Putin's Russia, Obama's America: Mirror Images Of Corruption, Cronyism and Waste? Part 3

Last week we did a post on how the political class corruption undermining the financial integrity of the Russian Olympics in Sochi were really not that different than the rampant and growing level of political class corruption in America. Besides listing some general areas of politicians’ corruption, we went into detail on how the Obama administration was basically bequeathing ambassadorships on people who had had no international diplomatic experience but who had raised at least half a million dollars for his past political campaigns. That post can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/02/putins-russia-obamas-america-mirror.html

As soon as that post went live, word came out of New Orleans that former Mayor Ray Nagin had been convicted on a whopping twenty counts of illegalities including bribery, wire fraud, and kickbacks. The depth of the corruption was quite unbelievable, the details of which can be reviewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/02/putins-rusia-obamas-america-mirror.html

So within two days, we examined major corruption examples at the local government/political level in New Orleans, at the Federal government/political level in Washington D.C., and the international government/political level in Russia and the Olympics. But as soon as that corruption was documented, two other major pieces of political class corruption came to the forefront, one example at the government bureaucracy level and one at the Congressional level:

1) The fabulous website, Bankrupting America, reported on February 14, 2014 on how the Obama economic stimulus program is still costing the American taxpayers millions and millions of dollars many years after it was supposed to be terminated: 

• Although the stimulus program and spending was supposed to last just two years, taxpayer money is still flowing from it and instances of fraud are still being reported, according to The Dallas Morning News.
• The paper recently reported that, “The top administrator [Joe White] of a chain of hospitals that collapsed under the ownership of a North Texas physician [Dr. Tariq Mahmood] faces charges that he defrauded the Federal government of nearly $800,000 in stimulus funds.”
• White allegedly “falsely certified” documents that made his hospital eligible “to receive stimulus rewards for switching from paper medical records to an electronic system.” 
• In addition to defrauding the government and the taxpayer, he may have accomplished the fraud using an employee’s stolen personal information. 
• Rather than using the stimulus funds to make the switch from paper to electronic records, hospital employees have told the government the hospital pocketed the money and “continued to use paper and uncertified technology.”
• The newspaper says White and Mahamood could face time in prison for their actions. Mahmood has pled not guilty while White has yet to enter a plea.
• The Dallas Morning News said the stimulus program that provided the funds has “major weaknesses. Care providers’ records are not screened as part of the reward process….a 2012 report by the inspector general of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department advised the funding government agency to obtain supporting documentation from some providers before paying them.”
• In typical bungling government fashion, the funding agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did not take the inspector general’s advice. 
• The article reported that the Federal agency (CMS) “balked, citing concerns that doing so would create an ‘up-front burden’ for hospitals and would delay payments.” So the good news is that the taxpayer payments were not delayed, the bad news is that the taxpayer payments were obtained and wasted under false pretenses.

More taxpayer money wasted through corruption, fraud, and incompetence, years after the taxpayer spigot should have been turned off.

Many times the fraud and corruption is not as blatant as the Dallas hospital ripoff scam was. Consider the much more subtle moves of Comcast Corp., the largest cable company in the U.S. Comcast want to merge with its main competitor, Time Warner Inc. Time Warner is the second largest cable provider in the country.

Since the merger deal would further consolidate the telecommunications industry, it is likely to face tough and difficult scrutiny from Federal government officials. The legitimate and major concern is that the merger would raise monopoly and antitrust concerns at the Justice Department. It would also come under scrutiny from a public interest perspective at the Federal Communications Commission. Serious stuff with far reaching ramifications on consumers across the country.

But alas, Comcast probably has that covered. It has been among the top corporate donors to members of Congress and the perpetual reelection campaigns over the past few years. If you follow the money, as documented by the MapLight analysis of campaign contributions to members of Congress, from PACs and employees of Comcast Corp., from January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2012 via the OpenSecrets.org website, you will see that Comcast has

been focusing their contributions on members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. 

It is probably not a coincidence that this committee which has jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission:

• House members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology received $853,525 from Comcast from January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2012. 
• Contributions from Comcast to House members serving in the 109th, 110th, 111th and 112th Congresses totaled $6,678,446 from January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2012. 
• Representative Greg Walden., Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology has received $53,000 from Comcast from January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2012. 
• Representative John Dingell, has received $100,775 from Comcast from January 1, 2001 - December 31, 2012. This is more than any other member of the House of Representatives. 

It is probably not a coincidence that Dingell also is a member of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

Disgusting and disgraceful corruption disguised as campaign contributions. Comcast is paying out millions of dollars in the very safe bet of receiving billions of dollars worth of government leeway in their market dealings with Time Warner, the nation’s consumers and citizens be damned. Do we really think that these Congressional members would be receiving money from Comcast if they were in charge, of say, agricultural matters? No way.

Three short days of political class corruption reviews from around the world, five prime examples of how citizens get screwed:

• Russian taxpayers funding the corruption, bribery, kickbacks and cost overruns at the Russian Olympic.
• American foreign policy interests being sacrificed with diplomatic novices staffing ambassador posts simply because they raised election money for Obama.
• Local New Orleans residents being shafted by a long time local politician, now convicted, who looks to have been heavily into kickbacks, bribery, wire fraud, and other crimes.
• The American taxpayer paying out its wealth in a stimulus program that should have died years ago, to a corrupt hospital administrator via an inept government agency.
• Corporate election campaign donors to corrupt politicians who are likely to look more favorably on those donor’s corporate needs than the needs and rights of cable service users.

As you can see, political class corruption takes many forms, from plain incompetence to serious greed. Somewhere along the line we have allowed a class of people to take over our political processes and turn those processes inwards to their own gain and away from the benefit of citizens and taxpayers. Whereas politics used to be a means to an end, I.e. get elected to promote positive change in the lives of the citizens, getting elected is now just a means in itself, get elected to stay elected to stay in the money, the good of the country be damned.

And the real shame is that a few simple steps could reverse this whole downward spiral of corruption, greed, and lack of ethics, steps that were outlined in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

1. Step 1 - Reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five consecutive years - if there is less Federal money to waste, the amount of corruption involving less money should go down substantially.
2. Step 6 - allow only individual citizens to contribute to political campaigns, eliminating the contributions of PACs, unions, corporations, and lobbyists. This eliminates the problems like the Comcast bribes described above.
3. Step 7 - Only allow individuals to contribute to political Senate or House of Representative political candidates that represent them directly. For example, somebody living in New Jersey could no not make a contribution to a candidate in Kansas.
4. Step 34 - Hold House and Senate committee members accountable for their respective areas of responsibility, removing them form their cherished committee posts if they do not meet minimal performance standards. The taxpayers and citizens would determine if minimal performance standards were met, helping to minimize the overwhelming influence of entities like Comcast do today.
5. Step 39 - Implement term limits for all Federal politicians, one and done. With term limits, there would be no need to continually be at Comcast’s and other corporate donors mercy since there would be no need to continually raise campaign money for a continual reelection cycle.

Five simple steps to return the power to the people by taking it away from the rigged election processes that are controlled by selfish and self serving politicians who are financed and beholden to entities like Comcast. Failure to implement these freedom restoring steps just makes us look like an Americanized version of Putin’s Russian thugocracy.

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:

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.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w