Vinod Guptastein
The company, infoUSA, one of the nation’s largest brokers of information on consumers, paid $146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Mr. Gupta[stein] and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, infoUSA paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events.
Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed late last year in a Delaware court by angry shareholders of infoUSA, who assert that Mr. Gupta[stein] wasted the company’s money trying “to ingratiate himself†with his high-profile guests.
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In addition to the shareholder accusations, The New York Times reported last Sunday that an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised call lists with titles like “Elderly Opportunity Seekers†or “Suffering Seniors,†a compilation of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. The company called the episodes an aberration and pledged that it would not happen again.
I feel their pain.
Before leaving office, Mr. Clinton appointed Mr. Gupta[stein] to the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Earlier, Mr. Clinton had nominated him for two minor ambassadorships, which Mr. Gupta[stein] declined because of business commitments.
Well, to quote Deputy Dan–“Know Who You Blow!” Still, kudos for taking money from Hindoos, Buddhists (the Dollar Lama!), Joos, Christians, Muslims, Pagans . . . well, everybody, really. Shows a commitment to diversity.
Related: Thailand set to make Buddhism the state religion
B-b-b-but!
Sucks. Yes it does. But, hey . . . they have a right to defend themselves from hegemony, don’t you think?
Oh, and . . . Free Tibet.
Sinister Zionist? Naw. New Yawk Idiot? In a New Yawk minute!!
Was any of this done after the anti-free-speech McCain-Feingold law went into effect? Are any of these things in-kind contributions that the involved parties should have reported to the gummit agency that regulates our speech, as inspired by John McCain?
bankrolls, not banrolls, Dan.
Arrrrrrrrrr. Thanks, matey.
Not that the Clintons couldn’t use a few applications of a good deodorant.
For their ethics, yanno.
Interesting. So both Dean and Gupta are Democratic activists interested in accumulating political influence, and have been doing so with the imprimatur of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The lawsuit question the relevance of Gupta and Storm’s cultivation of the Clintons to the development of infoUSA’s business. How could the New York Times have missed the fact that infoUSA and similar data-collection companies are extremely vested in the potential of political applications of their data to provide a new revenue stream and help drive growth?
In fact, these data collection and brokering activities have been identified by Al Gore as being part and parcel of THE ASSAULT ON REASON.
Is it no wonder that Gupta would seek the influence of the Clintons as inoculation against an assault on infoUSA’s business development plans? The New York Times, curiously, frames the story as one of wasteful, irrelevant expenditures, and dimwittedly allows Dean to engage in a bit of misdirection as to where the real story here lies.
izzat fixable?
Just not by me, apparently.
D’oh. I was looking at the wrong bit of text.
Thanks Happy, I was wondering the exact same thing.
Consumer Information……..politicians…….??
Looks mutually beneficial to me.
thanks Dan