Sure, we're interested in conflicts, if they're Hillary's

By Samuel Insull
Business Editor

The manufactured quote-scandal-unquote over the Clinton Foundation continues to burn brightly (see below).  Today Politico, the blog that is to Conventional Wisdom what Old Faithful is to hot water, erupted, rounding up the usual suspects to slam the Clinton Foundation for daring to continue its life-saving work:

How dare they?  And by the way, why should the Foundation even continue its perfidious ways?  The Clintons had the temerity to offer the following petty excuse:

But the Clintons have been reluctant to unwind the charity, arguing that its work combating AIDS and malaria, for instance, is saving lives and shouldn’t be put at risk.

Saving lives – could anything be more sad and pathetic?

Speaking of conflicts, we're looking forward to Politico's critique of the tangerine-faced grifter's plans to run the Trump Organization, the jerry-built holding entity for his various debt-laden real estate, steak, vodka, higher education, and campaign finagles.  What happens to it between President Trump's Inauguration and the Apocalypse?

So far, the answer is that he'll turn over the whole gold-plated mess to his children.  That way, there won't be any conflicts of interest between what's good for the Trump family and what's the right thing for the country!  (Of course, we don't have a full idea of what those conflicts might be as the T.F.G. won't release his tax returns, in contrast to the Clinton Foundation's release of its donor lists.)

Letting Moe, Larry, and Ivanka run his businesses (which he would continue to own and profit from) would obviously take care of any possible conflicts of interests with foreigners of the sort that fatally cripple the Clinton Foundation.  It's not as if Trump's business have any particular foreign entanglements, except for

a luxury golfing club in Dubai, with a second one under development, plus hotels and high-rises in Istanbul, Panama City, Seoul, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and other cities

NPR's Morning Edition, June 9, 2016.

Nothing to see there people!  In addition to the foreign joint ventures, he also seems to owe, to use a technical finance term known only to top graduates of the Wharton School, a sh*tload of money to various foreign entities, including commercial arms of our arch-enemy, China:

For example, an office building on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, of which Mr. Trump is part owner, carries a $950 million loan. Among the lenders: the Bank of China, one of the largest banks in a country that Mr. Trump has railed against . . .

 New York Times, Aug. 21, 2016.

That same story detailed various other foreign entanglements including a complex relationship with one Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas, identified only as a European businessman.  We used to know a kid named Jake Grudumsky, but it's probably not the same person.

To be somewhat fair, the Times and NPR stories did outline the insane conflicts that would arise from President Trump's ownership of these and other holdings.  But somehow those stories seem to pale next to the boiling hot geyser of BS erupting from a media obsessed with a fully-disclosed charity that has spent billions to improve the lot of the world's most vulnerable and impoverished – if you leave aside journalists.