Foundations of Pay to Play

 

The Clinton Foundation, or should we call it the Clinton’s Fundnation, where donations of varying sizes were deposited often in direct correlation to the length of time they were granted with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Well, not all the visits with Secretary of State Clinton were linked to contributions to the Clinton Foundation; some were linked to very impressive payments for speeches by one former President William Jefferson Clinton. Of course we are told that there is no smoking gun or definitive proof or actual links, well, provable links. It is remarkable the degree to which far too many highly placed law enforcement agencies and individuals voluntarily develop tunnel vision. It is a miracle they can drive a car safely with such obstructed eyesight. Yet the news has been filled with reports about the horrors and downright dastardly practices and unconscionable business relations which apparently have plagued Donald Trump over the years. We can only assume that previously law enforcement and business oversight and enforcement departments have suffered an equal measure of tunnel vision when it came to policing the business deals of Donald Trump. Of course the surprising item is the lack of law suits brought against Donald Trump if so many of his business dealings were actually as fraudulent as we have been led to believe. There was one business venture though which truly could have qualified as fraudulent had it actually made the guarantees or promises claimed by the media, and that was Trump University. Fortunately for Donald Trump the only actual guarantees given by Trump University were that one might be able to benefit and enrich themselves with the lessons and they would receive a diploma and a picture of them with the facsimile of Donald Trump. The picture with the cardboard Mr. Trump was only worth slightly less than the wisdom one might have gleaned from the lessons. So, there has seemingly been loads of the blind leading the blind in law enforcement around both Presidential candidates if the media reporting on one and the claims of ignoring direct evidence on the other are to be believed. This leads to one big question, which one is the least crooked and least seriously soaked in criminal behavior and thus the lesser choice to be President.

 

I know what you’re thinking, where am I going with this and that I sure started with some twisted and tortured lack of logic. Well, why should editorial commentary here be any less confusing and in the dark than the rest of the media? If you answer is because you have come to expect better, then thank you for your confidence and read on, it will hopefully be worth your time. The problem is that far too many of the politicians are crooked as a broken and twisted ancient oak tree with the varieties of corruption, insider trading (which is actually legal for members of Congress and the members of the Administration of the President), bought and paid for political hacks, politician turned lobbyist and other crimes of unimaginable complexity and criminal behavior obvious even to the most casual of observers which reach out from the rotting central core of the political tree in the ever outward reaching branches seeking new and more imaginable ways to deceive and steal. Are there some politicians who are clean, respectable and trusted to work for their electorate? Astonishingly, yes. Unfortunately they are also the politicians shunned by the opposition party and their own party and unfortunately cannot seem to get together on issues due to their different beliefs and political orientations. If only there were some means of getting the true representatives of the people to work to clean up the rest of the political quagmire, that would be simply grand. Unfortunately most of the truly honest representatives of the people fall into one of a few categories, socialists even bordering on communist, religious conservatives often referred to as the religious right, and the true believers of causes which are as varied as often separate be the narrowest of degrees yet still chasing mutually exclusive dreams as one can paint. There are likely more than a dozen of causes which come under the ecological umbrella from save the whales or the seal cubs to save the rain forests as well as stop acid rain who sometimes protest with the save the oceans and even save the polar bears who have been taking care of themselves quite well. Then there are those who want electric cars, hydrogen cell cars, universal transports which take everyone to their destinations, public transport such as busses, light rail or subways and those who want to ban all vehicles which run on petroleum even including aircraft and the rigs without which we would soon have less choices of food and other goods, but that is not their concern. There are some who desire making the United States a Christian based nation where Christianity would become the recognized religion of their state or even the nation. And then there are our favorites, the constitutionalists who simply desire to have the United States return to the limitations intended by the Founding Fathers.

