Wednesday, April 6, 2022

July 22, 2020: Don't Be Lazy - Not All Politicians Are Alike


7/22/20: I have a simple way of telling which politicians I like and which ones I don’t. I don’t like crooks. 

Stick a “D” after their name. Don’t like ‘em. “R,” “KN,” whatever. I don’t like ‘em if they’re Know Nothings.

 

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Don’t be stupid. Not all politicians are alike.

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Our example for today is Larry Householder (R), Speaker of the Ohio General Assembly. The Speaker has just been busted by the F.B.I. and charged for his alleged role in a $60 million bribery scheme. Householder, former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges, and a variety of lobbyists and aides were taken into custody. What did FirstEnergy, an Akron-based company, get for its supposed $60 million bribe? The company convinced lawmakers to provide a $1.3 billion bailout for two failing nuclear powerplants. 

That’s an excellent business model, you might say, with a return of $22.67 per bribe dollar spent. At least it was an excellent model until F.B.I. agents showed up. “This is likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio,” said U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, whose office will prosecute. More arrests are likely. “We’re not done with this case,” DeVillers added. “There are a lot of federal agents knocking on a lot of doors.” 

FirstEnergy executives might want to ask Ghislaine Maxwell for tips about how to evade capture. (See: 7/21/20.)

 

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SO, HERE’S HOW IT GOES. If you don’t understand the importance of the free press in ferreting out crooks in government (or in this case, spreading the news), you need to get out of your house more often. That’s one reason this blogger fears Trump and his attacks on “Fake News.” Better “Fake News,” than politicians doing crooked deals in the dark. 

Look, no one likes paying taxes. But taxes to bail out companies that are bribing elected officials? 

Again, not all politicians are alike. If you find yourself saying that, or thinking that, slap yourself. When four members of the Toledo city council were arrested and charged in a bribery and extortion scheme in June, those four, all Democrats, were crooks. Eight council members were not. 

In 2014 Illinois State Representative Keith Farnham (D) was convicted of distributing child pornography. Most men, of all political persuasions, are absolutely not into child pornography. 

Not all politicians are alike. Some have sticky fingers. That same year, Kansas State Rep. Trent K. LeDoux (R), pled guilty to one count of bank fraud. He got 18 months in prison for ripping off Farmers and Merchants Bank to the tune of $460,000. Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives Mike Hubbard (R), was convicted on 12 of 23 felony charges in 2016. In 2019, Alabama State Senator Zeb Little (D), was convicted of stealing money from client funds. 

Not all politicians are alike. You would not want Bill Clinton around your 26-year-old daughter, if she interned in the White House. No one accused Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush of sexual improprieties.

 

Congressman John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, who died last week, was known as the “conscience of Congress.” 

Congressman Jim Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, was found guilty on ten felony counts of financial corruption, sentenced to eight years in prison, and expelled from the House of Representatives in 2002. 

Traficant, who had ties to the mob, was no John Lewis; and John Lewis who had the courage to stand up to racists mobs in the 1960s, even after being badly beaten, was no Jim Traficant. 

Different mobs.


Lewis, left, and James Zwerg, after being beaten by a mob.

 

Politicians aren’t all the same, and you have to do due diligence and sort out those you like from those you don’t. Some politicians want to end abortions, even in cases of incest or rape. Some politicians think women have the right to choose. Some want to raise taxes on the top 1%. Some think the top 1% worked hard and should be able to keep more of their money. President Obama expanded healthcare under the Affordable Care Act. President Trump said the ACA was a badly flawed plan and promised to repeal it. Some politicians would raise the federal minimum wage to $15. Others would not, saying it would hurt small business. Some are “friends of the environment” and push for increased funding for national parks. Others think environmental rules and regulations hamstring business and want rules and regulations curtailed. 

Some politicians think climate change is a serious threat. Some think it’s a hoax. (It’s not a hoax. Don’t be stupid!) 

Me? I like national parks. I like clean air. I’m for raising the minimum wage. I approve of Obamacare, even though it’s expensive and even though I have good health insurance through the State Teachers Retirement System. I’m conflicted when it comes to abortion, but I don’t believe women should be told what to do in the first trimester, or (scratching my head) the second. 

I subscribe to the idea that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That goes for “money power,” too. I’d raise taxes on the 1%. 

It’s too easy to shrug our shoulders, or wash our hands and say, “All politicians are alike.” Because they’re not.



View from Going to the Sun Highway, Glacier National Park.

 

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She can take a scarf and do 15 things with it. 

PROOF ENOUGH that not all politicians are alike: President Trump. He might not listen to healthcare experts when they explain the value of mask wearing. He did make it clear today that he has been really impressed with Dr. Deborah Birx. “An unbelievable woman. A woman of tremendous substance. And style, frankly. She has an amazing style. She walks into the room and she can take a scarf and do 15 things with it,” he explained in a talk on Fox News. 

Yes, indeed. Scarves were his focus. It would be sad, if it weren’t indicative of the danger Trump’s cluelessness represents for all Americans. Confirmed new cases of COVID-19 for July 22: 

70,106.


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IF WE TUNE IN to Fox News, we find commentators and guests trying to scare viewers into forgetting all about the pandemic. What about this “Black Lives Matter” movement? What does Fox want its audience to think? 

Ben Shapiro, the young conservative pundit appears on Martha MacCallum’s show to talk about a poll that shows 56% of Americans believe American society overall is racist. That horrifies Shapiro, who posits two possible explanations. “Either the majority of Americans believe that their family, friends and neighbors are actually racist,” he says. 

Here, viewers at home are supposed to shake their heads, and say, “Naw, not me and Maw. We ain’t no racists.” 

Or, Shapiro continues, “they believe that the institutions of American society are so deeply corrupt and systematically racist that they have to be razed to the ground. The only solution if you believe that society, at this moment in 2020, is systematically racist or inherently racist is complete destruction of the system from within.” 

Now, viewers are supposed to rush out and buy more guns, and hammer “Trump 2020” signs into their lawns. Maybe using the butts of their semi- automatic rifles. 

Because, if they don’t, Shapiro says, “complete destruction” lies ahead.

  

SAD FACT: A nurse’s union places 164 pairs of white shoes on the Capitol Hill lawn, to mark the death of 164 nurses, infected and killed, while trying to help repeated waves of coronavirus sufferers. 

Conservatives respond by bitching about having to wear masks, because it’s all a plot so the government can control us.

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