Tag: president

United States of Corruption

Post author By CS Admin
Post date December 1, 2016
2 Comments on United States of Corruption

Romney, Trump, crow, corruption, dinner, illustration

When Hillary Clinton assured her insider sponsors (as we learned through WikiLeaks) that there would be a crucial difference between what she tells the people and what her actual policies would be, she was not merely admitting to a private and a public face.

The President is legally, and by honor, bound to serve the American people, not Goldman-Sachs. What she was confessing to was more than the mere appearance of a conflict of interests.

She boasted a plan of betrayal.

In that light, President-elect Donald Trump’s international business deals seem … what? His first diplomatic meeting — with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — included his daughter and partner-in-business Ivanka.

It seems to at least wander into conflict-of-interest territory, if not stake claim and hoist up a flag proclaiming Trumpistan America!

So I was very pleased, yesterday, when the President-elect vowed to step out from the running of his global business and branding empire.

Earlier, he had brushed off conflict-of-interest concerns, saying he could run his empire and … ours.

Apparently, his new White House appointees have convinced him that this business dealing while President was a huge problem. “I feel it is visually important,” he explained Wednesday morning, “as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”

Thanks, Steve Bannon?

Or, maybe, Mitt Romney, with whom he dined* the night before?

I hope Mr. Trump follows through with this, as well as distance himself from business partner Ivanka as unofficial policy advisor.

Americans did not reject Corrupt Hillary only to wind up with a Corrupt Trump set.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags business, corruption, Donald Trump, Ivanka, Mitt Romney, president

Accountability moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers too much government U.S. Constitution

Term Limits Trump

Donald Trump, term limits, president, first, illustration

Entering his campaign’s homestretch, underdog Donald J. Trump gave an important speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He emphasized his support for term limits in what he called his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again.”

“[R]estoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington” is the top item on Trump’s agenda, along with a pledge to begin the drive for “a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress” on his very first day in the Oval Office.

Public disgust with the corrupt status quo in Washington — and the hope that he will shake things up — drove Trump’s victory.

Yet, today, the Elections Committee of Michigan’s House of Representatives hears testimony on several bills to weaken or repeal term limits. Have the limits lost public support? Not on your life.

Politicians simply want to stay ensconced in power, reaping the many benefits they’ve bestowed upon themselves. They want to stay in power longer.

Just look to California. Back in 2012, a dishonest ballot explanation tricked voters into thinking they were tightening their term limits law. But what they were actually doing was voting to weaken it.

Now, Golden State legislators can stay in the same seat for a dozen years. And special interests have noticed. They’re “investing” more heavily than ever before.

The Los Angeles Times summarized the result in its headline: “Longer terms for California’s Legislature mean a flood of cash from interest groups …”

Here’s for enacting real term limits at every level of government. And if the politicians and special interests don’t like it — good!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags agenda, Donald Trump, president, term limits, U.S. Term Limits

ballot access general freedom government transparency media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

A Brexit Effect?

gamble, betting, HIllary Clinton, Donald Trump, president, presidency, election, voting, illustration, creative commons

Before the Brexit vote, the likelihood of British secession from the European Union garnered a mere 25 percent chance. That was according to European betting markets, which are usually more accurate. In June, the Brits voted Brexit.

Donald Trump has made much hay of this, understandably.

On Tuesday, the odds of a Trump victory hit the same mark: 25 percent.

Gwynn Guilford’s report on this was drolly titled “Donald Trump has the same odds of winning as Jon Snow ruling Westeros, according to betting markets.”

On June 11, Business Insider had reported that Hillary was increasing her lead; on October 18, it exulted that the Irish betting markets had “already declared a winner” — not Trump. On November 1, the news aggregator merely noted that Moody’s is calling the election a landslide for Clinton.

But BI is also covering the scandal that has disturbed the Clinton camp. There’s no love lost between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, explains Natasha Bertrand in “‘The Antichrist personified’: ‘Open warfare’ and antipathy toward Clinton is reportedly fueling the FBI leaks.” The meat of her representation is that “much of the agents’ frustration … may boil down to partisanship”; the FBI is “Trumpland.”

Yet the article ends quoting another FBI official insisting that both Trump and Clinton are awful candidates.

