Category: insider corruption

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insider corruption term limits

A Plutocrat’s Expensive Friend

Larry Householder, Ohio

An “expensive friend” — in documents obtained by federal prosecutors, that’s how former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones sized up former Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder.

What made the Speaker so Big Ticket?

“Republican Larry Householder hatched a plan to cement his hold on power for an additional 16 years,” The Columbus Dispatch reported, “and Akron-​based FirstEnergy Corp. invested $2 million into the effort.”

Their scheme?

Petition a citizen initiative onto the ballot to slap lifetime term limits on legislators, rather than the current eight-​year consecutive limits, as bait to hook pro-​limits voters — emphasizing this toughening part, while hiding the fact that the eight-​year limits in each chamber would be doubled to a 16-​year limit in either.

The initiative would also set a brand-​new clock, wiping out all past service so that Householder could command the House, uninterrupted, for 16 more years. 

“He told me he’ll retire from [the House],” Jones joked with an associate, “but get a lot done in 16 more years.”

The pandemic stopped Householder’s scam. And then, last July, the FBI dropped the other shoe, arresting him for racketeering. Now awaiting trial, Householder has been pushed out as Speaker and then expelled from the House completely — the first time in over 150 years.

FirstEnergy fired CEO Jones — who, according to The Washington Post, “prosecutors continue to investigate” for his “involvement in a $60 million bribery scheme secretly funded by the company to win a $1 billion legislative bailout.”

Mr. Householder never liked term limits, but his corrupt attempts to thwart them serve as evidence of their importance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption media and media people

Major Media’s Cricket Chorus

Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, corruption

“How is this not a subject of bigger concern in the country?” Emily Jashinsky asked last week on The Hill’s morning TV program, Rising.

Hunter Biden’s “addiction and dysfunction are the public’s problems, too,” explained Jashinsky, culture editor at The Federalist, “given that Hunter was wrapped up in an influence-​peddling operation in which he traded on his father’s name to carry out lucrative business deals.”*

“That makes the sad work of reading his personal correspondence crucial,” she added, “given that his father is, you know, the president of the United States.”

Jashinsky pointed to items gleaned from Hunter’s bountiful laptop, which reinforce a narrative — first advanced during last fall’s presidential campaign and corroborated by a former business partner, but then and now ignored by most media — that Hunter not only profited off his father’s position, but also provided kickbacks to “Pop.” 

In a text Hunter sent his daughter, complaining that he doesn’t “receive any respect,” he elaborated: “I Hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Now the New York Post’s Miranda Devine informs, “[W]hat we do know is that, while Joe was vice president, Hunter routinely paid at least some of his father’s household expenses” … which the headline dubbed “daddy pay care.”

“In a healthy country, our free press would be highlighting the Biden family as the very picture of elite corruption,” offered Jashinsky. “They would be pushing relentlessly for answers to the questions these emails continue raising.”**

“Instead, it’s mostly crickets,” in what she sadly called “this era of media corruption.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “The Justice Department is investigating the finances of President-​elect Joe Biden’s son [Hunter], including scrutinizing some of his Chinese business dealings and other transactions,” the Associated Press reported last December. 

** In May, The Guardian disclosed: “Former FBI director Louis Freeh gave $100,000 to a private trust for Joe Biden’s grandchildren and met with the then-​Vice President in 2016 ‘to explore with him some future work options,’ emails reveal.”

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insider corruption national politics & policies

Dystopia de la Brazile

Juvenal, bread and circuses, Covid

“When will the check arrive?”

That’s what “voters want to know,” former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace yesterday.

Not whether President Joe Biden is dodging the media’s questions, as Wallace had inquired of his panel of Washington experts, after explaining that Biden now holds the modern record for longest time as president without facing reporters in a news conference.

“Well, it’s no surprise,” offered Jonathan Swan, national political correspondent for Axios. “It’s an extension of what he basically did throughout the campaign, which was very minimal — he basically didn’t subject himself to extended, tough questioning.” 

GOP strategist Karl Rove went further, arguing, “he’s just not up to it … at the age of 78 he’s lost a few steps and he’s not going to look good in a news conference.”

But Brazile was having none of it. Citizens are laser-​focused, she contends, on being shown the money … and really aren’t too concerned as to whether their commander-​in-​chief, the sleepy fellow in possession of the nuclear codes, might be suffering something approaching early dementia.

People do like money. But to what degree is she really correct? With palms greased will the public look the other way? How many votes have Democrats bought?*

Don’t think Brazile is alone, either; as I pointed out recently (“Big Bucks Buy Votes”), too much of Washington actually thinks purchasing apathy, support, votes is how Washington should work.

