: the old "pay for speeches" shortcut, where otherwise boring, insipid and uninspirational figures who have nothing original or creative to say, getting paid $100,000, $200,000 or much more for an hour of their time to "speak." Of course, even five-year-olds realize that this arrangement, despite what it is called, is just a way to either buy future favors from said "speaker", or repay them for previous preferential treatment (such as taxpayer-funded bailouts), while making them filthy rich in the process.

It certainly worked with the Clinton Foundation, where the tens of millions spent by foreign US adversaries, especially those in the Middle East, to fund such a "generous" and noble pursuit as a (fully tax-exempt) foundation generated amazing "returns" when Hillary Clinton ran the State Department. Of course, it wasn't just rich petrostates that sought payback for their bribes donations: for all those who couldn't afford a $5 million check to this Clinton Foundation initiative or that (where miraculously, the foundation kept around 94% of the "donations" to cover "overhead"), there was always the 2nd tier of influence peddling better known as "paying for speeches", and as the following list of Hillary Clinton speeches delivered in the 2013-2015 period clearly shows, many were convinced that Hillary would replace Barack Obama in 2016 and be the next US "president for hire" to special interests and generous lobby groups.