Category: insider corruption

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crime and punishment insider corruption

Good Golly, Healthy Holly

Baltimore, mayor, corruption,

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.

Baltimore, mayor, corruption,

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ideological culture insider corruption national politics & policies

Deep State Consensus

Vindman, impeachment, Schiff,

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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Vindman, impeachment, Schiff,

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

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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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insider corruption international affairs national politics & policies too much government

Mrs. Clinton’s Fevered Nightmare

Hillary Clinton, Tulsi Gabbard, Russia, conspiracy,

Hillary Clinton’s recent statements linking Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) to the Russians — Mrs. Clinton’s current favorite enemy — provided Rep. Gabbard with an opportunity for a return volley, dubbing Mrs. Clinton “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.”

But what was shocking was Clinton’s confidence in making such a charge sans evidence. 

Or not, considering her long history of “vast rightwing conspiracy”-mongering.

Should we wonder about projection, here? Could Clinton see conspiracies everywhere because she is herself at base a conspirator?

Ask Julian Assange.

His Wikileaks site provided evidence of Clinton campaign malfeasance and sheer creepy weirdness before the 2016 election, and also, more famously, evidence of U.S. military war crimes. No wonder he earned the ire of Clinton and the superstate within which she has worked.

Assange is now in a British court, trying to resist extradition, a wounded man. “I can’t think,” he lamented. “I can’t research anything, I can’t access any of my writing. It’s very difficult where I am.”

What his barrister said is even more chill-inducing: “This is part of an avowed war on whistleblowers to include investigative journalists and publishers. The American state has been actively engaged in intruding on privileged discussions between Mr. Assange and his lawyer.”

Though we know little for certain, between a “sunlight” publisher and the dark, secretive Deep State, I trust the journalist at least a bit more. After all, the Deep State has Hillary Clinton on its side, along with known liars like James Clapper — who just had the temerity to call Trump’s lies “Orwellian”!

And no wonder Mrs. Clinton hates Rep. Gabbard, for the Hawaii congresswoman would halt the prosecution of Assange.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hillary Clinton, Tulsi Gabbard, Russia, conspiracy,

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insider corruption international affairs national politics & policies

The Democrats’ Wrong Number

Donald Trump, telephone, phone call, impeachment,

“Where’s Hunter?” Donald Trump asks in front of his pro-Trump rallies (and of course on Twitter), referring to Joe Biden’s son and his cushy Ukrainian sinecure. 

From the beginning of the Phone Call quasi-scandal, the upshot sure seemed to portend disaster for the Democrats, in general, and Biden’s presidential bid in particular — for, nested in the secrecies of Ukrainian corruption are not only the ties to the Biden Family Biz, but also perhaps to the conspiracy behind the Russiagate fizzle.

Surely, President Trump cannot kill two birds with one phone.

Impeaching him, however, still seems risky — for Democrats.

Mark Tapscott explored just how perilous by focusing on what might happen in the Senate, after a House impeachment. “Trump’s defense lawyers for the trial will have wide latitude to call witnesses and subpoena documents,” wrote Tapscott in late September.* “That could lead to devastating blows damaging Democrats for years to come, which possibility they would be foolhardy not to ponder seriously, given Trump’s love of political fisticuffs.”

Can the party of Big Government afford to publicize the most obvious lesson coming from their hyping of the Phone Call? 

The lesson being that the undrained swamp is nothing other than Crony Capitalist Politics As Usual.

No matter how divisive all this may seem, it may prove awfully educational — in the case against Big Government.

Bob Hope had a funny punchline, way back in the Eocene: “Boy, did I get a wrong number.”

In impeaching Trump over a phone call, Democrats may have dialed their destruction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*  See “Assessing the Most Dangerous ‘What Ifs’ of the Democrats’ Impeach Trump Frenzy,” The Epoch Times (September 29, 2019).

Donald Trump, telephone, phone call, impeachment,

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Don’t Tempt Her

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Twitter,

Scrolling down @realDonaldTrump’s prolific Twitter feed, I cannot help but wonder: when does the president find time to do his job?

I am not the only one to wonder.

Still, as President, Trump sure is a great . . . troll. “I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from Uber Left Elizabeth Warren,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting ‘C’ Subpoena!”

Mrs. Clinton responded curtly: “Don’t tempt me. Do your job.”

I wonder if she fumed, under her breath, “do my job!”

CNN, in its report on this Twitter exchange — yes, this is our reality, now, this is the news! — recalled Clinton’s assurance, in March, that though she will continue “to keep speaking out” and “is not going anywhere” (heh heh), she definitely will not run again. CNN did not take Trump’s bait about Clintonian corruption, instead mentioning that “Trump’s invocation of Clinton — whom he has attacked repeatedly in his role as President — comes as the Democratic presidential primary ramps up alongside a House impeachment inquiry into the President centered around his interactions with foreign leaders.”

