Voters Across Political Spectrum Strongly Oppose Political Corruption

 

The charts above are from the Data for Progress Poll -- done between August 1st and 3rd of a nationwide sample of 1,187 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Trump Administration Poised To Be The Most Corrupt Of All

As the chart above shows (from the New York Times), Donald Trump has business interest in many countries around the world, and many of those countries are critical to the interests of the United States. This might not be so bad if Trump would sell off all of those business interests before he is sworn in as the president.

Unfortunately, he has, at least so far, refused to do that. He has not placed his holdings in a blind trust (as other presidents and government officials have done in the past). Instead, he has said he will place his children in charge of those business interests, and inferred to the New York Times that he may even retain control of some or all of those business interests.

This means that every decision he makes as president could affect his own business interests, and will pose the question each time -- was Trump's action to further the best interests of the United States, or to make himself and his family even richer than they already are? The answers will be important, because what's good for the United States will not always be what is good for Trump and his family's businesses.

Unfortunately, it looks like that corruption may have already started. The Argentine newspaper La Nacion reports that when the Argentine president called Trump to congratulate him on winning the presidency, Trump asked him to clear the way for permits he needs to build a new hotel in Buenos Aires. Those permits have now been granted. Corruption? It certainly looks like it.

The definition of government corruption is to use a government held position to enrich yourself or your friends and family -- and that seems to be exactly what Trump has done (even before being sworn in). And that's not the only instance. Rumor has it that Trump made the same kind of requests when called by the leaders of Great Britain and India.

Trump's refusal to divest his business interests or put them in a true blind trust should trouble all Americans. That refusal has the Trump administration poised to become the most corrupt administration in the history of this country.

The "Spoils" Of Lobbying The Federal Government

The image at left (from sodahead.com) is pretty representative of what is happening on the federal government level. Corporations spend millions of dollars to lobby Congress, and in return they get billions of dollars back from the government (in contracts, subsidies, and tax breaks).

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship have written an excellent article on this called "Dividing the Spoils". Here is some of what they had to say:

Consider the new report from the watchdog Sunlight Foundation: From 2007 to 2012, the two hundred most politically active corporations in the United States spent almost $6 billion for lobbying and campaign contributions. And they received more than $4 trillion in US government contracts and other forms of assistance. That’s $760 for every dollar spent on influence, a stunning return on investment.

Peter Overby at National Public Radio reported that “Military contractors lead the list of contract recipients, and they hover in the upper ranks of companies with the biggest campaign contributions.” Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin – all of them made hefty political donations to Republican campaigns. Not coincidentally, this year the Pentagon is due to spend $163 billion on research, development and procurement.

Then look at who’s expected to be the new Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee – Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Breathlessly, The Washington Post writes, “This could mean additional funding for the Navy to modernize its fleet and potentially benefit contractors such as shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls.” Guess what company describes itself as “the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a major contributor to the economic growth of the state,” not to mention a major contributor this year to Thad Cochran’s re-election campaign? Why, shiver our timbers, it’s Huntington Ingalls.

“The other dominant corporate sector is finance,” Overby said. “Some of the country’s biggest financial institutions — Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others — are the top recipients of federal aid. That’s because it cost so much to rescue the financial sector after the 2008 market crash.”

Throw in the health insurers, media and telecommunications, retailers, Big Pharma – no wonder Washington’s K Street is lobbying’s road to Paradise. But it runs in both directions. NPR’s Overby talked with political scientist David Primo, who thinks Congress may be spending more time studying The Godfather than Robert’s Rules of Order. Primo told him, “The conventional wisdom out there is that businesses are going to Washington, writing checks and expecting big returns. But the other side of the story is that members of Congress may implicitly threaten businesses that if they don’t change their policy, or if they are not heavily involved in the political process, that bad things might happen to them.”

It’s not personal, Sonny, it’s strictly business. Our government has become a clearing house for corporations and plutocrats whose dollars grease the wheels for lucrative contracts and easy regulation. It’s all pay for play, and look the other way. Partisans of the system say, hey, it’s just business as usual, but that, of course, is the problem. We were struck by this headline in The Washington Post after the November elections: “Parties head back to Capitol to begin carving up spoils, remains from midterms.” Right: Not only leadership posts and committee chairmanships, but carving, dividing up the spoils also means divvying up the loot. And those contributions were not made for the sake of charity.

