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ABSTR

GOVERNMENT
Government Corruption and How It Has Fundamentally
Transformed America and the World

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Philosophy of Corruption
Chapter 3: Political Corruption:
Chapter 4: The History of Corruption in the Congress
Chapter 5: The White House
Chapter 6: List Of American State And Local Politicians Convicted Of Crimes of
Corruption
Chapter 7: National Security Agencies, And Federal Bureaucracies: Incompetent,
Corrupt, Or Both?
Chapter 8: Corruption in International and Foreign Aide NGOs
Chapter 9: Military Corruption
Chapter 10: Labor Unions and Organized Crime
Chapter 11: Religion
Chapter 12: Preventing Corruption
Chapter 13: Whistleblowers
Chapter 14: Just To Illustrate…
Chapter 15: This page was intentionally left blank
Chapter 16: Emperor Nero Played While Rome Burned
Chapter 17: No Child Left Behind…The Scapegoat for Education
Chapter 18: A Story Of The Little Red School House With The Leaky Roof
Chapter 19: The School Board Meeting
Chapter 20: The Certificate
Chapter 21: A Memorandum To All School Districts
Chapter 22: Dear Mr. Hatch: A Letter To My Legislator
Chapter 23: When Will It End?
Chapter 24: The Aristocracy Of Education Versus The Common Man
A Tale From The Halls Of Bureau Pathology
Chapter 25: An Observer’s History Of Bureaucracy
Chapter 26: A Tale From The Halls Of Bureau Pathology
(Thanks to Mark Twain for the inspiration)
Chapter 27: A Comprehensive Report On Global Racism
By the United Nations Commission For Civil Rights
Chapter 28: The Man Who Corrupted Salt Lake City
Chapter 29: Democrats
Chapter 30: Suicide Bombers: The Job Interview
Chapter 31: The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs
Chapter 32: The Emperor’s New Clothes
Chapter 33: Welcome to the Republic of Koruptia
Chapter 34: The Seven Deadly Sins, Human Nature and Corruption
Chapter 35: Scriptural Lessons Of Corruption

1
Government Corruption and How It Has
Fundamentally Transformed America and the World
Chapter 1: Introduction
When I was in the Air Force I spent some time in the Middle East. Once in a
discussion on crime, my Arab buddies asked me what city in America had the highest
crime rate. I answered, “That’s an easy question, Washington D.C. because you have the
regular criminals and then you have the politicians.” They didn’t have to ask me to
explain. Corruption is a cancer around the world. They laughed because they
understood corruption only too well.
We probably all agree that corruption is wrong; at least most of us. Some in
government and corporate America would disagree. But for the rest of us, do we really
understand the damage it causes? Indeed, do we know what corruption is? Corruption
can probably best be defined as making a covert payment to those who have the
authority to deliver a favor. Examples include, individuals bribing a judge or traffic cop
and large companies making campaign donations to elected government officials to
influence the outcome of a business process or a special favor.
More recently we’ve seen how foreign governments and private individuals have
contributed to election campaigns in order to influence the outcomes of elections so
that the corrupt get the candidate they desire. Of course if they don’t get their
candidate they cry foul and then set to destroy the opposition so that they can still
maintain their power. This is known as a shadow government. They operate in the
shadows to overturn democratically elected officials. This has not only happened in
America but in other countries such as Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and countries in the
third world.
Arguably corruption is a major cause of poverty around the world and even in
the US where poverty pimps in the government take advantage and exploit those who
live below the poverty line. We saw examples of that with welfare, food stamps and the
ubiquitous Obama phone. Corruption in many poor countries is not limited to the
leaders of poor countries: it is universal. Indeed, it can be at its most damaging at lower
levels in society where it affects every-day economic life. If a contract dispute is being
taken to court and is settled in favor of the person who bribes the judge, or if property
titles are only granted to those who bribe the relevant government administrator then
normal economic life as we know it in the West cannot develop.
When we impose economic sanctions on rogue countries such as North Korea,
Russia, Syria, and Iran who are we really hurting? Not the leaders. They built themselves
an insulating wall around their palaces, off shore bank accounts, and they continue to
live like kings at the expense of their people who, in most cases, were starving before
the sanctions and suffer even more after the imposition of the sanctions.
In 1979, I went with two friends from Benin to Nigeria. When we got to the
border crossing, the official came on the bus and told me to go to his office. I did. He
asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to Kamba to the market. He
questioned me about my passport. He said, “You must have a passport and a visa to
come into this country.” I told him I was just going to the market and then I was going to
return to Niger. With that he gave me permission to enter the country.

2
However, on the way back, he pulled me off the bus again. He looked at me through
his dark glasses, and yelled at me, “What do you mean to understand by this place?”
What? He repeated his question. Then I told him I had no idea what he was talking
about. Then I said that I had never been treated like that in any country I had ever been
too. I said I can assure you that I will never return to Nigeria as long as I live.”
Later I learned from Canadian friends who worked in Nigeria that he was looking for
me to give him a “dash,” or bribe. Nothing gets done in Nigeria without a dash. Also I
was a combination of both brave and stupid because he could have easily pulled me off
the bus and thrown me in jail and threw away the key. I was very, very lucky!
But what about corruption closer to home? A recent study by Ian Senior,
published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, suggests that there is also widespread
corruption in developed countries and in their international institutions. 1 In France, two
recent presidents and two prime ministers have either been found guilty of corruption
or have been implicated but not fully investigated because of a legal system that gives
immunities to the top people. Italy and Japan have similarly had their highest-ranking
politicians absorbed in corruption scandals. Neither the EU nor the UN appear immune
either; though their procedures for holding senior officials and politicians to account are
so muddy that it is likely that much corrupt business deals remain concealed2 and will
never see the light of day.
After I retired from the Air Force, I earned a second bachelor’s degree in
Criminal Justice and became licensed in Private Security and Investigations. In the
eleven years I was involved in this profession I saw government and private corruption
that made me want to do whatever I could to defeat the propensity of officials to
engage in illegal activities that hurt the people they were supposed to serve and
continue my oath of defending the Constitution against all enemies foreign and
domestic.
Indeed, it is a disturbing feature of political and judicial systems in the developed
world that it sometimes seems impossible to hold politicians to account for corrupt
activity.3 Where investigations take place they are often either in secret or conducted at
a snail’s pace so that after years or even decades, most have forgotten about the
investigation. In France, the President has immunity from prosecution.
In the EU, when Edith Cresson was investigated for suspected inappropriate
financial relationships with her dentist, it took five years to check minor factual matters
relating to employment documents and then the European Court decided not to
prosecute at a hearing that took place behind closed doors. More generally, the EU’s
auditors have refused to sign off its accounts for eleven successive years and whistle
blowers and those who bring to light inappropriate financial behavior have been
sidelined, suspended or intimidated.4
In Ireland, the Moriarty Tribunal has been investigating corruption in the political
system since 1997 and still shows no sign of reporting. So far, the Tribunal has cost Irish
taxpayers €18.6 million. 5
1 Friedrich Schneider; Colin C. Williams. The Shadow Economy. Institute of Economic Affairs. 2013
2Ibid
3 Example, look at the recent scandals of the Clintons and Barack Obama; neither he nor members of
his administration have been held accountable for the corruption they perpetrated on the American
people. In fact they have organized a shadow government to destroy the Trump administration.
4 Schneider and Williams, 2013
5 $26,000,000,000 US dollars.

3
There are many factors to do with the general government policy framework
that seem to encourage corruption. In some countries basic legal structures are absent
and local political bosses thrive on and therefore encourage corruption. Also, high levels
of regulation seem to lead to more corruption. Certainly, trade regulations in under-
developed countries attracts corruption like a magnet.
If government officials are given the power to restrict imports by imposing tariffs
or quotas those tariffs, or quotas can often be overcome by covert bribes. I had a friend
in the Philippines who used to bribe customs officials in order to get them to release
certain imported items from the US. He explained that it was just the way of doing
business in the PI.
Indeed, once the culture of corruption has settled in, even legal imports are
frequently delayed by shady bureaucratic processes unless covert payments are made
to the relevant customs officials. In some cases, the morality of the issue can become
blurred for potential corrupters. If I am sitting outside a customs post in a tropical
country with a truck load of fresh fruit, is it moral or not to bribe the customs officials
who will let me through for a covert payment?
At a lower level, advice on the circumstances in which corruption is wrong might
be helpful. Is corruption always wrong or, in the above example, is it morally right to
bribe the customs officials to allow a truck load of fresh fruit into a country full of
hungry people? Secrecy is almost always the mother of corruption, and the kinds of
structures exposed in the Paradise Papers6 are the tools of the trade that the corrupt
use to launder their ill-begotten gains.
The definition of corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a
person entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire personal benefit.
Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it
may also involve practices that are legal in many countries. Government, or political,
corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an
official capacity for personal gain or to use that position of authority to enrich or grant
favors to friends and family.
Stephen D. Morris, a professor of politics, writes that political corruption is the
illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest. 7 Economist Ian Senior
defines corruption as an action to:
(a) secretly provide
(b) a good or a service to a third party
(c) so that he or she can influence certain actions which
(d) benefit the corrupt, a third party, or both

6 The Paradise Papers is a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore
investments that were leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared
them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and a network of more than 380
journalists, and some of the details were made public on 5 November 2017. The documents originate
from the offshore law firm Appleby, the corporate services providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and
business registries in 19 tax jurisdictions. They contain the names of more than 120,000 people and
companies. Among those whose financial affairs mentioned are, separately, Prince Charles and Queen
Elizabeth II, President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. At
1.4 terabytes in size, this is second only to the Panama Papers in 2016 as the biggest data leak in history.
7 Stephen D. Morris and Charles H. Blake (eds.). 2010. Corruption and Politics in Latin America:
National and Regional Dynamics. Boulder and London: Rienner.

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(e) in which the corrupt agent has authority.8

Daniel Kaufmann, from the World Bank, extends the concept to include 'legal
corruption' in which power is abused within the confines of the law; as those with
power often can make laws for their protection. The effect of corruption in
infrastructure is to increase costs and construction time, lower the quality and decrease
the benefit. Legal corruption is also known as corruption that is legally right but morally
wrong.9
Corruption can occur on different scales. Corruption ranges from small favors
between a small number of people (petty corruption, to corruption that affects the
government on a large scale (grand corruption), and corruption that is so prevalent that
it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the
symptoms of organized crime; such as the dash system in Africa.
Public sector corruption includes corruption of the political process and of
government agencies such as the police, judges, and politicians; as well as corruption in
processes of allocating public funds for contracts, grants, and hiring. Recent research by
the World Bank suggests that those who make policy decisions such as elected officials
and unelected bureaucrats can be critical in determining the level of corruption because
of the economic incentives different policy-makers face. 10
In the following chapters I have used data from public records, therefore it is no
secret that doesn’t need filling up the pages with an endless litany of quotes. However
CYA is very important when writing about a subject such as corruption. I’ve done the
research, added the notes and bibliography but if the reader needs verification go
ahead and check the records for yourselves.

8 Corruption - The World's Big C: Cases, Causes, Consequences, Cures. Ian Senior. Institute of
Economic Affairs (December 1, 2006)
9 Kaufmann, Daniel and Vicente, Pedro C., Legal Corruption (November 24, 2005). Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=829844 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.829844
10 Can we measure the power of the grabbing hand? : a comparative analysis of different indicators
of corruption. Hamilton, Alexander James; Hammer, Craig; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/
113281515516828746/pdf/WPS8299.pdf

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Chapter 2: Philosophy of Corruption

19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer acknowledged that


academics, including philosophers, are subject to the same sources of corruption as the
society they inhabit. He distinguishes the corrupt "university" philosophers, whose "real
concern is to earn with cr. an honest livelihood for themselves and ...to enjoy a certain
prestige in the eyes of the public" from the genuine philosopher, whose sole motive is to
discover and bear witness to the truth.11
A philosophical analysis of the corruption phenomenon expounds on what I think is
one of the biggest problems of the current corruption in society: the conception of
corruption itself. Because corruption today is an inflated phenomenon where all sorts of
things are shuffled in secret underneath the proverbial table; in other words most
corruption is merely swept under the rug. The result of every scandal, act of corruption,
and dodgy practices is cover-up.
Corruption is a universal phenomenon, independent of social system, age, position
or class. It is also a very old phenomenon. In writings dating from Babylonia, 2250 BC, one
even finds traces of corruption. But corruption probably never was the hot issue as it is
today. Escalating global media has undoubtedly contributed to this. But many advances in
technology in the last thirty years have also contributed. 12
Corruption goes further than just the economic and political sphere. Wabanhu
emphasizes on many occasions that corruption erodes patters of morality and civic virtue
which comprise the foundations of ethics and which are necessary to maintain human
rights and dignity of an equitable community. In short, corruption erodes the patterns that
generally promote the good of a community.13
Bribery is probably the most investigated form of corruption. Its consequences
affect local and global economies, political and social dominions. It’s economic costs are
overwhelming. As an example: World Bank estimated that about 5% of the value of imports
in developing countries are bribes to officials. This results in approximately a 50-80-billion-
dollar loss in economic growth per year.14 A common consequence of such form of
corruption are “white elephant”15 projects.
I’m reminded of the 1985 movie, Volunteers, starring Tom Hanks, John Candy and
Rita Wilson. The plot centers around Lawrence Bourne III (Tom Hanks), is a spoiled rich kid
who just graduated from Yale ("A College") Class of 1962 with a $28,000 gambling debt.
After his father, Lawrence Bourne Jr. (George Plimpton), refuses to pay his son's debt,
Lawrence escapes his angry creditors by trading places with his college roommate Kent
(Xander Berkeley) and jumping on a Peace Corps flight to Thailand.
There he is assigned to build a bridge for the local villagers with Washington State
University graduate, Tom Tuttle, from Tacoma (John Candy) and the beautiful, down-to
earth Beth Wexler (Rita Wilson). What they do not realize is that the bridge is coveted by

11 Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Philosophy in the Universities,” Parerga and Paralipomena, E. Payne,
trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 141.
12 Davor Josipovic. Een filosofische analyse van het corruptiefenomeen, 2009 (Zie JOS),
13 Ibid
14 Here are 10 ways to fight corruption. Robert Hunja.12/08/2015. worldbank.org/governance/
15 A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly
that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is an object, building
project, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered expensive but without use or value.

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the Central Intelligence Agency, a local communist guerilla force, and the powerful drug
lord Chung Mee (Ernest Harada).
Together with the help of At Toon, (Gedde Watanabe) the only English-speaking
native, they must fight off the three opposing forces and find out what is right for the
villagers, as well as themselves. Sometimes many interests take over and completely
disregard what the villagers need and want. Many projects serve the altruistic needs of the
corrupt government, the shady corporations, and the naïve international non-governmental
or religious organizations. When the project is done it’s something the villagers need or
want.
It’s like third party brokered peace treaties. Because it only concerns the
vested interests of what the UN or Europe or the US, shortly before the ink dries on the
treaty, the parties in the treaty are back to fighting; Neither side giving up whatever they
are fighting about.
Such projects are very large, well-greased, and are buried short after completion
because they are completely unnecessary from the public perspective. As an example of
scale, Moody-Stuart notes that projects under $2,000,000 rarely attract attention of senior
officials. Bribery has also the tendency to opt for specific industries. There is for example
evidence that corruption affects spending on education, military and social programs. 16
Corruption goes further than just the economic and political sphere. Emmanuel
Wabanhu17 from the St. Augustine University of Tanzania, in his book, Resisting Corporate
Corruption, emphasizes on many occasions that corruption erodes patterns of morality and
civic virtue which comprise the foundations of ethics and which are necessary to maintain
human rights and dignity of an impartial community. In short, corruption erodes the
patterns that generally promote the good of a community.18
Despite the fact that corruption is considered a universal problem and has led to the
emergence of various developments, ranging from public demonstrations and international
treaties, to national and international organizations like Transparency International, it still
remains a debatable subject because in some countries corruption is such a way of life that
some don’t give it a second thought; not realizing that it is a problem that affects everyone.
Most authors start from a general understanding of corruption, supported by the
common definitions. But it is precisely these oft-quoted definitions that give us a soft
romantic idea of corruption; such as the Robin Hood ideal. Wabanhu notes that there are
almost as many definitions of corruption as there are authors who write about it. Now, we
see that the consequences of this abstract chaos are far-reaching.
Consider the following questions:19 The rationale for fighting corruption
The costs of corruption for economic, political and social development are becoming
increasingly evident. But many of the most convincing arguments in support of the
fight against corruption are little known to the public and remain unused in political
debates. This brief provides evidence that reveals the true cost and to explain why
governments and business must prioritize the fight against corruption.

16 Hunja, 2015
17 This book provides a comprehensive ethical analysis of corporate corruption as one of the most
rapidly growing phenomena in the field of business ethics. Today (corporate) corruption has become
again a central topic in debates about the future of business and economic activities in general.
18 Resisting Corporate Corruption. Emmanuel Wabanhu. (2010) LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
19 www.cleangovbiz.org

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WHAT IS CORRUPTION? Corruption is the abuse of public or private office for
personal gain. It includes acts of bribery, embezzlement, nepotism or state capture. It is
often associated with and reinforced by other illegal practices, such as bid rigging, fraud or
money laundering.
WHAT DOES CORRUPTION LOOK LIKE? It could be the multinational company that
pays a bribe to win the public contract to build the local highway, despite proposing a sub-
standard offer. It could be the politician redirecting public investments to his hometown
rather than to the region most in need. It could be the public official embezzling funds for
school renovations to build his private villa. It could be the manager recruiting an ill-suited
friend for a high-level position. Or, it could be the local official demanding bribes from
ordinary citizens to get access to a new water pipe. At the end of the day, those hurt most
by corruption are the world’s weakest and most vulnerable.
Clean Gov Biz supports governments to reinforce their fight against corruption and
engage with civil society and the private sector to promote real change towards integrity. It
draws together existing tools, provides user-friendly guidance to strengthen their
implementation, improves coordination among relevant players and monitors progress
towards integrity.
WHY FIGHT CORRUPTION? Corruption is one of the main obstacles to sustainable
economic, political and social development, for developing, emerging and developed
economies alike. Overall, corruption reduces efficiency and increases inequality. Estimates
show that the cost of corruption equals more than 5% of global GDP (US$ 2.6 trillion, World
Economic Forum) with over US$ 1 trillion paid in bribes each year (World Bank). It is not
only a question of ethics; we simply cannot afford such waste.
1. Corruption increases the cost of doing business: First, bribes and drawn-out
negotiations to bargain them add additional costs to a transaction. Second, corruption
brings with it the risk of prosecution, important penalties, blacklisting and reputational
damage. Third, engaging in bribery creates business uncertainty, as such behavior does not
necessarily guarantee business to a company; there can always be another competing
company willing to offer a higher bribe to tilt the business in its favour. On the macro level,
corruption distorts market mechanisms, like fair competition and deters domestic and
foreign investments, thus stifling growth and future business opportunities for all
stakeholders. IMF research has shown that investment in corrupt countries is almost 5%
less than in countries that are relatively corruption-free. The World Economic Forum
estimates that corruption increases the cost of doing business by up to 10% on average.
Siemens, the German engineering giant, had to pay penalties of US$ 1.6 billion in 2008 to
settle charges that it routinely engaged in bribery around the world. A significant negative
impact of corruption on a country’s capital productivity has been proven (Lambsdorff 2003).
2. Corruption leads to waste or the inefficient use of public resources As a result of
corruption, investments are not allocated to sectors and programs which present the best
value for money or where needs are highest, but to those which offer the best prospects for
personal enrichment of corrupt politicians. Thus resources go into big infrastructure
projects or military procurement where kickbacks are high, to the detriment of sectors like
education and health care. Moreover, public tenders are assigned to the highest bribe
payer, neglecting better qualified companies not willing to bribe, which undermines the
quality of the projects carried out. In some instances public funds are simply diverted from
their intended use, embezzled and exploited for private enrichment.

8
Corruption also slows down bureaucratic processes, as inefficient bureaucracies
offer more leverage for corrupt public officials: the longer the queue for a service, the
higher the incentive for citizens to bribe to get what they want. Finally, nepotism - in both
private and public organizations -brings incompetent people into power, weakening
performance and governance. Several studies provide evidence of the negative correlation
between corruption and the quality of government investments, services and regulations.
For example, child mortality rates in countries with high levels of corruption are about one
third higher than in countries with low corruption, infant mortality rates are almost twice as
high and student dropout rates are five times as high (Gupta et al. 2011). Numbers on the
monetary loss due to corruption vary but are alarming. The African Union (2002) estimates
that 25% of the GDP of African states, amounting to US$148 billion, is lost to corruption
every year. The US health care programs Medicare and Medicaid estimate that 5% to 10%
of their annual budget is wasted as a result of corruption.
3. Corruption excludes poor people from public services and perpetuates poverty.
The poor generally lack privileged access to decision makers, which is necessary in corrupt
societies to obtain certain goods and services. Resources and benefits are thus exchanged
among the rich and well connected, excluding the less privileged. Moreover, the poor bear
the largest burden of higher tariffs in public services imposed by the costs of corruption, as
they have no alternative to the public offers. They might also be completely excluded from
basic services like health care or education, if they cannot afford to pay bribes which are
requested illegally. The embezzlement or diversion of public funds further reduces the
government’s resources available for development and poverty reduction spending.
The significant impact of corruption on income inequality and the negative effect of
corruption on income growth for the poorest 20% of a country have been proven
empirically
(Gupta et al. 2002). The World Bank (Baker 2005) estimates that each year US$ 20 to US$
40
billion, corresponding to 20% to 40% of official development assistance, is stolen through
high-level corruption from public budgets in developing countries and hidden overseas.
Transparency International (Global Corruption Report 2006) found that about 35% of births
in rural areas in Azerbaijan take place at home, because poor people cannot afford to pay
the
high charges for care in facilities where care was supposed to be free.
4. Corruption corrodes public trust, undermines the rule of law and ultimately
delegitimizes the state. Rules and regulations are circumvented by bribes, public budget
control is undermined by illicit money flows and political critics and the media are silenced
through bribes levering out democratic systems of checks and balances. Corruption in
political processes like elections or party financing undermines the rule of the people and
thus the very foundation of democracy.
If basic public services are not delivered to citizens due to corruption, the state
eventually loses its credibility and legitimacy. As a result, disappointed citizens might turn
away from the state, retreat from political processes, migrate or stand up against what they
perceive to be the corrupt political and economic elites. The global uprisings from the Arab
world to India, Brazil and occupy Wall Street are proving that people will only takes so much
and then they will revolt.
What is corruption? If the main subject of research is suspiciously defined, what are
the results and implications of such investigation? Most investigations turn into witch hunts

9
and produce nothing because most officials aren’t interested in fixing the problem but
assigning blame and equating that with fixing problems. Do these implications have any
scientific value? Not as much scientific and much as social. Some of these implications are
based on junk science as much as pure science.
What do we combat with so-called anti-corruption measures? This is a very
important question because anti-corruption strategies are established on the basis of a
particular understanding of the original problem. Most anti-corruption measure are merely
window dressing. They detract from the wizard behind the curtain. Is the carrot and stick
approach sufficient to combat corruption? No, because those who exercise the stick are
those in a position of power so that the subordinates have no recourse. More than likely
those in power are the very ones who corrupt.
Why fight corruption at all? This might sound funny, but there actually are authors
who defend it. These are probably authors who engage in it themselves and therefore need
to justify their actions. For example, the democrats who defend the shadow government.
They don’t want to upset the apple cart of perks, kick-backs, bribes, shadowy murders and
other dark ops that have as their objective the overthrow of democratically elected
governments.
It is in large part due to this theoretical chaos that such questions have no clear
answer. So the question “what exactly is corruption,” becomes more and more persistent.
Most reasonable people associate bribery, extortion, nepotism and fraud with corruption,
but the problem is that this abstract association is ambiguous. For example, it does not
necessarily follow from the fact that if person X bribes person Y that Y is also corrupt.
Likewise nepotism is not necessarily considered corrupt. The same applies to extortion and
fraud. Corruption may also have to do with commissioning, rewarding, and influencing
these acts of corruption. Many governments hide behind the shield of national security.
This is like sweeping the trash, cockroaches, and rats under the carpet so that they are out
of sight and out of mind.
There is one downside to this way of thinking. The cover-up may not be revealed
today or tomorrow. However, as soon as the light of revelation is turned on the rug, the
cockroaches, and rats, will run for cover leaving the trash behind to be investigated and
prosecuted. The rats and cockroaches will use every tool at their disposal to protect
themselves and their cronies; diversion, reflection, ad hominem attacks, assault, false
accusations, false news, evidence and witness tampering, false allegations, lies, political
destruction, and in some cases even murder. Yet eventually they will be caught and
prosecuted. For example, look at the recent revelations of the Congress, the FBI, the CIA,
the NSA, the DOJ, the Clintons and the Obama administration and his holdovers. The light is
shining on the refuse of our government and the swamp is beginning to drain; not as
quickly as many had hoped but it is draining. It’s just a matter of giving the perpetrators
enough rope to hang themselves. They are so drunk on their own power they become
willing accomplices in their own demise.

Causes Of Corruption: According to a 2017 survey study,20 the following


factors have been attributed as causes of corruption:

20 Hamilton, Alexander (2017). "Can We Measure the Power of the Grabbing Hand? A Comparative
Analysis of Different Indicators of Corruption" (PDF). World Bank Policy Research

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1. Contamination from corrupt neighboring countries: In recent years corruption
from Mexico has spilled over to the Southwest US. Also corruption from Nigeria
has spilled over to neighboring countries such as Niger, Benin, Cameroon, and
Chad. This spill over brings with it not only corruption but all the many dark and
dodgy forms of graft.
2. Gender inequality: This is common in countries with a strict patriarchal society
and where women are extremely oppressed. Countries like those in the Middle
East oppress their women severely. Some are so bad that women cannot work
outside the home, or drive; they must wear the abaya, or burka or hijab. I often
wondered how many women were hiding the scars of spouse abuse under their
robes. A friend of mine who worked in a Saudi Hospital ER told me that he saw a
lot of signs of abuse under the abayas.
3. Higher levels of bureaucracy and inefficient administrative structure: In many
countries when students graduate from secondary school they place their hopes
on becoming a functionary in the government because of the good wages and
benefits such as graft and corruption. The US is not exempt. The EPA and IRS are
probably the most corrupt agencies in the federal government. One can open
any magazine or newspaper and see the range of their shenanigans.
4. Higher levels of market and political monopolization: This is common with
countries that have nationalized industries, and services. Almost all of the OPEC
countries have nationalized the oil industry. The politicians use the profits from
the oil to line their pockets rather than use them to help their people.
5. Large ethnic divisions and high levels of in-group favoritism: In Nigeria the
Muslim Hausa people in the north rule the other tribes in the south. From time
to time they oppress those people especially Christians and Animists in the
south. The poverty pimps in America play racial groups against each other in
order to divide and conquer. The warring parties are so busy fighting they have
no time to complain about the government.
6. Large government size: In countries like the US where the government is so
bloated that it is out of control, bureaucrats commit acts of corruption with
almost impunity from prosecution and contempt for those they are supposed to
serve. The reason there is a war between the left and the right is that when the
left is in control the more government grows. When the right is in control the
more they cut government. Then there is the common knowledge that when the
US Congress passes a law they exempt themselves from following the law that
everyone else must obey. Therefore, they get tax exemptions, health insurance,
pay raises, retirement and other perks and benefits the rest of Americans will
never see.
7. Low degree of integration in the world economy: Look at countries such as North
Korea and Iran. The UN has implemented restrictions on the nations because of
the way they oppress their people. The problem with boycotts is that they don’t
affect the government at all. They will hide their money in offshore banks. They
will continue to eat three squares a day and live in their political cocoons. All the
while their people are starving and going without because of the boycotts. Of
course because these oppressive governments also control the media they can
easily blame the US, the un and others for their poverty.

11
8. Low economic freedom: Think Third World and the lower classes of the
developed world. These people are illiterate, poor, unhealthy, malnourished, and
unemployed. Some of this is because the government has enslaved these people
to socialist programs. Some of this is because of ignorance, the government has
more control over the hearts and minds of the people. They only know what the
oppressors want them to know. They can blame the 1% for their situation.
9. Low Internet access: This would also go along with access to any technology.
Many people only know what their governments are willing to share with them. When I
was in Niger, there was only one television in each village, such as the one at the
Maison de Jeunes in my village. The news, and broadcasting choices were controlled by
the government ministry of communication (Le Conseil Supérieur de la
Communication). This ministry continues to control the media and the press even now.
Pravda was the only news outlet in the former Soviet Union. Even though the official
statistics told us that some 90% of the people were illiterate, they only knew what they
read in Pravda, or heard on Radio Moscow. In the US, the Democratic Party held the
majority in Congress for 60 years with a 2-year break from 1947 and 1949. They were
able to create a media that broadcast only the news they wanted. However in 1996 the
Republicans finally became the majority. The Republicans held the Congress from 1996-
2007, with a 4-year break while the Democrats took back control from 2007-2011. Then
in 2012 they lost control to the Republicans again and they held it until after 2018. The
problem has been the democrats held the Congress for so long they couldn’t deal with
the loss of power. Therefore, they have created a shadow government that has
attempted to destroy the Republicans in power and any usurpers who are foolish
enough to dream of government service on the republican ticket. Sarah Palin referred to
this as the politics of personal destruction.
10. Low levels of democracy, weak civil participation and low political transparency:
This involves secrets. The more secrets a government has the more there is a
strong tendency to corruption and even more temptation to cover-up the
corruption. One of the reasons why Obama will go down as one of the most
corrupt in American history is because of the lack of transparency. The media
assisted in this by being his propaganda arm and told the people only what
Obama officials wanted them to know. He was involved in some 63 scandals and
cover-ups. This secrecy also leads to conspiracy theories. The electorate begin to
exhibit apathy which put corrupt officials into office. In the 2016 election there
were 250 million Americans of voting age. Of those, only 231 million were
registered voters. Of the registered voters only 129 million of them voted. "The
smaller the voter pool becomes, the more weight a single vote carries and the
easier it becomes for an active, partisan minority to determine an election's
outcome."21
11. Low levels of education: When the people are ignorant they are more easily
controlled by the government. This is why those living in the Third World and
corrupt countries in the Developed world only know what they are told by those
who maintain control. The educated elite in some countries including the US
only consider a few universities worthy of mention when it comes to
government service. In the case of the US, it is the Ivy League schools. Anyone
21 2016 November General Election Turnout Rates. (2017) The United States Elections Project
http://www.electproject.org/home

12
else is not worth bothering with. That is why so many politicians and corporate
CEO’s are all from Yale, Columbia, Harvard and other elite snobbish schools.
12. Low levels of government decentralization: Again, big government, big
corruption. I worked for a director that demanded that everything concerning
our agency go through her. Every supply order, every leave of absence, every
personnel problem, every client had to go through her. Nothing went on without
her knowing ab out it. Her objective wasn’t the well-being of the agency it was
the keeping up of appearances with the public and local government. Therefore
she engaged in falsification of records, fraudulent reports, and the personal
destruction of anyone who she considered a threat; whether they were or not.
Decentralization is just as bad on the local level as it is on the federal level.
13. Low press freedom: Look at the Iron and Bamboo curtains. In most countries
with dictatorships there is no freedom of the press. Even in the US, the
mainstream media acts as a propaganda agent for the leftist and shadow
government. It always amazed me that the main published magazine for the
Soviet Union was Pravda; meaning Truth. Any opposing media outlet is either
ridiculed or shut down. In the US the media, which has been dubbed the drive-
by media after the gang activity of drive shootings, have taken up with the
shadow government as their propaganda arm. They consider any conservative
outlet as not valid news sources. As such they have engaged in fake news and
then they wonder why the majority of Americans have lost trust in them as an
institution. I had a boss that told me when you lose the trust you are done; in
reference to a general manager who had lost the trust of his employees.
14. Political instability: Here we must look at countries who are in the middle of
political upheaval such as Somalia, Syria, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Afghanistan and
Iraq. It’s hard to provide some similitude of stability when insurgents such as
ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban are raising hell. The people don’t feel safe, the
government is out of control which makes it easier for corruption to thrive. Is it
any wonder that during the last days of the Obama administration while he was
slandering law enforcement that corruption thrived on a diet of anti-law
enforcement diatribes?
15. Poverty: The undeveloped world, the poor in the undeveloped world fed a
steady diet of victimization blame their problems on the developed countries
and the rich; such that they won’t pull themselves out of their own swamp.
Their corrupt governments exploit this victimization so that they can maintain
control over the hearts and minds of their people. The governments use the
country’s resources to line their pockets and the people, who are so poor they
can’t even pay attention, are allowed to blame outside forces for their
predicament. In some cases many countries pay their poor to demonstrate
against the scapegoat which is usually the United Sates, the country everyone
loves to hate and blame for their problems. In the US the left has convinced the
poor they are all victims of conservatives. Since many of these people are also
illiterate they fall for the lie hook, line and sinker. So when the left talks about
making the rich pay their fair share of taxes, about the white male is the cause
of their problems they rise up and cause demonstrate the power of the white
middle-class American male as the source for their misery. They are convinced
that the only racists are white racists. That because they are minorities that they

13
cannot be racists. That is why the left need the poor and the illiterate; to
maintain control over the masses.
16. Resource wealth: Some countries have many resources, and some don’t. For
example Nigeria has massive oil reserves. They make millions every year in oil
revenues; yet the people never see any benefit from the money. Japan has very
few natural resources, yet they are among the super powers in the developed
world. It really depends actually on who’s in charge and who invests in their
people.
17. Weak property rights: In the communist world, the Islamic world, and other
countries where there are no property rights, their people are merely glorified
sharecroppers. Instead of the rich man on the hill that owns the ground they
farm, the government slave master owns the land, the workers, the homes they
live in, and their soul. I saw a bumper sticker once that read, “Tax the rich,
enslave the rest.” That’s becoming the mantra in the USA as well.

Types: Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism,
parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, electoral fraud, unholy alliances, tax
evasion, networking, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprises
such as drug and human trafficking, and money laundering, though it is not restricted to
these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of
political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption.
Bribery: Bribery involves the improper use of gifts and favors in exchange for
personal gain. This is also known as kickbacks or, in the Middle East, as baksheesh. It is the
most common form of corruption. The types of favors given are diverse and may include
money, gifts, sexual favors, company shares, entertainment, employment and political
benefits. The personal gain that is given can be anything from actively giving preferential
treatment to having an indiscretion or crime overlooked. If left unchecked, bribery can
sometimes perpetrate further corruption. Bribery can make officials more susceptible to
blackmail and extortion. When I was on a job in Elko, Nevada, the local politicians had
contracts with every law firm in the county. If an individual wanted to sue the local
government they had to find the closest attorney in Reno, 8 hours away. As a result the
citizens of Elko country put up with the corruption rather than deal with the hassle of
finding a law firm to handle their case.

Embezzlement and Theft involve someone with access to funds or assets


illegally taking control of them. Fraud involves using deception to convince the owner of
funds or assets to give them up to an unauthorized party. Examples include the
misdirection of company funds into "shadow companies" or corrupt government officials
such as the skimming of foreign aid money, scams and other corrupt activity.
I was involved in a couple of investigations where employees who had access to
funds skimmed them to line their own pockets; bank clerks, financial officers, who
embezzled company money to pay off personal debts; store and hotel managers who ran
illegal businesses on the side; bureaucrats who persecute those they deem as enemies of
the state through official channels. This can even involve law enforcement stealing evidence
from the evidence locker, or nurses stealing drugs from the narcotics safe, military

14
members stealing ancient artifacts from museums. Corruption doesn’t have to involve just
high-level officials but can involve low level officials in both the private and public sector.

Extortion and Blackmail: While bribery is the use of self-assured incentives for
corrupt aims, extortion and blackmail center around the use of threats. This can be the
threat of violence or false imprisonment as well as exposure of an individual's secrets or
prior crimes. This includes such behavior as an influential person threatening to go to the
media if they do not receive speedy medical treatment at the expense of other patients,
threatening a public official with exposure of their personal secrets if they do not vote in a
particular manner, or demanding money in exchange for continued secrecy.
The recent deluge of public officials, celebrities and athletes being accused of
alleged sexual harassment, molestation, and rape is an example of people engaging in
dodgy behavior, settling out of court to keep their victims quiet is an example of extortion
and blackmail. The problem with this is that like Pandora’s box, once opened it cannot be
shut. Some of these accusations are real but some are copycats which hurts those who are
real victims because the fakes make everyone suspect. Innocent victims include those of
whom the false allegations are made in an effort to tarnish their good name and destroy
them. Also the genuine victims who allege they have been molested but those in power will
counter with lies and innuendo made to silence the true victim.
I’ve seen this in my own experience. Accusations are made. The victim is socially
isolated. The rumor mill spreads lies, innuendo and exaggerated stories all over town. Like a
basket of feathers overturned in the wind they blow hither and yon. Whether or not they
are true is not a factor. Many people love juicy gossip no matter who they hurt. The victim
will be pushed into a corner: either they come out fighting, or they hide within themselves;
even if they win the damage is still done; move out of town where no one knows them; or
they will get so despondent they commit suicide. I had a friend who committed suicide and
afterwards his accusers came forward and confessed they were just “kidding.” On top of all
that some deny that gossip is in fact damaging. One person told me who was the spreader
of gossip. When asked why he indulged in spreading of rumors, he answered, “Because
that’s what people do in small towns. They spread harmless gossip.” That fact that his sister
was hurt by the spread of this “harmless” didn’t seem to faze him.

Corruption Tourism: In some countries people travel to corruption hot spots or a


specialist tour company takes them on corruption city tours, as is the case in Prague. 22
Corruption tours have also occurred in Chicago, and Mexico City. Some of these tours go to
war zones so they can see up close and personal what it’s like to watch a battle in real time.
I don’t understand it personally but whatever floats their boat. It reminds me of the Civil
War when people in Washington DC would drive out to the battlefront in their buggies with
a picnic lunch to watch the battles between the north and south. Of course that only lasted
until the reality of war made them scurry off back to the safety of their homes in
Washington.

Legal Corruption: Though corruption is often viewed as illegal, there is an


evolving concept of legal corruption, as developed by Daniel Kaufmann and Pedro Vicente.

22 Corruption redefined as tourism in Czech Republic. (2 June 2014) Rob Cameron. BBC News,
Prague.

15
It might be termed as processes which are corrupt but are protected by a framework. Also
known as legally right but morally wrong.
Examples of legal corruption include:23 In 1977 the USA had enacted the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) "for the purpose of making it unlawful... to make payments to
foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining businesses" and invited all
the member countries of The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) to follow suit. In 1997 a corresponding OECD Anti-Bribery Convention was signed by
its members.
Seventeen years after the establishment of the FCPA, a Parliamentary Financial
Commission in Bonn presented a comparative study on legal corruption in industrialized
OECD countries. As a result, they reported that in most industrial countries even at that
time (1994) foreign corruption was legal, and that their foreign corrupt practices had been
diverging to a large extent, ranging from simple legalization, through governmental
subsidization (tax deduction), up to extremes like in Germany where foreign corruption was
fostered, whereas domestic corruption was legally prosecuted. 24
Consequently, in order to support national export corporations, the Parliamentary
Financial Commission recommended to reject a related previous Parliamentary Proposal by
the opposition leader which had been aiming to limit German foreign corruption on the
basis of the US FCPA. Only after the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention came into force,
Germany withdrew from the legalization of foreign corruption in 1999.
In 2007, Siemens was convicted in the District Court of Darmstadt of criminal
corruption against the Italian corporation Enel Power SpA. Siemens had paid almost €3.5
million in bribes to be selected for a €200 million project from the Italian corporation,
partially owned by the government. The deal was handled through black money accounts in
Switzerland and Liechtenstein that were established specifically for such purposes.
Because the crime was committed in 1999, after the OECD convention had come
into force, this foreign corrupt practice could be prosecuted. According to Bucerius Law
School, professors Frank Saliger and Karsten Gaede, for the first time, a German court of
law prosecuted foreign corrupt practices like national corrupt practices 25 although the
corresponding law did not yet protect foreign competitors in business. During the judicial
proceedings however, it was disclosed that numerous so-called black accounts had been
established in decades before the law was passed.
Under the Obama administration, seven Espionage Act prosecutions were related
not to traditional espionage but to either withholding information or communicating with
members of the media. Out of a total eleven prosecutions under the Espionage Act against
government officials accused of providing classified information to the media, seven
occurred after Obama took office.26 "Leaks related to national security can put people at
risk," the President said at a news conference in 2013. "They can put men and women in
uniform that I've sent into the battlefield at risk. I don't think the American people would
expect me, as commander-in-chief, not to be concerned about information that might
23 Kaufmann, Daniel and Vicente, Pedro C., Legal Corruption (November 24, 2005). Available at
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=829844 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.829844
24 IN AMERICA, THERE ARE THREE FORMS OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION, AND ONLY ONE IS REALLY
ILLEGAL. (02 FEB 2011) JON WALKER. https://shadowproof.com
25 Siemens to Pay $1.34 Billion in Fines. ERIC LICHTBLAU and CARTER DOUGHERTYDEC. 15, 2008.
https://www.nytimes.com
26 Obama and leakers: Who are the eight charged under the Espionage Act? (December 5, 2013)
Jamie Tarabay. Al Jazeera America. http://america.aljazeera.com

16
compromise their missions or might get them killed."27 Of course his stupid Rules of
Engagement that got more soldiers killed than media leaks was not an issue. There are at
least three soldiers who were prosecuted under his rules of engagement and sentenced to
spend years at Ft. Leavenworth just for doing their jobs of protecting their troops in battle 28.

A Conflict Of Interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is


involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt
the motivation or decision-making of that individual or organization.
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved
in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, in situations where serving one the interests
could involve working against one of the other interests. The presence of a conflict of
interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest
can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs, such as when a
judge recuses himself in a case where he might have a vested interest. 29
A widely used definition is: "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that
creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be
unduly influenced by a secondary interest." 30 Primary interest refers to the direct goals of
the profession or activity, such as the protection of clients, the health of patients, the
integrity of research, and journalism, and the duties of public officers.
Secondary interest includes personal benefit and is not limited to only financial gain
but also such motives as the desire for professional advancement, or the wish to do favors
for family and friends. These secondary interests are not treated as wrong in and of
themselves but become objectionable when they are believed to have greater weight than
the primary interests. Conflict of interest rules in the public sphere mainly focus on financial
relationships since they are relatively more objective, are essentially interchangeable and
quantifiable, and usually involve the political, legal, and medical fields.
Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, refers to the act of abstaining
from participation in an official action such as a court case or legal proceeding due to a
conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applicable
statutes or canons of ethics may provide standards for recusal in a given proceeding or
matter. Providing that the judge or presiding officer must be free from disabling conflicts of
interest makes the fairness of the proceedings less likely to be questioned.
More generally, conflicts of interest can be defined as any situation in which an
individual or corporation (either private or governmental) is in a position to exploit a
professional or official capacity in some way for their personal or corporate benefit.
Depending upon the law or rules related to a particular organization, the existence
of a conflict of interest may not, in and of itself, be evidence of wrongdoing. In fact, for
many professionals, it is virtually impossible to avoid having conflicts of interest from time
to time. A conflict of interest can, however, become a legal matter, for example, when an
individual tries influencing the outcome of a decision, for personal benefit. A director or
27 Ibid
28 Did Obama’s Rules Of Engagement Get 38 Navy Seals Killed? Apr 21, 2017. Angela Ruffoni.
http://www.larslarson.com/
|
29 Lessig, Lawrence (2011). Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It.
Twelve.
30 Lo, Bernard; Marilyn J. Field (2009). Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and
Practice. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

17
executive of a corporation will be subject to legal liability if a conflict of interest breaches
his duty of loyalty.31
There is often confusion over these two situations. Someone accused of a conflict of
interest may deny that a conflict exists because he did not act improperly. In fact, a conflict
of interest can exist even if there are no improper acts as a result of it. One way to
understand this is to use the term "conflict of roles.” A person with two roles, an individual
who owns stock and is also a government official, for example, may experience situations
where those two roles conflict. The conflict can be mitigated but it still exists. In and of
itself, having two roles is not illegal, but the differing roles will certainly provide an incentive
for improper acts in some circumstances.32
As an example, in the sphere of business and control, according to the Institute of
Internal Auditors:
A conflict of interest is a situation in which an internal auditor, who is in a position of
trust, has a competing professional or personal interest. Such competing interests can make
it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no
unethical or improper act results. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of
impropriety that can undermine confidence in the internal auditor, the internal audit
activity, and the profession. A conflict of interest could impair an individual's ability to
perform his or her duties and responsibilities objectively.33
An organizational conflict of interest (OCI) may exist in the same way as described
above, for instance where a corporation provides two types of service to the government
and these services conflict. Corporations may develop simple or complex systems to
mitigate the risk or perceived risk of a conflict of interest. These risks can be evaluated by a
government agency to determine whether the risks create a substantial advantage to the
organization in question over its competition or will decrease the overall competitiveness of
the bidding process. The following are the five most common forms of conflicts of
interests:34
1. Self-dealing, in which an official who controls an organization causes it to enter
into a transaction with the official, or with another organization that benefits the
official only. The official is on both sides of the "deal."
2. Outside employment, in which the interests of one job conflict with another.
3. Nepotism, in which a spouse, child, or other close relative is employed (or
applies for employment) by an individual, or where goods or services are
purchased from a relative or from a firm controlled by a relative. To avoid
nepotism in hiring, many employment applications ask if the applicant is related
to a current employee of the company. This allows recusal if the employed
relative has a role in the hiring process. If this is the case, the relative could then
recuse from any hiring decisions.
4. Gifts from friends who also do business with the person receiving the gifts or
from individuals or corporations who do business with the organization in which

31 Griseri, Paul (2010). Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. Cengage Learning EMEA.
32 Ibid
33 "Policies & Procedures of the Internal Audit Activity". City College of San Francisco. Retrieved July
7, 2011.
34 Thompson, Dennis (1995). Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption.
Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.

18
the gift recipient is employed. Such gifts may include non-tangible things of
value such as transportation and lodging.
5. Pump and dump, in which a stock broker who owns a security artificially inflates
the price by "upgrading" it or spreading rumors, sells the security and adds short
position, then "downgrades" the security or spreads negative rumors to push
the price down.
For example, many high-ranking officers in the military involve themselves in a
conflict of interest when they make decisions that will get them the next star, an award or
decoration, or just to make themselves look good because the higher the rank the more
political it becomes. Many decisions like that have cost the lives of hundreds if not
thousands of soldiers in the field; such as Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Politicians
play the game that if they show intent to do the right thing this then becomes the same as
fait accompli. When they get caught they resort to the blame game and pass the blame on
to their rivals, predecessors, or the political environment. Politicians and generals will also
play the game that when their time to retire comes up they will take a job as a “consultant”
with a fortune 500 company that handles government contracts.
Private CEOs in the corporate world like to dabble in the political world in order to
win special favors to expand their businesses. They buy politicians, both local and federal;
judges, and law enforcement in order to control the market, conduct business under the
table, and other shady dealings at home and overseas. At some point there isn’t much
difference between the dealings between the government and corporations as they both
seem like organized crime to the reasonably thinking person on the street.

Crony Capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not because of risks


taken, but rather, as a return on money amassed through a relationship between the
business class and the political class. This is done using state power to crush genuine
competition in handing out permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms
of state intervention over resources where the state exercises monopolist control over
public goods, for example, mining concessions, tax-breaks for solar power companies,
government preferred health insurance companies, corporations who are too big to fail
being given preferential treatment in bail-out monies, or any collaboration between
government officials and favored corporations for primary commodities or contracts for
public works.
Money is then made not merely by making a profit in the free market, but by
profiteering using this monopoly or oligopoly. Entrepreneurship and innovative practices,
which seek to reward risk are stifled, since the value-added35 to the goods and services, is
little as hardly anything of real value is created by these crony businesses, with transactions
taking the form of insider 'trading.'
Crony capitalism spills over into the government, the politics and the media, when
this link distorts the economy and affects society to an extent that it blurs the interactions
between public agencies and private corporations, then it corrupts economic, political and
social ideals. Take a look at the arrangement the government had with insurance

35 In business, value-added is the difference between the sale price and the production cost of a
product is the unit profit. Value-added refers to "extra" features of an item of interest such as a product,
service, or person that goes beyond the standard expectations and provide something "more," even if the
cost is higher to the client or purchaser; also known as a friend with benefits. Value-added features give
competitive edges to companies with otherwise more expensive products.

19
companies, banking institutions, the auto industry and others. The government felt it had
to step in and bail out these corporations for bad financial decisions with taxpayer money;
money which none of these companies ever paid back.
When Obamacare came online, many of those insurance companies were made a
part of the United healthcare system. These were the companies who raised premiums
2000 and 3000% for health care services. These are the companies that have Congress in
their pockets so that the Congress refuses to repeal the Affordable Care Act known as
Obamacare.36
The term "crony capitalism" made a significant impact in the public, as an
explanation of the Asian financial crisis. It is also used to describe governmental decisions
favoring "cronies"37 of governmental officials. In this context, the term is often used
comparatively with corporate welfare, a technical term often used to assess government
bailouts and favoritism monetary policy, as opposed to the economic theory, described by
"crony capitalism.” The extent of difference between these terms is whether a government
action can be said to benefit the individuals in preferred companies rather than the
industry. This is a quid pro quo relationship; you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Sometimes it also means you scratch my back and I’ll stab yours. In this case I would rely on
the saying I heard in Saudi Arabia, “Beware of your friends today ; they may be your
enemies tomorrow.”

A Political Machine is a political group in which an authoritative boss or small


group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses such as campaign
workers, who receive rewards, either monetary or in kind, for their efforts. The machine's
power is based on the ability of the workers to get out the vote for their candidates on
election day. Back in the day of 19th century political machines such as Boss Tweed, these
get out the vote campaigns usually involved street gangs that would rough people up to
make sure they voted for the “preferred” candidate. We’ve seen this time and time again.
When the party withdraws support from a candidate even if that candidate is the favorite
to win the election.
In the US election of 2000, Al Gore tried to influence the election by not allowing
the military absentee vote from overseas to be counted. He also tried to count dead people
and people who no longer lived in their voting districts. Of course no one can forget the
infamous battle of the hanging chads where Gore sued to have the Florida ballots
recounted three times. The final recount vote gave Bush more votes than the original
count. That wasn’t good enough for Gore, so he sued in the Florida Supreme Court to rule
himself the winner. He lost that and went to the US Supreme court where he lost again.
Still not satisfied, he and the other democrats whined that Bush stole the election.
They did the same in the election of 2008, 2012, and 2016. The democrats have a habit that
if they don’t win every election they cry foul and resort to shadow government tactics to
destroy the person who won the election. They have destroyed the lives and careers of
innocent people who were unlucky enough to run against them. Even if the person wins,
they still destroy that individual employing the politics of personal destruction.
In the US election of 2012 the Obama campaign workers would threaten Blacks and
whites to vote for him. The NAACP passed out free lunches at voting venues if they would
36 Helen Hughes (Spring 1999). "Crony Capitalism and the East Asian Currency and Financial 'Crises'".
Policy. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
37 Buddies, associates or cronies

20
vote for Obama. Finally the New Black Panthers “guarded” the voting venues and turned
away people if they didn’t support Obama. They counted votes of deceased individuals.
They counted votes of people who hadn’t lived in that district for years. They even bussed
loads of people across districts to vote and vote often. They allowed illegal aliens and felons
to vote by not requiring ID as proof as registered voters. And who can forget the free
Obama phones handed out to welfare recipients.38
The election of 2016 was wrought with fraud from the Democrats. Registered voter
lists in 11 states were outdated; voters dead, moved to another district, felons and illegal
aliens were allowed to vote especially in sanctuary cities. Democratic thugs went to Trump
campaign gatherings and assaulted Trump supporters. Not only did the mudslinging run
rampant but the outright lies to try to destroy Trump also ran amuck. The Clinton campaign
stole the convention votes from Sanders. Finally the Democrats lobbied the Russians and
tried to blame it on Trump. However, in the end they only got egg on their collective faces
as not only did they get caught but the investigators went back and implicated the whole
Obama administration in corruption involving the Russians.39
It’s interesting that the democrats also seem to make allegations against the
Republicans and get caught because the things they accuse others of doing are the exact
things they are doing themselves. Although these elements are common to most political
parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy
and rewards for political power, often enforced by a strong party whip structure.
Machines sometimes have political bosses, often rely on patronage, the spoils
system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of
a representative democracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead
of a single election or event. The term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt
political machines. Chicago and New York are the two cities with the most infamous
political machines in US history. The Chicago machine is alive and well as several politicians
in the last few decades have been busted for corruption charges.
The term "political machine" dates back to the 20th century in the United States,
where such organizations had existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th
century. Similar machines have been described in Latin America, where the system has
been called clientelism or political clientelism after the similar Clientela 40 relationship in the
Roman Republic, especially in rural areas, and also in some African states and other
emerging democracies, like post-communist Eastern European countries.
Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is often cited as another political machine,
maintaining power in suburban and rural areas through its control of farm bureaus and
road construction agencies. In Japan, the word Jiban (ground level) is the word used for

38 ‘Obama phones’ subsidy program draws new scrutiny on the Hill. Karen Tumulty. April 9, 2013.
Washington Post.
39 The Russians Colluded Massively — with Democrats. DEROY MURDOCK. February 24, 2018.
https://www.nationalreview.com
40 Patronage (clientela) was the distinctive relationship in ancient Roman society between the
patronus (plural patroni, "patron") and their cliens (plural clientes, "client"). The relationship was
hierarchical, but obligations were mutual. The patronus was the protector, sponsor, and benefactor of the
client; the technical term for this protection was patrocinium.[1] Although typically the client was of
inferior social class,[2] a patron and client might even hold the same social rank, but the former would
possess greater wealth, power, or prestige that enabled them to help or do favors for the client.