 

Founding Fathers of the United States

 

Those chasing causes, dreams some call them, are probably the least harmful as they are easily predictable and can be clearly understood. The less than honest politicians are also predictable once their motivations and those who own their pocketbook are understood. There are those who have so many positing bribes, sorry, contributions and charitable donations, which work their way back to the politicians through nefarious and twisted paths making them not so obvious. Let us say that a politician or group of politicians receive contributions to their campaigns and to supportive political action committees (PACs) as well as donations to charities or other groups who also contribute to the election campaigns where all this cash finds its way back to the politicians and they simply promote a bill which provides funding for some aid package helping the poor or the sick in impoverished nations which in turn buy drugs or food using much of the aid from the United States from those who initially arranged the funding from the varied sources for their campaigns. The twisted paths and the indirect funding leads to crossing the eyes of any investigations such as there is nothing directly untoward making these actions prosecutable. There are thousands of scams which have been operating for more years than any care to admit. Ask historians or political studies professors and one can learn that these problems assisted in the fall of empires past and have predated writing. There are theories about what is the oldest profession and it very well may turn out it was politician and the first politician was the individual who convinced the leader of their clan that they needed a religion and they should be the priest or medicine man or any position which did not require brawn as much as brains. That politicians got to eat without having to hunt as hunting was dangerous and too often the hunting parties came back minus one or more members while priests or medicine men stayed at the camp near the fires and out of the rain.

 

We have come a far way since then and now we have entire echelons of politicians in layers upon layers doing all sorts of functions. But in modern society the politician is not the greatest menace, just the most efficient ones where the greatest concentration of money can be found. The menace are those faceless individuals who sit in offices and cubicles making up rules and regulations and even law in some instances when directed to flesh out legislation which is all too often loosely written and paints broad swipes leaving room for interpretations and that leads to mischief. There was a temporary position a number of years back which was referred to as the Regulations Czar whose lead individual was Cass Sunstein known officially as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget. The position was directed to review laws and legislation from the last fifty years or so and define or formulate new regulations which could be enacted with a special emphasis to use these reviews to enact and formulate regulations supporting policies the Administration was having difficulty passing through Congress. How many thousands of additional regulations were discovered hiding in laws recent or ancient we probably will never discern. Things have gotten to a choking point with the numbers of regulations, requirements and other rules holding an equivalence of laws that the average citizen cannot be expected to even have knowledge of the extents and depth of what is considered illegal and can place one on the wrong side of the law in court. The sad truth is difficult to put one’s arms around but be it the United Statesor be it Briton or any nation in Europe or potentially the entire world, the reality is we all break laws as part of our normal everyday lives and the criminality of living increases by thousands of new laws and regulations annually. This is the real criminal output of politicians who are paid to pass laws which outright or through inferred regulations give those who can pay an advantage over the rest of the population. This is the crooked legacy which is almost as criminal as the money stolen from our pockets through taxes, fees or higher prices so that others can benefit from corrupt politicians. This is why elections matter and primary elections this year proved to be the surprising ones which mattered. In the United States the choice is between two political forces either of which will provide the media, and especially us if we choose, more to cover than they will know what to do with. One will have half the media screaming about the illegalities with the other half excusing it while the other will have half most of the media claiming they are completely lost as to what are the motivations of the actions from the White House and others will play the game of guess what’s up next. Either way we will have plenty of news we just as soon would rather tune out, but it will affect our lives and the effects will be anywhere from minor inconveniences to drastic enough to threaten the entire planet. The real problem is none of the candidates, including third party, have even an inkling about the state of the world and what needs be done to repair the most egregious of the difficulties or threats, and it will be some of the threat which will offer the greatest danger if not mitigated and mitigated right out of the gate. Many will claim that will simply cause more difficulty but indifference to the world of problems has worked so well that we’ll gladly risk actually addressing threats and problems over leading from so far behind you may as well not be there at all, which too often was the case, Benghazi anyone? Please America, choose well.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Hopes and Ponderings Concerning Aftermath of American Elections

Let us start with Congress with the presumption that the Republicans will control the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. The Republican leadership, in particular the establishment mainstream Republicans, will very likely misread the opportunity and expectations of them by the American public and especially their base voters and spend all their energies and debates in attempts to bring down President Obama whether through directly attempting to impeach him and failing or by endless hearings against President Obama himself and other members past and present of his administration. There is a definite probability that they would attempt to bring former Attorney General Eric Holder, assuming he ever is replaced which nobody appears to be in any great hurry to find a replacement. Between Fast and Furious and the rest of the litany of assumed misdeeds the Republicans could spend most of the last two years of President Obama’s terms simply holding hearings on Holder and Benghazi, their two favorite subjects for attacking the President. Such a scenario would be the greatest waste of time and missing of opportunity in the history of politics.

