Tag: 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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term limits

Senatorial Senility

“We have the oldest Senate in American history,” Roxanne Roberts writes in The Washington Post. 

Roberts rattles off the five octogenarians — Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), age 88; Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), age 87; Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), age 87; Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), age 86; and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), age 81 — and tells us that “Twenty-three members of the Senate are in their 70s,” noting that “only one is under 40.”

That fledgling 34-year-old whippersnapper is newly elected Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff. But being 30 years younger than the current Senate average doesn’t make him better, that’s for sure.

Age isn’t the problem. Not exactly.

My issue with octogenarian Senators Feinstein, Grassley, Shelby, Inhofe and Leahy is that they’ve been politicians in Washington for the last 28, 40, 43, 34, and 46 years, respectively.

That’s way too long. They stop being one of us, representing us. And, left, right or in-between, we know it.

“Senior senators often stay for decades,” Roberts argues, “because voters are reluctant to give up the perks of incumbency: Seniority, committee chairmanships and all the money poured into their states.”

Ha! The idea that actual voters are unwilling to “give up the perks of incumbency” is laughable. It’s the incumbents themselves who leverage their votes in Congress to dramatically out-fundraise their challengers. 

Voters rarely get much choice.

No wonder, then, that when people got a chance to vote to term-limit their own congressmen — they did so enthusiastically. 

President Truman once quipped that legislative term limits would help “cure senility, and seniority — both terrible legislative diseases.” He understood that the Senate’s age problem is not time on the planet. It is the time in office.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Another example was the late Sen. Thad Cochran, who thankfully decided to step down in 2018 — at 80 years of age after 44 years in Congress — none too soon.

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media and media people

Media Corrections

media, news, cracks, discredit

“Our focus was to get Trump out of office,” explains CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester in video surreptitiously recorded and recently released by the gotcha video journalists of Project Veritas. 

The group had reached higher at the cable network, last December, unveiling comments made by CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker and Political Director David Chalian during an internal conference call to spike coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story . . . with plenty of obvious political prejudice. 

Last summer, as the presidential campaign settled into a two-man race pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Joe Biden, The New York Times reported that, “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says,” adding, “The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment.”

“There may not have been Russian bounties on US troops in Afghanistan after all,” reads the Military Times’ headline, after the Biden Administration acknowledged “low to moderate confidence” in the intel that previously seemed gospel-true.

Calling it “one of the most-discussed and consequential news stories of 2020,” Glenn Greenwald notes, “It was also, as it turns out, one of the most baseless.”

Yet another big narrative has unraveled with the Washington, D.C., medical examiner concluding that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick “suffered two strokes and died of natural causes.”

“So The New York Times on January 8 published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence — that Officer Sicknick’s skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died,” Greenwald summarizes at Substack, “and, just like the now-discredited Russian bounty story also unveiled by that same paper, cable outlets and other media platforms repeated this lie over and over in the most emotionally manipulative way possible.”

That’s “the news”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

The Audacity of the Swamp

swamp, corruption, Washington DC, politics

A crony anti-infrastructure plan.

That, writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason, is “the best description of the Biden administration’s proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.”

Democrats are the masters of favoring a select few at the expense of the electorate and calling it the Public Good. Their woke moralism, egalitarianism, and other pieties effectively mask their party’s accomplished crony scheming.

Right now, though, the heady audacity of spending trillions of dollars we do not (yet) possess is all the mask the Democrats appear to need. 

Does anyone talk about the Swamp anymore?

Never drained, it is back with a vengeance:

  • “A large share of the plan . . . is a massive handout to private companies. The proposal includes $300 billion to promote advanced manufacturing, $174 billion for electric vehicles, $100 billion for broadband, $100 billion for electric utility industry, and more.”
  • “Biden’s plan also includes hundreds of billions that have nothing even remotely to do with infrastructure.”
  • “To the extent that Democrats are trying to pay for this spending with taxes, they’re doing it in a way that belies their claim that this plan will result in a boost in quality infrastructure.”

The tax increase in the plan is to eliminate established tax “preferences” for fossil fuel companies. This would be politically popular with Democratic Party supporters, feeding their enviro-lust to lash out at what are commonly perceived as destroyers of the planet. But tax something more, get less. And a huge part of our infrastructure relies upon — indeed, consists in — the fossil fuel industry. So there will be less infrastructure investment in that realm.

