Category: insider corruption

Nepotism Today

nepotism, Hunter Biden, Chelsea Clinton, corruption,

The Democrats’ impeachment of Donald Trump has made us all familiar with Joe Biden’s son, Hunter — for his Burisma boardroom gig, anyway. Raking in millions despite lack of knowledge of the country or the business of the Ukrainian corporation in question certainly has the appearance of corruption.

But don’t forget Chelsea Clinton, also recently in the news.

“Chelsea Clinton reaps $9 million from corporate board position,” read the headline at The Hill, referring to her position on the board of IAC/InterActiveCorp (ticker: IACI). That’s a bit of spin, since the Barron’s article it’s based on has a more informational headline: “Chelsea Clinton’s IAC Stock Is Now Worth $9 Million,” which clearly shows that it is not her $50,000 per annum retainer that’s making her rich.

It’s her annual booty of $250,000 in restricted IAC stock units that’s the source of her boon.

And the fact that IAC stock has increased “89%, 50%, and 36% in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively.”

Since the company is going gangbusters, her position doesn’t look worthless.

But why would she be valuable?

There’s no more evidence for her ‘business genius’ than for Hunter’s.*

It’s connections that matter, especially those that make up the systemic corporatism of our Big Business/Big Government reality.

And that family angle? Well, economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that class is based on family success, coordinated and accumulated generation by generation. But since the advantages that the children of Democratic pols bring to corporations actually depend on government policy, this makes modern technocracy look less democratic and more old-fashioned oligarch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Chelsea Clinton holds a Doctor of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Oxford. And, by the way, she also doesn’t “care” about money.

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Tags Chelsea Clinton, corruption, Hunter Biden, nepotism

insider corruption

Another Impeachable Offense?

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 16, 2019
2 Comments on Another Impeachable Offense?

“Do me a favor: start buying agriculture.”

That’s what President Donald J. Trump says he said to the Chinese in agreeing to Phase One of a U.S.-China trade deal.

Now, if China starts buying more American agricultural products, Trump might be aided in defeating his Democratic opponents next November.

“The biggest winners in the China trade deal announced Friday appear to be a key part of President Trump’s voter base: U.S. farmers,” Jon Healey wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “There’s nothing wrong with that, because Trump’s political interests coincide with U.S. national interests.”

But when President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a favor, back during the now-infamous July phone call, a whole lot of people concluded that Trump’s desire to “get to the bottom” of the Bidens’ pungent possible corruption in Ukraine was not a harmony of interests between Trump and Americans.

Last week, his biggest critics on the House Judiciary Committee passed two articles of impeachment against him, alleging (1) that he abused his power in delaying the aid Congress had appropriated for Ukraine in order to push the Ukrainians to open up an investigation of Hunter Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired him, and (2) obstruction of Congress, for refusing to adequately respond to congressional subpoenas.

An investigation launched by Ukraine into former Vice-President Joe Biden’s son would certainly be news — bad for Biden, currently the leading Democratic rival to the president; good for Trump.

But is such an investigation warranted?

Surely Americans who voted for Trump to “drain the Swamp” would think corruption is always worth investigating.

The Swamp — along with many good Americans — disagrees.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Donald Trump, impeachment, swamp

crime and punishment insider corruption

Good Golly, Healthy Holly

One reason to talk about corruption a lot is that there is a lot of corruption to talk about.

The scheme was to get Kaiser Permanente to buy 20,000 copies of her children’s book, Healthy Holly, at a decidedly non-discounted price of $5 a pop, while the health provider was negotiating a contract with UMMS and while she was serving on the UMMS board deciding that contract.

It’s been several months since I’ve discussed Baltimore, Maryland, a hotbed of Big Government degeneracy. Now that former Mayor Catherine Pugh has been indicted — this Tuesday — on multiple federal charges, we should take a moment to appraise her own tricky larceny against the city’s taxpayers and the patients of University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS).

What a scam.

And not her only one. She leveraged this scam to fund her mayoral campaign, for example.

So, it is good that she is being prosecuted.

Odd, though, that it is the federal government doing the prosecuting. Baltimore is a corporate entity under the sovereignty of the State of Maryland, not the United States.

What have state and local investigators and prosecutors been doing?

While this might seem a picky point, the federalization of law and order is, as the college crowd says, ‘problematic.’ Tasking the Federal Government to the rescue is great, insofar as it actually rescues. Yet, it is also an unmistakable sign not only of the corruption of the criminal justice system, but also of a failure of representative democracy to hold government officials accountable in that state or locality.