A plausible judgment.

Whether late-in-the-game revelations of Clinton corruption and FBI probing can defy current odds and produce a Clinton defeat remains to be seen. As of Thursday evening, polls-only forecasts placed the odds of winning at 67/33 in favor of Mrs. Clinton, while electionbettingodds.com placed them at 70.2/29.2.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. Late-breaking Brexit news: The United Kingdom’s high court ruled yesterday that Parliament must vote to approve Brexit before the secession can proceed.

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Tags betting, creative commons, Donald Trump, election, gamble, Hillary Clinton, illustration, presidency, president, voting

meme

There must be…

There must be a less excruciating way to find the least qualified person in the country.

Tags democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, meme, president

Accountability insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies responsibility

Hillary Futures

Hillary Clinton, lies, truth, untrustworthy, immigration, trade, drug war, war, Bosnia, Surveillance, Gay Rights, illustration

Trust must be earned; Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t earned it.

And yet, if the polls hold, Mrs. Clinton will be elected the next president of these United States — the first-ever female commander-in-chief, sure, but viewed by a clear majority of Americans as untrustworthy.

Part of the problem is her husband Bill. The former president has been accused of inappropriate sexual advances and liaisons … and even sex crimes. Hillary’s campaign rightly keeps reminding people that he is not on the ballot. But wasn’t Hillary going to have Bill “run the economy”?

Besides, what’s most relevant is how she defended her philandering husband against his women accusers, with threats, intimidation, and a decided lack of feminist solidarity.

Older folks remember “Travelgate” (a self-serving gaucherie); even Millennials should recall the Bosnian “sniper fire” (self-aggrandizing fib). Then there’s Benghazi. Documents obtained by Congress show Mrs. Clinton immediately telling her daughter that the attack was a planned terrorist attack by an al-Qaeda affiliate. Nonetheless, Hillary publicly blamed the attack on an Internet video.

It was “extremely careless” for Hillary to have set up a private email server, vulnerable to foreign hacking. But how sly to use BleachBit to destroy her hard drive, erasing any money trail. And then, she responded to reporters asking if she wiped her server: “Like with a cloth or something?” Chutzpah.

Ugliest, though, was one of the earliest: cattle futures.

Evidence convinces me that Hillary took a nearly $100,000 bribe disguised as profits from trading cattle futures that she did not actually trade. James Blair, “who at the time was outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas’ largest employer,” helped Clinton supposedly “out of friendship, not to seek political gain for his state-regulated client.”

The windfall profit was more than lawyer Hillary and Attorney General (and then Governor) Bill earned together annually from their two fulltime jobs. Quite a risky “gamble.” Does Hillary seem like a reckless gambler?

So many scandals and lies. From the next president.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bosnia, emails, Hillary Clinton, lies, president, Travelgate, trust

Accountability Common Sense general freedom ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

America After November

activism, politics, elections, initiatives, president, Trump, Clinton, meme, illustration

Yesterday, I bemoaned the disaster that is this year’s presidential race. But big whup. As the LifeLock commercial rightly asks, “Why monitor a problem if you don’t fix it?”

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the next president. That means we have our work cut out for us. And we can’t wait for the 2020 presidential race to fix the problem. We must immediately assert citizen power to create an effective check on government-gone-wild.

So, what to do?

First, let’s admit that fixing Washington isn’t easy. We must fight the Feds through national organizations, of course, but we actually gain greater leverage by working closer to home — at local and state levels.

We need to elect mayors, governors, legislators and councilmembers in 2017 and 2018, men and women who will fight for free markets and against cronyism. And stand up to the federal government.

And where we have the power of ballot initiatives and recall, let’s use it.

By Inauguration Day, we can be changing the conversation in most of the top 25 media markets. How? By petitioning the right issues onto the ballot. By April and May, voters in those cities and counties can directly enact those reforms. Next November, Ohio and Washington state voters can weigh in with ballot initiatives.

Sadly, tragically, it’s too late to stop campaign 2016’s tornado from doing damage. The next disaster of an administration is on its way. But we can create a competing agenda to the Hillary Clinton or the Donald Trump agenda.

A pro-liberty agenda. Starting now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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