March, 2018, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Belief That The Deep State Exists, More Federal Budgeting Fiascos, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

We thought we were done with this month’s political class insanity with the last post but enough nonsense has popped up quickly that this will be a bonus post for this month’s insanity. Let's get started:

1) The Federal government just passed a spending bill for this fiscal year that was a whopping $1.3 trillion. Here is why it is so idiotic and wasteful:

• The spending bill was over 2,000 pages long and members of Congress had less than two days to read it, an impossible task, before they had to vote on it.
• Thus, who knows what junk and idiocy was embedded deep in its bowels that American taxpayers will be stuck paying for.
• Obviously, given the volume of the bill and the short amount of review time, it is obvious a very small cadre of Congressional members developed it and wrote it, which means from a representative government perspective it stinks to high heaven.
• To add insult to injury, Congressional members and their staffs will see increases in salaries, i.e. they obviously made sure to take care of themselves.
• The legislation gave an incremental $3 billion in budget to the failed and useless National Institutes of Health.
• There was a $4 million grant to combat “excessive alcohol use” via the CDC, an amount which is way too little to make dent in excessive alcohol abuse in this country but which could have fed a lot of homeless Americans or served a lot of veterans’ healthcare needs.
• There is $8 million set aside in the budget for “breastfeeding grants” and a mandate that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau improve “wine label accuracy.” Seriously, the Federal government needs to spend taxpayer dollars on wine label labeling?

As you can see, nothing has changed. Regardless of what party is in the White House or is in charge of Congress, the idiocy, wasteful spending, bad priorities and the continuing piling on of trillions of dollars of national debt marches on while major issues facing Americans NEVER get resolved.

2) Up in New York, a trial is underway regarding illegal campaign funding as it relates to current mayor, Bill de Blasio:

• Former campaign donor, Harendra Singh testified in court that de Blasio was aware of and apparently did not care that his campaign was receiving illegal campaign donations.
• According to Singh, de Blasio told him: “Listen, I don’t know, I don’t want to know. Just do what you’ve got to do.”
• Singh is the star witness in the corruption trial of former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and former Oyster Bar Town Supervisor John Venditto.
• Singh has already pleaded guilty to bribing de Blasio and in the trial of Mangano and Venditto.
• Singh has testified that he had thrown free fundraisers for de Blasio and used straw donors to raise campaign funds for the mayor, where straw donors are donors who give money to campaigns and are secretly paid back by the actual donors, a process that is illegal. 
• While de Blasio’s legal team has denied such illegal activity, Singh is the second person to admit to shady campaign financing practices, Jona Rechnitsz has also testified that he also donated large amounts amount of money to the de Blasio in exchange for political favors.

Obviously everyone is innocent until proven guilty but there is a lot of suspicious corruption smoke prevailing up around the New York City mayor.

3) I am not a big fan of rap music and I am certainly not a big fan of profanity. Someone once told me that people use profanity because they are too lazy or too stupid not to use it. But I certainly agree with a recent anti-government rant that rapper Cardi B. went on when via social media she wanted to know in detail what the Federal government was doing with all of her tax money. 

Her request for details on the status of her tax money included the following social media posts:

• “So you know the government is taking 40 percent of my taxes and Uncle Sam, I want to f***ing know what you’re doing with my f***ing tax money!” 
• “When you donate, like, to a kid from a foreign country, they give you updates of what they’re doing with your donation. I want updates on my tax money!”
• “I’m from New York and the streets is always dirty, we was voted the dirtiest city in America…there’s still rats in the trains. I know you’re not spending it in no damn prison because y’all be giving n****** two [pairs of] underwear, one jumpsuit for like five months. So what is ya n***** doing with my f***ing money?”
• “I want to know, I want receipts, I want everything … Uncle Sam, I want to know what the f*** you’re doing with my f***ing money!”

Again, while I disagree with her language, I feel the same frustrations and disgust on how Washington and the rest of the American political class at all levels of government use and abuse our tax dollars. She is just more “colorful” in expressing her frustration than I am!

4) Woodrow Wilson once said, “The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” This was a warning from a hundred years ago that government may have already gotten too big and that its bigness has threatened to destroy our basic freedoms and our democracy. 

Well, according to a new poll from Monmouth University, the majority of Americans agree with Wilson and his foreshadowing of such a shadow government:

• A majority of those polled believe that a groups of powerful non-elected government and military officials actually rule America behind the scenes.
• Both Democrats and Republicans in the poll believe this concept and that there does exist a so-called “deep state” movement that actually makes policy in addition to spying on ordinary American citizens.
• Again, the suspicions of the “deep state” violating the rights of its own citizens is bipartisan.

Even if there is no deep state and there are no blocs of unelected powerful people running the country, the suspicion and feeling that there are is not conducive to long term freedom and democracy.

