The Selling And Buying Of America, Part 2: Obama Gets In On The Action

Yesterday we looked at the historical performance of the political class when it came to selling the assets, taxpayer wealth, and sound legislative judgment to the highest bidders. The corruption we reviewed was widespread and despicable. Today, we will look at some of the present day selling and buying of America, proving that the political class is just as bad as it has always been.

On January 4, 2012, the Obama administration released the list of names of contributors of Obama’s 2013 inauguration. According to the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group in 2009 Obama's inauguration planning committee did not accept corporate contributions, restricted personal donations to $50,000 or less and more than a month before the inauguration, published a searchable list of all donors. That list that included who the contributors worked for, where they lived and how much they donated.

In contrast, the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee had a dearth of contributors, including only a link at the bottom of its website with a list of only the names of the individuals and corporations that have contributed. The list did not include the amount that was contributed, who they worked for where they lived, etc.

The Sunlight Foundation spokesperson, Keenan Steiner, also reported on the following aspects of the inauguration funding effort:

• There are no limits on how much a company, organization, or person could contribute this time.
• In fact, when the request for funding was sent out in early December, potential contributors were actually encouraged to contribute put to a $1 million if the contributor was a company and $250,000 if the contributor was an individual.
• Mr. Steiner also pointed out that the committee was aware that this was a pretty shady and sleazy fund raising operation since they did not issue a press release or make a splashy announcement, preferring instead of a low key, late Friday, discrete addition to their website.
• The Sunlight Foundation report was able to get their hands on a copy of the email which outlined what contributors would get for their donations, with the magnitude of their access and benefits contingent on how much was contributed.
• For example, an individual contributing $250,000 and a corporation contributing $1 million would be given the “Washington Premium Partner Access.”
• That level of financial support includes two tickets to a “Benefactors Reception” held two or three days before the inauguration, an invitation to an event called “The Finance Committee ‘Road Ahead’ meeting,” two tickets to The Children’s Concert, two tickets to the “Co-Chairs Reception,” four tickets to a candlelight reception at the National Building Museum, at invitation to the VIP reception at prior to this reception, two reserved seats in the bleachers at the inaugural parade and four tickets to the inaugural.
• The Sunlight Foundation reported that current corporate donors include AT&T, Centene Corporation, Genentech, Financial Innovations Inc., Microsoft, Stream Line Circle LLC, and the Whittier Trust Co but as discussed above, Obama’s people did not list how much each company donated.

Disgraceful, paying for access to the political class, access that will come with a taxpayer price at some point in time. In fact, a recent Washington Post report drew this straight line form the donor list to future crony capitalism and corruption:

• Stream Line Circle is operated by billionaire Obama backer Jon Stryker.
• Centene Corporation is a major Medicaid administration company that just happens to be one of the major beneficiaries of the Obama’s health-care law.
• Financial Innovations is a maker of promotional products that, surprise, surprise, got $1.8 million in business from Obama's 2012 Presidential campaign.
• According to election campaign records, AT&T and its chairman were heavy contributors to Romney’s campaign. Is the AT&T donation for the inauguration an attempt to buy their way back into the good graces of this administration? If that is so, then it also speaks volumes of how influence is bought and sold in D.C.

Buying and selling of America, all to satisfy a single politician’s ego and pomposity.

But the bad news goes on. According to the Washington Post article, ABC News reported in 2009 that the initial Obama inauguration cost $170 million, most of which was paid for by American taxpayers, the vast majority of which could not attend the festivities because they did not have the money, they actually had a mob to go to, or they were one of the millions and millions of Americans who were unemployed.

Which leads to a few questions relative to bad priorities and celebrating what is going to be the second part of a Presidency whose first half has been a failure on so many levels:

• Assuming that another $170 million or so of taxpayer money will be spent this year, would it have not been a better priority to divert at least some of the costs for the inauguration to the people still suffering as a result of Hurricane Sandy? Seems like Washington is more interested in getting ready for a taxpayer financed party and rewarding their financial supporters than taking care of Hurricane Sandy victims from a storm that hit over two months ago.
• Given that 23 million Americans are unemployed, under employed, or have become so discouraged that they have stopped looking for a job, would it not have been a better priority to divert at least some of the cost for the inauguration to the food banks around the country who support the food needs of many of those 23 million Americans rather than politicians partying with their financial supporters?
• Given the school shooting slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut, would it not have been a better priority to divert some of the cost of the inauguration to counseling and other needs of the grieving citizens and families?
• Given the shooting slaughter in Newtown, would it not have been a better priority to divert some of the cost of the inauguration to providing police protection in some schools to prevent future Newtown-like shootings? $170 million could put trained police officers in over 3,000 schools for one year, certainly a better priority than political receptions, political meetings, Presidential balls, etc.
• Is it so important to Washington politicians that they continue to take in money from moneyed interests and wealthy Americans while millions of Americans are unable to find a job or pressed to feed themselves and their families?

I think we all know the answer to that last question. Yes, it is that important to Washington politicians to put their campaign finances and personal wealth ahead of America and the vast majority of American citizens. From directing taxpayer money to their campaign donors to making sure that their families and friends get preferential financial and other types of government treatment to making sure that they get to celebrate with their peers and corporate and wealthy supporters, they would sell their positions, their legislative power, and their offices’ power.

America is, indeed, for sale with incumbent politicians doing the selling and buying. Several steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” would help restrict the selling and buying of America:

1. Step 6 would allow only individual Americans to contribute to political campaigns. Unions, corporations, PACs, and lobbyist organizations would be barred from making any contributions at all.
2. Step 7 would allow campaign donations from citizens to campaigns that directly affect their lives. For example, someone in Kansas could not contribute to a political campaign in New Jersey.
3. Step 39 would impose term limit on all Federal politicians, “one and done.” This would eliminate the practice of incumbent politicians selling their votes and offices for their reelection campaign since reelection campaigns would be relics of the past.
4. Step 44 would prohibit the use of Federal taxpayer dollars on any program or project unless that project or program had a substantial impact on a significant amount of citizens from at least five states. This would eliminate the practice of politicians granting earmarks to the businesses and interests of their friends and family. This would also eliminate the practice of having the Federal government finance local bike trails, local road repairs, etc.

These steps would help protect the country and the liberties of its citizens from the auctioning off of America’s wealth and future. It would also protect us from the greed, selfishness, and bad priorities of the political class.

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 Selling And Buying Of America, Part 1: A Historical Perspective

Although many of us suspected it for a while, I think that recent actions by the Washington political class pretty much sum up the fact that America, and the government and politicians that supposedly lead it, is for sale. Today, we will look at the historical aspects of politicians selling America to the highest bidders, as reported in this blog. Tomorrow, we will talk about the latest atrocities as we will see that the selling of America, and the taxpayer wealth and liberty that goes with it, continues unabated today.

Before we get to tomorrow and we review the latest deals that cinch the deal that America is for sale, let’s review some of the other actions we have reported on in this blog that gave us an inkling that America truly was for sale to the highest bidders, with the Washington political class conducting the auction:

- In our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we reported on a newspaper article from the St. Petersburg Times that ran on December 11, 2008. The article reviewed how AIG, Goldman Sachs, and Freddie Mac had contributed $3.1 million to the 2008 Republican and Democratic national conventions. Is it a coincident that these three companies were some of the biggest recipients of taxpayer money in the bank bailout giveaway that the Democrats and Republicans approved just months later?

- From our post of February 11, 2010, we gathered a number of credible news sources and documented the latest selling of America shenanigans at that time:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/02/dump-incumbents-week-part-4.html):

• Georgia Senator Isakson - Arranged a $4 million earmark for Northrop Gruman in exchange for a $7,000 donation and arranged a $1.6 million earmark for Scientific Research Corp. in exchange for a $2,900 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
• Hawaiian Senator Inouye - Secured a $135 million taxpayer financed bailout after intervening on behalf of a poorly managed, non-qualifying bank. Why? Inouye had most of his net worth invested in that bank. (Source: Hawaii Free Press
• Illinois Senator Durbin - Arranged a $1.6 million earmark for Gentex in exchange for a $2,000 donation and arranged another $1.6 million earmark for Epir Technologies in exchange for a $2,700 donation. (Source: Seattle Times) Also, Durbin sold off $42,696 of mutual fund shares on Sept 19, 2008, immediately after a confidential briefing and legislative directive pertaining to the impending financial crisis and banking bailouts. By the end of the month and before the October market collapse, he had sold off $115,696. (Source: Washington Times)
• Indiana Senator Bayh - Arranged for an earmark of $800,000 for General Atomic Technologies in exchange for a $1,000 donation and arranged an earmark of $800,000 to Briartek in exchange for a $2,500 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
• New York Senator Gillbrand - Received ACORN's endorsement for her re-election, stating "I am honored to have the endorsement of ACORN and proud to partner with them on an agenda...". She then voted to funnel taxpayer money into ACORN even AFTER the videos surfaced showing a pattern of illegal and immoral activity within the ACORN organization. (Source: The Albany Project)
• North Carolina Senator Burr - Arranged a $4.5 million earmark for General Dynamics in exchange for a $10,000 donation and arranged for a $2 million earmark for E. I. DuPont DeNamours in exchange for a $5,000 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
• Vermont Senator Leahy - Arranged for a $10 million earmark for General Dynamics in exchange for a $18,200 donation and arranged for a $1.6 million earmark for Goodrich in exchange for a $7,500 donation. (Source: Seattle Times)
• California Congresswoman Sanchez - Sanchez paid three of her sister Loretta's Congressional staff members from her district's federal budget funds when Loretta's office was short on funds. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/). Sister Loretta arranged an earmark of $800,000 for Irvine Sensors in exchange for a $3,800 donation and arranged an earmark of $1.6 million for Digibeam Corp. in exchange for a donation of $3,800. (Source: Seattle Times) Still not done, the Congresswoman earmarked $3.2 million to PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $60,118. (Source: FreeRepublic.com)
• Iowa Congressman Boswell - Boswell arranged an earmark of $3.5 Million for Goodrich Corp in exchange for a donation of $3000. (Source: Seattle Times)
• Congressman Capuano - Arranged an earmark of $2.8 million for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $54,000, arranged an earmark of $2 million for Parametric Technology in exchange for a donation of $3,500 and arranged an earmark for $800,000 for ABT Associates in exchange for a donation of $1,250. (Source: Seattle Times Favor Factory Investigation)
• Massachusetts Congressman Frank - According to Judicial Watch, Frank allegedly used his influence to secure a $12 million infusion for a hometown bank that did not qualify based upon TARP program legal criteria. Additionally, Frank was a knowing and key contributor according to Judicial Watch to the housing and financial crisis of 2008 through his dogged support of Fannie Mae risky loan practices, a company that funneled more than $40,000 to his campaign funds and a company where his life partner worked as an executive. (Source: www.businessandmedia.org.
• Massachusetts Congressman Markey - According to www.TheHill.com, Markey requested federal regulatory investigations against a CEO and his company immediately after the man's testimony indicated that Markey's cap-and-trade bill would result in burdensome cost to citizens with little to no change or benefit in emissions.
• New Jersey Congressman Pascrell - Arranged a $4 million earmark in exchange for a donation of $2,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
• New Jersey Congressman Rothman - Arranged earmarks worth $3.2 for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $4,000 and arranged an earmark of $4 million to ITT in exchange for a donation of $17,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
• Ohio Congresswoman Kaptur - Kaptur doesn't even try to pretend she is helping her district. She arranges earmarks for donating companies from other states. The Seattle Times reports two such in Virginia. American Systems Corp and Impact Engineering each received generous taxpayer earmark gifts from Kaptur of $4 million after donating $15,000 and $3500 respectively to Kaptur's re-election campaigns. According to www.FreeRepublic.com, Kaptur also involved herself in the PMA scandal by earmarking $1.6 million for their clients after receipt of PMA lobbying donations of $34,500.
• Ohio Congressman Turner - According to the Wall Street Journal, Turner spent $1435 of taxpayer dollars on a digital camera. Yes, small potatoes compared to others in the House but abuse is abuse.
• Tennessee Congressman Wamp - Arranged an earmark of $2.8 million for PMA clients in exchange for a donation of $23,900 and arranged an earmark of $1.52 million for Radiance Technologies in exchange for a donation of $5,000. (Source: Seattle Times)
• West Virginia Congressman Mollohan - According to NLPC, Mollohan appropriated well over $100,000,000 in taxpayer funds through earmarks for non-profits that he set up and staffed with friends.

- The selling of America and how it often benefited the families and friends of politicians was reviewed in our February 27, 2012 post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/waste-to-left-of-them-waste-to-right-of.html):

• Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R - Ala.) - Since 2008, Aderholt has helped secure about $440,000 for the University of Montevallo while his wife served on the university's board of trustees.
• Rep. Todd Akin (R - Mo.) - Between 2005 and 2009, Akin helped secure $3.3 million to upgrade part of Route 141 in his district west of St. Louis. Less than a half-mile east of Route 141, Akin and his family own nine acres. Akin's family has applied to construct six homes on the land.
• Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D - N.J.) - Andrews has helped secure $3.3 million over the past decade for a scholarship program at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, N.J., where his wife is an associate dean in charge of scholarships and special legal programs.
• Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R - Md.) - Bartlett, since 2005, has helped secure about $4.5 million toward improving Interstate 270 and Buckeystown Pike. From there, Buckeystown Pike leads south and west to Bartlett's home, his farm and rental properties that earn the lawmaker up to $150,000 a year.
• Rep. Rob Bishop (R - Utah) - From 2007 to 2009, Bishop requested earmarks worth more than $1.5 million for Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. His son, Shule, was hired there in 2010 as a state government lobbyist.
• Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. (D - Ga.) - News organizations in Georgia reported that Bishop helped secure nearly $200,000 in 2008 and 2009 for a middle school mentoring program that employed Bishop's stepdaughter and her husband.
• Rep. Corrine Brown (D - Fla.) - Between 2005 and 2010, Brown helped secure $21.9 million for six clients of a lobbying firm where her daughter works.
• Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D - NC) - Butterfield has helped obtain $817,500 over the past few years toward revitalizing buildings in Wilson, N.C. The lawmaker owns 19 properties within three-quarters of a mile of the project.
• Rep. Norm Dicks (D - Wash.) - In 2008, Dicks, as an appropriations chairman, secured a $1.82 million earmark for a Washington state environmental agency where his son worked as executive director.
• Rep. Kay Granger (R - Tex.) - Over the past decade, Granger has helped obtain $51.9 million in earmarks toward a project to makeover downtown Fort Worth and reroute the Trinity River. Until 2010, Granger co-owned a condominium building with her son about a half-mile south of the project. Her son is director of the group in charge of the project.
• Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D - N.Y.) - In Saugerties, a village in upstate New York, Hinchey in 2005 earmarked $960,000 to upgrade downtown streets. In 2009, he secured $800,000 to overhaul sewer lines. Hinchey is a partner in a hotel development in the heart of the village and values his interest at $250,000 to $500,000.
• Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D - Tex.) - In 2009, Hinojosa obtained a $665,000 earmark to help widen a road next to a 3.7-acre commercial property that his family partnership was developing and near the family food processing plant in Mercedes, Tex.
• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D - Tex.) - Jackson Lee helped secure about $5.3 million to the University of Houston in 2009 and 2010 while her husband was vice president of student affairs and vice chancellor of student affairs for the university system.
• Sen. Tim Johnson (D - S.D.) - In 2008, Johnson, along with seven other Senators, added $4 million to a Pentagon program to fund math and science education called STARBASE. Johnson's wife worked as a contract employee evaluating the program between 2005 and 2011.
• Rep. Jack Kingston (R - Ga.) - Kingston co-sponsored a $6.3 million earmark in 2008 to replenish the beach on Tybee Island, where he owns a cottage about 900 feet from the beach. "It's absurd to suggest that this benefits me," he said. No, Congressman, it's absurd to think it doesn't.
• Rep. Robert E. Latta (R - Ohio) - Latta co-sponsored $2.8 million in earmarks in 2009 and 2010 for water and wind research at Bowling Green State University at the time that his wife was a university senior vice president.
• Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D - Ill.) - Lipinski cosponsored $2.5 million in earmarks since taking office in 2005 for rail projects overseen by the Chicago Transit Authority. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the CTA is a lobbying client of his father, William Lipinski, a former congressman. The CTA has paid William Lipinski $766,330.20 in lobbying fees since 2007.
• Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo (R - N.J.) - Since 2008, LoBiondo has helped secure $4.68 million for beach monitoring and nourishment along the shores of Ventnor City, N.J., where he and his wife own a home about 850 feet from the beach.
• Rep. Candice S. Miller (R - Mich.) - Miller secured a $486,000 earmark in 2006 to help add a 14-foot-wide bike lane to a new bridge over the Clinton River, about 900 feet from her home. "People earmark for all kinds of things," Miller said. "I'm pretty proud of this; I think I did what my people wanted. Should I have told them, 'We can never have this bike path complete because I happen to live by one section of it.' No, Congresswoman, you should have told your "people" to pay for it themselves without Federal money.
• Rep. Gary G. Miller (R - Calif.) - Miller secured $1.28 million in earmarks in 2005 to help repave, re-landscape and install new drains along Grand Avenue in Diamond Bar, Calif. The project, previously reported by The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, upgraded an access road for a residential and retail development that he co-owned with a campaign donor. Miller sold the property months after securing the earmark.
• Rep. Ed Pastor (D - Ariz.) - Between 2005 and 2010, Pastor earmarked about $4 million from an Energy Department agency tasked with securing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile to a program for at-risk teenagers at Maricopa Community Colleges. His daughter runs the program.
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D - Calif.) - Over the past decade, the House minority leader helped secure $50 million in earmarks toward a light-rail project that provides direct access to San Francisco's Union Square and Chinatown for neighborhoods south of Market Street. Pelosi's husband owns a four-story commercial building blocks from Union Square.
• Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D - W.Va.) - In 2005, Rahall helped secure $20 million toward a parking garage with a bus and taxi facility in downtown Beckley. The project is about a half-mile from his son's home, less than one mile from a commercial property owned by the lawmaker, and a little more than a mile from his residence.
• Sen. Harry M. Reid (D - Nev.) -In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader secured $21.5 million to build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the gambling resort town of Laughlin, Nev., with Bullhead City, Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of undeveloped land in Bullhead City.
• Rep. Harold Rogers (R - Ky.) - Rogers has helped earmark $7.1 million since 2002 to a project that made over a half-mile strip of College Street where Rogers has his residence. The project narrowed parts of the street to slow traffic, buried overhead utilities, rebuilt sidewalks, paved streets and installed new driveway aprons, curbs and decorative lamps.
• Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D - Md.) - Ruppersberger helped obtain $187,000 in 2008 toward a beach replenishment survey of the Ocean City shoreline. He and his wife own two condominium units there.
• Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R - Ala.) - Shelby has earmarked more than $100 million toward rebuilding downtown Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he owns an office building. The street in front of the building will be redone as part of phase two of the project.
• Rep. John F. Tierney (D - Mass.) - Since 2005, Tierney has helped secure about $3.5 million toward a 950-space parking garage and commuter rail station in Salem, Mass. The facility will be about a quarter-mile from a commercial building the Congressman co-owns.
• Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R - Fla.) - Over the past decade, Young helped secure $73 million for companies that employed his sons. One worked as a security administrator in the St. Petersburg office of Science Applications International Corp., a defense contractor; the other as an outreach specialist for the National Forensic Science Technology Center.
  

- Our August 14, 2012 post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-slime-sleaze-immorality-and_14.html)

considered a whole slew of corruption and slime that came to light in a Business Week magazine article within their Spring, 2011 Government Insider Special report:

• New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez recently "championed" a plan to provide a temporary tax cut for small companies, a tax cut that would allow them to offset investments these companies might make in research on therapies to prevent and treat chronic diseases. Oh, by the way, the pharmaceutical industry in New Jersey just happened to contribute $434,043 to his 2010 reelection campaign and PAC.
• Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow sponsored a bill to give a tax rebate for consumers who purchase a gas/electric car or truck. The recently available Chevy Volt from General Motors certainly falls within this category. Oh, by the way, General Motors employees contributed $84,635 to Stabenow's reelection campaigns between 1995 and 2010.
• New York Senator Charles Schumer has been accused by other Congressional members of making a proposed tax on carried interest of private equity managers so difficult that the measure never was passed into law. Oh, by the way, Schumer has received $8.8 million from the security and investment industry since 1989, an industry that certainly includes private equity managers.
• Montana Senator Max Baucus obtained a provision in a recent farm bill "for tax exempt forestry conservation bonds to help purchase a 500 square mile patchwork of land owned by Plum Creek Timber." Oh, by the way, Plum Creek Timber has spent $3.7 million in lobbyists fees from 2006 to 2010 and its employees have contributed $19,100 to various Bachus reelection campaigns.
• Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has backed tax credits for domestic production of corn based ethanol and tariffs on imports of ethanol. It just so happens that his home state has 40 ethanol plants that generate 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol each year. Oh, by the way, Grassley received $290,250 in reelection campaign donations from agriculturally based PACs in his 2010 election run.
• Arizona Senator John Kyl is a major proponent of cutting taxes on inherited wealth, having been instrumental in the one year hiatus of the inheritance tax in 2010 and cutting a deal with Obama to keep the reinstatement of the tax at 35%. Oh, by the way, eliminating the estate tax is a major priority of the Club For Growth, which just has happened to donate $155,753 to the Senator's election campaigns since 1989.
• Texas Senator John Cornyn has opposed Obama's attempts to repeal oil and gas industry tax breaks besides opposing the President's ban on Gulf oil drilling. Oh, by the way, oil and gas industry components have given the Senator $1.7 million since 2001.

- From our August 15, 2012 post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-slime-sleaze-immorality-and_15.html

we find out how alternative energy and alternative vehicle industries are also knee deep in buying and selling of America:

According to an ABC News report, Fisker Motors is a Finland based automotive company that is working to develop expensive electric cars. Unfortunately, two years ago, the Obama administration approved a taxpayer backed loan for $529 million for this Finnish company to help with their technology development.

Why did U.S. taxpayer dollars back a government loan to a Finnish auto company to develop and build cars in Finland with Finnish workers? Could crony capitalism be at work again:

• One of Fisker's biggest financial supporters is the California venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, a California billionaire, hosted President Obama at a February dinner for high-tech executives at his secluded estate south of San Francisco.
• Doerr and Kleiner Perkins executives have contributed more than $1 million to Federal political causes and campaigns over the last two decades, primarily supporting Democrats.
• Doerr serves on Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
• Former Democratic Vice President Al Gore is another Kleiner Perkins senior partner.

Now you start to understand that giving money to a Finnish car company to make a high end niche car model that the average American will never be able to afford has more to do with cronyism and campaign donations than sound government decision making.

But the auto cronyism is not confined to Fisker:

• The Department of Energy has also invested almost another half a billion taxpayer dollars with a loan to another electric car manufacturer, Tesla Motors.
• SEC filings show that Tesla has never had a profitable quarter and has no experience in mass auto production. It eventually wants to “mass produce” an electric car that costs about $57,000. Mass produce, car, and $57,000 in one sentence is one of the biggest incongruities of all time.
• A former Tesla board member, Steve Westly, is an Obama campaign donation bundler who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President in 2008 and for his 2012 re-election campaign.
• The Westly Group was also a financial supporter of Tesla Motors until Tesla went public in 2010, and Westly continues to back the company.
• Tesla's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is a major political contributor who has primarily backed Democrats, including Obama.

Consider the highlights of an April 3, 2012 Washington Beacon News report, keeping in mind that Harry Reid, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, represents the state of Nevada:

• Three large renewable energy projects, Nevada Geothermal, Ormat Nevada, and SolarReserve, all of whom have received large grants of taxpayer wealth from Obama's Energy Department, are located in Reid’s home state. Executives from all three companies have donated to Reid and his fellow Democrats' election campaigns to the tune of over $58,000 since 2008.
• Brightsource Energy, which received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Energy Department and will also operate a solar facility in Nevada, has donated at least $21,600 to Democrats' election campaigns since 2008. It has donated zero dollars to Republicans.
• Reid received almost $4,000 from Brightsource executives in the 2010 cycle, including $2,400 from CEO John Woolard, who hosted a fundraiser for the majority leader.
• Woolard is also a Barack Obama donor and has visited the White House almost a dozen times since Obama took office.
• Reid’s staffers have been a key part of Washington D.C.’s revolving door, setting up shop with lobbying outfits that have ties to green energy companies and the Department of Interior, which oversees such projects.
• For example, Kai Anderson, a top lobbyist for Ormat, is a former deputy chief of staff for Reid. Paul Thomsen, who handles government affairs for Ormat Nevada, Inc., is also a former Reid Staffer. Neil Kornze, the acting deputy director of policy for the Bureau of Land Management under the Department of Interior, is also a former energy staffer for Reid. Sanjay Wagle served as a renewable energy advisor at the Energy Department and he formerly worked for Vantage Point Venture Partners, a major backer of Brightsource Energy.
• Kathleen Weiss, the lead lobbyist and Vice President of First Solar, had 16 meetings at the White House with Valerie Jarrett and other senior administration staffers. In 2008, she donated $2,300 to then-Senator Ken Salazar (who is now Secretary of the Interior) and Harry Reid.
• The Department of Interior’s fast-track program was spearheaded by Steve Black, a counselor to Ken Salazar, and Janea Scott, special assistant to Black and former attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.

- And finally, consider the obscene amount of dollars that recently flowed into the political class and their election campaign efforts as we reported on July 6, 2012,

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/money-behind-our-politics-do-you-really.html)

and think about whether you really believe that these hundreds of millions of dollars were contributed to help out the average American and for the good of the country or were they the continued buying and selling of government favors and politicians:

• Finance/Insurance/Real Estate $298,910,163
• Other $212,559,836
• Miscellaneous Business $194,198,190
• Lawyers & Lobbyists $130,201,920
• Health $116,194,309
• Ideology/Single-Issue $102,889,573
• Communications/Electronics $87,514,353
• Energy/Natural Resource $66,428,838
• Construction $54,280,646
• Labor $52,766,843
• Agribusiness $40,202,777
• Transportation $35,557,147
• Defense $15,569,517

********************************************

Okay, that is enough sleaze for now. We did not even cover all of our past reporting on political corruption and the selling of America. We did not go into the fact that while Washington politicians historically could not accept direct cash gifts from companies, unions, lobbyists, etc. they had been able to participate in insider IPO offerings that are just as lucrative, if not more so, than straight cash handouts. We did not go into the fact that politicians have been known to trade on their insider government information to play the stock market to their advantage, an advantage not available or legal for ordinary Americans.

No, the above is only a sample of how America is sold and bought every day by special interests for the good of those special interests. And that selling is still going on today, with the most recent transactions to be reviewed tomorrow, along with a set of suggestions on how to take America, and the selling of our wealth and liberties, off the market for good.

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

Part 2, Update On Our Lost War On Drugs: Corrupted Banks, Wisconsin Pot Fields, and More

Yesterday was the first of two posts on our update on the losing war on drugs that the Federal government has been fruitlessly waging since Nixon was in office. We reviewed how innocent Mexican citizens were being killed or their lives ruined by the powerful Mexican drug cartels along with the recent death of a U.S. Coast Guard sailor who was working on drug interdiction duty off the coast of California. We also reviewed how two former Presidents, Carter and Clinton, have come to the realization that our war on drugs has been a losing proposition, wasting trillions of dollars with minimal benefits.

So what did we not get to cover yesterday:

1) We promised to show how our failed war on drugs would impact our national security at some point in time. Consider the recent words publicly spoken by Hillary Clinton at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 30:

“We already know very well that the Iranian regime already exports terrorism, not only to Israel’s doorstep, but across the world. If we had a map I could put up there, I could show you what we track and plot on that map. The evidence of terrorism, mostly, thankfully, plots foiled or unsuccessful, unfortunately, as in Bulgaria, some that succeeded,. But those plots, those activities of Iran directly or through their agents, stretches from Mexico to Thailand.”

Mexico. Remember that we already have had a potential terror attack via Mexican drug cartels in the recent past when the Iranians tried to utilize the drug cartels’ network in the U.S. to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Given the power and reach of the cartels, the hatred the Iranians have for us, and the wealth the Iranians could probably put together for the cartels’ cooperation, the fact that our Secretary of State publicly acknowledges that the link exists between Mexico and Iran exists should scare all of us.

2) But the Secretary of State is not the only government official to worry about this potentially violent link. Congresswoman Sue Myrick, R-N.C., was interviewed on WABC Radio in New York City on November 29, 2012. In that interview she stated that she believes it’s possible that Hezbollah, the radical terrorist organization tied to Iran, may be working with Mexican cartels to funnel not only drugs, but also terrorist agents into the U.S.:

• “Former [Defense Intelligence Agency] people and others have told me what is going on, there have been a couple of arrests in this country relative to people who have had ties to Hezbollah or Iran, and my concern has been with the drug cartels and the gangs that are operating in Mexico. There is, what I have been told, a very strong presence there of coordination between the two.”
• She went on to state that she shared her concern with the Obama administration and wanted to know what was being done at the Mexican border to thwart such smuggling of terrorist agents. She came away with little confidence that anything was being done.

For more details on what is potentially happening relative to terrorists' links to the drug cartels, visit the following two websites:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/20/mexico-disputes-house-gop-report-alleging-terrorists-ties-with-drug-cartels/

http://cognitionemission.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/cartels-%E2%99%A5-terrorists/

The first site contains details of a House of Representatives investigative report that highlights the potential and dangerous relationship between the cartels and terrorism. The second site is an extensive historical review of Mexico's ties to terrorism entities. It is well sourced and if even ten percent of what it claims is true, the implications could be a disaster relative to the safety of Americans right here at homnd

3) HSBC is a British bank and one of the largest banks in the world. Which makes the following news really scary in that the cartels’ reach has gotten that deeply into the world of banking and high finance. A CBS News report from December 11, 2012, along with other credible news sources reported that:

• HSBC has admitted that it laundered more than $800 million for Mexican drug cartels, and covered up illegal transactions for Burma, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Libya, all of whom were under international banking sanctions including terrorism.
• The bank will pay a $1.9 billion fine to the U.S. government.
• According to CBS News, in eighty pages of court documents, HSBC admits to sometimes going out of its way to act as a financial clearing house for drug dealers and cartels.
• One of the U.S. Attorneys working the case, Loretta Lynch, stated in the report that the government investigation revealed that staggering amounts of cash, hundreds of thousands of dollars were being deposited daily into HSBC Mexican bank locations using boxes specially made to fit through HSBC tellers' windows to speed the cartel transactions.
• While no one went to jail from HSBC for the money laundering, a fact that the bank admits to, they have cleaned house of many executives who should have been aware and stopped the laundering.
• HSBC will now be monitored by a Federal monitor to ensure this does not happen again.

This is not a two bit bank in the deserts of Mexico. This is a premier, major international banking company that should have known better. But given the wealth and reach of the drug cartels, based on their lucrative trade in illegal drugs, it should not come as any surprise that they were able to manipulate a major bank to launder their money.

This also brings up a related assertion that we have made many times in this blog. We have observed that very few in the U.S. banking industry have been arrested, prosecuted, or jailed as a result of the hanky-panky that went on and which contributed to the Great Recession, e.g. sub-prime lending.

Given that no one went to jail for causing the greatest economic meltdown in this country since the Depression, I guess it is not surprising that no banker went to jail for aiding and abetting the drug cartels and other rogue nations.

4) An article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that was reprinted in the November 18, 2012 issue of the Tampa Bay Times, showed how deeply the cartels have moved their production of marijuana into U.S. Borders.

According to the article:

• Heavily armed Mexican drug traffickers are using the only national forest in Wisconsin to grow thousands and thousands of marijuana plants.
• The value of their Wisconsin pot farms are in the millions of dollars.
• Once they harvest their crops they leave behind a blighted area of garbage, animal carcasses, and dangerous pesticides and herbicides.
• The police have made a number of arrests in this area with all of the arrested suspects being almost all Mexican citizens (far away from Mexico, in Wisconsin, close to the Canadian border) and have confiscated numerous weapons including handguns, AK 47s, and powerful rifles.
• Since 2008, Wisconsin authorities have found 11 major pot growing areas but believe this is just the tip of the iceberg relative to the total number of Mexican operated pot farms in Wisconsin.
• The ecologic damage has been extensive since the pot growers cut down hundreds of trees to provide sunlight to the pot plants, sunlight that damages the ecology of the fishing environment in the numerous Wisconsin streams.
• The cartels chose Wisconsin because of the remote areas for growing and the fact that the Wisconsin grown pot can be easily shipped to large Midwest cities like Chicago and Detroit, saving the cartels the transportation costs of ship Mexican grown pot all the way from Mexico to the upper Midwest.

Scary stuff. If the cartels can get workers and farmer implements up to Wisconsin to set up pot harvesting operations, you can see how easy it would be for them to sneak a fewer Islamic terrorists across the border and get them into any area of the United States.

The other scary aspect of this operation is the safety of Wisconsin citizens who are enjoying the outdoors. It is not too hard to imagine a hiker, a fisherman, or hunter stumbling across a pot farm in the Wisconsin wilderness. Combine their discovery with cartel employees armed with AK47s and the potential for death and injury of innocents is highly likely.

5) It certainly is a lost war. Big banks laundering cartel money, cartels possibly involved with terrorism entities, cartel’s invading areas deep in America’s heartland to operate multimillion dollar pot farms, cartels endangering the lives of innocent citizens, etc. The cartels have won the war on drugs so far. They have creatively fed a demand and became rich and very powerful in the process.

But there are a few hopeful signs around the country that promise to look at the lost war on drugs and take a different, more rational path. Washington state and Colorado voters recently passed referendums that relax the laws regarding marijuana and its legalization.

According to a Reason magazine article from November 14, 2012, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts politicians are in various stages of launching drives to relax or legalize the use of marijuana in their states also.

It seems that some sanity is prevailing at the state government levels where local politicians realize that 1) some Americans will continue to get high, regardless of who supplies them the illegal drugs, 2) continuing to focus anti-drug resources on enforcement and imprisonment is costly and has done nothing to reduce the demand and addiction levels, and 3) continuing to make the use of drugs illegal introduces all kinds of criminal elements into the community.

Unfortunately, this sanity has not reached the Federal government level where the Washington political class continues to wage a lost war, a war that wastes taxpayer wealth, does not help citizens with their addiction problems, does not keep our borders secure, does not protect us from foreign terrorism elements, and enriches the cartels while weakening governments.

It should be very interesting when state level sanity collides with Federal level insanity relative to the war on drugs. We would suggest that the Washington politicians read Step 26 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” Step 26 provides a rational and intelligent process for putting together a compassionate, effective, and less costly strategy when it comes to drug use and addiction.

If we do not eventually get this problem under control and move away from an ineffective and liberty reducing war on drugs, I fear the prediction of William Simpson will eventually come to past: “What are the politicians going to tell the people when the Constitution is gone and we still have a drug problem?”

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

Part 1: Update On Our Lost War On Drugs: Innocents Die, Presidents Admit The War is A Lost Cause, Trillions Of Dollars Wasted

On a regular basis we do a summary of the latest defeats in our nation’s never-ending, never winning, always expensive war on drugs. This ill fated government approach has been going on for over four decades and has done nothing but waste taxpayer wealth, ruined citizens lives by putting them in prison for petty law breaking of petty drug laws and by not providing enough addiction remedy support, enriched Mexican drug cartels, and encroached on our liberty and privacy.

And even scarier, as you will see, this lost effort may now be turning into a major national security issue. So, what has been going on since we last checked in:

1) A December 2, 2012 NewsMax article, reporting on a U.S. News and World Report article, discussed the lost war on drugs in light of a new documentary coming out soon, “Breaking The Taboo.” The documentary tries to make the case that we have tried to make many times in that the war on drugs has been a failure. The details of the article and the film trailer for the documentary can be found at:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-carter-war-drugs/2012/12/03/id/466311?s=al&promo_code=10F70-1

Information from the article and the trailer include the following:

• Since the U.S. government declared war on drugs during the Nixon administration, U.S. taxpayers has paid about $2.5 TRILLION of their wealth to lose this war.
• The worldwide market for illegal drugs, despite a forty year war and effort to stop illegal drug usage, is a whopping $320 billion a year.
• Over the past few years, tens of thousands of innocent Mexican citizens have been killed as a result of our war on drugs, caught in the cross fire of well armed, well financed drug cartels and Mexican anti-drug authorities.
• The trailer claims that after all of these war efforts, illegal drugs today are purer, cheaper, and more widely available than ever before.
• Even two Presidential supporters of the war on drugs, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, are quoted in the documentary that this effort is a failure.
• "If all you do is try to find a police or military solution to the problem, a lot of people die and it doesn't solve the problem, It hasn't worked," says Bill Clinton in the documentary.
• "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself," as written by Jimmy Carter on the film's website.

Is there a way out of this mess, a lost war that has continued unabated under the Obama administration? One solution might be to examine what happened in Portugal when it decriminalized drug possession. Usage went down, treatment went up, and personal freedoms and privacy no longer got abused as much. Details on how and why their more humane approach and coherent approach to drug use and addiction can be found in many sources including the following Time magazine article:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

2) You probably have never heard of Eugenio Velazquez so let me give you some background on him, as described in a December 9, 2012 Associated press news article:

• He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico, having been born in the U.S. and raised in Mexico.
• He lives in a modest, suburban San Diego neighborhood but travels frequently to the border town of Tijuana, Mexico.
• He has had an outstanding and famous career designing some of the Mexican border city's most prominent buildings over the past ten years or so including Tijuana’s new main cathedral, an expansion of the Tijuana Cultural Center, and the town’s police headquarters.
• He is also a college professor and a devoted Catholic who has designed more than 400 residential, commercial and religious projects during a 30-year career that includes a position as president of the Tijuana Architects Association.
• His works range from plain, functional industrial parks for multinational corporations to some of the city's most recognized landmarks.
• A Tijuana newspaper named him as its Cultural Person of the Year in 2008.
• That same year, the Tijuana Cultural Center opened "El Cubo," or "The Cube," his $9-million, burnt-sienna structure that stands next to a distinctive globe-shaped building and provides enough space for large art exhibitions.

Quite a resume but now he may be more well known for his impending prison sentence then his design work. According to the article, Velazquez, was to be sentenced to prison last month in San Diego for an attempt to smuggle 12.8 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. in a special traffic lane for prescreened, trusted motorists. A drug-sniffing dog alerted inspectors to five packages hidden in the battery of his 2004 Nissan Quest at San Diego's San Ysidro port of entry.

Why would such a distinguished trusted man do such a foolish thing for such a relatively small amount of illegal drugs? According to his defense attorney, he had to do it, smuggle drugs into the U.S. like a common drug mule, at the behest of local drug cartels or the cartels would have gone after his family. In fact, within hours after he was arrested at the border, death threats were telephoned to his home and his wife who fled for their lives to a relative’s house.

Another innocent victim of our failed war on drugs, another life destroyed. Our lost war on drugs has so enriched and empowered the drug cartels that innocent, ordinary citizens are at the mercy of the cartels, do their bidding or be killed or see their family members killed. Your fame, wealth, and previous good deeds cannot protect you from the war on drugs and its fallout.

3) But famous architects are not the only famous Mexican citizens to get caught up in the drug cartel violence. A November 27, 2012 Associated Press article reported a Mexican beauty queen was killed over the previous weekend in a shootout between suspected soldiers and drug traffickers who likely used the beauty queen as a human shield.

Maria Susana Flores Gamez was crowned 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in February. According to reports, she came out of a drug trafficker car first with a gun in her hands during the shootout, with the other gunmen hiding behind her, according to the official from the local Mexican attorney general's office. She died in a hail of bullets during the shootout. It was unknown when the article was written whether she was a member of the drug trafficker ring or a hostage taken captive by them and turned into a human shield.

Unimaginable horror and violence. A young lady, with probably a bright future ahead of her, dies at a young age, gunned down in the street, as a result of well armed drug cartels.

4) But it is not just innocent Mexican citizens and drug cartel members that get killed by our lost war on drugs. According to a December 4, 2012 Associated Press article, a U.S. Coast Guardsman was killed when a suspected drug cartel smuggling boat rammed a Coast Guard inflatable boat during an interdiction off the coast of California. The suspected cartel smuggling boat was tracked for several hours and eventually and successfully boarded, resulting in the arrest of two Mexicans after a brief struggle.

According to the reporting, the drug cartels have resorted to using smuggling boats to deliver their illegal drugs into the U.S. after it became much more difficult to do so over land at the California and Mexican border. Unfortunately, this new tactic resulted in the unnecessary death of a U.S. Coast Guard sailor, another unnecessary fatality in the war on drugs.

That’s enough for today. Innocent and unnecessary loss of life. Presidents admitting that the war on drugs, a war that they once championed, is a lost cause. Wasted lives and taxpayer wealth to no avail or advantage.

Yes, sounds like a typical Federal government operation. More on this ongoing fiasco tomorrow, with a focus on how this lost war on drugs is endangering our homeland security today in a very real way.

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