What Is This World Coming To?

After promising to “push the reset button” on relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a  gift from the Obama administration.   It was supposed to be a joke, but it backfired.  (What’s with the administration and gifts, anyway?)

The gift was supposed to be a red button labeled “reset” to symbolize the moronic suggestion by President Obama that US-Russian relations can be simply reset — even with a button mislabeled “overcharge.”

Hillary Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.  

Nothing wrong with that.  That is what Senators are supposed to do for their constituents.  What Senators aren’t supposed to do is charge for it. 

She also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.  The bill with the tax-free bonds provision became law in October 2004.  A couple of weeks later, the developer donated $100,000 to Bill Clinton’s ‘charitable’ foundation.   

Nine months later, the highway set-aside bill passed into law.   

The developer, Robert Congel, is a major Republican campaign fund-raiser. In 2004, he was a “Bush Ranger,” gathering more than $200,000 in bundled contributions for the Bush-Cheney re-election effort.

In the most recent election cycle, he donated money to the Republican National Committee and to the Republican presidential primary campaigns of Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.