Monday, August 13, 2012

The Slime, The Sleaze, The Immorality, and The Corruption Of The American Political Class - Part 1

I have gotten to a point in this election cycle that I will physically get up from a chair, walk across the room, pick up the TV remote and change the station if a political advertisement comes on. None of these sleazeball ads have anything to do with fixing what ails the country or addressing the major issues of our times. The vast majority are nothing but baseless and degrading school yard taunts and name calling, politics for the sake of politics not for the sake of addressing our troubles.

But when I stop and think about why I am so repulsed by these ads, I catch myself and think about who is putting them forward. When you sit back and chronicle who is actually in the American political class today, you are overwhelmed by the lack of integrity, unwillingness to work hard at the issues, lack of respect for each other and the citizens of this nation, and the general inability of most politicians to solve a problem.

Whether it is fixing our losing war on drugs, finding a way to not under educate our kids, fix our leaky borders, or even prevent a government organization like the GSA from throwing itself lavish Las Vegas parties, the track record of success and of being upright, integrity based individuals is lacking. Don't believe me? See what you think about these people after reviewing our five part series on the slime, the sleaze, the immorality, and corruption of the American political class.

Today's Part 1 slime review is based on a article from the Independent Journal Review. The article can be found at the following Internet site:

http://www.ijreview.com/2012/08/12246-the-top-25-democrat-scandals-the-media-wont-discuss/25/

The article lists out 25 instances of sleazy behavior from our politicians. All of the examples are sourced back to the original news sources so this post is not based on the opinion of myself or the Independent Journal Review, it is based on other, universally recognized news sources.

However, I have not included all 25 instances since a few of the news sources are either not well known or come from what my liberal friends would vehemently disagree with as being unbiased. This does not mean these omitted sources and stories are wrong or inaccurate, just that they would offend certain liberal contingencies of my circle of family and friends. But that does not matter since there is more than enough immoral behavior and corruption to go around.

1. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was recently implicated in a new scandal, pushing for Federal government funding of the Chinese green energy company ENN Mojave Energy LLC, which is represented by his son. Earlier, Reid was involved in a land swindle that saw him make a reported $700,000. Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 3, 2012. Note: this is not the last time that Mr Reid's name will appear in this series of corruption posts.

2. Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar energy company, was able to procure and destroy $535 million in government loan guarantees. This was after the Obama campaign received over a $100,000 in donations from the “green energy” company, partly bundled for the Obama campaign by major investor and oilman George Kaiser. Source: Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2011.


3. Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner confessed that he tweeted a bulging-underpants photo of himself to a young woman and admitted to “inappropriate” exchanges with six women, before and after getting married, at a press conference in New York shortly before resigning. Source: Huffington Post, June 6, 2011

4. Former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer resigned after it was discovered he had engaged in financial transactions with prostitute Ashley Dupre.  Spitzer later landed a short running, unsuccessful show on CNN. Source: New York Daily News, June 23, 2010

5. In 2008, John Edwards admitted he had cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, with former campaign staffer Rielle Hunter during his second presidential campaign, with whom he had a child out of wedlock. He was later indicted June 2011 on Federal campaign finance charges, criminal charges that he was eventually found not guilty of even though he was guilty of any number of moral failures, especially relative to his wife. Source: Huffington Post, June 1, 2012

6. Former Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd, the Congressional committee that was just one of the Washington entities that failed to foresee the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, received favorable loans from Countrywide Financial, one of the biggest culprits in the housing industry meltdown, a loan that would have saved him up to $70,000. Source: NY Post, March 30, 2009

7. The General Services Administration or GSA held a lavish party during a five-day conference in Las Vegas, blowing over $820,000 in taxpayer dollars on shrimp and champagne, commemorative coins, and a mind reader/motivational speaker. Source: ABC News, April 16, 2012

8. Resigned Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and current Congressman Charlie Rangel failed to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income and assets on his financial disclosure statements. Source: Huffington Post, July 29, 2010

9. Congresswoman Maxine Waters was brought up on House ethics charges after personally lobbying for a bailout of OneUnited bank, where her husband had previously sat on the board and owned about $350,000 in the bank’s stock. Source: Bloomberg, August 11, 2010

10. Convicted criminal and Obama bundler Tony Rezko made a sweetheart real estate deal with Barack Obama, saving the future President hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obama later said it was a “boneheaded mistake.” Source: Townhall, July 16, 2012

11. Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Donna Shalala, Kent Conrad, and Richard Holbrooke, all prominent Democrats, received cut-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, as did the following members of the political class:
  • Mary Jane Collipriest, who was communications director for former Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, then a member of the Banking Committee. The report said Dodd referred Collipriest to Countrywide's VIP unit. Dodd, when commenting on his own loans, has said he was unaware of the discount program, which we know is probably false, given the finding noted below.
  • Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
  • Congressman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., former chairman of the Oversight Committee. Towns issued the first subpoena to Bank of America for Countrywide documents, and current Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., subpoenaed more documents. The committee said that in responding to the Towns subpoena, Bank of America left out documents related to Towns' loan.
  • Congressman Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
  • Top staff members of the House Financial Services Committee.
  • A staff member of Congressman Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, a member of the Financial Services Committee.
  • Former Congressman Tom Campbell, R-Calif.
  • Former Housing and Urban Development Secretaries Alphonso Jackson and Henry Cisneros. The Countrywide VIP unit processed Cisneros' loan after he joined Fannie's board of directors. Source: July 5, 2012 Associated Press
12. Franklin Raines, former Fannie Mae CEO, received million dollar bonuses on top of $91 million salary at Fannie although the mortgage giant was at center of housing meltdown storm in 2008. Both Raines and former Fannie CEO Jim Johnson ($21 million salary) worked with the Obama campaign. Obama was the #3 receiver of campaign dollars from Fannie Mae, a so-called “private-public” partnership, a partnership that has already cost the American taxpayer close to $200 billion of bailout money between both Fannie and Freddie Mac. Source: Politico, October 31, 2011

13. Billionaire bundler for Obama and former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, former CEO of the imploded financial services firm MF Global, apparently perjured himself in Congressional hearings, because he ordered $200 million in funds to be moved from MF Global’s customer accounts to illegally cover brokerage accounts at JP Morgan Chase. Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon is a close associate of Barack Obama. Sources: Politico, May 14, 2012 and Bloomberg March 23, 2012

14. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to pay Social Security taxes, even though he was advised by his employer to do so. He only admitted to the tax evasion after he was caught by an IRS audit. Source: Washington Post, January 19, 2009. Note: Is there a connection between this disdain for paying taxes by the Treasury Secretary and our $16 TRILLION national debt?

15. The Office of Congressional Ethics found “substantial reason to believe” that Jesse Jackson Jr. attempted to buy Obama’s Senate seat from convicted former Governor Rod Blagojevich by offering campaign contributions. Source: Politico, December 2, 2011

16. Oregon Congressman David Wu resigned after the teenage daughter of a friend accused Wu of “aggressive and unwanted sexual behavior.” Source: CBS News, July 26, 2011

17. Former NY Governor David Paterson allegedly: “personally directed two female staffers to reach out to a domestic violence victim who was pointing the finger at his right-hand man,” his aide David Johnson. Source: NY Daily News, March 2, 2010

18. Former NY Representative Eric Massa resigned after sexual harassment allegations were made by a male staffer. Massa later confessed to the charges. Source: CBS News, March 5, 2010

19. Former Obama billionaire bundler Phil Falcone was a major investor in Lightsquared, a wireless technology firm that was given FCC exemptions to build out a 4G wireless network. Thousands of emails acquired under FOIA request suggest that the Obama administration pressured Air Force General William Shelton to stifle criticism of a potential Lightsquared military contract that the company’s operations could interfere with the military’s GPS positioning system. President Obama was an investor in the wireless firm when it was named Skyterra. Source: The Center for Public Integrity, September 14, 2011

20. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by the U.S. House for refusing to turn over Department of Justice documents related to the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, which led to hundreds of Mexican civilians being killed and U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry’s death. The House Republicans intend to sue the Attorney General in civil court during the August recess. Sources: NBC News, August 3, 2011 and Independent Journal Review, June 29, 2012

Twenty instances of slime, sleaze, immorality and corruption is a good place to stop today. I am reminded of a wise saying by David Brin:

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

Very wise. The trick, if we are to ever get this country back on the right track, is to change our political processes so that we start attracting the sane to run for public office and not the corruptible.

I am quite sure that after this series of posts you will see the wisdom of Mr. Brin and agree with our solutions to the corruptible state of Washington and those that infest it.


Please visit our Presidential website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Pse visit the following sites for freedomhttp://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

No comments: