Category: insider corruption

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folly general freedom ideological culture insider corruption national politics & policies political challengers

The Anti-Republican Party Establishment

Cruz, Trump, Republican, primary, nomination, president, campaign, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration

Yesterday, we decried the rigged superdelegate voting process used by establishment Democrats to Hillary Clinton’s benefit — and party members’ detriment. Today, we switch parties to find the GOP establishment in full panic mode, so terrified at the prospect of a Ted Cruz victory that they’re now rallying around Donald Trump.

Republican Party stalwart Bob Dole, the 92-year-old former Senate Majority Leader and a 35-year Washington insider, called Sen. Cruz an “extremist.” A Cruz victory would lead to “cataclysmic” losses for the party, Dole contends, and by the way . . . “Nobody likes him.”

“Nobody in Washington,” Dole means.

As for Trump? Dole thinks Trump could “probably work with Congress, because he’s, you know, he’s got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.”

The right personality?

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a fixture in Congress for the last 41 years, introduced Trump recently by clumsily validating Trump’s campaign slogan: “we have an opportunity, once again, to make America great again.”

And again.

According to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “Trump does not have any particular enemies down here. I don’t think anyone gets up in the morning and is irritated with him. That’s not how it is with Cruz.”

Former GOP congressman turned lobbyist Vin Weber says that the establishment’s hated of Cruz “has forced some people to look past all of Trump’s issues and think about what he could offer.”

Offer?

The Republican establishment really, really, really despises Sen. Ted Cruz. But they can live with Donald Trump.

Hmmmm . . . advantage Cruz.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Cruz, Trump, Republican, primary, nomination, president, campaign, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, James Gill, illustration

 

Categories
insider corruption term limits

Resigned in Disgrace

The political insider’s method of dealing with scandal since President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation has evolved. President Bill Clinton marshaled the stonewall defense, and his scandals didn’t quite stick, even as incriminating facts came to light. Nowadays, it seems like politicians can stay in office no matter what the misstep, what the folly, what the crime.

So it’s heartening to see a scandal actually lead to a sitting, elected executive leave office under a cloud, in full Nixonian fashion.

Former Governor John KitzhaberIt happened recently, in Oregon. Democratic Governor John Kithaber had stuck himself in a deep series of fixes, having to do with a girlfriend, green energy, insider advantages, influence peddling, and even the destruction of emails to avoid getting caught. He had hung on in the face of bad press, trying to pull a Clinton, but couldn’t manage that feat.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Kate Brown, next in line, took the oath of office as governor.

There is no reason to pour salt on the former governor’s wounds, or bring down hasty anathemas against his replacement.

But let’s take the occasion to state the obvious: Kitzhaber was an old hand. He was serving a fourth term. He obviously succumbed to the temptations everyone in power faces.

He might have avoided his current ignominy had Oregon established term limits for the executive position. Though some governors manage criminal corruption in their first term — former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell comes to mind — one sure way to avoid corruption is to limit one’s exposure to corrupting influences.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption

Blood Sport Justice?

The trial of Dr. Annette Bosworth has been postponed from next week to May 18. She faces 24 years in a South Dakota prison on 12 felony counts of election fraud and perjury, as well as the loss of her medical license if convicted on even one charge.

Pursuant to her run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican, Dr. Bosworth had gathered petitions, including at her office. When she traveled to the Philippines to care for those injured in a typhoon, folks back at her office continued to sign six petitions — 37 people in all, including her sister.

Dr BosworthWeeks later, the doctor signed an affidavit as the circulator of those petitions, stating that she witnessed each signature being affixed. Not true, but she did know each signer. Seems more of a mistake than a criminal act. Having garnered more than enough signatures to meet the requirement, she obviously wasn’t someone trying to cheat her way onto the ballot.

Still, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley pursues a case designed to crush not only her future in politics but also her career as a doctor.

For me, this story hits close to home. Seven years ago, a state AG launched a political war against two activists and me, the “Oklahoma 3.” Though eventually vindicated, it was scary.

The worst part? The impact on my wife and three daughters.

I know Annette is going through the same fright with her husband and three boys.

Putting Annette Bosworth, a caring doctor, a loving mother and a good, decent person, in prison — or ruining her medical career — serves only one purpose: to intimidate those people, like the doctor, who might dare step into the political arena against entrenched officials.

Politics in America isn’t supposed to be like this.

Let’s use the time between now and May 18 to help stop this injustice.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Action: Help Dr. Bosworth Today!

Categories
crime and punishment insider corruption political challengers

Time to Drop Charges

Annette Bosworth is a medical doctor. She’s also a political neophyte, last year having sought the Republican Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in South Dakota.

She lost. Which is not surprising.

But the next day, she was arrested on twelve counts of election fraud and perjury. She awaits a Feb. 3 trial facing an incredible 24 years in the hoosegow — and, not insignificantly, the loss of her medical license if convicted.