21
political machines. Quite often political machines are intertwined with organized crime
(Yakuza).41

Graft is a form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous use of a politician's


authority for personal gain; himself, family or friends. The term has its origins in the medical
procedure whereby tissue is removed from one location and attached to another for which
it was not originally intended. Similarly, political graft occurs when funds intended for public
projects are intentionally misdirected to maximize the benefits to private interests.
Lobbying, persuasion, or interest representation is the act of attempting to influence
the actions, policies, or decisions of officials, most often legislators or members of
regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by many types of people, associations and organized
groups, including individuals in the private sector, corporations, fellow legislators,
government officials, or advocacy groups (AKA special interest groups). Lobbyists may be
among a legislator's constituencies, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within their electoral
district; they may engage in lobbying as a business. Professional lobbyists are people whose
business is trying to influence legislation, regulation, or other government decisions,
actions, or policies on behalf of a group or individuals who hire them. 42
Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as
a small part of their normal job. For instance, a CEO meeting with a representative about a
project important to their company, or an activist meeting with their legislator in an unpaid
capacity can be considered lobbyists. Governments often define and regulate organized
group lobbying that has become not only influential but have taken over the political
landscape to the point the lobbyists aka known as special interests have become more
important than a legislator’s constituents.43 Note the recent democrat threat of the federal
government shutdown in protecting illegal aliens over the interests of the American people.
The ethics and morality of lobbying are dual-edged. Lobbying is often spoken of with
contempt, when the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are
corrupting the law to serve their own interests. When people who have a duty to act on
behalf of others, such as elected officials with a duty to serve their constituents' interests or
more broadly the public good, can benefit by shaping the law to serve the interests of some
private parties, a conflict of interest exists.
Many critics of lobbying point to the potential for conflicts of interest to lead to
agent misdirection or the intentional failure of an agent with a duty to serve an employer,
client, or constituent to perform those duties. The failure of government officials to serve
the public interest because of lobbying by special interests who provide benefits to the
official is an example of agent misdirection.44
The best example of lobbying to further a private interest is the Clinton foundation
who gives money to governments, political action committees, government officials, for

41 The Yakuza Lobby. JAKE ADELSTEIN. DECEMBER 13, 2012. http://foreignpolicy.com


42 The outsized returns from lobbying. Brad Plumer October 10, 2011.
https://www.washingtonpost.com
43 Lobbying registrations are down, but the influence industry is flourishing. Catherine Ho.
September 12, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com.
44 Whataboutism and Misdirection: The Latest Tools of Dumb Political Combat. BEN SHAPIRO. May
31, 2017. https://www.nationalreview.com/2017.

22
buying votes, and peddling influence for their support. They also engage in outright
corruption to win power and monetary wealth in order to win political office.45

In Politics, Pay To Play Refers To A System by which one pays money to


become a player. Typically, the payer (a private individual, business, or organization) makes
campaign contributions to public officials, party officials, or parties themselves by way of a
political action committee (PAC) and receives political or monetary benefit such as no-bid
government contracts, influence over legislation, political appointments or nominations,
special access or other favors. The contributions, less frequently, may be to nonprofit or
institutional entities, or may take the form of some benefit to a third party, such as a family
member of a governmental official.46
Before James Garfield this was known as the spoils system, by New York Senator
William L. Marcy, “to the winner go the spoils.” In politics and government, a spoils system
(also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an
election, gives government civil service jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a
reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party; as
opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of
merit, independent of political activity. 47
Jacksonian Democracy showed its ugly face on inauguration day when crowds of
celebrating supporters stormed the White House. Muddy boots trampled the fine
carpeting, crystal and china were shattered, and all the food and drink were quickly
consumed. Disapproving National Republicans spoke fearfully about the accession of “King
Mob."
Many inauguration-day revelers were in Washington hoping to find government
jobs. The term “spoils system" refers to the conferral of office on people based upon
political concerns rather than fitness for office. Viewed in its best light, it was a further
expression of increased democratization in American politics; one need not be a member of
the elite in order to govern.48

Upon assuming office, Jackson was intent upon punishing his opponents and ridding
the government of the services of those who represented the financial interests of New
England. Martin Van Buren was named secretary of state and John H. Eaton as secretary of
war; both were strong political allies of the president.
During his two administrations, Jackson replaced less than twenty percent of federal
office holders. That percentage was in line with his predecessors but differed in that
Jackson's dismissals were clearly more politically motivated. In 1881, James Garfield was
assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker. This led to the creation of the civil service where
office seekers in government must pass a civil service exam. The federal government
operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883. Thereafter the

45 How the Clinton Foundation Got Rich off Poor Haitians. DINESH D'SOUZA. July 18, 2016.
https://www.nationalreview.com/
46 M. Schmitt, New America Foundation, Pay to Play: Why a Billion-Dollar Election Isn't a Bad Thing,
The New Republic Online, Mar. 16, 2007.
47 Senator WILLIAM LEARNED MARCY, remarks in the Senate, January 25, 1832, Register of Debates
in Congress, vol. 8, col. 1325.
48 Spoils System. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h326.html

23
spoils system was largely replaced by a nonpartisan merit system at the federal level of the
United States. 49
However, we have witnessed that individuals don’t just abandon their politics at the
door when they become civil servants. Many bureaucrats in the Obama Administration
forgot they were supposed to be non-partisan and began persecuting Obama’s political
enemies; conservatives, churches, gun owners, veterans, Israel, and anyone else he
deemed a national security risk.
When Donald Trump became president, the FBI, the State Department, the
Department of Justice and other government agencies with Obama holdovers, chose to
undermine President Trump with unfounded false allegations just because they didn’t want
him in the White House. They wanted Hillary Clinton. President has had to walk a fine line
between draining the swamp and political practicality in order to get rid of the Obama
holdovers who continue to oppose him at every turn.
At the same time they supported certain terrorist groups which Obama refused to
recognize as such. He favored certain corporations if they donated to the Democratic
National Committee. They used the media as a propaganda arm of the DNC to put out only
the news the Democrats wanted the American people to hear; truth was not a
consideration. They excoriated the conservative media such as Fox News and others
because they refused to broadcast the propaganda of the corrupt government. After the
election of 2016, they went underground to form a shadow government with the intent of
overthrowing the Republican officials.
Similar spoils systems are common in Tribal Governments on the Native American
Reservations that traditionally have been based on tribal organization or other kinship
groups and localism in general. This system works the same as the spoils system in the
federal government. The Tribal Council has elections and since most tribes are all related in
one way or another, most families work for the tribe. Many tribes have had a never-ending
line of recall elections when one family becomes disenchanted with how another family
runs the tribe. With the jurisdiction issues between tribes, the feds, and state government,
many crimes committed on the rez are almost never prosecuted. 50
Before 1829, moderation had prevailed in the transfer of political power from one
U.S. president to another. Andrew Jackson's first inauguration, March 4, 1829, signaled a
sharp departure from the past. An unruly mob of office seekers made something of a fiasco
of the event, and though some tried to explain this as democratic passion, the real truth
was Jackson supporters had been smothered with promises of positions in return for
political support. These promises were honored by an astonishing number of removals from
offices after Jackson assumed power. At the beginning of Jackson's administration, fully 919
officials were removed from government positions,51 amounting to nearly 10 percent of all
government postings and replaced with Jackson supporters.
The Jackson administration attempted to explain this blatant purge as reform, or
constructive turnover, aimed at creating a more efficient system where the chain of
command of public employees all obeyed the higher entities of government. The most

49 The Spoils System versus the Merit System. The Spoils System versus the Merit System
50 Higher Crime, Fewer Charges on Indian Land. TIMOTHY WILLIAMS. FEB. 20, 2012.
https://www.nytimes.com

51 The Spoils System-- "'to the victor belong the spoils." Annette Clark. https://www.smore.com

24
difficult organization to change within the federal government proved to be the post office.
The post office was the largest department in the federal government and had even more
personnel than the war department. In one year 423 postmasters were deprived of their
positions, most with extensive records of good service. By the late 1860s, citizens began
demanding civil service reform. Running under the Liberal Republican Party in 1872, they
were soundly defeated by Ulysses S. Grant.52
After the assassination of James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office-seeker in 1881,
the calls for civil service reform increased. Moderation of the spoils system at the federal
level came with the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil
Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs
were covered under the law initially, the law allowed the President to transfer jobs and
their current holders into the system, thus giving the holder a permanent job. 53
The Pendleton Act's reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated
control of the White House every election between 1884 and 1896. After each election the
outgoing President applied the Pendleton Act to jobs held by his political supporters. By
1909, most federal jobs were handled through civil service. In 1978, Congress passed the
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and the spoils system then was limited only to very senior
positions, such as cabinet posts, joint chiefs of staff, czars, ambassadorships, and other
high-level positions.54
The separation between the political activity and the civil service was made stronger
with the Hatch Act of 193955 which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many
political activities. With the election of 2016, we saw corruption of astronomical
proportions rear its ugly head in the form of a shadow government and resistance to the
Trump Administration’s much needed reform policies; the one most needed was referred to
as “draining the swamp.”56
The spoils system survived much longer in many states, counties and municipalities,
such as the Tammany Hall ring, which survived well into the 1930s when New York City
reformed its own civil service. Illinois modernized its bureaucracy in 1917 under Frank
Lowden, but Chicago held on to patronage in city government until the city agreed to end
the practice in the Shakman Decrees of 1972 and 1983. However, Chicago is still known as
one of the most corrupt cities in the US if not the most corrupt. LA and NYC are close
behind.57
Modern variations on the spoils system are often described as a political machine.
The phrase, almost always used in criticism, also refers to the increasing cost of elections
and the "price of admission" to even run and the concern "that one candidate can far
outspend his opponents, essentially buying the election.” It has always bewildered me that
52 Howe, Daniel W. (2007). What hath God Wrought, The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.
Oxford University Press, Inc.
53 "Gilded Age Politics: Political Machines & Civil Service Reform". Study.Com. Retrieved 29 April
2015.
54 "Political Appointees". U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Archived from the original on 2013-12-
17. Retrieved 2013-11-11.
55 Hatch Act Restrictions on Federal Employees’ Political Activities in the Digital Age. April 13, 2016
Cynthia Brown and Jack Maskell. Congressional Research Service https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44469.pdf
56 Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse than You Think. Ken Buck. 2017. Regnery
Publishing
57 Report Names Chicago "Corruption Capital of America"—Again. May 28, 2015. Dick Simpson,
Thomas J. Gradel, Melissa Mouritsen, John Johnson.
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Political Science

25
politicians talk about their “legacy” and continually ask for donations. If they worried more
about doing their job their constituents voted for them to do and less about finances, the
finances and the legacy would both take care of themselves. However they would rather
allow corruption to determine their legacy than grow a backbone and do the right thing.
While the direct exchange of campaign contributions for contracts is the most
visible form of pay to play, the greater concern is the central role of money in politics, and
its skewing both the composition and the policies of government. Thus, those who can pay
the price of admission, such as to a $1000-plate dinner or $25,000 "breakout session,” gain
access to power and its plunders, to the exclusion of those who cannot or will not pay:
"giving certain people advantages that others don't have because they donated to
someone’s campaign.”58
Good-government advocates consider this an outrage because "political fundraising
should have no relationship to policy recommendations.”59 Citizens for Responsible Ethics in
Washington called the "Pay-to-Play Congress" The 7 biggest political scandals of 2017.
CREW is a liberal think tank so that is saying a lot because both sides of the political aisle
are part of this system. Incumbent candidates and their political organizations are typically
the greatest beneficiaries of Pay-to-Play. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have
been criticized for the practice. Many seeking to ban or restrict the practice characterized as
legalized corruption.60
The opposite of a pay-to-play system is one that is "fair and open;” the New Jersey
Pay to Play Act specifically sets out bid processes that are or are not considered fair and
open, depending upon who has contributed what to whom. Because of individual federal
campaign contribution limits in the wake of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-
Feingold), pay-to-play payments of "soft money"61 donations to state parties and county
committees have come under greater scrutiny. This method refers to money that is donated
to an in-between with a higher contribution limit, which in turn donates money to
individual candidates or campaign committees who could not directly accept the payor's
funds.
Pay-to-Play practices have come under scrutiny by both the federal government and
a number of states. In Illinois, federal prosecutors in 2006 were investigating "pay-to-play
allegations that surrounded Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration.” 62 The
allegations of pay-to-play in Illinois became a national scandal after the arrest of Gov.
Blagojevich in December 2008, on charges that, among other things, he and a staffer
attempted to "sell" the vacated U.S. Senate seat of then-president-elect Barack Obama. 63
Many agencies have been created to regulate and control campaign contributions.

58 6 Most Profitable Fundraising Dinners and Events.(2012) https://financesonline.com


59 How Campaign Contributions and Lobbying Can Lead to Inefficient Economic Policy. John Craig
and David Madland. May 2, 2014. Center for American Progress.
60 The 7 biggest political scandals of 2017. Kaitlyn Schallhorn. December 25th, 2017.
http://www.foxnews.com
61 money not contributed directly to candidate campaigns and that does not "expressly advocate"
election or defeat of a candidate
62 Blagojevich faces 8 years more in prison after judge sticks to 14-year term. Jason Meisner and
Patrick M. O'Connell. Aug. 9, 2016. Chicago Tribune
63 Illinois Governor Charged in Scheme to Sell Obama’s Seat. MONICA DAVEY and JACK HEALY. DEC.
9, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com

26
Furthermore, many third-party government "watchdog" groups have formed to monitor
campaign donations and make them more transparent.
The problem here is that many of these watch-dog groups is more like the fox
guarding the henhouse. They call themselves non-partisan, but they are either liberal or
conservative and have an agenda just like any other lobby group. They can be just as
corrupt as any other governmental or non-governmental organization.
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials for illegitimate
private gain. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is
directly related to their official duties, is done under color of law or involves trading in
influence.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism,
insularity, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may
facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human
trafficking, in conjunction with organized crime; though is not restricted to these activities.
Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political
opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption. We saw this
during the Obama Administration where he had the IRS and NSA commit political
persecution of those on his enemies list. Chicago is known for its history of police brutality.
In fact, it’s interesting that most of the cities with a history of police brutality are liberal
cities.
San Francisco, the ultimate leftist city, and California, known as the left coast, have
declared themselves “sanctuary city, and sanctuary state” whereby they refuse to
cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws. The recent case of an
illegal immigrant who was deported 8 times and killed an American citizen, was acquitted of
the crime by a corrupt justice system. Several other major cities have also declared
themselves sanctuary cities and some states have declared themselves sanctuary states,
such as Oregon. In fact there are 20 sanctuary states and some 300 sanctuary cities and
counties where federal immigration law is not enforced.
Whenever the feds threaten to cut off federal aid to these states, counties, and
cities, the liberals whine that the government is discriminating against them because they
don’t agree on immigration policy. Well, if they insist on violating federal immigration law
then they need to be prosecuted and penalized. Cutting off their federal funding is a good
place to start.
The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or
jurisdiction. For instance, some political funding practices that are legal in one place may be
illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or ill-defined powers,
which purposely make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions.
Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually. A
state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule
by thieves.” This explains why the Clinton Foundation has been able to receive campaign
donations from countries around the world and get away with it. Their friends in the FBI
look the other way, the Obama Administration helped cover it up, and the countries from
whom they received their donations accept bribery as another way of doing business. 64
Some forms of corruption, now called "institutional corruption," are distinguished
from bribery and other kinds of obvious personal gain. A similar problem of corruption
64 FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for months. Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett
January 5, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com

27
arises in any institution that depends on financial support from people who have interests
that may conflict with the primary purpose of the institution; such as the Clinton
Foundation. They claim to be a humanitarian organization yet in reality they are a political
machine that merely looks out for the benefit of the Clintons.
Wasta is an Arabic word that loosely translates into nepotism, 'clout' or 'who you
know'. It refers to using one’s connections and influence to get things done, including
government transactions such as the quick renewal of a passport, waiving of traffic fines,
and getting hired for or promoted in a job. In other words, it amounts to getting something
through favoritism rather than merit, or what is informally spoken of in English as "pull"
from connections. One of the favorite expressions Americans throw around is, “I know
people.”
The English word cronyism overlaps in meaning but is not precisely the same. Most
languages have similar or equivalent words to refer to the same idea in English.

Networking: Networking can be an effective way for job-seekers to gain a


competitive edge over others in the job-market. The idea is to cultivate personal
relationships with prospective employers, selection panelists, and others, in the hope that
these personal relationships will influence future hiring decisions. This form of networking
has been described as an attempt to corrupt formal hiring processes, where all candidates
are given an equal opportunity to demonstrate their merits to selectors. Retired generals
who get civilian jobs in defense industries. Politicians who get jobs in universities, think
tanks, lobbies, or consultants in certain corporations is an example of the saying, “It’s not
what you know but who you know.” Networking can also backfire. A person who is hired
because of networking can also get fired not because of who he knows but what he can’t
do.

Abuse of Discretion refers to the misuse of one's powers and decision-making


authority. Examples include a judge improperly dismissing a criminal case or a customs
official using their discretion to allow a banned substance through a port. Favoritism,
nepotism and a political machine involving the favoring of a friend, family member or
member of an association to the corrupt official. Examples would include hiring or
promoting a family member or staff member to a role they are not qualified for, who
belongs to the same political party as the employer, regardless of merit. The most recent
example was when the mayor of Oakland, California alerted illegal aliens that the “Migras”
were in town to arrest them.
The problem with this kind of corruption is once you have ignored a particular act
you have just set a new standard of behavior. Another example was the acts of military
members at the Abu Graib Prison where they mistreated prisoners in their care. Their
supervisors ignored what they did and therefore set a new standard. The problem with that
is the other military saying of “Shit rolls downhill.” When the story broke, these hapless
soldiers were thrown under the bus to protect their higher ups.

Corruption and Economic Growth: Corruption is strongly associated with


private investment and, therefore, it affects the rate of economic growth. Corruption
reduces the returns of productive activities. If the returns to production fall faster than the
returns to corruption and profiteering activities, resources will flow from productive

28
activities to corrupt activities over time. In a normal economic market, the entrepreneur
knows how much he needs to make on his product or service in order to make a profit and
take care of expenses including investors.
In a profiteering economy, the entrepreneur will gouge his customers. This will occur
when the company or individual has a monopoly on the product or service. An example of
this are the oil companies who raise the price of gas before a holiday or during a national
disaster; not because they need to but because they can in order to increase their profit
margin; bottom line. Banks will increase interest rates on loans. Stores will increase prices
during the holidays. The customers go along with this because in their opinions there’s
nothing they can do to prevent it.
Corruption creates the opportunity for increased inequality, reduces the return of
productive activities, and, therefore makes profiteering and corrupt activities more
attractive. For example the long lines for basic services and products behind the Iron
Curtain; like toilet paper, bread, and fresh vegetables, while the party elite had the same
flown in direct. This opportunity for increased inequality not only generates psychological
frustration to the underprivileged but also reduces productivity growth, investment, and
job opportunities; except in the Black Market. This inequality has been the impetus for
many uprisings in many countries; both democratic and socialist, developed and
developing.
Right now we have Democratic Congressmen who are more interested in protecting
illegal aliens than American citizens. Leftist states and cities refuse to enforce federal
immigration laws in order to protect illegal aliens. A few of these aliens are criminals and
have been arrested for drug and murder convictions. Yet the liberals allow these criminals
to go free to protect them from the federal immigration officials. This is frustrating because
American citizens are being murdered by these thugs and allowed to walk the streets in
American cities because the left want to give them amnesty so that they can vote for the
Democrats who sucked up to the criminals.
It is my opinion this is a blatant example of corruption. These politicians at the very
least need to be arrested and prosecuted on charges of treason or at least obstruction of
justice. But who am I? I’m just an American citizen who has fewer rights today than illegal
aliens and other criminals protected by the American socialist left.

29
Chapter 3: Political Corruption

Introduction: In the US government there are 3 levels: the legislative, the executive and
the judicial. The first level makes the laws. The second level enforces the laws. The third level
adjudicates the laws. With each level there is always room for corruption to creep in and pollute
the political process.

The Legislative Level: The legislative level makes laws. The problem is that the
legislators and the Congress often pass laws that exempt them from obeying; such as paying
taxes, paying onto the Social Security System. They vote themselves perks and benefits most
Americans will never see. They claim it’s because they work hard to do what they do and are in
constant danger. Maybe so but that still doesn’t justify taking bribes from lobbyists, flying
around the world on “fact finding” missions. I remember when I was in Saudi Arabia,
congressmen and cabinet secretaries would come to our base, “…to assess the morale of the
troops.” Their orders even read that they would RON (Rest overnight).
However, most of them would land, be met by my guys in the Air Terminal Operations
Center, get picked up by the protocol officer in a bullet proof SUV, get taken to the chow hall
where they got steak and lobster, then a tour of the base, and finally they had a very scripted
question and answer session with selected airmen, after which they got back on their C-21 to fly
to their next destination. We also learned that just by being on the airspace of the Area of
Responsibility, they got their pay, tax free. They also received hazardous fire pay, and overseas
pay. Those who were at the base had to be there for a minimum of 45 days to receive those
benefits.
As I have watched Congress and state legislators as well as county and city governments I’ve
noticed they all vote themselves pay raises, take cruises and trips on the taxpayers’ dime. They
get up in Congress and talk about how the rich need to pay their fair share. How the other party
ignores the poor. They tell boldfaced lies to the American people and then they wonder why
their approval ratings are at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

The Executive Level: The executive branch isn’t much better. They’ll visit a base and
stop all air traffic for hours while they attend a fundraiser. Bill Clinton stopped all air traffic at a
busy airport while he got a haircut. They fly all over the world at taxpayers’ expense with the
excuse they are attending an important high-level meeting. Then it turns out they are just there
for holiday to play golf. They get caught in scandal after scandal and blame their corruption on
someone else. Then after they are out of office, when they think people’s memories have been
erased by the passage of time, they claim they had the most transparent administration in
American history.
The elections just to get into office are fraught with corruption. There is campaign finance
fraud, and election fraud. In the last election some districts allowed illegal aliens, felons, and
dead people vote. NGOs would show up at the polling stations with lunches for the voters if
they voted a certain candidate. There were brutal attacks made on supporters of the opposition.
Some attackers even infiltrated campaign events and would start fights against the supporters
of the candidate. Bill Clinton received campaign contributions from the Chinese. Hillary Clinton
received contributions from the Russians. To make a little money on the side Clinton opened the
White House to people who paid money to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. Some presidents
conducted extra marital affairs in the oval office. When they got caught they lied to the
American people and lie, lie then deny.
One more example of executive corruption is where the President doesn’t feel like going
through the legislative process either because he’s afraid his idea will be shot down, or because
he is in a hurry to get something passed, or because he is too lazy to go through the legislative

30
process, he will use executive orders to impose programs on the American people. The next
president has to then undo all the executive orders in order to undo damage done to the
Constitutional form of government.
Law Enforcement: Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct
designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, career advancement for a
police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an
investigation or arrest and aspects of the thin blue line itself, where law enforcement
members collude in lies to protect other members from accountability. One common
form of police corruption is soliciting and accepting bribes in exchange for not reporting
organized drug or prostitution rings or other illegal activities. Or removing evidence
from the evidence locker in order to protect a friend, family member, or political ally.
Another example is police officers flouting the police code of conduct to secure
convictions of suspects, using falsified evidence. More rarely, police officers may
deliberately and systematically participate in organized crime themselves. In most major
cities, there are internal affairs sections to investigate suspected police corruption or
misconduct. Similar entities include the British Independent Police Complaints
Commission. However, even internal affairs can be corrupt. In recent years corruption
has even involved internal affairs. They may go after an officer who has offended the
investigator. They may go after an officer because he violated the thin blue line of
silence and turned in a crooked cop who may have been popular.
Some of the most obvious examples are officers who will "fix" a traffic citation or
tamper with evidence and witnesses, as a personal favor or for profit; embezzle money,
take drugs, weapons, or other contraband while on duty; officers have been arrested
and convicted for a wide variety of crimes, from sexual assault to drug dealing to
murder; expecting other officers to ignore criminal activity; ignoring criminal activity by
other officers; commit crimes while off duty. Again, officers have been arrested and
convicted for a wide variety of crimes committed while off duty. These practices may be
committed by individual officers or small teams of officers.
Department-wide corruption is also a possibility, and there are too many
examples of entire departments being shut down or subjected to Federal oversight in
response to corruption claims. It doesn’t matter how large or small the department is.
Corruption charges have been leveled at large cities like LA and New York to small
departments like counties and towns in the south and the west.
Recent examples are the FBI and intelligence agencies that spy on the American
people. They cover up transgressions of the executive and legislative branches. The
conduct investigation on the president’s enemies list. When they are out of office they
institute a shadow government with the aim to overthrow the lawfully elected officials.
State governments are not immune to corruption. Take the example of the
Chicago political machine. Their trail of corruption goes clear back to the 1800’s when
Chicago was first incorporated. Governors who sold a senator’s seat to the highest
bidder. Governors who allowed their state burn up with drought rather than turn the
water down the irrigation canals to water the thirsty crops.

Judicial System: Judicial corruption refers to corruption related to misconduct


of judges, through receiving or giving bribes, improper sentencing of convicted
criminals, bias in the hearing and judgement of arguments and other such misconduct.
One of the ideas that most people miss is that when the executive officer, President or

31
Governor, appoint justices to the Supreme Courts, they will attempt to politicize the
court with liberal or conservative justices in order to influence future decisions.
Governmental corruption of the judiciary is broadly known in many transitional
and developing countries because the budget is almost completely controlled by the
executive branch of government and so controls the judiciary. The latter undermines
the separation of powers, as it creates a critical financial dependence of the judiciary.
It is important to distinguish between the two methods of corruption of the
judiciary: the government, through budget planning and various privileges, and the
private sector. Judicial corruption like general corruption, can be difficult to completely
eradicate, even in developed countries. Corruption in the judiciary also involves the
government in power using the judicial arm of government to oppress opposition
parties to the detriment of the state and its citizens. In many totalitarian countries, the
judicial branch is so corrupted by the executive they will hold a kangaroo court or show
trial to show the world that are taking of the problems in their country.
A recent watchdog report found that almost half of Americans polled believe
that the U.S. justice system is corrupt. Many who hold this belief likely turn to a host of
recent scandals involving judges being bribed. In the early 2000s, two Pennsylvania
judges sent thousands of minors to a juvenile detention center and received cash favors
from the center operators in return.65
In a 2004 case, a judge was appointed to serve, largely bolstered by financial
support of a big insurance agency. Federal investigators opened an investigation when
that judge overturned a billion-dollar lawsuit against the agency.66 More recently, in
2013, a Texas state judge was convicted for taking more than $250,000 in bribes and
kickbacks in exchange for favorable rulings.67 Altogether, research indicated that some
2.5 million bribes are paid each year within the U.S. Justice System, according to Pew
Research, Yale Law School.68
Although federal judges and Supreme Court justices hold office for life, many
judges are elected and can be subject to the same forces as politicians: special interests,
bribery, and constituent dissatisfaction. It's relatively uncommon for a judge's opinion to
get opposed, although some judges get heavily criticized for letting their personal and
political beliefs interfere with their decisions.
For instance, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has garnered national
attention for defying rulings from higher courts. This year, he ordered state officials to
refuse the issuing of same-sex marriage licenses, despite the landmark Supreme Court
case that legalized such unions.69 Judge Moore ran for the Senate on the Conservative
Republican ticket. The RINOs and Democrats launched a billion-dollar campaign to
defeat him because of his conservative values and his support for Donald Trump’s
policies.

65 Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives. Larry Getlen. February 23, 2014.
https://nypost.com
66Did State Farm Buy a Judge? Racketeering Lawsuit Heading to Trial After Federal Court Refuses to
Dismiss Case. Josh Cable. Sep 22, 2016. http://www.bodyshopbusiness.com
67 South Texas Judge Charged With Accepting Bribes for Favorable Rulings. John Council. February
06, 2018. https://www.law.com
68 How Corrupt Is America's Judicial System? 08/28/2015. https://www.seeker.com
69 Roy Moore: Gay marriage ruling ‘even worse’ than 1857 pro-slavery decision. MALLORY
SHELBOURNE. 10/24/17. http://thehill.com

32
The tension between the constitutionally-guaranteed independence of the judiciary and
the socially-demanded accountability is a distinctive trait of the judiciary that generates
corruption risks. This was demonstrated by the most rampant reported forms of corruption:
bribery and political influence, impacting on both independence and accountability.
The research found that the types of cases where corrupt behaviors are most often
perceived to occur are criminal cases, followed by general civil cases. The findings on bribery
reported interference with judges in order to influence a decision, interference with lawyers in
relation to their advice to a client and with court staff to tamper with evidence and witnesses. In
rare cases judges who can’t be bought have been attacked even to the point of murder in order
for outside parties to control certain criminal cases. Lawyers can play an active role in bribery as
an intermediary of their client. Prosecutors were also susceptible to bribery to tamper with
evidence and witnesses. It’s no wonder there is a joke going around that a crooked lawyer is an
oxymoron.
Overall, the number of countries rated as having perceived high levels of undue political
influence or political interference was significantly higher than for those rated as having high
levels of bribery occurring in their judiciaries. In countries affected by corruption, the corruption
is perceived as being associated with wealthy groups, and judges and prosecutors were the
most at risk of undue political influence. Undue pressure to decide in favor of powerful political
and economic individuals is the type of corruption for which the highest perceptions of
incidence were reported, with the most diverse group of countries reporting this form of
corruption, including countries from the Middle East and Europe. The judges who purportedly
engage in corrupt conduct do so most frequently in their interactions with lawyers and other
judges, pointing to weaknesses internal to the legal structure, as opposed to the direct pressure
of approaches from external parties.70
This brings into focus the role of the legal profession. External third parties may actively
use lawyers as intermediaries for corrupting other actors in the judicial system, for example by
requesting their assistance in paying bribes. Conversely, lawyers might exact bribes for corrupt
purposes such as mishandling a client’s case on purpose. There was only limited evidence of
alleged corrupt conduct on the part of court personnel, who were more frequently reported to
have been approached by external actors rather than actively seeking bribes themselves. This is
especially common in cases concerning organized crime. For example, the reason the federal
government had such a difficult time bringing in members of organized crime is because of the
preponderance of crooked judges, cops, and lawyers.

Education: Corruption in education is a worldwide phenomenon. Corruption in


admissions to universities is traditionally considered as one of the most corrupt areas of
the education sector. Recent attempts in some countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, to
curb corruption in admissions through the abolition of university entrance examinations
and introduction of standardized computer graded tests have largely failed. Vouchers
for university entrants have never materialized. The cost of corruption is that it impedes
sustainable economic growth.
Endemic corruption in educational institutions leads to the formation of
sustainable corrupt hierarchies. While higher education in Russia is distinct with
widespread bribery, corruption in the US and the UK features a significant amount of
fraud. The US is distinct with grey areas and institutional corruption in the higher
education sector. Authoritarian regimes, including those in the former Soviet republics,

70 Diagnosing corruption within judicial systems. Marina Kofman. 31 August 2016.


https://www.ruleoflaw.org.au

33
encourage educational corruption and political control of the universities, especially
during election campaigns.
This is typical for Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Belorussia and Central
Asian regimes. The general public is well aware of the high level of corruption in
colleges and universities, thanks to the media. Doctoral education is no exception, with
dissertations and doctoral degrees available for sale, including for politicians. The
Russian Parliament is notorious for "highly educated" MPs. High levels of corruption are
a result of universities not being able to break away from their Stalinist past, over-
bureaucratization, and a clear lack of university autonomy.
In the US there are many online universities popping up. Some are legitimate,
and some are fraudulent. Because the brick and mortar school see the online schools
as a threat to their monopoly on higher education they have condemned the online
schools as diploma factories; especially the elite schools in the Ivy League. It doesn’t
matter if these schools are legitimate or not. The US Department of education has a list
of schools they recognize as legitimate. If a school is not on that list, they are not
recognized as a creditable university.
Of course, colleges and universities across the nation have been infiltrated by
leftists and turned into socialist incubators for future community organizers. They are
constantly seen in the headlines making ridiculous statements that have nothing to do
with their area of expertise. Some have even gone so as to threaten conservatives
generally and in the government such as the Congress and the White House. The idea of
a liberal education has taken on the perspective of new meaning as bastions of Marxist
socialism education. The problem is that most college kids are naïve, and their brains
are full of fluff from their high school education. Most of them today have been
brainwashed to the glories of communism, progressivism, and democratic socialism.
Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies are employed to study
education corruption, but the topic remains largely unattended by the scholars. In many
societies and international organizations, discussion of education corruption remains
taboo. In some countries, such as certain eastern European countries and certain Asian
countries, corruption occurs frequently in universities. This can include bribes to bypass
bureaucratic procedures and bribing faculty members for a grade. The willingness to
engage in corruption such as accepting bribe money in exchange for grades decreases if
individuals perceive such behavior as very objectionable; a violation of social norms and
if they fear sanctions in terms of the severity and probability of sanctions.
When I was a teacher in Africa, I had several parents on the eve of the BAC
(Baccalauréat71) come to me to bribe me to ensure their child would “pass” the BAC. I
told that would be illegal as well as immoral. They countered that with, “but no one
would know.” Because they were Muslims I countered that with, “But Allah would
know.” Since they couldn’t argue with that they turned around and left. The next day I
told my students that they would do well. Just to take their time and think about each
question and answer to the best of their ability. When the test results came in not one
of my students failed the test.
However, when I was in Saudi Arabia, the school held a graduation before the
final tests and projects were turned in and graded. When the final grades were
calculated three of my seniors failed because they refused to turn in any work and the
71In the French education system the BAC is an examination that qualifies the successful candidates
for entrance to university.

34
ones who did copied from other students or outright plagiarized. I had no choice but to
fail them. One of my students, a nephew to Osama bin Laden, came to my office and
threatened me that if I didn’t change his grade there would “be big problems.” His
mother even called me to chastise me for not giving him the help he needed to
succeed. I had to tell her that he and the other seniors refused any help and then in the
end blamed me for the fact they had failed. The mom didn’t apologize but she stopped
attacking me and hung up.
In the US the left has infiltrated the education system from kindergarten to the
highest levels of the universities. They have filled the students’ head with all kinds of
communist ideas. A recent poll reported that some 60% of university students feel the
US would be better off with communism than capitalism. 72 In the public education
system the left has taken over the testing of students for state core tests. They have
inserted leftist ideas into the curriculum: LGBT rights, veganism, global warming, animal
rights, violent opposition to the US government and other communist agenda items. 73

Social Elitism: It has been an interesting phenomenon since people began


dividing themselves into tribes that as soon as one man, one family, or one group of
people began putting themselves over the others, that they would devise various
justifications for why one group would be considered superior, and the others were
inferior. Thus began the system of social elitism. Elitism has been used to justify
monarchs, religion, education, racism, social status, wealth, power and prejudice and
discrimination throughout the ages.
Even in my own family I have 2 brothers who consider themselves superior to
the rest of us. I also have 2 sisters who feel the same. They earn more money, live in
nicer homes, and have more education than the rest of us. They are also more traveled
than the rest of us. It doesn’t bother me so much as I know they still have to wake up
every day, get every day, they go to bed every night and have similar problems as
normal people. It does bother some of my other siblings, but I try to stay out of the
family politics. My wife’s family has some of the same elitism, but she doesn’t let it
bother her either.
In today’s world elitism is used to control the masses. It doesn’t matter if a country
has a kingdom, a dictatorship, or even a democracy. Those in charge wield their power
over their people because they consider the people as ignorant buffoons. The elite look
down on the “peasants” because they aren’t as educated, as wealthy, as politically
powerful, not the right religion, the right neighborhood, the master race, the best job,
the nicest house, the fastest car or whatever.
It has always been this elitism that eventually oppresses the people to the point
they revolt and overthrow their leaders; political, religious, wealthy, racial, social and
educational. The first people the communists always destroy are the wealthy, educated,
religious, and political leaders. They will do it by either covert or overt revolution.
Socialism is the worst form of government because they can fundamentally transform
their country through stealth and conspiracy and once socialism is thoroughly
entrenched the people have no idea what hit them until it’s too late.

72 Bradford Richardson. Millennials would rather live in socialist or communist nation than under
capitalism: Poll. November 4, 2017. https://www.washingtontimes.com
73Liberal Brainwashing in Public Schools. Rick Gordon. https://www.washingtontimes.com

35
The Ivy League is often associated with the upper class White Anglo-Saxon
Protestant community of the Northeast, Old Money, or more generally, the American
upper middle and upper classes. Although most Ivy League students come from upper
middle- and upper-class families, the student body has become increasingly more
economically and ethnically diverse. The universities provide significant financial aid to
help increase the enrollment of lower income and middle-class students. They
instituted affirmative action programs and quotas to help these poor underprivileged
students.
Several reports suggest, however, that the proportion of students from less-
affluent families continues to remain low. It all looked good on paper, but the reality is
that these students are merely tokens to ease the consciences of the elite. Also the
effect on those minority students in the Ivy League graduate, they come out with the
same elitist ideas as their white counterparts. On top of it all the elitist universities have
become more progressively leftist.
Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery" are universal in nonfiction and fiction
writing of the early and mid-twentieth century. A Louis Auchincloss character dreads
"the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges.” 74 A business
writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of
an attitude to avoid:
“We Ivy Leaguers know that an Ivy League degree is a mark of the kind of person
who is likely to succeed in this organization. 75The phrase Ivy League historically has
been perceived as connected not only with academic excellence, but also with social
elitism.”i
In 1936, sportswriter John Kieran noted that students at Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Penn were advocating the formation of
an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army, Navy, Georgetown, Fordham,
Syracuse, Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted:
“It would be well for the proponents of the Ivy League to make it clear to
themselves especially that the proposed group would be inclusive but not "exclusive" as
this term is used with a slight up-tilting of the tip of the nose.”76
Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential
election, when George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) derided Michael Dukakis, graduate of
Harvard Law School, for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique."
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked, "Wasn't this a case of the pot calling
the kettle elite?"77
Bush explained, however, that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse,
there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it.... Harvard
boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism" and said Harvard in his
remark was intended to represent "a philosophical enclave" and not a statement about
class. 78
74 Auchincloss, Louis (2004). East Side Story. Houghton Mifflin. p. 179,
75 Williams, Mark (2001). The 10 Lenses: your guide to living and working in a multicultural world.
Capital Books., p. 85
76 Kieran, John (December 4, 1936). "Sports of the Times — The Ivy League". The New York Times. p.
36. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
77 Dowd, Maureen (1998), "Bush Traces How Yale Differs From Harvard." The New York Times, June
11, 1998, p. 10
78 Ibid

36
Columnist Russell Baker lectured that "Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy
League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is
that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never
sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets." 79 Still, the
last five presidents have all attended Ivy League schools for at least part of their
education: George H. W. Bush (Yale undergrad), Bill Clinton (Yale Law School), George W.
Bush (Yale undergrad, Harvard Business School), Barack Obama (Columbia undergrad,
Harvard Law School), and Donald Trump (Penn undergrad).
U.S. presidents in the Ivy League: Of the forty-four men who have served as
President of the United States, fifteen have graduated from an Ivy League university. 80
Of them, eight have degrees from Harvard, five from Yale, three from Columbia, two
from Princeton and one from Penn. Twelve presidents have earned Ivy League
undergraduate degrees. Three of these were transfer students: Donald Trump
transferred from Fordham University, Barack Obama transferred from Occidental
College and John F. Kennedy transferred from another Ivy, Princeton, where he had
been class of 1939. John Adams was the first president to graduate from college,
graduating from Harvard in 1755.81
This Ivy League elitism has become so pervasive that someone is a nobody
unless that somebody graduated from an Ivy League school. State Universities are very
much underrated by the elite. Research done at a state university is frown upon while
research done at an Ivy League school is hailed as a scientific breakthrough.
I once did a research paper for a linguistics class. I used sources from Oxford,
Cambridge, Berlin, Warsaw and other European universities. My professor gave me a
lower grade because my paper contradicted a professor from Harvard. Since that time I
have wondered what sets the Ivy League apart from other universities, even from
Europe? It has nothing to do with academics. It is all about prestige and nothing more.
I don’t care about what a president knows, where he went to school, who he
knows, or what he’s done in the past. What I care about is what will the president do for
my country in the here and now. The same is true for Congress and the Supreme Court;
likewise my governor, legislature, and state supreme court; and my county and city
governments. Just do their jobs and their legacy will take care of itself. It has nothing to
do with their alma mater. It has everything to do with integrity, honesty, and defending
the Constitution.

79 Baker, Russell (1998), "The Ivy Hayseed." The New York Times, June 15, 1988, p. A31
80 Donald J. Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford,
John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt,
Rutherford B. Hayes, William Henry Harrison, John Quincy Adams, James Madison, and John Adams
81 15 Presidents Who Went To Ivy League Schools, Tucker Westbrook, Town And Country, Feb 11,
2015, 2018 Hearst Communications, Inc. Accessed 23 November 2019.

37
Chapter 4: The History of Corruption in the Congress

The United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 5) gives the House of


Representatives the power to expel any member by a two-thirds vote. Expulsion of a
Representative is rare: only five members of the House have been expelled in its history,
all of whom were members of the Democratic Party. Three of those five were expelled
in 1861 for joining the Confederate States of America.
However, the House has other, less severe measures with which to discipline
members. Censure and reprimand are procedures in which the House may vote to
express formal disapproval of a member's conduct. Only a simple majority vote is
required. Members who are censured must stand in the well of the House chamber to
receive a reading of the censure resolution. A reprimand was once considered
synonymous with censure, but in 1976 the House defined a reprimand as a less severe
punishment. Members who are reprimanded are not required to stand in the well of
the house and have the resolution read to them.

Congress: House of Representatives


5 Expelled Representatives from 1861 to 2002. 82
23 Censured Representatives from 1832 to 2010. 83
10 Reprimanded Representatives from 1976 to 2012. 84
2 Excluded Representatives-elect from 1899 to 1967 85

The United States Constitution gives the Senate the power to expel any member
by a two-thirds vote. This is distinct from the power over impeachment trials and
convictions that the Senate has over executive and judicial federal officials. The Senate
concluded in 1798 that Senators could not be impeached, but only expelled, while
conducting the impeachment trial of William Blount, who had already been expelled.
It has not occurred since the Civil War, which most of the expulsions were
related to the southern secession, although this is partly because many members
resigned rather than face a formal proceeding when expulsion appears possible.
Censure, a lesser punishment which represents a formal statement of disapproval, has
been more common in the last century. Although censure carries no formal
punishment, only one Senator, Benjamin R. Tillman, of the nine to be censured has ever
been re-elected. Unlike the House of Representatives, which also disciplines by
reprimand, a censure is the lightest form of discipline which the Senate issues.
Many expulsion proceedings have been begun by the Senate that did not lead to
expulsion. In most cases, the expulsion failed to secure the necessary two-thirds vote; in
other cases the Senator in question resigned while proceedings were taking place,
presumably because the Senator felt that the proceedings would succeed or that his
political career would not survive them regardless.
In 1867, senators in the south were refused their seats in the US Senate,
because they had supported the Confederacy. One of my ancestors, Daniel Jackson
Smith, was voted into Congress about 1867 but was never allowed to seat because
82 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States
83 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Expulsion_from_the_United_States_Congress
84 http://history.house.gov/Institution/Discipline/Expulsion-Censure-Reprimand/
85 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Unseated_members_of_the_United_States_Congress

38
Congress had voted not to seat delegates from the South as part of their Reconstruction
Policies.

The Senate
15 Expelled Senators from 1797-1862.86
18 Expulsion proceedings not resulting in expulsion 1808-2011
12 Censured senators from 1811 to 2017.

86 https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Expulsion_Censure.htm

39
Chapter 5: The White House87

Except in the case of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton it’s usually not the president
who is corrupt. It’s usually the people in their inner circle who serve at the pleasure of
the president who become corrupt. They are so eager to create the legacy for the
president they will do anything to advance his agenda, make him look good in the public
eye, and protect his public persona in order to make him palatable for the next election.
The current president, Donald Trump, wasn’t even in a year and already his
political enemies had advocated his impeachment, resignation and as a last resort, his
assassination. At no time in US history has the previous president interfered with the
administration of his successor. Yet in the case of President Trump, Barack Obama has
done exactly that. He is the instigator of the shadow government that is attempting to
overthrow the lawfully elected president of the United States.
The first conspiracy was in 1777 when two of George Washington’s generals
conspired to replace him with themselves. I noticed that the farther back I went things
that no one even bats an eye now were bad enough to expel a senator or representative
or impeach a president. The crimes and misdemeanors committed by Congress, the
Supreme Court, and the President, now would get most of us thrown in jail for life if the
rest of us committed the same crimes.

2017- 2020: Donald Trump administration (R) (2017–present). Countless


accusations, investigations, enemies threatening impeachment and assassination. They also
made personal attacks on his family, including an envelope filled with white powder.

2008-2016: Barack Obama administration (C) (2009–2016). 63 Scandals, Treason,


Corruption, and Operating a Shadow Government to overthrow Trump. In 2018 he also had
the gall to announce that his administration was scandal free.

2001–2009 George W. Bush (R) presidency: Before the ink was dry on his
inauguration the Democrats were standing in front of the Capital building and threatening to
“make sure George W. Bush failed as president.” They did everything possible, false
accusations, threatening personal attacks, impeachment, and assassination to destroy him as
president.

1993–2001 Bill Clinton (D) presidency: Countless scandals (some we are just
beginning to learn about), imposing socialist programs on Americans, lying to Congress and the
American people, and finally was impeached. Acquitted by one vote.

1989–1993 George H. W. Bush (R) presidency: The democrats didn’t like him but in
1990 they unanimously voted to support the first Gulf War before they voted against it.

1981–1989 Ronald Reagan (R) presidency). Reagan’s administration was


characterized by the democrats once again trying to destroy a republican president.
Operation Ill Wind was a three-year investigation launched in 1986 by the FBI into
corruption by U.S. government and military officials, and private defense contractors. Iran-

87 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

40
Contra Affair (1985–1986) – A secret sale of arms to Iran, to secure the release of hostages
and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, in violation of the
Boland Amendment; an arms embargo, administration officials arranged to sell armaments
to Iran in an attempt to improve relations with the Iranians and obtain their influence in
the release of hostages held in Lebanon. Oliver North of the National Security Council then
diverted proceeds from the arms sale to fund Contra rebels attempting to overthrow the
left-wing government of Nicaragua. Ronald Reagan appeared on TV stating there was no
"arms for hostages" deal, but was later forced to admit, also on TV, that yes, there indeed
had been: Iran-Contra Affair (1985–1986). In the Legislative branch there were two
important scandals: the Keating Five and the Abscam88 FBI sting involving fake 'Arabs' trying
to bribe 31 congressmen. (1980) It involved 6 democrats and 1 republican. The Keating Five
(1980–1989). The failure of Lincoln Savings and Loan led to Charles Keating donating to the
campaigns of five Senators for help. Keating served 42 months in prison. The five (4
democrats and one republican) were investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee which
reprimanded the senators.

1977–1981 Jimmy Carter (D) presidency. Jimmy Carter’s biggest faux pas was the
American Embassy hostages in Tehran and the foiled rescue attempt. As far as the Congress
was concerned there were five republicans and 13 democrats involved in scandals, mostly
for bribery.

1974–1977 (Gerald R. Ford (R) presidency). The biggest scandal that came out of
the Ford Administration was the Earl Butz peaking gaffes. It was uncalled for, but he still
spent time in jail for tax evasion. In there were three republicans and 9 democrats. The
charges involved kickbacks, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, influence buying, bribery,
DWI, conflict of interest, fraud, extra-marital affairs. A federal judge was also convicted of
bribery.

1969–1974 (Richard M. Nixon (R) presidency: The most infamous scandal during the Nixon
years was Watergate (1972–1974). President Richard Nixon (R) ordered the coverup of the
burglary and 'bugging' of the Democratic Party National Headquarters at the Watergate
Hotel. The cover up by Nixon and his staff resulted in 69 government officials being charged
and 48 convicted or pleading guilty. Eventually, Nixon resigned his office rather than face
impeachment. In Congress, there were 6 republicans and 2 democrats that served in
federal prison for tax evasion, kickbacks, perjury, witness tampering, mail fraud, campaign
law violations, manslaughter (when Ted Kennedy drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick
and his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned), and suicide. On the judicial side, a supreme
court nominee was defeated based on his civil rights record. A federal judge resigned after
an investigation into his misuse of power in a government contract.

1963–1969 (Lyndon B. Johnson (D) presidency).


An advisor to LBJ was busted on charges of favoritism. Also 6 democrats and 1
republican were busted on charges of kickbacks, tax evasion, falsifying reports, illegal
gratuity, conflict of interest, and financial misconduct.

88

41
1961–1963 (John F. Kennedy (D) presidency). The greatest thing that happened during the
Kennedy presidency was his assassination and the conspiracy theories that followed. The
Bay of Pigs was a fiasco but unlike many recent presidents he owned up to the mistakes
that were made and didn’t try to blame anyone. The only other scandals were the two
democrats who were busted for conflict of interest, illegal gratuities, and conspiracy to
defraud the government.

1953–1961 (Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) presidency): illegal gratuities, contempt of Congress,


and conflict of interest. Three republicans and one democrat were busted for stolen valor,
tax evasion, lying to investigators, payroll padding, kickbacks, contempt of Congress, and
the McCarthy hearings. A broad political and cultural purge was started against people
suspected of sympathy with communism, starting near the end of World War II and
reaching its climax in the investigations of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The Senate passed a
resolution of condemnation against McCarthy in 1954 after an embarrassing investigation
of the United States Army, ending his career, but anti-communist purges continued for
several years. Though McCarthy was a senator, the driving force behind the investigations
was the House Committee on Unamerican Activities Hearings.

1945–1953 (Harry S. Truman (D) presidency): A Justice Department investigation of the


Internal Revenue Service led to the firing or resignation of 166 lower level employees,
causing President Harry Truman (D) to be stained with charges of corruption. (1950). Four
democrats and one republican were busted for salary fraud, accepting bribes, and mail
fraud. All five spent time in federal prison but were pardoned by Truman in 1952.

1933–1945 (Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) presidency): Michael J. Hogan (R) Collector of the
Port of New York. Convicted of bribery and sentenced to a year and a day in a Federal
Penitentiary.(1935) Two democrats, two republicans and one Socialist in Congress were
busted for selling an appointment to West Point, bribery, sending scurrilous and defamatory
materials through the mail, and embezzlement. Marion Zioncheck (D-WA) was killed after
he was feuding with J. Edgar Hoover. (1936) In the justice system two federal judges were
busted for accepting bribes, illegal gratuities, and judicial corruption.

1929-1933 (Herbert Hoover (R) presidency): There were no known prosecutions of


members of Hoover’s administration, but the Congress had two republicans who were
busted for accepting bribes from people seeking post office appointments and hiring a
lobbyist to work on his staff. Both served time in Leavenworth.

1923–1929 (Calvin Coolidge (R) presidency): In the Coolidge administration there were two
members who were busted for conspiracy to defraud the government, and illegal practices.
In Congress, there were three republicans who were busted for violating the Volstead Act
(prohibition), bribery, corruption and election fraud. Illinois U.S. District Judge George
English (D) was impeached for taking an interest-free loan from a bank of which he was
director. Resigned before his Senate trial. (1926)

1921–1923 (Warren G. Harding (R) presidency): Harding gave us the Teapot Dome scandal
and other scandals involving cronyism, bribery, bootlegging kickbacks, destruction of
evidence, corruption, fraud by selling German secrets gathered after WWI. Two of these

42
men committed suicide two served prison terms, and one resigned. Isn’t it interesting how
so many of these early government “servants” either went to jail, committed suicide or
resigned? Nowadays in spite of scandal after scandal, the crooks are never prosecuted, and
they are allowed to walk the streets to instigate the over throw of our government and
Constitution. In Congress, one democrat and one republican were busted inserting obscene
material into the Congressional record and election irregularities.

1913–1921 Woodrow Wilson (D) presidency: Newport Sex Scandal, Assistant Secretary of
the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated an investigation into allegations of "immoral
conduct" (homosexuality) at the Naval base in Newport, Rhode Island. After the report,
which revealed nothing, the investigators themselves were also accused of homosexuality.
(1919) Toward the end of his second term in office, there were allegations that he was
mentally unfit for office and that his wife was the de facto president.

1909–1913 William Howard Taft (R) presidency: His administration was relatively clean.
However there were five republicans in Congress who were busted for fraud, accepting
bribes, involvement in the Oregon land fraud scandal, not prosecuting suspects, then
blackmailing them during the Oregon land fraud scandal. A federal judge was convicted of
corruption in 1912.

1901–1909 Theodore Roosevelt (R) presidency: In Congress there were again 4 republicans
busted for involvement in the Oregon land scandal, bribery, fraud relating to the
construction of the Pennsylvania Capitol building. 1. Oregon District Attorney John
Hicklin Hall (R), appointed by President McKinley, was convicted of not prosecuting suspects
and then blackmailing them during the Oregon land fraud scandal. (1903)
1897.1901 William McKinley (R) presidency: Oregon US Federal District Attorney John
Hicklin Hall (R) was appointed by President William McKinley. In 1903, Hall was ordered to
investigate land fraud in what became known as the Oregon land fraud scandal and was put
on trial for failing to prosecute land companies engaging in fraudulent activities, and for
using his knowledge of illegal activities to blackmail his political opponents. In Congress,
Senator Ralph Cameron (R-AZ) attempted to control access to the Grand Canyon by buying
mining rights to adjacent lands. (1912) Senator William Lorimer (R-IL), also known as the
"blond boss of Chicago,” was expelled from the U.S. Senate in 1912 for accepting bribes.
Senator Benjamin R. Tillman (D-SC) and John McLaurin, Senator (D-SC) were both censured
for fighting in the Senate chamber. Pennsylvania U.S. Commerce Court Judge Robert
Archibald (R) was involved for corrupt alliances with coal mine workers and railroad
officials. He was convicted and removed from office. (1912) Cornelius Hanford (R) US
District Judge for the Western District of Washington, resigned under threat of
impeachment for corruption. (1912) From the terms of Ulysses Grant to William McKinley
the US government entered into a dark period which Mark Twain called the Gilded Age;
when nothing was as it seemed and both parties were involved in political machines and
scandalous corruption.
1885–1889 Grover Cleveland (D) presidency: Utah Territorial Delegate George Q. Cannon
(R) was refused his seat due to a conviction for unlawful cohabitation (polygamy), for which
he served nearly six months in Utah's federal penitentiary. (1888)

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1881–1885 Chester A. Arthur (R) presidency): Governor of Dakota Territory Nehemiah G.
Ordway (R) was removed by President Chester A. Arthur after he was indicted for
corruption. (1884) Levi Jarrad (R) was appointed US Postmaster for New Brunswick, NJ by
President Chester A. Arthur (R) in 1881. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for forgery
in 1884.

