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:

http://readychimp.com/2014/03/25/ri-gun-grabbing-senator-slams-americans-go-fk-yourselves/

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:

www.howmuchworsecoudlitget.com

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

NCAA March Madness, Obama's Priority Madness

While working out at the gym today I was able to watch what is going on in the world on the overhead TVs:

• Gas prices have come down slightly in the past week but are still about double what they were when President Obama took office.
• Israel is extensively bombing the Gaza Strip as the Palestinians in Gaza are extensively sending rockets into Israel.
• Leon Panetta, our Secretary of Defense, narrowly escaped assassination when visiting Afghanistan.
• Afghanistan authorities and citizens are still justifiably upset about the killings of civilians by an American soldier, especially since that soldier has been removed from the country, further eroding the two countries relationships.
• Peace talks with the Taliban, a potential avenue for peace and and exit out of Afghanistan, have broken down.
• 351,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment benefits again this week.
• Civilians in Syria continue to be slaughtered by government military forces.

In other news, not seen this morning on TV:

• Over 15 million Americans are still unemployed or underemployed.
• Iran continues its march to nuclear weapons.
• Food stamp recipients are at an all time high.
• Our public schools continue to under educate our kids.
• A new Congressional Budget Office report shows that the cost of implementing Obama Care may be twice as much as the administration originally sold the plan as; the new cost estimates are about $1.7 TRILLION vs. the original $900 billion estimate.
• We continue to not have a coherent national energy strategy, resulting in continued importation of energy sources from outside the country.
• We are still  losing the war on drugs, enriching an increasingly violent set of drug cartels in Mexico everyday.
• The national debt continues to climb towards $16 TRILLION, about a $140,000 liability for every American family.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue their march towards insolvency.

Okay, things are not going well for the U.S., both in within country and outside the country. There is a lot of work to be done, work that has either been done poorly by the political class or not done at all. Very somber and depressing times.

And what then pops up on the TVs? On ESPN we see that President Obama is providing a detailed breakdown on how he thinks the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will play out. He stands in front of a large easel with the 64 teams posted and proceeds to spend a rather considerate amount of time to go through all of the brackets and rounds as the camera rolls.

We find out how far Obama thinks favorite Kentucky University will go while the volatile situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate. We find out what players Obama thinks will be impactful while the economy continues to falter. We find out what teams Obama thinks will make the Final Four while the major problems facing the country continue to go unaddressed.

And this will probably be not the end of it. If the President's behavior is similar to what he did last year, he will repeat the same process in the next few days for the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. More time to prep, more time to set up the shoot, more time filming, more government resources used to set everything up, all while the above two lists of issues rage on.

Now, some people might think that I am being nit-picky. That the President has the same right to relax from his very tough job and do what works for him to recharge his batteries like any other American. And like many other Americans, he is following the two tournaments by putting together and following his picks. No problem, and no problem if he even wants to get into a White House pool like many other American organizations and friends do.

But that can all be done on his free time, behind the scenes. The country is suffering in so many and, in my opinion, this filming and airing of his opinion on two sporting events is not very Presidential. I find it pompous and condescending, and a distraction from the many major issues of the day. I would rather he spent this valuable time on the dozens of issues that should supersede the NCAA basketball tournaments.

Being President is certainly not an easy job. But no one forced Obama to run for President, he made that choice himself. If he would rather waste time and hot air on his basketball picks in our current environment, than he should not run for a second term and dedicate his time to his picks and other sporting endeavors.

We have reported many times in this blog that this President seems to have wasted more time with more athletic teams than any other President in my lifetime. Trading off a few athletic team photo ops to solve a problem or two would certainly have served his historic legacy a lot better.

In about eight weeks, no one is likely to remember, or care, how well his tournament picks did, regardless of how well he did. But in the years and decades to follow, they certainly would have remembered how he solved our drug addiction problem, fixed our schools, or put together a coherent energy program (as compared to what he has done in this area so far, e.g. Solyndra).

Imagine what the hypocritical main stream press and the Democrats would be saying if President Bush spent as much time with athletic team photo ops and picking and broadcasting his personal basketball picks and insights. They crucified Bush every time he went to his ranch in Texas, they would have been just as outraged if he did what Obama was doing at tournament time.

I find this annual waste of the President's time and government resources pompous, condescending, trivial, hypocritical, and totally worthless when it comes to being President of the United States, It is a disgraceful set of bad priorities in a nation that needs to gets its priorities straight if we are to ever fix anything that ails the country.

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/

President Obama: Presidential Timber or Political Balsa Wood?

It has become quite obvious over these past few weeks that President Obama is already running his 2012 re-election from the White House. It seems, at least to me, that everything he does is to position himself for the most votes in 2012, even if his behavior is not always in the best interest of the country. Rather than go with this gut feel, I decided to look at some pressing issues, both current and past, and see if I could put some kind of quantifiable measurement together to see if 1) he was truly made of solid Presidential timber, timber that was strong and upright despite any winds or dire events, or 2) was nothing much more than lightweight balsa wood, a type of wood that can be blown around by a gentle wind and does not stand up to the rigors of the job or strong principles.

Given these two decision options, see if you agree with my assessment of his past and likely future behavior:

1) To be strong Presidential timber, a person needs to be a leader of and a representative of all Americans, not just those that voted for him. Given that the President has refused to step up and try to unite the country, allowing his Democratic Party associates to call others un-American, Neanderthals, gerbils, a__h____s, cuckoos, racists, Klan members, and other derogatory names just for having contrary opinions, I rate him as balsa wood on this important leadership principle. A President should respect diversity and welcome contrary opinions in order to make the best decisions for the country. He should not sit back and have fellow Americans degraded for simply having an opposing opinion by his political allies.

2) An Associated Press report yesterday described how the President was going to have an all afternoon meeting in the near future to discuss our lack of an immigration strategy and plan. He was going to invite a wide range of organizations including law enforcement and immigration rights groups. Nice try, but still balsa. This would have been a good start two years ago if it lead to anything concrete and actionable.

However, I believe that this is just political balsa, a showy meeting to present the President as a caring and action oriented leader. If something comes out of it, that leads to a true and sane immigration policy, I will change my rating. However, I believe that this is just 2012 election posturing and nothing will be done as a result of the meeting.

3) Standard & Poors came out with a dire warning yesterday, stating that it is about to downgrade the quality of U.S. bonds unless the political class gets government spending under control. The President's proposed budget from just a few months ago set forth a structure that would add more than $9 TRILLION to the national debt of the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is hardly the kind of behavior that S&P is looking for. However, once the President looked at the proposed Republican budget from Paul Ryan, he then came out with his revised budget that supposedly will reduce spending by $4 TRILLION over ten years.

Not the mark of a leader, the President is trying to lead from behind. If this was such a big deal, his original budget should have reduced spending by $4 TRILLION. Instead, he put in a business as usual budget, buying time to see which way the political winds were blowing and then making his move. As a real leader, he should have told the country the truth with his original budget, our government spends too much and cuts need to be made. He waited for the wind to be right form the rear, another mark of a lightweight politician.

4) In foreign affairs, I would give him a weak timber vote for his speech in Cairo at the beginning of his administration. He gave a well received and inspired speech that spoke to freedom and dignity of everyone. It was a good start.

However, it is a weak timber vote in that there was no effective follow up. The actions fell short of his words and as a result, Arab world opinions of him and the United States fell steadily after the speech as his words went unfilled. Nice try, effectively delivered with little or no back up actions.

5) The BP oil spill is definitely a lightweight balsa response. While oil gushed into the Gulf, causing environmental and economic havoc, the President played golf six or seven times, took three vacations (none of which were in the states most adversely affected by the spill), and made two cross country trips to campaign for Democratic candidates. 

Someone of Presidential timber would have at least looked like he cared about what was going on and was working hard on solutions as opposed to leaving the impression that his administration and the government it ran had no clue how to fix the problem. There was no reassuring that the government could solve the problem.

6) Someone of Presidential timber would respect the traditions and guidelines laid out in the Constitution and the laws of the land, having enough maturity and respect to understand there are things that even the President of the United States is not allowed to do.

That is not the case with this President. When a Federal judge ruled his Gulf drilling moratorium as illegal, the President rescinded the moratorium and just issued another one that was basically a clone of the first. This drew the ire of the judge in the case along with a formal reprimand from that judge.

Since the President did not agree with the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), even though it is the law of the land, he unilaterally decided that it was unconstitutional and decided his administration would not enforce it. Our system of government is based on a series of checks and balances and clearly delineated responsbilities, he had no right or power to decide if DOMA, or any law, was unconstitutional.

When the President could not get Congressional authorization to regulate green house gases from Congress, he decide he did not need their approval and decided he could do anything he wanted in this area by stretching the formal, legal duties of the Environmental Protection Agency to get his wishes decided. Very immature, balsa behavior; if I cannot get my way the right, legal way, I will unilaterally decide to get my way another way. Presidential timber people lead by developing consensus and unity, not by bypassing our laws to satisfy our egos and desires.

This is obviously a political move, not a Presidential move, since if this law was unconstitutional in 2011, it certainly was unconstitutional in 2009 when he came into office. The only difference is that the 2012 election is fast approaching and he needs the votes. This is political balsa, not Presidential timber, reacting to votes not the Constitution.

7) People of Presidential timber lead by example, lead by being honest and forthright, lead by blazing new ideas and trail, breaking from past behavior while respecting our traditions and customs of freedom and compassion. President Obama has shown none of these traits.

In fact, I have made the case several times that we are living through the third term of George W. Bush. Obama is withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq under the Bush time table, the war on rugs is the same as under Bush, the stalemate in Afghanistan is the same as under Bush just with more U.S. troops deployed, there has been no change in our approach to our failing public schools in this country and the Federal government's inability to change the status, Obama rubber stamped the renewal of Bush's Patriot Act, both President ran up record deficits with Obama besting Bush by orders of magnitude in this area, the prisons at Guantanamo is still open, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continued to plunge towards insolvency under both Presidents, etc. Obama has presented no coherent or different path that would lead to a better America.

8) A month of so ago, Japan was facing a nuclear disaster, unemployment numbers were still high, the President unilaterally committed us to military action in Libya, the Middle East was ablaze in freedom protests and government repression and violence, and the Federal government was about to be shut down since the political class was six months late developing and delivering a basic one year budget, What was the President spending a lot of time on during these trying and dangerous times? He was busy creating and explaining on national television his NCAA basketball picks and brackets for March Madness for BOTH the men and women's tournaments. Presidential timber people lead during times of crises, they do not waste time on pontificating about their college basketball knowledge.

My bottom line assessment: President Obama is not Presidential timber, much like many of his predecessors were not Presidential timber. No new ways of doing things, no pressing desire to resolve issues, no improvement in government processes of efficiency, no regard to deficits and bad budgeting, just the maintenance of the status quo for the benefit of the political class and there perpetual reelection. Much like most others in politics, President Obama has shown himself to be just another Chicago politician, ruthless against his opponents even if they have legitimate contrary positions,  bending or breaking laws to get his way, and posturing for votes as opposed to taking the hard leadership positions for the good of the country.

Bottom line: Massive balsa without much timber mixed in. And you cannot build anything of lasting endurance and performance with balsa wood. Thomas Jefferson once said something to the effect: "A statesman worries about the next generation, a politician worries about the next election." Unfortunately, when it comes to Presidential timber, President Obama is just a balsa politician.



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.


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.com