Is Bosworth some sort of threat?

Here’s the story: She gathered ample signatures to earn a spot on the ballot, some at her medical office. During the petition drive, however, she went to the Philippines for two weeks to help victims of a typhoon.

According to dates on the petitions, 37 people signed when Dr. Bosworth was saving people and not in South Dakota. Yet, she signed as the circulator, stating she witnessed the signatures being affixed.

To the guillotine!

Bosworth had asked her campaign attorney if she needed to get those 37 folks — whom she knows, one being her sister — to re-sign. She was advised that she didn’t.

Attorney General Marty Jackley insists Bosworth’s crimes are “serious, deliberate and must be addressed in order to preserve the integrity of our elections.”

Calling such haphazard signature petitioning “commonplace” in South Dakota, former state senator Gordon Howie explains that “during the frenzy of political seasons, MANY (and I do mean MANY) South Dakota politicians circulate petitions and sign as circulators when they are not ‘in the room.’”

Let’s you and me ask* the AG to do the right thing: drop the felony charges.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Here is contact information for Attorney General Marty Jackley:

Ask him to do the right thing. Please drop all felony charges against Dr. Annette Bosworth.

Phone: (605) 773-3215

Email: atghelp@state.sd.us

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/MartyJackley

Official Contact page on AG’s website

Categories
general freedom insider corruption national politics & policies

The Madness Method?

To those nattering nabobs of negativity who don’t trust government to do the right thing, or even to stop doing the wrong thing once discovered, I just want to say: “You’re right.”

Again.

Last April, a Washington Post exposé about a bizarrely tyrannical debt collection program caused the Social Security Administration (SAA) to publicly promise it would cease and desist from said program. The Social Security bureaucracy had been snatching the tax refunds of grown children — $75 million from roughly 400,000 victims — whose parents, many decades ago, had allegedly been sent excess money by this same incompetent outfit.

Due process? The SSA didn’t go before a judge to prove these people owed a valid debt, nor even bother to inform folks that their income tax refunds were being seized. Instead, the Social Security gang just flat-out took the money . . . surreptitiously, like a thief.

In some cases, the SSA wasn’t certain who exactly owed the money. In one case, the agency went after a child even when they could find the mother who supposedly owed the money. Why? The mother had already beaten them in court.

The SSA flouted more than common sense and decency. Children should not be held legally responsible for the debts of their parents.

Hasn’t this been settled law for at least the last couple of centuries?

After publicity back in April, the agency’s commissioner announced it would stop. Yet, now the Social Security Administration is right back at it, claiming Congress has given it the legal power to collect debts “as it sees fit.”

You see why governments need limits. Because they take liberties.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption

Bailing Out Topeka

Back in August, the city council in Topeka, Kansas, voted to expand a redevelopment district and purchase Heartland Park Topeka, a “multi-purpose motorsports facility” featuring drag racing, dirt racing and more.

Chris Imming wasn’t keen on the notion. He put together an initiative petition calling for a public vote. Topeka townspeople eagerly signed it.

Taking this as a cue, did the city officialdom welcome this vibrant exercise of basic American democracy? Did they ready themselves for that election?

Afraid not.

Instead, the city sued to block a vote on the issue.

A local judge sided with the insiders, ruling in the city’s favor. The development decision was administrative in nature, the Robed One determined, not legislative. That made it beyond reach of the citizen initiative process.

Both the judge’s designation of “administrative”  and his rationale for exemption from a citizens’ veto seem more than dubious. Clearly, “the people” should be able to overrule any decision made by the city council, which is established for the express purpose of representing the views of “the people.”

Kudos to Mr. Imming for appealing that lower court decision. Thank goodness for folks like him, folks who stand up against the powerful public and private forces always looking for a bailout or a subsidy.

“We’re bailing out the city,” argues Doug Gerber, Topeka’s administrative and financial director. He cites the city’s previous redevelopment district, which annually costs a cool million dollars in bond service, while bringing in only a fifth of that in sales tax revenue.

So politicians want to double down, to cover their past rotten wheeling and dealing by . . . expanding it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Keep Targeting the IRS

We’re still unraveling the IRS’s prolific crimes.

I mean, those pertaining to its ideological targeting of conservative applicants for non-profit status.

I’m satisfied that the various individuals and organizations suing the IRS or publishing commentaries on this still-unfolding scandal (Day 552 now) will keep on keepin’ on. I’m a little worried, though, about Congress.

Granting that congressional investigators have been reasonably if imperfectly diligent, my hope is that they’ll prove even tougher in the coming session.

Some chairman must step down soon because of the GOP’s term limits on committee chairs; these include Darrell Issa of the Oversight and Reform Committee. TaxProf Blog’s Paul Caron, scandal tracker par excellence, says Issa’s successor should be one who “has done as much as anyone to shine a light on IRS abuse of the President’s philosophical opponents, both in hearings and behind the scenes.”

The man he means is Representative Jim Jordan. Long before we ever heard of pivotal IRS malefactor Lois Lerner, Jordan had been “seeking answers from the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations chief on political targeting allegations.”

Indeed, Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer for victims of the IRS, believes that without Jordan there would have been no Treasury investigation to get the ball rolling “and no public admission that, indeed, conservative groups were being subjected to unprecedented scrutiny and mistreatment.” (Plus, see the congressman’s recent press release lamenting a dismissal of charges against the IRS.)

I’m convinced; let’s have Jordan. And let’s pursue this investigation to the bitter end.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Burkina Faso and Arkansas

Maybe Burkina Faso, in northwest Africa between Mali and Niger, isn’t the easiest “Jeopardy” question for most of us in the U.S. But any place that’s seen massive protests because the head of state tried to escape term limits becomes pretty memorable to me.

In fact, the first region that pops into my head as a point of comparison and contrast is my own home state of Arkansas.

There are big differences in the respective battles over term limits, of course. In Burkina Faso, thousands clogged the streets after the 27-year presidential incumbent, Blaise Compaore, schemed to evade a constitutional term limit on his office. Facing unrelenting pressure, Compaore soon stepped down, not even awaiting the next election.

The furtive attempt to water down state legislative term limits in Arkansas hasn’t gotten as high on the radar there as the machinations in Burkina Faso. But the folks at Arkansas Term Limits (“vote AGAINST Issue #3”) have done much to publicize the scam, taking a wooden Trojan horse from town to town to vivify the point that the politicians bearing the “gift” of suspiciously eager self-reform have hidden a bomb at the bottom of the package: a doubling (or more) of their maximum permitted stay in a single legislative seat.

The media has started to pay attention. The story has gotten out.

Has it been enough? Have enough voters been reached to fend off the assault? When Tuesday’s results come in, we’ll know.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Paying Yourself with Money You Stole

Did Viking raiders hire attorneys to stipulate, before each raid, that plundering English monasteries and churches would be hunky-dory?

No. The Vikings just raided and looted. They didn’t also assure their victims, “Hey, we talked to the lawyer and he said it was fine.”

Thanks at least for that, Scandinavian marauders. Because why add insult to injury?

Yet U.S. Senator Kay Hagan hired some high-priced barrister to bleat that looking the other way while her husband scooped up hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars is “appropriate.” Yep. According to senatorial spokesman Sadie Weiner: “Kay . . . had no part in helping [her husband’s company JDC] receive these grants. Her only involvement was when she made sure that a respected ethics attorney was consulted to ensure that it was appropriate. . . .”

No part! Nobody involved in distributing the boodle knew he was married to a U.S. Senator! Had no way to know!

Ugh.

Per investigative work done by Politico and others:

In August 2010, Senator Kay Hagan’s husband Chip and their son founded a solar energy company, Solardyne.

Weeks later, in September, JDC Manufacturing — a company part-owned by Chip Hagan, the senator’s husband — paid $250,000 in federal “stimulus” dollars to Solardyne to install solar panels at a JDC building. Short version of preceding sentence: Mr. Hagan paid himself $250,000 with money taken from us (you, me, your neighbor, my neighbor).

Did I say “ugh”?

Two suggestions:

  1. end all “stimulus” taxing and “stimulus” spending;
  2. eject Senator Hagan from the U.S. Senate.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment insider corruption

Learning Lerner’s M.O.

I fib. We’re not really learning anything new about Lois Lerner’s modus operandi. It’s just the same old wiping of evidence — evidence that she and others at IRS knew was relevant to congressional inquiry into IRS misconduct.

Lerner is the former IRS department head in charge of reviewing applications of non-profits for tax-exempt status. Her department targeted right-leaning applicants for special obstruction and delay. The practice began to come to light a couple of years ago.

Congress has asked for a great deal of documentation from the Internal Revenue Service that has yet to be supplied, including all of Lerner’s pertinent email. As I’ve discussed before, the IRS has claimed that her hard drives accidentally crashed in June of 2011 — and not hers alone — so that much of the relevant email is gone.

No backups on any server, either.

It all sounded pretty bogus back when the story was “hot.” And now, according to testimony of an IRS employee just filed in the case of Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service, it transpires that Ms. Lerner had a BlackBerry on which her email traffic was routinely duplicated … and that this device was wiped in June 2012, months after Congress started asking questions about the ideological targeting of applicants for tax-exempt status.

Judicial Watch, my hero, is now urging the court to require the IRS to divulge the relevant dates of the wiped data, then subpoena BlackBerry for the data. Because we all know that it hasn’t really disappeared forever into the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.