Category: insider corruption

We Take the Bullet

debate, Hillary, Donald Trump, the scream, bullet, illustration

“[I]f someone puts a gun to your head,” argues David Boaz of the Cato Institute, “and says you have to choose between Clinton and Trump, the correct answer is, take the bullet.”

Then, proving the axiom “it can always get worse,” came Friday’s twin revelations: the Washington Post broke the story of Donald Trump caught on a hot microphone bragging about groping women, and WikiLeaks released hacked emails with unflattering revelations about Hillary Clinton “principled” duplicity.

The Clinton camp huffs about the hack of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, but denies nothing.

In those speeches for which Wall Street firms paid her millions, Clinton’s progressivism evaporates. She suggests Goldman Sachs and other large financial firms should regulate themselves, because they “know the industry better than anybody.”

While publicly bashing the rich, she privately complains before her wealthy audience about the “bias against people who have led successful . . . lives.” Moreover, Hillary explains that it’s bad “if everybody is watching” public policy being made, adding: “[Y]ou need both a public and a private position.”

And to think some folks don’t trust her.

Mr. Trump likewise confirmed our worst fears. During a 2005 taping of a television soap, he boasted that “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

And then gave a “rapey” example of what “anything” means.

This man deserves political power?

Forget which is worse. Note how much alike they are. Both seem to think they can say — even do — anything. Without consequences.

Without caring one whit about the rest of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags debate, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, lie, lies, morality, power, rape

folly insider corruption moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility

Settled Science?!?

sugar, lobbying, science, corruption, illustration

You probably know that America’s sugar industry is protected, making astounding profits because of high tariffs and artificially raised consumer prices.

And you likely know that government has worked hand-in-hand with agribiz interests to cook up (and regulate) a competitive sweetener, high fructose corn syrup. You understand that there are various types of sugar, and almost certainly suspect that refined sugar is bad for you, with high fructose corn syrup perhaps worse.

In fact, the scientific evidence for the danger of a high sugar diet has been around since the 1950s.

Well, what we now know, Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes at Reason, is “how the sugar industry essentially bribed Harvard scientists to downplay sugar’s role in heart disease — and how the U.S. government ate it up.”

Before Reason weighed in, my colleague Eric D. Dixon sent me a New York Times story, which stated the main proposition plainly: “How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat.” But Reason’s Brown is right: it was government that really made this a nationwide disaster. The imprimatur of government sanctified the anti-fat craze, and the government’s own dietary guidance (and regulations) proved grossly wrongheaded.

Now we’re the ones who are gross.

Scientists and government (bought off by a protected industry) fed us a line that many swallowed. We increasingly swapped fat for refined sugars, causing health to decline as girths went out and weights went up.

So when I hear outrageous claims for the “settled science of climate change,” I look at my middle and doubt that “settled” part. And I nurture an unsettling thought. . . . it’s the political science that’s settled: government lies to us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags climate consensus, climate science, corn, fat, science, sugar

Accountability ideological culture insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Sorry Not Sorry

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, democrat, democratic party, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders

Today, the Democratic National Convention begins in Philadelphia.

Yesterday, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, announced her resignation amidst a growing controversy over the DNC’s favoritism toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during this year’s presidential contest.

Months ago, Sen. Sanders called for Wasserman Schultz to step down, noting her closeness to the Clinton campaign and angered by what his campaign perceived as unfair treatment. To which, Wasserman Schultz had smugly responded, “Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do.”

It seems Sanders had a lot better understanding of what the DNC does than she thought.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, the American people have also gotten in the know. Last Friday, WikiLeaks released 20,000 emails from top DNC officials, reportedly snatched by Russian hackers. In the emails, one can read the DNC’s top financial officer suggesting a smear against Sanders over his religion. “AMEN,” responded the DNC’s CEO.

Yes, indeed, the Democratic Party establishment was rigging the process. “The release provides further evidence,” Michael Sainato wrote in The Observer, that “the DNC broke its own charter . . . by favoring Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee, long before any votes were cast.”

Caught breaking the rules, Wasserman Schultz is out!

Sorta. She’s out after the convention, not before.

Furthermore, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still “in.” Mrs. Clinton just offered her a position on the campaign, and said she was “grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year’s historic convention in Philadelphia.”

By hook and by crook.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: Medill DC on Flickr (Creative Commons)

Tags Bernie Sanders, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton

Accountability crime and punishment folly government transparency insider corruption national politics & policies

This Too Shall Pass

teflon, white house, Hillary Clinton, Obama, corruption, illustration

We are living in what I hope are the latter days of the Watergate Era.

I’m old enough to remember Watergate. The un-making of President Nixon, before our very eyes, informed Americans in a deep and profound way. It led, in part, to the election of Jimmy Carter, often referred to as one of the least effectual presidents. And the Carter presidency led to Ronald Reagan.

While living under Watergate’s dark shadow, not all of us took away the same lesson.

We outsiders learned, once again, that power corrupts.

Insiders, on the other hand, learned something different: never willingly play a part in your side’s unmasking and un-making.

We tend to forget, what with the economic rebound and end of the Cold War, that the Reagan Administration had significant scandals. At the time, Reagan was dubbed the “Teflon President,” because Reagan & Co. figured out how to react: shrug; stall; deny, deny, deny. For this reason, scandal flowed off him, not sticking, as water off a well-oiled duck’s back.

Reagan and the Republicans did not allow what Republicans had allowed in Nixon’s day: there was no turning on one’s own, no (or few) breaking of ranks.

Then, President Bill Clinton took the effrontery of denial and stonewalling to new heights. With great help from fellow Democrats.

And so it goes, even to the present day, with Hillary Clinton carrying on her husband’s tradition. She, the first candidate to run for the presidency while under official investigation by the FBI, just received the current president’s endorsement.

The back-room deal has been made, perhaps? Obama will not allow Hillary to be prosecuted. It would tarnish his legacy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, corruption, Hillary Clinton, pardon, President Barack Obama, teflon, White House

Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption responsibility

Four Powers on the Chopping Block

Post author By CS Admin
Post date April 7, 2016
2 Comments on Four Powers on the Chopping Block

Ohio, initiative, lawmakers, congress, pay,

A group of Ohio citizens isn’t leaving the maintenance of ethical standards in government to the politicians. Smart. Forming a political committee, “Ethics First — You Decide Ohio,” the group filed an initiative to amend the state constitution unsurprisingly called, “Ethics First.”

What does the ballot measure do?

“Ethics proposal would cut state lawmaker’s pay and power,” said the segment on Cleveland’s NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV 3.

The initiative limits base pay for the state’s part-time legislators to the median household income of full-time Ohioans. Because Ohio is one of only six states in which legislators pay themselves more than median household income, the measure, if in effect today, would mandate cutting legislators’ base pay from $60,584 annually to $49,644.

“The purpose is not to cut their pay,” explained spokesman Jack Boyle. “The purpose is to make their pay related to what happens to all of us in Ohio. If we’re doing well, their pay will go up. If not, it will go down.”

What legislative “power” will be cut?

The amendment takes away four powers:

The power of legislators to exempt themselves from laws and taxes other Ohioans must follow and pay,
The currently unlimited power of legislators to raise their own pay,
The power to be a paid lobbyist before the legislature within two years of leaving office as a state legislator, and
The power of legislators to destroy legislative records, including electronic records, within four years.

All the other powers of the legislature remain completely intact.

How would you vote: Yes or No?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags ballot initiative, Congress, initiative, initiatives, lawmaker, legislators, legislature, Ohio

Accountability crime and punishment education and schooling insider corruption local leaders responsibility

Schooled in Corruption

Detroit, kickbacks, bribes, crime, education, schools

Michigan’s governor just signed a $49 million emergency funding bill, designed by legislators to keep Detroit’s public schools open.

Open for what?

Will any of that dough actually make it to the classroom, where children might possibly be educated?

Or, as I inquired at Townhall yesterday, is it merely another opening for . . . graft?

Less than a week after the rescue bill, U. S. Attorney Barbara McQuade brought criminal charges against more than a dozen DPS principals and administrators, as well as a vendor of school supplies. Their kickback scheme was simple: school officials received big, fat bribes from the vendor for school supplies that, as the Detroit Free Press put it, “were rarely ever delivered.”

The scam involved at least twelve separate Detroit schools over as long as 13 years. During that time, more than $900,000 was paid in bribes to DPS officials.

The newspaper highlighted how “shocked” teachers were that their principals had been indicted. “It’s pitiful that they’re going after principals who are probably just doing what they need to do even if it might be a little bit unethical in order to provide the students in their schools with the supplies and materials that they need that district and the state should be providing us,” was the excuse one teacher offered.

“A little bit unethical”?

Frankly, the fraud didn’t deliver, but deny “supplies and materials” to students — supplies taxpayers had sacrificed to provide.

This same teacher added that her indicted principal is “always putting students’ interests first. It’s not just rhetoric with her. It’s actual practice.”

Except for the graft.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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