Campaign Financing in America, the Most Special of Special Interests

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Lobbying has been part of the government process ever since the fight for freedom and adoption of the US Constitution in America. No doubt as a result of the pressure put on colonists by special interests during the formation of America, great care was made to protect the fledgling Republic from these marauding manipulators of governments, wars and people.

During debate over the new treasury department there was an argument over the need to form a US National Bank, sought by the international bankers who were bankrolling the revolution and arms bought by the colonists. The fear of international bankers controlling the economy and printing the nation's money was debated extensively. Opposition was led by Thomas Jefferson.



In time the First National Bank was approved and chartered to a group representing the House of Rothschild. When Andrew Jackson was elected our 7th president and served from 1829-1837 he blocked the renewal of the First National Bank charter by vetoing the Congressional bill. It was a bitter battle with the banking interests and before it was through there was an assassination attempt on the president.

So we know special interests have a long and dubious stranglehold on our nation's capitol.

Today it is more prevalent than ever as witnessed by the accommodation of big banks in the TARP program, big labor in the stimulus and health care reforms, Wall Street and Goldman Sachs in the watered down version of Financial reform being considered, Goldman Sachs again in the cap and trade bill proposed, the unions again in the card check bill, and all sources of big bucks in the total lack of campaign reform not being considered by Congress nor advocated by the administration.



Campaign reform, the only hope for America if it goes far enough to break the stranglehold of special interests on our government, remains the elusive dream of justice and the only effective tool to wipe out corruption.

Obama directly spent nearly three quarters of a billion dollars getting elected. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars were spent on his behalf by other political and special interest groups. The same groups are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of our elected officials yet the media gives no attention to this massive buy out of our politicians.



Paid political advertising must be stopped or our government will always be for sale to the highest bidder. There is no paid advertising in Great Britain yet their government seems to function. Most European nations control the licensing of media companies to a degree that prohibits massive television campaigns yet they seem to function.

Political advertising, which dominates the airways during primary and general election campaigns with often obnoxious and misleading ads should be banned and those media corporations getting federal licenses to use the airways must be required to make available limited time for all legitimate candidates through debates or other forums.



Estimates are that over $5.3 billion dollars were spent during 2008 alone for political television ads for congress and the presidency. That includes spending by candidates, campaign committees, political parties, political action groups, and special interest groups. A few million more was spent on the internet.

Over $5.5 billion was spent to elect 469 politicians. Hundreds of million more dollars have been spent since then by special interests on behalf of legislation they want approved.



No longer can our federal elected officials spend weekends in Washington working on the nation's business because they are running for re-election the day they take office. Of course billions of more dollars are being spent by the same groups to raise the money needed to bombard us with those political ads.



Unfortunately, many media outlet owners are now addicted to the political revenue to stay in business and that raises the most obvious conflict of interest possible for the news media. How could they possibly be advocates or even report fairly on the need for campaign finance reform when their jobs are dependent on that campaign revenue?



It is time Americans realize the campaign money is the root of all evil in Washington and in our media. It is time we realize that meaningful reform, missing from the agenda of our president and both political parties, is the only way to end corruption and special influence peddling in our nation's capitol. It is time we recognize that without such reform, our politicians are on a fast track to permanent slavery to special interests.



Yes, it is time the people demand their elected representatives stop the policy of selling out our government to the highest bidder and ban political advertising in America. European countries have proven that it can be done Constitutionally.



Just as important, if it was done there would be no need for never ending campaigns, for politicians to start raising money for the next campaign the minute they are elected, for them to be spending all their free time raising money rather than taking care of our nation's business, and most of all, for them to be owned by special interests.



Demand campaign finance reform from your politicians. Demand more than just empty promises or watered down actions to achieve these reforms. Do this and there is a chance the Republic may survive. Fail to do this and you will live forever with the corrupt system we now have in place.

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The State of the Union - What Can We Expect from Obama, the Born Again Populist?

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It's time once again for that great American drama, the event that proves we are in the depressing depths of winter and we really have nothing to do, the State of the Union speech by our president. Thanks to the complicity of the television networks the president gets to dominate the airways tonight to tell us all the things politicians tells us to reassure us we are in good hands.

Now I don't know about you but it is hard for me to take too seriously anyone in Washington, DC who has the audacity to say we are in good hands. I'm not sure but it seems as if we would be a lot better off if our politicians just shut up for a year or two and stopped telling us all the nonsense.



Fortunately, we have become accustom to these annual invasions of privacy by those who know better so we are not going to get our hopes up and expect a miracle, like someone might tell us the truth. After all the campaigning and the first year of torture under the control of the Democrats, I still really can't tell the difference between the elephants and donkeys, or is it jackasses?

The Washington Post, that revered institution of truth if you happen to think the liberal view is remotely related to the truth, says President Obama made about 360 promises of things he would do once he got elected. After a year they say he did 15 of them and none were much to talk about. Does that mean after four years of Obama in 2012 he will have delivered on 60 promises of the 360, or a total of 16% of all that he promised?



At the rate he is delivering it will take him 24 years just to do the things he promised before he got elected. That was before he got God, I mean lost in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, and suddenly changed his tune back to the born again populist. It was also before his policies were rejected in poll after poll by the public.

CBS news reports that our president gave 411 speeches during his first 365 days as president, including two speeches to joint sessions of Congress. He also gave 158 interviews and held four prime time news conferences. Just like his billion dollar campaign spending, that is far more than any previous president in our history.



Now we are being told by his henchmen that the people, we, did not understand his message so he has to try again but more forcibly so us stupid humans might get it. It must be a real burden for a person to have such an intellect and so much knowledge and be forced to speak to the six pack majority of America. How in the world will these people ever get it?

Well I don't get it. Congress doesn't seem to get it either. After a year of senseless blabber does anyone know what he wants in his health care bill, what the current bill will do, or why we need to throw out the whole health care system in the first place? Don't expect him to dwell too much on that issue except to say raising your health care costs will create more jobs.



In fact everything in his speech will most likely create more jobs even though not a single respectable economist can figure out the value of creating jobs if they cost about $500,000 each like the stimulus package has done. Does he even know millions of people lost their jobs since he became president?

How stupid of me, whatever went wrong this past year was Bush's fault. Maybe he won't need to say too much about Bush in this speech since he already blamed everything that went wrong the last century on Bush. I think that must be an Ivy League debate tactic, blaming everyone else for your failures.

Yet Obama did support the bank bailout and even kept it going. And it was Obama's AIG, auto, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts that cost us way over a trillion dollars. It was his inability to do anything to stop the banks that resulted in billions of dollars in profits for the very guys who ripped off the system and got the taxpayer to pay off their sins. Then they gave out $60 billion in executive bonuses just to remind the public how they could care less that we saved them.



Even today, the day of his State of the Union, Congress is holding hearings to determine how Obama's administration could bailout AIG and let them pay $62 billion in taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs and other big banks. The Obama gang say they didn't know it happened. If they didn't know $62 billion was ripped off in taxpayer money they should all go to jail for intellectual constipation and moral indifference.

But those are truths and when talking about the good old boys in Washington truth has no place. Wasn't it Goldman Sachs who financed Obama's campaign? Didn't Goldman Sachs pour millions of dollars into his and other leaders campaigns and get millions more from their partners for the politicians in the great American Monopoly game? In fact, weren't they behind the housing market collapse, the energy price increases, the economic collapse and over $20 billion in executive bonuses this year?

Well don't expect the president to tell us how the banks, insurance companies, health care groups, auto companies, pharmaceutical companies and unions, who all have gotten and/or made billions of dollars off the president and Congress, are now pouring millions more into the campaigns of our leaders in the nation's capitol.



However, our born again populist president, the man who taught us that the only problems we have are those he tells us we have, will most certainly double cross those other bridges when he gets to them. As for tonight, everything will be okay. He knows. He knows we don't know. All will be well on Wall Street because he is now going to give us tax credits, incentives, and even a federal spending freeze to save the day. Of course the freeze will not apply to 83% of federal spending but that is a trivial detail. And none of the credits and incentives are going to small business where jobs are created.

But the jobs, well, he is going to create more jobs than anyone in history as it will take more to make up for the disastrous first year in office. Of course the jobs may go to the unions who poured millions into his campaign and are pouring millions more into his campaign committee in 2010. Why does he need to raise tens of millions of dollars when he just got elected to a four year term? And why raise it from the very people you say are the bad guys?

