To cite just one example, look at how the Washington establishment is trying to defend the Export-Import Bank, a grotesque example of corporate welfare that is opposed by honest people on the right and left of the political spectrum.Posted on 10/26/2014 9:46:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
I sometimes think that working at the Cato Institute and trying to change Washington must be akin to working at a church in the middle of Amsterdam’s red light district.
In both cases, you’re wildly outnumbered by people with a different outlook on life. And it’s not that easy to save misguided souls.
The crowd in Washington, for instance, benefits enormously from a complicated tax system, a Byzantine regulatory regime, and a bloated budget.
All of these factors create big opportunities for unearned income for bureaucrats, cronies, politicians, contractors, lobbyists, and other insiders.
Telling those people they should back away from the public trough is not exactly a way to make friends in DC.
To cite just one example, look at how the Washington establishment is trying to defend the Export-Import Bank, a grotesque example of corporate welfare that is opposed by honest people on the right and left of the political spectrum.
Or, if you want to be partisan, what about the Democratic insiders who are getting rich from Obamacare?
Conversely, what about the Republican insiders who also get rich from big government?
But maybe all these examples are too indirect. So today’s column will give specific examples of people who get undeserved wealth thanks to influence peddling in Washington.
Here are some passages from a brutal expose written by Michelle Malkin for the Washington Examiner. She starts by looking at how Vice President Biden’s son got special treatment, first when he was handed a plum spot as a public relations hack in the Navy Reserve and then after he got tossed out after failing a drug test.
Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. …The youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden made news last week after the Wall Street Journal revealed he had been booted from the Navy Reserve for cocaine use. …Papa Biden loves to tout his middle-class, “Average Joe” credentials. But rest assured, if his son had been “Hunter Smith” or “Hunter Jones” or “Hunter Brown,” the Navy’s extraordinary dispensations would be all but unattainable. …Despite the disgraceful ejection from our military, Hunter’s Connecticut law license won’t be subject to automatic review. Because, well, Biden.
But special treatment apparently is nothing new for Biden’s son. And a lifetime of insider deals has been greased by the favor factory of big government.
Skating by, flouting rules and extracting favors are the story of Hunter’s life. Hunter’s first job, acquired after Joe Biden won his 1996 Senate re-election bid in Delaware, was with MBNA. …Hunter zoomed up to senior vice president by early 1998 and then scored a plum position in the Clinton administration’s Commerce Department, specializing in “electronic commerce” before returning to MBNA three years later as a high-priced “consultant.” While he collected those “consulting” (translation: nepotistic access-trading) fees, Hunter became a “founding partner” in the lobbying firm of Oldaker, Biden and Belair in 2002. …Hunter lobbied for drug companies, universities and other deep-pocketed clients to the tune of nearly $4 million billed to the company by 2007. …Continually failing upward, Hunter snagged a seat on the board of directors of taxpayer-subsidized, stimulus-inflated Amtrak, where he pretended not to be a lobbyist, but rather an “effective advocate” for the government railroad system serving the 1 percenters’ D.C.-NYC corridor. …Hunter joined Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings — owned by a powerful Russian government sympathizer who fled to Russia in February — this spring. The hypocritical lobbyist-bashers at the White House deny he will be lobbying and deny any conflict of interest.
We need a whole new government, Then maybe the Republic can be restored.
Absolutely. Sarah cleaned up the corruption in Alaska. It can be done but it requires a patriot with a backbone of steel and an unshakable moral foundation. Then they have to be elected. Good luck with that.
Government is like a life. The longer it goes on the more junk it acquires. Only if the life is destroyed does the junk go away and then some other new fresh organism rises in its place.
Governments are also like old cars. They eventually take more effort to repair than they are worth and so we scrap them and start over fresh. Hopefully back to some formula that works until adulterated.
Sarah just repaired Alaska for a bit. She did not reform it or clean it up. It is still corrupt or corrupt again. Keeping corruption at bay takes constant work and punishment.
She did not reform it or clean it up. It is still corrupt or corrupt again.She did not reform it or clean it up.
...please, read some. Putting the whole budget and gov’t checkbook on line wasn’t reform and didn’t clean up? What planet are you from. Corrupt bastards will always be around the trough... it’s up to citizens to vote them out! Why after she got rid of the corrupt Repubs do you think she is still such a target? She still scares them to death. Buy a clue.
ymmv
I should not even respond to you but I will though it is a waste of my time.
Like some. I do not worship at the feet of Sarah. Do as you choose and believe as you choose and be content with it. You are unopposed as it should be.
Blind followers and mindless devotees live on both sides of the aisle. Both are equally destructive to freedom.
Start by destroying the IRS. PERIOD.
Hundreds of billions go to Central America hellholes where they crap in a hole in the ground---and into the filthy pockets of corrupt federales. Now they're trying to extort US taxpayers for billons more....or else. Read on.
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) 10/15/14 - The United States should provide billions of dollars to help Central American nations curb the flow of illegal migrants, Guatemalan President Otto Perez said, and his government warns the problem will get worse if Washington fails to help.
"The United States has to support this, it has no other option," Guatemala's foreign minister, Carlos Morales, told Reuters. "If they don't support it, the crisis will kick off again, you can count on it."
Fleeing violence, trying to reach relatives already in the United States or seeking jobs, record numbers of child migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have been stopped at the southern U.S. border this year, causing widespread alarm.
Last month, the three countries pitched Washington an ambitious development plan to confront the issue. They want to pump about $10 billion into the region to create jobs and lift living standards, with the bulk of funding coming from the United States, Perez told Reuters.
He hopes the plan could come up with about $2 billion a year from 2015 to 2019, a sum he equated to roughly 10 percent of annual U.S. spending on border security and immigration enforcement. The package would boost infrastructure and provide more jobs in all three countries, especially in areas that send large numbers of migrants to the United States, he added. ####
As Malkin reported previously, Joe Biden secured his custom-built, multimillion-dollar house in Delaware's ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood with the help of a leading MBNA corporate executive...where Hunter was employed.
And this.
VP Biden Vacations in Virgin Islands for Second Time in Three Months
weeklystandard.com /Daniel Halper / FR Posted March 07, 2014 by Sub-Driver
The White House announced that Vice President Joe Biden would spend the weekend vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's his second vacation there in three months.
His White House schedule reads: DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT / Fri, March 7 – Sun, March 9 ---- The Vice President and Dr. Jill Biden will visit the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are no public events scheduled.
Geoff Earle of the New York Post reported on December 27, the vice president spent New Year's on the U.S. Virgin Islands. "Vice President Biden doesn’t have to worry about playing second fiddle to his boss when it comes to tropical vacations," Earle reported.
"President Obama’s No. 2, and 2016 presidential prospect, jets Friday to the U.S. Virgin Islands aboard Air Force Two, the White House announced Thursday night. He’ll be there through New Year’s.
"That puts Biden just steps away from some of the Caribbean’s best snorkeling at the same time Obama is strolling Hawaii’s spectacular golf courses and hiking trails."
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FREEPER REALTIME REPORT CIRCA 2012 "I just returned from a Caribbean cruise. In St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, the guide pointed out a waterfront mansion and said it belonged to Biden’s (cough) brother. He also said Air Force 2---the VP plane--frequently flies in and out."
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"Hi there, Americans. Obama put me in charge of the trillion dollar stimulus.
My son, Hunter, and my brother are gonna help me disperse the money. My
top aide Ron Klain (now Ebola Czar) is also overseeing disbursement."
================================
Offshore Fraudster had links to offshore fund run by VP Biden's relatives
Reuters on Yahoo | 2/23/09 | BY Ajay Kamalakaran
(Reuters) – A fund of offshore hedge funds run by two members of VP Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by offshore firms controlled by Texas financier Allen Stanford, charged by regulators with an $8 billion fraud, the Wall Street Journal said.
The Bidens $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and the offshore Stanford Financial Group entity headquartered in Antigua, and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund, the paper said. Stanford-related offshore companies marketed the Biden fund to investors and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, the paper said, citing a lawyer for Paradigm.
Paradigm Global Advisors is owned through a holding company by the vice president Biden's son, Hunter, and Joe Biden's brother, James, according to the WSJ. Paradigm's attorney, Marc LoPresti, who represents Hunter Biden and James Biden, as well as Paradigm, told the paper he did not know which Stanford entity invested the roughly $2.7 million. (Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
NOTE A lawyer for Hunter Biden and James Biden told reporters the Bidens NEVER met or communicated with Stanford. (/snicker)
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Convicted con man R. Allen Stanford used offshore corporate money to become a big man ae the Democratic convention in Denver. A video posted on the firm's web-site shows Stanford, being hugged by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and praised by former President Bill Clinton for helping to finance a Democrat convention-related forum and party put on by the National Democratic Institute.
"I would like to thank the Stanford Financial Group for helping to underwrite this," Clinton said to the crowd at the event. Stanford Financial was listed as the "lead benefactor" for the gathering, and Stanford was permitted to address the audience of several hundred.
The SEC charged yesterday that Stanford was running a fraudulent offshore investment scheme that may have bilked customers out of as much as $8 billion. Over the last decade, Stanford has spent more than $7 million on lobbyists and campaign contributions to Washington politics in both parties, although the vast majority of the money has gone to Democrats.
"We had no reason to believe that a very public company that was also engaged in philanthropic work might be suspect," said a spokesperson for the National Democratic Institute, Amy Dudley. (Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
NANCY PELOSI DANCING W/ CON MAN ALAN STANFORD AT DEMOCRAT BIGDO.
....really? Blind and mindless??? You are really clueless and an arrogant POS as well ... and you think WE are the threat to freedom. What utter CRAP ... don’t buy a clue, you can’t afford one. You are a waste of time, your own.
ymmv
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