CNN also neglected to mention that the Hillary Clinton campaign had interacted with foreign leaders — including Ukrainian, it appears — for election advantage.

Which I guess is why we need Twitter — to allow the president to push news the press won’t cover. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Twitter,

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insider corruption political challengers

Straw Candidacy

Sara Gideon, candidate, Portland,

“No Corporate PACs,” says a Facebook ad by the Sara Gideon for U.S. Senate campaign, “Just You.”

“Gideon is running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2020,” the Portland Press Herald reports, noting that “fighting corporate money in politics” has been a prime “focus of her campaign.”

Yet, as Democratic Speaker of the Maine House, the challenger ran something called the Gideon Leadership PAC that raked in a majority of its funds from corporations such as Aetna, American Express, AT&T, Comcast, Eli Lilly, Time Warner, Verizon, Visa, and Walmart. The Maine Examiner informs that “records from the Maine Ethics Commission show she has built her career, and funded efforts to boost her statewide support, with contributions from large corporations.”

Last month, Gideon was slapped with a Federal Election Commission complaint for violating campaign finance law forbidding one person or entity from making contributions that are reimbursed by another. Gideon made numerous personal contributions to Democrats running for federal office only to turn around and have her leadership PAC reimburse her for the expense.

Her PAC being the true donor, Speaker Gideon is what’s known as a straw donor.

But it gets worse, explains Erin Chlopak, a former FEC official and currently with the Campaign Legal Center. “Corporations cannot make contributions to a federal campaign, and you can’t circumvent that ban by using a straw donor to funnel money originally from a company to a federal candidate.”

A spokesperson for Gideon’s campaign blamed “incorrect advice.” 

At her level of corporate involvement, I’d say the “incorrect advice” was to emphasize the anti-corporate money pledge.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Sara Gideon, candidate, Portland,

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insider corruption

A Safe Bet

Washington DC, corruption, sports gambling,

“We certainly cannot comment,” said a spokesman for the Chief Financial Officer of the nation’s capital city, “on documents that are not supposed to be public.”

Welcome to Washington, D.C., where governing is done opaquely.

In a typically shady political maneuver, a $215 million contract was awarded to Intralot, a Greek company, to manage the region’s newly legalized sports gambling. 

Citizens were not supposed to learn that Intralot subcontracted with city political insiders.

“Confidential city records obtained by The Washington Post,” the paper reported Saturday, “show that those who would benefit from the no-bid contract include a former D.C. State Board of Education official, the head of a marketing company that worked on the political campaigns of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and her protege, council member Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4), and an executive whose company lost a contract at a city homeless shelter because of allegedly falsified documents.”

“Every time, there will be politically connected CBEs attached to a contract of this size,” Council Chairman Phil Mendelson generously explained. “It’s how business is done everywhere.”

“This is why we have a competitive process to begin with,” Councilmember David Grosso countered, “to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen and you don’t give a contract to your friends.”

The sports betting bill was introduced by Councilmember Jack Evans, who just resigned from the troubled Metro transit system after an investigation found he “knowingly” broke ethics rules. He is also “the subject of a federal probe into whether he improperly used his public office to benefit paying clients of a consulting business he owns.” 

All in a day’s work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Washington DC, corruption, sports gambling,

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insider corruption term limits

House-Cleaning & Law-Following

Catherine Pugh, corruption, Baltimore,

Larry Hogan, Maryland’s popular Republican governor, has vowed to “clean house” in the wake of the scandals rocking the “private” non-profit University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), set up by the State of Maryland. 

It isn’t just former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned from the UMMS board after it was disclosed the board had purchased $500,000 worth of her self-published children’s book, “Healthy Holly.” Yep, it’s always for the children. (Pugh also resigned as mayor after the FBI raided her home and office.)

In fact, nine of the 23 UMMS board members had money-making contracts with the system they “manage.” Not to mention that a recent Post exposé detailed how former state legislator and long-time board member, Francis Kelly, whose legislation established the system, had multi-million-dollar insurance contracts with UMMS.

Yet, as The Washington Post reports, “state law long has called for housecleaning . . . specifying that board members can’t serve more than two consecutive five-year terms.”

Gov. Hogan and his predecessors — both Republican and Democrat — simply ignored the law, reappointing board members beyond the limits.

“If members were allowed to essentially stay on the board in perpetuity,” former state senator, now U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) argued, “it’s a direct threat to the independence and accountability of the board.” 

Abandoning term limits, State Senator Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City) told the Post, was “part of the problem,” resulting in self-dealing.

Hmmm, think they’ll ever apply this knowledge to establishing term limits on their own powerful legislative bodies?

So much corruption, too few limits. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Catherine Pugh, corruption, Baltimore,

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