A week like no other … for American Corruption

A week like no other …  for American Corruption 

 

How big of a problem could the G.O.P. disarray in one chamber of Congress be?

In fact, some of the concessions Mr. McCarthy agreed to would make the practical business of running the House next to impossible. It could be left unable to do basic things like fund the government or finance the federal debt. For the dissidents, that was the point. For the country, it could lead to some grim consequences.

 

-      Why McCarthy’s Slog to Speaker Could Mean Dysfunction Ahead in the House – NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (1-7-2023)

 

In terms of corruption, I really thought it would be hard for the U.S. government to top the week before the Christmas break.  Please recall, this was the week the Democratic controlled Congress crammed through a 1.7 trillion-dollar omnibus spending measure, w/ roughly $859 billion in DOD welfare.  The bill was loaded with fraud & pork, and of course, funding for America’s new endless war with Russia.  One would have thought that the Dem controlled congress may have wanted to meet some of their obligations to voters, during their last week in power, like BBB, higher minimum wage, abortion, and voter protections… but nope, Dem leadership was clearly focused on their cash cow, the Military Industrial Complex, and an endless river of taxpayer funded kickbacks.  It was also the week that our proxy gave a speech before congress.  Conveniently, left out of the American MSM’ glorification of Zelensky were the highly relevant facts that Zelensky has been busy eliminating press freedoms and all political opposition…  all transpiring in the most corrupt country in Europe.  I guess it wouldn’t help the war effort - or piggish profit taking - if the media started to tell the truth about our Ukrainian puppet?  Alas, America’s little Hitler is on a roll. 

 

But nope, this week even topped the week headed into the congressional Christmas break for corruption, greed, and mismanagement w/in the U.S. government. Let’s launch into it. 

 

For starters, this was the concluding week that Southwest Airlines, single handedly, destroyed the vacations and holiday plans for American & foreign travelers, with thousands and thousands of flight cancellations.   As reported by Senator Bernie Sanders, Southwest took $7 billion in bailout money, during the pandemic (with no-strings attached, the epitome of fraud), turned around and spent $5.6 billion on stock buybacks.  Any taxpayer welfare left over for airline CAPEX and software & computer updates?  Nope. Did congress insist that some of the bailout welfare go to CAPEX or be spent on employees & salaries?  Nope.  And how about the industry’s regulator, Pete Buttigieg, has he held the industry accountable?  Well, as Pete has presidential aspirations and is looking forward to industry donations, Pete has done little or nothing to rein this industry in.  One would think the Secretary of Transportation would want to make voters happy, by reining in the ultra-nasty U.S. airline cartel, which has been fraught with passenger abuse for decades.  But that’s the beauty of America’s highly corrupt political duopoly: politicians are managing up, curry favor with billionaires & multinational donors, and American voters - the disenfranchised -  are merely a rubber stamp every other November. 

 

And on a final note, in regards the airlines and highly unscrupulous regulators, like Pete, it’s important to remember, that with the dismantling of the regulatory state, so many corporations now no longer serve customers or are in business to serve the community.  Instead, and this not limited to the airlines, but applies to industry after industry, companies are business to: maximize profits on the backs of customers; crush their biggest cost – labor; seek to consolidate further and become TBTF; exploit endemic corruption & fraud w/in the United States government for limitless welfare; and they’re in business to manipulate and exploit stock. 

 

And the American MSM that’s supposed to be calling all this corruption out, particularly failed politicians, political parties, and regulators – regardless of party – well, they’ve decided to be partisan.  Too many of the intelligentsia w/in MSM have decided the Dems are above reproach.  Don’t misunderstand me, I’m no fan of either party: both parties have come to embody everything that is venal; both parties are part of the same duopoly that merely serves oligarchy.  But let’s be abundantly clear.  When the MSM plays partisan politics it harms Americans, it destroys the MSM’ own credibility, and it leads – directly – to endless corruption & fraud.  It even gives the GOP a pass, since the MSM is written off as partisan.

 

Another big event this week was the coronation for House Speaker… a coronation that went off the rails, when roughly twenty members of the far-right Freedom Caucus threw the political chessboard into the air and decided to play hardball politics.  It took no less than fifteen rounds of voting for the oligarchy’s anointed one, Speaker McCarthy, to win the prize.  And the cost?  Hard-right Freedom Caucus members, in the party of the hard-right, won key committee assignments and additionally, won the ability to possibly overthrow Speaker McCarthy at some future date.  In short, the Freedom Caucus wasn’t playing around.  They won and they won big: the ability to obstruct and exact serious demands.  And this is just the beginning. 