They marvel as modern political statecraft transcends the hubbub of bread and circuses with electronic direct deposits of spendable cash into bank accounts. But with the same hoped-​for result.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And ask the same question of Republicans who voted for sending similar checks to everyone when they controlled the Senate and the White House last year. 

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insider corruption partisanship

Member-​Directed Funding

earmark, Congress, corruption

“Congress is about to bring back its secret weapon,” CNN headlined a column yesterday.

Congress? Weapon? 

Be afraid. 

Be very afraid. 

“Earmarks are back,” Chris Cillizza immediately informs readers … you know, “what is technically known as ‘member-​directed funding.’” 

Before you can say “terrible idea,” the cable channel’s editor-​at-​large does admit that “members securing money for pet projects in their districts could go wrong.”

Yeah. Right. Has gone wrong. Will go wrong. Is wrong.

“This is a sneaky big deal,” offers Cillizza nonetheless. “And a massive win for party leaders of both parties.”

Cillizza argues that it was a big mistake for Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership in Congress to take away their ability to reward individual congresspeople by stuffing a couple multi-​million-​dollar pet projects into the budget. What’s not to like for an incumbent politician? They get to hand out money right in their districts, with their name attached to it. 

As long as a member of Congress plays ball.

The way the party bosses say.

In return, that incumbent can likely stay in this nation’s heralded leadership for years, decades.

When “you realize that in taking away earmarks,” explains Cillizza, “Boehner robbed party leaders of their most potent weapon to keep their rank-​and-​file in line on key votes.”

Is it even plausible for the functioning of our democratic republic that “party leaders” — nowhere mentioned or given any power in our Constitution — leverage our tax dollars to essentially buy off our representatives in order to keep our representatives “in line” on other important votes?

No.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption Voting

Democrats’ Shadow Play

shadows, Democrats, Democrat Party

There is more than one way to rig an election.

Sometimes all you need is a monkey wrench. A little chaos might help you get your way.

Last February 3, Democrats voted in the Iowa caucuses, placing Bernie Sanders in the lead. But a major “foul-​up” occurred. “The state party was unable to report a winner on caucus night,” explains Tyler Pager at Politico, “the mobile app to report results failed to work for many precinct chairs, the back-​up telephone systems were jammed and some precincts had initial reporting errors.”

The chaos certainly did not help winner Bernie Sanders, disabled from making publicity hay while the sun shined. There was enough darkness for democracy to die in.

The Iowa Democratic Party commissioned an audit to throw some belated light on the brouhaha, and the results are in: the Democratic National Committee is mostly to blame. 

“According to the report, the DNC demanded the technology company, Shadow, build a conversion tool just weeks before the caucuses to allow the DNC to have real-​time access to the raw numbers because the national party feared the app would miscalculate results.” But the DNC and Shadow used incompatible database formats, spawning chaos. 

In a generous mood? Call it sheer incompetence. 

But the mess sure … smells … suspicious.

“The caucuses are a cherished tradition for Iowans,” reports Reid J. Epstein at The New York Times, “but an increasing number of national Democrats say they are outdated and undemocratic.”

Well, they are when you make them so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Titanic Hits Ice Cream

Nancy Pelosi, ice cream

A recent email from Amy White of MoveOn​.org — an activist outfit that got its start defending Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions — theorized that, this election, “the GOP strategy to win is to use their billionaire donors to flood battleground states with fearmongering, racist ads. . . .”

The snuck-​in assumption that Democrats lack Billionaire Donors is important, for the actual Trump strategy is to attack Democrats for their rich elitism. A Trump campaign ad targeting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous-like ice cream obsession is quite powerful.

And Pelosi’s flaunting of expensive freezers and confections is not mere fluke.

You see, Speaker Pelosi (D‑Calif.) also smarts from recent revelations that she had flouted California lockdown rules and mask-​wearing mandates to illegally rendezvous, sans mask, at a hair salon, speakeasy-style.

While MoveOn’s Ms. White seeks to “put an end to Donald Trump’s authoritarianism,” what she seems oblivious to is her own side’s elitism.

As shown in Pelosi’s hometown. San Francisco’s government-​run gyms catering to police officers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and paralegals have been open for months — while privately owned exercise establishments serving the hoi polloi have been shut down the whole time.

“It’s shocking, it’s infuriating,” one gym entrepreneur told a TV station. “Even though they’re getting exposed, there are no repercussions, no ramifications? It’s shocking.”

But it’s not. 

Trump got into office because he was seen as an outsider. Insiders like Pelosi and Frisco “public servants” have special rules for themselves, while sticking it to the rest of us. We peons. We outsiders.

It’s old school classism, as in the “classless” Soviet Union or Marie Antoinette’s France.

Not a good look.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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