Category Archives: Government

Worse Than Watergate?

Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats, Ethics, Government, Religion

As has transpired from the interview Fox News’ Sean Hannity conducted with Ed Klein, the author of “The Amateur: Barack Obama In The White House,” Reverend Jeremiah Wright had “told Klein that Erik Whitaker, a long time friend of Obama, sent an email to him asking him [Wright] not to preach until after the November [2008] elections, and that Whitaker, through another member of the Church, offered $150,000 in hush money. [To whom?] Klein told Sean about other bombshells including how Obama apparently begged Wright to attend a secret meeting with him and the lengths to go to trying to keep it a secret.”

The malfunctioning mass media has been less than diligent in exploring and verifying this story. There are no words to describe this dereliction of journalistic duty.

The appropriate parallel?

Dan Rather was right to expose President George W. Bush, who “thanks to his family’s high-level connections, was given preferable treatment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and then ditched his duties entirely.”

The media burying the Klein story is akin to Rather failing to give us the goods on Bush, the no-goodnik. Or worse: imagine that Watergate had been covered-up or covered partially? (Once a writer for the far left HuffPo, Edward Klein’s last post there is dated October 12, 2010.)

The New York Times’ JANET MASLIN dismisses The Amateur, saying that “Mr. Klein has no capacity for explaining specifics.”

Certain evidence [or hearsay cited] was witnessed, says Maslin, by “a toy poodle, and Seamus, a chocolate lab and ‘a few old friends.’” This is a “skimpy, bitter book … more interested in combining anti-Obama bumper-sticker phrases with very energetic branding,” she claims.

I haven’t read the The Amateur. I’m put off by a Sean-Hannity approved author, who’s known for “a string of maudlin books” about the Kennedy family. But let’s see a discussion (and refutation, if need be) of the alleged bribe, especially, in mainstream.

Obama proxies attempting, allegedly, to buy the president’s one-time minister’s silence: Is this not worthy of an honest, media investigation?

UPDATED: Blame The Beast (DC) For Big Business’ Moral Bankruptcy

Business, Capitalism, Ethics, Free Markets, Government, Morality

Myron Pauli sends along an interesting series of Venn diagrams, reflecting the intersection between The DC Beast and Big Business, and purporting to “show how corrupted American ‘democracy’ really is.”

Registering his disgust, Myron writes this (with his usual flare):

“While the American Booboisie gets distracted with this ‘election,’ where the grandson of a polygamist
debates the son of a polygamist on ‘gay marriage,’ as the Welfare-Warfare-Deficit-Jail State
goes on – 800,000 arrested for marijuana last year – hundreds wounded or maimed in Afpakistan,
trillions of new debt and malinvestment, television cameras proliferating everywhere to catch
American citizens (e.g. ‘criminals’) violating an ever increasing list of ‘crimes’ ….”

Agreed, except that companies don’t have much option. Without buying and paying for a plant to do their bidding within the State apparatus, they are doomed to be investigated and prosecuted non-stop by the government’s alphabet soup of regulatory agencies; the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, on and on. Business gets dragged into court every other day and sued. By necessity, entire departments and budgets within corporate America are given over to lobbying and pacifying The Beast.

“When Bill Gates neglected to schmooze Washington, Joe Klein, the Justice Department’s top dog, picked up the scent and gave chase. The lesson being that if he wants to survive, the entrepreneur must also pay protection money to his political masters.” (“CONGRESSIONAL CHURLS TROLL FOR VOTES”)

Our “overlords who art in DC” “are the ones who force the entrepreneur to replace viable, voluntary trades and transactions with bureaucratic, politicized decision making. Rather than concentrate on satisfying consumers, proprietors must divert resources from innovation and production into getting around the bureaucrat’s tax and regulatory laws.”

“Unlike government (and CNN’s Anderson Cooper), you can keep private enterprise honest. Business aims to please its constituents, the consumers. …”

Downsize the state, strip it of its police-state powers—and business will shape-up. Capitalism is moral if practiced. We do no longer practice it.

UPDATE: Yes, Myron, why can’t I get this URL to work? I found another valid hyperlink for “18 Venn diagrams showing how corrupted American ‘democracy’ really is.“

Uncle Sam Turns Tricks (& Stiffs Sex Workers)

Affirmative Action, Ethics, Etiquette, Feminism, Government, Military, Morality, Politics, Sex, The State

In “Uncle Sam Turns Tricks (& Stiffs Sex Workers),” the latest weekly column, I make a Modest Proposal. Here’s an excerpt:

“They seemed like complete stupid idiots. I was surprised that every time he [the Secret Service agent] danced with me, he lifted up his sweater so I could see [his ripped abs].”

Beefcake unburdened by brains is how Colombian call girl Dania Suárez described the Special Forces agents who solicited her services at the Hotel El Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, prior to President Obama’s arrival in that country for the April, 2012, Summit of the Americas.

The “morons,” said the sassy Suárez, “drank liberally and acted boisterously, one of them jumping onto the bar.” Nor were they shy about petitioning Suárez and her sex-worker colleagues for favors.

Our boys abroad were clearly practiced pros.

Slightly more uplifting was the news that one of the married Secret Service agents who serves the president at the pleasure of the American taxpayer likes “normal sex.”

Kinky carnality, however, is preferable to a man who does not honor a contract. The agent refused to pay Suárez the $800 dollars he owed her, which is why this tempest in a C-Cup blew up in the first place.

Fortunately for the errant agent, “paid sex is legal in Cartagena.” Rather than call on a pimp, the prostitute petitioned local law enforcement for redress. A pimp would have likely worked the agent over good and proper.

All in all, a million here and there for a good time is nothing in the grand scheme of the tricks turned by the Empire’s foot-soldiers and stooges—and the toll these tricks take.

Come to think of it, if regular visits with prostitutes kept the political class from launching trillion-dollar war- and welfare programs, and financing Fanny, Freddy and the Fed—I would personally contribute to a prostitution fund for Washington whores.

The prostitutes would be the patriots. …”

Read the complete column, “Uncle Sam Turns Tricks (& Stiffs Sex Workers).”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATED: Organized Vs. Disorganized Crime (US Vs. China)

China, Criminal Injustice, Government, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Liberty, Private Property, Regulation, The State

Statists stateside have come down harshly on me for even suggesting that your average Egyptian under Mubarak or Libyan under Gadhafi was probably less likely than his American counterpart to be jailed, harassed or have a threatening encounter with the state’s emissaries.

Do you think these former dictators retaliated against “Their People” with diabolical efficiency for selling raw milk and homemade lemonade? Or unintentionally violating Honduran law of which the Hondurans themselves were ignorant? Or attempting to erect a structure on their land?

It’s the difference between organized and disorganized crime: Uncle Sam runs an organized criminal syndicate; Third World despots run disorganized criminal endeavors. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it’s easier to live off the grid in those tin-pot dictatorships America is forever overthrowing, than in the USA, the land of the “free.”

“Illegal Everything,” as John Stossel sees it. He “argue that America has become a country where no one can know what is legal.”

Kids who open lemonade stands are now shutdown by police. I tried to open a lemonade stand legally in NYC. That was quite an adventure. It takes 65 days to get permission from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
With government adding 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year, it’s no surprise that regular people break laws without even trying.
A small businessman spent 6 years in federal prison for breaking Honduran regulations (and, to make it worse, the Honduran government said he didn’t). A family in Idaho can’t build a home on their land because the EPA says it’s a wetland-but it only resembles a wetland because a government drain malfunctioned and flooded it.

MORE.

UPDATE: “The US Is More Authoritarian Than China,” writes Lew Rockwell:

China is nowhere near as authoritarian as the US, and where authority is exercised it appears to be with more restraint. There is no TSA at Chinese airports. My son has entered the country when the customs and immigration checks were simply closed (because it was outside normal working hours) and walked off the plane and into Beijing.
On the surface, there are a lot of “rules” in China, but no one pays any attention and the authorities don’t enforce them.

As I’ve written, “US In The Red And Getting Redder”:

It’s time we came clean about our economic system. The Chinese are honest about theirs; they call it “socialism with Chinese characteristic.” We call ours free-market capitalism, when in fact it is a Third Way system too: “Socialism with American characteristics.”
The picture of China to emerge from behind those pretty Chinese screens is complex. The embodiment of feng shui it is not. The trend, however, is unmistakable: China is becoming freer, America less free. The devil is in this detail.