shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years or shall be subject to
a fine … or both.”

Never solicit gifts of any type, regardless of their nature or dollar value. A small number
of contractors and potential contractors are willing to offer favors in exchange for
business. CORs must understand that a bribe occurs when someone “directly or
indirectly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any public official, former
public official, or person selected to be a public official, for or because of any official act
performed or to be performed by such public official.” (Note that the value need not be monetary                                                         
(See 18 U.S.C. § 201. 14 See 41 U.S.C 54 and Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice 22.) Giving or accepting a bribe is a crime punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or
both.

Gratuities

Gratuities constitute a crime when offered or given to a Government official or when a
Government official solicits or receives a gratuity (see 18 U.S.C. § 201 and FAR Subpart
3.2). To be categorized as a gratuity, the item being offered must be a thing of value and
be presented with the intent of corruption. As a participant in the acquisition process, the
COR must constantly keep himself or herself on guard to improper actions or those that
can be construed as such.

Gifts
The term “gift” includes any gratuity, favor, discount, entertainment, hospitality, loan,
forbearance, or other item having monetary value. It includes services as well as gifts of
training, transportation, local travel, lodgings and meals, whether provided in-kind by
purchase of a ticket, payment in advance, or reimbursement after the expense has been
incurred.
Contractor personnel may offer CORs welcome gifts upon arrival or souvenirs to take
home in a possible attempt to gain favor provided the gift value is $20 or less per source
per occasion, not to exceed $50 in the aggregate in a calendar year from the same
source. FAR 3.101-2 provides the overarching rule about accepting gifts from
contractor personnel: do not accept any gratuity, gift, favor, entertainment, loan, or
anything of value from a prospective or current contractor. In Government-contractor
relationships, the COR must strictly avoid any conflict of interest or even the appearance
of a conflict of interest.
Remember, a COR should not accept a gift in return for being influenced to perform an
official act. Also he or she should not accept gifts so frequently that a reasonable person
would think the COR is using the position for private gain.
When in doubt, the COR should call an ethics official about accepting a gift.
                                                        

The Clinton Foundation actually only disburses 6% of its donations on charitable work. The rest of the money it spends on itself and the activities of the Clintons. It's a fraud.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/16/clinton-foundation-spent-6-percent-charitable-grants-2014/

Affirmative Action Battle Has a New Focus: Asian-Americans

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This is a huge discrimination issue which was intentionally swept under the rug by the Obama administration. It can be conclusively shown that Asians across the country are heavily discriminated against because of their race in college admissions, mainly to facilitate the admission of lesser/non-qualified blacks and Latinos under federal discrimination mandates.

For some reason, the Obama administration did nothing to investigate this situation, and the complaints sat in the "Justice" Department for years, totally ignored. Bravo to A.G. Sessions for saying they will now investigate this situation.

The only real answer to this is to do away entirely with affirmative action as well as legacy admissions, and make admission to higher education a question of merit rather than one's skin color, gender or sexual preference as is now prevalent.

This one makes me personally angry, because I know my kids as well as many others faced discrimination in admission because they were Asian--essentially deemed "over qualified."