I also feel sorry for myself, not just little kids who won’t be able to grow up to be doctors, firefighters, scientists or teachers unless we straighten our acts up and fly right.

There’s Hard Work and Then There’s …

The September 2014 report prepared by Palantir on the Clinton Global Initiative’s ‘work’ between 2005 and 2013. Palantir states they focus on Big Data analysis. One would hope this report is atypical of the company’s actual Big Data analysis.

Sample page from Palantir CGI program report. No you are not dumb if you think “What?” Your guess is as good as mine and Palantir’s as to what this is supposed to mean. Yes, the section header really is 36 words long. Yes it is representative of the entire report.

As I reported in the initial article, the Clinton Foundation/Clinton Global Initiative doesn’t do much on its own. Almost 100% of its “outcomes” in any of its stated areas of focus are based on “Commitments to Action.” These “Commitments” resemble “Memoranda of Understanding” (MOU) some may be familiar with from local and regional nonprofit work. I’m sure attorneys much smarter than me may point out that these commitments are in no way enforceable.

You may have heard of Trump University, and also separate for-profit schools with ties to the Clinton Foundation. In addition, there is a Clinton Global Initiative University. Like everything else about the Clinton Foundation, it is based on “Commitments to Action.” They give you a roadmap for these “Commitments” too.

I kind of had to put this picture, it’s so special. Is Clinton Global Initiative University “free” of charge? What do you think? Up to 70 universities have “pledged” $800,000 to fund it and supposedly they give up to $10K per campus to “pay”.

CGI-U, like everything else related to the Clinton Foundation is not really an organization, has no real location, and its only activity is an annual star-studded gala event. This year the event was held over a three-day period in April at UC Berkeley.

Tony Robbins may offer more impact and lasting value. His events are 3 1/2 days. Plus you get to walk through fire.

I’m sure they have an explanation for this.

But back to the Palantir report! This report was announced and presented as a series of mind-numbing slides at their meeting in October, 2014. There is an equally boring, nonsensical video narrated by Chelsea Clinton.

What I would like to do, since the report, the slides, the video, all of it, is gobbledygook, is ask a basic question that should have been asked and answered years ago:

HOW IS ANY OF THIS A QUALIFIED TAX EXEMPT CHARITABLE ACTIVITY?

oh it’s just like the Carter Foundation

Not.

Am I writing this because I’m part of the “vast right wing conspiracy”? Of course not! I supported Bernie Sanders until yesterday for the sole reason of (see my biography). Now I am a registered member of the Green Party.

The emerging businesses I would typically work with are struggling because of our poor economy and fiscalism. I cannot get my publishing company off the ground because I foolishly selected to work with real authors who’ve written work that might have some social and cultural merit as opposed to promoting fake charity efforts for Johnson & Johnson. I’m not a lobbyist, I don’t specialize in government grants for no good purpose, and I know how to build actual affordable housing, not lie about it. Nobody is hiring in the nonprofit world because of our poor economy.

So therefore I have free time and no worries about overeating due to lack of funds to purchase food. Obviously this is because I am not smart enough to think up something like the Clinton Foundation.

I confess, I don’t understand why no one in any official position except for Charity Navigator’s oblique assessment that it cannot “rate” the Clinton Foundation due to its “business model” has not questioned this “business model” as being tax exempt. Tony Robbins seems more eligible for nonprofit status, as at least he provides products like books, tapes and seminars, and he might even make more of a social impact!

All the organization does is hold meetings for which it charges the attendees and takes sponsorship money from companies and CEOS — and I quote from the Clinton Foundation “FAQ”

“Sponsorship revenue for CGI is up over last year, and more than half of the 30 companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are current CGI members or sponsors …”

So let’s walk through it together.

New language added 8 June 2016 which seems to go at the end toward Civil Rights, community and neighborhood improvement, eliminating prejudice, and related activities.

This is about how the IRS is supposed to determine whether or not a corporation should pay taxes on the revenue it receives or not. As previously noted, here’s what they received in 2014 and the prior year.

In 2014, they took in more than $242 million, and spent more than $217 million in “program services.”

They note 486 employees on their form 990 for 2014. If that $217 million was spent exclusively on salaries that’s an average of $447,958 per employee. (PS: “experts” out there — it makes this ratio even worse if you factor in 100% of their expenses, not “better”). Their net assets increased by more than $100 million between 2013 and 2014. It looks like they permanently designated an endowment. So all their extra now goes into that. Just in case.

If I were a corporate sponsor paying for the Clinton Global Initiative meetings, I would dial Donna Shalala up and ask, “What ROI are you going to give us for the contribution?”

And as to the individuals paying to attend the conferences, I would call up and ask, “Why do I have to pay? Can’t you afford at least to fly me here and put me up?”

A person who teaches accounting compared the Foundation to the Carter Foundation in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. (*Note: The nonprofit sector in the US is in horrible shape: There are 19 total jobs in the nonprofit sector listed within 150 miles of downtown Los Angeles — a distance that would encompass all of LA, Orange, San Bernardino/Riverside,Ventura and San Diego counties, a population area of roughly 20 million people).