Once upon a time the GOP stood for Grand Old Party — now it stands for Guardians of Privilege, and this is payback time for everything from fracking to getting the big banks off the hook; from doing away with the minimum wage and coddling off-shore corporate tax avoiders to privatizing Medicare and Social Security; to gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, even the US Postal Service.

And that’s just for starters. House Speaker John Boehner, his majority now greater than ever, will govern as you might expect from the man who once handed out checks from the tobacco industry to members on the floor. And Mitch McConnell, finally in his ascendancy as Senate Majority Leader, will manipulate more powerfully than ever the Capitol Hill and K Street mechanisms that he has mastered – helped along by the clever placement of loyal former staff members in positions of influence. They assist him in the dispensation of favors to donors from on high. “We’re very excited,” one Republican lobbyist told the Post, the understatement of the century.

Democrats, meanwhile, are so compromised by their own addiction to Big Money they have forgotten their history as champion of the working stiff, the little folks down there at the bottom. The great problems facing everyday people in America – inequality, stagnant wages, children in poverty, our degraded infrastructure and stressed environment — are not being seriously addressed because the political class is afraid to offend the people who write the checks — the corporations and the rich. Everyone else can be safely ignored.

The New Jersey "Bully" Is Exposed

(The photo above showing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie with his aide, Bridget Anne Kelly, is from the website NorthJersey.com.)

The story about the Ft. Lee (New Jersey) lane closings leading to the George Washington Bridge has just got interesting. Those lane closings jammed up traffic and caused many commuters long delays. Among those experiencing delays were emergency vehicles -- with one woman who had a heart attack dying because her ambulance was delayed so long.

New Jersey Democrats immediately blamed Governor Chris Christie for the closures, but Christie played it off as just a "traffic survey" and said he had nothing to do with it. That was exposed almost immediately since New York officials said they were not aware of any survey (and the two states share port authority duties, including roads leading to those bridges). But while there were serious suspicions, there was no evidence that Christie had anything to do with the lane closures.

That has now changed. E-mails have been discovered from Christie top aide Bridget Anne Kelly, and these e-mails make it clear that she was involved in ordering the lane closures, and it was being done as a retaliation to the mayor of Ft. Lee (who had refused to support Christie in his re-election bid).

Yesterday, Christie called a press conference and tried to distance himself from the charges that he had ordered the retaliatory action himself. He blustered that he knew nothing about it, and said he had fired Ms. Kelly for lying to him about the affair. Frankly though, this smells like Kelly is being offered up as a token victim (an aide willing to fall on her sword to protect the governor she served). People who know Ms. Kelly say she is not the type of person who would act without approval from her boss (Christie).

Christie is the type of governor who has a top-down administration -- meaning he has a firm control over what his aides and employees do in his name. It is hard to believe he knew nothing about this political retaliation, and if he didn't, why didn't he find out what had happened before it was exposed by the press (since the story is now more than 3 months old)?

It seems that Christie has a reputation in New Jersey, and its not a good one. Instead of the jolly person he exhibits in public, he is known to be thin-skinned and vindictive and quick to retaliate against anyone who has the audacity to oppose him. State Senator Barbara Buono, who ran against him in 2012, says many in New Jersey (including some Democrats) fear the governor, and keep quiet out of a desire to keep their name off a Christie "enemies list". In short, he is a bully -- and now he has been publicly exposed as such.

The real question now is whether this will hurt him in a run for the presidency in 2016. That's still a long way off, but it looks like this story may have strong legs and will be in the news for quite a while -- and you can be sure any possible GOP opponents won't hesitate to remind primary voters of it. Moderate Republicans are not going to like supporting a tarnished candidate -- and his enemies, the teabaggers, while they might have liked his retaliating against a Democrat, won't like his apologizing to that same Democrat. But I suspect he has hurt himself most among Independents, who are already disgusted with most politicians -- and no party nominee can be elected president without grabbing a majority of the Independent vote.

It will be interesting to see where this story goes in the coming weeks. I have a feeling that much more will be exposed, and it won't be good for the bully in the governor's mansion.

3 Out Of 4 United States Citizens Believe Their Government Is Corrupt

Here is one more survey showing just what a low opinion of their government officials the United States citizens have. The Gallup Poll surveyed about 1,000 adults in 129 different countries, asking them if they thought corruption was widespread in their own country or not (with the margin of error in the different countries varying from 1.7 to 5.6 points).

The chart above shows how the citizens in the three North American countries viewed corruption in their own governments. Less than half of Canadians (46%) thought corruption was widespread in their government, while about 63% of Mexicans thought their government had widespread corruption. But the lowest opinion of the honesty of politicians was in the United States, where 73% of the public (or about 3 out of 4 people) said corruption was widespread in their government.

You can go to the Gallup website to see the public perception of government corruption in the other 126 countries.

DeLay Finally Goes On Trial

It seems like it's taken forever, but the state of Texas is finally taking corrupt Republican politician Tom DeLay to court.   Back in 2005, DeLay was indicted by a Travis County (Austin) Grand Jury for money laundering and conspiracy.   It was against the law in Texas for corporations to fund political campaigns, so DeLay took corporate donations and funneled them through the Republican National Committee and then returned them to Texas Republican candidates.

The charges led to DeLay's resignation from his leadership position in the House of Representatives in 2006.   Since that time DeLay has been fighting the charges, taking them all the way to Texas' highest court.   A couple of the charges were dismissed, but some serious felonies remain.

After the charges were upheld by Texas courts, DeLay then tried to get the trial moved out of Austin and into his home county of Fort Bend (where he hoped to find some jurors more amenable to him).   That also failed as Judge Pat Priest ruled DeLay would not have a problem getting a fair trial in Austin.

Now it's time for DeLay to pay the piper since all his efforts to put justice off have failed.   Yesterday, jury selection started.   DeLay played fast and loose with the election laws of Texas and thought he was too powerful to be caught and punished.   He was wrong.   He was caught, and hopefully he will now be punished also.

Personally, I think he'll look great in a prison jumpsuit.

Governor Perry's Shady Land Deal

For a while now Governor Rick Perry has been accusing his opponent, blue-dog conservative Democrat Bill White, of trying to hide some ethical lapses by not releasing his tax returns all the way back to when he worked for the federal government's Energy Department (although he has released those tax returns for the last few years). Perry has a minor point because while White tried to give the impression he hadn't made any money off his oil investments, it has come out that he made millions by selling off much of his oil stocks.

But now it looks like Perry may have some even more egregious ethical lapses of his own. While he has claimed that all of his business dealings have been open and above-board, it now looks like at least one land deal he was involved in could have actually been a political pay-off -- or at the very least an unreported gift of hundreds of thousands of dollars which would be a violation of Texas law.

The property in question is a half-acre lot in the resort community of Horseshoe Bay. The Dallas Morning News (DMN) has investigated the governor's purchase and sale of that property. They hired a nonpartisan property appraiser, and his appraisals show both the buying and selling prices to be way out of line. The property was worth a lot more than Perry paid for it and it was worth a lot less than he sold it for.

The development at Horseshoe Bay is owned by Doug Jaffe, whose family has been politically connected for many years. In 2000 Jaffe sold the plot of land to State Senator Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay), a friend and political ally of Governor Perry. Fraser turned around and sold the land to Perry for $300,000. The DMN appraiser said this was significantly below it's market value at that time, which was $450,000.

If this is true, and there's no reason to believe it's not true, then this would constitute a gift to the governor of $150,000 (ostensibly from Fraser, but more likely from Jaffe). The governor did not report this $150,000 gift as is required by state law (obviously thinking the gift could be hidden under the guise of a land deal).

Then in 2007 the governor sold the land to Alan Moffatt, a business partner and friend of Jaffe's, for $1.15 million. The DMN appraiser says the land was only worth about $800,000 at the time. Either Moffatt is a very bad businessman or this was another gift to Rick Perry -- a $350,000 gift, which he again failed to report as required by Texas law.

Had he paid and sold the land for its real value, Rick Perry could have realized a legitimate profit of $350,000 (since it's worth when he bought it was $450,000 and the worth when he sold it was $800,000). But instead, by buying the land below its value and selling it for an inflated price, he actually received a profit of $850,000. That means he received gifts totaling around $500,000. It leads me to wonder just what Jaffe and Moffatt received for the half-million dollars.

Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, says, "The man on the street on this would think that this is a series of deals that smell of special favors being created for elected officials to curry their favor."

She's right. That's exactly what I think.

Rangel Should Be Expelled From House

There is a political comedy playing itself out right now on Capital Hill -- and it's not a very funny one for Democrats or the American people. Last Thursday the House Ethics Committee announced they have drawn up charges of some kind of violations of House ethics against Rep Charles Rangel (D-New York). The exact nature of the charges are to be revealed in the coming week.

This is not the first time Rangel has been accused of ethical violations. Last March Rangel gave up his chairmanship of the very powerful House Ways and Means Committee after he was admonished by the Ethics Committee for accepting corporate gifts in violation of House rules (Trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008). Now there are new charges pending.

House aides say negotiations are ongoing to head off the coming House trial on the new charges. Some Democrats want Rangel to admit his guilt and accept some kind of an admonishment. They think the trial on ethics charges will look bad for the Democratic Party with an election coming up. Rangel is resisting the negotiation efforts and says he wants to defend himself in the upcoming House trial.

I personally hope Rangel gets what he wants -- a fair trial. Because the negotiations are turning out to be a poor substitute for justice. If Rangel is guilty of the new charges, and I believe he probably is, then an admonishment is not enough of a punishment. He should be expelled from the House of Representatives.

If the Democrats didn't want a trial right before the election then they should have expelled him from the House back in March when the first case was decided (and they already knew other charges were pending before the Ethics Committee). They had their chance to take care of the matter and chose not to do that.

One of the main themes of the Democratic campaign back in 2008 was to clean up the corruption on Capital Hill. But to do that right they must punish the corruption no matter what party the offender is in. A Democrat should be punished just like a Republican would be because a corrupt Democrat is just as bad as a corrupt Republican.

By negotiating a deal which would allow Rangel to remain in the House of Representatives, the Democrats are giving the perception that they are trying to cover up or excuse the wrongdoing of a member of their party. Frankly, a trial happening right before the election doesn't make them look nearly as bad as these negotiations do.

The American people are fed up with corruption in the Congress. The Democrats (and Republicans) need to deal harshly with those found to be in violation of House ethics rules -- without regard to what party they are in.

More Political Corruption

I am a left-wing Democrat and proud of it. But that does not mean I am willing to put up with political corruption from a Democrat any more than I would if it came from a Republican. Both are equally bad and equally deserving of condemnation.

That's why I was disgusted to learn this week of the unforgiveable actions of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. After being elected on a platform of cleaning up government (the previous governor of Illinois is a Republican currently serving time for corruption), Blagojevich turns out to be just another corrupt politician, who wants to use his office to enrich himself.

Not long ago, Blagojevich actually said anyone could tap his conversations and they would only find that he obeys the law. Well, the U.S. Justice Department took him up on that challenge, tapped his office and home phones, and it only took them six weeks to make a case against him for corruption.

Blagojevich used his office to solicit and try to force payment of bribes from businessmen and others. But perhaps his most egregious crime was trying to sell the senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. As Illinois' governor, it was his job to appoint a replacement for Obama when he resigned the senate seat. But it was never his to sell!

He was caught on tape saying the senate appointment should get him a high-paying job at a non-profit organization or an organization affiliated with a labor union. He also wanted a job for his wife that would pay at least $150,000 a year. If he didn't get what he wanted, he was going to appoint himself, and then use the senate seat to enrich himself. What a scumbag!

The sad part is that as long as he is still governor, he can still legally make the senate appointment. He has that right unless he resigns, is convicted or is impeached. If he had an ounce of decency left, he would resign and let his Lt. Governor make the senate appointment. At this point, any appointment made by Blagojevich would be tarnished.

This whole matter is disgusting. I hope he gets at least as long a sentence as his Republican predecessor.