Anyway, there will be millions of jobs created, probably most in government service which will not help the economy but will give the unions a great big payoff. Somehow Obama's Chicago gang has turned economic principles upside down. They have determined we should not worry about increasing the deficit by over $1.4 trillion a year. Why worry? Let the next generation blame it on Bush as the nation goes bankrupt.

So expect promises for a better economy, millions of jobs for the unions, billions to be spent on alternative energy which is not even cost effective but will make Al Gore and Goldman Sachs billions, billions more to prop up housing through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae because the Democrats cannot let those liberal bastions fail, billions more for education which will take care of those unions but insure that the inferior education system in America will continue to prosper, lots of billions for wars since two new ones are likely in Yemen and the Middle East while Iraq, another promise to get out, will continue and Afghanistan will expand, and a whole bunch of other things we didn't know we needed.

The State of the Union, about the 415th speech in the 370 days he has been president. Haven't we had enough? I mean he is a nice guy and all but doesn't he ever lose his voice or anything? Maybe he could go on another extended world tour and do to the world what he has been doing to us. We have 535 politicians in Congress, a president with a bionic tongue, a vice president who keeps stepping on his tongue, a bevy of presidential advisors, his personal army of drones spewing innocuous facts and engaging in flights of fantasy, and we pay for all that. As far as I can see the only jobs saved this past year were all the blowhards in DC.

When will it be time to really help the rest of us?

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Christmas 2009 - The Winter of Discontent in America

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The Slumbering Giant is Awakened

Was it just a year ago that a fresh new president had been elected promising a tired and battered America change and hope? No more secret dealings in the White House and Congress. No more partisan politics and pork barrel projects. No more caving in to Wall Street and the financial sector. Our new president was going to listen to Main Street, not Wall Street, not lobbyists and not play backroom politics. In fact our new face of hope was going to bring in fresh faces, new ideas and stop special interests from owning our national agenda.



Well friends, there is a reason 2009 is the winter of discontent. Now we know that Obama was just another politician from a long line of Chicago politicians who sold their souls for power, surrounded themselves with master manipulators, adopted a secret code of omerta far more powerful than anything the mob ever had, and seems to think the American public is going to stand aside while they destroy everything that is important to Americans.



Sound harsh? Then think of this. The American military has always represented what is good, strong and patriotic about America. From George Washington to George Patton our leaders have demanded the best from the military and we have stood alone in defending the world from evil, from terrorism, from human rights violations and from far worse human suffering than we have seen.



For 100 years the world rested easier whenever they heard the American military was coming and when they got there for the most part the world was indeed safer. Only when politics attempted to limit war did we not complete our mission. Then came the past few decades, the legacy of both political parties playing politics with war.



It started with President Johnson in the 1960's, a Democrat, in Vietnam. Then Nixon, a Republican was elected to clean up the mess. Pretty soon Carter, a Democrat got elected to cleanup Nixon's political mess and along came the capture of our American embassy and staff in Iran. Reagan, a Republican cleaned up that mess but Bush 1, a Republican inherited a world in which terrorist actions were now being rewarded and he was forced into playing politics with Iraq and their invasion of Kuwait.



As the dust settled on that skirmish we had now demonstrated beyond doubt that our resolve was fading. So Clinton, a Democrat, wanting to avoid war then played the highly political non-war games financing a defacto war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.



Oh yes, we financed Osama Bin Laden in a battle against the Soviet empire and in time the terrorists, our terrorists won. With that we had now sanctioned terrorism as a viable war strategy. Unfortunately, the terrorists used us just as we used them as the Islamic radicals had an underlying purpose to all they did. Our ally Israel was always the target of terrorists.



While we helped build up the terrorist fighting machine in Afghanistan they exported it to the Middle East and used it to start attacking our very own assets in the Arab world. Loyalty was never a concern to the terrorists. Before Clinton left office the terrorists were busy working on the first attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.



Osama Bin Laden's goal was to strike a blow into the heart and soul of America, the core of our financial system, and then to occupy our national consciousness in diversions from the ultimate goal of inciting a world war in the Middle East with Israel as the target. There was never any doubt as to his purpose or resolve had we taken the time to study him.



Whether it was the genius behind the Bin Laden strategy or the lack of morals and ethics on wall Street, Bin Laden knew us better than we ever expected. He seemed to know that greed would drive Wall Street once America was no longer a safe haven. You see, our financial institutions had loyalty only to their own bottom line and America had been the cash cow for bankers since our Revolution.



Very quietly toward the end of the Clinton presidency while America was embroiled in the shenanigans of a wayward president and his impeachment for womanizing, the agents for the financial institutions embedded in the Clinton administration quietly raped the regulatory controls of government to insure a whole new and unregulated line of business could be launched outside the control of government but able to use the government treasury as if it were their own.



All that was needed was a trigger to cut loose the financial greed and that trigger was fear, fear that America, the bastion of world economic commerce, was no longer free from the ravages of war. What better way to destroy confidence in the American economy than to strike a deadly blow to the heart of Wall Street, the World Trade Center.



Bush 2, a Republican followed Clinton and in his first year in office the fruits of the terrorist plan were realized as five of our own commercial planes were used to destroy the greatest symbol of American might the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Bush saw the results of a couple of decades of political wars when the World Trade Center was obliterated from the earth.



In retaliation Bush 2 launched the Afghanistan and Iraq wars against terrorism thus diverting the attention of the American public toward two political wars. At the same time fear hit Wall Street as they were no longer safe here. It seemed as if our financial institutions seemed to decide that America as an unending source of money had a very limited future.



While the world watched our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan the money manipulators launched all those secret devices approved during the Clinton impeachment, unregulated devices like hedge funds, derivatives, swaps and mortgage bundling which flooded the stock market while futures in commodities and oil were moved outside the control of the federal government.



Fear drove the financial suits to use all the secret tools they injected into the system during the Clinton impeachment as a backdoor to raid the Treasury if they could not make money legitimately. Osama was right. One need not destroy a house of cards to bring it down, just pull the right cards from the bottom of the stack. The house will then collapse by itself just as the World Trade Center collapse triggered the raid on the US Treasury by the financial institutions. Make no mistake, when the Clinton team made those secret changes to the federal regulatory laws they knew exactly what they were doing.



For those who think the World Trade Center was an isolated incident you forget the purpose of Bin Laden, to destroy the American economy. By the time Bin Laden had battled us for eight years in the deserts of the Middle East and the financiers had bled the markets dry with the unregulated speculation and unsecured new investment vehicles our military machine and economy were in shambles.



Bin Laden has no loyalty to anyone or any institution. Neither do the financial institutions of Wall Street who used the US Treasury as a petty cash fund and could care less if they bankrupted the nation. In fact they were so bold as to demand a bailout when their economic corruption caught up with them. In the end Wall Street finished the job for Bin Laden.



And along comes Obama, a Democrat, to break the chain of politics as usual. But Obama is already in the back pocket of Wall Street long before he is elected thanks to his right hand Little Napoleon, Rahm Emanuel, the Clinton and Democratic party insider from Wall Street and top fund raiser for the past two decades. Nothing has changed in Washington. Thanks to Little Napoleon Goldman Sachs reigns supreme. There is a serious question as to whether Obama is the president or puppet. There is a more serious question as to whether he can ever be president no matter how much damage Napoleon's White House gang does to him and to America.



Now we have the new Obama strategy in Afghanistan. The only thing new is that he has tied the hands of our military leaders more than any president in history. Imagine if Roosevelt had told his generals they have 18 months to end World War II. That is what the White House concluded after 92 days of thinking. That is about the dumbest reason for delay I have ever heard. Perhaps it is a result of all those years the ivy league boys got deferred from military service and they do not understand the concept of military strategy. About the only White House insider with military experience was Little Napoleon and he was a mechanic in the Israeli army.



Will we ever have a president who is proud of the American military, confident in their ability, and stands back and says to them go kick their butts and let me know what you need. Our nation has 233 years of history to be proud about. For most of that time we were the only nation in the world that defended the world without asking for anything in return. Our military was feared and our resolve was ferocious. It will take more than a toothless president and a politics playing Napoleon in the White House to take that away from us.



If they do not change their ways it will be Napoleon, his puppet and gang who are looking for a new home. What the fools in Washington have done is not destroy the spirit of America but they have awaken the spirit of America, a slumbering giant, and no one can take that love of life and freedom away from us. Clearly it is again time for a change. Only American patriots should be in Washington.



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Veterans Day - Time to Fight for the Defenders of the Flag

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Obama is no Kennedy and we didn't get Camelot, but Chicago.