 

The Republicans, should they control both houses but not have sufficient numbers to override Presidential vetoes, they should still pass the bills which the American people would see as taking responsible approaches to actually get the government out of the way of the economic engine allowing it to adjust to the situation as it exists and slowly rev up and begin to produce jobs and economic activities which have been moribund for the past six years plus back to the last year and a half of the George W. Bush Presidency. They should not bother trying to repeal or modify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) as such would be a waste of their efforts and not actually showcase their agenda should they ever gain the kind of situation which President Obama enjoyed and squandered; the complete control over the entirety of government with the White House and majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives plus their Senate majority was filibuster proof as they held over sixty seats. The Republicans should have debates to display their agenda for two to three weeks on each grand piece of legislation which would make the core of a government where they were allowed to freely pass their agenda. By having open hearings and discussions they might also be able to get the media to cover these legislative deliberations, even should they attempt to portray them in a negative light, thus placing them before the American public. Granted such a plan depends on the ability and desire of the American public to care about the workings of the Congress and actually see through any slant in the media. Unfortunately, we are more likely to witness the Republicans waste their opportunity and as a result the Democrats might be able to win back the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives as well as retaining the White House as a result of the 2016 elections, but more on this later.

 

President Obama after the election will have even less reason to remain even slightly limited by the Constitution. The President has already shown complete contempt for the Republican controlled House of Representatives and even to ignore the will of the Democratic controlled Senate. This disregard for any convention or limitation will permit President Obama to work on completing the rest of his promises to fundamentally change the United States of America. His intent to mold the United States in his image is just another reflection of his narcissism which knows no boundaries and once the final election which might have any effect upon his ability to rule and rule absolutely, President Obama will finally be cut loose to enact the edicts by Presidential use of a pen and the phone to those minions who he can rely upon to take to the streets if necessary and cause sufficient disturbance to allow him to continue writing executive order after order as he intends. The areas where President Obama would have the greatest influence should he choose is in the makeup of the General staffs of the military since he can request the resignation of any General at his pleasure. He could then replace them with people from within the military who would be more accepting to his desires to limit the use of the military outside of the United States and with no regard to consequences or treaty start redeploying all the military personnel either back home or someplace where their capabilities are least necessary such as the deployment to West Africa to presumably assist with the fight against Ebola. Exactly how combat troops are supposed to engage and fight microscopic targets is beyond my meager ability to figure, but I am sure the President gave them orders which would address such difficulties. But the military is the least of the areas where President Obama could enforce his will.

 

There is the possibility that should the Democrats lose their majority in the Senate that during the current Senate’s lame duck session that Senate Majority Leader Reid could call them back to Washington for an emergency session because a number of Supreme Court Justices had retired such as Justice Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg who is of advanced age and suffers from cancer. Then President Obama could send candidates for ratification and as Senator Harry Reid used the nuclear option which now allows for confirmation of Presidential appointees to only require a majority decision for cloture, thus ending any chance for filibuster, which forces an immediate confirmation vote. President Obama and such a session of the Senate could very easily place as many new and young very leftist Justices onto the Supreme Court as Justices retired allowing such appointments. President Obama could really let loose the Environmental Protection Agency and other Cabinet posts and departments to enact regulations using even the flimsiest of authorizations from actual laws. We might even become aware of other surprises ensconced within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mega-legislative effort. Remember former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment that we had to pass the bill to find out what was in the bill. What else might be hidden in the language of the over two thousand pages of the legislation now law that would allow for more malfeasance.

 

The real problem that arises is, with a compliant Attorney General willing to simply cover up for anything the President or members of his Cabinet or other appointees placed throughout government as well as those willing to act in accordance with the instructions of those who will be tasked with carrying out any edicts or regulatory enactments which originate with the White House and relayed down a pipeline of favorable and willing and dependable government employees, all of whom will have sufficient time in service, this allows all to be completely safe from consequences while performing and enacting new regulations. This is an area where President Obama and his appointees making up his administration including the various Secretaries in the Cabinet as well as the numerous Czars which were not reviewed nor approved by Senate confirmation remaining un-vetted yet holding great power and sway with some even having more influence than the Cabinet Secretaries who presumably held the sole supervisory over their departments thus allowing the President to rewrite regulations almost at will. Exactly how far President Obama is willing and planning to go in remaking the United States is an unknown that will be revealed over the remaining two years of his Presidency with the first hints coming early next year and possibly a little earlier, all depending on election results and how willing the President might be and how far he would risk going. Whatever the coming events, it will prove to be interesting and the only actual unknown is how exciting and challenging these coming events will prove. As the ancient Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times,” and we certainly do live in such times.

 

While we are predicting the future let’s peek into my crystal ball and see who might end up as the Democrat candidate for President in the 2016 election cycle. I might try to also include the Republican candidate but with so many unannounced and almost ready to runs, that prediction is going to have to wait until the field has been decided though I can predict which politicians will not be the republican candidate. A quick rundown of the Republicans who will not appear on the 2016 final ballot are Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Speaker of the House John Boehner for starters. Now on to the Democrat candidates and the somewhat controversial prediction. Almost everybody has placed their chips on Hillary Clinton and with her latest appearance and her apparent new improved look, they have good reason to choose her. The problem is the voice and the speeches are still Hillary Clinton who was initially tainted by some claiming she only married Bill to ride his coattails to prominence and this was only reinforced by her run for Senate in New York, a state where she had barely taken up residence. Then Hillary Clinton has also been tainted by her inept performance at Secretary of State and especially the Benghazi slaughter of four Americans including Ambassador Stevens and his aid as well as two security personnel and former seals who put up a heroic fight while waiting for the cavalry to come over the hilltop in the nick of time. That cavalry never was permitted to even mount up let alone ride to the rescue. The echo of, “What did you do during the Benghazi nightmare and why was there not more security since you knew there were potential problems and a definitive threat of an attack?” Because of the obvious candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the reputation of the Clintons for not appreciating those who choose to oppose them, just ask the Obamas, there will be few Democrats rushing to compete with Hillary Clinton. There is one exception and she is a candidate whose history depicts a woman who is not easily cowed and is bold enough to have made obviously fictitious claims in order to gain scholarship and more and now sits as United States Senator for Massachusetts. As you have likely guessed or know, the person I believe will win the Democrat nomination for President is Elizabeth Warren, Native American deriving her family having Cherokee and Delaware Indian heritage, listed herself as a minority in professional directories. Yet she questionably denied that she ever tried to gain a professional advantage through her lineage. Still, Elizabeth Warren has the near perfect liberal progressive credentials and presents herself well and has a similar experience to President Obama when he first sought the White House against Hillary Clinton as well. Further, the United States low information voters and some easily swayed voters who simply desire to be a part of the majority and will follow a sweeping trend just to be considered in with their peer groups will vote for a good story line repeated in the media and popular culture spots such as social media and comedy news reports. This may prove to be a part of the Presidential election cycle should either party, particularly if it is the Democrats, should place a woman at the top of their ticket, then they may tap into the desire of the American public to crash and break down all of the remaining barriers they perceive to remain in their societal history. Despite the seeming problems which have accompanied President Obama, there will be those more than willing to place a woman in the White House; and not only a woman, but a Native American woman making Elizabeth Warren potentially the first self-proclaimed Native American President and the first woman President. How can that combination possibly lose? My only request is please do not kill the messenger if this message proves incorrect; I tried and took the chance and now wait for the dice to stop spinning.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Can We Trust the Government Alphabet Agencies?

It seems every other week we read of yet another breach in security or illegal program spying on individuals, companies, foreign leaders of both friendly and not so friendly nations, and even agencies monitoring other agencies or even Congress. Then there have been the reports of the Administration using the IRS, OSHA, EPA and NSA among other agencies to spy on, impede operations of, obstruct functions in, intervene in daily operations or investigate personnel, personal, intimate and other sensitive information on organizations, businesses and people who they suspected might oppose or otherwise threaten the aims and objectives of their programs or even interfere with campaigning and electioneering that might oppose the President. The breadth, width and depth of these invasive policies have definitively proven that even if you have done nothing wrong or illegal you still might have much to fear and worry about from a government which appears to stop at nothing to compromise personal privacy of those they suspect of any opposition or even simply disagreeing with policies and intended programs. This past week we learned that the NSA not only has the capability to monitor and record every phone call and electronic communication of an entire nation and store the information for review for as long as a full month. Of course this revelation refused to identify the nation the Administration has chosen for such special consideration and inspection though I have a pretty good idea which nation has such a level of interest for such a deep and total level of spying and penetration into even the daily lives of every citizen and it is not the Russians, Chinese or any of the other nations which many American citizens would consider to be adversaries.

 

One of the most threatening and freedom chilling revelations was the level of inspection and extraneous required paperwork, reports, queries and intensive inspection that were utilized by the Administration through challenging the tax status or approval to applications for tax exempt status of agencies, organizations and other political entities which the administration had singled out as possibly having intentions to work against the reelection of President Obama. When it became obvious that many of the particular groups had identifying information or names containing phrases which included Tea Party, Constitution, Freedom, Conservative, Liberty and other identifiers the Administration suspected would indicate largely conservative, libertarian and constitutionalist groups which they considered to be political adversaries. There have been claims by some conservative and Republican sources claiming that these attacks were largely responsible for the apparent disappearance in the last election of Tea Party groups and have even blamed these reputedly illegal actions for Mitt Romney’s loss in the Presidential election. Of course whether those claims are truly valid is something we can argue forever as nobody will ever be able to prove anything one way or the other. The one thing I hope we could all agree on is such abuse of powers and using the brute force of the government for politicized gains is something that must not be condoned no matter who is committing such actions. What makes these accusations even more frightening is that apparently fellow citizens who work presumably for the public good performed these actions without objection or complaint. But then again, the Administration under President Obama has prosecuted both a higher percentage and larger number of whistle-blowers than any previous Presidential Administration in American history. They have also garnered one of the top spots for resistance and outright refusal to release information when responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In many ways President Obama has operated in one of the most secretive and least transparent Administration ever while also having unheard of levels of malfeasance by government agencies and the worst records on protection and respect of privacy rights of individuals.

 

If none of the above worries you, then perhaps a few other bits of information might place things in a different light. The United States government is working in conjunction with a number of internet companies, technology companies, university researchers and the military on artificial intelligence research with an emphasis on algorithms and programs which can be used to predict both general behavior of the society and to find ways of predicting individual behavior through methods of simple observational data which can be gleamed using current surveillance and other related information. Another threat comes thanks to the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which will place all of people’s medical records and information in the hands of the most invasive department who already hold massive amounts of your personal financial information, as the IRS will now be tasked to handle your taxes and healthcare. Add to this the NSA and their abilities to record and analyze amounts of electronic data virtually beyond imagination and their working often at the behest of the FBI or the CIA through requests handled by Homeland Security Agency and couple these abilities and place them in the hands of an oppressive government and you are looking at the worst case combination of the most terrible predictions from the heart of political science fiction such as Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984, and throw in the idea of Carousel from Logan’s Run as the end treatment resulting from the use by Obamacare of a plan named the “complete lives system” for the allocation of very scarce resources, such as kidneys, vaccines, dialysis machines, intensive care beds, and others, as proposed and written by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama. The future which is approaching faster than many of us can realize will either be a place of unbelievable progress and freedom or the most oppressive government which is intrusive to the point where personal liberties and freedoms will be but a fleeting memory and we will fear even exhibiting the slightest unaccepted action and our every emotional reaction will be picked up and recorded for analysis by biometric surveillance possibly provoking government interventions for the slightest hints of thought crimes.

 

Where I have enormous hopes for the future, I also temper that with a healthy level of suspicion and respect for the potentials for misuse of coming technologies. When I worked as a production repair and test technician as well as an R&D technician with the engineers of a company which manufactured leading edge EEG and computer automated seizure detection systems using mathematical algorithms to detect and aid in diagnosing patients and which were used for sleep studies and treating and analyzing epilepsy and other disorders of the brain, I got a glimpse into how much we were able to determine about medical conditions and other systems simply through mathematical analysis of medical data. This was close to thirty years ago and the company had units which not only recorded up to sixty four channels of EEG but also did seizure detection and analysis in real time even with processors as slow and primitive as were available back them. I also had the pleasure and honor of working with the most intelligent person I have ever had the privilege to know, a gentleman who designed circuits and had an understanding of electronics as well as higher math that was astonishing. I was honored when he chose for me to work on any project and realized the full potential of monitoring and predictive analysis which was available at that time and cannot even begin to imagine where those areas of science, medicine and electronic monitoring have progressed to and attained. That is part of why I have a deep respect for the potentials for government to use technology in intrusive and subversive ways which can be turned against the people in order to control the population under the guise of working for the betterment of mankind. For one frightening example of such simply do some research and read about the “complete lives system” and take a few deep breaths and try to relax with that knowledge and knowing it is at the heart of the government’s healthcare plans for the United States.

 

Beyond the Cusp