Hillary Clinton made $1.8 million from speeches paid for by Keystone Pipeline investors

  Hillary Clinton has an issue with taking positions on tough issues and that should send up a red flag to those voters who are inclined to support her bid for the Presidency. This should be a concern to her supporters on two issues specifically.

  First there is the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Hillary Clinton, unlike Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, has refused to state whether or not she supports the trade deal but she has also refused to take a stand for or against another issue which is near and dear to Democratic voters and that is the Keystone pipeline–although at one point she did say she was “inclined” to support it.

  Here is more:

Hillary Clinton is maintaining her years of silence on the Keystone XL pipeline — and environmental groups are increasingly divided on how hard they should push her to take a stand.

It’s a further sign that the never-ending pipeline drama will remain one of the biggest policy minefields facing Clinton’s White House campaign, even if President Barack Obama rejects the project in the coming weeks or months.

As secretary of state, Clinton spent four years presiding over the Obama administration’s still-unfinished review of the $8 billion Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, including repeated studies finding that Keystone wouldn’t significantly worsen greenhouse gas pollution. But like Obama, she has resisted pressure to offer her own opinion on the project until the review is done, aside from one 2010 appearance in which she said the department was “inclined” to green-light it.

  With so many Democratic voters against the Keystone pipeline it would seem like a no-brainer for Hillary Clinton to oppose the pipeline so why is she being so coy on this issue? It might be an issue of green–and I am not talking about green energy but rather the almighty dollar.

  It turns out, if this story is true, that Hillary Clinton made $1.8 million for speeches she gave in Canada which were sponsored by two major investment banks which just happen to support the Keystone pipeline. Here is more:

 Two Canadian banks tightly connected to promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the United States either fully or partially paid for eight speeches made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the period not long before she announced her campaign for president. Those speeches put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate’s pocket.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and TD Bank were both primary sponsors of paid Clinton speeches in 2014 and early 2015, although only the former appears onthe financial disclosure form she filed May 15. According to that document, CIBC paid Clinton $150,000 for a speech she gave in Whistler, British Columbia, on Jan. 22, 2015.

Clinton reported that another five speeches she gave across Canada were paid for by tinePublic Inc., a promotional company known for hosting speeches by world leaders and celebrities. Another speech was reported as paid for by the think tank Canada 2020, while yet another speech was reportedly funded by the Vancouver Board of Trade. But a review of invitations, press releases and media reports for those seven other speeches reveals that they, too, were either sponsored by or directly involved the two banks.

Both banks have financial ties to TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, and have advocated for a massive increase in pipeline capacity, including construction of Keystone.

  Hillary Clinton supporters need to ask themselves one simple question: if she is elected who will she represent, the voters who oppose the Keystone pipeline for environmental reasons or the big banks she is in bed with?

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium