Category Archives: Corruption

Just Politics?

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Last week, the GOP unleashed its new election strategy. Not only did they vote for a “select” congressional committee with 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats to investigate Benghazi yet again (there have already been a total of 13 Congressional hearings, 50 Congressional briefings, 25,000 pages of findings, and numerous media investigations – all with the same result – there was no wrongdoing by the administration). They voted to hold former IRS agent, Lois Lerner, in contempt for invoking the Fifth Amendment and vowed to continue to investigate the already debunked claim that the IRS unfairly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny.  And they continue to claim that the Obama administration was somehow involved in Fast & Furious.

Of course, with all of this on their minds, the Teapublican-controlled House of Representatives (Isn’t it amazing how misleading that name now seems?) will have little time left to address the needs of the nation. Oh, they’ll find enough time to vote for more corporate welfare and to vote yet again to defund “Obamacare.” They’ll also likely vote for even more investigations intended to embarass the president. Numerous Teapublican leaders have even used the “I” word (impeachment) to rile up their base and ensure a strong Teapublican turnout for this November’s midterm elections.

When confronted by news media over the party’s obvious cynicism and divisive tactics, Teapublican leaders dismissed the issues as “just politics.” Seriously? Is this what now substitutes for a government of the people, by the people and for the people? To win at any cost? To filibuster every bill the other party introduces? To block virtually every nomination? To foment hate and divisiveness?

The whole notion of our two-party system was one of loyal opposition – that the two parties would compete for office based on ideas and what’s best for the nation. Then, following the elections, they would legislate and manage the nation based on those ideals. They could disagree, but they would work with the interests of the people in mind. How does the Teapublican determination to pursue bizarre conspiracy theories fit into that notion? How does that justify the use of government committees to destroy opponents rather than to help the nation? How does the Teapublican strategy of blatantly attempting to turn our citizenry against one another help our nation?

I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, so I could appreciate the compassion of the Democratic Party and its efforts to eliminate poverty and to help those in need. Likewise, I could appreciate traditional Republicans who focused on keeping taxes low and eliminating waste. Over the years, the goals and strategies of the Democratic Party are relatively unchanged. But the Republican Party no longer exists. It has been replaced with a hate-based, anti-government, win-at-any-cost group of sociopaths. It’s a party that panders to the wealthy and the powerful; that has never seen a military expenditure it didn’t like; that would give large corporations free reign to destroy our environment and defraud citizens; that will vote for any form of corporate welfare while taking food out of the mouths of single moms and children. It’s a party that can’t win on the strength of its ideas, so it resorts to dirty tricks, voter suppression and under-the-table campaign contributions.

Today’s Republican Party bears little resemblence to the party of Abraham Lincoln. It’s much more like the party of Joseph McCarthy.

Congress Should Have Given As Much Attention To Iraq As Benghazi.

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Congress has spent far more time debating and analyzing the events at Benghazi than it did the invasion of Iraq. The results of the terrorist attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi resulted in the tragic deaths of four Americans. While the cavalier invasion of Iraq led to the deaths of 4,486 US soldiers and, by at least one authoritative estimate, the deaths of more than a million Iraqis. The invasion of Iraq was based on false pretenses while the concern over Benghazi is that the White House falsely stated the cause of the attacks.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Benghazi has been investigated, analyzed and politicized to death. And the GOP is still out for blood. They want someone, anyone, to pay. They already derailed the nomination of Susan Rice for Secretary of State for merely stating what she believed to be true. And every investigation has proven that her remarks were accurate. But the GOP wants to hang Benghazi around the necks of President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There is talk of impeachment and the everlasting hope that further investigations of Benghazi will prevent Hillary from running for president in 2016. There is also the very real likelihood that another sensationalized kangaroo investigation of Benghazi will help the GOP capture the Senate in the mid-term elections.

Yet, the many falsehoods and lies that led to the invasion of Iraq have scarcely been investigated. No one involved in the lies at any level has paid a price. Only recently has the Senate investigated the accusations of Bush-sanctioned secret prisons and torture! In an attempt to heal the wounds caused by that costly and unnecessary war, President Obama chose not to pursue investigations and sanctions against the pepetrators of the lies, even though there is clear evidence that the Bush administration lied about the existence of WMD (weapons of mass destruction), sanctioned torture, and punished anyone who stood in their way, going so far as to commit treason by outing a clandestine CIA operative as payback for her husband’s op-ed debunking the notion that Saddam Hussein had purchased yellow cake uranium from Niger.