 

What did JMH observe from all this?  That despite all the handwringing, the world turned, America carried on, the economy did not crumble - any worse than it’s already crumbling (under a failed globalization/neoliberal paradigm).  In fact, it was nice to go a week without the endless grandstanding, blowhards, lies, committees & hearings that are going absolutely nowhere… which, in all honesty, is about all congress, these days, is good for: omnibus spending measures, raising money from wealthy donors, taking orders from K-Street, abdicating authority & responsibility, shafting the American worker, doing absolutely nothing to educate voters (perhaps, because so many politicians are uneducated themselves), and really, really lousy theatre. 

 

The other solid take away from the fight in the House was that the Progressive caucus has been entirely spineless for the last two years.  This week saw, Dems … both establishment & progressives… rally around the theme of unity.  But what exactly did Dem “unity” - Progressive caucus cowardice & capitulation - yield for the American people over the last two years?  Certainly not BBB, not child tax credits, not higher minimum wages, not cannabis legalization… in fact, Dems delivered on precious little of their 2020 campaign promises and in retrospect, it's doubtful that they ever intended to.  What a small band of Republicans clearly demonstrated this week, disagree entirely with their politics - if you will, is a willingness to step up and confront power.  As such, the Progressive caucus completely failed the American people, over the last two years; as such, the Progressive caucus looks like little more than controlled opposition, solely in Washington to further their own careers and deliver false hope & promises.  Sad… both sad & truly pathetic. 

 

The other epic moment this week… was the passing of the January 6 coup anniversary.  Dems spent countless hours, days, weeks on the attack upon the capitol and burned up the legislative clock on the coup; but ultimately, did absolutely nothing about it.  In fact, Dems and their partners in crime – the MSM – seem to have played down the coup anniversary this year.  To be sure, the coup was a serious event in the nation’s history; and to be sure, Trump and GOP congresspersons should have been held accountable & banned from office.  At one point, Biden went so far as to call MAGA republicans “fascist.”  And given GOP embrace of white supremacy, systemic racism & misogyny in America, and endemic poverty (often afflicting women, children, and minorities) … the fascism label is appropriate. 

 

But the Dems have their own problems.  Thanks to the Clintons, the Dems have adopted fear mongering around law & order & crime, they also built up a mass incarceration state, noted for its abuse of slave labor and yes, profiteering.  Dems take money from the same billionaires & multinationals that finance the GOP.  Dems have bought into identical economic policies that the GOP are known for: supply-side economics, libertarian industrial policy, endless corporate welfare & bailouts, crushing unions & labor organization, the elimination of the regulatory state, & trickle-down tax policies.  All this combined - plus ultra-accommodative monetary policies - has led to the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen, from the citizenry and directly into the hands of the one percent.  The January 6 hearings were doomed from the start to be little more than a pep rally, an ad campaign, when they limited the hearings to Trump.  

 

No deep dive into the failed economic & social policies that led to Trump's rise… the fact that the GOP today, as much as Dems & the MSM want to wish him away, is still Trump’s party (although his grip maybe slipping).  And then, there’s the highly uncomfortable truth, that a coup that was televised, never required an endless show trial or hearings. Trump and higher-ups in the GOP should have been put away, and donors too.  But alas, the pretense of democracy under a duopoly must be maintained, billionaires didn’t want to go to jail, and isn’t that who the two parties take their orders from anyway?  And then, there’s the way GOP Joe Biden’s face lights up, whenever trillions in bipartisan fraud gets passed, while the American people suffer and suffer (as a matter of economic & public policy).

 

This truly was a week of unprecedented corruption, another week as a signpost for a great power in terminal decline.  We are witnessing fraud on a scale never before seen; we are witnessing American workers & citizens being sacrificed on an altar of greed & socialism for a predatory one percent.  And it never had to be this way.  Now, more than ever, Americans need leaders that are moral and have the humility to recognize that what we’ve been doing in wrong, and the wisdom to set the nation on the correct course. But that path is currently encumbered - blocked - by structural economic & political defects, the cult of greed, and a criminal oligarchy that has rigged the entire economy and government in their favor. 

 

The United States government has been privatized, bought out, leveraged to the hilt for the benefit of a predatory few… if possible, it’s time to nationalize the U.S. government for the benefit of all & that means eliminating money in politics and establishing term limits (just for starters).  

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023