But that doesn’t hurt the cronies. It hurts other folks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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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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Accountability national politics & policies

Up, Up and Away?

Space Force

The new U.S. Space Force wants “flexibility.” It has requested from Congress the ability to purchase and use satellites and other developing technology with agility.

That is, it wants permission to follow an “alternative acquisition system” — as explained in a “23-page report to Congress from the U.S. Air Force, the current parent of the Space Force,” according to Ed Adamczyk for United Press International. Adamczyk says that “Congress mandated a retooling of the Space Force acquisition system when it created the new branch of the military in December.”

What the new Space Force yearns for certainly looks like off-budget funding of technological assets. 

The official wording speaks of a reduction in “space portfolio constraints via incremental funding,” which Adamczyk explains as an “expanded ability to pay for space systems without regular oversight or constant requests for congressional approval.” 

That, he writes, “is a constant in the report.”

The point? To “rapidly leverage industry innovation to outpace space threats.” 

While it is popular in ‘paranoid’ circles to warn of ‘one world government’ threats to form a ‘new world order,’ this is transparently a push to effect a breakaway above-world government that sure would change the balance of world power.

Scurrying further down a long and winding rabbit hole, it might also be a way to legitimize currently unconstitutional military-industrial complex programs, perhaps part of the black budget Pentagon/HUD double-digit unaccounted-for spending and income. 

Space Force is ambitious. Good. But it craves scant constraint from Congress.

Not to mention the citizens of these earthbound United States. 

Not good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption

Capital Jack

Jack Evans, corruption, Washington D.C.,

“If I can make it there,” goes the song New York, New York, “I’ll make it anywhere.”

But, when it comes to self-dealing, corrupt politics, isn’t it really Washington, D.C. that deserves the moniker of Big Rotten-to-the-Core Apple?

Meet Jack Evans, who is making it . . . er, competing . . . for a seat on the city council in the nation’s capital city. 

Which seat, you ask? 

His own. 

For the last three decades, 29 years to be precise, Evans represented (theoretically, at least) Ward 2 . . . the council’s longest serving member. 

Until Councilmember Evans resigned his position mere weeks ago, on January 17. Under pressure, both from constituents by way of a recall petition and from the council, which was set to expel Evans, after finding him guilty of “prolonged and egregious wrongdoing.”

Not to mention that Evans is also the subject of a federal probe, with the FBI raiding his home last year. And Evans had previously resigned his position as Chairman of the Board of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) for the same longstanding pattern of egregious influence peddling.

Now Capital Jack enters the political arena anew as the consummate professional, undaunted by his unfitness for gainful employment outside of politics.

“It is tremendous chutzpah to do that,” one Ward 2 resident observed of Evans’ quick comeback.

Not to mention that the special election for Mr. Evans to compete for the council seat he resigned from in disgrace will cost city taxpayers a cool million bucks.

“I want to wake up in a city” — hum a few bars! — “where corruption never sleeps.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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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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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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crime and punishment property rights U.S. Constitution

Injustice Blocked

asset forfeiture, theft, police, corruption,

Civil asset forfeiture is one of those government practices that good people, when informed of it, often express, at first, incredulity. How can something like that exist in these United States?!?

Good question.

One reason seems to be that very incredulity. Normal Americans trust their government not to be evil. When shown that it regularly engages in actual highway robbery, then denial — ‘this cannot be happening.’

But it is.

Another reason it exists? It is so profitable. 

For those in government, anyway. They get to fill their department coffers without having to ask for tax hikes. They — and by ‘they’ I mean ‘the police’ and government attorneys at state and local levels — just take the wealth. 

Indeed, police routinely “keep whatever they can grab off anybody they arrest, claiming it’s all proceeds or property connected to criminal activities,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason, “and using it to line their own pockets. This incentivizes police to look for people who have assets that can be seized.” 

In South Carolina, Shackford reports, police agencies “across the state had seized more than $17 million in assets across three years. In one-fifth of the cases, nobody was charged or even arrested for a crime.”

Fortunately, there is good news. “Circuit Judge Steven H. John has ruled that the South Carolina’s civil asset forfeiture regulations violate the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the citizens.” 

Unfortunately, the fight against this evil practice is far from over. 

But maybe the judge’s ruling will inspire citizens to petition their government and place politicians’ greed into check.

And might not this judge inspire other judges around the country?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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