1881-1881 James A. Garfield (R) presidency): Senator Stephen W. Dorsey (R-AR) was
included in the investigation of corruption of Star Route postal contracts under the
administrations of President James A. Garfield (R) and President Chester A. Arthur (R).
(1881)

1877–1881 Rutherford B. Hayes (R) presidency): In 1876, Hayes was elected president in
one of the most contentious elections in national history. He lost the popular vote to
Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, but he won an intensely disputed electoral college vote after a
Congressional commission awarded him twenty contested electoral votes. The result was
the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election and Hayes
withdrew remaining U.S. troops protecting Republican office holders in the South. This
would be repeated in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush and Al Gore. Ezra Ayres
Hayt, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs under Rutherford B. Hayes, was forced to resign by
Interior Secretary Carl Schurz due to allegations of rampant corruption. (1880) US District
Court Northern District of Alabama Judge Richard Busteed (R) was brought impeachment
charges for non-residence in Alabama, failure to hold court and improper use of his official
position. To avoid being removed from office, he resigned. (1874) US District Court for the
Eastern District of Louisiana Judge Edward Henry Durell (R) was impeached for alleged
drunkenness, corruption, and election-rigging. He resigned before trial. (1879)

1869–1877 Ulysses S. Grant (R) presidency): United States Secretary of War William
Belknap (R) resigned just before he was impeached by the United States House of
Representatives for bribery. (1876) Whiskey Ring – Massive corruption of Ulysses S. Grant's
(R) administration involving whiskey taxes, bribery and kickbacks ending with 110
convictions. (1875) Orville E. Babcock (R), a personal secretary to Grant, was indicted in the
Whiskey Ring scandal and ten days later in the Safe Burglary Conspiracy. He was acquitted
both times. John J. McDonald (R), Supervisor of the Internal Revenue Service, was convicted
and sentenced to three years. W.O. Avery, Chief Clerk of the Treasury Department, was
convicted. Eastern Wisconsin Federal Attorney Levi Hubbell (R) was suspended from office
for his involvement with the Whiskey Ring through contact with Milwaukee brewers. (1875)
Sanborn contract was a kickback scheme between William Adams Richardson (R), Grant's
Secretary of the Treasury, and John D. Sanborn .(1874) Black Friday – When financiers Jay
Gould and James Fisk tried to corner the gold market by getting Ulysses S. Grant's brother-
in-law Abel Corbin to convince Grant to appoint General Daniel Butterfield as Assistant to
the Secretary of the Treasury, where he could then give them insider information. (1869)
George M. Robeson, Grant's Secretary of the Navy, was admonished by the House for gross
misconduct and corruption in relation to his dealings with Alexander Cattel. (1876) Salary
Grab Act was the act that increased the salaries of the President, Congress and the
Supreme Court. (1873) They have been “grabbing” their salaries ever since. Columbus
Delano, the Secretary of the Interior under Grant, resigned after allegedly taking bribes in
order to secure fraudulent land grants. Congress had their own scandals such as the Crédit

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Mobilier of America scandal: Oakes Ames (R-MA) bribed Congress with Union Pacific stock.
James Brooks (D-NY) also implicated; both were censured for their involvement. (1872) US
Senator James W. Patterson (R-NH) was found to have given false testimony to both the
House and Senate Committees, both of whom found him guilty of bribery in the Crédit
Mobilier Scandal. He was also recommended for expulsion from the Senate, but Patterson's
term expired before such action could be taken. (1873) US Senator Alexander Caldwell (R-
KS) was elected to the US Senate. It was discovered that the rival candidate, Thomas
Carney, dropped out of the race, admitting that he had accepted a bribe of $15,000 to leave
the race allowing Caldwell to win. He was impeached, and the US Senate declared that
Caldwell had not been "duly and legally elected” and moved to expel him. Before a vote
could be taken, Caldwell resigned(1873) Mark Delahey (R) a U.S. District Judge of Kansas
and cofounder of the Republican Party, was impeached by the United States House of
Representatives on February 28, 1873 for "inabusiveation off the bench as well as on the
bench,” He resigned two months later. (1873)

1865–1868 Andrew Johnson (D) presidency): President Andrew Johnson (D/Union Party)
was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act. He was acquitted by one vote. (1868)

1861–1865 Abraham Lincoln (R) presidency: Simon Cameron (R), Lincoln's Secretary of
War, resigned in 1862 due to corruption charges. His behavior was so notorious that
Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, when discussing Cameron's honesty with Lincoln, told him
that "I don't think that he would steal a red-hot stove.” When Cameron demanded Stevens
retract this statement, Stevens told Lincoln "I believe I told you he would not steal a red-hot
stove. I will now take that back." (1860–1862) In Congress, Senator James F. Simmons (R-RI)
had confirmed corruption charges against him reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee
and the charges were referred to the full Senate for action on July 14, 1862. The Senate
adjourned three days later without acting. Before it could reconvene, Simmons resigned on
September 5, 1862. US Representative Lovell Harrison Rousseau (R-KY) assaulted Iowa
Representative Josiah Bushnell Grinnell (R-IA) on June 14, 1866 with his iron handled cane
until it broke. He was reprimanded by the House of Representatives, and resigned, but was
elected again to fill his own vacancy. (1866) The greatest scandal during the Lincoln years
were his choices of generals to lead the Federal troops. First, he asked Lee, but Lee refused
to go fight for the South. Then he chose Winfield Scott, followed by George B. McClellan
and Henry Halleck. Then he chose McClellan, again, who was a whiner and a do-nothing.
Lincoln replaced him with Ambrose Burnside who was a nice guy but an ill-fated general. He
was replaced by Joseph Hooker. He blamed his failure on his subordinate officers and asked
to be replaced. He was replaced by George Meade. He was an awesome tactician, but he
didn’t have the sense of urgency required to follow through and attack Lee. Meade was
then replaced by Ulysses S. Grant. When some of Grants critics complained of his drinking,
Lincoln is reported to have said send him a barrel of his favorite whisky and one each to my
other generals, if it makes fighting men like Grant.

1857–1861 James Buchanan (D) presidency: US Representative and fervent advocate of


slavery Preston Brooks (D-SC) beat abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner (R), leaving him
bleeding and unconscious on the floor of the House of Representatives until his cane broke.
(1856) Daniel Sickles (D-NY) shot and killed the United States Attorney for the District of
Columbia, Philip Barton Key II, son of Francis Scott Key, whom the Congressman had

45
discovered was having an affair with Sickles’ young wife, Teresa. He was tried and acquitted
in the first use of the temporary insanity plea. (1859)

1849–1850 Zachary Taylor (W) presidency: George W. Crawford (Whig-GA) Secretary ,in the
Cabinet of President Zachary Taylor (Whig), was the center of the Galphin Affair land
scandal with the help of Reverdy Johnson (Whig) Attorney General and William M.
Meredith (Whig) Secretary of the Treasury, in which Crawford defrauded the federal
government of $191,353. (1849)

1829–1836 Andrew Jackson (D) presidency: Samuel Swartwout was appointed by President
Andrew Jackson to the New York City Collector's Office. At the end of his term he had
embezzled $1.225 million in customs receipts and used the money to purchase land. He
fled to Europe to avoid prosecution. Margaret O'Neill Eaton, the wife of Secretary of War
John H. Eaton, was a central figure in the Petticoat Affair which involved accusations that
she had engaged in an extramarital affair, and her social ostracism by the wives of other
Cabinet members was led by Floride Calhoun, the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun.
North Carolina Congressman Robert Potter (D) resigned from Congress after castrating two
men he believed were having an affair with his wife. (1831) Later, in North Carolina, he was
expelled from its legislature for cheating at cards or for pulling a gun and a knife during a
card game. (1835)

1817–1824 James Monroe (DR)89 presidency: General James Wilkinson was appointed to be
Governor of the upper Louisiana Purchase. He then conspired with Spain to get Kentucky to
secede from the Union in order to allow shipping on the Mississippi to reach New Orleans.
(1787–1811) Aaron Burr and the New Empire (Southwest) Burr conspiracy (1804–1807)
Burr allegedly tried to seize a large part of the Louisiana Purchase and establish his own
country. He was arrested for treason but was acquitted for lack of evidence. (1807) Aaron
Burr dueled with Alexander Hamilton. (1804) Corrupt Bargain was a supposed bargain by
John Quincy Adams with Henry Clay. (1824)

1801–1808 Thomas Jefferson (DR) presidency: Samuel Chase, the Supreme Court Justice
appointed by George Washington, was impeached for political favoritism and acquitted in
1805. John Pickering, a federal judge appointed by George Washington, was impeached and
convicted in absentia by the US Senate for drunkenness and use of profanity on the bench
in spite of the fact neither act was a high crime or misdemeanor. (1804)

1797–1800 John Adams (F)90 presidency: The XYZ Affair was the French seizure of over 300
US ships and demands for bribes and apologies, led to a Quasi-War causing the US Congress
to issue the famous phrase, "Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute!" Real
war was averted by treaty. (1798–1800) Matthew Lyon (Democratic-Republican KY) was the
first Congressman recommended for censure for spitting on Ralph Griswold (Federalist-CT).
The censure failed to pass. Also found guilty of violating John Adams' Alien and Sedition
Acts and sentenced to four months in jail, during which he was re-elected (1798)

89 Democratic-Republican Party
90 Federalist Party

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1789–1796 George Washington (I) presidency: Conway Cabal created a movement or
conspiracy to remove George Washington as commander of the Continental Army by
Thomas Conway and Horatio Gates. (1777–1778) Silas Deane was accused of
mismanagement and treason while ambassador to France. Intending to clear himself of the
charges he died suddenly, and the charges were eventually reversed or dropped. (1777)
Senator William Blount (Democratic-Republican-TN) was expelled from the Senate for
trying to aid the British in a takeover of West Florida. (1797)

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Chapter 6: List Of American Corrupt State And Local Politicians
Convicted Of Crimes

This list includes American politicians at the state and local levels who have been
convicted of crimes they committed in office. Not everyone who works in government is
a politician save those who meet the requirements of Notability in the English Merriam-
Webster91. Private citizens, businessmen and family should not be included, unless they
relate to the crime as co-defendants.
The list does not include scandals, accusations, arrests or indictments that have
not led to convictions. At the bottom of the article are links to related articles which
deal with politicians who are involved in scandals (political and sex), as well as
differentiating among federal, state and local convictions. Also excluded are crimes
which occur outside the politician's tenure in office unless they specifically stem from
acts during his time of service.
Entries are arranged by date, from most current to less recent, and by state. 92 This is
an active list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness.
They say that the phrase honest politician is an oxymoron. To be more exact, there is no
such thing as an honest politician. There are politicians with political agendas, ulterior
motives, who exploit their offices for political, financial, or personal gain. Some are able
to resist the temptation for graft, bribery, and exploitation of their constituents but the
longer they remain in office the more likely temptation will win out and the politician
will give in.
In fact the Mormon, Prophet Joseph Smith said in 1829 in the Doctrine and
Covenants 121:39, “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and
disposition of almost all men (and women), as soon as they get a little authority, as they
suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” 93 So it doesn’t
matter if it’s the local cop or the representative in Congress, they are all subject to the
enticements that go along with the trappings and perks of power. The longer they
remain in power the more they rationalize their corruption and will do whatever it takes
to destroy any obstacle in their way.
Many of these people were guilty of election fraud. Many Americans fail to realize
that the electoral college is one of the checks and balances against election fraud. So
when a politician attempts to stuff ballot boxes, intimidate voters, bus voters from other
districts, or allow voters to “vote early and vote often, bribe voters, corrupt voter
rosters with illegal aliens, convicts, use outdated rosters, and other improprieties in the
election system, we have the electoral college to help assure that our presidents are
elected honestly.
That is why the president has term limits. That is why the Congress needs term
limits. That is why all elected officials require term limits to prevent the enticement of
unrighteous dominion. So it doesn’t matter what party one affiliates with, what church
one attends, what his success in other avenues of his life were, it takes years to win the
public trust and seconds of stupidity to lose it. Now understand that this list is not
conclusive. The people who populate this list are merely the ones who got caught.

91 the nobility : the group of people who are members of the highest social class in some countries
92 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Corruption_in_local_government
93 D&C 121:39 (20 Mar 1829)

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There are likely more not reported. Most of these crimes were committed between
2010 to the present (2018)
Also, many of these crooks were women. This just goes to show that not all women
public servants are honest just as not all men public servants are honest either.
Alabama: 5 republicans and 10 democrats who were busted for improperly using
campaign money, extortion, bribery mail fraud, obstruction of justice, converting
campaign contributions to personal use, political assassination, felony, DUI, ethics
violations, sexual assault, federal fraud charges, accepting bribes, money laundering,
using their office to obtain loans and failing to report personal finances, filing false tax
returns.

Alaska: Alaska political corruption probe in which VECO Corporation an oilfield service
corporation, was investigated by the IRS, FBI and Department of Justice. Veco executives
Bill Allen and VP Rick Smith pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion, bribery, and
conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service. The charges involved bribing Alaska
lawmakers who came to be known as the "Corrupt Bastards Club" to vote in favor of an oil
tax law favored by VECO that was the subject of vigorous debate in 2006 and were part of
a larger probe of political corruption in Alaska by federal authorities. There were 8
republicans who were busted as part of the Corrupt Bastards Club. Also they were found
guilty of bribery, extortion, conspiracy, money laundering, misuse of state funds, illegal
campaign contributions, and perjury.

Arizona: 7 republicans and 6 democrats were busted for obstruction of justice, misuse
of government funds, extortion, false financial statements, bank fraud, bribery, fraud,
theft, violation of campaign laws, false campaign contributions, money laundering, wire
fraud, tax evasion, trespassing, domestic violence, and assault.

Arkansas: 9 democrats and 3 republicans were busted for fraud and conspiracy as part
of the Whitewater investigation. 4 of these crooks were women. Also ethics violations,
bribery, kickbacks, tax evasion, trading in public office, voter bribery, DUI, accepting
payoffs for supporting gambling legislation, tax evasion, mail fraud. State Senators, Samuel
C. Sims (D) and Ivison C. Burgess (R) introduced legislation to regulate trading stamps and
coupons and then accepted a bribe of $2,000 from trading-stamp interests. Guilty of
bribery, then expelled from the Senate.(1917).

California: 11 republicans and 16 democrats were busted for bribery, money


laundering, shoplifting (felony grand theft), racketeering, corruption, extortion, gun
trafficking, embezzlement, perjury, voter fraud, conceal, deceive, or mislead the transfer of
$40,000 to the county republican central committee, who then passed it to a candidate to
circumvent California’s contribution limits, obstruction of justice, DUI, conflict of interest,
felony theft, false imprisonment, battery, tax evasion, and felony assault to commit murder.

Colorado: 4 republicans were busted for ethics violations, money laundering, improper
influence of public official, tax fraud, contempt of court, embezzlement and misdemeanor
official misconduct.

49
Connecticut: 6 democrats and 5 republicans were busted for bank fraud, campaign
finance violations, bribery, evading taxes, pilfering campaign contributions for personal
expenses, election fraud, larceny, racketeering, money laundering, corruption, kickbacks,
payoffs, soliciting a prostitute, and sexual contact with a minor.

Florida: 7 democrats and 3 republicans were busted for perjury, extortion, fraud,
soliciting sex, lascivious acts and exposure, Medicare fraud, bribery, official misconduct,
mortgage fraud, performing fellatio on an undercover officer, and theft of campaign funds.
5 of the crooks were women.

Guam: Governor of Guam Ricardo Bordallo (D) was convicted on ten counts of
corruption and was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined more than $100,000 but
committed suicide the day before he was scheduled to begin serving his prison sentence
(1990).

Georgia: 4 republicans and 3 democrats were busted DUI, campaign fraud, tax fraud,
tax evasion, mail fraud, conspiracy, 127 counts of various felony charges, bribery, and
embezzlement.

Hawaii: 7 democrats and 1 republican were busted for conspiracy, mail fraud, sexual
misconduct, tax fraud, public corruption, and theft.

Idaho: State Senator John McGee (R) pleaded guilty to probation violation and
disturbing the peace, a charge related to sexual harassment that had occurred at the Idaho
State Capital Building and was jailed for 44 days. (2012) He had previously been arrested for
grand theft auto and driving under the influence. McGee pled guilty to DUI and was
sentenced to 180 days, serving 5 in jail, plus community service, 175 days probation, plus
fines and restitution.

Illinois: 11 republicans and 23 democrats were busted for tax fraud, bribery, financial
improprieties, corruption, retail return fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy, perjury, income tax
evasion, embezzlement, forgery, theft, extortion, child pornography, fraud, drug abuse and
DUI, bank fraud, filing false tax returns, and murder. 5 of these crooks were women.

Indiana: 4 republicans and 3 democrats were busted for mail fraud, impersonating a
public servant, lying to FBI investigators, perjury, theft, voter fraud, lewd conduct I n public,
conspiracy and theft of government fund, and bribery.

Iowa: State Senator Kent Sorenson (R) pleaded guilty to one count of falsely reporting
expenditures and one count of obstruction of justice. (2013)

Kansas: 6 republicans were busted for a variety of crimes. Secretary of State of


Kansas John Winter Robinson (R), and State Auditor of Kansas George S. Hillyer (R),
allegedly gave state bonds to an individual who sold them at a high rate but paid the
state a rate lower than that authorized by law and pocketed the difference. Robinson
was impeached on 7 counts. Hillyer was impeached on 6 counts. (1862) Other crimes

50
were bank fraud, gambling, drunkenness false imprisonment, allowing the guilty to go
free, inappropriate and offensive remarks and negligence. (1872)

Kentucky: 7 republicans and 11 democrats were busted for corruption, bribery,


racketeering, extortion, lying to investigators, campaign violations, interstate commerce
violations , filing a false campaign finance report, conspiracy, mail fraud, illegal
campaign donations, misuse of office, and theft. FBI Operation Boptrot was an
investigation into bribery and the horse racing industry. Approximately 10% of
Kentucky's legislature, both the house and senate, was implicated in this scandal, some
taking bribes for as little as $100. (1992) Two of these crooks were women.

Louisiana: There were 11 democrats and one republican who got busted for perjury,
extortion, mail fraud, money laundering, fraud, obstruction of justice, racketeering, jury
tampering, tax evasion, corruption, bribery, and theft. Huey Pierce Long Jr., self-
nicknamed The Kingfish, was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of
Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1932
until his assassination in 1935. In 1929, articles of impeachment were drawn up on charges of
abuses of power, patronage appointees, kickbacks, and used politics of personal
destruction.

Maine: 4 republicans were busted for forgery, theft, ballot tampering, concealed
weapons charge, DUI, and bribery.

Maryland: 8 democrats and 3 republicans were busted for mail fraud, racketeering,
DUI, operating a motorboat under the influence which collided with another boat and
injured 5 others, child pornography, extortion, conspiracy, fraud, misconduct in office,
fraudulent misappropriations, political corruption, witness and evidence tampering, and
embezzlement.

Massachusetts: 15 democrats, 3 republicans and one green party member, were


busted for bribery, kickbacks, misuse of position, obstruction of justice, assault, assault
and battery, tax evasion, voter fraud, hit and run accident, DUI, resisting arrest and
disorderly conduct, extortion, larceny, bribery, and accepting payoffs. State Senator
Dianne Wilkerson (D) was videotaped by the FBI stuffing bribe money into her bra.
Wilkerson pleaded guilty to eight

Michigan: 5 democrats and 9 republicans were busted for mortgage fraud, filing
false financial statements, neglect of duty, assisting in a Ponzi scheme, accepting bribes,
bribery, assault, embezzlement, misconduct, racketeering, extortion and parole
violation.

Minnesota: 3 republicans and 1 democrat were busted for domestic assault


charges, DUI, and telecommunications fraud.

Mississippi: 1 democrat and two republicans were busted for lying to the FBI, false
pretenses, fraudulent statements, and bribery.

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Missouri: 4 democrats and 3 republicans were busted for money laundering, assault
for causing physical injury during sadomasochistic sex, immigration fraud, fraud, theft,
obstruction of justice, and bribery.

Montana: 4 republicans and 1 democrat were busted for quid pro quo corruption,
unlawful campaign contributions, federal corruption on the Rocky
Boy Indian Reservation, bribery, assault and resisting arrest.

Nebraska: 5 republicans were busted for perjury, using government funds for
personal use, campaign finance violations, obstruction of justice, DUI, prescription drug
charges, used campaign fund to pay for an escort service and tattoo, personal long
distance call on a government phone, and misconduct.

Nevada: 4 republicans and 3 democrats were busted for Operation G-String,


racketeering, campaign fund violations, and filing false statements, theft, bribery and
corruption. Operation G-Sting, also called Strippergate, and referencing a G-String part
of a costume used by strippers and showgirls. It was an FBI investigation into bribes and
unreported campaign contributions taken by Clark County Commissioners in Clark
County, Nevada (home of Las Vegas) and city council members in San Diego, California.
These bribes were from the same lobbyist, representing two sets of strip clubs, and was
the result of strip club owners Rick Rizzolo and Mike Galardi trying to remove local "no
touch" laws affecting the girls in their clubs.

New Jersey: 11 republicans and 22 democrats were busted for bribery, Fort Lee lane
closure is a U.S. political scandal in which a staff member and political appointees of New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie (R) colluded to create traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey, by closing
lanes at the main toll plaza[3][4] for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge.
Operation Bid Rig is an ongoing, long-term investigation into political corruption in New Jersey
conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United
States Attorney for the District of New Jersey since 2002. The investigation has resulted in the
indictments of more than 60 public officials and politically connected individuals since its
inception. In July 2009, sting operations resulted in the arrest of 44 people in New Jersey and
New York, including 29 public servants and political operatives, and five orthodox rabbis from
the Syrian Jewish community. A number of high-level New Jersey elected officials were arrested
in the operation, including Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, Hoboken Mayor Peter
Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez, former Jersey
City Housing Authority Commissioner and Chairwoman Lori Serrano, Jersey City Housing
Authority Commissioner Edward Cheatam, Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, Assemblyman Daniel
M. Van Pelt, former Assemblyman and unsuccessful mayoral candidate Louis Manzo, and
political operatives Joseph Cardwell and Jack Shaw. Senator Ralph Chandless was expelled for
his role in a Lodi sewer scandal in 1931. Also bribery, fixing construction bids, kickbacks, filing
false and fraudulent tax returns, theft, child pornography, fraud, income tax evasion, planting
drugs in the home of a political opponent, mail fraud, racketeering, prostitution, extortion,
bootlegging, corruption, misappropriation, embezzlement, lying to the Federal Election
Commission, and money laundering.

New Hampshire: 3 republicans were busted for reckless conduct for discharging a
firearm, reckless driving and reckless endangerment, drugs, and luring a teen using a
computer.

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New Mexico: 1 republican and 3 democrats were busted for fraud, conspiracy to
defraud money from the State of New Mexico, and corruption.

New York: 16 republicans and 20 democrats were busted for Extortion, kidnapping,
lying to the FBI, bribery, federal corruption charges, conspiracy, wire fraud, embezzling
money from federally funded healthcare clinics, obstructing justice and making false
statement, "pay to play" scheme regarding the New York State Pension Fund,
racketeering, online enticement of minors, falsifying records, perjury charges for trying
to get insider information on a grand jury probe of the Finger Lakes Race Track at
Canandaigua, N. Y., tax evasion, groping, intimidating and manipulating young female
staffers, depriving the taxpayers of $48,000 by making her staff do personal chores for
her, entering into a sham marriage in order to gain U.S. citizenship, wire fraud counts,
grand larceny and five counts of falsifying business records, steering public-works
contracts, felony assault, DUI, kickbacks, soliciting of a bribe for pressuring a lawyer to
give $10,000 to his defense fund, sexually abusing a woman in his district office, and
running a Ponzi scheme. 6 of these crooks were women. The most infamous example of
corruption was Tammany Hall. Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St.
Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City
political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the
Tammany Society. It was the Democratic Party-political machine that played a major
role in controlling New York City and New York State politics and helping immigrants,
most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. It
typically controlled Democratic Party nominations and political patronage in Manhattan
from the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854 and used its patronage resources
to build a loyal, well-rewarded core of district and precinct leaders; after 1850 the great
majority were Irish Catholics. However, Tammany Hall also served as an engine for graft
and political corruption, perhaps most infamously under William M. "Boss" Tweed in
the mid-19th century.

North Carolina: 6 democrats and 2 republicans were busted for campaign finance
charges, federal campaign law felony, income tax fraud, public corruption, conspiracy to
commit extortion, honest services mail fraud, and money laundering, fraud, theft,
money laundering and filing false tax returns, bribery for agreeing to accept $50,000
and other gifts in return for switching parties, worthless check charge, aiding and
abetting prostitution.

Northern Marianas Islands: (Guam) There was one from the Covenant Party, and one
republican who were busted for misuse of government funds.

Ohio: 2 republicans and 6 democrats who were busted for ethics violations,
extortion, corruption, filing a false disclosure form, improper gratuities, perjury,
unlawful compensation of a public official, filing a false report, felony, and bribery.

Oregon: One republican was busted for campaign finance violations.

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Oklahoma: 10 democrats and 4 republicans were busted for extortion and
conspiracy, election law violation, impeached twice for "general incompetence,"
declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus without authority from
the State Senate; for corruption, accepting bribes, perjury and embezzlement for using
both state funds and campaign funds to pay for the same trips, fraud, perjury,
conspiracy to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation, and conspiracy to
violate the Federal Election Campaign Act, embezzling campaign funds, and accepted
bribes of $150K delivered in $100 bills in an armored car.
Oregon.
State Senator Bill Olson (R) plead guilty to second degree sex abuse with a 13-year-
old female. (1988)

Pennsylvania: 18 republicans and 37 democrats were busted for mail fraud, perjury,
conspiracy to defraud, racketeering, including theft of services, criminal conspiracy, and
misappropriation of state property, misusing state resources, felony, Computergate
state government corruption scandal, DUI, extortion, mail fraud, and filing a false
income tax return, giving away $26,000 of state funds in the 2006 Pennsylvania General
Assembly bonus controversy, harassment, solicitation for perjury and intimidation,
conflict of interest, scheming to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on computer
technology from Aristotle, Inc; DUI and assault charges, embezzlement, forging some
of the signatures on their nominating petitions, conflict of interest, Theft of Federal
Property by acquiring a $160,000-dollar, 10-ton generator for her own use, hit and run
that killed a man, using Senate staffers for campaigns, filing false reports, discharging
3.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Brokenstraw Creek, buying a 19-year-old
prostitute liquor and food using state money, falsifying tax-related documents to
conceal more than $330,000 in income he received from a private consulting firm while
serving in the Senate, racketeering and mail fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy,
obstruction of justice and filing a false tax return, destroying electronic evidence,
including e-mail related to the investigation, voter fraud, federal charges of violating the
Clean Water Act between 1983 and 1995, Pennsylvania State Capitol graft scandal,
commercial bribery, using cameras hidden in radios, motion detectors and intercom
systems, other men having sex in bathrooms, bedrooms and recreation areas, regularly
hiring male prostitutes, lying to the FBI, and Kids for cash scandal. The "kids for cash"
scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of
Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.[1] In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and
Mark Ciavarella were accused of accepting money in return for imposing harsh
adjudications on juveniles to increase occupancy at for-profit detention centers. 11 of
these crooks were women.

Puerto Rico: Six politicians in recent years were busted for bribery, extortion,
kickbacks, fraudulent payments, money laundering, witness tampering, collusion with
contractors for government contracts, shake-down of government contractors, and the
Hurricane Maria Aid Scandal.
Hurricane Maria Aid Scandal: The governor Ricardo Rossello has little
experience. He’s 36 and never really held a job and never dealt with a budget. His entire
administration is totally inexperienced, and they have no clue how to handle a crisis of
this magnitude. As of now, the FBI is aware of six municipalities among Puerto Rico’s 78

54
where such activity is allegedly happening, including San Juan, Arecibo, Patillas,
Aguadilla and Vieques. The U.S. federal prosecutor on the island, Rosa Emilia Rodriguez,
announced on WAPA radio last Sunday she is looking into these claims and is ready to
criminally prosecute any official who withholds relief.
More than a month after Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, destroying
houses, flooding streets, and laying waste to basic infrastructure, 80 percent of the
island was still without electricity, and neighborhoods lack clean water, adequate food,
or a safe dwelling. The causes of the ongoing crisis go beyond the immense power of
the natural disaster.
Over the last decade, austerity policies have ravaged the island, deepening the
rot of an economic model built on transferring public money to private hands. The
inadequate preparation and the insufficient response to Maria were a direct result,
shrinking the resources available to manage such a catastrophic situation. On top of the
natural disaster and ill-preparations, there was government incompetence, both at the
federal and local levels, making things even worse.
The Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin, is not allowing anyone to distribute the
aide that has been received. While Mayer Yulin was lambasting Trump and the Feds
there were pallets of aide behind her that had been there for days and not distributed.
Eventually the U.S. armed forces came in to distribute the aid. The federal prosecutor is
investigating the governor, Rosello, and the mayor, Yulin. One witness claimed, “ …It’s an
abuse, it looks like communism, in our own island…” While the main article didn’t list
any political parties the governor and the mayor were both democrats and supported
Hillary in the 2016 election.

Rhode Island: 2 republicans and 10 democrats were busted for bribery,


racketeering, wire fraud, filing false tax returns, influence peddling, tax evasion, misuse
of public funds, stealing life insurance, unlawful appropriation of funds, tax fraud, fraud,
bank fraud, of accepting $320,000 in bribes from the Roger Williams Medical Center
and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, embezzlement, and assault.

South Carolina: 16 republicans were busted for extortion, money laundering, lying
to federal investigators, cockfighting, misuse of campaign funds, domestic violence,
accepting bribes, corruption, tax evasion, assault and battery, sexual harassment, illegal
gambling, bribery, violating the Hobbs Act, rape and witness tampering, money
laundering and harassment of victim of rape, bank fraud, mail fraud, and narcotics.
FBI Operation Lost Trust: Operation Lost Trust was South Carolina’s largest and
longest-running political scandal. Including the investigation, trials, and retrials, the
Operation Lost Trust extended from 1989 to 1999. The key player in the FBI’s
investigation into legislative corruption was Ron Cobb, a lobbyist and former member of
the S.C. House of Representatives. He was arrested in April 1989 for trying to buy a kilo
of cocaine in a deal orchestrated by the FBI for the purpose of securing his involvement
as the front man in the Lost Trust investigation. He told members of the General
Assembly that he represented the Alpha Group that was seeking support for a bill
legalizing dog- and horse-track betting in South Carolina. Cobb recruited
Representatives Robert A. Kohn and Luther Taylor to help in securing legislative votes by
paying members money in exchange for their support and votes. The transactions were
captured on surveillance tapes. The federal investigation resulted in the conviction of

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seventeen members of the South Carolina General Assembly, seven lobbyists, and three
others for bribery, extortion, and drug use. All but five of the twenty-seven convictions
were the result of guilty pleas. In 1991 and 1992 five legislators were granted new trials
because of legal errors. U.S. District Judge Falcon Hawkins then dismissed the charges
against the five for alleged misconduct by the federal prosecution team led by U.S.
Attorney Bart Daniel. Judge Hawkins’s ruling was overturned in November 1998 by the
Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reinstated the criminal charges. During the
period between 1991 and 1998 two of the five legislators died after long illnesses. The
three remaining defendants were retried in 1999, and all three were convicted.

Tennessee: FBI investigation Operation Rocky Top concerned the illegal sale of
charity bingo licenses which resulted in over 50 convictions. Two targets of the
investigation committed suicide: Tennessee Secretary of State Gentry Crowell (D) (in
December 1989, just before he was scheduled to testify for a third time before a federal
grand jury) and long-time State Representative Ted Ray Miller (D) (after being charged
with bribery). (1986) Operation Rocky Top was the Federal Bureau of Investigation's
(FBI's) code name for a public corruption investigation into the Tennessee state
government in the late 1980s.[1] Operation Rocky Top was launched in 1986 as an FBI
and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation undercover investigation into illegal activities in
charity bingo, including the illegal sale of bingo licenses. A first-year member of the
Tennessee House of Representatives (and future Lieutenant Governor), Randy McNally
of Oak Ridge, became a secret participant in the investigation in 1986 after he reported
to authorities that a bingo lobbyist had offered him bribes and had boasted about
bribing other lawmakers. For the duration of the investigation McNally "wore a wire"
and cultivated the trust of bingo lobbyists and other insiders so they would talk freely in
front of him and offer him bribes. Ned McWherter, who was Speaker of the Tennessee
House when the investigation began and who was elected governor in 1986, also was
praised by federal officials for cooperating with the investigation.[1] Operation Rocky
Top became public in January 1989 when W.D. "Donnie" Walker, a one-time bingo
regulator in the state government who later became a lobbyist, pleaded guilty to
offering McNally a $10,000 bribe in exchange for his vote on a measure to legalize horse
racing. In exchange for a plea bargain, Walker gave investigators details on how he had
helped bingo operators become chartered as bogus charities so they could obtain state
licenses to run bingo games, and how bingo operators then channeled money back to
state legislators who were part of the scheme.[1] At the height of activity there were
nearly 300 bingo operations in the state with estimated annual revenue of $31 million.
[1] The investigation resulted in over 50 convictions[2] and the incarceration of several
politicians, most notably state House Majority Leader, Democrat[3] Tommy Burnett.
Two other targets of the investigation committed suicide before testifying: Tennessee
Secretary of State Gentry Crowell (in December 1989, just before he was scheduled to
testify for a third time before a federal grand jury) and State Representative Ted Ray
Miller of Knoxville (after being charged with bribery).[1][2] Following the scandal,
Tennessee established limits on political contributions and placed new restrictions on
lobbying.[2] The code name for the investigation was derived from Rocky Top, one of
the state's official songs. Years later, another investigation of Tennessee public
corruption was code-named Operation Tennessee Waltz, after another state song.

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Operation Tennessee Waltz: an FBI sting operation between 2003 and 2007 in which
a number of state and local representatives were arrested including; State Senator John
Ford (D) Sentenced to 66 months for bribery. State Senator Kathryn Bowers (D) pleaded
guilty to one count of bribery. State Senator Ward Crutchfield (D) pleaded guilty to one
count of bribery. State Representative Chris Newton (R) Sentenced to one year for
bribery. Operation Tennessee Waltz was a sting operation set up by federal and state
law enforcement agents, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Tennessee
Bureau of Investigation. The operation led to the arrest of seven Tennessee state
lawmakers and two men identified as "bagmen" in the indictment on the morning of
May 26, 2005 on bribery charges. The FBI and TBI followed these arrests with an
additional arrest of two county commissioners, one from Hamilton County, and the
other a member of the prominent Hooks family of Memphis. Investigators also arrested
a former county administrator. According to the FBI and TBI, all who were indicted were
suspected of corruption in the past, so law enforcement had sufficient probable cause
to proceed with an investigation. The FBI set up E-Cycle, a bogus company based in
Atlanta and claiming to recycle electronics by sending the electronics to third world
countries.[1][3] In the May 26 edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, an article
appeared about Charles Love, reporting that he owed almost $300,000 in back taxes
and that the Internal Revenue Service had placed liens against his home. The article also
mentioned E-Cycle in passing, as if it were a real company, possibly at the request of the
FBI or TBI, to help confirm E-Cycle's seeming legitimacy.
Also 8 other democrats and 3 republicans were busted for mail fraud, conspiracy,
extortion, wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and fraud, DWI, using tens of
thousands of taxpayer dollars to reimburse himself for travel expenses that his
campaign had already funded, falsifying tax returns, ethic violations, DWI, accepting a
$1,000 bribe from Carter County Sheriff George Papantoniou to kill a state bill the
sheriff opposed, battery, and conspiring to sell fake passports and to supplying drugs to
his girlfriend.

Texas: 4 democrats and 2 republicans as well as one police officer were busted for
mail fraud, tax evasion, accepting bribes, hired his cousin to shoot him as a publicity
stunt, perjury, soliciting sex from an undercover cop, bribery and fraud, murder of State
Senator Tommy Burks, and the police officer was busted for carrying an unlicensed,
loaded gun for which he did not have a proper permit.

Utah: 1 republican was busted for soliciting sex from a male undercover police
officer.(2003) There have been others, but they were never caught.

Vermont: 1 democrat and 1 republican were busted for fraud and prohibited acts of
prostitution, for arranging for his tenant to have sex with a friend of McAllister's in
order to pay her electric bill.

Virginia: 2 democrats and 3 republicans were busted for bank fraud, contributing to
the delinquency of a minor, federal bribery and extortion, embezzling $4 million in
tobacco-region economic development money, and embezzling $6,750 from a nonprofit
cycling club.

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Washington: On April 2, 1980, House of Representatives co-Speaker John Bagnariol
(ca. 1932-2009) and Senate Majority Leader Gordon L. Walgren are named in a federal
racketeering indictment that charges they conspired with undercover FBI agents posing
as organized crime figures to allow gambling in Washington in return for a share of the
profits. The two Democratic legislative leaders are among the most powerful politicians
in the state and both have been planning to seek higher office in the fall. Instead,
Bagnariol and Walgren, along with their friend lobbyist Patrick Gallagher, who is also
named in the charges, will be convicted and sentenced to prison. Both legislators will
lose their seats in the fall elections. The Gamscam scandal, as it comes to be known, will
contribute (along with the Reagan landslide and other factors) to sweeping victories by
the Republican party in legislative and statewide races.
John Bagnariol and Gordon Walgren were friends and political allies. Both were first
elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 1966, Bagnariol winning an 11th
District seat representing Renton, while Walgren won in Kitsap County's 23rd District.
Walgren moved on to the 23rd District's State Senate seat two years later, and by 1975
had risen to head the Democratic senators as Senate majority leader. Bagnariol
remained in the House and rose to lead his party in that body, becoming Speaker in
1977. After the Republicans forged a tie in the House of Representatives in 1978,
Bagnariol served as co-Speaker along with Republican Duane Berentson (1928-2013).
In 1980, Walgren and Bagnariol were planning campaigns for statewide office, with
kick-off events scheduled for April. Bagnariol intended to challenge Governor Dixy Lee
Ray (1914-1994), who had feuded with fellow Democrats in the Legislature throughout
her term, in the Democratic primary, and many considered him the favorite in the race.
Walgren was seeking the State Attorney General post that Republican Slade Gorton (b.
1928) was leaving to challenge United States Senator Warren G. Magnuson (1905-
1989).
Those plans, and the state's political landscape, were thrown into disarray by the
federal charges against Bagnariol, Walgren, and lobbyist Patrick Gallagher announced by
United States Attorney John Merkel on April 2, 1980. The indictment resulted from an
undercover FBI operation that began when local authorities asked for FBI assistance in
investigating gambling and political corruption in Vancouver, Clark County. Agent Harold
Heald, who headed the operation, posed as the representative of "So-Cal," a (fictitious)
California company seeking to acquire and expand legalized gambling outlets in
Washington. A Vancouver cardroom owner introduced Heald to Gallagher, who in turn
introduced the undercover agent to Bagnariol and Walgren.
According to the charges unveiled on April 2, between July 1978 and January 1980
the three men had more than 150 conversations, many but not all of them taped, with
undercover agents posing as organized crime figures, in which they agreed that the
legislators would arrange for passage of legalized gambling legislation, that gambling
would be controlled by So-Cal, and that each of the three defendants would receive 6
percent of the gambling profits So-Cal made.
Bagnariol, Walgren, and Gallagher adamantly denied that they had done anything
wrong and denounced the investigation. Walgren said "it's obviously one of those F.B.I.
sting operations. I'm mad ..." (Whitely). FBI investigations in which undercover
operatives offered bribes to government officials were frequently in the news at the
time, the most prominent dubbed "Abscam" because agents posed as Arab sheikhs or
their representatives. Walgren and Bagnariol also claimed from the start that the

58
charges were politically motivated and noted that the State Patrol, under the control of
Governor Ray, had played a role in the investigation.
The GAMSCAM trial began late in the summer in the courtroom of United States
District Judge Walter T. McGovern. The judge dismissed some charges, leaving 14 counts
against Gallagher, 13 against Walgren, and 11 against Bagnariol for the jury to decide.
Each defendant faced three major charges -- racketeering, conspiracy, and extortion --
and a number of less serious felonies. On October 3, 1980, jurors found Gallagher guilty
of all 14 charges, Bagnariol guilty of 9 out of 11, including all three major charges, and
Walgren guilty of only three: racketeering, mail fraud, and a Travel Act violation.
The GAMSCAM trial and guilty verdicts helped make what would have been a bad
election year anyway for Washington Democrats even worse. Both Bagnariol and
Walgren lost their seats, Bagnariol in the primary and Walgren in the general election
(after a state Supreme Court ruling in favor of Kitsap County Republicans kept his name
on the ballot following the jury verdict). The scandal combined with the landslide
presidential victory of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) and the unpopularity of Governor
Ray to boost Republicans across the state. The GOP easily won control of the state
House of Representatives. Although Democrats retained a one-vote margin in the
Senate after the election, Republicans gained control there when Senator Peter von
Reichbauer switched his affiliation during the 1981 session.
Somewhat ironically, Governor Ray lost to then state Senator (and now U.S.
Representative) Jim McDermott (b. 1936) in the same primary in which Bagnariol was
ousted. If Ray had played any role in Bagnariol's indictment, the strategy did not help
her: observers noted that with both Bagnariol and McDermott in the race, they might
have split the anti-Ray vote, allowing the governor to win the primary. As it turned out,
McDermott went on to lose to Republican John D. Spellman (1926-2018).
Judge McGovern sentenced all three defendants to five years in federal prison. After
unsuccessfully appealing all the way to the United States Supreme Court, they each
served about two years at the Federal Prison Camp in Lompoc, California, before being
released on parole. Several years after his release, Walgren filed a new appeal,
challenging his mail fraud and racketeering convictions based on a new United States
Supreme Court decision that narrowed the definition of mail fraud. Although Judge
McGovern rejected the argument, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned
Walgren's mail fraud conviction and -- because racketeering requires two underlying
offenses -- the racketeering conviction as well. It also ordered Judge McGovern to
reconsider Walgren's request for a new trial on his remaining conviction, for violating
the Travel Act, but later upheld McGovern's decision that Walgren was not entitled to a
new trial, leaving the one conviction on his record.

Washington, D.C.: 4 democrats were busted for bank fraud, theft of government
funds and falsifying tax returns, bribery, and caught on videotape using drugs in an FBI
sting.

West Virginia: 2 republicans and 3 democrats were busted for mail fraud, tax fraud,
extortion and obstruction of justice, jury tampering, and extortion.

Wisconsin: 8 democrats and 9 republicans were busted for election fraud, obtaining
money under false pretenses, liquor conspiracy, misuse of public workers, sexual

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assault, ethics violations, attempted to persuade scientist Myron Muckerheide to create
a laser gun "designed to blind people,” and to sell it to Guatemalan Colonel Federico
Fuentes, lying to a federal grand jury investigating the scheme, DWI, misconduct in
office and obstructing an officer for using state workers for his campaign, campaign
violations, fraud, giving felony false testimony by attempting to conceal a campaign
contribution, receiving illegal money, attempted child seduction, child pornography, and
other child sex crimes, and corruption.

Wyoming: 1 republican was busted for misuse of county money and equipment.

Remember the people in this list are only the ones who got caught.
There are many more who got away but eventually they will get caught
and they will pay the price for violating the faith of their constituents.
Several of these crooked politicians are women. It has nothing to do with
the fact that people don’t women in power. People don’t trust anyone
who misuses their power in office. The FBI should take this into
consideration in pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton and her minions
for treason, corruption and other federal violations.

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Chapter 7: National Security Agencies, And Federal Bureaucracies:
Incompetent, Corrupt, Or Both?94

What exactly is the “intelligence community?” It’s not just a vague term for all U.S.
intelligence officials or a joke about military being an oxymoron. It’s an authentic alphabet soup
of 17 agencies and offices. The group includes agencies strictly focused on intelligence and law
enforcement as well as the intelligence arms of other government agencies and of the military.
Its total budget in 2015 was $66.8 billion. Here are the 17 offices:

1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Created by Congress in response to the


terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the office coordinates intelligence collection and sharing
among U.S. intelligence agencies. The director is the head of the intelligence community and
the director advisor to the president, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council
on intelligence matters related to national security.

2. Central Intelligence Agency: The CIA is the most recognized intelligence agency, known
for spying on foreign governments and conducting covert operations, including funneling money
to opposition groups in other countries to sway elections or oust certain foreign leaders. The
CIA is the most secretive agency in the federal government. They have been involved in several
high profiles scandals over the last 75 years. There are a large number of conspiracy theories
involving them as well. The most recent being their involvement in the shadow government that
is trying to overthrow the Trump Administration. It seems that everything they touch they screw
up. And that’s just the stuff we know about.

3. National Security Agency: Once so secret it was referred to as “No Such Agency,” the NSA
is the largest and perhaps most technologically sophisticated of all the intelligence agencies. It
focuses on signals intelligence: monitoring, collecting and processing communications and other
electronic information, and cracking secret codes. It also protects U.S. information systems from
outside penetration. The NSA oversees PRISM and other mass surveillance programs revealed
by Edward Snowden in 2013. It is believed to employ more mathematicians than any other
organization in the country a fact not all math whizzes are happy about. Under Obama the NSA
was also embroiled in scandals such as the mass spying on Americans in violation of their civil
rights.

4. Defense Intelligence Agency: The Pentagon’s top spy agency, the DIA is the primary
entity responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence on foreign militaries, with support
from the intelligence offices of all the military branches. The DIA shares this information with
military leaders, fighters and defense policy makers in order to “prevent and decisively win
wars,” according to its mission statement. Why do we have a DoD agency when we have the
service agencies? Why can’t we put the service agencies together in the same building where
they are forced to share with each other?

5. Federal Bureau of Investigation: The FBI has both law enforcement and intelligence
functions. On the intelligence side, it aims to protect the U.S. against terrorism, cyberattacks
and foreign intelligence operations and espionage. It maintains the government’s terrorist
watch list and has been involved in the interrogation of “high-value” detainees, sometimes
clashing with the CIA. One of its new functions under Obama was running a shadow
government that investigates the enemies of the Democrat Party and persecutes them. The
94 http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencies-20170112-story.html

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most recent example is the exoneration of Hillary Clinton for corruption and treason and the
investigation of the president on Trumped up charges.
The FBI also investigates organized crime syndicates. However, they figure their work is
done when they arrested the Teflon Don, John Gotti. They are supposed to investigate
corruption in government and crime that crosses state lines. However, they don’t do this
anymore because there isn’t corruption in government anymore. When I was an investigator the
company I worked with took a case to the FBI that involved 6 state lines. They handed it back to
us and said there was nothing there; in spite of the fact it involved domestic abuse, police
corruption, organized crime, drugs; selling and using; lying to authorities, falsifying records, and
that’s just the beginning.

6. Department of State – Bureau of Intelligence and Research: This bureau collects and
analyzes intelligence on global affairs and advises the secretary of State and other diplomats. It
conducts foreign opinion polls and tracks and analyzes issues that may undermine U.S. foreign
policy objectives, such as weapons proliferation, human trafficking and drug smuggling. Though
it’s one of the smallest intelligence agencies, its assessment on weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq was not as inaccurate as that of other agencies. I don’t know why this agency can’t work
with the others such as the CIA and the military since much of their information overlaps.

7. Department of Homeland Security – Office of Intelligence and Analysis: The scope of


“homeland security” includes emergency preparedness, border control, transportation security
and biodefense (Ebola and SARS, for example), among other issues. The Office of Intelligence
and Analysis is charged with gathering intelligence in these areas and sharing it with state, local,
tribal, territorial and private sector partners through a network of “fusion centers.” Again, I
don’t know why there can’t just be one domestic intelligence gathering agency so that all of the
federal bureaus can have access to all of the intelligence necessary to perform their missions.

8. Drug Enforcement Administration – Office of National Security Intelligence: The DEA is


the government’s watch guard for drugs that are illegally manufactured, distributed or
dispensed. It is also responsible for the seizure and forfeiture of assets connected with illicit
drug trafficking. The Office of National Security Intelligence assists law enforcement with
investigations and prosecutions. Most recently it has focused on the threat posed by a surge in
heroin and counterfeit prescription pills containing fentanyl. I know that the DEA has worked
with the military from time to time. We used to handle classified missions that ran out of home
station bound for South America going to fight the drug wars there. They don’t need their own
intelligence gathering agency, they need to work with the CIA and the military intelligence so
that they have the most up-to-date intel to perform their mission.

9. Department of the Treasury – Office of Intelligence and Analysis: Intelligence gathering


at the Treasury dates back to its beginning, when Secretary Alexander Hamilton sent a tax
official in disguise to investigate the “whiskey rebellion” underway in western Pennsylvania.
Today the Office of Intelligence and Analysis sits within the Office of Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence, which works to prevent sanctioned countries, money launderers, terrorists, drug
kingpins and purveyors of weapons of mass destruction from parking or moving their money
through the U.S. financial system. They need to get the CIA and military onboard to help them
perform their mission overseas.

10. Department of Energy – Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence: Even the


Department of Energy has an intelligence office. It traces its origin to the Manhattan Project,
when the Atomic Energy Commission was charged with analyzing the Soviet Union’s atomic
weapons program. Today the office’s role is to provide technical intelligence on foreign nuclear

62
weapons, energy security, science and technology, and nuclear energy, safety and waste. These
guys also need to use the military and the CIA to perform overseas missions.

11. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency: Supporting the Defense Department, this


agency is the director provider of geospatial intelligence; analysis and information about Earth’s
natural and man-made features and geo-tagged activities. This “GEOINT” is used for combat,
humanitarian and disaster relief, border and transportation security and security planning for
special events. One of the agency’s claims to fame is pinpointing the Abbottabad, Pakistan,
compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding; another is operating the reference system for
GPS. So, what are the military intelligence agencies doing if everyone is doing their job?

12. National Reconnaissance Office: The NRO was a secret agency for 31 years, until its
existence was declassified in 1992. The office designs, builds and operates the nation’s
reconnaissance satellites, providing the Pentagon, CIA and others precision navigation, early
warning of missile launches and near real-time imagery to support anti-terrorism activities. On
the civilian side, the satellites help survey damage from natural disasters and support
environmental research. Why isn’t this agency under the Space Command at Pete Field in
Colorado?

13. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance: The Air Force’s intelligence
branch, organized into the 25th Air Force, uses airplanes, drones and satellites to identify
hideouts, bunkers, mobile launchers and weapons caches. It is also responsible for code-
breaking activities within the Air Force. All that surveillance takes up a lot of digital space – in
2013, one wing alone received 20 terabytes of data daily, processed 460,000 hours of video and
disseminated 2.6 million images. We used to handle special cargo known as X-cargo. It was film
from the SR-71 and the U-2 being sent back to CONUS for processing.

14. Army Military Intelligence: The Army’s intelligence branch intercepts electronic
communications and provides maps, ground imagery and information on foreign forces to assist
fighters in the battlefield. These guys need to work with the other services to gain the
advantage of more eyes in the sky so that the mission on the ground is successful and the
troops aren’t working in the dark.

15. Office of Naval Intelligence: The Navy’s intelligence branch keeps tabs on foreign
scientific and technological research, analyzes the structure, tactics and readiness of foreign
naval forces, and tracks merchant shipping to identify illicit activity. NI also needs to work with
the other services so that they can be successful in their missions.

16. Marine Corps Intelligence: The Marine Corps’ intelligence officers create military maps,
intercept and translate radio and electronic signals, analyze images collected from sensors and
carry out counterintelligence. Again why are we duplicating our efforts?

17. Coast Guard Intelligence: The Coast Guard, part of the military and the Department of
Homeland Security, protects and defends more than 100,000 miles of coastline and inland
waterways. On an average day, the Coast Guard conducts 45 search-and-rescue cases, seizes
874 pounds of cocaine, interdicts 17 illegal migrants and helps move $8.7 billion worth of goods,
according to its website. Its intelligence office helps with criminal investigations and provides
other national agencies with intelligence from domestic and foreign ports, coastal waters and
offshore. The Coasties need to work with the other services and the FBI to share law
enforcement intel.

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My question about intelligence agencies is why do we have so many? Why don’t we
have one with two divisions: one for domestic intelligence and one for international? The
Chinese Wall between the CIA and the FBI is well known for dropping balls on many issues
including the most infamous, the 9/11 incident where both agencies had intel on the terrorists
but neither wanted to share with each other. As a result of this turf protection, the nation was
caught unprepared when the terrorists bombed New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville,
Pennsylvania. With all this secrecy, corruption sets in and justified in the name of national
security which is soon followed by conspiracies fresh off the rumor mills. How many times have
we seen one agency not sharing intel with another because of need to know. If more than one
agency is involved, then there is a pretty good chance that everyone has a need to know and all
parties need to be read in so that everyone participates, and no one is left in the dark.
The saga of Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service is almost unbelievable. After
“joking” years ago that he would audit his enemies, it turned out that Obama’s underlings were
in fact delaying and blocking routine applications for 501(c) status from conservative
organizations, in order to help the Democratic Party. When Congress tried to investigate, the
Obama administration stonewalled at every turn. Evidence mysteriously disappeared and the
key player in the scheme, Lois Lerner, pled the Fifth rather than answer Congress’s questions.
Obama’s stonewall strategy generally worked very well. Scandals faded from the front
pages when there were no new developments, and if information finally emerged, Democratic
Party reporters in the drive-by media treated it as old news. So the IRS scandal pretty much
disappeared from public awareness. Nevertheless, via InstaPundit 95, we learn that, yet another
IRS computer hard drive has been destroyed. So it’s not just Hillary that has trouble with hard
drives but the whole Obama administration.
IRS officials are being lambasted today for erasing yet another computer hard-drive, this
time one that a federal judge had previously ordered to be preserved. House Oversight and
Government Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan told
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen erasing hard-drives has been a continuing problem; especially
since it involves tampering with evidence.
“It is stunning to see that the IRS does not take reasonable care to preserve documents
that it is legally required to protect,” said Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, and Jordan, an Ohio
Republican, in a letter to Koskinen made public late Thursday. The hard-drive is involved in a
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Microsoft. A federal judge hearing the FOIA lawsuit
told IRS to preserve the hard-drive. After which, it was deliberately erased.
Most people probably don’t realize how astonishing this is. Preserving evidence is a
routine obligation in lawsuits; it doesn’t depend on a court order. But if a federal judge has
ordered a party to preserve a hard drive, as happened here, the hard drive should have been
protected like the crown jewels. Every company in America understands this: if a court has
ordered you to preserve evidence, you guard it with your lawyers’ lives.
And yet, time after time, the IRS has either inadvertently or intentionally destroyed hard
drives that the courts have ordered them to preserve. In the private sector, this is unthinkable.
Private companies obey court orders. They know that if they don’t, millions of dollars in
sanctions are likely to result, and executives will lose their jobs. Only in government agencies do
we see this kind of irresponsible scofflaw96 behavior. This is because most bureaucrats have a
deep loyalty to the leftist cause, and there is no accountability.
Many similar instances could be cited, but for now, let’s just remember the Colorado
river that the Environmental Protection Agency turned orange with abusive chemicals. Or the

95 Instapundit is a libertarian blog maintained by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of
Tennessee.
96 Scofflaw is a noun coined during the Prohibition era to mean a person who drinks illegally. It is a compound
of the words scoff and law. Its original meaning was someone who mocks or ridicules anti-drinking laws, but has
extended to mean one who flouts any law, especially those difficult to enforce.