What an Insult

It is true, the Carter Foundation has some of the same donors, including Middle Eastern and Asian countries. It is equally true that the Carter Center conducts actual programs, pays employees, and actually works with people internationally over time to provide the health and economic benefits that are its mission. Fiscally it is extremely transparent and its accounting is done conjointly with Emory University.

That said, here is an example of just one of the Carter Center’s programs in international health, its effort to eliminate river blindness.

The Clinton Foundation “negotiates drug discounts” and gives grossly inaccurate figures regarding the diseases it states it combats.

The Carter Foundation distributes donated medication and keeps meticulous records of everything it does.

The Carter Center is extremely specific about where it is able to provide medication, treatment and education for each disease focus. You will find records dating back to the start of every Carter Center health or other program including specific areas served, original targets for each health or other problem, and annual records of progress made. There are dozens of different, specific programs all highly focused, meticulously recorded and available to the public. You will find a long list of donors to the Carter Center’s health and peace programs. As noted in the previous article, it is bizarre for any large multinational charitable organization to conceal its donors, or to create a weird dropdown menu of giving levels over the course of a number of years.

Guinea Worms and Election Monitoring

The beginning page of the Carter Center’s Annual Report, listing on the left, elections monitored and on the right, year by year, reduction in Guinea Worm cases, one of its main emphases in world health. I am not the only person who wished they had been monitoring US elections in recent months.

The first ‘page’ of Clinton Foundation 2015 Online Annual Report (not a printed document) — referring to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a separate organization, not funded by the Clinton Foundation.

Page 2, referring to “access to training, better seeds and fertilizer, and stronger markets for 105,000 farmers in East Africa.”

Page 7 of 2014 printed Annual Report referring to “more than 36,000 smallholder farmers” and “more than 350,000 people.” Less — more — where — what?

From page 16 of 2014 Clinton Foundation Annual Report — as pointed out to me by people more knowledgeable about climate change, the 33,500 tons of reduced greenhouse gas emissions are negligible (approx. 22,300 vegans account for the same savings) especially compared to an estimated 30 billion metric tons of CO2 released annually. Not to mention: it’s the same 33,500 tons. Over and over and over again. I don’t think I need to remind people of the massive, earthshattering significance of a single 100KW solar project.

Employer sponsored energy efficiency program? Your guess is as good as mine on that one, but this apparently represents the 33,500 tons of annual CO2 savings.

Hey, who funds those energy efficiency programs?

Not only are these report numbers at variance with Clinton Foundation statements, we have those hundreds of millions of dollars in program expenditure. With that much money they need $500,000 from the U.S. Government?

Life Affected Ratio

I’m really not sure what this means. But even if it’s supposed to mean something, it’s terrible.

I truly think that Palantir report on the Clinton Global Initiative “commitments to action” is one of the worst things I’ve ever tried to read, and I feel really sorry for the people who were asked to try to quantify these “Commitments to Action”.

They came up with some type of ratio based on the number of people supposedly “affected” by the “Commitments to Action” as compared to the amounts the completely-unrelated-to-the-Clinton-Foundation governments or other organizations said they had spent on the forms they may or may not send to the Clinton Foundation.

So look!

If you were in Kenya, this clusterf**k would have given you an extra $4.50. I think.

Cannot Keep Track of the Bull

Clinton Foundation has reduced global CO2 by 33,500 metric tons or —

Who wants to take bets that the farmers BUY THE TREES and never get their credits?

This information is present in the 2015 online and the 2014 printed paper version of the Clinton Foundation annual report. As you can see, 200,000 tons of C02 was somehow missed by them.

However, for those people who feel this is an American problem, and that the irresponsible whatever-it-is this organization is doing only damages Americans, denigrating the charitable sector, downgrading morale and removing cash from the economy that could be better spent on actual work, productivity or charitable purposes, I have some information.

2004 Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai (she died in 2011, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Africa).

I would like to introduce you to someone you may not have heard of before, one of the world’s finest. The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient was Wangari Maathai, who was the first woman from east or central Africa to earn a Ph.D. Her Green Belt Movement, to date, has planted 51 million trees. Yes, Wangari did serve on the “advisory board” of the Clinton Global Initiative prior to her death in 2011. One of their many press releases says she “committed to establishing the Wangari Maathai Institute.” Heaven knows if she was even aware of them taking credit for her unbelievable, courageous, world-changing life work. She is the world’s first terraformer. Recognizing that cutting down trees was causing horrible devastation, helping women to replant trees reduced erosion and gave hope and a chance to live for starving people.

The Green Belt Movement she founded in Kenya did survive her death from ovarian cancer. Yes — the same disease that is associated with Johnson & Johnson talcum products.

Portion of annual report for Green Belt Movement in Kenya for 2014. Amounts given are in Kenyan shillings, current exchange rate .0099 to 1.0 USD

So for $1.29 million or .05% of the Clinton Foundation’s bloated budget, the Green Belt Movement outplanted those Trees of Hope folks by 50 times.