And what of the warnings Bush, Cheney and Condoleezza Rice received before 9/11? What of claims from numerous credible sources that the Bush administration received more than 40 detailed warnings of the impending attack? What of the single investigation led by Condoleezza Rice’s pal, Philip Zelikow, which whitewashed the lead-up to the attack and absolved Rice of wrongdoing despite obvious negligence as the National Security Advisor? What of the administration’s blatantly false claims that Saddam Hussein had partnered with al-Qaeda?

Are the American media really so stupid that they would treat the Benghazi hoax more seriously than the deception and lies behind the Iraq War and the negligence surrounding 9/11? Can the GOP be so cynical as to perpetuate the Benghazi myth for obvious political purposes? Are American voters so stupid or naive that they would believe the GOP’s disproven theory that Benghazi is worse than Watergate?

Unfortunately, I believe the answer to those questions is an unqualified yes.

IRS Did Not Unfairly Target Tea Party.

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In 2013, it was alleged that the IRS had subjected Tea Party groups that applied for nonprofit status to extra scrutiny. Led by Fox News, hate radio and Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight committee, the right howled with indignity. The IRS Director was removed from office. IRS agent, Lois Lerner was vilified. There were even charges that President Obama ordered the IRS to deny right wing groups nonprofit status.

It made for a sensational story. Unfortunately, it was based on a lie.

Recently, ThinkProgress offered proof. The organization reviewed IRS documents it received as a result of the Freedom of Information Act. The documents requested are lists of words that would trigger IRS agents to give extra scrutiny to organizations that requested 501(c)(3) charitable status. According to Josh Israel, the author of a ThinkProgress report, “The 22 ‘Be On the Look Out’ key words list distributed to staff reviewing applications between August 12, 2010 and April 19, 2013, included more explicit references to progressive groups, ACORN successors, and medical marijuana organizations than to Tea Party entities.” You can read the entire report by clicking here.

Nevertheless, the real problem isn’t whether nonprofit groups representing one side of our political spectrum are targeted more than others. The real problem is that 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits are allowed to engage in politics at all. By applying for nonprofit status, these groups purport to be primarily charitable or educational in nature (the language of the IRS rule governing nonprofits was changed from “exclusively” to “primarily” in 1959.) Yet one nonprofit after another has been found to spend most of its time and money sponsoring political ads targeting specific candidates than educating the public.

No one has abused nonprofit status more than the Koch brothers. The “Kochtopus” of non-profits used to influence elections is both extensive and unprecedented. In 2012 alone, they spent $383 million to help conservative candidates. And they were just getting organized. Since then, they have expanded their complex network of nonprofit “social welfare” groups and trade associations to allow them to spend even more money to influence elections.

They rely on nonprofits in order to take advantage of tax loopholes that allow them to hide the list of donors.

More recently, they have embraced the use of “disregarded entities” – Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) that are “owned” by nonprofit organizations and considered part of them for tax purposes. So far, this is a political tactic used exclusively by the Kochs to disguise their political spending. Unlike their more famous shill groups such as Americans for Prosperity and 60 Plus, the names of these groups are often just a jumble of letters such as PRDIST, RION, TOHE, ORRA, TRGN, SLAH, POFN, RGSN, TDNA, DAS MGR, and STN. Although these organizations are prohibited from engaging in politics, that is clearly their primary focus. And the amount of money spent by these groups is staggering.

The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal and the Sunlight Foundation studied the spending of such groups since January 2013. Contrary to IRS rules, these groups spent at least $24.6 million on ads that named specific candidates. And that was in an off year for elections! Koch-funded groups have even spent money to influence local elections, such as school board elections.

Clearly, billionaires are trying to subvert our democracy. But they can be stopped. We don’t even need a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling to stop them. All we need is for the IRS to act; to change its rules prohibiting nonprofits from engaging in politics – even political “education.”

20 Things President Obama Should Do After The Mid-Terms.

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In no particular order of importance:

  1. Normalize relations with Cuba.
  2. Support Palestine for UN membership.
  3. End the War on Drugs and begin the process of decriminalization.
  4. Renew calls for a Public Option as part of the Affordable Care Act.
  5. Negotiate pharmaceutical prices as all other industrialized nations have done.
  6. Rally Americans to aggressively deal with Climate Change.
  7. Push for an end to mandatory sentences for non-violent criminals.
  8. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue criminal charges against the banksters who collapsed our economy in 2008.
  9. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue charges of war crimes against those involved in the CIA’s torture program.
  10. Deny permission for TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
  11. Push for changes to the tax code to prevent the use of offshore tax havens by individuals and corporations.
  12. Push the IRS to prevent 501c3s and 501c4s from engaging in politics.
  13. Aggressively push for immigration reform.
  14. End drone assassinations except as an absolute last resort to deal with terrorist leaders and increase transparency.
  15. Order the removal of ALL American troops from Afghanistan.
  16. Offer government-backed, interest-free college loans based on need.
  17. Demand that Congress pass common-sense gun control measures, including universal background checks and a ban on large ammo clips.
  18. Order the Justice Department to create uniform voting rights across all states.
  19. Aggressively push for an end to human trafficking.
  20. Order the Department of Defense to reduce its reliance on private contractors.

Supreme Injustice.

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The Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon et al v Federal Election Commission is the next step in our march from democracy to plutocracy allowing the rich to dominate our political system even more than they already have. In a series of 5-4 decisions with “conservatives” in the majority, the Court has ruled that money equals free speech; that corporations are people (at least with regard to political contributions); and that there can be no limits on the amount of money the ruling class can spend on elections.

For many years, wealthy individuals and large corporations have enjoyed greater influence and access to elected representatives than ordinary citizens. With this ruling, the wealthy will be able to literally buy them. The Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelman are already spending billions through a complex network of Political Action Committees and Super PACs in order to sway our elections. Now they and other billionaires will be unleashed to spend monumental sums to elect candidates that will allow them to control Congress.

It’s fitting that this Supreme Court ruling comes on the heels of the death of Charles Keating, Jr. A financier and developer who was a friend of Ronald Reagan, Keating was indicted in the savings and loan scandal that cost the federal government billions. Prior to the failure of his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, he contributed $1.3 million to the election campaigns of five US Senators in order to buy their influence to help fend off federal regulators. After Lincoln eventually failed, Keating was charged and convicted of 73 counts of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy. Although his conviction was later overturned, he eventually admitted to four counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud.

Given this latest Supreme Court ruling, there are likely to be many more Charles Keatings – those who will use their money to control tax laws; to fend off federal regulators; to eliminate regulations altogether; to scam the government and ordinary people; and to buy their way out of any legal challenges.

It has often been said that elections have consequences. It’s true. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that our democracy is now suffering the consequences of a Supreme Court majority hell-bent on unraveling our Constitution and placing us at the mercy of a government run by a privileged few…a majority given lifetime appointments by Republican presidents.

With Friends Like These…

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The Karzai government in Afghanistan was put in place with the help of the US. Since the government is a supposed ally, we have spent more than $100 billion to rebuild the country that the Soviets and we destroyed – more than we spent to rebuild Japan or Germany after World War II; more than we spent to rebuild South Korea; even more than we spent to rebuild Iraq. Most of the money has been wasted. Indeed, much of it has found its way into the hands of the Taliban and Pakistanis. It has been used to prop up the most corrupt government in the world…a government that has accepted our money and redirected much of it into the pockets of Karzai, his associates and family members.

In truth, the Afghan government cannot and likely will not be able to survive on its own. It exists only because of our military forces and our taxpayer money. Indeed, the government’s entire annual revenue totals only $2 billion per year. Yet it costs more than $4 billion per year just to support the Afghan military. Without our financial aid, it has no money to pay for roads, schools, an electric grid, safe water supplies, waste treatment, emergency services and health care. Despite that fact, Karzai refuses to agree to a sustainable level of US military advisors following our pullout at the end of the year. This almost guarantees that much of the country will fall back into Taliban control.

Of course, that likely won’t mean a stop to the waste of our foreign aid. We are committed to funding the Afghan government at the same levels until at least 2017. There are simply too many military leaders, weapons manufacturers and private contractors who profit from our taxpayers’ largess to allow the flow of money to end.

And there are more long-standing recipients of our military aid. For example, we have been providing financial support to Israel for more than 60 years. Despite the fact that the Israeli standard of living and Human Development Index roughly equal ours, we send them more than $3 billion a year. And how do they repay us for our support? They bluster and threaten their neighbors. They continue to expand housing developments onto Palestinian lands. They ignore our attempts to broker a long-term settlement with Palestine and the rest of their neighbors. They have sent operatives to spy on our military and our government. They meddle in our politics. They have even sold some of our most secret military technologies to Russia and other nations.

Yet, because of the power of the Israeli-American lobby, no American politician dare complain.

We Can’t Afford That Anymore.

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Whenever someone proposes rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, improving schools, funding research for chronic diseases, helping the unemployed, treating the mentally ill, paying pension obligations to public employees, etc., our politicians are quick to say that we can’t afford those things anymore.

Say what? The richest nation on Earth can’t afford to meet the needs of its own citizens?

In reality, it’s not that the US lacks the money to do these things. The federal budget for FY 2014 is $6.3 trillion and, for most Americans, our tax rates as a percentage of income are near all-time lows! So it’s not a lack of money. It’s a matter of priorities. We always seem to have money for military hardware and military interventions around the globe. It’s estimated that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost $6 trillion. It costs us $2.1 million per year to maintain just one soldier in Afghanistan, and current plans call for leaving up to 20,000 troops in Afghanistan after our “withdrawal.” Yet, some of the biggest budget hawks in Congress are calling for a larger presence in Afghanistan, military intervention in Syria, as well as confrontation in Crimea and the Ukraine. Some even hint at war with Iran.

Is it any wonder that we can’t afford to maintain our own nation?

These same budget hawks voted to dramatically expand funding for the F-35 jet fighter which is years behind schedule and hopelessly over budget. They even added funding to build more Abrams tanks, despite the fact that neither the Army nor the Marine Corps want them. As a result of such decisions, we will spend $820.2 billion on defense in FY 2014, not including Homeland Security. This money is not needed to defend our nation. It’s needed to maintain the American corporate empire; to maintain US control of resources in remote corners of the world; to maintain US access to Middle Eastern oil deposits; to maintain corporate access to global markets and to open new ones; to maintain massive profits and executive compensation.

Yet studies show that most Americans would rather bring our troops home. They would rather rebuild our own nation than one we bombed into submission. So why don’t our Congressional representatives listen? Why do so many continue to vote against the will of the people?

The answer, in a word, is money.

Large corporate interests take money from ordinary, hard-working people through various forms of scams and corporate subsidies. (You’ll find a great example detailed in a Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi linked here.) This leads to increased profits. The corporations then give a portion of that money to the election campaigns of politicians in order to buy access and influence. In return, those politicians pass laws to benefit the corporations. And the cycle starts all over again.

On the rare occasions when the politicians take their hands out of the pockets of their corporate sponsors, they pass laws to deregulate industries; to render the EPA and other regulatory agencies impotent; to increase welfare for large corporations while cutting their taxes; to privatize prisons, schools and public pension funds; to cut funding for parks, mental health facilities, public universities and public schools; to redirect taxpayer money to Wall Street hedge funds. All the while, they blame the nation’s resulting economic problems on labor unions, the unemployed and the working poor. To distract the public from their crimes, these fraudster politicians tell us that their actions are necessary to cut debt and create jobs.

What they don’t say is that the only jobs they’re concerned with are their own.

Illusion Of Justice.

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Since the founding of our nation, Americans have always taken pride in our rule of law.  In civics class we learned that this was what distinguished our country from others; that it provided protection from unreasonable search and seizures; that it guaranteed us a quick and fair hearing before a jury of our peers; that it protected individuals from power grabs by government; and that it gave our citizens a non-violent way of settling conflicts. As our nation expanded westward, communities took pride in instituting the rule of law by hiring marshalls, creating courts, ending vigilantism and restricting the carrying of guns. Such things were considered the necessities of polite society.

Now we seem determined to return to the lawless days of the Wild West.

The National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers it represents have written and pushed laws to encourage the carrying and the use of guns. It is now legal to carry guns in virtually every state. They have pushed for and passed the so-called Stand Your Ground laws that allowed George Zimmerman to go free after shooting a black teenager who was “armed” with a bag of Skittles and an angry white guy to get away with murder because he didn’t like a teen’s music. Most recently, a retired cop has invoked the Stand Your Ground defense after shooting a fellow movie-goer following an argument in which he claimed threatened after a bag of popcorn was thrown at him.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), aided by GOP legislators have written and passed laws requiring states to privatize prisons despite their increased costs. Our state legislators have passed laws requiring lengthy sentences for non-violent crimes. At the same time, our government continues to wage a war on drugs that has sentenced drug users to lengthy prison terms. The result is to turn prisoners into profits, proving that crime pays – for corporations.

ALEC and its GOP servants have passed anti-immigrant laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 requiring local law enforcement to check papers in order to fill the private prison facilities with immigrants whose only crime was to cross an invisible border in search of work to support their families. Now the GOP-controlled House of Representatives is pushing to defund the department that defends immigrants from detention or deportation to further pack corporate-owned prisons.

Misinformed conservative voters elect people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio despite his many instances of using his position to racially profile individuals, to prioritize the arrest of hard-working immigrants while ignoring cases of violent crimes, and to use his office to harrass, intimidate, bully and incarcerate those who disagree with him. And Sheriff Joe is not alone. Each year, there are hundreds of cases from across the country in which law enforcement officers have abused their power. Unfortunately, most of these cases are never pursued because the victims are minorities and lack the video evidence and money to pursue justice.

In the US today, money is often the key predictor of sentencing. White color crimes, such as those committed by the mortgage lenders and hedge fund managers who crashed our economy in 2008, are seldom prosecuted. (Not a single person has been tried and convicted from one of the biggest thefts in world history.) When they are prosecuted, teams of high-priced lawyers are often able to get their clients acquitted. But poor people, especially minorities, can’t afford such representation. Usually, they’re appointed a public defender and offered a plea bargain. Is it any wonder, then, that minorities represent 60 percent of our prisoners, while accounting for only 30 percent of our population? And, according to a survey requested by Frontline, in the 20 states that have Stand Your Ground laws, whites are 354 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person.

With such statistics, it has become increasingly apparent that justice is becoming more of an illusion in the US than reality.

Illusion Of Democracy.

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The passage of SB 1062 by the Arizona legislature and subsequent veto by Governor Brewer drew national attention. But there’s one aspect of the incident that has gone largely overlooked…the fact that the legislation was not written by an Arizona legislator. It was written by a national stink tank, Alliance Defending Freedom and pushed by the ultra-right wing Center for Arizona Policy. In fact, most state legislation is no longer authored by legislators. The bills are written by lawyers working for the American Legislative Exchange Council, the State Policy Network, lobbyists for large corporations, the National Rifle Association and other conservative stink tanks.

Is it any wonder, then, that our Congress and our legislatures don’t seem to represent the will of the people?

The system of state legislators and congressmen sponsoring bills written by outsiders gives the illusion of representation. But the bills are written for the benefit of a few and to push a narrow ideology. They seldom benefit the majority. For example, the Iowa House recently passed a bill to legalize silencers for guns. How many Iowans will that benefit? The Ohio legislature passed a bill limiting voting hours. How many voters will that benefit? Other states have passed strict voter ID laws despite a lack of in-person voter fraud. The result will be to prevent many of the poor and the elderly from voting. Who will that benefit?

As a result of gerrymandering, issues with voter registration and the dark money used for campaign finance, a study by the non-partisan Electoral Integrity Project as reported by The Washington Post now ranks the US 26th in the world for electoral integrity and worst of all Western nations. And the situation will only get worse if Republicans and their stink tanks continue to push bills intended to rig elections.

How do we stop this blatant takeover of our democracy? Here’s an idea: Let’s ask candidates to reject any bills written by outsiders. Let’s demand that they solve problems for the majority of their constituents. Let’s treat all bills designed to limit civil rights with the same outrage as that for SB 1062. Let’s threaten to boycott states that pass such laws. Let’s refuse to do business with corporations that have co-opted our democracy.

Let’s make our votes count while we still have them.

Unreasonable Trade-Offs.

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After seeing a headline by David Suzuki “Trading Water for Fuel is Fracking Crazy,” I started thinking about all of the trade-offs we’re being asked to make.  Yes, as Suzuki points out, we are being asked to trade the purity of fresh water in our aquifers that took hundreds and thousands of years to accumulate for the profits of gas and oil companies through the use of toxic chemicals for fracking.

And that’s only one of the trade-offs we’re being asked to make in order to benefit big business.

We’re being asked to trade the beauty of the Appalachians and the area’s pristine waters for the profits of the coal industry through the use of mountaintop removal mining. We’re asked to trade the natural taste and nutrition of fresh fruits and vegetables for the profits of Monsanto, Walmart and large agribusiness companies by allowing the increased use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds. We’re asked to trade the effectiveness of life-saving antibiotics by allowing large cattle feeders, hog growers and poultry growers to increase profits by adding antibiotics to animal feeds.

In order to increase profits for manufacturers, we’re asked to purchase products made overseas that could be made by workers in the US. So that large corporations can pay employees less than a liveable wage, we are asked to help their employees with food stamps, child care and other safety net programs. In order to increase the profits of corporations, we are asked to lower their income taxes and increase ours.  In order to help billionaires avoid paying income taxes, we are asked to give them a large array of tax breaks, including greatly reduced capital gains taxes.

And, in what is probably the most questionable trade-off of all, we are asked to ignore the very real long-term consequences of climate change for the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry.

All of these trade-offs and their consequences are avoidable. We simply need the will to change the way we allow corporations to operate. We should demand that they pay for all of the costs of their actions. And that the cost of government subsidies, including the costs to our environment and our health, be included in corporate expenses.

In other words, if corporations truly are people as the US Supreme Court has ruled, we should hold them accountable for their actions.