64
tractors that USAID gave to farmers in the Third World. Once they ran out of gas those farmers
just left them where they sat in the middle of their field. Or the Obama phone that Obama
passed out to people on welfare. This kind of thing happens a lot with federal agencies. They
never seem to take responsibility for anything they do. It’s a case of our mistake, your fault.
Is this because federal agencies are corrupt by nature, or because they are unusually
inept? The familiar adage is that one should never presume malice when incompetence is a
sufficient explanation. But here, I think we are going beyond ineptitude. Are federal agencies
the only employers who can’t hire people who know how to follow court orders? Incompetence
may play a part, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that federal agencies led by left-wing
bureaucrats, including but not limited to the IRS, view themselves as above the law and
protected by the scofflaw Obama administration, and therefore entitled to thumb their noses at
the federal courts.
The election of Andrew Jackson was outside the law on several instances, yet Obama
has surpassed even the Jackson Administration. This is a new development in our democracy.
Until now, we have never experienced an extra-legal administration like that of Barack Obama.
Will the US survive the shadow government of the left as they continue to overthrow the Trump
Administration?

The IRS Remains a Continually Corrupt Bureaucracy, By ACLJ.org, 97 2015: With April
th
15 , Tax Day, quickly approaching, the IRS is once again on the minds of the American public.
Millions of Americans are preparing to file their tax returns. But with an incessantly corrupt
bureaucracy administrating our voluntary tax system, many Americans have cause for concern.
This is an agency that has admitted to targeting so-called “conservative-sounding”
groups and continues the discrimination despite assurances from IRS Commissioner John
Koskinen that all problems have been addressed. This is an agency that President Obama
assured the American public has not committed a “smidgen of corruption.” But facts are
stubborn things, and the facts are that the IRS actively hid evidence of its targeting practices
until after the 2012 Presidential elections in order to shield the President from any controversy.
And finally, this is an agency that requires full transparency from American citizens
through its audit process while stonewalling, ignoring, and evading any transparency of its own.
Could you or I refuse to answer questions from the IRS or blame missing documents on a
computer crash? Yet that’s what former senior IRS official, Lois Lerner, did, managing a scandal-
ridden IRS division while her own hard drive was conveniently destroyed, and she refused to
testify about what really happened. The Obama Administration may think that it can
successfully stall and ultimately kill the IRS scandal, but at the American Council Of Life Insurers,
they continue to pursue their federal lawsuit against the IRS for its unlawful practices.
They know better than anyone the saying, Don’t trust anyone and constantly verify. They
simply cannot believe the rhetoric of Commissioner Koskinen that the problem has been
remedied. As lawyers, they deal with evidence, and the facts show otherwise. They’ve been
fighting the corruption from the beginning, representing two 501(c)(4) groups that still await a
determination on their tax-exempt status. One of their clients has been waiting for a
determination for over five years. The IRS continues to target this group and other Americans to
this day.
Although President Obama may think that he can copy the IRS’s “death by delay” tactics
to stifle this scandal, the ACLI continues the fight in federal court to ensure that such plans do
not succeed. In their appeal to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, they continue to
97 ACLJ is American Center for Law and Justice: https://aclj.org/ Led by Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsel, the
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) focuses on constitutional and human rights law worldwide. Based in
Washington, D.C., with affiliated offices in Israel, Russia, Kenya, France, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe, the ACLJ is pro-life
and dedicated to the ideal that religious liberties work, the ACLJ also focuses on constitutional law involving the
issues of national security, human life, judicial nominations, and protecting patriotic expression such as our National
Motto and the Pledge of Allegiance.

65
represent 38 targeted conservative groups from 22 different states. Despite the IRS’s best
attempts to intimidate these groups into limiting their political activity or withdrawing their
applications altogether, the ACLI stands united behind them to ensure justice is served and the
constitutional rights of these grassroots conservatives, U.S. citizens, are protected.
The ACLI refuses to allow the IRS to become an organization weaponized against
conservative Americans, and they continue to fight to ensure that all groups, regardless of
ideology, receive equal consideration under the law. Through its own actions, the IRS has proven
that it is not a neutral organization simply concerned with accurate accounting. It has become a
political attack dog, incapable of self-correction. So the ACLI will continue fighting in federal
court to ensure that the IRS wrongdoing is exposed to the American people and the abuse is
ended once and for all.

Culture of corruption in federal bureaucracy By Thomas Lifson 98: Evidence is


accumulating of a corrupt bureaucratic culture in many, if not all, federal agencies. Revelations
of lavish meetings at fancy hotels, featuring stupid but expensive custom-made videos emerged
in the last couple of years. But even worse, cases of bureaucrats stealing from taxpayers by
taking time off while still being paid high salaries have been reported recently, with their
supervisors knowingly turning a blind eye to the taxpayer rip-off. The EPA’s highest-paid
employee pretended to be a CIA agent and defrauded the taxpayers of about $900,000 in salary
and travel expenses (often first-class airfare and five-star hotels). But this apparently was no
isolated incident. Luke Rosiak reports in the Washington Examiner: 99
Officials in two Treasury Department bureaus fraudulently enriched themselves at taxpayer
expense, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. The assistant
commissioner of the Bureau of Public Debt who supervised 108 employees in the bureau's West
Virginia office “was committing appalling, time and attendance fraud," depriving taxpayers of
nearly $100,000 in salary for hours she did not work, according to one of several Treasury
Department inspector general documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
most of which had previously gone unreported.
The official, despite being paid an average yearly salary of nearly $170,000, "arrives at
work approximately two hours late and takes two-hour lunch breaks and departs work at
approximately 4:00 P.M. and does not take leave," and "consistently conducts personal business
involving the Humane Society during work hours," IG investigators found after verifying a tip
from an employee who said the top official "abuses her power by being absent whenever
desired." Her supervisor, the deputy commissioner, knew about the absences but did nothing,
the investigators said. That last point, that her supervisor knew but did nothing, is the key
problem. It indicates that in effect a conspiracy was taking place. Doesn’t that supervisor bear
any legal liability? Wouldn’t this be considered a conspiracy to defraud. Yet why were there no
charges brought against this individual? One more time, if you see a problem but look the other
way, you have just created a new standard.
This is not the only case at the Treasury Department: 100 Another inspector general
investigation found that at the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), a GS-15 employee, one of the
highest ranks a federal career civil servant can obtain, agreed to be transferred from an office
near Los Angeles to an office near San Francisco and took $10,000 in relocation expense
reimbursement, but then never moved. She also submitted massive travel bills for routine travel
to her new office, including hotel stays, to the OTS, which approved them.

98 Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. July 2009.
Michelle Malkin. Regnery Publishing
99https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/treasury-investigators-needed-someone-investigating-
them
100https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/treasury-investigators-needed-someone-investigating-
them

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She “submitted travel vouchers costing the OTS ... $87,047 in travel that would not have
incurred if she had relocated," investigators wrote. As with the Hines case, supervisors were
aware of the wrongdoing, but did nothing to correct it. Keep in mind that the Treasury
Department handles our money. If bureaucratic malfeasance 101 is winked at there, the
possibilities for corruption are unlimited.
There ought to be House hearings on these cases. The GOP ought to start making
corruption in the federal bureaucracy a campaign issue. The public understands that
government employees in general live a privileged life, with guaranteed pensions unavailable to
the rest of us, with more days off than the rest of us, and with tolerance for slacking 102 that is
unknown in the private sector. People once referred to as “public servants” are now our masters
and they know it.
When I was in the Air Force, I worked at AFRES HQ in the training development branch.
We had a civilian who was the laziest person any of us had ever seen. She worked when she felt
like it, took time off when she felt like it and the most frustrating thing about it was the fact we
couldn’t get rid of her. It was impossible because of the public employees union. So we kept our
paper trail and then still had to transfer her to a non-existent job so that she would be given a
chance to find another job or be out of the civil service system.
We had a joke, how do your tell a civil service employee from all the others? The civil
service employee has a clipboard in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

10 Breathtaking Examples of Government Hypocrisy103


Morris M. October 20, 2013
It’s no secret that our leaders aren’t always perfect but there’s a difference between
screwing up and blatantly violating international treaties, breaking our own laws, and throwing
morality out the window, all in the name of making a quick buck and do it behind closed doors
in the name of national security. And how our government, from the Feds to the States to the
Local levels, sure like some easy money.
1. Congress Broke Their Own Insider Trading Laws: Insider trading is one of those super-
immoral practices that only rich guys get to indulge in. Basically, it involves using non-public
information (such as an upcoming major law change) to play the market and net yourself an
obscene amount of money, something that is very definitely illegal. Unless, that is, you
happen to be a member of congress.
2. Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: In 2010, it was revealed that
members of congress and their staff had been looking at proposed legislation, then using
that information to make a killing on the stock market. In other words, the guys writing the
laws had interpreted their solemn and noble duty to mean “become as filthy rich as quickly
as possible.” This wasn’t just a few bad apples either: The Wall Street Journal identified a
minimum of 72 hypocrites breaking trading laws at the same time they were jailing
bankers for doing the same thing! The 72 douchebags included House Speaker John
Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, aka the very same people whose shutdown just
robbed thousands of Federal workers of their pay checks.
3. Washington Flouts Its Extradition Treaties: Extradition treaties are important things:
They’re what stop you or me from super-murdering our terrible bosses and then moving to
Mexico to escape justice. Countries all over the world have them, and their implementation
is what ensures no one on Earth is above the law. At least, that’s the idea. When Putin
recently refused Washington’s extradition request for Edward Snowden, Obama threw the

101 Malfeasance in office, or official misconduct, is the commission of an unlawful act, done in an
official capacity, which affects the performance of official duties. Malfeasance in office is often grounds
for a for cause removal of an elected official by statute or recall election
102 A slacker is a person who habitually avoids work or lacks work ethic.
103 https://listverse.com/2013/10/20/10-breath-taking-examples-of-government-hypocrisy/

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presidential equivalent of a temper tantrum, despite his own track record in blocking similar
requests from other countries.
4. As The Guardian helpfully pointed out, the Obama White House is currently sheltering both
a terrorist who murdered 73 Cubans by bombing an airplane, and a genocidal dictator who
ordered his troops to open fire on a civilian neighborhood. In both cases, the existence of
extradition treaties means Obama is technically breaking his own laws by not complying
with them. But then so what else is new? But it’s not just the US that gets its kicks illegally
sheltering dictators: The UK famously refused to send Chilean mass-murderer Augusto
Pinochet to face justice in Spain, despite having pressured its southern neighbor into signing
a treaty a decade or so earlier. The mass murderer and president for life, Idi Amin, took
refuge in Libya after he was run out of Uganda.
5. We Arm Our Enemies: At 5:00 AM one morning in August 2015, rockets exploded high over
a Damascus suburb, releasing a cloud of deadly gas. Those who breathed it died in agony,
their bodies snapped by convulsions as their insides burned and boiled. The gas was sarin
and its use is an international crime. In the aftermath of the attack, the world went into
overdrive, with the US and the UK leading the charge to retaliate against Assad; despite the
UK being the country that sold him the gas in the first place.
In 2012, the UK signed off on the sale of four tons of potassium fluoride and sodium
fluoride to Syria; vital ingredients for making nerve gas. To be perfectly clear, this happened
when the Syrian civil war had already been raging for six months and experts had repeatedly
stated that there was a good chance Assad would deploy chemical weapons. Even more
stupidly, it happened mere months before Prime Minister David Cameron publicly warned Assad
against using nerve gas. So, to sum it up: The British were lecturing a bloodthirsty tyrant against
deploying illegal chemical weapons, while simultaneously supplying him with the means to do
just that. Stupid doesn’t even being to cover it.
The same can be said about the US arming the mujahidin in Afghanistan when they were
fighting the Russians. However, the Afghanis weren’t our enemies at the time. It was only after
the Russians left that being led by Osama bin Laden that they became our enemies.
6. We Use Chemical Weapons: You may have heard of white phosphorus. It’s a highly
flammable substance that burns brightly and can be legally used to illuminate a battlefield
or create a smokescreen. However, the minute you bombard enemy troops or civilians with
it, it becomes deadly illegal. See, white phosphorus burns like napalm. If it gets on your skin,
you can’t put it out. It burns through flesh like it wasn’t even there and can burn down and
eradicate the bone beneath, leaving its victims a disfigured, screaming mess. At the same
time, it releases a toxic gas that scorches the eyes and throat and damages the lungs. Its use
as an offensive weapon is highly criminal, and we deployed it as one during the 2004 siege
of Falluja.
7. This means we launched a chemical attack on an Iraqi city. An Iraqi city we invaded
because the country’s dictatorial ruler was accused of stockpiling chemical weapons.
Chemical weapons like the ones we’re now fretting over Assad using, seemingly unaware of
any proverbs about pots calling kettles names. It stinks to high heaven, and everyone’s too
busy pretending it never happened to do something useful and make sure it never happens
again.104
8. Washington Illegally Funded a Violent Coup: In July of 2015, the Egyptian army staged a
violent overthrow of the democratically elected Morsi government and installed a
bloodthirsty military junta in his place. They exchanged a dictator for a military junta. In
defense of the coup, Morsi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was in the

104 I love this phrase. “We need to make sure it never happens again.” Rubbish! It happens over and
over again. We never seem to learn our lesson so that we take the appropriate measures to make sure it
doesn’t happen again. Yet we continually fail to consider human nature being what it is, it will happen
again and again and again.

68
process of eradicating Coptic Christians from Egypt. Anyone who wasn’t Sunni was arrested
and tortured. So in my opinion Morsi had to go. Yet we replaced him with the military which
wasn’t much better.
9. The thing is, US law makes it illegal to give aid to any nation where a coup has taken place.
Unfortunately, Obama really, really doesn’t want to cut off aid to Egypt, leading to the
strange position where he appears to be both supporting and funding a violent coup while
pretending it never happened. Now, to be fair, the US does have strategic interests in Egypt,
and the White House has gone so far as to significantly reduce the flow of aid to Egypt. But
honestly: When you are the person who makes the laws and you’re still lying to break them
and cover up the infraction you’ve officially become stuck on stupid.
10. The NSA Hypocrisy: Unless you’ve just discovered this newfangled Internet thing, you’ve
probably heard of the NSA. They’ve been illegally spying on everyone for years: monitoring
calls, storing emails, and generally ripping away all the freedoms we’ve come to take for
granted. And everyone’s reaction to it has been nothing short of a master class in hypocrisy.
For starters, there are the dozens of Democrats who have defended this illegal
spying to the hilt, despite being the same exact people who attacked it when Bush was in
charge. Then there are the Republicans who came from the reverse: the guys who assured
us it was totally necessary that Bush could hear our phone calls, but that it was an attack on
freedom when Obama began doing the listening. Finally, as Glenn Greenwald is fond of
pointing out, there are the pro-Obama journalists who are falling over themselves to defend
a policy that goes completely counter to everything they profess to believe in. In short, this
is proof that our lawmakers will trade in stuff like “principle” and “the good of the people”
for cheap political gain.
11. Our Government Encourages Human Rights Abuses: One of the most painful things about
listening to any elected official become longingly lyrical about human rights abuses is how
utterly selective their moral compass seems to be. For example, if China or Iran implement
some draconian new law, we get long speeches about how incompatible their behavior is
with our “Western values.” But if one of our friends does it, we don’t hear a single peep.
Not only that but we look the other way. Take the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Back then,
Saddam was a guy we could trust to keep Iran in check; so we blindly turned an eye when
he deployed everything from nerve gas to anthrax and the bubonic plague against his
enemies. When he later deployed sarin against his own citizens, the West backed him all the
way, until Bush entered the White House and invaded him for it.
But it’s not just in the Middle East where our values seem to disappear: Central Asia
gets a whole lot of fawning too. Right now, the British government is pushing for closer
links with Uzbekistan, a country where political dissidents are known to have been boiled
alive. Its repressive regime keeps one million people as slave laborers for picking cotton and
is at least as repressive as Gaddafi’s Libya or modern North Korea, but do we impose
sanctions or attempt regime overthrow? We build universities there and pay off war
criminals with big fat pay checks.
12. The Nuclear Family: Double Standard: To even think about the international community’s
stance on nuclear weapons is to enter a world of madness and hypocrisy. For starters,
there’s the way the US, UK, France, and Israel seemingly take turns lecturing other countries
about pursuing nuclear technology, while storing nearly 8,000 high-yield warheads between
them. Then there’s the illogical way we decide who should and shouldn’t have them. Pretty
much everyone is agreed that a nuclear-armed North Korea is a bad thing, but why not a
nuclear Pakistan? Ruled by a half-mad military, falling to pieces, known to harbor terrorists,
and consistently just one diplomatic incident away from a nuclear war with India, a nuclear
Pakistan seems like a worrying idea. Yet the international community has instead cozied up
to this unstable nation, all the while smashing Iran and North Korea with crippling
sanctions; which don’t hurt the leadership, only the people anyway.

69
13. Iran-Contra: The Iran-Contra affair was one of the most absurd, self-defeating, damaging
and hypocritical policies ever pursued by any government in history. A Reagan initiative, it
involved first selling arms to Iran, which was at the time under an arms embargo, then
Narcissistically vacuuming up the profits and using them to illegally fund terrorist groups in
Central America. In between, there was lying to congress, bribing officials, violating the
Constitution and working with the same Central American drug traffickers we’d sworn to
stamp out. It was basically a “how to” in violating your principles and shooting yourself in
the foot. America was not only secretly dealing with terrorists, it was secretly dealing with
the very same terrorists it had forbidden the rest of the world from dealing with. And for
the chance to funnel millions of dollars to a bunch of thugs who were openly murdering
civilians in Nicaragua. There’s a word for that sort of behavior, and that word is “insane.”
14. Murdering Civilians: In a list of “worst war crimes,” murdering civilians should always come
right at the very top. It’s the reason we finally turned on Mubarak, the trigger for our
indignation towards Assad’s chemical attack, and generally how we publicly sort out the bad
guys from the not-so-bad guys. And our Western governments are guilty of it to an almost
appalling degree.
15. Take cluster bombs. These clusters of death land on a target, showering hundreds of
smaller bombs over a widespread area. Nearly every civilized country has banned their use,
and Obama uses them like they’re hotcakes. In the most famous case, a bomb dropped on a
Yemeni village succeeded in killing 14 insurgents, along with 35 women and children. Yet,
the anti-war pukes forget that many of these innocent civilians are often family members of
the insurgents. In many cases these innocent people are used as human shields by the bad
guys. They’re not Bedouin who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They
are not innocent civilians. Their deaths are a cold calculated attempt to exploit these
peoples’ death as fodder to blame the coalition forces of war crimes.
16. National Security Agencies: Vote all you want and vote often. The shadow government
won't change. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” Michael J.
Glennon105 catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively
self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any
kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the
shadow government, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end
up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy. After the election
of 2016, Obama became the de facto leader of the shadow government with the intention
to overthrow the Trump Administration by any means possible.
17. “National Security and Double Government” comes favorably blurred by former members
of the Defense Department, State Department, White House, and even the CIA. Glennon
spoke with ICs from his office. The American people believe that when they vote for a
president or member of Congress or succeed in bringing a case before the courts, that
policy is going to change. Policy by and large in the national security realm is made by the
obscured institutions in the name of national security which the people buy hook, line and
sinker; without question. Then they become shocked when the system doesn’t change and
when it comes out that the government lied to us.

105 https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/10/18/review-national-security-and-double-
government-michael-glennon/tUhBBdSj8s0WW1HoWUf20M/story.html

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Chapter 8: Corruption in International and Foreign Aide
I was watching the news recently as they discussed U.S. government foreign aid. More
specifically, they focused on a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East who
benefit from our compassion. I realize we've been doing this for a very long time. However,
when I think about our nation’s mounting debt and how much good this money could do here
at home, I must admit, it does raise the blood pressure just a wee bit. In this chapter, we'll
discuss some of these monetary gifts and compare them against the degree of corruption in the
recipient nations and our own USA.
I had a professor who once made the statement that “foreign aid is where we take from
the poor in this country and give it to the rich in other countries.” 106 As I traveled all over the
Third world I’ve seen that to some extent this is true. When I was in Africa I saw a warehouse
full to the rafters with donations from the “people of the United States of America.” The
workers at the warehouse were the only ones I could see who benefitted from the American
good will. The director of the warehouse was busted for embezzlement and corruption when I
first arrived, and he went to jail.
Transparency International:107 A few months ago I stumbled upon the Transparency
International website. They publish an annual corruption index. It's called the Corruption
Perceptions Index (CPI) and it measures "perceived levels of public sector corruption in 176
countries and territories." A perfect score of 100 means least corrupt and a score of 'one' would
indicate a high level of corruption.
It's natural to assume that money given to a corrupt regime would only benefit those in
power. In other words, I doubt the poor farmer or mechanic received any of it. The source of
the foreign aid data is the State Department. In my travels I’ve seen how the corrupt leaders in
the local government line their pockets with American foreign aid moneys.
The two most corrupt regimes as of 2016, are Somalia and South Sudan. Other
countries on the list are: Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, North Korea, Guinea-Bissau,
Equatorial Guinea. The total given to all of the countries listed in the table approaches $9.0
billion. The U.S. issues approximately $50 billion a year in foreign aid with nearly 20% allocated
to the countries who hate us and want to destroy us. It’s always appeared to me interesting how
these people love our booze, cigarettes, blue jeans, porn, fast food, and cars but they hate us as
a people and our democracy; all the things that made the things they like possible. In a related
story, the U.S. ranks 19th on the corruption index with a score of 73. The least corrupt nations
according to the CPI are New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore,
Sweden, Canada, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The Federal government collects about $2.5 trillion in tax revenue but spends more
than $3.6 trillion. In fact, America collects more in tax revenue than the total GDP of every
country on Earth except Germany, France, Japan and China. Consider for a moment, that our
yearly tax revenue is greater than the total GDP for every nation except four. 108
We have a spending problem in our Federal Government. The reason we will never see
a balanced budget is that neither the House nor the Senate want to balance the budget. They
are lawyers and therefore make money on laws they legislate. Therefore they have no incentive
to balance the budget. Neither party wants to balance the budget because they use the deficit
to blame each other. Why balance the budget if the deficit offers them some amount of power

106 The professor was Dr. James Mayfield, professor of political science. He retired and went on to
be on the board of directors of CHOICE (Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Intercultural Exchange)
107 https://www.transparency.org/
108 http://freebeacon.com/issues/government-collects-2-5-trillion-taxes-first-three-quarters-fy-
2017/

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and the opportunity to stay in power for 40 years and make being in Congress a career? There is
a joke that goes, “Pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress…Congress!” 109
Americans work hard for their money; at least those Americans who work. Moreover,
individuals are reaching the end of their patience when it comes to frivolous spending by those
we've elected to manage our money. It seems to me that Congressional actions are killing the
goose that lays the golden egg whenever they talk about everyone paying their fair share.
Notice they never talk about taxing those who are on welfare so that they pay into the system
they are draining. And the tax laws never include Congress paying their fair share but exempting
themselves from paying any taxes or abiding the same laws they mandate for the rest of us.
After all, it's the individuals that work hard and pay taxes that are supporting this
reckless spending. Unless you're a dimwitted Socialist, you'd have to agree that Washington
needs to cut the budget and reduce spending lest we burden the next generation 110 with so
much debt that the incentive to work goes away. Already the stats show that 52% of
Americans are on the dole. That means that only 48% of the population are paying taxes
to support the lazy and indolent; including politicians as part of the indolent.
Corruption is seen as an unfortunate failing of a government or the work of a
number of corruptible individuals. People around the world are beginning to see that
corruption breeds extremism everywhere from Afghanistan to Nigeria and Uzbekistan
and other nations. These are governments actually structured around the objective of
extracting natural resources for personal aggrandizement.
They are virtually criminal organizations bent on stealing money for private gain,
that are masquerading as governments and using the tools of state power to further
those ends. In Nigeria, Christian religious fundamentalists are reacting strongly against
the corruption; this is because the Muslim north controls the government. I’ve seen
corruption in the Philippines, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Bolivia, Niger, Benin, Nigeria,
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Mexico, The southern US states, the left coast and some
on the east coast. The federal government has been corrupt for many years but is now
just beginning to become exposed like the cockroaches they are. We’ve heard stories
from every corner of the globe about corruption. International organizations such as the
UN, is rife with corruption.

International Organizations: The UN-mother of all corrupt NGOs111


Commentary Magazine: United Nations: How Corrupt Is the United Nations? By
Claudia Rosett / Apr. 1, 2006: A cascade of abuses, financial, personal, and managerial,
raises the question of whether the international body is capable of, or complicit in
corruption and abuse of power as an international non-governmental agency.
Recent years have seen a torrent of scandals at the United Nations, of which the
wholesale corruption of the Oil-for-Food relief program in Iraq has been the most
visible. We still do not know the full extent of these fiascos; the more sensational ones
include the disappearance of UN funds earmarked for tsunami relief in Indonesia and
the exposure of a transnational network of pedophiliac rape by UN peacekeepers in

109 This was a popular joke when I was in high school. I still it’s appropriate.
110 I always laugh when I hear about the next generation. I always ask myself, what about this
generation? Are we just passive participants?
111https://www.forbes.com/sites/claudiarosett/2015/09/25/the-u-n-s-parade-of-
dictators/#3a8186cc4f5f

72
Africa. What we do know is that an assortment of noble-sounding efforts has evolved
into enterprises marked chiefly by abuse of power, self-dealing112, and even murder.
Seen by many, including many Americans, as the chief arbiter of legitimacy in
global politics, the UN is understood by others to be the only institution standing
between us and global anarchy. If that is so, the forecasts are not promising. The free
world is grappling with threats from the spread of radical Islam to North Korea's nuclear
blackmail and Iran's development of nuclear bombs. The UN, despite its trophy case of
Nobel peace prizes, has failed so far to restrain any of these, just as it failed terribly to
run an honest or effective sanctions program in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Currently it is
gridlocked over matters as seemingly straightforward as cleaning up its own
management department.
In the effort to address the UN's diverse problems, there have been audits,
investigations, committees, reports, congressional hearings, action plans, and even a
handful of arrests by U.S. federal prosecutors. There have been calls for Secretary-
General Kofi Annan to step down before his second term expired at the end of 2006.
Solutions have been sought by way of better monitoring, whistleblower protection, the
mass of new oversight bodies, and another round of conditions attached to the
payment of U.S. dues. On top of the broad reforms of the early 1990's, the sweeping
reforms of 1997, the further reforms of 2002, and the world summit for reform in 2005,
still more plans for reform are in the works. To me it sounds like they cuss and discuss
plans for reform, but the plans never see the light of day.
To its external auditors, internal auditors, joint inspections unit, eminent-persons
panels, executive boards, and many special expert consultants, the UN has recently
added an Office of Ethics, introduced in May 2006 what will presumably become an
annual event: “UN Ethics Day.” All of these window decorations are just keeping up
appearances. Nothing will ever change because the will to change is not there. The
temptation toward corruption is stronger than the will power in doing the right thing.
Behind the specific scandals lies what one of the UN's own internal auditors has
termed a “culture of impunity.” A grand committee that reports to itself alone, the UN
operates with great secrecy and is shielded by diplomatic immunity. One of its prime
defenses, indeed, is the sheer impenetrability of its operations: after more than 60
years as a global collective, it has become a confusion of so many overlapping programs,
widespread projects, quietly vested interests, nepotism, despotic mischief, and
intertwining directorates as to defy accurate or easy comprehension, let alone
responsible supervision.
One clear sign of how badly things have gone with the UN is the difficulty of
tallying even so basic a sum as the system's real budget. Nowhere does the UN present
a full and clear set of accounts, and statistics vary even within individual agencies and
programs. The UN's current “core” annual budget is $1.9 billion, but the “core” is itself
but a fraction of the actual estimated budget. Around the core, are wrapped billions
more in funding provided by “voluntary contributions” from private and corporate
donors, foundations, and member states, including, to a large extent, the United States.

112 Self-dealing is the conduct of a trustee, an attorney, a corporate officer, or other fiduciary that
consists of taking advantage of his position in a transaction and acting for his own interests rather than
for the interests of the beneficiaries of the trust, corporate shareholders, or his clients. Self-dealing may
involve misappropriation or usurpation of corporate assets or opportunities. Self-dealing is a form of
conflict of interest.

73
These sums are shuffled around in various types of shell game manipulation,
with UN agencies in some instances paying or donating to each other. For instance, the
UN Development Program (UNDP) operates with its own “core” budget of about $900
million a year but handles about $3 billion per year; or, depending on whom you ask
and what you count, it could be even $4.5 billion per year.
According to Mark Malloch Brown, the UN chief of staff who has just been
promoted to the post of Deputy Secretary-General, the total budget for all operations
under direct control of the Secretariat comes to roughly $8-9 billion per year. Adding in
just a few of the larger agencies like UNDP at $4 billion, UNICEF $2 billion, and the
World Food Program $2-3 billion, already brings the grand total to somewhere between
$16 and $18 billion, again depending on whom you listen to and what you count.
On UN websites devoted to procurement, where the idea is not to minimize the
official amount of UN spending but on the contrary to attract suppliers to a large and
thriving operation, the estimate of money spent yearly on goods and services by the
entire UN system comes to $30 billion, or more than 15 times the core budget of $1.9
billion on which reformers have focused. So it seems the left hand doesn’t know what
the right is doing and those in charge don’t give a damn.
Staff numbers are likewise a matter of mystery. The new ethics office proposes
to offer its services to 29,000 UN employees worldwide. That number is well short of
the total staff of the Secretariat plus the specialized agencies alone, which, according to
Malloch Brown, consists of some 40,000 people. And that figure itself does not include
local staffs; such as the 20,000 Palestinians who work for the UN Works and Relief
Agency (UNWRA) or the many employees, some long-term, others transient, at
hundreds of assorted UN offices, projects, and operations worldwide, or the more than
85,000 peacekeepers sent by member states but carrying out UN orders and eating UN-
supplied rations bought via UN purchasing departments. Whereas the number of UN
member states has almost quadrupled since 1945, from 51 to 191, the number of
personnel has swollen many times over, from a few thousand into somewhere in the
hundreds of thousands. Again no one knows, and no one seems to care.
Little of this system is open to any real scrutiny even within the UN, and no
single authority outside the UN has proven able to force any genuine accounting.
Moreover, even though there can no longer be any doubt that the scale of the decay is
large, the UN's top management continues to insist to the contrary. Take the central
scandal of recent UN history, namely, Oil-for-Food.
The Oil-for-Food Program (OIP), established by the United Nations in 1995
(under UN Security Council Resolution 986) was established to allow Iraq to sell oil on
the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for
ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities. In October
2005, Paul Volcker's UN-authorized probe into Oil-for-Food submitted its fifth and final
report on that relief program, which in its seven years of operation had become a
vehicle for billions in kickbacks, payoffs, and sanctions-busting arms traffic.
By January 2005, after first having declared that he was taking responsibility for
the debacle, Kofi Annan was spinning a different story, telling a London audience that
“only one staff member was found to maybe have taken some $150,000 out of a $64-
billion program.” Of course, this was an outright clever lie. The staff member in question
was Benon Sevan, whom Annan had appointed to run Oil-for-Food for six of its seven
years. If indeed Sevan took no more than this relative pittance, then Saddam Hussein

74
scored the biggest bargain in the history of kickbacks. According to Senator Norm
Coleman's independent investigation into Oil-for-Food, the real figure for Sevan's take
was $1.2 million. Clearing up this discrepancy is difficult, however, because Sevan, who
was allowed by Annan to retire to his native Cyprus on full UN pension, is outside the
reach of U.S. law and has denied taking anything.
In any case, the corruption hardly ended with Sevan. Instances that appear to
have slipped the Secretary-General's mind include another member of his inner circle,
the French diplomat Jean-Bernard Merimée, who by his own admission took a payoff
from Saddam while serving as Annan's handpicked envoy to the European Union.
Within the UN agencies working with Annan's Secretariat on Oil-for-Food, Volcker
confirmed “numerous further allegations of corrupt behavior and practices,” embracing
“bid-rigging, conflicts of interest, bribery, theft, nepotism, and sexual harassment.” He
also noted that the UN lacked controls on graft, failed to investigate most cases, and
failed to act upon some of those it did explore. Finally, Volcker calculated that UN
agencies had kept for themselves at least $50 million earmarked to buy relief for the
people of Iraq.
Nor do the sheer monetary amounts even begin to convey the extent of the
damage done by UN labors in Iraq. Annan's office had the mandate of the Security
Council, plus a $1.4-billion budget, to check oil and relief contracts for price frauds, to
monitor oil exports in order to prevent smuggling, and to audit UN operations. In the
event, Oil-for-Food spent far more money renovating its offices in New York than
checking the terms of Saddam's contracts, and ignored the smuggling even when
Saddam in 2000 opened a pipeline to Syria. The result of what Annan now placidly
describes as “instances of mismanagement “as if someone forgot to make a new pot of
coffee for the employee break room, was that Saddam skimmed and smuggled
anywhere from $12 billion, according to the incomplete numbers supplied by Volcker, to
$17 billion or more, according to the more comprehensive totals provided by Senator
Coleman's staff.
And what did Saddam do with those profits? What Annan describes as
“instances of mismanagement” did not simply entail theft, corruption, and waste. They
enriched and supported a tyrant and a mass murderer. Saddam used his UN-blessed
loot not only to build palaces and buy luxury cars but also to provide patronage to loyal
Baathists, reward Palestinian suicide bombers, and restock his arsenal, conventional or
otherwise.
When CIA chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer went to Iraq in 2004 looking
for weapons, the money trail took him straight to the UN relief operation, which, as he
would report, had become a shill113 for an arms and illicit-money network that reached
through Syria to Belarus and Russia. The network was buying “milk” from a Chinese
weapons manufacturer, contracting for “vehicles” and “detergent” with Sudan, and
negotiating for missiles with North Korea.
And that is only Oil-for-Food. Since summer of 2004, the UN has been bedeviled
by a bribery scandal centered in its procurement department, which handles the

113 A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a
person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or
organization. Shills can carry out their operations in the areas of media, journalism, marketing, confidence
games, or other business areas. A shill may also act to discredit opponents or critics of the person or
organization in which they have a vested interest through character assassination or other means.

75
Secretariat's buying of everything from paperclips to peacekeeper rations. In August, a
UN staffer named Alexander Yakovlev pleaded guilty in federal court to taking hundreds
of thousands of dollars’ worth of bribes, involving possibly hundreds of millions' worth
of tainted contracts, many of them in force to this day. In September, Vladimir
Kuznetsov, the head of the UN budget oversight committee, had to step aside under
federal indictment as Yakovlev's co-conspirator in wire fraud and money laundering.
With the scandal still spreading, a number of other UN employees are now under
investigation in cases involving something on the order of $1 billion in UN contracts.
There have also been cases in which, although no corruption has been alleged,
clear conflicts of interest has been disclosed. Thus, Volcker found that in 1997, Maurice
Strong, a longtime UN Under-Secretary General, accepted a check bankrolled by
Saddam in the amount of $988,885. Strong, who has denied knowing where the money
came from, was then serving as chief coordinator of UN reform, no less. Another top
adviser to Annan, Giandomenico Picco, was discovered to have served in late 1999 and
early 2000 as both a UN Under-Secretary General and chairman of the board of a
company called IHC Services.
The company had close ties to the bribe-taking Yakovlev and signed millions of
dollars in contracts with the UN while Picco was running one of Annan's pet projects,
the Dialogue of Civilizations. Then there is the saga of Annan's son, Kojo, who turned
out to have received more than $195,000 from a major UN Oil-for-Food contractor,
Cotecna Inspection, after he had formally stopped working for it. In investigating Kojo's
UN-related ventures, Volcker came across the paper trail of an infamous green
Mercedes: in 1998, Kojo had saved some $20,000 by buying this car at a diplomatic
discount in Germany and shipping it duty-free into Ghana, all under the false use of his
father's name and diplomatic privileges and of the UN seal.
Oil-for-Food has been described by Annan and his aides as a mistake in a good
cause; such, they suggest, is the occasional if regrettable cost of doing the world's
humanitarian business. Structurally, however, Oil-for-Food was not an exception. It was
a template of what the UN has become. A hallmark of Oil-for-Food was that it was
funded not by an assembly of UN member states but directly by Saddam as a function
of his oil sales. This effectively bypassed the UN's version of the appropriations process
and was hardly the kind of setup envisioned when the organization was founded. As
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton has noted, “It is the member states who are supposed to
control the money.”
Nevertheless, the UN negotiated terms with Saddam under which the
Secretariat would collect 2.2 percent of his oil revenues to cover its costs in running and
monitoring the relief program. With oil sales topping $64 billion, that meant $1.4 billion
for the Secretary-General's administrative spending over the seven-year life of the
program. In other words, the UN Secretariat was being paid big money by Saddam to
supervise himself, an intrinsic conflict of interest that surely played a part in the
expansion and easy corruption of the program. On top of whatever bribery he managed
to deploy, Saddam became for a time one of the largest direct contributors to the
Secretariat's budget. Publicizing itself as Saddam's probation officer, the UN in effect
became his business partner.
In 1998, the French were part of the coalition partners as part of Operation
Southern Watch (which the French called Operation Alysse). It happened after I left in
1998, the French commander was busted for sending flight ops plans to the Iraqis. That

76
got the French kicked off the team and they were sent packing to their home base. So it
doesn’t surprise me that they got busted for getting involved in the corruption involved
with the Oil-for-Food Program.
But Saddam was only one, if the most infectious, of the many questionable
business partners the UN has acquired over the past decade or so. These days,
“partnering” at the UN goes far beyond enlisting the help of Princess Di to lobby against
landmines, or Angelina Jolie to visit refugees or of Bono to lecture Americans on
development policy. Under Annan's management, the UN has been avidly seeking
liaisons with foundations, non-governmental organizations, and private businesses,
especially big corporate donors endowed with ready cash. This has been hailed in many
quarters, including in Washington, as an innovative way of funding good works.
However, it is rather more alarming than that.
The star example of today's UN partnerships is the Secretariat's cozy
arrangement with the media magnate Ted Turner, who in 1997 made a landmark offer
to donate $1 billion to the world organization. The pledge reportedly caused Jane
Fonda,114 Turner's wife at the time, to weep for joy; as for Annan, he welcomed the deal
as “a model to demonstrate my commitment to engage the private sector in a concrete
manner.” Turner said he hoped his example would inspire others and it has.
Whatever Turner's ultimate aims may have been in undertaking this deed of
seemingly astounding generosity, one of its chief beneficiaries has arguably been Ted
Turner himself. For the past eight years, in exchange for the rather less than $1 billion
disbursed so far, he has enjoyed a seat at the head table of what is supposed to be an
impartial public institution, wielding access and influence beyond that of many actual
UN member states. Like the UN's 2.2-percent commission under Oil-for-Food, moreover,
Turner's funds flow through the administrative channels of the Secretariat without even
the minimal checks that might be provided by the budgeting process of the General
Assembly.
To dispense his generosity in tax-deductible form, Turner set up a Washington-
based non-profit organization, the UN Foundation, stipulating that he would turn over
his gift through this foundation at the rate of $100 million per year. Since then he has
halved his annual disbursements, thus stretching out the arrangement even longer than
the projected decade or more. At the same time, and as part of the same gift, he set up
a sister organization, the Better World Fund, which describes itself as “a key advocate
for the UN on Capitol Hill.”
A portion of Turner's gift to the UN thus goes not to the world's poor but to
lobbying efforts in Washington to extract more dollars for the UN from U.S. taxpayers.
Over the past eight years, according to the UN Foundation, the Better World Fund has
devoted more than $110 million to this effort. Liberals won’t spend a dime of their own
money, although Ted obviously has, but they are very good at getting the US taxpayers
to cough more of their hard-earned cash to support the crooked organization that is the
UN and all of her off-shoot organizations that are equally as corrupt.
Of course, Washington is home to many lobbying groups. But Turner's setup is so
intimately linked with the UN Secretariat as to make it hard to distinguish where one
ends, and the other begins. Thus, to handle Turner's gift, the UN created a special in-
house division dedicated exclusively to interacting with Turner's foundation and
114 AKA Hanoi Jane for the treasonous way she collaborated with the North Vietnamese to try to get
American POWs to confess to war crimes.

77
reporting directly to the Secretary-General. This division is called the United Nations
Fund for International Partnerships, (UNFIP). According to the head of UNFIP, Amir
Dossal, the relationship between the UN and UN Foundation officials is “pretty much a
seamless exercise,” with Turner's Foundation often involved from the inception in
shaping UN projects that it then pays for.
UNFIP staff, who evaluate these projects as UN insiders for the approval of the
Secretary-General, have their salaries and expenses paid not by the UN but by Turner's
foundation. Since the arrangement began, some $600 million of Turner's own money
has flowed into UN causes in this way, plus another $350 million from other donors
contributing via his UN Foundation. The total of $950 million includes the $110 million
spent by the Better World Fund in lobbying Congress. This has allowed the Secretary-
General to control, through UNFIP alone and in concert with the wishes of Turner's
foundation, what in many ways qualifies as an annual slush fund of more than $100
million.
Many of the projects involve worthy causes like sending malaria medicine and
measles vaccines to children in poor countries. But others approved by the Secretary-
General have directed millions in Turner money to departments within his own
Secretariat, including in some cases his own executive office. Featuring as opaque one-
line items in UNFIP's sometimes tardy public reports, these endeavors have included $1
million for “Strengthening the UN Secretariat;” $1.9 million for “UN Dialogue with the
Global South;” $994,875 for “Supporting UN Management Reform;” $1.9 million for the
Secretariat's department of public information; $117,600 for a “Multi-Stakeholder
Meeting on Best Practices in Partnerships;” and $319,988 for “Strengthening Public-
Private Partnerships;” a somewhat impulsive exercise, one might think, for what is
already a highly muscular public-private liaison.
In general, oversight at the UN is conducted by the organization's internal audit
department, whose director is named by the Secretary-General and whose reports until
2005 have not been disclosed even to member states. According to a secret internal
audit submitted in 2003, UNFIP appeared to be operating “without legally established
functions and organizational structures.” Specific irregularities in the program's conduct
included the release of $1.2 million in Turner-foundation money to Annan's executive
office in a manner “constituting a breach of internal controls.” Insignificant, perhaps,
when measured against the overall size of Turner's gift, but a significant sum to be
splattering around within the single most influential office at the UN.
In September 2001, Turner intervened even more deeply in UN matters, giving
$31 million from his separate, family-run Turner Foundation; devoted to the
environmental “totality of the planet,” to the U.S. State Department to cover a portion
of U.S. arrears on UN dues. This was greeted by many, including then-U.S. Ambassador
to the UN, John Negroponte, as a selfless act of philanthropy. But the reason we had
fallen behind in our dues was not any lack of resources but the fact that Congress,
which is supposed to control U.S. funding for the UN, had been trying to lever better
behavior out of the UN.
Why the State Department accepted the money is a question no one has been
able to answer. But from the UN's point of view, merging Turner's millions into the
process meant that, as long as the organization could find wealthy private patrons in
harmony with its policy preferences, it could afford to be that much less answerable to a
powerful member state and its democratically elected representatives.

78
Increasingly, since the Turner pledge of 1997, the UN has been inviting wealthy
patrons around the globe to collaborate with it as “partners.” Some of those answering
the call have signed on through Turner's foundation. Of these, a number are
governmental institutions. They include the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Representative Office in the U.S.; an instance of Taiwan trying to get a foot in the door
at the UN in any way it can; the World Bank, an instance of the UN system paying itself;
the U.S. Agency for International Development, an instance of the U.S. government
funding the UN via Turner's foundation; the government of Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria,
itself a recipient of World Bank aid; and the American Red Cross. Others are private
foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which since 1995 has
given more than $380 million to the UN, more than $50 million of that through Turner's
foundation. Also, Turner's foundation has collaborated on some projects with the Open
Society Institute of the financier, George Soros, whose global network of foundations
and institutes has its own roster of socialist projects jointly funded with the UN.
In 1999, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Annan proposed a “Global
Compact”115 between the UN and business leaders. To join, a company is required to
write a letter, addressed to the Secretary-General, “expressing support for the Global
Compact and its principles.” Thereafter, it is required to publish in its annual report “a
description of the ways in which it is supporting the Global Compact.”
According to the UN, the Global Compact has by now amassed more than 2,400
participants in 50 countries. They are invited to host outreach programs involving UN
agencies, to promote UN causes, and to contribute in cash or in kind to UN endeavors.
No doubt many do so for entirely worthy reasons; but the utter balkanization 116 of UN
agencies, offices, operations, budgets, and organizational charts makes it virtually
impossible to know for sure. As a result the UN has become so large, secretive, and
unmanageable that no one really knows what is going on. Since the UN has been
overrun with Islamic States, Communist and Socialist States, it has become very hostile
to the US and Israel, the only true democratic republics in the UN, in spite of the fact
that the US is the major contributor to its funding.
In a 352-page book published in 2002 on “Building Partnerships,” the UN itself
acknowledged that there is “inconsistency, both within the United Nations system and
more widely, on what constitutes the private sector.” It might be more accurate to say
that under the stewardship of Annan, there has been a considerable blurring of the
lines. Characteristic of this is the UN's increasing willingness to franchise out both its
name and its official emblem.
Back in 1946, as that emblem was about to be approved, the first UN Secretary-
General, Trygve Lie, stressed the importance of protecting it from abuse for

115 The United Nations Global Compact is a United Nations initiative to encourage businesses
worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation.
The UN Global Compact is a principle-based framework for businesses, stating ten principles in the areas
of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. Under the Global Compact, companies are
brought together with UN agencies, labor groups and civil society. Cities can join the Global Compact
through the Cities Program
116 Balkanization, or Balkanization, is a geopolitical term used to describe the process of
fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or
uncooperative with one another. Balkanization is a result of foreign policies creating geopolitical
fragmentation, as has happened in the namesake Balkan region under the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-
Hungarian empire, the Third Reich, the United Nations, and NATO.

79
“commercial purposes.” In 2000, as part of the UN's grand plans for “public-private
partnerships” in the new millennium, Annan issued lengthy guidelines in which he
stipulated that the UN could in fact authorize use of its emblem by a business engaged
in promotion or fund-raising for the UN itself; as long as “generation of profit by the
business entity is only incidental.” This raises intriguing questions about who in Annan's
graft-ridden UN might be qualified to judge whether commercial profits are “incidental”
to humanitarian work and who could possibly keep track.
And that brings us to a feature of the UN system, mentioned early on, that has
helped to shield it from in-depth investigation from member nations such as the US.
Since its founding, the institution has added untold numbers of agencies, funds,
commissions, programs, “ad-hoc bodies,” and “other entities,” to the point where most
of the UN's own personnel do not know who reports to whom, or how. The Secretary-
General himself, when questioned last year by the Volcker commission, professed not to
understand his own chain of command.
To anyone seeking to get a seat at the table of the UN bureaucracy, creating
another unsupervised, unwieldy and corrupt new body has long been a favored path.
The Secretary-General appoints or at least nominates the heads of most of them, but
each has its own board, its own agenda, and in many cases its own program for
soliciting funds. To name just a few of the better-known ones:
UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 1964);
UN Development Program (UNDP, 1966);
UN Environment Program (UNEP, 1972);
UN Habitat (1997);
UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS, 1994),
UNICEF (founded in 1946);
World Bank (1945);
World Food Program (WFP, 1961);
World Health Organization (WHO 1646);
World Tourism Agency (UNWTO, 2003);

Many of these offices overlap. Most, when probed, open onto ever perplexing
vistas of regional offices, working groups, and the like. The offices are scattered around
the globe, from New York to Rome to Nairobi to Tunis to Madrid to Bangkok and
beyond. Periodic efforts to streamline and harmonize the system tend mainly to form
yet another layer on top. Typical of this is one of the Secretary-General's latest
initiatives, launched February 2006: the “High-Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence
in Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance, Environment.” Among its fifteen
“high-level” panelists is a senior fellow from Turner's UN Foundation.
Another example, launched in 2005, is Annan's so-called Alliance of Civilizations.
This grand-sounding initiative is in fact a rather restricted project of Spain, Turkey, and
20 unelected “eminent persons” picked by the Secretary-General, most of whom, like
Nafis Sadik, a special adviser to Annan and a director of Turner's UN Foundation, have
already spent years on the same UN conference circuits. Instructed to come up with an
“action plan” to “bridge divides,” the Alliance has so far served mainly as a vehicle for
Annan to resurrect as a “special adviser” his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, who
“retired” in early 2005 after Volcker's discovery that he had shredded three years' worth
of UN executive-suite documents potentially relevant to the Oil-for-Food investigation.

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There is almost no way to hold the UN accountable for most of what goes on in
this growing empire. No national legal jurisdiction applies to the UN network and no
media corps has the resources, or for that matter the interest, to deal with the entire
network. Despite a Secretary-General who wields more control than anyone else in the
system, accountability ultimately does not reside with him, either. In fact, there is no
procedure at the UN for impeaching or firing the Secretary-General.
There is, however, a tremendous machine for glossing over anything that goes
wrong. The Secretariat fields a department of public information with an $85-million
annual budget and more than 700 employees, about half of whom staff UN public-
relations offices in more than 100 countries worldwide. On top of that, a public-
relations staff is employed by each of the many agencies, commissions, and so forth. All
of this promotional activity is further supplemented by the World Federation of United
Nations Associations (WFUNA), founded in Luxembourg in 1946 and now boasting more
than 100 national chapters. The American chapter, UNA-USA, fields more than 175
community-based chapters and organizations, with nearly 20,000 members.
Bringing these various strands together is a dizzying array of interwoven boards,
working groups, and staff positions both within and around the UN. To give a few quick
examples: Ted Turner, of the UN Foundation, sits on the board of the UNA-USA. Maurice
Strong, chief coordinator of the 1997 UN “reforms,” which among other things created
the framework for the Turner-dedicated UNFIP. He then became a charter member of
the board of Turner's UN Foundation while serving as a special adviser to UN Secretary-
General Annan and is also a past president and current honorary president of the
WFUNA.
Paul Volcker, when tapped by Annan himself to head the Oil-for-Food
investigation, was serving not only on the board of directors of UNA-USA but also as a
director of its business council which advertises itself as a networking resource for
businesses interested in getting a piece of the billions in UN contracts handed out every
year. Only when the media finally discovered and questioned this potential conflict of
interest did Volcker resign. Asked in a recent interview about the dangers of collusion
between big business and a public institution like the UN, Mark Malloch Brown declared
indignantly that the UN was doing “God's work,” and walked out.
The question is important because, in the end, the amount of money lost to
waste by the UN, or skimmed through graft, or dumped wholesale into agencies,
commissions, and alliances that serve mainly themselves, or devoted in the UN's name
to select private crusades, arguably counts less than the kind of agenda all this money
supports.
The founding purpose of the UN was to bring peace and prosperity to the globe.
As to the former, the UN in the age of terror has been in most ways useless and in some
ways positively dangerous. The lesson that Saddam Hussein quickly grasped was that
the UN lends itself to money-laundering. With its big flows of funds across borders, its
many contractors and public-private partnerships, its gigantic bureaucracy and lax
controls, its diplomatic immunity, and its culture of impunity, the UN operation is a
prime candidate not only for graft but, as Charles Duelfer discovered, for arms deals
masked as medicine and soap.
Further protecting those arms deals, and the rogues and tyrants making them, is
the fact that in its capacity as a deliberative body, the UN has repeatedly urged

81
appeasement in the face of real threats to world peace and just as repeatedly tried to
constrain those; like the U.S. and its allies, willing to act to remove them.
If there is any priority that the UN, with its mandate for peace, might be
expected to stress, it is preventing rogue regimes from getting nuclear bombs. But as a
practical matter, the organization has behaved for the most part as a spectator. Its
record with Saddam Hussein is too well known to bear repeating. In the case of North
Korea, admitted as a member state in 1991, the UN has responded to Kim Jong Il's and
his son, Kim Jong Un’s nuclear-weapons program mainly by kicking the problem over to
the U.S. and making itself irrelevant. On Iran, the UN “debate” has served mainly to buy
time for the mullahs while the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Mohamed El Baradei, the
head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, ponders the “uncertainties” of
Iran's nuclear program.
On matters involving Israel and the Palestinians, unlike nuclear proliferation, this
may be the UN's one genuine obsession. However, hypocrisy has been outdone only by
mischief-making and blatant anti-Semitism. UN programs set up to help the Palestinians
over the past half-century have not only failed to produce decent lives but have helped
create a culture of entitlement and violence, fueled in large part by the UN's own anti-
Israel agenda. The UN condemnation of Zionism as racism in 1975, finally repealed in
1991, was followed by the grotesque transformation of the UN's 2001 Durban
conference on racism into an anti-Semitic festival. The UN Security Council invites
totalitarian Syria to take the chair, but democratic Israel has never been so much as
allowed to hold a seat.
Then there is peacekeeping, which since the end of the cold war has been a
boom area for the UN. Here again the expansion of UN missions has brought everything
from widespread allegations of corruption to drug-dealing to rape and the sexual
exploitation of hungry children; “Sex-for-Food,” as the columnist Mark Steyn has aptly
put it. In large parts of the undeveloped world, the appearance of blue-helmeted forces
has come to signal a warning: stay away and keep your children away.
However, neither have those blue-helmeted forces been visible when and
where they might actually be needed. Provided with manpower plus a budget that
ought to qualify the UN itself as a formidable military power, the organization stood
passively aside during the massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica and has yet to act in the
case of Sudan. Indeed, it has yet to muster even the integrity to kick Sudan off its
Geneva-based human-rights commission, which has doubled as a clubhouse for the
world's worst regimes. Current members include China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and
Zimbabwe. And so boys and girls, this is what we mean when we talk about the foxes
guarding the hen house.
As for disaster relief, the record is similarly deplorable. When the tsunami hit
Asia in December 2004, the U.S. and countries like Australia rushed to help the victims.
The UN rushed to help itself. Demanding exclusive rights to direct the aid effort and the
money, UN officials warned loudly of a health crisis that never materialized, denounced
the U.S. as “stingy,” and using its military to “spy” on Indonesia, and promised
transparent use of funds. A year later, the Financial Times reported that, from what little
could be gleaned of the UN's largely incomplete or secret accounts, the organization's
expenditures on overhead such as travel, hotel rooms, lavishly funded international talk-
fests, and the like, were triple those of private charities.

82
If such is the general nature of the UN's contribution to peace and humanitarian
assistance, its contribution to global prosperity is a similar story. The simple and true
recipe for wealth is liberty framed by the decent rule of law; the great lesson of the last
century, learned at horrific cost, is that central planners and state development
schemes are a brew that tends not toward prosperity but toward dictatorship and
economic immiserating.117
In 1990, that lesson seemed briefly to have been learned: as the Soviet Union
headed for collapse, the global aid profession was nervous over the newfound virtues of
privatization. But in the sixteen years since then, the UN, in the name of “sustainable
development,” has fostered a comeback of command-and-control planning, courtesy of
the same bureaucracy that cannot even account for its own expenditures.
An enormous amount of UN activity now revolves around the so-called
Millennium Goals, which aim to cut world poverty in half by the year 2015. This noble-
sounding goal serves as a framework for calculating to the last decimal point a set of
targets for which the UN system then decides how resources should be apportioned.
UN agencies, agendas, working groups, and a never-ending succession of conferences,
declarations, and plans testify to a determination to control the global climate, horn in
on the Internet, and à la Oil-for-Food, impose a UN-supervised income tax on the entire
developed world. Where once the Soviet agency, Gosplan 118, issued five-year plans for
an imprisoned people, the UN now aims to administer and profit from fifteen-year plans
for the entire human community. Think of it as planetary socialism, supported and
financed in “partnership” with private capital.
The United Nations was founded as a forum of governments. As we had ample
occasion to learn over the decades, this arrangement presented quite enough problems
of its own. Now the UN, in violation of its own charter, is rapidly evolving into
something larger, more corporate, and more menacing: a predatory, undemocratic,
unaccountable, and self-serving vehicle for global government. Like the Soviet Union of
old, the UN is unwieldy, grossly, inefficient, and incompetent; it is also so configured as
to reach deep into the national politics of its member states and, by sheer weight and
persistence, force at least some of the worst of its agenda upon all of us.
There will never be enough John Bolton’s to counter all of this. Indeed, with
notable exceptions, generations of American officials and policy-makers have been
content, sometimes for reasons of state, sometimes for reasons of convenience, to look
away from the UN's multiform deficiencies and derelictions while occasionally indulging
in minor punitive measures like withholding a proportion of our annual dues; akin to
docking a delinquent's bus money while continuing to pay for his liquor and his car. For
many others in public life, and for many ordinary citizens as well, the institution itself, as
the very embodiment of the multilateralist119 ideal, is still held in nearly sacred regard.
This then, is all the more reason, to force ourselves at long last to take a hard,
undeceived look at what the institution has in fact become, put aside the lengthy and
117 : the act of making miserable; especially : impoverishment
118 The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan, was the agency responsible for
central economic planning in the Soviet Union.
119 In international relations, multilateralism is a kind of alliance where multiple countries progress
any given goal. Multilateralism was defined by Miles Kahler as "international governance" or global
governance of the "many," and its central principle was "opposition [of] bilateral discriminatory
arrangements that were believed to enhance the leverage of the powerful over the weak and to increase
international conflict"

83
futile quest for its reform, and begin to think more concretely about how, with or
without it, we can best work to advance the interests and values of ourselves and other
members of the civilized world.—March 8, 2006
The latest, announced by Annan was aimed at cleaning up management;
revolutionary though it sounds, there is no guarantee it will be implemented, and in any
case, it stops well short of what is needed.
There is also the mystery still surrounding more than $19 billion's worth of oil
revenues supposedly doled out by the UN to victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Internal audits released in 2005, under pressure from Congress warned of
overpayments of up to $4 billion. Volcker promised to investigate, but never did. The
discovery was made by George Russell of Fox News.
In the words of Mark Malloch Brown, who headed the UN Development
Program from 1999 to 2005, Soros and UNDP “collaborate extensively.” In fact, Malloch
Brown lives in a house on Soros's estate outside New York City. This potential conflict of
interest was never disclosed by the UN or Soros, and even after it was revealed in the
press, no documentation has been forthcoming to show that the relationship is at arm's
length.
The original terms of the compact included some soothing language about human
rights, labor standards, and the environment; in 2004, perhaps inspired by its own
mishaps, the UN added a proviso that businesses should work against corruption. This
has been a source of bemusement to investigators of graft in the UN's procurement
division, not least because one of the major contractors embroiled in the bid-rigging
scandal was a member in good standing of Annan's Global Compact.
The UN promises to “reform” have translated into a plan to replace the Human
Rights Commission with a “Human Rights Council,” a largely semantic exercise. Attempts
by Washington to hold out for genuine reform of this body central to the United Nations
mandate have turned into an occasion for UN officials and others to criticize not the
world's worst human-rights offenders but the U.S.

How The UN Is Organized: 120The Secretariat is divided into offices and


departments. The hierarchy within each is as follows:
Office: a minimum of 20 high level professionals under the supervision of a D-2 staff
member (Division Head), or in few cases an Assistant Secretary General or Under
Secretary General
Division: a minimum of 15 high level professionals under the supervision of a D-2
staff member (Division Head)
Service: a minimum of 8 high level professionals under the supervision of a D-1
(General Administrator) staff member
Section: a minimum of 4 professionals under the supervisions of a P-4 (8-12 years’
experience) or a P-5 (13-17 years’ experience) staff member
Unit: a minimum of 4 positions under the supervision of a chief

Offices
• Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG)
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA)
120 http://www.un.org/en/about-un/

84
• United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
• United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
• United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)
• United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (OLA)
• United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed
Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States
(OHRLLS)
• United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR)
• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Departments
• United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)
• United Nations Department of Field Support (DFS)
• United Nations Department of General Assembly and Conference
Management (DGACM)
• United Nations Department of Management (DM)*
• United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)
• United Nations Department of Political Affairs (DPA)
• United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)
• United Nations Department of Safety and Security (DSS)
Offices Away from Headquarters
• United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)
• United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON)
• United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV)

UN Regional Commissions
• Addis Ababa, Economic Commission for Africa
• Bangkok, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
• Beirut, Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
• Geneva, Economic Commission for Europe
• Santiago, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

When I was a public administration student at the University of Utah, I wrote a


paper on the corruption at UNICEF. It doesn’t really surprise me that there is corruption
in the rest of the United Nations. Secrecy, the left hand not knowing what the right
hand is doing, no accountability, and a dose of complacency in the various departments
and among member states all lead to a culture of corruption in the organization.
Kathryn Bolkovac Interview: What happened in Bosnia to the victims of human
trafficking in the 1990s and 2000s is quite similar to the Central African Republic
scandal: Specifically the abuse of vulnerable populations by organizations who are
created and bound to protect, and the continued scandals surrounding the UN botched,
covert and now overt, attempts to remove, terminate and discredit those who blow the
whistle on their deeds. The terms cover-up and whistleblower are common within the
walls of the United Nations and peacekeeping missions.
I became aware of the sexual abuse in CAR last year while doing some consulting
with international experts related to "Code Blue Campaign,” to consider the best way to

85
expose and disrupt the continued practice of the UN. What used to be complicity by the
UN by turning a blind eye has grown into a one-eyed monster, blatantly impeding
proper investigations and prosecution of crimes committed by peacekeepers. The
smoke screen still lies with blaming the member states and claiming the UN has no
control over disciplinary measures or prosecutions of peacekeepers from contributing
states. To some extent this is true.
DW: What cases did you find in Bosnia? There were many cases, but they were
never prosecuted: Young girls from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and other Eastern
European countries being brought in to service the UN and military bases as sex-slaves.
The cases involved the officers from many foreign countries, including the USA,
Pakistan, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, government contractors, and local organized
criminals. The human rights investigators were never allowed to fully investigate, the
suspects were immediately removed from the mission or transferred to other missions.
The young women were simply sent back to their home countries.
DW: Did the UN-officers know that the girls were victims of human trafficking?
Human trafficking was really not a term that was widely used in 1999 and 2001. I think
that most UN officers considered these girls to be simply prostitutes. But they were
trafficked into Bosnia from other countries and coerced to perform sexual acts. Many
knew they might end up in these conditions, but most had no real choice based on the
economic conditions in their home countries and the desperation to survive.
DW. Did the higher UN officials know about that? They certainly did, because I
turned my reports over to them along with internal affairs. This was well documented.
Many high-level UN officials knew about this, right up to Jacques Klein, the head of the
UN mission in Bosnia.
DW: Was there any charge or trial against the replaced UN officers? No. None.
Charges were never brought because the investigations were never allowed to be
completed. That was the reason I was terminated and fired from my job, because I was
trying to investigate these cases. After that, I took DynCorp to court in the United
Kingdom, and I won my case for wrongful termination.
DW: Did DynCorp, the company you worked for, suffer any damages in the business
with the UN after that court found you lost your job only because you tried to
investigate those cases? No. They did not. The UN continues to use them, the US
government continues to use them. DynCorp has grown bigger and bigger every year.
DW: What are the possible causes of such behavior from officers on UN missions? I
think there are many causes. Part of this is that many people lose sight of their morals
when they are 5,000 miles from home and think they will not get caught. Then they see
that even if they are caught nothing of any consequence will happen to them.
DW: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed security expert Jane Holl Lute to
coordinate the UN response to allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers. After
everything you went through, do you think the efforts of the UN are reliable? I don't
think that UN efforts are reliable at all over the last 15-20 years with regard to actually
trying to do something to stop the sexual abuse of women and children in missions.
They still refuse to send proper investigative teams to the field and they certainly are
still trying to cover things up. All of this talk that they are giving out really is just talk,
and it is clear that the highest-level officials of the UN will cover things up just to save
their own reputation rather than doing the right thing.

86
DW: What should be changed in the policy of the UN to curb sexual abuse on
international missions? I do not think you can just start making changes without
changing high-level management officials, without changing the way the UN functions.
There is no accountability at any level in the UN. The accountability is in the hands of
the member states. As long as the member states are not going to discipline and
prosecute the individuals who they send in the missions, then the UN is not going to do
that either. The UN has written off that part of discipline and accountability. They rely
on the member states to do that. It is time for the member states to take control of the
United Nations and stop the blame game.
The former US policewoman Kathryn Bolkovac was hired in 1999 by DynCorp
Aerospace for a UN post aimed at cracking down on sexual abuse and forced
prostitution in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina. She found evidence that some UN officers
were taking part in the trafficking of young women from Eastern Europe as sex slaves.
After having tried to investigate those cases, she was fired. Later, Kathryn Bolkovac was
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Code Blue Aims to End UN Sexual Abusers’ Impunity: AIDS-Free World, along with a
few experts and an ambassador, have launched the Code Blue campaign to try to end
peacekeeper impunity for sexual abuse. Recently, the UN has faced criticism for sexual
abuse by French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic and the suspension of a
whistleblower on this issue. But this isn’t the first time that peacekeeper sexual abuse
has been made public. The UN is pretty notorious for failing to bring perpetrators of
sexual abuse to justice when they are affiliated with the organization. Code Blue aims to
put an end to that.
Experts launch ‘Code Blue,’ demand end to UN immunity when peacekeepers
commit sexual exploitation and abuse. AIDS-Free World’s campaign calls for removal of
immunity and Commission of Inquiry into UN’s handling of sexual violence in
peacekeeping missions. The following article explains:
New York, May 13, 2015: Speaking just steps from UN headquarters today,
celebrated experts Ms. Graça Machel, Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, Ms. Theo Sowa, and
Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury joined international advocacy organization AIDS-Free
World to launch Code Blue, a campaign to end immunity for sexual exploitation and
abuse by UN peacekeepers.
Recent revelations of child sexual abuse by French and other troops in the Central
African Republic, the UN’s documentation of those crimes, and its failure over the next
year to report the perpetrators or to protect the victims, are just the latest in a
shameful litany of tolerance for sexual abuse and subsequent UN cover-ups.
For more than two decades, the media and non-governmental organizations have
uncovered depraved acts by UN peacekeepers, including human trafficking in Bosnia,
sex-for-food scandals in West Africa, and the rapes of women and children in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. With each new exposé, the UN re-asserts its policy
of ‘zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse.’ In practice, the UN’s zero tolerance
policy amounts to zero justice for victims one more cover-up on the part of the UN, its
leaders and its guilty peacekeepers.
With Code Blue, AIDS-Free World is determined to change that. As a first crucial
step, it will seek the removal of any possibility of immunity for the UN’s own personnel:
the UN’s non-military staff, police, and experts on mission2— when they are accused of
sexual exploitation or abuse, sending a powerful message to countries that supply

87
military peacekeepers. Code Blue will also call for the creation of an entirely
independent, external Commission of Inquiry to examine every facet of sexual
exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations, and to investigate the way the UN
system is ignoring the problem: from its missions on the ground, right up through the
chain of command to the Secretary-General.
“UN immunity is a protective cloak that allows peacekeepers to commit atrocities
knowing how unlikely it is that they will ever be stopped, investigated or punished for
their crimes,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World. “The presumption
that UN peacekeeping personnel may be immune from legal process triggers a chain
reaction that most often ends in gross miscarriages of justice. Instead of prompting
immediate action, reports of abuse are caught up in a tangle of red tape while the
Secretary-General decides whether to waive immunity. Meanwhile, suspects and their
accomplices have time to destroy evidence, silence witnesses, and threaten or pay off
victims or their families, making justice virtually unattainable.”
The scale of sex abuse among UN peacekeepers, both military and non-military, is
shocking, and the United Nations understands it does not know the true extent of its
own problem. In a suppressed 2013 report commissioned by Ban Ki-moon, an Expert
Team found that “the official numbers mask what appears to be significant amounts of
underreporting,” and that “UN personnel in all the missions we visited could point to
numerous suspected or quite visible cases of sexual exploitation and abuse that are not
being counted or investigated.”
Among incidents that are recorded, an appalling number of UN peacekeeper sexual
exploitation and abuse allegations are marked “unsubstantiated,” and cases are closed
by the UN because any evidence that might have led to a conviction has disappeared.
Sexual abusers among the UN’s staff, experts, and police remain within the system,
undetected, unpunished, and eligible for posting to the next peacekeeping mission.
“When I released [the landmark UN study] The Impact of Armed Conflict on
Children in 1996, we highlighted the rise of child sex abuse associated with UN
peacekeeping operations,” said Graça Machel. “At the time, we found that the
investigation and punishment of peacekeepers for sexual exploitation and abuse was
the exception rather than the rule. Nearly two decades later, vulnerable women and
children remain at unacceptable risk. Today a new chapter begins.”
 In the last couple of years the European Union and its members states have allowed several
million immigrants from Islamic countries in North Africa and the Middle East to settle in
Europe. They have allowed these same immigrants to feed at the public trough and institute
Islamic law in their neighborhoods. As a result Europe has seen a spike in in a crime wave that
has caused the deaths of many of Europe’s citizens with no signs of slowing down. This invasion
has attacked Europe with bombs, AK-47s, vehicles, stabbings, and then when the authorities try
to enforce the rule of law they scream racism and discrimination. Look at the city of London.
They elected a Muslim mayor from Pakistan. He has forbidden the police force from enforcing
the law. The rate of murder by guns and stabbings has risen. He refuses to enforce the rule of
law and has allowed the Islamic population in London to do as they please. Teresa Nay has done
the same thing on a national scale.
 Macron in France and Merkel in Germany have done the same thing to their countries. Sweden,
Denmark, Holland, and Belgium have followed suit. There are no-go zones where even law
enforcement is afraid to go. Rape, murder, and mayhem is rising at an alarming rate and the
politicians in acts of appeasement would rather allow the invaders kill their constituents rather
than enforce the law. In America we have had ISIS supporters, illegal aliens, and Soros funded

88
socialist groups kill, rape, and commit other acts of violent crime. In all cases, some politicians
seem to collaborate with the criminals against their own people. When the rule of law is
attempted to stop the mayhem, the criminals along with their enablers in the ACLU, NAACP,
Black Lives Matter, La Raza, and other socialist groups, scream racism, discrimination. It’s time
we stop allowing the inmates to run the asylum and get back to enforcing the rule of law.

89
Chapter 9: Military Corruption
121
The United States Army's finances are so jumbled it had to find trillions of dollars
through cooking the books to create an illusion that its books were balanced. The Defense
Department’s Inspector General said, “the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to
accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. The amounts
dwarf the Defense Department’s entire budget. The "forced" adjustments rendered the
statements useless because "DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their
accounting systems when making management and resource decisions."
This is one example of the severe accounting problems plaguing the Defense
Department for decades. As a result, there has been no way to know how the Defense
Department spends the public’s money which is the major portion of Congress’ annual budget.
"Where is the money going? Nobody knows," said Franklin Spinney, a retired military
analyst for the Pentagon.122 For years, the Inspector General, the Defense Department's official
auditor, inserted a disclaimer on all military annual reports. The accounting is so unreliable that
"the basic financial statements may have undetected misstatements that are both material and
pervasive." The Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) also could not make accurate
year-end Army financial statements because more than 16,000 financial data files have vanished
from its computer system.
Note: $6.5 trillion is the equivalent of $20,000 for every citizen of the US. 123 If any
business or other branch of government had balance sheets like this, it would be all over the
news with people demanding reform. Why does the military get away with this year after year?
The Pentagon has never been audited which is bewildering.
124
On Thursday, Donald Trump released a preliminary budget proposal that calls for a
$52bn increase in military spending. But just last December, a Washington Post investigation
found that the Pentagon had buried a report that outlines $125bn in waste at the Department
of Defense. Although it’s required by law, the DoD has never had an audit, something every
American, every company and every other government agency is subject to. The result is an
astounding $10tn in taxpayer money that has gone unaccounted for since 1996. 125
“Over the last 20 years, the Pentagon has broken every promise to Congress about
when an audit would be completed,” the director of the Audit, the Pentagon coalition, Rafael
DeGennaro, told the Guardian.126 “Meanwhile, Congress has more than doubled the Pentagon’s
budget.” Legislation in the early 1990s demanded that all government agencies had annual
audits, but the Pentagon has exempted itself without consequence for 20 years now.
In the meantime, the GAO and Office of the Inspector General (IG) have published an
endless stream of reports documenting financial mismanagement: $500m in aid to Yemen lost,
$5.8bn in supplies lost, $8,000 spent on helicopter gears that really cost $500. In 1986 a report
came out that the Air Force spent $37 on screws, a $7,622 coffee maker, $640 toilet seats. Of
course it must be remembered that these things were for aircraft and made of titanium alloy,

121 U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds 2016-08-19, CNBC/Reuters
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/19/reuters-america-us-army-fudged-its-accounts
122 http://thecrux.com/shocking-government-report-finds-6-5-trillion-in-taxpayer-funds-
unaccounted-for/
123 Ibid
124 2017-03-20, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentagon-never-audited-...
125 Remember 1996 was during the Clinton Administration.
126https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/20/pentagon-never-audited-
astonishing-military-spending

90
yet the fact remains that the DoD does not seem to be held accountable for the way they spend
the taxpayers’ money.127
During the election of 2016, both the Democratic and Republican platforms called for
the Pentagon’s audit. But despite broad support, the issue has remained stagnant in
Washington. When every business in the country and every other branch of government is
required to account for every dollar, how can the Pentagon get away with failing to account for
literally trillions of dollars year after year?
The interesting thing is that when I was in the Air Force, all the sections in my squadron
had to live on a budget. Our career field had 7 sections in every aerial port: Cargo, Ramp
Services, Special Handling, Passenger Services, Fleet Service, and Operations also known as
ATOC. ATOC also had 3 sections: Load Planning, Info Control and Ramp Control. We had to
account for every penny spent in our day-to-day operations. So if they were going to mandate
that the local squadrons, groups, wings, and numbered Air Forces had to account for their tax-
payer funds, why can’t headquarters at the Pentagon level do the same? Like much of what
goes on in the federal government it was do as I say not as I do.
When we deployed we had an endless parade of Congressmen, Cabinet members, and
Generals who came to the AOR to “assess the morale and readiness of the troops in the field.”
At least that’s what their travel orders said. Then we found out the real reason for their trips
was that by being in the AOR for 24 hours they got the tax-free status and combat pay that
those of us who were deployed there had to serve for a minimum of 45 days to receive. 128
When Slick-Willy went to the DMZ in Korea they gave him a pair of binoculars to look at
North Korea. When Madeline Albright (AKA as Half-Bright) came to Saudi Arabia, they gave her
a pair of binoculars to look at what? Iraq was still four hours by plane to the north. When they
published the picture in the base newspaper we all got a good laugh.
Most of the Distinguished Visitors (DVs) came for a couple of hours. They got their steak
and lobster at the chow hall, gave their “well-done troops, couldn’t do it without you” speech at
the community center. They had their photo ops and question and answer forum with specially
hand-picked troops with the usual scripted questions. Just to make sure the minions stayed on
script they were threatened with an Article 15 129 should they try to stray.
One congressman’s travel orders read that he would be there at Prince Sultan Air Base
(PSAB) for a Rest-over-night (RON). We were cautiously optimistic because we had never had a
DV RON before. However, he was there for a total of 3 hours because it was just too hot. We
were there for a minimum of 90 days but not more than 180 because then they would have had
to give us the overseas ribbon. It amazed me that the brass was surrounded by the protocol
weenies so that they were totally clueless about anything in the field. We intercepted an e-mail
between two colonels who were lamenting the cause of low morale in the military on the poor
quality of inflight meals on the rotators.130
Never mind the long deployments, the abuse of power of some in the command
structure, being locked down without an alternative to getting off base to see the sights, the
heat, the bugs, the snakes, and the intermittent air conditioning; not to mention the constant

127 http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut
128 https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Combat_Tour_for_Senators.htm. In 1943,
three senators were sent to Europe on a factfinding tour. This set the precedent for Congressmen, and
Cabinet member to conduct factfinding tours and receive overseas and combat pay in hazardous fire
zones.
129 Non-judicial punishment (or NJP) is any form of punishment that may be applied to individual
military personnel, without a need for court martial or similar proceedings. In the United States Armed
Forces, non-judicial punishment is a form of military justice authorized by Article 15 of the Uniform Code
of Military Justice
130 A rotator was the weekly flight from the AOR to Ramstein, so the troops could catch their flight
to home station.

91
stress of being in Threat Condition Charlie+ 131 Taken in small doses most GIs can handle
anything. But I had guys in my squadron who hadn’t seen their families in three years. That was
because the White House cut our manning and then the Pentagon increased our ops tempo. It
was hardly any wonder that some of my airmen were served with divorce papers when they got
home.
The Pentagon is among the elites in the government where the rules never apply to
them. The Congress, the Courts, the Executive bureaucrats in the government treat their
constituents as a bother rather than the reason for their jobs. They treat the taxpayer’s money
as their own personal piggybank. They feel entitled to do whatever they want. Audit? We don’t
need no stinking audit!
Admiral: 'Destroy' photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse: 132Less than two weeks after
the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a top Pentagon official ordered all photos of bin
Laden's corpse be destroyed or turned over to the CIA. In an e-mail dated May 13, 2011, Adm.
William McRaven, the U.S. Special Operations commander, wrote: "One particular item that I
want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point, all photos should have
been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them, destroy the evidence immediately or get
them to the redactor." 133
Shortly after the raid in Pakistan, President Obama said he would not authorize the
release of any images of the al-Qaeda leader's body. Days before the order to destroy the
photos, the watchdog group Judicial Watch and the Associated Press had separately filed a
Freedom of Information Act request for photos, videos and documents regarding bin Laden
during the raid. Typically, when a Freedom of Information Act request is filed to a government
agency under the Federal Records Act, the agency is obliged to preserve the material sought;
even if the agency later denies the request. We were told that the reason why the photos had
to be turned over or destroyed was that they didn’t want any evidence out there that could be
used by al-Qaeda to make Bin Laden a martyr. Who knows?

U.S. Navy Admiral Plus Eight Officers Indicted as Part of Corrupt Team that Worked
Together to Trade Navy Secrets for Sex Parties (Mar 14, 2017): 134 Retired U.S. Navy Rear
Admiral Bruce Loveless and David Newland, chief of staff to the Commander of the Navy’s
Seventh Fleet, along with seven other high-ranking Navy officers are charged in a federal grand
jury indictment with acting as a team of moles for a foreign defense contractor, trading military
secrets and substantial influence for sex parties with prostitutes, extravagant dinners and luxury
travel.

131 THREATCON ALPHA: (Threat level low) This condition applies when there is a general threat of
possible terrorist activity against personnel and facilities, THREATCON BRAVO: (Threat level medium)
This condition applies when an increased and more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists.
THREATCON CHARLIE: (Threat level high) This condition applies when an incident occurs, or
intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action against personnel and facilities is
imminent. Implementation of measures in this THREATCON for more than a short period probably
will create hardship and affect the peacetime activities of the unit and its personnel. THREATCON
DELTA: (Threat level critical) This condition applies in the immediate area where a terrorist attack has
occurred or when intelligence has been received that terrorist action against a specific location or
person is likely.
132 2014-02-12, USA Today/Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/12/osama-bin-laden-photo-cor...
133 https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/11/politics/e-mail-photos-destroyed-osama-bin-
laden/index.html
134 Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher (619) 546-9714 and Patrick Hovakimian (619) 546-
9718
NEWS RELEASE SUMMARY – March 14, 2017

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“According to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed today, the Navy officers worked
together to help Singapore-based defense contractor Leonard Glenn Francis and his company,
Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA), pull off a colossal fraud that ultimately cost the Navy and
the U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.”
“Navy officers were arrested early this morning in California, Texas, Florida,
Colorado and Virginia. The United States will seek their removal to face charges in San Diego.
Admiral Loveless was taken into custody at his home in Coronado Naval Base and was expected
to make his first appearance in federal court in San Diego at 2 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge
Mitchell D. Dembin. The other defendants are Captains 135 David Newland, James Dolan, Donald
Hornbeck and David Lausman; Marine Corps Colonel Enrico DeGuzman; Commander Mario
Herrera; Lt. Commander Stephen Shedd and Chief Warrant Officer Robert Gorsuch. DeGuzman
appeared before Judge Dembin today at 2 p.m.”
“The defendants faced various charges including bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery,
honest services fraud and obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal
investigators when confronted about their actions. Two defendants, Shedd and Herrera, were
active duty; the others are recently retired.”
The indictment is an authentic 78-page list of allegations in which Francis spent tens of
thousands of dollars on bribing the defendants and the actions the officers took to reciprocate.
Francis plied the officers with things like foie gras terrine, duck leg confit, ox-tail soup, $2,000
boxes of cigars and $2,000 bottles of rare cognac, plus wild sex parties in fancy hotels.
For their part, the defendants allegedly worked in concert to help Francis and GDMA
win and keep defense contracts to provide port services to U.S. Navy ships; to redirect ships to
ports controlled by Francis in Southeast Asia so he could overbill the Navy for supplies and
services such as food, water, fuel, tugboats, and sewage removal; to sabotage competing
defense contractors; to recruit new members for the conspiracy by spreading the “Glenn
Gospel” to incoming Seventh Fleet leaders; and to keep the conspiracy secret by using fake
names and foreign email service providers.
Including the previously mentioned defendants, a total of 25 named individuals had
been charged in connection with the GDMA corruption and fraud investigation. Of those, 20 are
current or former U.S. Navy officials; five are GDMA executives. Thirteen have pleaded guilty;
other cases are pending.136
“This is a fleecing and betrayal of the United States Navy in epic proportions, and it was
allegedly carried out by the Navy’s highest-ranking officers,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Alana W.
Robinson. “The alleged conduct amounts to a staggering degree of corruption by the most
prominent leaders of the Seventh Fleet; the largest fleet in the U.S. Navy; actively worked
together as a team to trade secrets for sex, serving the interests of a greedy foreign defense
contractor, and not those of their own country.”
“The defendants in this indictment were entrusted with the honor and
responsibility of administering the operations of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which is tasked
with protecting our nation by guarding an area of responsibility that spanned from Russia to
Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A.
Blanco. “With this honor and awesome responsibility came a duty to make decisions based on
the best interests of the Navy and the 40,000 Sailors and Marines under their care who put
their lives at risk every day to keep us secure and free. Unfortunately, however, these
defendants are alleged to have sold their honor and responsibility in exchange for personal
enrichment.”
“The allegations contained in today’s indictment expose flagrant corruption among
several senior officers previously assigned to the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet. The charges and

135 A Navy Captain is the same as a colonel in the other services. An admiral is the same as a
general.
136 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/navy-officer-pleads-guilty-massive-fraud-and-corruption-scandal

93
subsequent arrests are yet another deplorable example of those who place their own greed
above their responsibility to serve this nation with honor,” said Dermot F. O'Reilly, Director,
Defense Criminal Investigative Service.
“Naval Criminal Investigative Service, in concert with our partner agencies, remains
resolved to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and to help hold accountable those who
make personal gain a higher priority than professional responsibility,” Special Agent Andrew L.
Traver, NCIS Director. “It's unconscionable that some individuals choose to enrich themselves at
the expense of military security.” 137
Here’s a sampling of bribes alleged in the indictment: 138
During the U.S.S. Blue Ridge’s port visit to Sydney Australia on June 17, 2007, Francis
hosted and paid for a dinner event at the Altitude Restaurant within the Shangri-La Hotel. Some
of the defendants dined on sauté of scallops, foie gras, and beef loin for a cost of $11,898.
During dinner, defendant Gorsuch handed Francis two floppy disks containing classified port
visit information for many U.S. Navy ships, according to the indictment.
 In March 2007, Francis hosted and paid for a multi-course dinner for several of the defendants at the
Oak Door in Tokyo, Japan. The menu included foie gras, Lobster Thermidor, Sendai Tenderloin, and
for dessert, Liberté Sauvage, the winning cake of the 10th Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie 2007,
followed by cognac and cigars. Each course was paired with fine champagne or wine. Attendees
posed for photographs wearing custom-made GDMA neckties that Francis had given them as gifts.
 During one port visit in Singapore on March 9, 2006, Francis seduced the leaders of the Seventh Fleet
with foie gras terrine, duck leg confit, ox-tail soup, roasted Chilean sea bass, paired with expensive
wine and champagne, followed by digestifs and cigars. The extravagance included $600-a-bottle
Hennessy Private Reserve, $2,000-a-bottle Paradis Extra and $2,000-a-box Cohiba Cigars. According
to the indictment, the group of officers referred to themselves using various terms, such as “the Cool
Kids,” “the Band of Brothers,” “the Brotherhood,” “the Wolfpack,” “la Familia,” and “the Lion King’s
Harem.”
 The officers tried to conceal their corrupt relationships by using fictitious names to create email
addresses using foreign-based email services. This is the first-time multiple officers are charged as
working all together in a multi-layered conspiracy, pooling their individual and collective resources
and influence on behalf of Francis. In addition to performing various official acts in return for
Francis’s booty, these officers are also accused of violating many of the sworn official duties required
of them as Navy officers, including duties related to the handling of classified information and duties
related to the identification and reporting of foreign intelligence threats.
The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet represents a vital piece of the United States military’s
projection of power as well as American foreign policy and national security. The largest
numbered fleet in the U.S. Navy, the Seventh Fleet comprises 60-70 ships, 200-300 aircraft and
approximately 40,000 Sailors and Marines. The Seventh Fleet is responsible for U.S. Navy ships
and subordinate commands which operate in the Western Pacific Ocean throughout Southeast
Asia, Pacific Islands, Australia, and Russia as well as the Indian Ocean territories, as well as ships
and personnel from other U.S. Navy Fleets that enter the Seventh Fleet’s area of responsibility
(AOR). The U.S.S. Blue Ridge is the command-and-control ship of the Seventh Fleet and housed
at-sea facilities for Seventh Fleet senior officials. The Seventh Fleet’s motto: Ready Power for
Peace.139
“In addition to the nine defendants charged today, the 11 Navy officials charged so far
in the fraud and bribery investigation are: Admiral Robert Gilbeau; Captain Michael Brooks;
Captain Daniel Dusek; Commander Jose Luis Sanchez; Commander Michael Misiewicz;
Commander Bobby Pitts; Lt. Commander Gentry Debord; Lt. Commander Todd Malaki; Petty

137 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-ncis-supervisory-special-agent-sentenced-12-years-
prison-taking-bribes-defense
138 https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/leaks-feasts-and-sex-parties-how-fat-leonard-
infiltrated-the-navys-floating-headquarters-in-asia/2018/01/23/4d31555c-efdd-11e7-97bf-
bba379b809ab_story.html?utm_term=.ccedd579b82d
139 Ibid

94
Officer First Class Daniel Layug; Naval Criminal Investigative Service Supervisory Special Agent
John Beliveau; and Paul Simpkins, a former DoD civilian employee, who oversaw contracting in
Singapore.”
“Gilbeau, Brooks, Dusek, Misiewicz, Sanchez, Debord, Malaki, Layug, Beliveau, and
Simpkins have pleaded guilty. On Jan. 21, 2016, Layug was sentenced to 27 months in prison
and a $15,000 fine; on Jan. 29, 2016, Malaki was sentenced to 40 months in prison and to pay
$15,000 in restitution to the Navy and a $15,000 fine. On March 25, 2016, Dusek was sentenced
to 46 months in prison and to pay $30,000 in restitution to the Navy and a $70,000 fine; and on
April 29, 2016, Misiewicz was sentenced to 78 months in prison and to pay a fine of $100,000
and to pay $95,000 in restitution to the Navy. Beliveau was sentenced on October 14, 2016 to
12 years in prison and to pay $20 million in restitution; Simpkins was sentenced on December 2,
2016 to 72 months in prison; Gilbeau, Brooks, and Sanchez await sentencing. Pitts was charged
in May 2016 and his case is pending.”
Also charged are five GDMA executives: Francis, Alex Wisidagama, Edmund Aruffo, Neil
Peterson and Linda Raja. Three have pleaded guilty; Wisidagama was sentenced on March 18,
2016 to 63 months in prison and $34.8 million in restitution to the U.S. Navy. Francis and Aruffo
await sentencing. Peterson and Raja were extradited to the United States from Singapore in
September 2016 and their cases remain pending. 140
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the
Defense Contract Audit Agency are investigating. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark W. Pletcher and
Patrick Hovakimian of the Southern District of California and Assistant Chief Brian R. Young of
the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case. It seems this scandal dwarfs the
1991 Tailhook Scandal.141
In mid-September, while President Obama was fending off complaints that he should
have done more, done less, or done something different about the overlapping crises in Iraq
and Syria, he traveled to Central Command headquarters, at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
There he addressed some of the men and women who would implement whatever the U.S.
military strategy turned out to be. The part of the speech intended to get coverage was
Obama’s rationale for reengaging the United States in Iraq, more than a decade after it first
invaded and following the long and painful effort to extricate itself. This was big enough news
that many cable channels covered the speech live. When Obama got to the section of his
speech announcing whether he planned to commit U.S. troops in Iraq which at the time, he
didn’t. However, many people shifted their attention briefly to the TV. As soon as that was over,
they went back to their smartphones and their laptops and their Cinnabon’s as the president’s
comedy show droned on saying very little.
He told members of the military that the nation was grateful for their nonstop
deployments and for the unique losses and burdens placed on them through the past dozen
years of open-ended war. He noted that they were often the face of American influence in the
world, being dispatched to Liberia in 2014 to cope with the then-dawning Ebola epidemic as
they had been sent to Indonesia 10 years earlier to rescue victims of the catastrophic tsunami
there. He said that the “9/11 generation of heroes” represented the very best in this country,
and that its members constituted a military that was not only superior to all current adversaries
but no less than “the finest fighting force in the history of the world.” 142
This has become the way we assume the American military will be discussed by
politicians and in the press: Overblown, limitless praise, absent the caveats or public skepticism

140 Ibid
141 The Tailhook scandal was a series of incidents where more than 100 United States Navy and U.S.
Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted 83 women and 7 men, or
otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada.
142 Of course most GIs knew this was absolute BS because we all knew how much he hated the
military and the USA.

95
we would apply to other American institutions, especially ones that run on taxpayer money. A
somber moment to reflect on sacrifice. Then everyone except the few people in uniform getting
on with their usual workaday concerns.
The public attitude evident in the airport was reflected by the public’s representatives in
Washington. That same afternoon, September 17, the House of Representatives voted after a
brief debate to authorize arms and supplies for rebel forces in Syria, in hopes that more of them
would fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS, than for it. The Senate did the same the next day
and then both houses adjourned early, after an unusually short and historically unproductive
term of Congress, to spend the next six and a half weeks fund-raising and campaigning full-time.
There wasn’t any midterm race for the House or Senate in which matters of war and peace, as
opposed to immigration, Obamacare, voting rights, tax rates, the Ebola scare, were first-tier
campaign issues on either side, except for the metaphorical “war on women” and “war on coal”
as well as “tax breaks for the rich” and other meaningless slogans.
Military Spending is Broken: Why does civilian technology grow ever cheaper and more
reliable while military technology does the opposite? This reverent but disengaged attitude
toward the military, “we love the troops, they’re doing a good job, can’t do it without them,
keep up the good work, but we’d rather not think about them;” has become so familiar that we
assume it is the American norm. When Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a five-star general and the
supreme commander during WWII, led what may have in fact been the finest fighting force in
the history of the world, at the time, he did not describe it in that puffed-up way. On the eve of
the D-Day invasion, he warned his troops, “Your task will not be an easy one,” because “your
enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened.” As president, Eisenhower’s most
famous statement about the military was his warning in his farewell address of what could
happen if its political influence grew unchecked.
Then with the Korean War and on, America has fought wars of attrition, measuring wins
and losses by body counts, rather than real estate; politicians mumbling sound bites about lofty
platitudes on one hand. On the other hand they ties the hands of soldiers, sailors, marines, and
airmen with ridiculous rules of engagement (ROE) that get troops killed and if an officer or NCO
tries to protect his troops or kill the enemy, they get prosecuted for war crimes and sent to Ft.
Leavenworth for life. In fact there are at least three soldiers under Obama who had the audacity
to protect their troops by firing on the enemy. They were court-martialed and sent to Ft.
Leavenworth Federal Prison for life. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House has seen fit to
do the right thing and free them. Some say the real reason for the imprisonment on the part of
the Pentagon was CYA.143
At the end of World War II, nearly 10 percent of the entire U.S. population was on active
military duty; which meant most able-bodied men of a certain age, plus the small number of
women who were allowed to serve. Through the decade after World War II, when so many
American families had at least one member in uniform, political and journalistic references were
admiring but not awestruck. Most Americans were familiar enough with the military to respect
it while being sharply aware of its shortcomings, as they were with the school system, their
religion, and other important and fallible institutions.
Now the American military is exotic territory to most of the American public. As a
country, America has been at war nonstop since 1990 or almost 30 some years. As a public, it
has not. In fact as with most conflicts America has been involved in, the general public would
rather not think about the military. They are of the opinion out of sight, out of mind. As an
example take any veteran who has come home from WWI to the present. Their family and
friends asked them, “What was it like over there.” When the veteran begins to tell them, the
audiences’ eyes glaze over and tune out. The veteran then shuts up and refuses to talk about

143 CYA is military jargon for cover your ass, at the same time you throw your subordinate under the
bus.

96
their experiences from then on. For one no one cares. For another, people think they are
making this stuff up.
The difference between the earlier America that knew its military and the modern
America that gazes admiringly at its heroes shows up sharply in changes in popular and media
culture. While World War II was under way, its best-known chroniclers was the Scripps-Howard
reporter Ernie Pyle, who described the daily braveries and travails of the troops until he was
killed near the war’s end by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Iejima, and the Stars
and Stripes cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who mocked the obtuseness of generals and their distance
from the foxhole realities faced by his wisecracking GI characters, Willie and Joe.
From Mister Roberts to South Pacific to Catch-22, from The Caine Mutiny to The Naked
and the Dead to From Here to Eternity, American popular and high culture treated our last
mass-mobilization war as an effort deserving deep respect and pride, but not above criticism
and lampooning. The collective achievement of the military was heroic, but its members and
leaders were still real people, with all the foibles of real life.
A decade after that war ended, the most popular military-themed TV program was The
Phil Silvers Show, about a con man in uniform named Sgt. Bilko. As Bilko, Phil Silvers was that
stock American sitcom figure, the lovable blowhard, a role familiar from the time of Jackie
Gleason in The Honeymooners to Homer Simpson. Gomer Pyle, USMC; Hogan’s Heroes;
McHale’s Navy; and even the anachronistic frontier show, F Troop were sitcoms whose settings
were U.S. military units and whose villains, and schemers, and stooges, and occasional idealists
were people in uniform. American culture was sufficiently at ease with the military to make fun
of it, a stance now hard to imagine outside the military itself.
Robert Altman’s 1970 movie M*A*S*H was clearly “about” the Vietnam War, then well
into its bloodiest and most bitterly divisive period. But M*A*S*H’s perceived placement in the
Korean War of the early 1950s somewhat distanced its darkly mocking attitude about military
incompetence and authority from fierce disagreements about Vietnam. The one big Vietnam
movie to precede it was John Wayne’s resolutely prowar, The Green Berets, in 1968.
What we think of as the classic run of Vietnam films did not begin until the end of the
1970s, with The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. The TV spin-off of Altman’s film, which ran
from 1972 through 1983, was a simpler and more straightforward sitcom suggesting a culture
close enough to its military to put up with, and enjoy, jokes about it. In almost all comedies
about the military there were two side to every story. There was the comedic antics of the main
characters then there was the serious side of war with all the blood and guts associated with
combat. When I served, things hadn’t changed much.
My dad and I compared notes and basic training was about the same as when he was
inducted in 1951 as I was in 1981. In fact, we compared a lot of notes over the years. Even
though we held different AFSCs144 our overall experiences were the same. The officers who were
pretty much clueless and would have shot themselves in the proverbial foot if not for the NCOs
to show them the way. The NCOs pretty much ran the military and the grunts, the airmen, the
sailors, and marines who were the back bone of the military. Of course I saw NCO’s who thought
that treating everyone like they were still in basic training mandated that everyone give them
respect.
In today’s Iraq-Afghanistan era, in which everyone “supports” the troops but hate the
war. However, few civilians know very much about them. The pop-culture references to the
people fighting our ongoing wars emphasize their suffering and stoicism, or the long-term
personal damage they may endure. The current movies show the characters as brave and
starkly heroic. There is a lack of the two edges of the military experience. Without the comedic
aspect of the story it is only part of the whole war time experience. Even though the war is
brought to us as poignant as any reality show, most civilians don’t understand, never have and

144 Air Force Specialty Code. The Air Force equivalent of the other services’ MOS (Military
Occupation Specialty)

97
never will, and they tune out. Just as they can’t relate to the stories we used to tell them, they
don’t relate to the movie version any better. That’s OK, because we do a job that is difficult,
dangerous, sometimes demeaning, so that most civilians can go about their daily lives and not
have to worry about the bomb’s red glare. As long as they thank us for our service their job is
done.
Humor is a necessary ingredient in the wartime experience. Much has been made of
PTSD but the thing that keeps us from going bonkers even more, is the fact we have to possess a
military sense of humor to survive the stark realities of jungle rain, Artic cold, desert sands and
heat, the constant threat of terrorism, and IEDs. Of course there is the problem of abusive,
absentee, and self-aggrandizing leadership. Yet, even our humor is not accepted by the
mainstream public because once again unless you are there, the humor gets lost on most
people. When I participate in a funeral detail with my veteran brothers and sisters, we talk
about things that unless one is a veteran, no one else would ever understand. It doesn’t matter
what conflict we were in, we understand. We are brothers and sisters in arms; Or brothers by
different mothers.
As I have studied wars of the past and present some of the constants I have noticed are
the leaders. I’m surprised we won as many wars as we have. The prima donnas we call our
leadership and the egos involved got more people killed than not. Abuse isn’t just about
prototypical abuse by an authority figure. The popularized image of the officers humiliating
subordinates like a bull in a china shop is part of the phenomenon. Abuse also manifests by a
level of inaction, ineptitude, or self-concern that tacitly disregards the welfare of subordinates,
approves abuse by others, or creates a climate within which abuse is a foreseeable
consequence. When I compiled a leadership training manual for private security I used the
definition furnished by Army Doctrine Publication 6-22:
“Abusive leadership is a combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that
have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance. This leader lacks
concern for others and the climate of the organization, which leads to short- and long-term negative
effects. The abusive leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute self-interest.
Abusive leaders consistently use dysfunctional behaviors to deceive, intimidate, coerce, or unfairly
punish others to get what they want for themselves. The negative leader completes short-term
requirements by operating at the bottom of the continuum of commitment, where followers respond
to the positional power of their leader to fulfill requests. This may achieve results in the short term
but ignores the other leader competency categories of leads and develops. Prolonged use of negative
leadership to influence followers undermines the followers’ will, initiative, and potential and destroys
unit morale.”

The Air Force emphasizes positive leadership characteristics in their professional military
education. I worked for both effective and ineffective leaders. The effective ones were those
who I would follow into combat anytime and anywhere. I had their 6 because I always knew
they had mine. However, the problem does persist, and this is not mysterious. Even in healthy
organizations, it stands to reason that a small number of so-called leaders with hidden or
unnoticed character flaws will rise to leadership positions to a level of their own incompetence.
As my grandfather used to say, it’s not only the cream that rises to the top but also the scum.
Whether an organization has a healthy overall climate hinges largely on how it responds
when these flaws are crystallized through leader performance and conduct. Healthy
organizations note and deal swiftly with abusive conduct, while unhealthy ones resist doing so.
In other words those who see abusive behavior and don’t correct it have just set a new standard
for conduct.
Unfortunately, the service has adopted roughly the opposite perspective. Senior officials
pretend they have a problem-free and infallible senior cadre. But their denial cannot change
reality. From time to time, military officers and non-commissioned officers in leadership
positions misuse, abuse, or fail to adequately apply their authority. When it happens, they must

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be called to account and held to the same rules and expectations exacted as those they lead.
There is a higher standard for the leadership cadre because they are the ones the subordinates
are supposed to follow.
When this doesn’t happen, the rules are exposed as toothless and selectively
applicable. Airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines conclude that rank is an entitlement to set
aside the rules and re-make them to suit the leader’s preferences. This not only offends the
concept of “service before self,” it is the textbook definition of corruption. Authority, properly
calibrated, is more about doing the right thing and less about power-wielding. Hence when
civilians ask me if I was an officer, I smile and tell them, “No, I worked for a living.”
We had an acronym, RHIP, that meant that rank had its privileges. However, some NCOs
and officers treat their subordinates as though they were still in basic training and the leader
was the Drill Instructor. They run around yelling, threatening write ups and Article-15s. They
mess with people’s minds. I knew a guy who had been recently promoted to Tech Sergeant (E-
6). He was very proud of his promotion as well as he should have been. However, he walked
around with his chest puffed out and telling the rest of us, “Now I can demand respect.” We just
laughed because he had to learn that one only gets respect the old-fashioned way…they have to
earn it.”
The current status of the Air Force does too little to rein in destructive leaders, and in
the wake of official timidity lies the human wreckage of destroyed careers, forgotten families,
and airmen disillusioned by bearing witness to capricious or arbitrary conduct. Coupled with its
reticence to control unhinged leaders is a stubborn penchant for stonewalling that gives abusive
commanders unlimited cover. They can exploit or harass a disfavored subordinate based on an
unacknowledged pretext, safe in the knowledge that they’ll never be forced to render a
rationale beyond the vague and vacuous notion of “loss of confidence.” Through excess
tolerance and cloudiness, the military risks entrenching an unaccountable environment that
cannot carry out the nation’s air, ground, sea, and space defense requirements.
The following excerpt are representative of some of the more notable cases of deadliness
among senior Air Force officers over several years, along with what the Air Force did about it, if
anything.
2015-06-01 at 3.15.27 PM: Col. Patrick Rhatigan relieved Lt. Col. Blair Kaiser from
command of an airlift squadron in mid-2014 without showing cause, hiding from Kaiser the
reality that his job had been in jeopardy for a while based on events and perceptions beyond his
control. The firing came as Kaiser returned from a superbly-rendered five-month deployment to
Afghanistan and seemed to be based on misconduct within the unit that had manifested while
Kaiser was away; misconduct that nevertheless gained the disapproving attention of Rhatigan’s
3-star boss.
The pretext for Kaiser’s firing was a report that he’d behaved improperly as a
crewmember during his return from Afghanistan. That report turned out to be inaccurate. The
tipster who rendered that report was the officer who stood in for Kaiser while he was away, and
who stood to gain a permanent command role if Kaiser got relieved which is precisely what
happened. That stand-in was also a known protégé of Rhatigan’s boss, providing an additional
political incentive for Rhatigan to act as he did.
Investigations into Kaiser failed to substantiate a shred of misconduct, and he was never
counseled or reprimanded. Despite this, he was relegated to an inconsequential desk job for
months while he and his family awaited an unfavorable performance report and a quasi-
punitive reassignment. His career was destroyed, and Kaiser has since filed for retirement.
Rhatigan fired a total of five squadron leaders during his two-year wing command tour,
including Kaiser’s replacement and an operations officer preemptively sacked before he even
had a shot at command. In no case was a rationale beyond “loss of confidence” supplied,
leaving the rumor mill to churn plausible stories about disconnects between the wing’s
technically respected squadron commanders and the efficiency-minded Rhatigan, who came to

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his position with virtually zero tactical airlift experience and didn’t believe in some of the
mission’s training requirements.
Several of the impacted officers filed a service-level IG complaint alleging abuse of
power. This group included Kaiser, who withdrew a Congressional complaint based on personal
assurances from Gen. Welsh that he would get a fair IG process, and Lt. Col. Jim Burgess, a
widely respected operator and leader who’d had his reputation publicly maligned by Rhatigan
both before and after his sacking.
After seven months of waiting, during which the complainants were assured that their
cases were being investigated, the IG informed them that it had found insufficient cause to
investigate. It’s an absurd outcome that took unacceptably long to culminate, leaving those
involved no opportunity for meaningful redress. Rhatigan retired on May 31st, decorated with
the Legion of Merit. The case study briefly recounted here is an egregious example of
organizational politics that should be taught at service schools to illustrate the dangers of
unaccountable leadership. 145
2015-06-01 at 3.37.47 PM: Earlier in 2014, Colonel Deborah Liddick sacked Lt. Col Craig
Perry from squadron command based on differences of style, using a Command Directed
Investigation (CDI) riddled with conflicts of interest and investigative deficiencies to trump up
official allegations that could be used to justify her decision ex post. By her own admission,
Liddick decided at some point that she didn’t trust Perry but gave him no opportunity to
address her concerns. Instead, she found cover for an interim decision to set Perry aside until
she could manufacture sufficient rationale to safely make her decision permanent.
While there never emerged any foundation for her to judge Perry untrustworthy, Liddick
fed her misgivings to investigators, leading to findings upon which she could officially base the
personal choice to rid herself of a commander whose style she didn’t prefer. Nothing ever
emerged in the Perry debacle to demonstrate he’d been anything other than an excellent
commander of the unit for which he’d been hand-picked. What did emerge was a pattern of
favoritism by Liddick, who commandeered some of Perry’s key subordinates for her own staff
and “took sides” with others when they chafed against his leadership style.
None of Perry’s multiple attempts for redress got anywhere, despite constant
reassurances that senior officials were listening to his pleas. He was reassigned, removed from
the Senior Developmental Education list, blackballed from promotion, reprimanded, and given
an unfavorable performance assessment; all for daring to exercise the exact brand of creative,
people-focused leadership for which he’d been hired, but which cut against Liddick’s autocratic
management style.
Liddick retired in the middle of the scandal she created, her decisions having sown
division that continues within the Lackland NCO community to the present day. She was
decorated with the Legion of Merit. The role of self-absorbed leadership in the creation and
sustainment of the Lackland crisis is an unsettling but important subject.
2015-06-01 at 3.49.38 PM: Col. Mark Camerer, Liddick’s boss at the time, refused to
step in and police her conduct. He closed ranks and stood behind her decisions, opening an
Unfavorable Information File on Perry and ordering him on a short-notice assignment despite a
desperately ill family member. Camerer did this despite having evidence Liddick had pre-
determined to fire Perry and abused the CDI process to cover herself; a clear abuse of authority
for which she should have been disciplined. The Perry saga unfolded against the backdrop of a
notably caustic work environment at Lackland, a product of Liddick’s policies, within which
training instructors grew risk-averse and intellectually pliant to the point of paranoia, fearing
that even the smallest of errors would be career-ending and reputation tarnishing.
Notwithstanding so many problems blossoming on his watch, Camerer was promoted to
Brigadier General and reassigned to a staff billet in Europe.

145

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2015-06-01 at 3.52.33 PM: Brig. Gen. Mark Brown later publicly disparaged Perry,
according to multiple reports from a Second Air Force commander’s call. Speaking of the case,
he remarked that “you have to ask yourself, why was he fired? Officers selected for command
must be smart, or else they wouldn’t have been given the job. So, his failure must be one of
character.” Brown made these remarks just two weeks after ruling against Perry’s appeal for
redress, raising questions about objectivity and fairness. Even without those questions, publicly
disparaging a fellow officer as Brown reportedly did is a violation of both rule and custom, and a
poor example for his airmen. Brown was later promoted to Major General.
2015-06-01 at 3.55.55 PM: Maj. Gen. Margaret “Peggy” Poore, commander of the Air
Force Personnel Center (AFPC), presided over a horribly botched 2014 drawdown characterized
by ineffective communication, bait-and-switch tactics, revoked offers, consecutively broken
deadlines, unexplained delays, deceptive conduct, and midstream rule changes. The trust
hemorrhaged, and human toll exacted by AFPC’s gross ineptitude will plague the service for
years to come. Throughout this turbulent period, Poore did not make a single public statement
to manage the situation, inform airmen, or take accountability. She remains in her position.
2015-06-01 at 4.06.30 PM: Maj. Gen. Michael Keltz publicly berated a junior officer
during a non-judicial punishment hearing, remarking that the officer looked “drunker than
10,000 Indians” in a photo. After complaints were lodged by attendees, Keltz apologized and
requested retirement, which was granted by Gen. Robin Rand, the commander of Air Education
and Training Command (AETC). The hearing was part of what many term an unfolding witch
hunt, which started with a legitimate investigation into allegations of an unprofessional
relationship by a Laughlin instructor pilot but has since widened to include, reportedly, career-
ending punishments for others based on nothing more than inappropriate text messages
between professional colleagues.
While Rand is said to have ordered new investigations into some of the cases at issue,
he has thus far not commented publicly on the unfolding scandal at Lackland. Remarkable in the
Keltz matter is that the disciplinary hunting of officers raised no eyebrows, but an off-hand
remark ended his career. This reeks of politics which is so common among senior officers
because their position has nothing to do with OPRs, job skills, leadership skills, or even common
sense. For the senior and general officer corps it is strictly about politics because they are all
appointed positions.
2015-06-01 at 4.13.08 PM: Brig. Gen. Kathleen Cook, or someone acting on her behalf,
re-tweeted from her official account a Fox News message opining dourly on the political efficacy
of the President of the United States. The tweet stood for 15 hours before being erased and
Cook later claimed that she hadn’t sent it. Through a spokesman, she promised to perform an
internal investigation and take corrective measures. Sometime later, she certified that all was
well in a brief commentary, but without ever providing an explanation as to how the errant
message had been transmitted from her account.
Cook remains in her position as Director of Air Force Public Affairs (PA), her tenure
having stirred controversy about the use of taxpayer-funded resources to carry out and report
disproportionately on relative frivolities such as musical, ceremonial, and executive support
activities rather than maintaining focus on the Air Force’s core mission.
I saw the same thing when I was in a support position. Commanders would throw their
cadre of support staff under bus if they rocked the boat. NCOs would berate junior NCOs as
though they were still in Basic Training. The medical squadron in our wing would make airmen
who were being medically discharged sign a waiver releasing the Air Force from liability for their
service connected illnesses.
2015-06-01 at 4.16.30 PM: As commander of Twentieth Air Force, which oversees Air
Force nuclear missile operations at three northern-tier bases, Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein presided
over an early 2014 scandal implicating nearly 100 officers in a cheating ring that falsified
performance on certification exams. He responded by firing nine subordinate commanders;

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some of whom had been in their positions so briefly that they’d had no opportunity to
contribute to or address the underlying issues and oversaw career-ending punishments for
many of the junior officers involved. While the bloodletting made for good political theater, it
didn’t drive to the root of problems plaguing the missile community since at least 2008 and
acutely evident as organizational rot in 2013. The pretense of Weinstein’s response was an
isolated cultural issue at one base, but missile insiders attest to a known and unfolding
community-wide decline over the course of years, supporting indications of which appear in a
report charged to get to the bottom of things.
Some believe Weinstein and the zero-tolerance defect, harshly exacting, the autocratic
leadership approach he exemplifies, contributed to the abusive climate that led to systemic
cheating and other issues, an assertion not without merit given that he’s held four different
general officer positions in the community since 2008, as conditions have worsened. Officers
unfortunate enough to find themselves in the missile community in recent years have taken to
regarding themselves not as proud servants of national defense, but as “sinners in the hands of
an angry God.” If indeed Weinstein played a role in creating the culture this implies, his use of
command authority to tie off accountability just below his own level would make sense and
would be particularly cowardly. Clearly seeing him as a part of the solution, senior officials
forwarded Weinstein’s nomination for a third star and a senior nuclear post on the Air Staff.
2015-06-01 at 4.31.53 PM: Last but not least, Maj. Gen. James Post warned an
auditorium full of airmen that if they registered personal opinions with Congress that didn’t jibe
with the service’s position on the A-10, they’d be committing treason. His actions broke federal
law by seeking to restrict protected communications. An IG investigation found Post culpable,
and he was reprimanded and removed from his job. This seems at first, like a reasonably
accountable outcome, but a few facts raise questions.
First, the evidence substantiating Post’s conduct in the IG investigation was available to
Gen. Welsh all along, having been furnished to the Chief of Staff by none other than Post
himself right after it happened. Yet Welsh waited nearly three months for the official report to
be published before taking any action. During this time, the political process theoretically
warped by Post continued to unfold, casting doubt on the fidelity of Congress’ understanding of
the A-10 debate.
Second, Post’s career has not been derailed. In fact, he’s reportedly been selected for a
role as a senior deputy to the Air Staff’s Director of Operations, where he will wield much more
direct influence over A-10 deliberations than in his former role. By not punishing Post until
compelled and elevating him higher in the organization, the service risks sending the message
that it didn’t truly disapprove of his conduct.
2015-06-01 at 4.35.16 PM: The lone white knight galloping to Post’s defense was retired
Gen. Roger Brady, who recklessly proposed that airmen talking to Congress were
insubordinate.146 While Brady’s words earned him quick repudiation, we shouldn’t be surprised
he’d resist accountability for senior officer missteps. After all, Brady’s tenure in the driver’s seat
of Air Force personnel policy saw the fielding of the worst utility uniform in service history, the
myopic trading of 30,000+ manpower positions for F-22 money that never materialized, the loss
of support staff from Air Force squadrons, and the establishment of an unsustainable ops tempo
for airmen and families. Brady was held accountable for none of this and went on to a fourth
star despite being officially admonished for failing to conduct the service’s assignment process
within established budget authority.
In the current Air Force system, someone at the level of squadron command or below
who steps out of line is dealt with swiftly and severely, assumed to be both culpable and ill
intentioned. By contrast, a colonel or general who creates systemic or climatic pathologies is
given a weighty presumption of honorability and handled with kid gloves. This is exactly the

146 This was an unwritten rule that airmen do not write “Congressionals.” That is letter to their
congressmen. Anyone who did, could have been given an Article 15.

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reverse of what should be happening. Expectations should be higher the further up the chain of
command someone ascends. That this concept has been systemically reversed indicates the Air
Force has lost its way on accountability.
I can vouch for the fact that we were forbidden to write “congressionals.” I did twice
and all I will say about that is the old saying is “shit rolls downhill” as everyone scurries to CYA
(Cover Your Ass). Congress should take note, as should the Secretary of Defense. Consistent
excellence cannot be expected from an organization with this problem, and the internal decay
masked by stonewalling and cloudiness could prevent recognition of more serious maladies
until far past the point where national defense is compromised.
This inventory represents a few years of unaccountable leadership, and it’s the tip of a
dysfunctional iceberg. A few years more is not something the service can or should envision.
The Air Force’s culture is clearly brewing abuse. Air Force CINC could get every other policy
solution right and still fail if those he charges to carry out policy are too self-concerned or
narrow to lead morally and ethically, with fairness never in doubt and the rank and file
sufficiently inspired to carry out the mission.
Without a course correction, the Air Force risks a repeat of the catastrophic moral
meltdown that occurred after Vietnam, with teamwork torn asunder and everyone placing self-
interest before service. Given these stakes, it’s time for the service to reform in this most critical
area. That reform should start at the top, with the Joint Chiefs acknowledging there is a
problem, not just in the Air Force but all the services. On Capitol Hill, several top U.S. military
leaders from across the armed services presented a sobering case to Congress: U.S. military
readiness is the lowest it has been in decades, leaving it unprepared to defend America’s
interests at home and abroad. However, rather than finding the problem and fixing it, they look
for a scapegoat and hand out punishments.
I had three nephews in the Air Force. One of them was a crew chief on F-16s. He told
me that they were cannibalizing other F-16s that were grounded for maintenance in order to
keep the majority of the squadron flying. In testimony before the Senate and House Armed
Services committees, the vice chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force
articulated pressing concerns about the state of their branches’ readiness to respond to
conflicts overseas or attacks on the homeland. Some of these deplorable conditions goes back
to the Clinton Administration who cut the military to the point that George W was still trying to
rebuild it even in his second term. Then Obama cut more and like Clinton increased the ops
tempos so that the services were doing more with less. Then we found ourselves wondering
why so many of our troops were unnecessarily killed and wounded in the AOR. The hearing
highlighted substantial readiness and capacity issues within each of the services:
 Army: Of 58 total brigade combat teams, only three are considered ready for combat.
 Navy: The Navy’s fleet is the smallest it has been in nearly 100 years. This makes ship repairs
harder to complete, as those vessels are needed on the waterways.
 Marine Corps: Eighty percent of Marine aviation units do not have even the minimum
number of aircraft they need for training and basic operations.
 Air Force: The Air Force is the smallest and, in terms of many of its aircraft, oldest it has ever
been. The service had 8,600 aircraft in 1991 while today it only has 5,500, and those aircraft
are an average of 27 years old. Worse, fewer than half of those aircraft are prepared to take
on and defeat our adversaries.147
These troubling findings by the services echo those laid out by The Heritage Foundation
in its 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength, which rated the Army as “Weak” and the other three
branches as “Marginal” in terms of their ability to fight and win major conflicts. What was

147https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/02/10/defense_leaders_agree_us_military_rea
diness_is_at_a_dangerous_low_110787.html

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noteworthy about the vice chiefs’ testimony beyond these startling numbers, however, was
their brutal honesty.148
For eight years under the Obama administration, top defense officials were largely
silenced and prevented from articulating their concerns about budget cuts and decreased
readiness to policymakers with the ability to reverse undeniable decline. What this hearing and
other recent public statements showed, however, is that defense leaders believe they can now
begin to speak openly about the challenges they face, and that Congress and the administration
can address these negative trends especially those caused by diminishing resources. Overall, the
Obama military was more concerned with social justice and political correctness in the military
rather than national defense and readiness to perform their missions.
Make no mistake budget cuts, especially sequestration cuts implemented
indiscriminately across the board beginning more than five years ago, have been devastating to
the U.S. military. Look at flying hours, for example. Navy, Marine, and Air Force pilots have all
seen their flying hours substantially reduced because there simply is not enough money to fly
sorties. This has led to pilots being unable to maintain cockpit skills, which like everything else,
will atrophy without constant tuning and training. Worse, this inability to maintain proficiency
has led to lethal accidents and loss of aircraft, which may have been preventable to say nothing
of the danger of thrusting our service men and women into combat without giving them the
opportunity to train and maximize their readiness.
John Venable, a Heritage senior research fellow for defense policy and retired F-16 pilot
with more than 4,400 hours in the cockpit, has written that the 2015 Air Force average of 150
flight hours per year per pilot (just under three a week) means “the most current and qualified
Air Force fighter pilots are flying at a rate so low that we would have considered them unfit for
combat in the 80s and 90s.” And this is 20 to 30 years later, in a world where our enemies have
become stronger, more advanced, and more aggressive. Even if the budget for flight hours
existed, however, in many cases it simply would not matter, because the majority of the
services’ aircraft are not even considered flyable.
According to multiple reports just this week, about two-thirds of the Navy’s fighter/attack
aircraft and more than half of the Marine Corps’ total aircraft fleet are unable to even get off
the ground. These problems are merely the tip of the iceberg. The American people can expect
to hear more accounts like these in the coming months as we learn more about the declining
state of U.S. military readiness.
Congress and the Trump administration can act to begin reversing this trend. Eliminating
sequestration cuts implemented by the Budget Control Act is a necessary first step. Congress
should also allocate more resources to the military in the fiscal year 2018 budget. Commanders
must be given the ability to both field a potent fighting force today, and invest in modernizing
aircraft, weapons, and equipment for tomorrow. Both must be priorities for this administration,
under the leadership of Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
The Trump administration and Congress have a chance to reverse the decline in
America’s military. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not the Congress will
work with them to fix the budget. 149 Of course a recent report describes that for the
Department of Defense there are several billions of dollars unaccounted for. The Congress
needs to call for an audit of the Pentagon before they provide anymore funding. The Pentagon
needs to get its house in order before they can expect to be given anymore taxpayers’ hard
earned dollars to waste.
But our views and discouraging findings don't detract for a moment from the many
accomplishments and sacrifices made by the vast majority of good men and women out there
who continue to wear "Air Force Blue" with honor and integrity. I’m sure there are similar
problems in the other services because liberals all hate the military equally. However, I can only

148 https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-unaffordable-pentagon-audit
149 MilitaryCorruption.com

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speak for the Air Force because that is where I was raised as an Air Force brat and where I
served for 21 years.
Our problem is with poor leadership and generals who "look the other way." Take, for
example, the shameful Jill Metzger "cover-up." Morale is hurt by the widespread perception
within the ranks that there are two standards of justice: One for the powerful and connected,
the other for everyone else. That is not just a military phenomenon but a universal government
and corporate phenomenon.
If you’re an Air Force general, you have a "get out of jail free" card: Consider this
startling fact. In the history of the USAF beginning in 1947, not one general officer has ever
been convicted at court martial. Does that mean that when an Air Force general officer pins on
his first star he is immune to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)? Or does he just
sprout angel's wings? Ask laughing boy General Thomas J. Fiscus who had sex with two dozen
female subordinates and got off with a "slap-on-the wrist" and a fat retirement pension. He was
even spared the indignity of an Article 32 preliminary hearing. Let the lower ranks be hauled
into the stocks. Fiscus was a two-star general and chief JAG officer of the Air Force. Never mind
the terrible example of "different spanks for different ranks" he set. As long as Tommy was part
of the top brass, he knew he'd never fully account for his crimes.
JAG colonel disbarred in two states - no legal law license: How about Col. Michael T.
Murphy, yet another highly-placed JAG who, it was discovered some twenty years later, had
been disbarred as a lawyer from two states and had functioned without a legal law license in
the Air Force all these years? We wonder how many papers he signed sending some unlucky
sergeant or unimportant officer to Leavenworth, all the while, knowing he himself was a fake, a
phony and a fraud.
Murphy even got a sweeter deal than Fiscus. The corrupt two-star took a pay scale bust
to colonel. "Mikey" got no punishment at all! Seems his lawyers got him off on a technicality."
Note: no "technicalities" are available to enlisted people and junior officers.
Four stars for Metzger’s protector: Now a new message is being sent to the force. Lt.
Gen. Gary North, one of the most arrogant and obnoxious Air Force generals in history, is going
up for his fourth star. This has been "signed off" on by Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton "The
Baboon" Schwartz, and of course our esteemed commander-in-chief, the non-veteran who
promised suckers in 2015 "real change." Yeah, right. Obama.
100% "disabled" Jill Metzger runs in two road race marathons: The elevation of North
to four-star rank is great news for Maj. Jill Metzger, awarded a 100% "disability" pension. She
ran in both the Air Force and Marine Corps Marathons in 2015. North is the pampered poster
girl's chief protector. You don't have to wonder too hard "why." This back-stabbing general, who
destroyed the careers of two Air Force officers despite the recommendation of their
investigating officer they were blameless. It seems the "men in blue" duked it out with a
belligerent punk from Blackwater in Afghanistan, and Gen. North, always eager to prostrate in
the direction of the White House, tossed his pilots overboard to get some brownie points.
Metzger's alleged crimes: false official statement, AWOL, disobeying a direct order,
adultery, fraternization and conduct unbecoming an officer; not counting the millions of
taxpayer dollars wasted on the search for her imaginary abductors in Kyrgyzstan; don't bother
Gary North one bit. Why, he was in top spirits when she returned to Manas AFB, Kyrgyzstan via
the main bunker.
A face like Hermann Goering: Hermann Goering's unpleasant appearance was the
former boss of the German Luftwaffe, for you youngsters out there who wouldn't know
otherwise. Genera Metzger, whose bloated face oddly reminds us of Goering, made the mistake
of trying to bribe two Air Force enlisted force protection guards in the bunker with his
"challenge coins" so they would "forget" what they saw and not mention Metzger to any pesky
media types. The general didn't know that both guards are regular readers of
MilitaryCorruption.com.

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One of the things that amazes me about the military in general is the way we fight wars. We
don’t ever seem to learn our lessons. We keep trying to fight the noble fight. We focus on
logistics when we should focus on command and control. From the Revolution to the
Afghanistan we go after hills with no names, railroad tracks leading to nowhere, mud huts that
only get turned over to the enemy. We have rules of engagement that will land anyone in
Leavenworth if they violate them no matter how stupid the rules appear. Lord Acton had it right:
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
The problem the military faces is that it seems to be stuck relieving commanders after
they fail, instead of figuring out how those people got to be in charge in the first place. We had
a joke that would be funny if not so true: I know how he got in the Air Force. How he got
promoted is what I don’t understand. I’ve worked for some excellent even superb officers.
However, I have also worked for some who were incompetent, clueless, and downright stupid.
I remember being introduced to a 3-star. He told my commander, “Oh yes I remember
Sgt Lemon, he locked me in a closet.” I was standing in front of a general nicknamed Wrong-Way
Weinberger at the chow hall. I paid for my meal and went on my way. Later that day, I got a
phone call from my squadron stating that General had seen me not pay for my meals. I told the
Sarge, that I most certainly did. I had given the clerk a $20-dollar bill. I replied that the General
was crazy. Of course they took the general’s word over mine.
The reason he was called wrong way was that he had flown up to Montana for a
meeting. The meeting was the ANG base in Helena. The general landed at Malmstrom AFB at
Great Falls. The security police jacked him up. He told them to call Hill AFB to make sure he was
who he said he was. They did and asked to speak to their commander. They told the cops that
he was the one they had jacked-up in the tarmac. Later he was hot-dogging in the west desert
and lost his wingman. Other officers should have never been in the Air Force let alone in
command. There was the squadron ops officer at PSAB who hate the port. He harassed us by
jacking-up our follow-me truck, load crews, and duty officers simply in the performance of our
duties.
Then the Lt. that was upset because we wouldn’t give him permission for an early take-
off time. He had a full download for us and we had a full upload for him. By the time we would
have had him loaded he would have busted his drop-dead time and would have to go into crew
rest. Well he didn’t like that answer and when he came in he popped 8 tries and burned up 6
brakes as he landed. He ended up staying for two weeks instead of a few hours.
Then there was the commander at Travis who was nicknamed the red headed dragon
lady. A few years later we went to Kadena AFB, who was the squadron commander there? The
red headed dragon lady. She earned the nickname for good reason. Finally, when I was the
NCOIC of Mobility and Disaster Preparedness, our squadron had developed and tracking
program for combat readiness: training, shots, exercises and other factors that made our guys
worldwide qualified for deployment. It was a good program and very user friendly. We had tried
to get the Air Force to adopt it service wide. In response they came out with their own program,
known as Logmod. It was not user friend. It was manpower intensive and difficult to use.
I sent an e-mail to the administrator in Alabama about the problems I found. Somehow
the e-mail found its way to the Pentagon. As I’ve mentioned earlier, shit rolls downhill. A general
sent a response down to a colonel, who sent down to group, then to wing and finally to the
squadron commander. Of course I was at the bottom of the hill. Then after whole thing blew
over, I finally received a response from the system administrator where he told me they were
trying to address my concerns. So as I said before. I was enlisted. I worked for a living.
Way too often, there’s just a high–profile relief of some kind. For example, Lt. Col.
Armando Gonzalez was relieved of command of Marine Wing Support Squadron 371 “after an
investigation determined he had created a noxious work environment and allegedly made racist,
sexist and other unacceptable comments about personnel who worked for him,” Marine Corps
Times reported in November 2016. His firing ended his reign of abuse, but how did he do what

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he did so far in his career in the first place? Like this and other cases, the contaminated leader is
gone, and the service goes on thinking the problem has been solved. Until the next one. To end
this cycle, the military has to start fixing the problem before they become commanding officers,
not after.150
Why do we see cases of commanders so immature that they throw things during
meetings or put master chiefs in “time outs” like children? Every commander has spent years
doing what the institution judged as the right things; completing key assignments, going to the
right schools, and getting good evaluations the whole way. Were those leaders holding those
impulses inside for nearly 20 years as they climbed the ladder, just waiting to take a unit’s
colors, whereupon they could finally start assaulting their subordinates? I don’t think so. I think
it may have started way back in their basic officer’s training whether it be service academies,
OCS, OTS, or Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC)
Perhaps the problem stems from a lax command selection process. Selection for
command is first a product of the promotion rates for O-2 to O-5. An officer has to successfully
pass through four promotion boards of increasing difficulty. O-5s are in the top third of their
original contemporaries, purely by virtue of their promotion boards. Many more of those
officers’ potential competitors leave the service through self-attrition for a variety of reasons.
Then, the services select the best of those to slate the various commands. At least
according to the standards the military has set for them, those selected for command are an
extremely elite group. After another round of culling for O-6 command, doubly so. If the system
is working as advertised, there shouldn’t be any abusive leaders, or at least so few that they are
the stuff of legend, not semi-regular characters in military life. That they seem to exist in any
numbers means that the system isn’t working when it comes to selecting qualities desired in
leaders.
A “abusive leader” is different from just a poor leader. A poor leader is one who fails his
mission or his people because of incompetence. An abusive leader fails at the mission and fails
his people because of emotional instability. His command fails by both external and internal
measures. Just being incompetent or ineffective doesn’t make a leader abusive. While a leader
with those traits can definitely be difficult to serve under, a competent support staff can mask a
commanding officer’s technical incompetence.
Simultaneously, narcissism, self-centeredness, and cruelty make a poor leader, but not
necessarily an ineffective one. In fact, being self-centered can be an advantage in many ways. It
helps with self-confidence, which is certainly advantageous. Moreover, it enables one to use
other people with neither conscience nor regret. This form of subjective idealism is sometimes a
military superpower. Look no further than someone such as Gen. George Patton or Gen Douglas
McArthur. Whether you call it self-confidence or narcissism, Patton’s attitude defined his
command, both in its highs, such as beating Montgomery to Messina, and its lows, such as
slapping a hospitalized soldier.
But it’s the combination of selfishness and incompetence that makes an abusive leader.
And that’s why it’s so hard to screen out. Selfishness by itself actually helps many leaders
ascend the ladder. As long as they’re competent, they may be demanding commanders, but
bearable, because their units are successful. Eventually, though, an abusive leader reaches a
level beyond his capability. Like a drowning victim, he flails for something to grab on to in order
to keep afloat. In this case, it’s his subordinates. A drowning selfish leader will climb on top of
his followers to keep his head above water. Eventually that strategy fails, and that’s when he’s
finally relieved because like in a double drowning both go under.
The extreme example of this are the soldiers who are in Fort Leavenworth for false
convictions based on dishonest testimony from NCOs and officers in the soldier’s chain of
command. Not were the false testimonies used to convict in the court martial cases, but

150https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2016/11/29/crush-their-nuts-
marines-determine-working-for-this-commander-was-pure-hell/

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evidence that could have exonerated the soldiers were withheld. Senior officers and NCOs
circled the wagon and began a campaign of CYA. When the cases were appealed the chain
refused. So the soldiers sit in prison on a sentence of 20 years to life.
WASHINGTON – A new wrinkle was added this week in the effort to free an Army first
lieutenant convicted in the killing of Afghans – a pardon request to President Donald Trump.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine combat veteran, sent a letter to Trump asking
him to personally review the case and pardon 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who was sentenced to 19
years at Fort Leavenworth for unpremeditated murder after his platoon shot to death two
Afghans while on patrol in 2012. Lorance is appealing the court-martial conviction, which also
included attempted murder and making a false official statement.
“This is one of those cases that stands out as a stupid decision where someone who
should not be in jail is going to jail,” Hunter said. “And not just that, a platoon commander who
was on the ground and in his mind made a life-and-death decision in real time. Again, this is
combat.”
Trump was asked about Lorance’s case during a Jan. 26 interview with conservative TV
commentator Sean Hannity and said only that, “We’re looking at a few of them.” If the
president agrees to Hunter’s request, he will be opening a murky and emotionally charged
criminal case.
Fellow soldiers with the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment gave damning testimony
against Lorance during his trial and were not prosecuted. A staff sergeant told the New York
Times that the killings were “straight murder” directed by Lorance as platoon leader.
Hunter, who made the same pardon request to President Barack Obama, has joined
with Lorance’s mother and advocates such as Hannity and fellow conservative commentator
Allen West in calling for leniency. Online petitions and a Facebook page have rallied support.
“For the record, Clint never fired his weapon,” Hunter wrote to Trump in the
Wednesday letter. “More importantly, previously withheld information now confirms forensic
evidence linked DNA found on detonated roadside bombs to the DNA of the Afghan men.”
John Maher, Lorance’s defense attorney and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve,
said evidence linking the Afghan men to bomb-making networks and the battlefield deaths of
soldiers could have exonerated the lieutenant.
But the evidence was not considered during the trial and only later discovered by
defense attorneys during a search for the men in a biometric database used by the military in
Afghanistan to identify enemies, Maher said. The evidence is now the crux of Lorance’s appeal.
“So we ran them and they all popped. Their fingerprints were on roadside bombs
recovered at grid coordinators where U.S. paratroopers had been killed and injured,” he said.
“The people who were killed may have been village elders, but they were also bomb makers.”
If the evidence had been presented earlier, Maher said Lorance would likely have never
been convicted or even charged by a court-martial.
Maher made an early clemency request in March to Army Secretary Patrick Murphy
during the ongoing appeal, citing the new evidence, but the secretary declined to intervene in
the case.
Lorance claimed he ordered the attack on three motorcyclists killing two because he
was trying to protect his platoon in a dangerous area frequented by the Taliban.
But during the Fort Bragg trial in 2013, prosecutors painted a picture of a soldier
without combat experience who pushed his soldiers to threaten, endanger and kill local Afghans
and who then attempted a cover-up. He was convicted of unpremeditated murder, attempted
murder, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat, eliciting a false official statement and
obstructing justice.
Lorance was put in charge of leading the platoon during a deployment in Kandahar in
July 2012 after the previous leader was wounded. Soldiers there had suffered multiple
casualties recently. Prosecutors’ court documents tell an incriminating story of how Lt Lorance

108
used coercion to get soldiers to kill innocent Afghanis and then cover it up, giving his superiors a
false report. However, with the new evidence and the exposure that soldiers had lied under
oath Lorance may be given his appeal and have his conviction overturned.
The military can certainly be more proactive in ensuring the competence of its leaders.
That’s only half of the problem. The Royal Navy’s Perisher course is a good example of a way to
root out incompetent commanders. In order to be eligible for submarine command, their
skippers must graduate a demanding four-month tactical syllabus culminating in several multi-
ship exercises. The attrition rate approaches 50%. Getting rid of incompetent people doesn’t
require much effort, just the will to do so. Actually the incompetent people will wash
themselves out of the course. Just look at the special ops groups in the military. They have the
highest washout rate of any training courses in the US armed forces.
But eliminating selfish leaders is much harder. That’s not so black and white. There is no
such thing as a truly objective evaluation system. There will always be to some extent a hint of
the subjective in every evaluation. Even using the basic job description, skills, knowledge and
duties. It still comes down to the supervisor versus the subordinate’s opinion. Example is the
APR/OPR151 system the Air Force uses for evaluations.
The current system is known as an EPR152. However, the same problems exist no matter
what they’re called. Both are based on a sliding scale with a section for a job performance
narrative. If the supervisor likes the subordinate, he will do well. If the supervisor doesn’t like
the subordinate, the subordinate is screwed. The other perpetual problem is what is called
inflated scores. The scores range from a 1 which is low to a 9 which is high. If the subordinate
gets an average of 5, his or her career is over. So to show the subordinate he is outstanding he
will get 8s and 9s.
Addressing selfishness among officers is a tough order which many enlisted might say is
an impossible one but is the key to eliminating abusive leadership. It’s not only selfishness that
produces bad leaders but the feeling of entitlement, me versus them, I’m in charge and
therefore they owe me respect, a sense of elitism especially among officers from the
academies. In the Air Force there is a pecking order. The top are the fighter and bomber jocks.
Then the cargo pilots, and then the non-line officers or officers in a support capacity. I
remember a former F-16 jock who was sent to our squadron of port dawgs 153 to wait for a
position to open up at the wing level, so he could get back in his jet. He commented to several
of us, “How can you stand to work with these trash haulers?” We just reminded him that when
his F-16 needs a part just remember how they arrive.
We need to be looking at the culture from the day a potential officer joins the military
through their professional military education and modify it to reward selflessness. One of the
biggest differences between any of the officer candidates schools, the academies and ROTC
programs and enlisted recruit training is that boot camp is about building a unit; emphasizing
teamwork; and OCS is almost purely based on building a cadre of elitists. While maintaining the
screening function through attrition at OCS is important, the standard of excellence needs to be
based more on which candidates are successful in teams.
It further means revising entrance requirements for officers to reflect emotional
intelligence. It means making competitions among teams, not between individuals, the focus of
formal training schools. It means de-emphasizing “honor graduate” of whatever course, and
doubly emphasizing honor platoon, squad, or even study group. It may take a generation to
make a difference, but it’s the only way to address this particular lack of character. “Inspect
what you expect.” The military inspects, and grades officers based on individual effort, yet it
expects people to succeed as teams. No wonder results don’t always match expectations.

151 Airman/Officer Performance Report


152 Enlisted Performance Report
153 Port dawgs work at an Aerial Port Squadron. We are responsible for processing and shipping
military cargo and passengers.

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William Lind: Corruption In The Corps? August 5, 2004: In an earlier column, "Two
Marine Corps," the author alluded to the increasing corruption he sees at Quantico and in
Marine Corps Headquarters. Some Marines wonder if the organization is taking bribes,
sneaking floozies in to their barracks, or taking kickbacks from defense contractors. Though that
kind of corruption is always worrisome, the Corruption he was talking about is subtler, and
perhaps also more dangerous. It is corruption of institutional purpose. 154
When he first went to Washington in 1973 to join the staff of Senator Robert Taft, Jr. of
Ohio, he assumed naively that our armed forces defined themselves in terms of winning battles,
campaigns and wars. Senator Taft thought that is what they should be about, which is why
working for him was both a pleasure and an honor. But he quickly discovered that for three of
the four, victory was defined less in military than in bureaucratic and political terms.
The Army, the Navy and the Air Force had already lost sight of their institutional
purposes. What they were about, at senior levels, was selling programs and getting money from
Congress. Whether the program had any relevance to war was not important, so long as it sold.
At the lower levels and this has been since the Korean War, we fight wars of attrition, (although
WWI was also a war of attrition) In other words, we don’t fight to win battles, we fight for
numbers; a score such we did in Vietnam; a body count. In WWII there was a front. The soldiers
knew where the enemy was and fought to move in that direction.
In Vietnam, there was no front. The enemy was not always identifiable. So the pentagon
had to find a way to quantify the war and began using body counts to determine who was
winning and who was losing the war. According to the body count, the US was winning the war.
In actuality the North Vietnamese was able to use their support among the left in the States to
change public opinion against the war and ultimately Nixon cut his losses and pulled us out of a
war we should never have become embroiled in because the will to win wasn’t there. It was a
war of statistics not strategy or tactics.
At that time, and for many years more, up until the mid-1990s, there was one service
that stood out as an exception to the corruption of institutional purpose: the Marine Corps. At
all levels, including the most senior, the Marine Corps was still about war, not money. Sadly, the
Marine Corps is no longer an exception. As has long been true with the other services, now, if
you talk about war at Quantico or HQMC; especially Fourth Generation war, the kind of war
Marines are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan; you are neither right nor wrong, you are simply
irrelevant. Fourth Generation war does little to justify programs and increase budgets, so it is
not of interest. The "real world" is the world of budget politics, not war.
Today’s War in the Middle East is not much different. There is no front. The enemy
doesn’t wear uniforms. They use unconventional warfare. They use human shields to protect
themselves from the coalition forces. They use IEDs and suicide bombers to attack friendly
forces. To make matters worse the Pentagon under Obama issued Rules of Engagement that got
more soldiers and marines killed at the cost of saving enemy combatant lives. The rules are
meant to prevent attacks on innocent civilians. However, when the enemy doesn’t wear
uniforms and uses innocent civilians as human shields, the rules are pretty negated by
circumstances. I guess Obama wanted to protect his Muslim friends in Iraq and Afghanistan who
are members of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.
This type of corruption, corruption of institutional purpose, is subtle. Few Marines, or
soldiers, sailors, or airmen for that matter, ever make an explicit, conscious choice to become
corrupt in this way. They merely accept the rules of the game as given and play by them, and
that is all it takes. As members of hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations, they have been
encouraged since their first day at OCS to play by the rules. Thinking about whether those rules
were valid was "above their pay grade" and still is, even when they become generals. The junior
officers just pass the buck up the chain and don’t worry if what they are doing makes sense or is
good for the mission.
154 Lind: Corruption In The Corps?

110
Ironically, corruption of institutional purpose was one of the reasons the Soviet Union
fell. It is inherent in socialism, because it is a natural tendency of government bureaucracies.
Absent an annual balance sheet that shows either black or red ink, there is little mechanism to
keep an institution's focus on the outside world where its intended purpose lies.
"The Pentagon now controls the world's largest planned economy." No one blinks. It is
fair to say that the American armed forces are now little more than pawns in battle dress
uniforms. They march to the beat of the politically correct drums and in the process put our
nation’s security and their military mission in jeopardy.

111
Chapter 10: Labor Unions

The Teamsters (International Brotherhood of Teamsters) is an example of how


the civil RICO155 process can be used. For decades, the Teamsters were substantially
controlled by La Cosa Nostra AKA Mafia. Since 1957, four of eight Teamster presidents
were indicted, yet the union continued to be controlled by organized crime elements.
The federal government has tried unsuccessfully to remove the criminal influence from
this 1.4 million-member union by using the civil process. Nearly fifty years after John F.
Kennedy first condemned corrupt leadership in the American labor movement, it is still
plagued by rampant corruption, embezzlement, racketeering and influence from
numerous organized crime organizations. From small-stakes theft to multi-million-dollar
embezzlement schemes, labor leaders continue to violate the trust of the members
they claim to represent.
The labor movement, as is many organizations, is nothing but the sum of its
many parts; millions of working Americans who’ve entrusted union leaders to spend a
portion of their hard-earned salary for the benefit of the collective good. Financially
speaking, the sum of the movement’s parts totals more than $10 billion dollars annually
in mandatory dues and controls another $400 billion in financial assets in strike funds,
pension plans, and health care benefits.
In fact, in just the last five years, hundreds and perhaps thousands of labor
leaders at all levels of the movement have been convicted of embezzlement,
corruption, racketeering, or engaging in organized crime. The problem is rampant,
getting worse, and yet the unions refuse to address it.
The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act’s (LMRDA) reliance on
self-government, public disclosure, and ultimate deterrence has failed; The Department
of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has investigated and
prosecuted union leaders for embezzling more than $100 million in union dues since
2001; Investigations by the DOL’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates labor
racketeering and organized crime’s influence within the labor movement, has resulted
in more than $1 billion in fines, restitutions, and forfeitures; Fewer than 5 percent of
unions audited by the DOL received unqualified passes. Examples of Compliance Audit
Closing Letter Notices:
On the Waterfront: Union Leaders and Labor Racketeering

LABOR RACKETEERING ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS


Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Cases opened 105 125 124 135 103 130 93 112 96
117
Cases closed 109 130 144 115 107 122 111 92 117
130
Cases referred
for prosecution57 74 66 87 88 105 80 74 81
105

155 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

112
Indictments 161 218 181 260 322 271 198 195 111
139
Convictions 92 154 120 143 196 241 183 214 146
112
Fines, restitutions, forfeitures, and civil monetary actions ($ in millions)
$42.5 $105.9 $27.9 $36.5 $187.9 $69.2 $27.1 $24.2 $76.2 $72.9

OLMS ENFORCEMENT STATISTICS FINANCIAL INTEGRITY


2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

In 9 1 1 1 1 1 9 N 1
dictm 8 6 3 0 1 1 9 A 23
ents 6 2 9 4 8
C 1 9 1 1 9 1 1 N 1
onvic 0 0 5 1 7 2 1 A 21
tions 2 2 1 9 8

EXAMPLES OF UNION THREATS, VIOLENCE, AND INTIMIDATION:


1. Union Supporter Issues Death Threats to GOP Lawmakers in Wisconsin, March 10,
2011 | DailyCaller.com.
“Yesterday, 15 Republican state senators received a chilling, death threat-laden email from a
union supporter. The Daily Caller has reprinted that email. Here’s the text:
Please put your things in order because you will be killed, and your families will also be killed
due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you
and your families, then it will save the rights of 300,000 people, and also be able to close the deficit
that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on
possible scenarios in which you will die…We have also built several bombs that we have placed in
various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent. This includes: your house,
your car, the state capitol, and well, I won’t tell you all of them because that’s just no fun…Please
make your peace with God as soon as possible and say goodbye to your loved ones. We will not wait
any longer. YOU WILL DIE!!!!
This is scary stuff and must be taken seriously, especially given the history of violence, coercion
and intimidation in the American labor movement …”

2. State Worker Bloodied by SEIU for Exposing Corruption, November 2009,


BigGovernment.com
“A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local
SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged
corruption within the union …”

3. Union-Controlled NLRB Approves Union Thuggery in Union Elections, March 13, 2011,
RedState.com
“Unbelievably, on March 11, the union-controlled NLRB ruled that threats of physical violence by
pro-union supporters is not coercive:
“On August 22, 2008 the NLRB conducted an election where, by a vote of 14 to 12, the red-
shirted Communications Workers of America (CWA) won the vote. Following the election, the
employer filed objections, requesting the NLRB to overturn the election based upon alleged threats
of physical violence made by pro-union supporters to their co-workers: Specifically, the objections

113
cite a statement by pro-union employee Anthony Hodges to employee Matthew Abel that Hodges
could 'whip employee Dennis Sheil’s ass' or sabotage his work; an anonymous telephone threat to
employee Lou Mays that the caller would 'get even” with him if he “backstabbed us'; and statements
by pro-union employee Chris Verbal to a group of three or four employees that Verbal would 'bitch
slap' two other employees, who were not present at the time, or 'whip their fuckin’ ass' if they 'cost
us the election,' and that he would 'whip supervisor Eddie’s ass' if the Union lost.
According to the union-controlled NLRB, the above threats were approved because…well…they
just weren’t bad enough…”

4. Busloads of SEIU Protesters Intimidate Baer Attorney’s Family, May 19, 2010,
CNN.com
“Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front
yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor,
Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a
senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the
politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National
Political Action — makes his family fair game …”
5. Even the supposedly squeaky clean teachers’ unions have given in to corruption.
Teachers Unions: No Matter How You Try To Slice It, They Are Corrupt, Self-
Serving, And Hypocritical BY JESSE NICKLES | OCTOBER 1, 2014
Teachers unions are vile, self-serving rackets, plain and simple. Despite what
public school teachers in the U.S. (and elsewhere) would have you believe, their
primary concern is not for “students” when they march, rally, and protest
aggressively for higher wages, more benefits, and longer holidays. In theory,
teachers unions offer democratic representation on behalf of thousands of schools,
teachers, and students, resisting the sway of local and national governments and
powerful corporations – all of which lobby for their own interests.
In practice, however, corrupt union leaders that are hell-bent on influencing
political processes by any means possible – and local coordinators that intimidate
and harass teachers or politicians that do not fall in line and support union goals –
reveal these rather shameful organizations for what they truly are: out of control
monstrosities obsessed more with politics than “teaching” that are intent on
decreasing teachers’ accountability and increasing their free handouts.
The Pot Calling The Kettle Black: Is the NRTWC biased toward corporate
America? Most definitely. But are millions of Americans abandoning their support
for labor unions in recent decades simply because of corporate propaganda? That’s
surely a bit delusional, to say the least. Rather, the truth is that Americans
overwhelmingly prioritize individual freedom, which is why they often support the
idea of unions despite less and less citizens actually joining them.
Teachers unions are not resisting evil corporate forces. In fact, they are so
obviously self-serving that creating external enemies to justify their own existence
seems to have become a necessity in recent years, which is why “corporations” have
become the newly-sung enemy. And even if there was a big bad corporate
conspiracy since when did fighting evil with evil become respectable?
Those that follow College Times know how much we hate for-profit scam
colleges and the attempt by Wall Street investors to hijack higher education in order
to line their pockets with taxpayer money. But that’s just the thing: corruption and
waste are just as shameful regardless of their source, and teachers unions are just as
easily guilty of both.

114
Despite liberal-leaning alarmists arguing that teachers unions are
endangered or that right-to-work legislation is destroying the very structure needed
to keep unions in existence, the reality is that national teachers unions still wield an
extraordinary amount of political power – and that’s not going away anytime soon.

Theoretically Good, Realistically Awful: One of the only cohesive arguments


I’ve ever read in support of teachers unions was written by Erik Kain, a writer over at
Forbes who usually covers video games, of all things. Cohesive, because Kain is able
to present a relatively fair view of the issue supported by specific events – but
ultimately, a rather ambiguous stance that lacks realism.
And that’s a recurring theme among supporters of teachers unions: either
focusing purely on how corporations are trying to take over public education (an
argument which has really only existed at the pre-college level since Common Core
standards and charter schools became prevalent) or repeating that unions have
historically provided a defense against things like low wages or poor working
conditions (an argument which hasn’t really held water for at least half a century).
Alternatively, supporters desperately claim things like “teachers unions create more
equal opportunity” for poor children to attend college, among other feel-good, two-
faced ridiculous arguments.
Never ANY mention of lazy-ass teachers ditching class for the free pizza. As
teachers unions run out of justifiable reasons to exist, the “corporate takeover” of
public education has become the new (and only) battle cry. Activists (on tenure)
literally argue that education foundations run by the likes of Microsoft and Amazon
are only supporting charter schools so that in the future, they can get their
education technology products into classrooms and make millions of dollars from
young children. Now, I love a good conspiracy theory, but what the heck?
As such highly-esteemed educators, how do you ignore the hard data that
proves charter schools are not only sending more low-income Americans to college
but are also improving their ability to make healthy life decisions. And not that I
have any stake in the matter, but if Bill Gates is such an evil corporate dictator, why
did the largest teachers’ unions aggressively support Common Core, right up until
they realized the standardized curriculum could be used to evaluate the quality of
teachers?
Even teachers that publicly admit that unions cause serious problems – such
as protecting incompetent or even child-molesting teachers from being fired – still
seem to think they ultimately deserve more free handouts than other American
citizens:
“The elimination of tenure would allow a principal to arbitrarily dismiss a teacher for any
reason, even if that teacher is the most skilled and competent in the school. Such reasons
might include something as trivial as a mere personality conflict or the administrator’s own
personal and subjective opinions about the teacher’s performance. Teachers would be afraid
to “blow the whistle” on a corrupt principal or administrator for fear of being fired. I can tell
you that it would be very difficult for me to give my full attention to teaching the children if I
were consistently worrying in the back of my head whether or not I would have a job the
next year to pay my bills and support my own kids.

Still, the fact remains that tenure does protect some pretty LOUSY teachers, but completely
eliminating it would be even more disastrous for our students. I would also suggest that in
my experience, tenure and unions are not the only reasons why so many incompetent

115
teachers remain in the classroom. Often, the school principal is also to blame by not
properly documenting a teacher’s deficiencies, as well as top school district administrators
who will not support principals who choose to take steps to have an incompetent teacher
dismissed.”156
Oh, no! Without unions or tenure, public school teachers would actually
have to prove to their colleagues why they are a valuable member of their team?
Well welcome to the real world. And if “blowing the whistle” on illegal conduct is
your true concern, you apparently haven’t researched the relevant protection
statutes. When I tried to enter the education system I encountered poor teachers,
terrible principals, dangerous parents, and students who thought nothing of telling a
teacher to go fuck himself or burn down the school with no repercussions.
Some Of The Dirtiest Politics In America: Teachers unions are among the
largest and most powerful unions in the entire country. The National Education
Association and the American Federation of Teachers are the two largest, which are
both over 100 years old. Both have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent
years in contributions to political groups and organizations such as La Raza, and
figures such as the Reverend Al Sharpton. They support the Democratic Party and
many socialist programs. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which told the Labor
Department it had more than 873,000 members last fiscal year (2013), said it is
“committed to investing in organizations that share our mission and goals of
expanding the middle class, building strong public schools, promoting equality and
creating educational and economic opportunities for all Americans.”
The federation added that unions make their contributions public, “unlike
big corporations that are able to secretly spend millions on their extreme agenda.”
Unions must publicly detail and categorize all expenses annually under rules put in
place by President George W. Bush. The NEA’s advocacy center director, Kim
Anderson, said, “Since 1857, the NEA has had a proud history of advocating for
social justice and developing programs to help children, the poor and marginalized,
and American workers, long before we ever got involved in politics.”
The NEA and AFT are shamelessly whining to national media that they are
forced to disclose their political contributions, before reminding readers that back in
the 19th century, unions helped fight for social justice. And before you I  MY
TEACHER! well-wishers and Occupy Wall-Streeters write this off as a simple-minded
tirade with a sensationalized headline.
In conclusion, if teachers unions were simply an organized attempt at
protecting teachers from getting inappropriately fired or overworked, why have they
consistently ranked as a top political donor to democratic politicians for the last
several decades? Because their goal is to turn the teaching profession into a gravy
train career path free of accountability or hard work, with lower expectations and
excessive benefits. In one of the school districts I worked in, other then lobbying for
higher wages, insurance and other benefits, when a teacher was in the sights of a
tyrannical principal, or was in danger of being fired without cause, denied tenure, or
any other reason, the teacher’s union not only did not a single case against the
district but almost seemed like they supported the district more than the teacher.

156 Casey Gagnon, public school teacher, via Amazon.com

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As history has shown, labor unions always resist changes in technology and
the workplace. But they always lose the fight. Stubborn, enraged, selfishness
combined with immoral and often illegal behavior is downright shameful, and it’s
destroying the quality of America’s education system. But the tide is finally turning,
and with it, hopefully the political clout of teachers and other corrupt unions will be
a thing of the past. The most infamous example of union corruption was Jimmie
Hoffa, a union crime boss who was prosecuted but turned up missing. His body was
never found. So the next time you want to support your local union remember
Jimmie Hoffa. While you are at it, take a look at any union platform and you will see
how they support socialism and nanny state programs.

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Chapter 11: Religion

The history of religion includes numerous examples of religious leaders calling


attention to corruption in the religious practices and institutions of their time. Jewish
prophets Isaiah and Amos berate the rabbinical establishment of Ancient Judea for
failing to live up to the ideals of the Torah. In the New Testament, Jesus accuses the
rabbinical establishment of his time of hypocritically following only the ceremonial parts
of the Torah and neglecting the more important elements of justice, mercy and
faithfulness. In 1517, Martin Luther accused the Catholic Church of widespread
corruption, including selling of indulgences. Everyone knows about the Spanish
Inquisition and the Crusades when the church enslaved or destroyed heretics, Muslims,
Jews, and Protestants in the Middle ages and early renaissance.
The Imam, bin Wahab called for a purge and purification of the Islamic faith in
the 18th century. The Ottoman Turks attempted to conquer Europe by infiltration, forced
conversion, and outright slaughter. The Russian Orthodox Church was heavily corrupted
by devious priests such as Rasputin. Hindus and Buddhists killed Christians in the early
days of European incursions in the Far East.
Who can forget the Protestant Reformation when they persecuted Catholics, and
later on each other in the 19th century. They also were instrumental in the only good
Indian is a dead Indian policies of the federal government. They were behind the
establishment of the KKK and persecution of groups they deemed un-Christian because
of their beliefs, political persuasions and national origins; Groups such as the Mormons,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and atheists. American Protestants in the 19th century
attempted to destroy the Catholics and other minor religious groups because of
differences in doctrine. They persecuted, hung, tarred and feathered, shot, sued in the
courts to steal property, and burned homes and churches if all else failed.
In 2015, Princeton University professor Kevin M. Kruse proposed the thesis that
business leaders in the 1930s and 1940s collaborated with clergymen, including James
W. Fifield Jr. to develop and promote a new study of the methodological principles of
interpretation to Scripture that would de-emphasize the social Gospel and emphasize
themes, such as individual salvation, more congenial to free enterprise.
Business leaders, of course, had long been working to "merchandise"
themselves through the appropriation of religion. In organizations such as Spiritual
Mobilization, the prayer breakfast groups, and the Freedoms Foundation, they had
linked capitalism and Christianity and, at the same time, likened the welfare state to
godless paganism.
James Madison, who is considered the “Father of the Constitution,” asserted in
1785 that the fruits of governmental establishments of religion have been “more or less
in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, and in
both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” He also said, “Religion is not helped by
establishment, but is hurt by it.”
Madison and most of the other founders knew that previous governments had
destroyed religious freedom by suppressing minority religions, instigated bloodbaths
and other vicious disputes over whose religion would receive governmental support,
propped up corrupt and tyrannical religions that people would no longer voluntarily

118
support, and caused talented members of minority religions to emigrate to escape
religious persecution or other mistreatment relegating them to second-class citizenship.
Religion is certainly one of the most fundamental cultural institutions. According
to mainstream social theories, religion is a major source of social cohesion. The erosion
of public trust probably damages religion more than most other social institutions since
it is based, by definition, on faith not on empirical evidence.
On the other side of the coin, the government, state as well as federal
government has waged war on religious denominations since 1838 when Lilburn W.
Boggs issued his notorious Extermination Order #44 against the Mormons who were
living at the time in Missouri. It came after many Missourians began attacking the
Mormons as they were mostly from the North and Favored the side of the Abolitionists
and the Missourians were a southern slave state. The Missourians were concerned that
the Mormons would vote against slavery and, so they attacked them through
mobocracy and killed many women and children. In their defense the Mormons began
fighting back. In response, Boggs issued the Order. It reminds me of the Palestinians
who attack Israel. When the Israelis fight back the world condemns them for defending
themselves.

Headquarters of the Militia, City of Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1838.


Gen. John B. Clark:
Sir: Since the order of this morning to you, directing you to cause four hundred mounted
men to be raised within your division, I have received by Amos Reese, Esq., of Ray county, and Wiley
C. Williams, Esq., one of my aids [sic], information of the most appalling character, which entirely
changes the face of things, and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance
of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this state. Your orders are, therefore, to
hasten your operation with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must
be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are
beyond all description. If you can increase your force, you are authorized to do so to any extent you
may consider necessary. I have just issued orders to Maj. Gen. Willock, of Marion county, to raise five
hundred men, and to march them to the northern part of Daviess, and there unite with Gen.
Doniphan, of Clay, who has been ordered with five hundred men to proceed to the same point for
the purpose of intercepting the retreat of the Mormons to the north. They have been directed to
communicate with you by express, you can also communicate with them if you find it necessary.
Instead therefore of proceeding as at first directed to reinstate the citizens of Daviess in their homes,
you will proceed immediately to Richmond and then operate against the Mormons. Brig. Gen. Parks
of Ray has been ordered to have four hundred of his brigade in readiness to join you at Richmond.
The whole force will be placed under your command.
I am very respectfully, your obedient servant
L. W. Boggs, Commander-in-Chief.

Since the Civil War, many Protestant churches helped organize and support The Ku Klux
Klan, commonly called the KKK or simply the Klan, consists three distinct movements in the
United States that have advocated extremist reactionary positions such as white supremacy,
white nationalism, anti-immigration and, especially in later iterations, Nordicism, 157 anti-
Catholicism and antisemitism. Historically, the KKK used terrorism, both physical assault and
murder, against groups or individuals whom they opposed. All three movements have called for

157 Nordicism was a historical ideology/movement which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries advocated
the existence of a Nordic race and the promotion of its interests. It is often claimed to have advocated supremacism
or the view that other races should be conquered/subjugated but prominent Nordicists advocated racial segregation
and worried about the Nordic race disappearing due to non-Nordic immigration

119
the "purification" of American society and all are considered right-wing extremist
organizations.158 The first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in 1868, in North
Carolina, then died out by the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow the Republican state
governments in the South during the Reconstruction Era, especially by using violence against
African American leaders.
With numerous chapters across the South, it was suppressed around 1871, through
federal law enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks and
conical hats, designed to terrify and to hide their identities. The second group was founded in
the South in 1915 and it flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, including urban
areas of the Midwest and West. Taking inspiration from the film Birth of a Nation, which
mythologized the founding of the first Klan, it employed marketing techniques and a popular
fraternal organization structure.
Rooted in local Protestant communities, it sought to maintain white supremacy, often took
a pro-prohibition stance, and it opposed Catholics and Jews, while also stressing its opposition to
the Catholic Church at a time of high immigration from the mostly Catholic nations of Central
Europe and Southern Europe.[6] This second organization adopted a standard white costume and
used code words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and
mass parades to intimidate others. It rapidly declined in the latter half of the 1920s.The third and
current manifestation of the KKK emerged after World War II, in the form of localized and isolated
groups that use the KKK name. They have focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, often
using violence and murder to suppress activists.
The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to America's
"Anglo-Saxon" blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK
swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced
the KKK.
When I was a Mormon missionary in the Bible Belt in 1972, I had my first exposure to the
KKK in Richmond Virginia. I saw a flyer stapled to a telephone pole that read, “Save the Land! Join
the Klan!” It had a black and white drawing of a Klansman on a white stallion that was rearing up.
The Klansman held a burning torch. Later, in Salisbury, North Carolina, I had the interesting
experience of knocking on the door of Bob Jones, the Grand Dragon of the Carolina Klans. We
introduced ourselves and he invited us in to learn more about us. We told him about Joseph Smith
and the Book of Mormon and how we use the King James Version of the Bible.
Then he showed us his bedroom where he kept his family’s KKK gowns. His was green, his
wife’s was white, and his daughter’s was also white. However, they weren’t bed sheets. They were
very expensive silk gowns with embroidery all over them. He explained the KKK in terms I didn’t
wholly quite agree with, he said “He didn’t have anything against black people. He had many friends
who were black. Niggers, he said, come in all colors. A nigger can be a man that cheats on his wife. A
nigger can be anyone who is dishonest.” Then he showed us a confederate flag and some bumper
stickers. We each bought a flag from him and he gave us some stickers. One was a pro-cop sticker,

another one showed symbols of organizations they say are anti-American: Catholics ,

Communists , Jews , Hippies , and Republicans .

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er
Just as we were about to leave his minister stopped by to visit. He said, “Oh, Mormon
missionaries! I’ve got a copy of your Mormon Bible!” Mr. Jones looked at us with a questioning look.
We hurriedly explained that the Book of Mormon is sometimes referred to by non-Mormon as the
Mormon Bible. But our Bible is the King James Version. The Book of Mormon is another witness for
Christ.” That seemed to ease the tension. After we left his house we went home and stayed there
for the rest of the day.
The next day was Sunday. His daughter came to our church and sat by us. She opened her
purse and there were brass knuckles and a switchblade. She didn’t say much but after church she
went home. We prayed she didn’t see anything that would make her dad burn a cross on our lawn.
One of missionaries in our mission had a brother in the Georgia Mission. He wrote and told his
brother about the KKK burning a cross on the Mormon church’s lawn in Atlanta or somewhere. So
we figured we did well. Oh and did I mention that the KKK was started and maintained by
Democrats? And that at one time 30% of their membership was made up of Protestant clergy?
One of the biggest religious scams is that of Scientology. Developed by L. Ron Hubbard, in
1954, Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain
understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, Mankind,
all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.
Scientology addresses the spirit, not the body or mind, and believes that Man is far more
than a product of his environment, or his genes. Scientology comprises a body of knowledge which
extends from certain fundamental truths. Prime among these are:
1. Man is an immortal spiritual being.
2. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime.
3. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized.
Scientology further holds Man to be basically good, and that his spiritual salvation depends
upon himself, his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe. Scientology is
not a dogmatic religion in which one is asked to accept anything on faith alone. On the contrary,
one discovers for oneself that the principles of Scientology are true by applying its principles
and observing or experiencing the results.
The goal of Scientology is true spiritual enlightenment and freedom for all. They suggest
that this way to happiness is non-religious. Yet they call themselves a church, a religion based in
science and technology. Over the years, the church has been the focus of several federal
investigations for racketeering. Some former members have come forward to testify that
Scientology is a controlling and dangerous organization.
Since the 1980s there have been a series of major frauds involving religious figures in
the United States. The cases of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, and Henry Lyons
and the National Baptist Convention USA, are but two striking examples of fraud by religious
leaders. Phony faith healers have also allowed white-collar crime to affect large numbers of
believers. Peter Popoff and his Miracle and Blessing Crusade was perhaps the most dramatic
example of the practice of phony faith healing.
His show was broadcast on 50 television stations, and in 1986 he admitted to having
$550,000 per month operating expenses. He had devised many bizarre plans for raising cash,
including one to send Russian Bibles into the Soviet Union attached to balloons. One elderly
woman sent him her entire life savings of $21,000. Another scheme, which involved selling
"Holy Shower Caps," netted him $100,000.
Popoff's faith healing was exposed in a sting set up by James Randi, known
professionally as "The Amazing Randi." Randi, a veteran magician, is one of the foremost
debunkers of paranormal claims. When Randi played a tape proving the hoax on Johnny
Carson's Tonight show, the nation was stunned. Incredibly, Popoff and his crusade were back on
the air in 2002. Right now, the most lucrative faith healing ministry in the country is that of
California-based Benny Hinn.

