Right Voices

I know, hard to believe right? I read this article by Peter Schweizer, of Front Page Magazine. Schweizer explores the business relationships that both Clintons have formed since leaving the White House. Both claim to be staunch supporters of the little guy and corporate reform is their number one priority…but is it?

Yet, as the senior adviser to two investment funds managing public pension funds, Bill Clinton has himself promoted an investment fund that promises to put money into “lower-income urban and rural communities” ” but instead devotes its cash to Al Gore’s upstart cable channel and his wife’s financial supporters.

At first glance, it seemed the perfect fit: Bill Clinton, corporate reformer, signing on as a senior adviser (and “active adviser,” according to a company press release) to the Yucaipa Corporate Initiatives Fund and the Yucaipa American Fund. Both get all their cash from pension funds from public-school teachers and government workers in California and New York state.

CALPERS, the huge California public-employee retirement fund, has agreed to commit $500 million to Yucaipa, and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CALSTRS) another $150 million. Millions more are to come from the New York State Common Retirement Fund.

The Yucaipa Corporate Initiatives Fund has already poured millions into Al Gore’s new cable channel, Current Television. Gore’s venture is headquartered in a tony neighborhood of San Francisco, which certainly doesn’t seem to fit the definition of a “lower-income urban” community. Nor is it minority-owned ” indeed, all the major investors are white males. (Indeed, by a who’s who of major Democratic Party money people ” including Joel Hyatt, former Democratic National Committee finance chairman, Rob Glaser of Realnetworks and Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems.)

Yucaipa told the San Francisco Weekly that Gore’s enterprise “has a strong commitment to increase the representation of women and people of color.” But the upper management of the network is completely white.

Indeed, one of the few signif icant minority-owned busi nesses that the funds have invested in is Sean John, the clothing enterprise run by that struggling representative of the “lower-income urban community,” rap mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs. (A contributor to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns with the potential of raising enormous sums for Democrats, Combs is likely to play a prominent role in supporting a Hillary run for the White House in ’08.)

This is a good article, that I would encourage you to read!