With petty politics dominating our national debate, confusion over our war policy, spiraling unemployment facing those returning from the war zone and price gouging from our banks and credit card companies it seems we are doing little as a nation to honor our veterans upon whose back we have built this temple to the Gods of greed and malicious behavior. Don't you think we could do a little better?



As hot air and no substance rules in our nation's capitol it seems the least we could do is take a few moments to pause and ask what have we done for our defenders. If we were truly in to soul searching as opposed to partisan babble the answer would be clear. Our failure to address the cost of government, rising debt and deficit spending, greed mongering by the very banks we bailed out with tax payers money and the entire specter of empty promises and political lies is a sorry testament to leadership, concern, compassion and honesty.



Nearly a trillion dollars in stimulus has accomplished nothing more than to give Joe Biden a reason to talk about all the jobs we have saved, jobs that simply cannot be found on the horizon. Come on Joe, if you did save any jobs it was by subsidizing inefficient and incompetent government and the minute the money train from Uncle Sugar runs out the public jobs will be eliminated because no local government can afford the jobs.



The Obama stimulus was a trillion dollar campaign fund for congress and the special interests that got all the people's money. We might as well have given the trillion to Goldman Sachs, the SEIU union and Acorn as a return on their multi-million dollar investment in Obama. They could consider it a down payment on the march to socialism they seem to advocate.



Bank bailouts failed. Low interest money to commercial banks proved to be a multi-billion dollar bonus program for Wall Street. Even Goldman Sachs, who has benefited more from the government loans, bailouts and low interest money, has no interest in doing anything different with one exception. Now they are using government funny money to take market risks instead of the money from their clients and own coffers.



Obama and Congress have demonstrated nothing to give people confidence, certainly nothing to indicate it is any different than business as usual, and even less to demonstrate they have a clear policy and the ability to implement the strategy. Our veterans and the people deserved much better. We opened the door to change and got nothing in return. The Obama gang built the old system so we really should have known they would have no new system of governing.

Our highly likeable president continues to dazzle in speeches and fall flat on his face in execution and that is to be expected when a rookie is surrounded by hardened political politicians who say all the right things we want to hear but they know they have no ability to deliver on the promises.



This sure ain't no Kennedy Administration and instead of Camelot we got Chicago. Now Chicago might be good at helping people like Kennedy and Obama get elected with their incredible ability to deliver votes that don't exist, but to rely on Chicago politicians and recycled Clinton people to bring about political change and reform is, well, a sure sign of the very inexperience we were told only Palin had.

At this point the Palin inexperience sure looks good. You could look her in the eye and get a straight answer. And if she didn't have the answer you knew she would get it and not from the old politicians who got us in this mess in the first place, the same ones Obama put back in office.



Obama needs to be the president of all Americans. He needs to learn from JFK , Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton that when you are elected president you are president of all the people, not just the Harvard elite. Kennedy was from Harvard and he knew that. We don't anoint presidents we elect them and once elected we are their boss.



If you want to honor the veterans, truly honor the veterans, then stop playing politics with war and foreign relations and make decisions, act bold and demonstrate leadership. We did not pick you to hand off the ball to the nearest person but to slam dunk the damn ball yourself. Stop performing for the Europeans and Middle Eastern countries and even the enemies of America like North Korea and Iran because your popularity ratings in those countries has nothing to do with your leadership here at home.



You are our president, not theirs. We pay your salary. Every time you cow tow to special interests it is our back that takes the dagger and pays the cost. Where is the leader we expected, we were promised, and we elected? Where is the change? It is time you get out of the frat house and into the real world. Listen, don't pontificate. We have had enough of that crap.

Every day you should wake up and remember that it is our Constitution you pledged to defend, the people's Constitution. Your accountability is not to your Chicago cronies or Harvard elitists, not to the weak kneed politicians or corporate thieves, not to the arm chair socialists or societal losers but to the American people.



Stop the partisanship. Stop the bickering over ideological nonsense. Stop taking care of special interests and protecting people who should be prosecuted. Listen to the pulse of the country, listen to the heartbeat of America and you will see how far you have strayed from our expectations. Then act like a president and fix the problems you have so you can fix the problems we have.



When you reach that point you will have honored our veterans by honoring their families and friends, the very people they are willing to die for. Be American and be president and take responsibility and fix this mess and you will have all the support you need. Continue the path you are on and you will be nothing more than another interesting footnote in our presidential history.

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