#centerforamericanprogress

Think Progress slammed the State Department for a “stunning conflict of interest” for selecting a TransCanada contractor to run the Department’s hearings on the issue:

In a stunning conflict of interest, public hearings on federal approval for a proposed tar sands pipeline are being run by a contractor for the pipeline company itself. The U.S. Department of State’s public hearings along the proposed route of the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline this week are under the purview of Cardno Entrix, a “professional environmental consulting company” that specializes in “permitting and compliance.”

Think Progress attacked the “corrupt process” of handling the Keystone XL pipeline:

New Keystone XL Emails Expose Corrupt Process … TransCanada, the company seeking Obama administration approval to build the Keystone XL pipeline to bring Canadian tar sands to Texas refineries, has used a former Hillary Clinton campaign official to lobby the State Department, in a “cozy and complicitous relationship.”

While she was running for President in 2008, Think Progress attacked the Clintons for failing to disclose Clinton Foundation donors, “so that we could see if there are any stinkbombs in those records before Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination”:

I wrote back in October about the lack of transparency surrounding donations from corporate titans and foreign princes to Bill Clinton’s foundation. My view was that it made sense for liberals to push for this disclosure sooner rather than later so that we could see if there are any stinkbombs in those records before Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination. According to The New York Times there’s at least one, where in exchange for a $31 million donation to the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton helped a guy named Frank Giustra win some lucrative mining contracts from Kazakhstan’s despotic government.

Think Progress eviscerated Clinton's attempts to distance herself from the Iraq War:

Hillary Clinton tells the New Hampshire Union-Leader, “When I set forth my reasons for giving the President that authority, I said that it was not a vote for pre-emptive war.” Obviously, though, the authority she did give the president was the authority to launch a pre-emptive war. More to the point, however, whatever Clinton thought she was doing in October 2002, if she disapproved of what Bush decided to do in March 2003 she could have spoken up. All I can find in a critical vein from Senator Clinton on Iraq in that period is this press release in which she criticized the president’s homeland security funding and asks that additional monies by appropriated for this purpose when the inevitable Iraq supplemental comes down. She doesn’t actually criticize the president’s Iraq policy at all. On March 17, meanwhile, she issued a clear and unambiguous statement of support for Bush’s position.

Think Progress slammed Clinton’s top advisor Mark Penn and his ties to corporations and foreign policy views:

To make a long story short, though, if you think the problem with the Democratic Party is that it’s insufficiently inclined to support wars, you’ll like Mark Penn. If you think the Party is insufficiently friendly to the interests of major corporations and wealthy individuals, you’ll like Mark Penn. If you think Menachim Begin was a great man and that the world needs more Dick Morris acolytes, you’ll like Mark Penn. And if you like Mark Penn, you’ll love Hillary Clinton since he “controls the main elements of her campaign . . . has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation . . . has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.”

Think Progress accused Hillary Clinton of being on the “dark side” of an Iran vote: