Posted on 11/17/2022 9:54:53 AM PST by Red Badger
Few Americans—thanks to our fine history instruction these days—know what the Credit Mobilier scandal was. From 1864 to 1867, a company called Credit Mobilier was created by executives of the Union Pacific Railroad. It was a railroad construction company that overcharged on construction costs and manipulated contracts. Its founder was Thomas Durant, and the company worked with American Congressmen, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi… Oh, sorry, Schuyler Colfax and Congressman Oakes Ames who were given low-price stock options and payouts in return for no federal oversight of the company and for subsidies and favorable regulations that would otherwise lower costs.
A tip to the New York Sun exposed the scandal in 1872, Democrat James Brooks and Republican James Patterson were threatened with expulsion from Congress, but a total of 13 members of Congress were investigated by two House committees and one Senate committee. In the end, Ames and Brooks were merely censured, and none of the rest were punished.
Shocked! Shocked, I tell ya!
Fast forward to the Ukraine War. The U.S. Congress and President Joe (Rutabaga) Biden can’t wait to send more money and more weapons to Ukraine. Is it really out of their concern for “democracy?” One can expect no serious investigation of these monies or of any of the weapons. What type of weapons, you ask? I received a private message from someone working with a defense contractor in question. The current push is from contractors to “sell” Ukraine (paid for by dollars we lend them) high-tier/upscale defensive systems. (Think a multi-million dollar missile system designed to defeat a fourth-generation fighter as opposed to a low-tech but effective anti-aircraft gun.) “Wouldn’t we want to defeat the fighters?” you ask. We would except the problem the Ukrainians face is more from $20,000 suicide drones from Iran, not from state-of-the-art Russian airplanes.
You can see Credit Mobilier in action: congressmen and senators have (perhaps through shell companies, firewalls, or relatives) investments in defense contractors and subcontractors; these companies see uber-high-dollar systems (again, paid for by the U.S. taxpayers); then stock prices rise, and dividends are paid! And we aren’t even getting into out-and-out kickbacks—but those would only be exposed by investigations that will never come.
Do you think it surprising, then, that “pro-defense” senators such as Tom Cotton support keeping pro-Uke-war Mitch McConnell—who just announced that the most important agenda item for Senate Republicans is . . . you guessed it, the war in Ukraine? At least in the 1870s, the House and Senate had enough honorable people to investigate the scandal.
Don’t hold your breath.
Ping
Good article!
Hahahahahahahaha! That’s a great idea!
It seems like the country is full of dimwits who say “Gee. Joe Biden has a net worth of $10 million dollars, but has never held a real job in his life. How did he get that rich?”
[INSERT EYE ROLL HERE]
Ukraine helped Hillary; punked Trump
Politico.com
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and DAVID STERN
01/11/2017
<>Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire; foreign aid billions threatened
<>Kiev scrambles to make amends with president-elect Trump after working to boost Clinton.
<>President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the presidential race.
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
A Politico investigation found
<><>Ukrainian govt officials helped Hillary and trashed Trump, questioning his fitness for office.
<><>They disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption
<><>They suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election.
<><>They helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.
Russia’s effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved the country’s military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said “I don’t think we’ve ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we’ve seen in this case.”
There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country — not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia — would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election.
And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.
Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue.
Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that’s been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate — their political rival.
Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.
As it worked behind the scenes to undermine Trump, Ukraine also tried to kneecap him publicly. Ukraine’s ambassador took the extraordinary step of attacking Trump in an Op-Ed article published in The Hill, an influential U.S. Capitol newspaper, while other top Ukrainian officials slammed the GOP candidate on social media.
Good to see LS putting things like this out there.
But...due to our “fine history instruction these days”, they know even less about the Weimar Republic than the Credit Mobilier fraud.
And if there is one thing we should have an eye on while our country has people pouring buckets of cold seawater on the gears of the printing presses to cool them off, it is the Weimar Republic.
What is not punished is allowed.
Bears repeating for the election process, among other things.
Well at least they could work against some aircraft. Like if Russia is dumb enough to try flying some 70 year old bombers over Ukraine or something like that.
There have been no fixed wing aircraft losses?............
Pretty sure there have been quite a few, but those were from anti-aircraft missiles as far as I know, not from anti-aircraft guns.
I know they have lost lots of helos, but I don’t recall any airplanes or jets................
Oh, the Russians have lost planes for sure. Remember the 63 year old colonel they brought out of retirement who got shot down? He was flying a jet:
At 63?
He probably had a heart attack! or blacked out!.............
Good analogy. But more like Bernie Madoff on steroids.
I think it is more than a laundry mat.
It has caused fuel inflation. It is causing fertilizer shortages which may create famine conditions in various parts of the world.
It has depleted our armaments. Even top brass like Milley are complaining that we don’t have enough for basic defense.
It is destroying middle class through inflation which is what WEF has as a mission.
Energy powers the world, and everything has been adversely impacted by our sending likely Trillions to Ukraine.
So now we see the payoff, the laundry mat — who gets what...Why it is the DC crowd, and ironically, oil producing nations including Russia. Meanwhile people in flyover states may to have to choose between food and fuel...Just like those living in Germany or GB. Far more people die from freezing than warming...
No. Next!
Keyword trolls strike again:
0iqputintroll
0iqrussiantroll
whyishenotbanned
whyishestillhere
I don’t know who did that or why?....................
The author is brain dead. We’re supporting Ukraine so we don’t have to become in a larger war with a reinvigorated Russia if Ukraine falls. If Ukraine falls Russia will not stop with Ukraine. The Baltic states, Moldova and Poland will be next with massive pressure exerted on the remains of NATO to support the geopolitics of Russia. If you believe otherwise you’ve taken too many of Putin’s pills.
I”m still here cuz what I said was true. Ukraine is a modern version of Credit Mobilier. Look no further than Tom (Pickin’) Cotton.
Note the latest lie on the Russkie “missile” that citizen journalists quickly exposed as American/Ukrainian before they could cover it up.
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