This is certain: government, removed from citizens’ vigilance, almost necessarily breeds corruption . . . and not just in Baltimore.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, corruption, Mayor

ideological culture insider corruption national politics & policies

Deep State Consensus

Donald Trump was not elected with a mandate to “drain the ‘interagency consensus.’”

You can’t “drain” a “consensus.” More importantly, “the Swamp” that Trump promised to “drain,” is not the same thing as that “interagency consensus.” That latter, new phrase better serves as something coextensive with — or subset of — something distinct, “the Deep State.”

But the Swamp and Deep State are related.

Though the term, interagency consensus, was floated earlier, this new bit of jargon hit public consciousness as a result of the impeachment proceedings, the testimony of Alexander Vindman in particular.

Mr. Vindman — excuse me, Lt. Colonel Vindman — is an Army officer assigned to the National Security Council who became alarmed at “outside influences” in the Trump Administration that were upsetting the “interagency consensus” on the subject of his homeland. The new “narrative,” he testified, “was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”

The problem with this is obvious. It is not the job of junior diplomats and spies to work against the policies of a constitutionally-elected and -authorized U.S. president.

Sophisticates in Washington and in the press corps sometimes pooh-pooh the term “Deep State.” Vindman’s testimony justifies the term. Yet, he sure seems earnest in thinking that government hirelings should develop policy that must be defended from tampering, including by we who wade in the shallow end of government, stuck with our piddling votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags hearings, impeachment, Schiff, Vindman

First Amendment rights insider corruption national politics & policies

Worse Than Hypocrisy

Joe Biden, Obama, medal, money, campaign finance,

“You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC,” former Vice-President Joe Biden claims he advised his presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, “because [if you do] people can’t possibly trust you.”

Now it must be impossible to trust Mr. Biden.

“Joe Biden is apparently dropping his long-held opposition to the creation of an outside group,” the media tepidly informed last week, “that would supply an infusion of money to benefit his campaign.”

That is: the dreaded Super PAC.

In his 2017 book, Biden claimed he would not have accepted such “outside” support had he entered the 2016 contest — even though he “knew there was big money out there for me.”

Why not? “[I]n a system awash with money,” the former VEEP wrote, “the middle class didn’t have a fighting chance.”

What changed? Now this drowsy Democrat actually needs campaign cash!

“Biden has struggled to raise money, and last week, his campaign reported having $9 million on hand,” reports The Washington Post, “roughly a third as much as some of his top Democratic rivals.”

Necessity is the catalyst of hypocrisy?

“As president, Joe Biden will push to remove private money from our federal elections,” his campaign explained. “He will advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end the era of unbridled spending by Super PACs.”

Your private money and mine has as much right to engage in federal elections as Mr. Biden does. And I’ve wa r ned many times about the free-speech repealing amendment the doddering Democrat frontrunner is pushing.

There may be worse things than hypocrisy, but there are few things worse than opposing First Amendment rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags barack obama, campaign finance, Joe Biden, medal, money, Obama

initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption

Revolt of the Desk Jockeys

Our Constitution guarantees that each state of the union provide a republican form of government.

Does that mean that all that is prohibited is . . . monarchy?

No.

One very common form of modern governance is deeply anti-republican, requiring — at the very least — strict regulation to prevent it from usurping our form of government. And what is this dangerous variety? The kind an economist defined centuries ago: “We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania.” He called it “government by desk,” or, “bureaucratie.”

Yes, bureaucracy.

You might think I’m about to launch into another attack upon the Deep State, perhaps in relation to the ongoing coup-by-desk of the Trump Presidency.

But no. Let us turn to the other Washington, the one with the capital named Olympia.

In that hotbed of politics-as-usual, the city government printed out and mailed — on the public dime — a pamphlet entreating voters to vote against I-976, a state-wide initiative that had been advanced onto the ballot by Tim Eyman* and hundreds of thousands of voter signatures.

Even if it had been a broadside for the initiative this would have been very, very bad.

In republics, those who inhabit public desks must not be allowed to hijack election campaigns from those who are, ultimately, in charge: the citizens.

And in Washington State by law: RCW 42.17A.555 broadly and strictly prohibits using public resources for campaigning.

Apparently, public servants in the Evergreen State (as elsewhere) do not see that they themselves can corrupt our form of government.

Which makes this government-printed pamphlet a very serious breach of law indeed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* You may remember me talking about Eyman before — often. I have called him the most effective limited-government activist in these United States. And it is from Eyman himself that I learned of this story.

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