That will finally do it for this month’s political class insanity: a belief in a shadow government, a rapper goes off on wasteful spending, the current set of politicians still do not know how to put a budget together that is frugal and effective, and possible political class corruption marches on in New York City. More insanity sure to follow next month.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

April, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Congressional Corruption, Chicago's Financial Death Spiral and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane, corrupt, and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

Let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Whatever you think of Donald Trump’s Presidential run, he does seem to have pissed off everyone in political power in the country. Republican and Democratic power brokers alike seem to be doing everything they can to prevent Trump from becoming President. Which may mean that Trump is a good thing, that he is actually getting close to exposing and attacking the institutional corruption that currently exists in the country today.

Liberty First News recently gave an idea of how insane the whole situation has gotten. Republican affiliated power brokers have already spent over half a BILLION dollars in trying to stop Trump mania, according to a report and analysis from the Center of Public Integrity. According to Carrie Levine from the Center for Public Integrity: “So far, donors have funneled more than $520 million collectively into campaigns and outside groups supporting Republican presidential candidates who have now dropped out — and the primaries are far from over. Only U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Trump remain in the Republican presidential primary, and they’re aggressively courting those who once wrote checks to their opponents. But some GOP megadonors with millions of dollars to spend haven’t selected a new date to the presidential dance. Others are on the arms of their second and third choices."

Half a billion dollars spent and nothing to show for it. How insane have our political processes become that half a billion dollars have gone down the drain and the country is no better off, our politics are still juvenile and useless. No additional drug addicts have been treated, no additional hungry Americans have been fed, no additional homeless Americans have gotten shelter, etc. A bunch of advertising agencies and political consultants are richer but that is it. Such bad priorities.

2) As we have always tried to point out, it is not only the Washington political class that is screwed up and which screws up our lives. Consider how the local political class in Chicago has screwed up the lives of Chicago residents and the city’s future financial demise:

• Fitch Ratings recently downgraded Chicago’s credit rating, moving it closer to “junk” bond status.
• This latest crisis was the result of the state Supreme Court voiding a recent law that tried to boost the two of the city’s pension funds.
• Fitch warned that the city’s credit rating could be further reduced since there is an absence of "a realistic plan that puts the pension funds on an affordable path toward solvency."
• Fitch stated that it believes the state Supreme Court ruling forces the city to continue to fund future promised pension benefits even if the pension funds become insolvent.
• Even worse, the Moody’s rating service has already rated Chicago bonds as junk.
• In total, the city’s four pension plans have a whopping $20 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.
• The city officials warned that two of the pension funds would run out of money within 10 to 13 years.

As the city credit ratings go down, the cost of interest on city bonds goes up which forces the city to raise taxes which drives citizens and businesses out of the city which reduces tax revenue as interest rate costs are going up, and the death spiral is underway. Thus, local politicians from the third largest city in the country also cannot manage a budget, much like their counterparts in Washington who are on track to run up a $20 TRILLION national debt liability in the near future. Insanely incompetent.

3) But not only are our politicians incompetent but they are often criminals. Remember how a Virginia Congressman had so much cash from his criminal activities that he had to store his cash in his freezer? How about the former New Orleans mayor who went to jail for kickbacks and shake downs? And how about the many former Illinois governors that have served jail times for their corruption? 

And now we have another potential crooked politician. Two weeks ago, the House Ethics Committee voted to open an investigation into possible ethical and criminal behavior by current Congresswoman Corrine Brown. Details of the shady behavior include the following:

• There are allegations that the Congresswoman “improperly solicited charitable donations” from a charity that was not actually a charity.
• The so-called charity never obtained official tax exempt status and never filed state or federal income taxes.
• But the so-called charity still raised about $800,000 in donations but in four years issued one $1,000 scholarship.
• Allegedly, an official of the charity withdrew over $140,000 from the charity which were then used for events hosted by or in honor of an unnamed public official, i.e. Congresswoman Brown.
• The Justice Department is now involved in the investigation, never a good sign for an alleged law breaker.

Now, while the Congresswoman is presumed innocent until proven guilty, when a Congressional panel and the Justice Department are investigating you, it cannot be good. And given the political class track record on being criminals and law breakers, it would not be a surprise if Congresswoman Brown was just continuing the tradition of Washington corruption.

4) We have often said that the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad as a real conflict of interest. Such is the case that is developing between Hillary Clinton’s crimes, attorney general Loretta Lynch, and this conflict of interest situation. As most people should know, the FBI is investigating a myriad of potential crimes that have been committed by Hillary and Bill Clinton:

• Loretta Lynch will have the final say in whether or not Hillary is indicted, assuming that the FBI recommends an indictment based on their extensive investigation.
• But Lynch used to work for the Washington based international law firm of Hogan & Hartson from 2002 through 2010.
• She was a litigation partner at the firm.
• But one of the firm’s partners was the tax lawyer who filed tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton starting in 2004.
• Additionally, the law firm filed a patent trademark request for the Denver-based MX Logic company in 2004, the same MX Logic firm that developed the email encryption program used to manage Hillary’s private and illegal private email system.
• Experts have previously stated that employees of MX Logic could have access to the all of the emails that went through her illegal server.
• Bill Clinton helped Lynch get appointed to her two terms as a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Thus, Lynch owes an important phase of her life to Bill Clinton, the wife of the very person, Hillary Clinton, that she gets to decide whether or not to indict based on the FBI’s findings and who also was indirectly involved via MX Logic with the very materials that will be part of any indictment. This is all either the appearance of or actual conflict of interest and the honorable and ethical thing for Lynch to do is recuse herself from these proceedings. 

But honorable and ethical behavior is extinct in Washington so you can be sure that this insult to America will likely prove the old saying from Woodrow Wilson: 

An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

Want to bet that the “invisible empire” will find a way to protect itself and that the cronies of Washington will allow the insanity of Hilary’s lawlessness to go unpenalized? Insane and so true, unfortunately.

So we are off to another depressing phase of political class insanity. Conflict of interest in Hillary’s world, more Congressional corruption and greed, Chicago’s financial death spiral, and wasting wealth on pointless political farces. Just gettin started, more insanity tomorrow.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Part 3, American Politicians Are "Just Not Into You:" Warnings From Our Past

We have spent the past two days discussing the reality and examples of how the American political class is “just not into you.” Once you have cast your votes in elections, the elected politicians typically forget that you exist. They base their subsequent actions, votes, and initiatives based on personal and selfish greed, campaign fund raising for their perpetual reelection campaign, and business and union cronies.

We have proven our point over the past few days with many examples, including:

• Lobbyists being placed in high ranking White House and Federal positions.
• Billions and billions of dollars spent on bailing out America’s biggest companies such as General Motors, Chrysler, Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, etc.
• Taxpayer wealth being directed to build light transit infrastructure for Nancy Pelosi campaign donors which also benefit Nancy Pelosi’s husband’s real estate holdings.
• Hundreds of earmarks embedded in the Federal budget every year as favors to campaign donors or family and friends’ interests.

But apparently politicians have not been into citizens’ interests for a long time. Consider the following list of warnings from past U.S. Presidents that warned us of this exact same thing: politicians are just not into you. The list comes courtesy of an article on the Mr. Conservative website, written by Jodi Swan and posted on August 20, 2014. The original post and more details can be accessed at:

http://mrconservative.com/2014/08/48045-former-u-s-presidents-warn-invisible-govt-is-running-the-country/

1) Thomas Jefferson, in a letter he penned to John Taylor on May 28, 1816:

“I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”

2) Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in a letter written by FDR in 1933:

“A financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

3) John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson’s Vice President, came to the same FDR conclusion but about hundred years earlier in 1836:

“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.”

4) Theodore Roosevelt, writing in his autobiography, said:

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”

5) Not included in Ms. Swan’s article but include in our book, 'Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we have similar words from Woodrow Wilson:

“The government, that was designed fro the people, has gotten into the hands of the bosses and their employees, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”

The fact that companies, unions and other entities pour hundreds of millions of dollars into politicians’ campaigns every voting season should not come as a surprise that those same entities control what goes on after the elections are over. That is why President Obama has attended at least 400 political fund raisers since becoming President, far more than any other President that came before him. Some of these fundraisers charged tens of thousands of dollars just to attend. You can be sure that ordinary American citizens were not paying those prices to be present.

This why Step 39 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” is so important. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, they would all be “one and done.” Since most of the corruption occurs when politicians constantly run a perpetual reelection campaign, a perpetual campaign that requires constantly funding from rich entities that are buying future favors, the ability to make that future very short, one term, one hopefully cut down on reliance on cronies and financial benefactors. 

Once politicians realize that they only have one term to make a difference, the need to campaign for financial support goes away and maybe, just maybe, politicians might get into you and your needs and not the needs of those that financially back them. 

The fact that political quotes form our distance past warned us about these outside monied interests and their power over elected officials have warned us of this for the past two centuries shows that changing the status quo will not be easy. Term limits is a good place to start to get the political class into our needs vs. the needs of the wealthy and influential.

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

The Selling and Buying Of America, Part 3: The Gangs That Control America

This is the third post on the topic and insult of the “Buying and Selling Of America.” Two days ago we reviewed the recent history of politicians helping themselves to taxpayer wealth to enrich themselves, enrich their families and friends, and continuing to finance their reelection campaigns with taxpayer dollars.

Yesterday, we reviewed the disgrace of the Washington political class asking for/demanding citizens and businesses contribute to Obama’s inauguration festivities and parties and how taxpayers will likely pay over $150 million to support the inauguration parties for the politicians in D.C.

Today’s examples come from a new book written by Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University. The book is titled "The Price of Civilisation" and Mr. Sachs says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop: ''Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth,''

Well said. In about fifty words Mr. Sachs has summarized how the buying and selling of America works. We no longer live in a democracy, we live below a tier of elitists that trade taxpayer wealth and freedoms for their own reward, greed, and enrichment. That is why no major issue ever gets resolved in this country. There are powers and “gangs” that do not want them solved, it would upset the cozy arrangements that these elitists have established.

I use the word “gangs” because that is what Mr. Sachs calls them, as outlined in an article by Ross Gittins of The Sydney Morning Herald. Mr. Sachs categorizes the gangs as follows:

1) The first gang is the military-industrial complex, i.e. the relationship between the Pentagon and the private businesses and contractors that live off of its massive annual budget. Here are is a famous quote from President Eisenhower from over fifty years ago: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

As a result, Sachs concludes that “America has been condemned to militarization, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then.'' I would say he has gotten that right:

• Useless wars: Vietnam, Granada, Yugoslovia, Lebanon, Iraq I, Iraq, II, Afghanistan, and probably a few I have forgotten.
• Fiscal waste: you cannot spend over $600 billion a year on a world wide operation and not have fiscal waste. Rather than run down the many examples that we could list, let me refer to our most popular blog post ever regarding the Navy nonchalantly wasting over $300 million of taxpayer wealth:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-navy-ships-for-sale-cheap-never-used.html

Additionally, if you go to the website www.simplywired.com you will find that the average salary for an individual defense contractor is about $64,000. Since the average American household annual income is just under $50,000, you begin to see why defense contractors want the status quo to be maintained.

2) The second gang, according to Sachs, the Wall Street-Washington complex, a complex which has steered the nation’s financial system towards monopoly control by just a handful of politically connected Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a few other financial firms. Despite the financial meltdown of the Great Recession, despite the useless, but long and cumbersome, Dodd-Frank financial industry reform legislation, despite the public’s disgust with the banking industry in general, these few banks control as much or more of the financial industry than they did five years ago. These few banks control over 50% of banking deposits, banking assets, and just about any other measure of banking value.

How were they able to do this? Let’s look at just two examples of how the “gang” works:

- Congressman Barney Frank used to be a powerful chairman of a House banking committee. His committee was supposed to oversee and make sure banks did not get out of control. But how motivated was he in this role when:

• According to an October 22, 2010 article in the Boston Herald by Dave Wedge, Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, accepted $40,000 in reelection campaign donations from financial institutions that received bailout/TARP from the government. Two things make this action so despicable. First, Congressman Frank was at the center of the whole taxpayer bank bailout activity since he was chairman of the lead House of Representatives committee that was determining which institutions got how much taxpayer money, if any.
• Second, in 2009, Mr. Frank told the Washington publication, Roll Call, that he "won't take any PAC money from banks that took TARP funds, nor would I take it from the top executive." However, according to Mr. Wedge's research he did not fulfill this statement.
• According to Mr Frank's own campaign disclosure reports, he accepted a campaign donation of $7,000 from top executives from Bank Of America. Bank of America received $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds."
• He received $5,000 for Bank Of America's Federal PAC fund.
• He received $10,000 from the Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation which received $3 billion from the bailout fund.
• He received $2,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC that includes representatives from TARP recipients Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
• He received $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp's PAC which received $6 billion in bailout funds.
• These details and further discussion of “gangster politics” can be found at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/10/conflicts-of-interest-and-lies-that-are.html

Let’s move on to another example, this one where Congressional members got sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial, the poster child for the bad  mortgageloans that were the underlying cause of the Great Recession. The following members of Congress and their senior staffs received this preferential treatment, as outlined in an Associated Press report:

1. Former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
2. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
3. Mary Jane Collipriest, who was communications director for former Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, then a member of the Banking Committee.
4. The AP 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.
5. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
6. Rep. 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.
7. Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
8. Top staff members of the House Financial Services Committee.
9. A staff member of Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, a member of the Financial Services Committee.
10. Former Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif.
11. Former Housing and Urban Development SecretariesAlphonso Jackson and Henry Cisneros; and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The VIP unit processed Cisneros' loan after he joined Fannie's board of directors
12. Former Fannie Mae heads James Johnson, Daniel Mudd and Franklin Raines. Countrywide took a loss on Mudd's loan. Fannie employees were the most frequent recipients of VIP loans. Johnson received a discount after Mozilo waived problems with his credit rating.

Details of this corruption and more can be found at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-corruption-train-keeps-on.html

Still do not believe the Wall Street/Washington gang exists? Consider the following graphic that shows the incest that exists between the Federal government and Wall Street banks (double click on the picture for a larger view):

The overlap is the incest of the government/Wall Street gang.
Maybe President Wilson had it right about a hundred years ago when he said: "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

Are you beginning to see how the feedback loop works? Corporations support incumbent politicians via financial donations and once back in office, incumbent politicians cut special deals for those same donors and their businesses and interests. Everybody gets wealthy and secure, the gang and their loop keeps rolling along, an invisible empire above the forms of democracy.

Unfortunately, it is all subsidized by American taxpayers, who are not getting wealthy and secure. In fact, if anything, they are getting less secure (high, chronic unemployment) and declining household income and wealth (less secure). That is why there is no urgency on any politicians to upset the process since they do not pay for the process, we do. And that is why our national debt is $16.4 TRILLION and climbing, and cuts in government spending would make the gang members less wealthy and less secure even if it helped save the country’s economy and democracy.

That’s enough bad news for today. We will continue with the selling and buying of America tomorrow when we reveal the identities of the last two gangs and provide some common sense suggestions on how to bring the gangs down, restore our freedom and bring some sanity to our out-of-control government spending and get it under control. In the meantime, see if you can name the other two gangs.

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:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Federal Reserve - Conflict of Interest and Its Conflict With Freedom

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford.

Henry Ford might be right, if America ever gets around to reading a General Accountability Office (GAO) report that was recently published, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank law. The report is extremely critical of the cozy relationship between the banking industry and the Federal Reserve Board and the potential for abuse and greed that this relationship has over the American economy, the potential for wasting taxpayer money, and the potential for massive conflicts of interest that sub-optimize the economy in this country.


The report was made public by Senator Bernie Sanders and includes the following highlights:

• The GAO study concluded that since people in the banking industry both elect and serve on the Federal Reserve’s board of directors, there is an obvious "appearance of a conflict of interest" and poses "reputational risks" to the Federal Reserve System.
• As a result of the Great Recession, at least 18 current or former bankers who were or had been Federal Reserve Regional bank directors were able to arrange loans and other financial assistance for their banks from the Fed amounting to $4 trillion at near zero interest.
• JPMorgan received  $391 billion out of the $4 trillion in emergency funds at the same time the bank was used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for emergency lending programs.
• In March of 2008, the Fed provided JPMorgan with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. JP Morgan also got the Fed to provide an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements.
• JP Morgan was not done milking the Fed since it also convinced the Fed to remove risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired the troubled investment bank.
• In 2008, the New York branch of the Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve. At that time, Steve Friedman, a former chairman of the New York Fed's board of directors, sat on the Goldman Sachs board, an obvious potential conflict of interest arrangement.
• Friedmnan also owned Goldman stock during his time working for the Fed, something that was prohibited by Federal Reserve conflict of interest regulations. But not to worry, his friends in the banking industry and Fed allowed him to receive a waiver from the Fed's conflict of interest rules, news that was not made public until this report. GAO investment records show that Friedman continued to purchase shares in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009.
• General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt was a New York Fed board member at the same time his company helped create a "Commercial Paper Funding Facility" during the financial crisis. GE later received $16 billion in funding from the Fed under this emergency lending program.

Seems like a very closed, secretive, and almost incestuous relationship between the Fed and the major banks in this country. Not discussed in the article highlighting the GAO findings, but previously reported in this blog, is another banking industry gross conflict of interest issue. When the Fed went through its first two "quantitative easing" efforts, those programs pumped over $2 TRILLION of fake wealth into the economy.

That process was managed through the New York branch of the Fed which was being run by a former member of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, William Dudley. Dudley used Goldman Sachs to facilitate the quantitative easing process of the Federal government taking over bonds and bad assets of the major banks including Goldman Sachs.

A few observations:

1. At no time in the past few years, as the Fed and the banks were busy taking care of each other with bailouts and staffing, was there any oversight from the Washington political class or the American people on whether or not the people ultimately responsible for the $4 TRILLION, the taxpayers, had any say at all into this process.
2. The appearance of conflict of interest is just as bad as actual conflict of interest, and when there is a constant revolving door between membership on the Fed' staff and the Fed's boards and employment by the major banks, conflict of interest, real or potential, is a real problem.
3. Despite all of the machinations of the Fed, its employees, and its ability to devalue the dollar with $4 TRILLION worth of fake wealth, the economy is still in the ditch with hardcore and high unemployment, subdued business growth and bank lending, and TRILLIONS of dollars of cash liquidity sitting around that will eventually ignite some serious inflation. Thus, not only is there massive and inefficient conflicts of interest, the economy and the taxpayers never even got an economic boost from the Fed and the banking industry.
4. A statement from Senator Sanders' office summarized this previous point more elegantly: “This report reveals the inherent conflicts of interest that exist at the Federal Reserve. At a time when small businesses could not get affordable loans to create jobs, the Fed was providing trillions in secret loans to some of the largest banks and corporations in America that were well represented on the boards of the Federal Reserve Banks.”

You start to understand why people like Ron Paul want to audit the Fed. The above conditions listed above are only the ones we know about. Only a detailed and independent audit will determine if the situation is only as bad as described above or is far worse. If the Fed has nothing else to hide, then submit to an audit and clean the slate.

At the very least, there has to be a way to ensure that the conflict of interest potential is eliminated. A democracy should not be run and manipulated by unelected bureaucrats, bureaucrats that ensure their "home" companies and industry friends always get their mistakes remedied with taxpayer bank bailouts or whose profitability is not driven by their success as business people but by their success in manipulating government functions.

Secrecy and conflict of interest should never be a part of a functioning democracy. Henry Ford recognized long ago, we are mostly ignorant about how the Fed and its banker friends undermine our democracy and our wealth. Unfortunately, nothing has changed since a contemporary of Ford, President Woodrow Wilson, first identified the problem long ago: "The government, that was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employees, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

In this case the special interests are the Fed and its banker friends, an empire that can put the American taxpayer on the hook for $4 TRILLION in the most invisible way possible.



We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new 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 our 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 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:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Wherever The United States Is Going From a Corruption Perspective, India Will Get There First

We have discussed how many different ways our political class in Washington has corrupted the democratic process in this country in any number of posts. From using so-called budget "earmarks" to steer taxpayer money to friendly reelection campaign donors to using insider government and company information to enrich their personal wealth portfolios to voting themselves more and more perks of office such as automatic pay raises, our politicians are especially creative in helping themselves to our wealth.

However, just like in yesterday's post where we saw how our nation's financial destruction is following down the same path of Italy's financial ruin, it appears the corruption within our democracy is following the lead of government and political corruption in India. This analogy becomes clear when we review two recent news articles.

The first article was contained in the "Briefing"section of the October 14, 2011 issue of The Week magazine. It was entitled, "India's Fed Up Middle Class" and it covered the following information:

• This past summer, tens of thousands of Indians marched in the streets to protest the high degree of government and political corruption in the country.
• For example, in 2010 it was uncovered that friends of the ruling Congress Party had wasted $40 billion of taxpayer wealth by awarding telecom contracts to well connected businessmen in exchange for bribes. In America, we call well connected businessmen "lobbyists" and we call bribes "campaign donations."
• Also in 2010, it was revealed how ineptly the government had mismanaged the staging of the Commonwealth Games that year. According to the article, $10 billion was spent building stadiums and infrastructure that were largely useless for the general public, and much of that money was squandered through corruption, incompetence, and bribery. Sounds like what we do in this country when it comes to government programs like Social Security and Medicare, programs that waste hundreds of billions of dollars every year, also through corruption, incompetence, and bribery.
• The article asserts that bribery is a way of life for every Indian, that just about any contact with any government agency involves having to pay a bribe, whether it involves getting a marriage license, getting through through customs, or getting a telephone installed. Sounds like the way ex-Illinios Governor, and soon to be prison inmate,  Rod Blagojevich ran his governor's office when he shook down businesses and individuals for bribes in return for favorable state government legislative treatment.
• A recent opinion poll in India found that two thirds of all who responded in the poll reported that they have had to bribe a government official in the past just to get something done that the government required.
• A call center employee told the Washington Post recently that he had to actually pay a $20 bribe to a government official before he could get a birth certificate for his new born son.

As protests spread this summer, the Indian political class responded with a watered down anti-corruption piece of legislation that exempted top level of government officials from the penalties of the legislation. This is eerily similar to how Congress exempts themselves from our insider trading laws, affirmative action laws, whistle blower laws, etc. Fortunately, the reaction to the exemptions resulted in more protests, hunger strikes, etc. and the law was changed to get rid of the exemptions.

Although we may not be as far along as India when it comes to political corruption, e.g. I do not believe most Americans have ever had to pay a bribe to get a simple government document such as a marriage license or birth certificate, there are many troubling parallels at the higher political level, as pointed out above.

But it is not just bribes and politicians enriching themselves that show how the decline of democracy and freedom in our country and India is so comparable. Consider the sad story of Shehla Massod of India.

Ms. Massod had used India's newly passed public document freedom of information act to expose the corruption of local politicians. She engaged in such analysis when she became suspicious that her company never won any government contracts. Her story was told in the October 24, 2011 issue of Business Week.

Once she got her hands on some government documents, she found out her suspicions were right. The documents showed that many times she was the lowest bidder on many government contracts but was never assigned the job. She continued to investigate by requesting other government documents and became an activist against government corruption, investigating government expense issues, environmental harm issues, and other topics, eventually sharing her corruption findings with newspapers.

Unfortunately, Ms. Masood was shot and killed in a criminal case that is still open. The article explained that once an ordinary Indian citizen asks for government documents, that request is often secretly forwarded to the government officials that are likely to be affected by the request. It goes on to document how over a dozen such ordinary citizens, whose only trespass was attempting to find out the truth about their government, have been assassinated once they received the documents. You cannot live in a free country when citizen whistle blowers who expose political class and  government crime risk their lives in doing so.

Now, I do not believe that this situation has gotten as bad in the U.S. but there are some early, troubling parallels. First, the political class in our Congress has exempted themselves from whistle blower laws. Thus, if a Congressional staffer becomes aware of corruption and wrong doing within any part of Congress, if he or she speaks out, they risk sidetracking or assassinating their government career since our Federal whistle blower laws provide no protection in this case. While not as bad as getting physically assassinated as in India, much illegal activity by Congressional members may be going unheard, unreported, and not prosecuted due to this exemption our politicians have provided to themselves.

