Friday, April 4, 2014

The Corruption and Hunger Games Mentality of the Political Class, Bonus Post: The Never Ending and Wide Variety of Polticial Class Examples

Yesterday was supposed to be our fifth and final review of the rampant corruption and Hunger Games mentality that exist throughout the American political class. However, never underestimate the power of the American political class to continually corrupt their elected positions and to hold ordinary Americans in contempt, just like in the Hunger Games books and films. Thus, we need this bonus post on corruption today to stay abreast of the political class nonsense.

Our politicians have become less and less leaders and good examples for citizens and more and more simple crooks and selfish individuals who look after themselves, their friends, and their own self enrichment. And they move in this negative direction in an increasingly corrupt, illegal, and despicable manner and behavior as time goes by.

As a guide for reviewing political class corruption, we have been relying on the multi-level definition of corruption that the Webster online dictionary provides:

a : impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity 
b : decay, decomposition 
c : inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) 
d : a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct 

1) The following report is from writer Tom Borelli, writing on the Deneen Borelli website on March 19, 2014. Gina McCarthy is the head of the EPA and provides our first example of moral corruption and contempt for Americans today.

According to Mr. Borelli, regarding local gifts she was given during a recent trip to Alaska, McCarthy revealed her true feelings about Alaskans by spewing some extremely negative statements comments about a couple of items she received as gifts. The firestorm began when McCarthy’s comments were reported by The Wall Street Journal as she discussed Federal gift guidelines. 

cCarthy said that Federal officials chased her down for a “dinky” North Pole pin someone gave her at an event to which she said, “I threw the f–ing thing away.” She also said that a jar of moose meat she got from a little girl at a hearing in Alaska “could gag a maggot.” Nice leadership and respect for your fellow Americans. This attitude falls into the corruption areas of: depravity, decay, and decomposition.

Not surprisingly, Alaska’s Representatives were outraged over McCarthy’s comments: “Gina McCarthy’s words sound like they come from someone who has contempt for, rather than an appreciation of the rich customary traditions of Alaska’s people,” said Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young in a statement.

Regardless of what she personally thought of the gifts, have a little class and little less depravity. Accept the gifts, respect the gift givers, and just move on. Anything less is a moral corruption of the highest regard from a supposed leader of the country.

2) Any elected official or government worker should follow the laws of the land and the rules for government employees actions. This means everyone, including the President.

But in a great piece of irony, Obama may actually have violated and corrupted the laws and ethics of his office when he took time out of his schedule to announce to the world his NCAA March Madness basketball picks via a piece on ESPN’s Sportscenter. His public TV comments included the statement he would buy the first lady some shoes if he won with his bracket, a statement that may have crossed strict ethics lines and laws prohibiting Federal workers from doing their own brackets while on duty. 

Government officials in several Federal offices have told journalists that they have been ordered to stay off their work computers when drawing up their gambling brackets for the annual March Madness basketball tournaments. A published Federal memo that different agencies have rewritten to fit their workforce, this one from the Air Force, reads as follows:

It's that time of year again, sports fans! College basketball conference tournaments are in full swing and ‘March Madness,’ the NCAA men's basketball tournament, starts this week.

It's time to send out that e-mail to the squadron and let them know who the point of contact is to collect everyone's $5 entry fee, right? Wrong. Like it or not, participating in a money-betting pool for NCAA basketball games in the workplace on duty time violates ethics laws and subjects employees to disciplinary action.

The memo goes on to cite “Code of Federal Regulations, Title 5, Section 735.201:

“…which prohibits civilian and military employees from “participating in any gambling activity, including the operation of a gambling device, a lottery or pool, a game for money or property, or selling or purchasing a numbers slip or ticket while on government owned or leased property, or while on government duty.””

Obama gets into trouble with the ethics laws when he was asked what he would do if he won the money, Obama said: “You know I’m sure somebody would ask me to pay down more of the federal debt. Michelle might want a few shoes.”

Joking or not, if a regular government employee was partaking of such activity, the odds of them facing strict sanctions would likely be much higher than the President doing the same thing, certainly a form of corruption when different rules and laws are applied differently across the same population, Federal employees.

Given the anemic state of the economy, the persistently high unemployment rate, the reigniting of the Cold War of the Ukraine, the skyrocketing national debt, failing public schools, the lost war on drugs, and other trivial matters, I question the wisdom of the President taking any time out of his day working on his brackets and the televising of those brackets rather than the pressing issues of our times. That bad sense of priorities is the real corruption in my mind.

3) One would like to think that our politicians have some degree of class, some degree of decorum, regardless of the time and issues in play. At least state government politician in Rhode Island falls far short of that standard, corrupting the entire concept that politicians are leaders, not gutter trash talkers.

Rhode Island state senator Joshua Miller has demeaned a Constitution supporting American reporter and 2nd Amendment advocates by telling them to “go f*#k yourselves” at a recent confrontation in the state house building with Infowars correspondent Dan Bidondi.

Biondi approached Miller and other lawmakers at the Rhode Island State House, where a set of anti-Second Amendment legislation was set to be heard later that evening. “The Second Amendment shall not be infringed, you people need to understand that,” Bidondi told Miller. Rather than smile and move on or state his position on why he wants to shred the Second Amendment, Miller simply stated: “Go f*#k yourself.” Very shortly afterwards, one of his staffers repeated the same insult.

Class act from an elected representative [sarcasm]. I have always tried to live by the motto that “one uses profanity because at that moment one is either too stupid or too unintelligent not to use profanity.” As with the EPA head‘s condescending attitude we discussed above, Miller‘s actions also pushes his attitude into the corruption realm of depravity, decay, decomposition. The actual exchange and profanity can be viewed at the following link, with a reader caution of obscene language being used in the clip:


4) Nothing says corruption like the FBI coming by to arrest you if you are a politician. The Washington Times recently reported that numerous lawmakers around the country were either recently arrested or raided by the FBI:
  • Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco was taken in by Federal law enforcement, charged with public corruption charges after a series of FBI raids. Also arrested as part of the same investigation was “infamous Chinatown gangster Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow,” according to the San Jose Mercury News.
  • New York Assemblyman William Scarborough saw both his Queens and Albany offices raided by FBI agents and was met by agents at his hotel room. The FBI is investigating him relative to payments that reimburse legislators for days spent in the Capitol.
  • Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Patrick Cannon was arrested on public corruption charges of theft and bribery as a result of a four-year FBI sting operation. Allegedly, Cannon received cash bribes and other items of value from undercover FBI agents who were posing as businessmen desiring to do business in Charlotte. These details were announced by the U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Anne Tompkins.
  • Rhode Island’s Speaker of the House Gordon Fox had both his home and office raided by the FBI. 
  • Illinois state Rep. Keith Farnham, had his home and office raided as the FBI searched for documents “pertaining to the possession, receipt or distribution of child pornography.”
Pornography, bribes, corruption, and other alleged infractions, at least you have to give our politicians credit for the different and original ways they enrichment themselves at our expense, but all falling within the inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) definition of corruption.

Okay, that will definitely do it for this latest update of the corruption and Hunger Games mentality of the American political class. As you have seen over the past week, there atre no limits to the many ways they can corrupt the system that they have been elected and entrusted to protect, making the current set of politicians in American today the most corrupt, the most depraved, the most lacking integrity set of politicians we have ever lived under in the history of this country. 

Making our case for term limits all by themselves because really, how much worse could it get if we just dumped all of the current members in office and started over with a fresh slate of Americans who might actually care more about the country than themselves:


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




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