Hillary taking money from Colombians...

from David Sirota

AP: Clinton Aides Being Paid By Colombian Government to Push Trade DealBy David SirotaWell, it's a bad week, and the depressing hits just keep on coming. In a stunning new report just out on the wire from the Associated Press, we find out that the Colombian Government - the government that the Washington Post notes collaborates with paramilitary gangs to execute union leaders - is now paying top aides to Sen. Hillary Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to help get Congress to pass the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement:
"According to Justice Department filings, Colombia agreed this month to pay $300,000 to public relations firm Burson-Marsteller - whose president, Mark Penn, is a senior advisor to Sen. Clinton - to help "educate members of the U.S. Congress and other audiences" about the trade deal and secure continued U.S. funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia.The filings also show that last month Uribe’s government put The Glover Park Group, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying firm that includes former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on a $40,000 a month retainer."
AP reports that "last month, former Vice President Al Gore backed out of an environmental conference in Miami to avoid appearing alongside Uribe, who has struggled to defend himself against charges that members of his family and government supporters collaborated with murderous right-wing militias." Yet on June 8, former President Clinton will attend a Colombian government gala in his honor. AP says that "prominent Democrats on the guest list include former Clinton strategists Dick Morris and Vernon Jordan, former Clinton Cabinet members Lawrence Summers and Madeleine Albright, and several Democratic congressmen." Morris, by the way, just penned an article referring to the scandal-plagued, paramilitary-connected Uribe as a "democratic beacon."Again, this is a government that actively colludes with paramilitary gangs to execute union organizers, and is now pushing the United States Congress to give it a gift in the form of a free trade agreement. I really have nothing more to add other than to say again that we really do live in dark times.