This situation becomes more ominous when you consider news reports from several months ago. At that point in time, the Justice Department wanted to exempt itself from America's Freedom of Information Act. They wanted to be able to actually lie and say requested documents did not exist even if they did and the Justice Department could put their hands on them. This is very scary stuff, allowing the government to actually lie to its citizens.

If memory serves me right, this request to suppress information requested under the Freedom of Information Act was withdrawn once it came to light, a small victory for freedom. Hopefully, it was not a temporary victory since it is obvious that forces in the U.S. political class and the government would certainly be more comfortable providing the least amount of information possible about their actions and goings on, much like the politicians in Inida.

Woodrow Wilson summed up this dilemma quite nicely almost a hundred years ago: "Government ought to be all outside and no inside. . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety." Secrecy also usually means political class and government corruption in this country and if we are not careful, it will lead to Indian style suppression and assassinations. That is a place we do not want to follow India to.




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:


http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Retro #6: Historical Politica Quotes, Contemporary Political Crises

Due to massive family obligations in the short term, time will be at a premium for the next few days. Thus, rather than rush through new posts, I am taking the opportunity to do a "best of" series of past posts. These "retro posts" have been the most popular posts in this blog from the past year or so. All of them have been viewed hundreds of times and seem to have made a connection to our readers vs. other posts and topics. Please enjoy them again or for the first time.


A little quiz on quotes relating to politics in America, try to figure out who said it and when they said it:


1) In reference to why political parties have lost the confidence of the public: "Their machinery of intrigue, their shuffling evasions, the dodges. the chicanery, and the deception of their leaders have excited universal disgust, and have created a general readiness in the public mind for any new organization that shall promise to shun their vices."

2) Also in reference to why political parties have lost the confidence of the public: people "saw parties without any...difference contending for power, for the sake of power. They saw politics made a profession, and public plunder an employment. They beheld our public works the plaything of a rotten dynasty, enriching gamblers, and purchasing power at our expense."

3) "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except for Congress."

4) "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employees, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

5) "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

6) "An election cannot give the country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as two peas in a pod."

Great quotes, all of them. Unfortunately, it seems as if we are living everyone one of them today. The interesting thing is that these quotes are quite historical, not contemporary:

1) According to the Real Politics website, this quote was from the book, "The Origins of the Republican Party" by William E. Gienapp and the quote is dated from 1855. The New York Times called it "dodges", today we call it "spin doctoring." The Times called it "universal disgust," we call it having Congressional approval ratings around only 20%. The Times called it "chicanery", we call it a variety of names including earmarks and outright corruption. It is remarkable how closely a quote from 155 years ago captures the nightmare we are living through today with our political class.

2) This quote is also from Gienapp, also from 1855, and it appeared in the New York Evening Post. This also captures our current state of political affairs. We also see most of our politicians vying only for power, not for the opportunity to make the country better. With their high salaries, great benefits, many, many perks, our current day politicians fit the Post's description that politicians "saw politics made a profession, and public plunder an employment."

Without term limits, our politicians see being elected not as a service to the nation but as a life time job. And their gerrymandering Congressional districts, rigging campaign finance laws, and handing out taxpayer dollars as earmarks allows them to ensure perpetual re-election, regardless of the quality of their work.

3) This third quote is from Mark Twain and is obviously well over a hundred years old. However, even back then he realized that the power allocated to politicians many times results in outright criminal behavior. Congressmen Traficant, Jefferson, Cunningham and other Congressional politicians have served time due to their corrupt and unlawful behavior while in office. How many former Illinois governors have either served prison time, are currently serving time, or are aggressively trying not to serve prison time?

Charles Rangel and Maxine Walters, two current members of Congress, are likely to face a House Of Representatives trial within the next few months on ethics and corruption charges. The House ethics office has investigated or is currently investigating potential crimes by other members of Congress. The more you list out what has happened to our contemporary politicians, you marvel at how right Mark Twain may have been way back when.

4) This quote is from Woodrow Wiilson who said it early in the last century. At that time, he realized the influence that non-voting entities can and do have on government functions and corruption. Wilson called them "special interests," we call them lobbyists.

5) My source attributed this quote to Groucho Marx and is likely more than fifty years old also. Back then, even comedians like Groucho recognized that politicians were not any good at identifying the root causes of problems, if a problem even existed, and then putting together a coherent, efficient and cost effective plan to solve that problem. Our politicians are no different:

- Nixon declared War On Drugs in the 1960s and we are no closer today to having a coherent national drug strategy and policy than the day he declared war.

- Carter muddled through the oil crises in the 1970s and we are no closer to having a coherent, national energy strategy and policy than we were when we waited in long lines at gas stations.

- Reagan identified the problems with public education with a Presidential Commission in 1983 and 27 years later, U.S. public schools badly trail many, many other nations in the education of their children.

- Clinton presided through numerous terrorist attacks including the first World Trade Center bombing and the African embassy bombings and never came up with a coherent terror defense policy and strategy, resulting in the death of almost 3,000 Americans on 9-11.

- Over the years over 10 million illegal aliens have come across our borders with no politician able to come up with a coherent immigration strategy and plan.

Unfortunately, Groucho was right back then and he would be right today if he saw the incompetence of today's politicians.

6) This last quote is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt and is at least 65 years old. When you really come down to it, are the Republican politicians much different from the Democrats? Sure they pick their friends and identify their enemies, e.g. Republicans are generally pro-life and pro-guns while Democrats are generally pro-choice and anti-guns. But when you look at their records, neither party has accomplished much of anything positive over the past fifty years. Just look at what we listed above under Groucho's quote: no solutions to the drug, immigration, terrorist, public school and energy problems. The only reason they pick their friends is to get money to finance their constant re-election, not to solve any meaningful problems.

While Obama the candidate promised change you can believe in, Obama the President is hardly any different than Bush. Obama drew down U.S. forces in Iraq but it was on the timetable Bush established. Bush set up the terrorist prison in Guantanamo and so far, Obama has kept it open. Our border still leaks illegal immigrants and we still have no new policy or plan for energy or public schooling. Bush enacted the Patriot Act and Obama basically rubber stamped its renewal.

Gay rights are no further along under Obama than under Bush and the amount of earmarks in our national budget is as high under Obama as under Bush. The only significant difference between Bush and Obama is that the Obama administration has run up spending deficits orders of magnitude higher than Bush.

This is why the whole area of U.S. politics can get so depressing. the incompetence and corruption we face today appears to have been going on for a long, long time. The only difference may be is that government is so much larger, wasteful, and intrusive then it was in 1855 or when Twain, Roosevelt, Marx, and Wilson spoke their quotes above. That is why we need to find a way to start shrinking the size of government immediately in order to start cutting back on the corruption and waste that apparently is inherent in the genes of all politicians:

- Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would start the government shrinkage process by reducing all government functions and budgets by 10% a year for the next five years.

- Step 5 would step up fraud and corruption activities in all government areas, hopefully including the investigation of fraud and corruption form our elected officials.

- Step 39 would implement term limits for all politicians in order to avoid the problem discussed in the Post quote above, i.e. politics should not be a profession, it should be a temporary calling and service calling.

- Steps 23 to 29 provide a process for systematically attacking and solving the problems that politicians have been unable to solve with their own capabilities and intelligence including drugs, energy, schooling, and immigration.










Our new 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 respectfreedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

www.cato.org
www.reason.com
www.robertringer.com
www.flipcongress2010.com
www.realpolichick.blogspot.com

Some Things Never Change

Some of the quotes from the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government", were from wise people who lived very long ago. Unfortunately, they all apply to the antics of today's political class, indicating that maybe politicians have always been like they are today. It just seems like they get worse over time:

Mark Twain - "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or imbeciles who really mean it." Although Mark Twain lived 150 years ago, he was very insightful relative to the political class. Given that nothing works any more in this country, lost war on drugs, failing public schools, broken health care market, no strategic energy policy, social programs heading for bankruptcy, corrupt and/or incompetent government oversight, corrupt government officials, etc., I am pretty sure the imbecile option is in effect even today.

Woodrow Wilson - "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employees, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy." Although Wilson said these words over eighty years ago, does anyone think that they do not apply today? Consider yesterday's post that reviewed how the major banks donated millions of dollars to both political parties last summer for their conventions and then received billions of dollars several months later as part of the banking bailout. I do not even want to guess how many lobbyists spending how much lobbying dollars currently scurry around DC. Wilson had it right and he had it right long ago: more and more, our democracy has become a charade with power floating up to the political class while our individual freedom and power in our lives is dissipated.

Karl Marx - "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent them and repress them." Living over a hundred years ago, Marx correctly predicted what would happen in America. How many times have you gone into the voting booth and voted for the lesser of two evils, i.e. both options stink but one reeks a little less than the other. Although there was great interest in the last Presidential election, about 65 million American adults did not bother to vote. Could it be that they agree with Marx, it does not matter since the repression, increasing burden of taxation, and the national problems, will continue regardless of who gets elected. Unfortunately, the lesser of two evils is still evil, something that Marx knew way back when.

Barry Goldwater - "A government big enough to give you everything you need is big enough to take it all away." Obama's last budget was the biggest in both absolute and relative terms the Federal government has ever had. Our government structure has gotten incredibly large at all levels. This has resulted in debilitating debt levels and increasing taxes. Government tentacles touch as all many different ways, usually not touching us in a good way. The quote, "I am from the government and I am here to help you.", is a myth today and was probably always a myth. The only difference is that the government did not turn up on your doorstep, look at your library records, listen to your phone calls, check your Internet activity or tax you as much as they used to. Goldwater saw it coming and we were not able to stop it, government controls everything we do today to the detriment of freedom.

Pretty discouraging when you see how some great thinkers of the past saw where we would end up today. However, that can change starting today. Go to the enrollment page at www.loathemygovernment.com and prove that what the political class is doing to us today is temporary and reversible.