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The misappropriation of funds by televangelists has received much attention in the
media. The revenues in these ministries can be enormous. Oral Roberts oversaw a $500 million
complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Many others have millions of subscribers, and congregants.
Although their salaries are modest, their opulent lifestyles seem to be far more than their
reported incomes.
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert had one of the most conspicuous salary-lifestyle
discrepancies. Swaggert was brought down after it was revealed, and he later admitted to
longstanding obsessions with prostitutes, pornography, and voyeurism. Because of his intolerant
tirades against such subjects as well as against Catholics, Jews, secular humanists, mental health
professionals, gays, liberals, and intellectuals, his flock was naturally conditioned not to forgive
sin including his and he lost everything.
The most highly publicized televangelist scandal involved Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of
the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry. Jim Bakker got his first real start as a preacher on Pat
Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and became a rising star. In a short time, he was
hosting the 700 Club evening show. Soon Bakker was hosting his own show on the Trinity
Broadcasting Network in Southern California, and then moved his ministry to North Carolina.
At the height of his career, Bakker's show was aired on 70 stations and 28 cable systems
in the United States alone. It all fell apart when Bakker was accused of fleecing investors aka his
congregants in a "religious" real estate venture and was involved in a sex scandal with Jessica
Hahn, a former church employee. Things got even worse when he entrusted his ministry to Jerry
Falwell. Falwell later turned on Bakker, calling him a liar, a sexual deviate, and an embezzler.
Bakker in turn claimed that Falwell was merely a thief trying to steal the PTL from him.
As Bakker's criminal case began to unfold, Falwell countered with the statement
that Bakker had created "probably the biggest scab and cancer on the face of
Christianity in 2,000 years of church history." Bakker was convicted in federal court of
fraudulently raising more than $158 million in contributions and was handed a stunning
45-year prison term. It was later reduced to 18 years. Bakker was released on parole in
1994. His contributors, who numbered in the thousands, had nothing returned to them.
Bakker announced his plans to write inspirational books to help people who had
suffered great losses in their lives. Perhaps he should have started with his former
contributors.
The religious scandals of the 1980s caused an immediate decline in
teleministries. Jimmy Swaggert lost over 80% of his former audience. Oral Roberts lost
half his viewers and revenues. Even Jerry Falwell suffered losses. The scandals also
affected other ministries not directly tainted by these crimes. The one exception
appeared to be the late Billy Graham.
These crimes also appear to have weakened organized religion overall, as
witnessed by church membership, which went down in the late 1980s. As a result, the
National Religious Broadcasters approved a stronger code of ethics to restore faith in
financial and fund-raising activities and other matters. Passing the code is one thing.
Enforcement and compliance are others. Since the codes were enacted, other
evangelists have already violated them.
One of the worst examples of current religious discrimination was the 2008
elections. The Baptists were the worst offenders. They felt that since Mitt Romney was a
Mormon he wasn’t fit to be president. So famous Baptists such as Mike Huckabee went
out and attacked Mitt in the press. Most of the stories were false, half-truths or outright
lies. Obama was no better, but he was Marxist atheist and attacked not only Romney
but Herman Cain and other people of faith.

122
Obama was not Christian or Muslim, though many were convinced he was.
Because he was a communist, I maintain he was atheist and merely used religion as a
tool to make people think he was something he was not. During his presidency he made
comments that conservative people were “clingers; they clung to their Bibles in one
hand and their guns in the other.” He also had the IRS refuse 501 status to
conservatives. He had the NSA spy on conservatives and persecuted anyone who was
religious.
Now that Trump is in office I hope the pendulum doesn’t swing the other way.
However, as I’ve watched him thus far, he seems to be fair and consistent.

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Chapter 12: Preventing Corruption

R. Klitgaard suggests that corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than
the penalty multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted:
Corruption=Corrupt gain > Penalty × Likelihood of being caught and prosecuted. In other
words the person committing the act of corruption must ask themselves, “Is it worth
it?”
There are several things that would make a person answer yes. Will they get
caught? If they get caught what will happen? Does anyone have my six? Who? Will the
punishment be equal or greater than the crime? Chances are the person involved will
have the mentality of most criminals. I’m smarter than the cops so I won’t get caught.
They won’t do anything because I’ve got people who will cover for me. I have friends in
high places. Just look at the Clintons and the Obamas. They have made a living of
corruption and they have people both high and low who will cover for them. However,
just I’ve said many time, they may not get caught today or tomorrow, but eventually
their luck will run out and they will get caught and go to jail for a very long time.
For example, Slick Willy was corrupt and never got caught. When he did he lied
through his teeth and got off with a slap on the wrist. His corrupt wife committed crime
after crime after crime. She was caught but because the shadow government has her 6
she’ll never go to trial. Then her boss, Obama, 63 some scandals. Like water off a duck’s
back, no one could make anything stick. If they tried he played the race card. I always
said, it wasn’t the color of his skin that made me hate him. It was the color of his
politics. In other words it wasn’t because his was black; it was because he was red.
The degree of corruption will then be a function of the degree of trust and
discretion in deciding who should get how much on the one hand and the degree to
which this activity is accountable and transparent on the other hand.
Still, these equations seem to be lacking one variable: a high degree of control
and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency. Also, low penalties in
combination with a low probability of being caught will only lead to corruption if people
tend to neglect ethics and moral commitment. The original Klitgaard equation has
therefore been amended by C. Stephan into: Degree of corruption = Control + Discretion
– Transparency – Morality
According to Stephan, the moral dimension has an inherent and an external
component. The inherent component refers to a mentality problem, the external
component is affected by outside circumstances like poverty, low wages, harsh work
conditions and overregulated procedures which demoralize people and let them search
for "alternative" solutions.
According to the amended Klitgaard equation, limitation of control and
monitoring of individuals and a high degree of transparency through independent
oversight by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media plus public access
to reliable information could reduce the problem. That’s all well and good in a perfect
world. However we all know that we are living in the real world. So many people talk
about world peace, a world of justice and where there is no poverty, disease, or war.
But we know that the world is a dangerous place. There is war, poverty, disease,
despots who oppress, there are those who lust for power, wealth, and knowledge. They
look down on others. They will lie and deceive the masses. They are all about

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controlling others. They equate wealth with social excellence. Because they have money
they are better than others. What if the NGOs are corrupt? What about the media and
false news? Well, we know what happens. We have the world we live in here and now.
Djankov and other researchers have independently addressed the important
role information plays in fighting corruption with evidence from both developing and
developed countries. Disclosing financial information of government officials to the
public on paper should improve institutional accountability and eliminate misbehavior
such as vote buying. The effect is specifically remarkable when the disclosures concern
politicians’ income sources, liabilities and asset level instead of just income level.
However, politicians are very good at diverting the attention from themselves to others.
I think we are all familiar with the politician who speaks for hours and doesn’t say a
thing or attacks his opponent with false accusations in order to deflect the attention
from himself to his opponent.
Enhancing Civil Society Participation: Creating bottom-up mechanisms,
promoting citizens participation and encouraging the values of integrity, accountability,
and transparency are crucial components of fighting corruption. The implementation of
the ALACs “Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers (ALACs)” has led to a significant increase
in the number of citizen complaints against acts of corruption received and documented
and to the development of strategies for good governance by involving citizens willing
to fight against corruption. However, reporting isn’t enough. There must be someone
who will act on the complaints. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be anyone with
the spine to make that happen. I reported corruption to the FBI on a couple of
occasions and was told that was out of their jurisdiction. I should go to the local law
enforcement for that.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA, USA 1977) was an early model for many
western countries such as the industrial countries of the Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD)159. There, for the first time the old director-agent
approach160 was moved back where mainly the victim (a society, private or public) and a
passive corrupt member (an individual, or organization) were considered, whereas the
active corrupt part was not in the emphasis of legal prosecution. Unprecedented, the
law of an industrial country directly condemned active corruption, particularly in
international business transactions, which was at that time in contradiction to anti-
bribery activities of the World Bank and its spin-off organization Transparency
International. Again, it doesn’t do any good to have a law on the books if no one is going
to enforce it.
As early as 1989 the OECD had established an ad hoc Working Group in order to
explore, “the concepts fundamental to the offense of corruption, and the exercise of
national jurisdiction over offenses committed wholly or partially abroad." Based on the
FCPA concept, the Working Group presented in 1994 the then "OECD Anti-Bribery
Recommendation" as a precursor for the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of
Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions which was signed in 1997

159 The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is an intergovernmental


economic organization with 35-member countries, founded in 1960 to stimulate economic progress and
world trade.
160 The principal–agent problem, in political science and economics, (also known as agency dilemma
or the agency problem) occurs when one person or entity (the "agent") is able to make decisions on
behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the "principal."

125
by all member countries and came finally into force in 1999. However, because of
ongoing concealed corruption in international transactions several instruments of
Country Monitoring have been developed since then by the OECD in order to foster and
evaluate related national activities in combating foreign corrupt practices.
Once again, we are talking about the UN and its myriad of offshoot
organizations. We know the UN is corrupt, so it would stand to reason that the OECD is
also corrupt. So no matter what policies they develop is all just bark and no bite.
Nothing will change.
In the US the FBI are tasked with investigating and prosecuting corruption in the
Federal, state and local government. Yet under the Obama administration, the FBI itself
has become corrupted and has investigated the enemies of Obama and Clinton. Even
under Trump they continue to engage in corrupt acts of investigating conservatives,
supporters of President Trump all the while they let Obama and the Clintons get away
with not only corruption but murder.
President Trump announced that there is a swamp in Washington DC and it must
be drained. I hate to be impatient, but the swamp isn’t being drained quickly enough.
We have congressmen, bureaucrats, celebrities, and leftist organizations who are calling
for the assassination of President Trump and harm to his family. Yet nothing happens to
them. I’m all for freedom of speech but when it comes to stoking the fires of hate
against the president, his family, his cabinet, and conservatives in general, they need to
at least monitor these people to make sure they don’t act on their hate.
In 2013, a document produced by the economic and private sector professional
evidence and applied knowledge services help-desk discusses some of the existing
practices on anti-corruption. They found:
1. The theories behind the fight against corruption are moving from a Director
agent approach to a collective action problem. Director-agent theories seem not
to be suitable to target systemic corruption.
2. The role of multilateral institutions has been crucial in the fight against
corruption. UNCAC provides a common guideline for countries around the
world. Both Transparency International and the World Bank aid national
governments in terms of diagnostic and design of anti-corruption policies.
3. The use of anti-corruption agencies has proliferated in recent years after the
signing of UNCAC. They found no convincing evidence on the extent of their
contribution, or the best way to structure them.
4. Traditionally anti-corruption policies have been based on successful experiences
and common sense. In recent years there has been an effort to provide a more
systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies.
5. Anti-corruption policies that may be in general recommended to developing
countries may not be suitable for post-conflict countries. Anti-corruption policies
in fragile states must be carefully tailored.
6. Anti-corruption policies can improve the business environment. There is
evidence that lower corruption may facilitate doing business and improve a
firm’s productivity.

Rwanda in the last decade has made tremendous progress in improving governance
and the business environment providing a model to follow for post-conflict countries. Of
course the reason for this is obvious. When instigators stop shooting and exploiting

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weaknesses in the government so that the people can work, plant their crops, and live in
some sense of security and safety, then the economy overall will be successful.
Another more recent organization that is trying to fight corruption in the US
government is Judicial Watch. Headed by Tom Fitton, they have brought FOIA suits to get
various agencies to release documents and then take them to court to have them brought
up on charges of corruption. While they have been somewhat successful, The Congress, the
Justice Department and the FBI have all stonewalled the efforts of Judicial Watch in helping
to drain the swamp.

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Chapter 13: Whistleblowers
A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that
is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private
or public. The information of alleged wrongdoing can be classified in many ways:
violation of company policies and rules, law, regulations, or threat to public interest or
national security, as well as fraud, and corruption.
Those who become whistleblowers can choose to bring information or
allegations to surface either internally or externally. Internally, whistleblowers can bring
their accusations to the attention of other people within the accused organization such
as an immediate supervisor. Externally, a whistleblower can bring allegations to light by
contacting a third party outside of an accused organization such as the media,
government, law enforcement, or those who are concerned. Whistleblowers, however,
take the risk of facing stiff reprisals and retaliation from those who are accused of
alleged wrongdoing.
Because of this, many laws exist to protect whistleblowers. Some third-party
groups even offer protection to whistleblowers, but that protection can only go so far.
Whistleblowers face legal action, criminal charges, social stigma, and termination from
any position, office, or job. Two other classifications of whistleblowing are private and
public. The classifications relate to the type of organizations on which someone chooses
to blow their whistle: private sector, or public sector. Depending on many factors, both
can have varying results. However, whistleblowing in the public-sector organization is
more likely to result in criminal charges and possible custodial sentences as political
prisoners.
A whistleblower who chooses to accuse a private sector organization or agency
is more likely to face termination, legal and civil charges. In some cases some
whistleblowers have been killed for knowing too much. In the case of Bill and Hillary
Clinton some of the whistle blowers in the White-Water Case mysteriously turned up
dead. Other cases involving scandals in both the Clinton and Obama administrations,
witnesses came up missing or dead. In fact, there was a joke going around that don’t
blow the whistle, or you will end up dead like all the other Hillary witnesses. They all die
under suspicious circumstances to make it look like suicide. Two critics of Hillary,
Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, both committed suicide a week from apart. Anthony
even wrote about it in a note before he turned up dead.
Deeper questions and theories of whistleblowing and why people choose to do
so can be studied through an ethical approach. Whistleblowing is a topic of ongoing
ethical debate. Leading arguments in the ideological camp that whistleblowing is ethical
maintain that whistleblowing is a form of civil disobedience and aims to protect the
public from government wrongdoing. In fact, if one will remember that before the
Revolutionary War the colonials try to get the King and the Parliament to reel in
government corruption in the colonies. When that failed they revolted against the
Mother country and obtained their freedom in the Revolutionary War. Do we need
another revolution? It would seem so because our Congress and bureaucrats seem out
of touch with the average American citizen. Let’s hope they change their ways before
that it gets that far.
In the opposite camp, some see whistleblowing as unethical for breaching
confidentiality, especially in industries that handle sensitive client or patient
information. Legal protection can also be granted to protect whistleblowers, but that

128
protection is subject to many stipulations. Hundreds of laws grant protection to
whistleblowers, but stipulations can easily cloud that protection and leave
whistleblowers vulnerable to retaliation and legal trouble. Again, what good is the law if
it’s not enforced.
However, the decision and action has become far more complicated with recent
advancements in technology and communication. Whistleblowers frequently face
reprisals, sometimes at the hands of the organization or group they have accused,
sometimes from related organizations, and sometimes under law. Questions about the
legitimacy of whistleblowing, the moral responsibility of whistleblowing, and the
appraisal of the institutions of whistleblowing are part of the field of political ethics.
There are two recent cases in the last 10 years that have gained international
attention. The first is Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks and known for leaking
classified documents from many countries. As I’ve studied Assange, I’ve learned he is an
egotistical narcissist. Although he blew the whistle on corruption all over the world, the
problem I had with him is that he didn’t filter his information and potentially harmed
innocent people.
The second whistleblower is Edward Snowden. He was an Army Ranger who had
to get out due to an injury from jump school. He worked for the NSA and the CIA. At the
time of his disclosures he was a government contract worker. Snowden blew the whistle
on the NSA and the CIA because of concerns that they were spying on American
citizens. He struggled long and hard before he leaked the information to the press.
Unlike Assange, Snowden was concerned with the possibility of hurting innocent people
and tried not to leak their identities. Once he did there was not only a warrant for his
arrest, but the Obama Administration also put a hit out on him. This forced him to find
refuge in Russia.
The problem I see with the aftermath of a whistleblower’s disclosures, is that
the offending party, whether they be private or public, don’t change what they are
doing and end up shooting the messenger. Many of America’s whistleblowers, are
charged with espionage crimes under the Federal Espionage Act of 1917.
A hundred years ago, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act to
deal with spying against the U.S. in World War I. It was used to prosecute the
Rosenberg’s, the Walkers, Lonetree and others who actually violated their positions by
selling many classified documents to the Soviet Union. However, under Obama, the
Espionage Act was used to silence whistleblowers. So far under Trump, whistleblowers
merely get fired but no criminal charges are imposed. Trump seems more interested in
learning from the reports and improving how government does business rather than
destroying people’s lives.
Historically, the most notorious U.S. spy cases have been tried under the act, like
the one against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted in 1951 of giving
nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed two years later. But prosecutions have
been relatively rare and limited almost entirely to spies until recently. The Obama
administration used the Espionage Act to prosecute suspected national security leakers.
The act is sweeping and bars any disclosure of secrets that could harm the country's
defense.
The difference is that Obama used it against his enemies. Trump is doing it to
drain the swamp of corruption. "It applies to what would be the conventional spies,
who are spying for an enemy, but it also includes individuals who leak classified

129
information," said Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security
cases.
During the Obama administration, eight people were charged or convicted of
leaking national security secrets under the Espionage Act; more than under all previous
administrations combined. The cases included Chelsea Manning, the former Army
private who was recently released after serving seven years in prison, and Edward
Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, fled to Russia in 2013 shortly
after leaking information about the NSA's bulk data collection program. He also faces
charges in the U.S. under the Espionage Act. Finally, Julian Assange, founder of
Wikileaks and known for leaking classified documents from many countries from many
anonymous sources.
Now the Trump administration is pursuing its own case. Reality Winner, a 25-
year-old government contractor, is accused of divulging an NSA document that details
Russian meddling in the U.S. election. However, I don’t think it is actually Trump who is
pursuing the case. I think it’s the Obama justice system as part of the Shadow
Government who is pursuing this case. They know that if they don’t stop her that their
corruption will be exposed.
Zaid and others say the reason for the rise in prosecutions against suspected
leakers is simply technology. Is the mainstream political machine worried because
Winner exposed their corrupt activities and thus they need to remove Winner from the
picture to protect their corruption? Again, when those in power sweat the spotlight it’s
because they have something to hide. Winner’s personal feelings about our country,
while naïve and not very smart, are not illegal.
Soon after taking office, Obama’s Justice Department began to prosecute more
sources and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all other administrations
combined. Before 2009, only three prosecutions had ever been attempted. One of
those prosecutions, Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers fame ended in mistrial due
to government misconduct. The other two were peculiar cases that didn’t seem to
provide much in the way of precedent.
Starting in 2009, at least nine cases were brought under Attorney General Eric
Holder, and national security journalists have described an unprecedented ‘chill’ to their
investigative reporting ever since. The Obama administration was able to prosecute
more leakers because technology is a double-edged sword, making it both easier to leak
vast amounts of classified information and to trace those leaks directly to their sources.
This combined with often poor tradecraft161 by leakers and journalists, means it is now
much simpler for the government to collect tangible evidence permitting prosecution in
ways that were previously unavailable.
We've entered a new era with encryption apps, thumb drives and other
technology that allows leakers to spread classified information in a click, Zaid said. But
there's a flip side. "Even though it's easier now to grab these documents, it is a lot
easier for the government to track the documents," said Zaid. The Espionage Act never

161 Tradecraft, within the intelligence community, refers to the techniques, methods and
technologies used in modern espionage and generally, as part of the activity of intelligence gathering and
distribution. This includes general topics or techniques such as dead drops, for example, or the specific
techniques of a nation or organization such the particular form of encryption (encoding) used to encode
messages sent between agencies.

130
envisioned modern communications. Its critics call it antiquated; it was last amended
more than a half-century ago.
Winner has pleaded not guilty, though the FBI says she left a trail of bread
crumbs.162 The bureau says the NSA document was printed at her office. An anonymous
letter was postmarked in Augusta, Ga., where she lives. And she reportedly had email
contact with The Intercept which was the outlet that published the document. She was
arrested on June 3, 2017, just two days after the FBI was alerted to the leak. Like
Snowden and Manning, she's a young, junior-level figure who had access to highly
classified material.
The question I have and was unable to determine the answer from the many
articles mostly from liberal media, was Winner arrested because she blew the whistle
on the shadow government of Barack Obama or the treasonous activities of Hillary
Clinton? As it has been made known many times, Trump’s contact 163 with the Russians
regarding the Middle East was not a criminal offense. Hillary’s collaboration 164 with the
Russians is. If anyone committed an act of collusion it was Clinton and the Obama
Administration when they colluded with the Russians to control 20% of the US uranium
market.
Zaid said he believes the law should be turned into two separate statutes: one
for spying and one for illegal leaking. But he thinks that if Congress was to act, it might
overreach and impose highly restrictive measures that would prevent legitimate
attempts to bring important information to public attention. It would also include illegal
acts of leaks from the Congress.
Stephen Kohn, the author of The Whistleblower's Handbook 165, said government
workers can petition to disclose information legally, including classified information, in
many ways. His book offers 30 rules to follow. He notes that employees can formally
appeal to their own agency. They can go to a government inspector general or a federal
court. And they can always head to that very reliable source of leaks, Congress. We all

162 Is this the Comey pre-Trump FBI?


163 Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal- but always secretive,
to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain
an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. It is an
agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit
opportunities.[1] It can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the
relationship between the colluding parties.”[2] In legal terms, all acts effected by collusion are considered
void.
164 Since World War II the term "collaboration" acquired a negative meaning as referring to persons
and groups which help a foreign occupier of their country due to actual use by people in European
countries who worked with and for the Nazi German occupiers. Linguistically, "collaboration" implies
more or less equal partners who work together—which was the meaning the Nazi German occupiers
were suggesting for ideological reasons but was obviously not the case as one party was an army of
occupation and the other were people of the occupied country living under the power of this army. Thus,
the term "collaboration" acquired during World War II the additional sense of criminal deeds in the
service of the occupying power, including complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,
pillage, and economic exploitation as well as participation in a puppet government. The use of
"collaboration" to mean "traitorous cooperation with the enemy," dates from 1940, originally in reference
to the Vichy Regime in France, the French civilians who sympathized with Nazi Germany's doctrine, and
voluntary troops (LVF) who fought against the Free French and later De Gaulle's French Force.
165 The Whistleblower's Handbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Doing What's Right and Protecting
Yourself (Globe Pequot, 2011).

131
know that when information is passed on to Congress by the end of the duty day there
will be at least 500 leaks to various outlets.
"All of a sudden, what might be just four or five people knowing something
could be 200 people knowing something," Kohn said. "And some of those entities leak
on their own. I'm just saying this is how to protect yourself." As an attorney, Kohn
counsels against unlawful leaks and says being tech-savvy doesn't make someone safe.
"You just gotta go low-tech," he said, citing the government's extensive means for
electronic tracking in investigations. "So when I say beware of your electronic footprint,
beware of your electronic footprint."
Kohn looks back to the Watergate scandal and the way Washington Post
reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein handled their key source, FBI official Mark
Felt, better known as "Deep Throat. …The way that Deep Throat communicated in the
Nixon era," he says, "in a parking lot, orally; that was pretty smart."
The following list is of some more famous whistle blowers:
1. Mark Felt: In the Watergate scandal that toppled the presidency of Richard
Nixon, this FBI figure was the secret informant known as Deep Throat who helped
Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Though Deep Throat
became a symbol of shadowy Washington sources dishing out information in
clandestine meetings, his identity was kept secret until 2005.
2. Daniel Ellsberg: The employee of the State Department in 1971 leaked the
Pentagon Papers, a secret account of documents pertaining to how the United States
came to fight the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration sought the Supreme Court's
help in preventing The New York Times and Washington Post from publishing the papers
but was rejected.
3. Linda Tripp: This former White House staff member was a key figure in the
Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to an attempt to remove President Bill Clinton from
office during his second term.
4. Frank Serpico: This New York City police officer, later portrayed by Al Pacino in a
1973 movie, attempted to confront the rampant corruption within the police
department. He left the force after being shot in the face during a botched drug raid
and later moved out of the country.
5. Karen Silkwood: Like Frank Serpico, she was played in a movie named for her, in
this case by Meryl Streep in 1983. She died mysteriously in 1974 in the midst of a
campaign to challenge Kerr-McGee about the safety of a nuclear facility.
6. Mark Whitacre: Another figure who ended up the subject of a movie, this time
"The Informant!" starring Matt Damon, Whitacre worked with the FBI in 1990s to
expose price-fixing in agriculture by his own company, Archer Daniels Midland, but
ended up in legal trouble himself for his own actions.
7. Jeffrey Wigand: This former tobacco company executive made enemies by claiming on
"60 Minutes" in 1996 that cigarette companies were fully aware that they were packing their
products with addictive levels of nicotine. He was played by Russell Crowe in the 1999 film "The
Insider."
8. Coleen Rowley: In 2002, this FBI special agent alleged that the agency had failed to act on
information provided by agents in Minnesota about one of the figures in the terrorist attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. She ran for Congress in 2006 but was not elected.
9. Sherron Watkins: An executive for the Enron Corp., she helped expose the seemingly
formidable company in 2001 and 2002 as one constructed on enormous financial lies and

132
frauds. Along with Coleen Rowley and WorldCom's Cynthia Cooper, she was one of three
whistleblowers named Time magazine's Persons of the Year in 2002.
10. Bradley Manning: The Army soldier was court-martialed at Fort Meade, Md., in the
summer of 2013 for documents provided to WikiLeaks. “I am sorry that my actions hurt people.
I’m sorry that they hurt the United States,” he said at his sentencing hearing.
The following chart details some of the whistleblowers throughout history starting in 1777
to the present.

Year Image Name Organization Action

Along with Third


Lieutenant Richard
Marven, midshipman Shaw was
a key figure in the passage of the
first whistleblower law passed in
the United States by
the Continental Congress.
[1]
During the Revolutionary War,
the two naval officers blew the
whistle on the torturing of
United States
Samuel British POWs by
1777 Continental
Shaw Commodore Esek Hopkins, the
Navy
commander-in-chief of the
Continental Navy.[2] The
Continental Congress enacted
the whistleblower protection
law on July 30, 1778, by a
unanimous vote.[3] In addition, it
declared that the United States
would defend the two against a
libel suit filed against them by
Hopkins.[4]

English shipping clerk


turned journalist who reported
on the atrocities in the Congo
Free State in Africa and became
an anti-slavery campaigner. His
Edmund Dene
1893 Congo Free State revelations led to a strong
Morel
campaign against Belgian King
Leopold II's autocratic regime in
his African territory, where the
rubber plantations brutally
exploited slave labor.[5]

1931 Herbert United States Cryptologist and Head of


Yardley Cipher Bureau the Cipher Bureau, the first
U.S. SIGINT agency better known
as "The Black Chamber,” who
exposed the inner workings of
the organization and its
surveillance policies in his
eponymous 1931 book, The
American Black Chamber, after

133
Year Image Name Organization Action

the United States Department of


State withdrew funding from the
organization's activities in 1929,
citing ethical concerns. However,
while "The Black Chamber"
ceased operations following the
withdrawal of funding, the
publication of Yardley's book
two years later and its resultant
controversy in government
circles caused the amendment
of the Espionage Act of 1917 to
prohibit the disclosure of foreign
code or any communication
transmitted through code.
Though Yardley remains a
controversial figure in the
intelligence community, he was
honored by the National
Security Agency in 1999.[6][7]

Retired U.S. Marines Corps


Major General, a two-time
recipient of the Medal of Honor,
who alleged to the McCormack-
Dickstein Committee in the U.S.
House of Representatives that
business leaders had plotted a
fascist coup d'état against
the Franklin D.
Roosevelt administration in what
became known as the Business
Smedley United States Plot. In his book War Is a Racket,
1933
Butler Marine Corps Butler listed well-known U.S.
military operations that he
alleged were not about
protecting democracy as was
told to the public but in
furthering the business interests
of U.S. banks and corporations.
He compared these activities
with Al Capone-style mob hits
on behalf of American
corporations and their
respective business interests.[8]

134
Year Image Name Organization Action

Press Chief of Adolf Hitler's


conservative Vice-Chancellor
Franz von Papen. He used his
position inside the government
apparatus to pass on
information about secret
atrocities and malfeasances
committed by the Nazi
Government and Part
organizations (especially the SA
and SS) to the foreign press -
1933/ Herbert
Nazi Atrocities especially to Claud Cockburn, or
1934 von Bose
of the London based muckraking
journal The Week - in order to
alarm the world public about
those goings-on. On June 30,
1934, he was murdered by a
squad of SS-men dispatched to
his office by Heinrich Himmler,
who shot him in the back of the
head. Jessica Mitford dubbed
him "Deep Throat of the Third
Reich"[9]

Polish resistance fighter,


who during World War II twice
visited the Warsaw ghetto, and
met with United States
president Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, with the UK Foreign
Secretary, and with the Polish
shadow government in London,
Polish Home
1942 Jan Karski to report what he had witnessed
Army
concerning conditions
for Jewish people, and the
extermination camps. His report
was not taken seriously by any
authority.[10][11] Resulting the
death of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs,
and others the Nazis deemed as
subhuman.

1960s–1970s[.]

135
Year Image Name Organization Action

American colonel, who,


during the Vietnam War,
reported to his superiors
that American policy and
United States tactics were seriously
1963 John Paul Vann
Army flawed, and later went to
the media with his concerns.
Vann was asked to resign his
commission, did so, but later
returned to Vietnam.[12]

Exposed the Tuskegee


United States
Syphilis Experiment.[13]
Public
1966 Peter Buxtun Where the government was
Health
deliberately injecting Black
Service
men with syphilis.

U.S. Navy Lieutenant


JG, White wrote this letter
to the New Haven (CT)
Register. He asserted that US
President Lyndon Johnson
lied to Congress about faulty
sonar reports used to justify
the Gulf of Tonkin
United States Resolution. White continued
1967 John White
Navy his whistleblowing activities
by appearing in the 1968
documentary In the Year of
the Pig. In 2014, he
published his post-mortem
entitled The Gulf of Tonkin
Events: Fifty Years Later (A
Footnote to the History of
the Vietnam War).

1971 Daniel Ellsberg United States Ellsberg was a


State former RAND Corp. military
Department analyst who, along
with Anthony Russo, leaked
the Pentagon Papers, a
secret account of
the Vietnam War to The
New York Times. The
Pentagon Papers revealed
endemic practices of
deception by previous
administrations and
contributed to the erosion
of public support for the
war. The release triggered a
legal case concerning

136
Year Image Name Organization Action

government efforts to
prevent the publication of
classified information that
was heard by the U.S.
Supreme Court (New York
Times Co. v. United
States (403 U.S. 713)).
Ellsberg himself was the
subject of retaliation by
the Nixon Administration.

Former New York City


police officer who reported
several of his fellow officers
for bribery and related
charges in front of
the Knapp
Commission probing police
corruption in the NYPD.
New York Serpico was the first police
1971 Frank Serpico Police officer in the history of the
Department NYPD to step forward to
report and subsequently
testify openly about
widespread, systemic
corruption payoffs
amounting to millions of
dollars.[14] The 1973
film Serpico is an account of
his story.

Former NSA analyst


who revealed the existence
of the NSA and its
worldwide covert
surveillance network
in Ramparts magazine in
1971.[15] At the time, the
NSA was an ultra-secretive
National scarcely known organization.
1971 Perry Fellwock Security Because of the Fellwock
Agency revelations, U.S.
Senator Church
Committee introduced
successful legislation to stop
NSA spying on American
citizens. Fellwock was
motivated by Daniel
Ellsberg's release of the
Pentagon Papers.[16][17]

137
Year Image Name Organization Action

In the Soviet Union,


during the leadership
of general secretary Leonid
Brezhnev, psychiatry was
used as a tool to eliminate
political dissidents.[18] In
1971, Vladimir
Bukowski smuggled to the
West a file of 150 pages
documenting the political
abuse of psychiatry, which
he sent to The Times.[19] The
documents were
photocopies of forensic
reports on prominent Soviet
dissidents.[20] In January
Vladimir Soviet abuse of 1972, Bukowski was
1971
Bukowski psychiatry convicted of spreading anti-
Soviet
propaganda under Criminal
Code, mainly on the grounds
that he had, with anti-Soviet
intention, circulated false
reports about political
dissenters confined in
mental hospitals.[21]Political
abuse of psychiatry in the
Soviet Union was
denounced in the course of
the Congresses of the World
Psychiatric Association in
Mexico City (1971), Hawaii
(1977), Vienna (1983)
and Athens (1989).[22]

Known only as Deep


Throat until 2005, Felt was
Associate Director of the
FBI, the number-two job in
the Bureau, when he leaked
information about
President Richard Nixon's
Federal Bureau
involvement in
1972 W. Mark Felt of
the Watergate scandal.
Investigation [23]
The scandal would
eventually lead to the
resignation of the president,
and prison terms for White
House Chief of Staff H. R.
Haldeman and presidential
adviser John Ehrlichman.

138
Year Image Name Organization Action

A senior executive at
Swiss pharmaceutical
company Hoffman-LaRoche,
Adams supplied evidence
to European Economic
Community regulators on
the company's price fixing in
the international vitamin
Hoffmann- market.[24] The EEC revealed
1973 Stanley Adams
LaRoche his name during the
resulting investigation and
Adams was arrested
for industrial espionage by
the Swiss government and
spent six months in jail. He
fought for ten years to clear
his name and receive
compensation from the EEC.

U.S. Department of
Defense auditor who was
fired in 1973 by President
Richard M. Nixon for
exposing to Congress the
tidal wave of cost overruns
associated with
Lockheed's C-5A cargo
plane. After protracted
United States litigation he was reinstated
A. Ernest
1973 Department to the civil service and
Fitzgerald
of Defense continued to report cost
overruns and military
contractor fraud, including
discovery in the 1980s that
the Air Force was being
charged $400 for hammers
and $600 for toilet seats.
Fitzgerald retired from the
defense Department in
2006.[25]

Henri Peizerat, working


on the Jussieu Campus,
French
detected asbestos fibers
National
1973– falling from the ceiling and
Henri Peizerat Centre for
1997 created a committee to
Scientific
study and inform people
Research
about the dangers
of asbestos.

139
Year Image Name Organization Action

There have been a


number of nuclear power
whistleblowers who have
identified safety concerns
at nuclear power plants. The
first prominent nuclear
power whistleblower
was Karen Silkwood, who
worked as a chemical
technician at a Kerr-
Kerr- McGee nuclear plant.
1974 Karen Silkwood
McGee Silkwood became an activist
in the Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers
International Union in order
to protest health and safety
issues. In 1974, she testified
to the United States Atomic
Energy Commission about
her concerns. The 1983
film Silkwood is an account
of this story.

Gregory C. Minor, General Nuclear power


1976 Richard B. Electric whistleblowers. On February
Hubbard, 2, 1976, Gregory C. Minor,
and Dale G. Richard B. Hubbard, and
Bridenbaugh Dale G. Bridenbaugh (known
as the GE Three) "blew the
whistle" on safety problems
at nuclear power plants, and
their action has been called
"an exemplary instance
of whistleblowing.”[26] The
three engineers gained the
attention of journalists and
their disclosures about the
threats of nuclear power
had a significant impact.
They timed their statements
to coincide with their
resignations from
responsible positions
in General Electric's nuclear
energy division, and later
established themselves as
consultants on the nuclear
power industry for state
governments, federal
agencies, and overseas
governments. The
consulting firm they formed,
MHB Technical Associates,
was technical advisor for the
movie, The China Syndrome.
The three engineers

140
Year Image Name Organization Action

participated in
Congressional hearings
which their disclosures
precipitated.[26][27][28][29]

CIA analyst at the US


Embassy, Saigon who
published Decent Interval in
1977 about Operation
Frequent Wind and the
failures of the CIA and other
American entities to
properly prepare for the Fall
of Saigon. Although he
redacted all names,
Central methods, and sources from
1977 Frank Snepp Intelligence the book, after it was
Agency published, CIA
Director Stansfield
Turner had Snepp
successfully prosecuted
for breach of contract for
violating his non-disclosure
agreement.[30] Snepp lost all
income, including royalties,
from publication of the
book, a verdict upheld by
the U.S. Supreme Court.

1980s[.]

Year Image Name Organization Action

Senior civil servant in the


UK Ministry of Defense who
leaked classified documents to
Labor Member of
United Parliament Tam
Clive Kingdom Dalyell confirming that
1984
Ponting Ministry of the General Belgrano was sunk
Defense by British forces during
the Falklands War while
outside the total exclusion
zone, contradicting statements
by the Thatcher Government.

141
Year Image Name Organization Action

Became the first


individual in 40 years to file
a qui tam lawsuit under
the False Claims Act after the
statute had been weakened in
1943.[31] Gravitt, a machinist
foreman, sued GE for
defrauding the United States
Department of Defense when
GE began falsely billing for
work on the B1
Lancer bomber. Gravitt was
John
laid off following his
Michae General
1984 complaints to supervisors
l Electric
about the discrepancies. The
Gravitt
case of Gravitt v. General
Electric and Gravitt's
deposition to Congress led to
federal legislation bolstering
the False Claims Act in 1986.[32]
[33]
The amended Act made it
easier for whistleblowers to
collect damages. Gravitt's suit
proceeded under the 1986
amendments and GE settled
the case for a then record
$3.5 million.[34]

Canadian civil servant


who reported to his chief, the
top Canadian civil servant, that
Minister of Defense Robert
Coates had visited a West
German strip club while on an
official mission,
Duncan Canadian
1984 with NATO documents in his
Edmonds Government
possession, creating a security
risk. Coates was asked to
resign from Cabinet by Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney, who
also fired Edmonds and made
him persona non grata in
government circles.[35]

Engineer who revealed


himself as the anonymous
source in the Bofors
Scandal about illegal weapon
1984(? Ingvar
Bofors exports.[36] An act that led to a
) Bratt
new Swedish law[37] concerning
company secrets which
commonly is referred to as Lex
Bratt.

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Former MI5 officer who


accused the British security
service of having over-
zealously interpreted which
groups qualified as subversive,
Cathy thus justifying surveillance
1985 MI5
Massiter against them. Massiter
revealed that MI5 had spied
on trade unions, civil liberty
organizations and
the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.[38][39]

1985 Ronald J. EBASC Nuclear power


Goldstein O whistleblower Goldstein was a
Constructors supervisor employed by
Inc. EBASCO, which was a major
contractor for the construction
of Houston Lighting and Power
Company's South Texas
Project (a complex of two
nuclear power plants). In the
summer of 1985, Goldstein
identified safety problems to
SAFETEAM, an internal
compliance program
established by EBASCO and
Houston Lighting, including
noncompliance with safety
procedures, the failure to issue
safety compliance reports, and
quality control violations
affecting the safety of the
plant. SAFETEAM was
promoted as an independent
safe haven for employees to
voice their safety concerns.
The two companies did not
inform their employees that
they did not believe
complaints reported to
SAFETEAM had any legal
protection. After he filed his
report to SAFETEAM,
Goldstein was fired.
Subsequently, Goldstein filed
suit under federal nuclear
whistleblower statutes. The
U.S. Department of
Labor ruled that his
submissions to SAFETEAM
were protected and his
dismissal was invalid, a finding
upheld by Labor
Secretary Lynn Martin. The
ruling was appealed and

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overturned by the Fifth Circuit


Court of Appeals, which ruled
that private programs offered
no protection to
whistleblowers. After
Goldstein lost his case,
Congress amended the federal
nuclear whistleblower law to
provide protection reports
made to internal systems and
prevent retaliation against
whistleblowers.

Revealed
Israel's clandestine nuclear
program to the British press.
He spent seventeen and a half
years in prison as a result, the
first eleven of these in solitary
confinement. After his release,
Israeli sanctions were placed on him:
Mordechai nuclear among others, he was not
1986
Vanunu weapons allowed to leave Israel or
program speak to foreigners. The
sanctions have been renewed
every twelve months. At
present, he is appealing a
further six-month prison
sentence imposed by an Israeli
court for having spoken to
foreigners and foreign press.

1988 Peter MI5 Former science officer


Wright of MI5 who claimed in his
book, Spycatcher, that the UK
Security Service plotted to
remove Prime Minister Harold
Wilson from office and the
Director General of MI5 was a
Soviet spy. After its publication
in Australia, which
the Thatcher government tried
to block, the government
attempted to ban the book in
Britain under the Official
Secrets Act. Through litigation,
it succeeded in imposing a gag
order on English newspapers
to prevent them from

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publishing Wright's
allegations. The gag orders
were upheld by the Law
Lords. Eventually, in 1988, the
book was cleared for
legitimate sale when the Law
Lords acknowledged that
overseas publication meant it
contained no secrets.
[45]
However, Wright was
barred from receiving royalties
from the sale of the book in
the United Kingdom. In
November 1991, the European
Court of Human Rights ruled
that the British government
had breached the European
Convention of Human Rights in
gagging its own newspapers.[46]
[47]
The British Government's
legal cost were estimated at
£250,000 in 1987.

Gibeault filed a qui


tam lawsuit against defense
subcontractor Genisco
Technology Corp. after
working undercover for 18
months with
the FBI and DCIS to uncover
the company's fraudulent test
methods which were being
used to pass key components
off on the High-speed Anti-
Radiation Missile (HARM)
Roland Genisco missile. The FBI and DCIS case
1988
Gibeault Technology resulted in a plea-bargained
$725,000 fine and three
Genisco executives being sent
to federal prison.[49]
[50]
Gibeault, who was fired
from Genisco following
revelation of whistleblowing,
received $131,250 of the fine.
[51]
In 1989, Gibeault and fellow
employee Inge Maudal also
filed qui tam actions against
Genisco's parent
company, Texas Instruments.

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Filed a qui tam lawsuit


against United Technologies
Corp. (UTX) where he held the
title vice president of finance.
Mr. Keeth and others had
investigated billing practices at
UTX's Sikorsky Aircraft division,
uncovering inflated progress
United
Douglas D. billings going back at least as
1989 Technologies
Keeth far as 1982. UTX offered Mr.
Corporation
Keeth a $1 million severance
payment if he would keep
quiet, but Keeth rejected the
offer. In 1994, UTX paid
$150 million to the
government and Keeth was
awarded a bounty of
$22.5 million.

Filed a lawsuit January


1989 alleging fraud by Hughes
Aircraft with respect to the B-2
bomber. In 1997 the Supreme
Court held that the claim
should have been dismissed as
based on invalid legislation
because the alleged fraud
occurred in 1982–1984, before
William Hughes the 1986 amendments to the
1989
Schumer Aircraft Fraudulent Claims Act which
might have permitted it. The
government did not support
Schumer in his lawsuit as it
had determined the alleged
fraud had actually benefited
the government by shifting
costs from the cost-plus B-2
contract to the fixed-price F-15
contract.

1989–1991 Myron Mobil A toxicologist, he warned


Mehlman managers at Mobil that the
company's gasoline that was
being sold in Japan
contained benzene in excess of
5 percent, and that levels
needed to be reduced. Upon
his return to the United States,

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he was fired. He later


successfully sued the
company.

1990s[.]

Nam
Year Image Organization Action
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Nuclear power
whistleblower Arnold
Gundersen discovered
radioactive material in an
accounting safe at Nuclear
Energy Services (NES) in
Danbury, Connecticut, the
consulting firm where he held a
$120,000-a-year job as senior
vice president. Three weeks
after he notified the company
president of what he believed
to be radiation safety violations,
Gundersen was fired. According
to The New York Times, for
three years, Gundersen "was
Nuclear
Arnold awakened by harassing phone
1990 Energy
Gundersen calls in the middle of the night"
Services
and he "became concerned
about his family's safety.”
Gundersen believes he was
blacklisted, harassed and fired
for doing what he thought was
right. NES filed a $1.5 million
defamation lawsuit against him
that was settled out-of-court. A
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission report concluded
that there had been
irregularities at NES, and the
Office of the Inspector General
reported that the NRC had
violated its own regulations by
sending business to NES.

1992 Mark Archer PhD scientist and former


Whitacr Daniels Divisional President with Archer
e Midland Daniels Midland, who worked
with the FBI as a
secret informant, to blow the
whistle on price-fixing cartel in
[57]
his company. This story is
featured in the film The

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Informant! where Whitacre is


portrayed by Matt Damon.

Keith A. Schooley (born


1952) is an American author
and former stockbroker
at Merrill Lynch, who brought
attention to fraud and
corruption within the firm at
Keith A.
the Oklahoma and Texas offices
1992 Schoole
in 1992 as a whistleblower.
y [60]
As a result, he was
terminated from the firm,
[61]
and sued the corporation in
a case that went to the
Oklahoma Supreme Court, and
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

André Cicolella showed


that malformation of fetuses
are associated with professional
exposure of their mothers to
glycol ethers. The French
French
Institute for Research and
André Institute for
1994 Security decided not to allow
Cicolella Research
him to chair or participate in a
and Security
symposium that he was
organizing on health risks linked
with ether glycols and fire him.
In 1998, justice confirms that
the researcher was right.

Whistleblower at the U.S.


Environmental Protection
Agency for over 20 years who
also wrote on whistleblower
protection issues.[64] He won a
United States
landmark lawsuit against the
William Environmenta
1994–95 federal government which
Sanjour l Protection
established the First
Agency
Amendment rights of federal
employees to "blow the
whistle" on their employer.
(Sanjour v. EPA,56 F.3d 85 (D.C.
Cir. 1995)

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Nuclear power
whistleblower George Galatis
was a senior nuclear engineer
who reported safety problems
at the Millstone 1 Nuclear
Power Plant, relating to reactor
refueling procedures, in 1996.
The unsafe procedures meant
that spent fuel rod pools at Unit
1 had the potential to boil,
possibly
releasing radioactive steam.
Galatis eventually took his
concerns to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, to find
Nuclear that they had "known about the
George
1996 power unsafe procedures for years.” As
Galatis
industry a result of going to the NRC,
Galatis experienced "subtle
forms of harassment,
retaliation, and
intimidation.” The NRC Office of
Inspector General investigated
this episode and essentially
agreed with Galatis in Case
Number 95-771, the report of
which tells the whole
story. George Galatis was the
subject of a Time
magazine cover story on March
4, 1996. Millstone 1 was
permanently closed in July
1998.

Jeffrey Wigand had been


recently fired from his position
as vice president of research
and development at tobacco
company Brown &
Williamson when, on February
4, 1996, he stated on
the CBS news program 60
Jeffrey Brown & Minutes that the company
1996
Wigand Williamson intentionally manipulated the
level of nicotine in cigarette
smoke to addict smokers.
Wigand claims that he was
subsequently harassed and
received anonymous death
threats. He was portrayed
by Russell Crowe in the 1999
film The Insider.

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The first whistleblower on


the Canadian "Ad Scam"
or sponsorship scandal.
Without legal protection, he
was fired by the Canadian
government. As the case
Allan Canadian
1996 developed, federal legislation
Cutler government
was passed to protect future
whistleblowers in the Canadian
civil service. Several convictions
have been recorded to date
with the case, with proceedings
still in progress.

Exposed illegal promotion


of the epilepsy
drug Neurontin for un-approved
uses while withholding
evidence that the drug was not
effective for these conditions.
Parke-Davis's new
owners Pfizer eventually
pleaded guilty and paid criminal
and civil fines of $430 million.
The case had widespread
effects including: establishing a
new standards for
pharmaceutical marketing
David
1996 Parke-Davis practices; broadening the use of
Franklin
the False Claims Act to make
fraudulent marketing claims
criminal violations; exposing
complicity and active
participation in fraud by
renowned physicians; and
demonstrating how medical
literature had been
systematically adulterated by
the pharmaceutical industry
and its paid clinical consultants.
Under the False Claims Act Dr.
Franklin receives $24.6m as part
of the settlement agreement.

1996 Michael Los Angeles Former LAPD narcotics


Ruppert Police officer who contested
Department the CIA director John Deutch's
assertions that the CIA was
not complicit in drug
trafficking during a town hall
meeting at Los Angeles' Locke
High School on November 5,
1995. At the meeting, Ruppert

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publicly alleged the existence of


classified CIA programs named
"Amadeus,” "Pegasus,” and
"Watchtower,” claiming to
possess evidence for the
programs including redacted
documents from "Watchtower,”
and stated that CIA officers had
attempted to involve him in
protecting these CIA operations
during the late 1970s. His
account corresponds to similar
allegations regarding Operation
Watchtower.

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Starting in 1996, Nancy


Olivieri was part of a group
conducting a clinical trial in
order to evaluate the use of a
drug from Apotex, deferiprone,
in treating persons with a blood
disorder, thalassaemia.
[72]
During the course of the
trial, Olivieri became concerned
about evidence that pointed to
the toxicity of the study drug
and to the drug being
ineffective. Olivieri informed
both the research ethics board
that was monitoring the study
and Apotex, the drug maker.
The research ethics board
instructed Olivieri to inform
participants about her
1996– Nancy concerns. Apotex responded by
Apotex
1998 Olivieri noting that Olivieri had signed a
confidentiality agreement as
part of the drug trial and that
informing participants about
her concerns, the validity of
which Apotex disputed, would
violate that confidentiality
agreement. Apotex threatened
to vigorously pursue all legal
remedies against her if she
disclosed her conclusions to
patients. Olivieri disclosed her
concerns to her patients and
Apotex ended the portion of
the study in which she was
participating. In 1998, the New
England Journal of
Medicine published her paper
suggesting that deferiprone led
to progressive hepatic fibrosis.

1997 Frederic Federal A chemist at the U.S.


Whitehurst Bureau of Federal Bureau of Investigation
Investigation who was the FBI Laboratory's
foremost expert on explosives
residue in the 1990s and
became the first modern-day
FBI whistleblower. He reported
a lack of scientific standards and
serious flaws in the FBI Lab,
including in the first World
Trade Center bombing cases
and the Oklahoma City bombing
case. Whitehurst's
whistleblower disclosures

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triggered an overhaul of the


FBI's crime lab following a
report by the U.S. Department
of Justice Inspector General in
1997. Dr. Whitehurst filed a
federal lawsuit claiming
whistleblower retaliation, and
he reached a settlement with
the FBI worth more than
$1.16 million. Whitehurst now
directs the FBI Oversight Project
of the National Whistleblower
Center.

Along with girlfriend Annie


Machon, resigned from MI5 to
expose alleged criminal acts by
the UK Secret Services,
including a failed assassination
David
1997 MI5 attempt on Muammar Gaddafi.
Shayler
Shayler also accused the
Security Services of planting
false stories in the press,
substantiated in one example
by a court.

A night guard at a Swiss


bank, he discovered that his
employer was destroying
records of savings
by Holocaust victims, which the
Christop
1997 UBS bank was required to return to
h Meili
heirs of the victims. After the
Swiss authorities sought to
arrest Meili, he was
given political asylum in the
United States.

1997 Alan Australian Alan Parkinson is a


Parkinson Government mechanical and nuclear
engineer who has written the
2007 book, Maralinga:
Australia’s Nuclear Waste
Cover-up, about the clean-up of
the British atomic bomb test
site at Maralinga in South
Australia. In 1993, Parkinson
became the key person on
the Maralinga clean-up project,
representing the then
federal Labor government. By

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1997, however, there was much


cost-cutting involved which
compromised the project, and
personal differences about how
the project should proceed,
which led to the sacking of
Parkinson by the new Howard
government. The clean-up was
totally unsatisfactory according
to Parkinson and he exposed
the situation through
the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, provoking a strong
rebuttal and personal abuse
from the government.

A microbiologist and
activist who was involved in one
Shiv Canadian
1998 of the first major
Chopra government
whistleblowing incidents in the
Canadian public service.

Accused European
Paul van European
1998 Commission members
Buitenen Commission
of corruption.

IOC member who blew the


International
Marc whistle on the Winter Olympic
1998 Olympic
Hodler bid scandal for the 2002 Salt
Committee
Lake City games.

1998 Linda Clinton Former White House staff


Tripp Administration member who disclosed to the
Office of Independent Counsel
that Monica
Lewinsky committed perjury
and attempted to entice
perjury, and that President Bill
Clinton committed misconduct,

154
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by denying the Clinton-Lewinsky


relationship in the Paula
Jones federal civil rights suit. A
victim of retaliation by the
Clinton Administration, Tripp
successfully sued
the Department of Defense and
the Justice Department for
releasing information from her
security and employment files
to the news media in violation
of the Privacy Act of 1974. In
2003, Tripp settled with the
federal government for over
$595,000. In addition, she
received a retroactive
promotion and retroactive pay
for the years 1998, 1999, and
2000, a pension and was
cleared to work for the federal
government again.

Early whistleblower of
suspected securities
Harry Bernie fraud by Bernard Madoff,
1999
Markopolos Madoff tipping off the United States
Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) repeatedly.

In 1999, Yuri
Bandazhevsky released the
results that he accumulated
Yuri
1999 Chernobyl about the health problems of
Bandazhevsky
children in the contaminated
area of Chernobyl. He was
arrested in July 1999.

1999 Cathy United A former United States


Harris States Customs Service employee who
Customs exposed rampant racial profiling
Service against Black travelers while
working at Hartsfield
International Airport in Atlanta,
Georgia. According to Harris's
book, Flying While Black: A
Whistleblower's Story, she
personally observed numerous
incidents of Black travelers
being stopped, frisked, body-
cavity-searched, detained for
hours at local hospitals, forced
to take laxatives, bowel-

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monitored and subjected to


public and private racist
humiliation. The book also
details her allegations of
mismanagement, abuses of
authority, prohibited personnel
practices, waste, fraud,
violation of laws, rules and
regulations, corruption,
nepotism, cronyism, favoritism,
workplace violence, racial and
sexual harassment,
intimidation, on and off the job
stalking, and other illegal acts
that occurs daily to federal
employees especially female
federal employees at U.S.
Customs and other federal
agencies.

Former analytical
chemist for the Philippines
Department of Agriculture who
Philippines became a journalist to expose
Marlene
1990s Department departmental corruption and
Garcia-
–2000s of was murdered in 2005. Her
Esperat
Agriculture assailants later surrendered to
police and have testified that
they were hired by officials in
the Department of Agriculture.

Janet
Howard, United Exposed widespread
Tana States systemic racism and retaliation
1990s–
Ward Department within the Department of
2000s
Jordan and of Commerce against African-
Joyce E. Commerce American employees.
Megginson

2000s

156
Retired lieutenant colonel in
the U.S. Air Force who worked as a
desk officer in The Pentagon and
in a number of roles in
the National Security Agency. She
has written a number of essays on
2 Karen United States Air
corrupting political influences
2000s Kwiatkowski Force
of military intelligence leading up
to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and
has said that she was the
anonymous source for Seymour
Hersh and Warren Strobel on their
exposés of pre-war intelligence.

Marsha Coleman-
Adebayo was a Senior Policy
Analyst in the Office of the
Administrator at the US
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). She blew the whistle on the
EPA for racial and gender
discrimination in violation of Civil
Rights Act of 1964 which began
after she was removed from her
position in South Africa where her
United States
2 Marsha "job was to essentially help the
Environmental
2000s Colema- South African government to work
Protection
Adebayo on issues that impact public
Agency
health.” In South Africa she
brought to the attention of the
EPA the dangerous conditions an
American company was exposing
African workers to who were
mining vanadium, a dangerous
substance. Her case eventually led
to the passing of the No-FEAR
Act in 2002 that makes federal
agencies more accountable for
employee complaints.

Nacchio was chairperson and


CEO of Qwest when it refused to
participate in NSA spying on its
customers in February 2001.
2 Joseph Qwest/National Qwest was the only
2001 Nacchio Security Agency telecommunications company to
require FISA court orders. Nacchio
claims that in retaliation, Qwest
subsequently was denied
government contracts.

157
Swiss tobacco control
advocates and alumni from the
University of Geneva who
revealed the secret ties of Ragnar
Rylander, professor of
environmental health, to the
tobacco industry. In a public
statement made in 2001, Pascal
Diethelm and Jean-Charles Rielle
accused Rylander of being
"secretly employed by Philip
Morris" and qualified of "scientific
fraud without precedent" the
concealment of his links with the
Pascal tobacco industry for a period of 30
Diethelm Philip Morris years, during which he publicly
2001 Jean- USA and University presented himself as an
Charles of Geneva independent scientist, while
Rielle obeying orders given by Philip
Morris executives and lawyers,
publishing articles and organizing
symposia which denied or
trivialized the toxicity
of secondhand smoke. After a long
trial, which went up to the
supreme court of Switzerland, all
accusations were found to be
true. Following this judgment, the
University of Geneva prohibited its
members from soliciting research
subsidies or direct or indirect
consultancies with the tobacco
industry.
Radack, a DOJ lawyer, told
Newsweek that the DOJ both lied
about and destroyed documents
regarding John Walker Lindh's
United States interrogation and his parent's
Jessalyn
2001 Department of attempts to get him a lawyer. The
Radack
Justice DOJ retaliated by pushing her out
of the Department, getting her
fired from her next job, trying to
get her law license revoked, &
other means.
2 Kathryn United Originally hired by the U.S.
2002 Bolkovac Nations International company DynCorp as part of a
Police $15 million UN contract to hire
and train police officers for duty
in Bosnia. She eventually reported
that such officers were paying for
prostitutes and participating
in sex-trafficking. Many of these

158
were forced to resign under
suspicion of illegal activity, but
none have been prosecuted, as
they also enjoy immunity from
prosecution in Bosnia. Bolkovac
filed a lawsuit in Great Britain
against DynCorp for unfair
dismissal due to a protected
disclosure (whistleblowing), and
on August 2, 2002, the tribunal
unanimously found in her favor.

Exposed corporate financial


2 Cynthia scandal. Jointly
WorldCom
2002 Cooper named Time's People of the
Year in 2002.

Exposed corporate financial


Sherron scandal. Jointly
2002 Enron
Watkins named Time's People of the
Year in 2002.

2 Diann San Diego Diann Shipione, a former


2002 Shipione trustee of the San Diego City
retirement board, is credited with
exposing unlawful
underfunding of the city's pension
fund] and the omission of multiple
billions of dollars of pension and
retiree healthcare debt in the City
of San Diego municipal bond
offering sales documents. She
was, in her professional life,
formerly a vice president
at UBS Financial Services. City
officials and pension board
trustees created a multi-year
smear campaign, including filing
ethics charges against her and
plotting to have her arrested by
the San Diego City Police. The
scandal caused widespread fallout
in the city's political and financial
sectors. Several city officials
resigned, including the City
Auditor, City Manager, City
Treasurer and the Mayor. The City
became the target of two federal
investigations and in November

159
2006, the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission entered an
order sanctioning the City of San
Diego for committing securities
fraud. Shipione was eventually
proven right about her
concerns and received public
recognition for her pension system
related services from many civic
organizations in San Diego.

Outlined the FBI's slow action


Federal before the September 11, 2001
2 Coleen
Bureau of attacks. Jointly
2002 Rowley
Investigation named Time's People of the
Year in 2002.

NSA officials initially


joined House Permanent Select
Committee on
Intelligence staffer Diane Roark in
asking U.S. Department of Defense
inspector general to investigate
wasteful spending on
William
the Trailblazer Project and the NSA
Binney,
officials eventually went public
2 J. Kirke National
when they were ignored and
2002 Wiebe, Security Agency
retaliated upon. They claim
Edward
that Thin thread was more
Loomis
focused thus more effective and
lower cost than Trailblazer and
subsequent programs, which
automatically collected trillions of
domestic communications of
Americans in deliberate violation
of the U.S. Constitution.
Argentine-born Spanish
accountant, employed by the
European Commission as Chief
2 Marta European
Accountant, and notable for
2002 Andreasen Commission
raising concerns about fraud
potential within EU, neglected by
the Commission.
2 Glenn University Glenn Walp and Steven L.
2002 Walp of California Doran were hired to investigate
Steven L. Los Alamos allegations of fraud at the
Doran National University of California's Los
Laboratory Alamos National Laboratory. They
were fired after they exposed
breaches of security as well as
fraud and mismanagement to the
Department of Energy. Their
investigation resulted in

160
congressional hearings. Walp
received a $930,000 settlement
from the University of California
(UC) for wrongful
termination. Doran accepted UC's
offer of a position as security
consultant.
Former FBI translator
naturalized American citizen of
Turkish descent who was fired in
2002 by the FBI for attempting to
report coverups of security issues,
potential espionage, and
incompetence. She has been
gagged by the State Secrets
Federal Privilege in her efforts to go to
2 Sibel
Bureau of court on these issues, including a
2002 Edmonds
Investigation rejection recently by the Supreme
Court of the United States to hear
her case without comment. She is
now founder of the National
Security Whistleblowers
Coalition (NSWBC) that is looking
to lobby congress and help other
whistleblowers with legal and
other forms of assistance.
Kathryn Bolkovac is a human
rights advocate, consultant,
former police investigator with the
Lincoln, NE Police Department,
and former monitor with United
United Nations International Police Task
2 Kathryn Nations Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2003 Bolkovac Peacekeeper She came to prominence when
Monitor she sued her employers for unfair
dismissal after she lost her job
following her attempts to expose
sex trafficking in Bosnia. Her story
was shown in the film The
Whistleblower.
2 Sgt. Frank U.S. Army Sgt. Frank “Greg” Ford is a
2003 “Greg” retired counterintelligence agent
Ford with over 30 years of military
service. He was stationed in
Samarra, Iraq in June 2003 with
the California National Guard’s
223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.)
Battalion. After reporting to
superiors systematic abuse of Iraqi
detainees at Samarra, Sgt. Ford
was judged mentally unstable by
an Army psychiatrist and

161
transferred to Landstuhl RMC,
Germany to receive further
psychological evaluation. In all
following psychiatric assessments,
Ford was determined to be of
sound mind. In later interviews
and press appearances, Ford also
alleges he witnessed the diversion
of U.S.-made weapons of mass
destruction from Iraq to Syria and
suggests these munitions were
deployed by the Syrian military
against rebels and civilians during
the Syrian civil war.
William J. McAleer was the
head of the General Motors
inspection and quality assurance
program for many years. He found
faults in the Chevrolet Cavalier
and the Chevrolet Cobalt, and
repeatedly reported them, with
little response. He thought his
supervisors were more interested
in maintaining sales and their own
positions than with expensive
recalls. In 2003, McAleer sued GM
alleging that the company had
been slow to address the dangers
in its cars and trucks. Even though
he lost the court case, McAleer
William
General thought that by blowing the
2003 J.
Motors whistle he had done the right and
McAleer
proper thing. Faulty ignition
switches in the Cobalt’s, which cut
power to the car while in motion,
were eventually linked to many
crashes resulting in fatalities,
starting with a teenager in 2005
who drove her new Cobalt into a
tree. In May 2014 the NHTSA fined
the company $35 million for failing
to recall cars with faulty ignition
switches for a decade, despite
knowing there was a problem with
the switches. Thirteen deaths
were attributed to the faulty
switches during the time the
company failed to recall the cars.

162
Former senior securities
industry executive who revealed
to the Canadian House of
Commons' finance committee that
2 Diane Canadian Canadian frozen non-bank asset-
2003 Urquhart Government backed commercial paper caused
a loss of $7–$13 billion held
primarily by government,
corporation pension funds and
treasuries.
Leaked top-secret
information to the press
2 Katharine United concerning alleged illegal activities
2003 Gun Kingdom GCHQ by the United States and the
United Kingdom in their push for
the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2 Robert United U.S. Federal Air Marshal who
2003 MacLean States exposed the TSA's agency-wide
Transportation plan to remove Federal Air
Security Marshals from nonstop, long
Administration distance flights for two months in
order to avoid expenditures
associated with air marshals
lodging in hotels overnight. The
plan was formulated in response
to a budget shortfall due to
overspending. The plan was
formulated three days after the
U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) issued an Advisory
that warned the airline industry
and law enforcement of a suicide
hijacking plot in which terrorists
would exploit U.S. immigration
and airport security loopholes.
After outrage from U.S.
Senators Hillary Clinton, Charles
Schumer, Barbara Boxer, and
Congresswoman Carolyn
Maloney, TSA's plan was rescinded
before becoming operational.
MacLean was fired after DHS
discovered he disclosed the
plan. On January 27, 2014, the
Obama administration appealed
MacLean's federal appeals court
win to the Supreme Court of the
United States. The Court accepted
DHS' appeal for review and
affirmed the Federal Circuit's
decision in MacLean's favor 7-2.
The decision was written by Chief

163
Justice of the United States John
Roberts.

Former U.S. ambassador,


whose oriel (embedded message)
United
2 Joseph in The New York Times, "What I
States
2003 Wilson Didn't Find in Africa,” showed
Government
reasons for the 2003 invasion of
Iraq.

Former federal prosecutor


who obtained the first conviction
of a defendant in a terrorism case
post-9/11. After Convertino
testified before the U.S. Senate
Finance Committee in September
2003 about the lack of Bush
Administration support of anti-
United
terrorism prosecutions post-9/11,
2 Richard States
Convertino alleges the Justice
2003 Convertino Department of
Department leaked information
Justice
and violated a court order to
publicly smear him in retaliation
for his whistleblowing.
Additionally, the Justice
Department indicted Convertino
for obstruction of justice and lying,
which Convertino alleges is further
whistleblower retaliation.
Accused his employer NHAI
of corruption in highway
construction projects in India, in
India
letter to Prime Minister Atal
Satyendra National
2003 Behari Vajpayee. Assassinated on
Dubey Highways
November 27, 2003. Enormous
Authority
media coverage following his
death may lead to Whistleblower
Act in India.

First alerted the U.S. military


Joe United command of prisoner abuse in
2004
Darby States Army the Abu Ghraib prison, in Abu
Ghraib, Iraq.

Hans-
European Accused Parliament members
2004 Peter
Parliament of invalid expense claims.
Martin

164
British Ambassador
United to Uzbekistan who opposed
Kingdom Foreign the Karimov regime's use of
Craig
2004 and torture and its other violations of
Murray
Commonwealth human rights, and British
Office Government support for the use
of torture.
Nuclear power whistle
blower Gerald W. Brown was a
former firestop contractor and
consultant who uncovered the
Thermo-lag circuit
Gerald integrity scandal and silicone foam
Nuclear
2004 W. scandals in U.S. and Canadian
power industry
Brown nuclear power plants, which led to
Congressional proceedings as well
as Provincial proceedings in the
Canadian Province of Ontario
concerning deficiencies in passive
fire protection.
System administrator for U.S.
Army Military Intelligence at
the Abu Ghraib prison who
Samuel United publicly revealed the role
2004
Provance States Army of interrogators in the abuses, as
well as the general effort to cover-
up the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse
itself.
2004 Peter Pfizer Former vice president at
Rost Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Rost
reported about accounting
irregularities and other
irregularities to his management.
He was then transferred from
Sweden to a position in New
Jersey, a change that he
characterized as a retaliatory
demotion. He sued Wyeth, and
the case was settled out of court
on undisclosed terms.[126] He
moved to Pharmacia, where he
became concerned about off-
market labeling of Genotropin. He
reported this activity to his
managers at Pfizer after Pfizer's
purchase of Pharmacia, and later
filed a False Claims suit against the
company. The Department of
Justice declined to join the suit as
Pfizer had already disclosed the
violations. While a highly paid
executive at Pfizer, Rost publicly

165
took positions opposed to those of
Pfizer such as advocating drug
reimportation and writing a
glowing review of a book highly
critical of the industry. He was
exiled internally by Pfizer and
removed from all responsibilities
and decision making, a move
which Rost says was due to his
whistleblowing. In 2004, he
testified in Congress as a private
individual in favor of drug
reimportation, a position strongly
at odds with the official policy of
the pharmaceutical industry. In
December 2005, Rost was fired
from Pfizer. In September 2006 he
published his experiences in the
book "The Whistleblower:
Confessions of a Healthcare
Hitman."

Sandra Martinez Cam, who is


a native of Batuan, Masbate,
Philippines rose to fame after
exposing several scams involving
public officials and agencies in the
Philippine government. Among
these are the "jueteng" (illegal
numbers game) scandal, the
presence of illegal drugs and high-
powered firearms at the Bureau of
Corrections, and the escape of the
Philippines Reyes brothers via the Ninoy
Sandra Jueteng (illegal Aquino International Airport
2005
Cam numbers game) (NAIA). An advocate of women's
whistleblower rights, she also uncovered the sex
for flight scandal which victimized
several female Overseas Filipino
Workers in the Middle East. More
recently, the fearless Masbatena
said she has obtained information
that would shed light on the
infamous "tanim-bala" (planting of
bullets) scheme at the Ninoy
Aquino International Airport
(NAIA), which has been going on
since 2012.

166
Dufault presented research
findings to the United States Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) in
2005 that showed caustic soda
(lye) used in the production and
manufacturing of High Fructose
Food and Corn Syrup, left trace amounts of
Renee
2005 Drug mercury in foods containing High
Dufault
Administration Fructose Corn Syrup. After
independent testing verified her
findings, she attempted to publish
her research and was denied
usage of Federal extramural data.
She left the FDA in 2008 to make
her research public.

Richard Levernier is an
American nuclear power
whistleblower. Levernier worked
for 23 years as a nuclear security
professional and identified
security problems at U.S. nuclear
facilities as part of his job.
Specifically, after 9/11, he
identified problems with
contingency planning to protect
US nuclear plants from terrorist
attacks. He said that the
assumption that attackers would
both enter and exit from facilities
United was not valid, since suicide
Richard States terrorists would not need to exit.
2005
Levernier Department of In response to this complaint,
Energy the U.S. Department of
Energy withdrew Levernier's
security clearance and he was
assigned to clerical work.
Levernier approached the United
States Office of Special
Counsel (OSC), which handles US
federal whistleblower matters. It
took the OSC four years to
vindicate Levernier, ruling that the
Department's retaliation was
illegal but the OSC could not
reinstate Levernier's security
clearance, so he was unable to
regain work in nuclear security.

167
Toni Hoffman is a senior
Australian nurse who exposed
the medical malpractice of
surgeon Jayant Patel. She
originally began to raise doubts
about the ability of Patel with
hospital management and other
staff. Both doctors and surgeons
who were familiar with his work
Toni Queensland were also deeply concerned. Patel
2005
Hoffman Health, Australia became the subject of the Morris
Inquiry and later the Davies
Commission. Eventually the
matter was raised in
the Queensland Parliament.
Hoffman received the
2006 Australian of the Year Local
Hero Award and an Order of
Australia Medal, for her role as a
whistleblower.
Former intelligence analyst
for the National Security
Agency (NSA), the U.S. Air Force,
the Office of Naval Intelligence,
and the Defense Intelligence
Agency. Tice first approached
Congress and eventually the
media about the warrantless
surveillance of the US population
by the NSA. Tice was a major
source for the 2005 New York
United
Times exposé and spoke out
2005 Russ Tice States
widely following subsequent
Government
disclosures by other NSA
whistleblowers. He was the first to
speak publicly and openly with
allegations during the era
beginning with the George W.
Bush administration (which
continued into the Obama
administration). He had earlier
been known for reporting
suspicions that a DIA colleague of
his might be a Chinese spy.
Enquired about fraud in the
WMO, wrote a final report in
Maria do World 2005. Chief IAIS 2002/Nov2006,
2005 Rosàrio Meteorological terminated by the WMO. The
Veiga Organization WMO is the main proponent of
Global Warming and Climate
Change.

168
Thomas Drake worked at the
NSA in various analyst and
management positions. He blew
the whistle on the
NSA's Trailblazer Project that he
felt was a violation of the Fourth
Amendment and other laws and
regulations. He contacted The
Baltimore Sun which published
articles about, fraud, waste and
abuse at the NSA, including stories
about Trailblazer. In April 2010,
Thomas Drake was indicted by a grand jury
2005– National
Andrews on various charges, including
2011 Security Agency
Drake obstructing justice and making
false statements. After the May
22, 2011 broadcast of a 60
Minutes episode on the Drake
case, the government dropped all
of the charges against Drake and
agreed not to seek any jail time in
return for Drake's agreement to
plead guilty to a misdemeanor of
misusing the agency's computer
system. Drake was sentenced to
one year of probation and
community service.
Former chief civilian
contracting officer for the United
Bunnatine States Army Corps of
2005 "Bunny" H. Halliburton Engineers who exposed illegality
Greenhouse in the no-bid contracts for
reconstruction in Iraq by a
Halliburton subsidiary.
An American banker who
formerly worked for UBS,
Switzerland's largest bank, was the
first person who exposed what has
become a multibillion-dollar
international tax fraud scandal
2005– Brad over Swiss private banking. He
UBS
2009 Birkenfeld provided extensive and voluntary
cooperation with the U.S.
government, registering as an IRS
whistleblower, Birkenfeld is the
only U.S. citizen to be sentenced
to prison as a result of the
scandal.

169
Attorney for the DOJ's Office
of Intelligence Policy and
Review who initially informed The
United New York Times for the story that
Thomas States became a 2005 exposé on mass
2005
Tamm Department of warrantless surveillance. His home
Justice was raided in 2007 during FBI
investigation of the leaks and he
began to openly speak out publicly
in 2008.
Discovered that a
sophisticated group
of hackers were systematically
penetrating hundreds of computer
networks at major U.S. defense
contractors, military installations
and government agencies to
access sensitive information. After
informing his superiors at Sandia,
he was directed not to share the
information with anyone, because
management cared only about
Sandia's computers. He, however,
went on to voluntarily work with
Sandia the U.S. Army and the Federal
Shawn
2005 National Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to
Carpenter
Laboratories address the problem. When
Sandia discovered his actions, they
terminated his employment and
revoked his security clearance. His
story was first reported in the
September 5, 2005, issue of Time.
On February 13, 2007, a New
Mexico State Court awarded him
$4.7 million in damages from
Sandia Corporation for firing him.
The jury found Sandia
Corporation's handling of Mr.
Carpenter's firing was "malicious,
willful, reckless, wanton,
fraudulent, or in bad faith."
Exposed Philip Cooney, a
National
White House official who edited a
Rick S. Aeronautics and
2005 climate change report to reflect
Piltz Space
the administration's views without
Administration
having any scientific background.
Former manager at Indian Oil
Corporation Ltd (IOCL) and spoke
Shanmughan Indian Oil against adulteration of petrol. He
2005
Manjunath Corporation was shot dead on November 19,
2005, allegedly by a petrol pump
owner from Uttar Pradesh.

170
Executive at the UK bank
HBOS who in 2005 was fired,
allegedly after warning his senior
colleagues that the company's
sales strategy was at odds with
Paul
2005 HBOS prudent management. In 2009
Moore
Moore spoke out about his
warnings to the Treasury Select
Committee of parliament during
its investigation into the turmoil in
the UK banking system.
Exposed the SEC's failure to
pursue investigation of John
Mack in insider trading case
involving Pequot Capital
Management and Arthur J.
Samberg. Aguirre was fired for
complaining about special
treatment for Mack, which
prompted investigations by
the Senate Finance
Committee and the Senate
United
Judiciary Committee, culminating
Gary J. States Securities
2006 in a joint report vindicating
Aguirre and Exchange
Aguirre. Through his FOIA request
Commission
filed to learn more about
his wrongful termination, he
uncovered the "smoking gun" that
forced the SEC to re-open its case
against Pequot, leading to a
settlement of $28 million in 2009.
A month later, the SEC settled
Aguirre's lawsuit for wrongful
termination, paying $755,000.
Aguirre also won a lawsuit against
the SEC filed in District Court.
2006 Dr. Rosemary U.S. FDA In 2006, Rosemary Johann-
Johann-Liang Liang, deputy director of the
Division of Drug Risk Evaluation, in
the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, recommended
that the product label for the
diabetes drug Avandia include a
strong warning that the use of the
drug could result in congestive
heart failure. She was
reprimanded by FDA managers,
who transferred the Avandia
safety review work to her
supervisor. Johann-Liang was
vindicated in May 2007, when the
prestigious New England Journal

171
of Medicine aired similar concerns
about problems with Avandia, and
the FDA finally requested a "Black
Box" warning label for the
product. Johann-Liang ended up
resigning from the FDA.
Michael DeKort was an
American systems
engineer and project
manager at Lockheed Martin who
United
posted a whistleblowing video
States
on YouTube.com about the
Department of
Michael Lockheed Integrated Deepwater
2006 Homeland
DeKort System Program. In 2008, DeKort
Security – Unite
was awarded the Society on Social
d States Coast
Implications of Technology's public
Guard
service award. As well as the Barus
Ethics Award from the IEEE for his
efforts to ensure accountability
and whistleblowing video.
Student and lab technician
who questioned Eric
Poehlman's integrity. A scientist in
Walter University the field of human obesity and
2006
DeNino of Vermont aging, was the first academic in
the United States to be jailed for
falsifying data in a grant
application.
WIPO Senior Auditor blew
the whistle on fraud and
World attempted fraud committed by
Marco Intellectual WIPO Director-General Kamil
2006
Pautasso Property
Idris in November 2006. Worked
Organization
at WIPO from 2003 to 11/2006;
now consultant.
Retired communications
technician for AT&T who revealed
the details of the secret 2003
construction of a monitoring
facility in Room 641A of 611
Folsom Street in San Francisco, the
site of a large SBC phone building,
Mark AT&T, National three floors of which are occupied
2006
Klein Security Agency by AT&T. The facility is alleged to
be one of several operated by
the National Security Agency as
part of the warrantless
surveillance undertaken by the
Bush administration in the wake of
the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks.

172
Wrote memos to the EPA
Inspector General, U.S. Congress,
and FBI detailing the chemical
composition of dust from
the September 11 attacks and its
hazards to responders. She
alerted The New York Times in
2006 and said in a 2009 CBS
United interview that the EPA explicitly
States lied about the danger of the
Cate
2006 Environmental dust which caused chemical burns
Jenkins
Protection in the lungs of responders,
Agency debilitating illnesses in many that
included fatalities, and that it
could have been prevented with
proper safety equipment. Jenkins
claims that the EPA has been
misleading about evidence of
debris inhalation hazards since the
1980s. She was fired and in 2012
successfully sued to be reinstated.
Former executive at the
Countrywide Financial
Corporation. Winston was being
celebrated in the news as a hero.
He'd blown the whistle on
Countrywide Financial, the bent
mortgage lender that one could
plausibly argue nearly blew up the
global economy in the last decade
with its reckless subprime lending
practices.
He described Countrywide's
Michael
crazy plan to give anyone who
2006 G. Countrywide
could breathe a mortgage in a
Winston
memorable January 2013 episode
of Frontline called "The
Untouchables," a show that
caught the eyes of several
influential politicians in
Washington. The documentary
inspired Senate hearings and even
the crafting of new legislation to
combat too-big-to-jail corruption
in the financial world. Then the
bank countersued him, and he had
to go into bankruptcy.

173
Starting in June 2006, Senior
Vice President Richard M. Bowen
III, the chief underwriter of
Citigroup's Consumer Lending
Group, began warning the board
of directors about the extreme
risks being taken on by the
mortgage operation that could
potentially result in massive
losses. When Bowen first blew the
whistle in 2006, 60% of the
mortgages were defective. The
amount of bad mortgages began
increasing throughout 2007 and
eventually exceeded 80% of the
volume. Many of the mortgages
were not only defective, but were
Richard fraudulent. Bowen attempted to
2006–07 M. Citigroup rouse the board via weekly reports
Bowen III and other communications. On
November 3, 2007, Bowen
emailed Citigroup chairman
Robert Rubin and the bank's chief
financial officer, chief auditor and
the chief risk management officer
to again expose the risk and
potential losses and claiming that
the group's internal controls had
broken down. He requested an
outside investigation of his
business unit that eventually
confirmed his charges. In
retaliation, Citigroup stripped
Bowen of most of his
responsibilities and informing him
that his physical presence was no
longer required at the bank.
2006–13 Adam Omnicare Starting in 2006, Resnick sued
B. the pharmaceutical company
Omnicare, a major supplier of
Resnick drugs to nursing homes, under
federal whistleblower law, as well
as the parties to the company's
illegal kickback schemes.
Omnicare allegedly paid kickbacks
to nursing home operators in
order to secure business, which
constitutes Medicare and Medicai
d fraud. In 2010, Omnicare settled
a False Claims Act suit filed by
Resnick and taken up by the U.S.
Department of Justice by paying
$19.8 million to the federal

174
government, while the two
nursing homes involved in the
scheme settled for $14 million. A
second whistleblower lawsuit filed
against Omnicare by Resnick and
Total Pharmacy Services V.P.
Maureen Nehls related to
kickbacks that were part of its
2004 acquisition of Total
Pharmacy Services was settled for
$17.2 million by Omnicare and
$5 million by the Total Pharmacy
owners.
During his first few days as a
rookie New Jersey State Trooper,
Hopson witnessed an unlawful
arrest and false report made by
his training officer. When he
refused to testify in support of the
illegal arrest, he was subjected to
hazing and harassment by his
fellow troopers. He uncovered
evidence of a secret society within
the State Police known as the
Lords of Discipline, whose mission
it was to keep fellow troopers in
line. Trooper Hopson blew the
Justin New Jersey whistle on the Lords of Discipline,
2007
Hopson State Police which sparked the largest internal
investigation in State Police
history. Hopson filed a federal
lawsuit alleging that after he
refused to support the arrest,
Hopson was physically assaulted,
received threatening notes, and
his car was vandalized while on
duty. In 2007, the State of New
Jersey agreed to a $400,000
settlement with Hopson. Justin
Hopson and his book were
featured on ABC News 20/20
"Confessions of a Cop" in 2012
and "Crossing the Line" in 2014.
2007– Sergei Russian Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky
2009 Magnitsky accountant (Russian: Сергеей Леонидович
and auditor Магнитский; April 8, 1972 –
November 16, 2009) was a
Russian accountant and auditor
whose arrest and subsequent
death in custody generated
international media attention and
triggered both official and

175
unofficial inquiries into allegations
of fraud, theft and human rights
violations. Magnitsky had alleged
there had been a large-scale theft
from the Russian state sanctioned
and carried out by Russian
officials. He was arrested and
eventually died in prison seven
days before the expiration of the
one-year term during which he
could be legally held without trial.
In total, Magnitsky served 358
days in Moscow's notorious
Butyrka prison. He developed gall
stones, pancreatitis and a blocked
gall bladder and received
inadequate medical care. A human
rights council set up by the
Kremlin found that he was beaten
up just before he died. In 2013,
the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists, a
Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit
news organization, obtained
records of companies and trusts
created by two offshore
companies which included
information on at least 23
companies linked to an alleged
$230 million tax fraud in Russia, a
case that was being investigated
by Sergei Magnitsky. The ICIJ
investigation also revealed that
the husband of one of the Russian
tax officials deposited millions in a
Swiss bank account set up by one
of the offshore companies.
2007 John Central In an interview to ABC News
Kiriakou Intelligence on December 10, CIA officer
Agency Kiriakou disclosed that the
agency waterboarded
detainees and that this
constituted torture. In the months
following, Kiriakou passed the
identity of a covert CIA operative
to a reporter. He was convicted of
violating the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act and sentenced, on
January 25, 2013, to 30 months
imprisonment. Having served the
first months of his service he
wrote an open letter describing
the inhuman circumstances at the

176
correction facility.
Disclosed to a fellow
whistleblower unclassified
information which showed
deficiencies in the U.S. Coast
Guard Integrated Deepwater
System program and that
contractors were failing to meet
contractual requirements with
apparent U.S. Coast
Anthony U.S. Coast
2007 Guard complicity. Was placed on
D'Armiento Guard
administrative leave, threatened
with criminal prosecution,
subjected to a retaliatory
investigation by Coast Guard
Investigative Service, ordered to
"cooperate" and had a weapon
pulled on him in the office of
the Department of Homeland
Security Inspector General.
Leaked documents to the
media that revealed the IDF had
been engaging in extrajudicial
killings. While serving as an
assistant in the Central
Command bureau, Kamm secretly
copied classified documents that
she leaked to the
Israeli Haaretz journalist Uri
Anat Israeli
2008 Blau after her military service was
Kamm Defense Force
over. The leak suggested that the
IDF had defied a court ruling
against assassinating wanted
militants in the West Bank who
could potentially be arrested
safely. Kamm was convicted of
espionage and providing
confidential information without
authorization.
2008 Rudolf Julius Bär A long-term employee of the
Elmer Swiss bank whose final position
entailed overseeing its Caribbean
operations until he was
terminated in 2002, Elmer blew
the whistle on Julius Bär in 2008
when he gave secret documents
to WikiLeaks. The documents
detailed Julius Bär's activities in
the Cayman Islands and
alleged tax evasion. Convicted
in Switzerland in January 2011, he
was rearrested immediately for

177
having distributed illegally
obtained data to WikiLeaks. Julius
Bär alleges that Elmer has
doctored evidence to suggest the
tax evasion.
Robert J. McCarthy served as
Field Solicitor for the U.S.
Department of the Interior and as
General Counsel, U.S. Section,
International Boundary and Water
Commission. The Oklahoma Bar
Association honored him in 2008
with its Fern Holland Courageous
Lawyer Award for helping to
expose the Interior Department's
mismanagement of $3.5 billion in
Indian trust resources. In 2009,
United McCarthy disclosed massive fraud,
2008– Robert J.
States waste and abuse by the IBWC, that
2012 McCarthy
Government imperiled the health and safety of
millions of people on both sides of
the U.S.- Mexico border and
seriously damaged the border
ecosystem. In both cases he was
forced from government service
but continued to advocate for the
victims of government abuse. In
addition, his scholarly publications
have revealed the fatal flaws in
whistleblower protection laws, as
well as the need for radical reform
of specific government agencies.
Since 2009 he has been
collaborating with numerous
European nations by providing
HSBC's
information relating to more than
Hervé Swiss
2009 130,000 suspected tax evaders
Falciani subsidiary HSBC
with Swiss bank accounts –
Private Bank
specifically those with accounts in
HSBC's Swiss subsidiary HSBC
Private Bank

Former head of corporate


communications at CIGNA, one of
Wendell the nation's largest health
2009 CIGNA
Potter insurance companies. He testified
against the HMO industry in the
US Senate as a whistleblower.

178
An Iranian physician who
reported on the state use
Ramin Iranian
2009 of torture on political prisoners.
Pourandarjani Government
He died of poisoning shortly
thereafter.

Former Pfizer sales


representative and West Point
graduate whose whistleblower
("qui tam")166 lawsuit launched a
massive government investigation
into Pfizer's illegal and dangerous
marketing of Bextra, a prescription
painkiller. Pfizer paid $1.8 billion
John
2009 Pfizer to the government to settle the
Kopchinski
case, including a $1.3 billion
criminal fine, which was the
largest criminal fine ever imposed
for any matter. The Bextra
settlement was part of a
$2.3 billion global settlement – the
largest healthcare fraud
settlement in U.S. history.
2009 Jim Wetta, Eli Lilly Nine sales representatives
Joseph for Eli Lilly filed separate qui tam
Faltaous, lawsuits against the company for
Steven illegally marketing the
Woodward, drug Zyprexa for uses not
Jaydeen approved by the Food and Drug
Vincente, Administration. According to the
Robert settlement, the drug was
Rudolph, marketed for other medical
Hector conditions not approved by the
Rosado, FDA, known as off-label use. The
Robert Evan Government’s investigation was
Dawitt, triggered by a lawsuit filed by nine
William sales representatives (Relators). Eli
Lofing, Lilly pleaded guilty to actively
Bradly Lutz promoting Zyprexa for off-label
uses, particularly for the
treatment of dementia in the
elderly. The $1.415 billion penalty
included an $800 million civil
settlement and a $515 million
criminal fine—the largest criminal
fine for an individual corporation
in United States
history. Contingent upon the
United States receiving the
Federal Settlement amount, the
nine whistle blowers shared
$78,870,877, of the federal share

166 In common law, a writ of qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution
can receive all or part of any penalty imposed. Its name is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase qui tam pro
domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, meaning "[he] who sues in this matter for the king as
well as for himself."

179
of the civil settlement.

Claimed corruption among


Belarusian police; charged with
Belarus
Alexander bribery and fraud in 2009; became
2009 Ministry of
Barankov a political refugee in Ecuador in
Internal Affairs
2010; as of August 2012, faces
extradition back to Belarus.

Filed suit under the Dodd


Frank Act whistleblower program
Linda JP Morgan
2009 regarding alleged corrupt practices
Almonte Chase
including robo-signing at JP
Morgan.

2010s

Ima Nam
Year Organization Action
ge e

Andrew Maguire is a British


commodities trader and
whistleblower. He presented
evidence to United States
regulators alleging that fraud had
Andrew been committed, and that prices in
2010 JP Morgan
Maguire the international gold and silver
markets had been manipulated. He
went public in April 2010 with
assertions of market manipulation
by JP Morgan Chase and HSBC of
the gold and silver markets.

US Army intelligence analyst


who released the largest set of
classified documents ever, mostly
published by WikiLeaks and their
media partners. The material
included videos of the July 12, 2007
Baghdad airstrike and the
Chelsea 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan;
2010 United States Army
Manning 250,000 United States diplomatic
cables; and 500,000 army reports
that came to be known as the Iraq
War logs and Afghan War
logs. Manning was convicted of
violating the Espionage Act and
other offenses and sentenced to 35
years in prison.

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GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
whistleblower Cheryl D. Eckard
exposed contamination problems at
GSK's pharmaceutical
manufacturing operations, which
led to a $750 million settlement
Cheryl- with the U.S. government related to
2002– Eckard- civil and criminal charges that the
Meads GlaxoSmithKline
2010 firm manufactured and sold
adulterated pharmaceutical
products. Eckard was awarded
$96 million in 2010, a record for an
individual whistleblower, since
surpassed by UBS
AG whistleblower Bradley
Birkenfeld's $104 million award.

2010 Jim Wetta AstraZeneca AstraZeneca (AZ)


whistleblower James Wetta filed a
False Claims qui-tam case that
triggered the United States
Department of Justice investigation
into AstraZeneca violating the
Federal Anti-Kickback Statute and
promoting the unapproved use of
the (anti-psychotic) drug Seroquel.
In September 2000, the drug
Seroquel received FDA approval for
the short-term treatment of
schizophrenia, then in 2004, for
bipolar depression. James Wetta
exposed the company's alleged
fraud, where sales reps were
promoting the drug for a wide
range of less serious disorders
which included aggression,
Alzheimer's disease, anger
management, anxiety, attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder,
bipolar maintenance, dementia,
depression, mood disorder,
sleeplessness and post-traumatic
stress disorder. Promoting drugs off-
label amounts to fraud under the
False Claims Act, as the unapproved
uses were not medically accepted
indications for which the federal
and state Medicaid programs
provided coverage. Under the Food,
Drug and Cosmetics Act, a company
must specify the intended use of a
product in its new drug application
to the FDA. Once the drug is
approved by the FDA, the drug may
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off-label uses. The civil settlement


agreement required AstraZeneca to
pay $520 million to the federal
government to resolve civil
settlements. Jim Wetta provided
the information which proved the
drug was promoted for conditions
other than the FDA medical
indication.

Corporate president revealed


Michael Olympus past losses concealed and written
2011
Woodford Corporation
off via excessive fee payments.

Operated and founded the


radio network Radio Free
Sarawak and whistleblowing
site Sarawak Report. Before
February 2011, Sarawak
Report and Radio Free
Sarawak operated anonymously.
However, Rewcastle Brown and
Radio Free Sarawak's DJ, Peter John
Jaban decided to go public after one
of her informants, a former Taib
aide, was found dead. Ross Boyert,
who used to head Taib's supposed
Clare real estate arm in the United States,
2011 Rewcastle Sarawak Report was found dead in a Los Angeles
Brown hotel room with a plastic bag
around his head in September
2011. Boyert had claimed that he
and his family had been harassed
since he filed a lawsuit against the
real estate company in
2007. Sarawak Report later revealed
a barrage of exposés including
the April 2011 Sarawak election's
fraud, FBC Media's scandal, Musa
Aman timber corruption, Red
Granite Pictures' controversy and
with her latest being the Malaysia
Development Berhad scandal.
Exposed serious corrupt
practices at high levels. Revealed
M. N. Indian that he had established the
2011
Vijayakumar Administrative Service existence of 'IAS mafia'.167 The
Indian Government fired him and
denied his retirement benefits.

167Indian Administrative Service (IAS)

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Percival filed a Qui Tam


Whistleblower claim under seal in
7/2011 alleging that USIS had
defrauded the U.S. Government by
submitting unfinished background
Blake
2011 USIS investigations to the government
Percival
for payment. USIS has been under
scrutiny since it was revealed that
they had performed the
background investigation of Edward
Snowden and Aaron Alexis.168
AML compliance officer
for HSBC who uncovered billions of
dollars of illegal money laundering
transactions that he began
reporting to the FBI and the CIA in
2011, which led to
Everett
2011 HSBC an SEC investigation and a
Stern
$1.92 billion fine against HSBC the
following year. These encompassed
charges of money laundering for
drug traffickers, terrorist financiers,
and nations under U.S. and
international sanctions.
Ward Diesel Filter Systems Inc.
has agreed to pay the United States
$628,000 to resolve allegations that
it knowingly submitted false claims
to federal agencies under a contract
to provide diesel exhaust filtering
systems for fire engines through the
General Services Administration's
(GSA) Multiple Award Schedule
Ward Diesel Filter program, the Justice Department
2012 Ted Siska Systems, Inc. of New announced on June 26, 2012. The
York government's investigation was
initiated by a lawsuit, U.S. ex rel.
Siska v. Ward Diesel Filter Systems,
Inc., filed under the False Claims
Act's qui tam provisions, which
permit private parties to sue for
false claims on behalf of the United
States and to share in any recovery.
The whistleblower, Ted Siska, will
receive $94,200 of the settlement.
2012 Vijay Chief Engineer, Pandhare was a bureaucrat
Pandhare Irrigation belonging to the Irrigation
Department, Governme Department in the Indian state
nt of Maharashtra of Maharashtra. He blew the
whistle on the Maharashtra
Irrigation Scam of 2012 that led to
the resignation of Maharashtra

168 ISIS was given the contract to do the FBI investigations for the military and other government
employees. Where investigations originally took six weeks, ISIS took several months and caused such as
back up that it took years to get it straightened out.

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Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.


Wilson and Major Jeremy
Gordon exposed the malfunctioning
oxygen system on board the F-22
Raptor systems that were causing
pilots to become disoriented, first
to superior officers and then
Joshua Captain, United to CBS60 Minutes. As a result,
2012
Wilson States Air Force Wilson's superiors cancelled his
promotion to Major, took him off
flying duty and threatened to take
away his wings. Wilson was also
forced out of his desk job at Air
Combat Command. No such actions
faced Major Gordon.
Carmen Segarra discovered
that Goldman Sachs did not have a
conflict of interest policy when it
advised El Paso Corp. on selling
itself to Kinder Morgan, a company
US New York which Goldman Sachs owned a
Carmen Federal Reserve's $4 billion stake. She was forced by
2012
Segarra appointed regulator her superiors at the Federal Reserve
to Goldman Sachs to falsify her report but stated that
her professional view of the
situation had not changed. She was
shortly thereafter fired. The New
York Federal Reserve disputes that
she was fired in retaliation.
In May 2012 Meikar published
an article, admitting that he had
donated cash to Estonian Reform
Party in 2009 and 2010, coming
from unknown sources and given
him by co-politician Kalev Lillo,
according to a proposition made
by Kristen Michal, Reform Party's
secretary general. The scandal
Silver Estonian Reform became known as Silvergate. Lillo
2012
Meikar Party and Michal were presented with
criminal charges. After a long and
heated discussion in the media,
charges were dropped, as it was not
possible to gather enough evidence.
On October 24, 2012, Meikar was
expelled from the
party. Consequently, Kristen Michal
stepped down as the minister of
justice.

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In 2012 Deltour's leaking of


28,000 pages of confidential
documents revealing how
multinational companies routed
funds to lower corporate tax bills,
gave rise to the Luxembourg
Leaks journalistic investigation and
attracted international attention
Antoine Pricewaterhouse
2012 to tax avoidance schemes in
Deltour Coopers
Luxembourg and elsewhere. There
was no suggestion that the
arrangements were illegal under
Luxembourg law, but the
disclosures prompted wider public
debate on corporate tax avoidance
schemes and criminal charges
against Deltour.
Weber, an attorney
and Certified Fraud Examiner, was
the assistant inspector general of
the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. He learned of
misconduct in the Bernard
Madoff and Allen
Stanford investigations, and of
suspected hacking by a unit of the
United States Chinese military. He insisted that
David P.
2013 Securities and Exchange agency management report the
Weber
Commission misconduct and hacking to
Congressional Oversight
Committees, but instead was
terminated for supposedly
unrelated reasons. Shortly after his
lawsuit became public, news stories
broke that the People's Liberation
Army compromised information
technology at 160 U.S. corporations
and government agencies.
Booz Allen
Hamilton contractor,
Snowden released classified
material on top-secret NSA
programs including the PRISM
surveillance program to The
Edward National Security Guardian and The Washington
2013
Snowden Agency Post in June 2013. Edward Snowden
went public rather than reporting
within the system due to severe
reprisal against earlier NSA
whistleblowers. The Obama DOJ
put a hit out for him and he fled to
Russia to seek asylum.

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In a letter to the Nigerian


Securities and Exchange
Commission highlighted attempts
by the bank's chairman and
Executive Director to sell off assets
well below the market value, write
off debt, manipulate financial
Executive Director results and award the incoming
Laurence in Charge of Risk and chief executive an unapproved
2013
do Rego Finance Ecobank bonus of US$1.14 million. As a
Transnational result, do Rego was suspended
from her role in the bank. After a
nine-month battle over allegations
of mismanagement, the Ecobank
board decided to unanimously
remove the controversial chief
executive and reinstate do Rego to
her post.

Crane built up the DoD IG


office over his 25 years there to
Office of the
become the "gold standard" within
2013 John Crane Inspector General, U.S.
the government but had his career
Department of Defense
destroyed for his support of
government whistleblowers.

Commander (CDR) Ben


Strickland, alleged multiple acts of
retaliation in violation of
the Military Whistleblower
Protection Act by Coast Guard
Investigative Service (CGIS) and
senior Coast Guard Officials after he
reported a sexual assault
onboard USCGC Munro in May
2013. The Coast Guard denied
retaliation on their part and claimed
he was not eligible for
2014 Ben Strickland U.S. Coast Guard
whistleblower protection. CDR
Strickland alleged that he became
an unlawful target of the very
investigations which stemmed from
his report of a sexual assault and
filed a formal complaint which was
accepted for investigation by the
Department of Homeland Security
Office of Inspector General and
pends administrative review by the
Board for Correction of Military
Records.
2014 John Tye U.S. State Former State Department
Department official John Tye released an orial
(embedded message) in The
Washington Post in July 2014,
highlighting concerns over data
collection under Executive Order
12333. While Tye's concerns are

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rooted in classified material he had


access to through the State
Department, he has not publicly
released any classified materials.
Joseph Y. Ting Ph.D. worked as
a Medical physicist in Florida
Radiation Oncology. In 2014, Dr.
Ting filed a False Claims Act lawsuit
challenging 21st Century Oncology’s
practices, and accusing the
company of ripping
off Medicare. The cancer-care giant;
21st Century Oncology took over
South Florida Radiation Oncology
where Dr. Ting was working as a
Florida Radiation medical physicist. Dr. Ting
2014 Joseph Y. Ting
Oncology coordinated with the office of
the U.S. Attorney in the Middle
District of Florida regarding the
issue. At the end, 21st Century
Oncology settled with the U.S.
Department of Justice and agreed
to pay $34.7 million back to the U.S.
Treasury. On March 8, 2016, the
U.S. Department of Justice
announced an award of more than
$7 million to Dr. Ting and his legal
team for his role in the settlement.
2013– J. Kirk McGill United States DCAA McGill was the Auditor-
present Department of in-Charge of a 2013 audit of
Defense – Defense the National Ecological Observatory
Contract Audit Agency Network (NEON) conducted on
behalf of the Office of the Inspector
General of the National Science
Foundation (NSF). The audit
concluded that NEON and the NSF
had conspired to evade the
prohibition against payment of
certain costs to Government
grantees including lobbying, parties,
luxury foreign travel, and alcohol.
The audit was later overruled by top
DCAA management. McGill
reported the improper overruling of
the audit, which violated Generally
Accepted Government Auditing
Standards, to the Office of the
Inspector General, United States
Department of Defense and DCAA's
Internal Review Directorate (later
the DCAA Inspector General).
Neither watchdog took any action
to address McGill's concerns,
despite being notified as early as
January 2014 of the problem.
McGill then reported the findings

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and the alleged cover up to


Congress. On December 11, 2015,
NEON was fired from the
multibillion-dollar project. McGill's
primary disclosure was
published online on January 5,
2015. McGill's allegations of
retaliation remain under
investigation by the United States
Office of Special Counsel.
Commander (CDR) John
Bitterman, self-identified as
a whistleblower and alleged
retaliation in violation Military
Whistleblower Protection
Act by Coast Guard Pacific
Area officials after he complained
about poor material conditions
onboard his 47-year-old cutter and
requested additional funding
shortly after taking command. The
2015 John Bitterman U.S. Coast Guard Coast Guard stated they had
investigated and decided to relieve
CDR Bitterman for "loss of
confidence,” but refused to release
details regarding the investigation
claiming as a reason it was
administrative in nature. CDR
Bitterman has vowed to fight the
firing including filing a complaint
with the Department of Homeland
Security Office of Inspector General
for investigation.
Australian Paul Stevenson
worked as a clinical psychologist at
the Manus Regional Processing
Centre and the Nauru Detention
Centre, providing support to both
staff and detainees. In June 2016,
he publicly maintained that the
2016 Paul Stevenson PsyCare levels of psychological trauma at
these Centers are the worst he has
ever seen, and that Australia has an
ethical responsibility to ensure
these Centers are closed down. As a
result of speaking out, Stevenson
had his contract to work on Nauru
summarily terminated by PsyCare.
2016 Edgar Davao Death Squad Edgar Matobato (born Edgar
Matobato Matobato y Bernal) is a self-
confessed
professional hitman and serial
killer who claims to be a former
member of the Davao Death
Squad or the "DDS,” an alleged
vigilante group organized by

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former Davao
City Mayor now Philippine Presiden
t Rodrigo Duterte. He was tasked to
summarily execute suspected
criminals. He appeared before
the Philippine Senate on September
15, 2016 during a hearing on extra-
judicial killings. At the hearing,
Matobato recounted his
experiences as a killer and narrated
how he killed his victims. He
revealed that Duterte once killed a
certain Hamizola using an Uzi,
emptying the gun on the victim. On
October 7, 2016, Edgar Matobato
was turned over by Senator Antonio
Trillanes to the Philippine National
Police after an arrest warrant was
issued to him.
2017 Wells Fargo Wells Fargo Wells Fargo has been at the
Employees Bank and Financial center of a number of scandals over
the past year. This filing addresses
Institution two in particular -- when the bank
forced thousands of customers into
car insurance they didn't need, and
when it wrongly charged
homebuyers to lock in mortgage
rates. The same Wells Fargo filing
said several other former mortgage
employees claim, "they were
terminated for raising concerns"
about the improper mortgage rate
fees. Ex-employees shared similar
claims of retaliation last fall with
CNNMoney regarding the bank's
infamous fake account scandal. At
that time, several former
employees said they were fired
after reporting wrongdoing to the
bank's ethics hotline. Earlier this
year, Wells Fargo was ordered by
the Labor Department to pay $5.4
million and rehire a whistleblower
who was fired after calling the
ethics hotline to report suspected
fraud. Wells Fargo conceded that it
bought insurance for some
customers -- and charged them for
it -- even when they had their own.
The whistleblower was working as a
branch manager in Pomona,
California, when she was fired for
reporting misconduct related to the
bank's fake account scandal,
according to findings released on
Friday by the Department of Labor's
Occupational Safety and Health

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Administration.
Wells Fargo "terminated the
employee turned whistleblower in
September 2011 because of
concerns raised that the bank's
private bankers were opening
customer accounts and enrolling
customers in bank products without
their knowledge, consent or
appropriate disclosures," OSHA said
in a press release. Wells Fargo has
been grappling with the fallout of a
massive fake account scandal that
became public last year. Wells Fargo
has admitted to creating at least 2
million potentially unauthorized
checking and credit card accounts
between 2011 and 2015 in order to
boost its sales figures. Wells Fargo
employees have blamed draconian
sales targets.
Dr. Sewell worked for Freedom
and Optimum for five years, most
recently as a vice president. He
came to Phillips & Cohen after
witnessing practices that he
believed needed to be addressed.
The qui tam case was filed “under
seal” as required by the False
Dr. Darren Freedom and Claims Act and was not publicly
2014
Sewell Optimum known until today, when the court
unsealed the case and approved the
settlement agreement. The lawsuit
alleges that Freedom and Optimum
increased their Medicare payment
rates by sending risk adjustment
data to Medicare that made many
of their members seem sicker than
they truly were.
Reverend Keith Osmund-Smith
served as a chaplain with West
Mercia Police who passed reports
to media about hundreds young
British girls in Telford being
groomed by British Pakistani
Muslim gangs in the Telford child
2016 West Mercia Police sex abuse ring. The reports stated
Keith that Telford and Wrekin Council as
Osmund-Smith well as local police knew about the
abuse yet did not act to protect the
victims. He was suspended in
November 2016 from police.[239]
[240] In January 2017 he was
reinstated.[241]

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Adam Gold, an Israeli


conservative blogger and
whistleblower who, during 2017,
published a series of corruption
allegations and questionable
practices among the Israeli state
attorney and some of the Supreme
Court of Israel personnel. On
December 31, 2017 Facebook
removed a profile he used to
publish whistleblowers. On January
1, 2018 the Israeli Minister Amir
Ohana requested information from
Facebook on why they removed the
profile; in the following hours on
January 1, Kan 11 reported that the
account had been brought back.
[242] Channel 20 suggested that
the account removal was
retribution for releasing the name
2016 Adam Gold Israeli Justice Dept. of a "High Level Persona". Facebook
later stated that the removal was a
mistake.[243]Amir Ohana described
the case of the High Level Persona
allegation as "disturbing" and the
Israeli Justice Minister would need
to appoint a new head of office; he
added that there was evidence
outside of Adam Gold's publication
for the allegations.[244] During
March 2018, Adam Gold had
released information that one of
the people involved in the murder
of Assaf Shteriman got immunity
from prosecution because she had
ties to a politician and a family
member of a Publicist.[245] In the
next days Adam Gold had been
banned from Facebook again and
he moved to use telegram.[245]
[246]

Recent Whistleblower cases in 2017:


Shipbuilding Defense Contractor Will Pay $9.2 Million to Resolve Allegations of Overbilling:
DoD and Defense contractors: Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. (HII), the only U.S.
defense contractor capable of building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, will pay $7.9 million to
complete a $9.2 million settlement that resolves False Claims Act allegations that it overbilled the
government for work on both Navy and Coast Guard ships.
According to the allegations first brought forward by whistleblower Byran Faulkner, Huntington
Ingalls Industries Inc. has been mischarging and overbilling the government on numerous Navy and
Coast Guard contracts since 2003. Allegedly, HII also billed the government for dive operations in
connection with shipbuilding, which never took place.
Whistleblower, Bryon Faulkner, first became aware of the irregularities when he became a
foreman at HII in 2012. The Jackson County resident refused to lie in work reports in order to

191
maximize incentive pay on government projects. As a result of his refusal to play along with the
fraud, Faulkner suffered retaliation. This led to a heart attack and a crippling diagnosis of “disabling
clinical depression and anxiety.” In his qui tam lawsuit, Faulkner signaled fraud by over 20 HII
directors, supervisors, and employees, who allegedly lied in time sheets related to work done for
the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Ingalls General Foreman Neal Holden allegedly told Faulkner, “If you
don’t play the game, you are not going to be a foreman for very long.”
When the company threatened to fire Faulkner, he ended up resigning. His main concern has
always been with the true victims of the fraud, namely, taxpayers. For his efforts and assistance in
uncovering the misconduct, Faulkner will receive a $1,590,144 whistleblower award. Under the qui
tam provisions of the False Claims Act, individual citizens can sue fraudsters on behalf of the
government and share in any resulting recoveries.
Upon the announcement of the settlement, Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler
of the DOJ’s Civil Division, commented, “Contractors that knowingly bill the government in violation
of contract terms will face serious consequences... This settlement demonstrates, once again, that
we will not tolerate defense contractors who falsely charge the armed forces or any agency of the
United States.”
According to Mike Wiest, Special Agent in Charge of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,
"Corruption, fraud and bribery are not victimless crimes. Overcharging for work not done is not only
criminal on its face, investigating those crimes siphoned resources and time which would have been
better invested in protecting the nation. Multiple federal agencies spent years investigating this lack
of integrity, to help hold accountable those who would squander American taxpayer dollars."
This was the second largest settlement ever reached in Mississippi’s Southern District, where
the shipbuilding activities took place. The government hopes it will become a deterrent for
dishonest defense contractors in the future.

Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals: Dr. Viran Roger Holden once ran Mercy Clinic’s Oncology
Department. He held his position until he was fired after alerting management about inappropriate
practices by superiors. Serial offender Mercy Hospitals allegedly compensated physicians for
referring patients for Medicare-covered chemotherapy based on a formula which attributed
financial value to treatments to be administered by Mercy-controlled facilities. This was a violation
of anti-kickback statutes.
A Review of Recent Whistleblower Developments : October 2017
Whistleblower Developments is a periodic report covering significant cases, decisions,
proposals, and legislation related to whistleblower statutes and how they may impact your
business. Recent developments include:
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Resurrects Whistleblower’s Wrongful Termination Case
A full panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a whistleblower’s
retaliation suit, in John A. Watson v. Air Methods Corporation, No. 15-1900 (8th Cir. Aug. 31,
2017).The whistleblower, John Watson, worked as a flight paramedic for the company, which
operates flights and provides in-flight medical care for patients being transported to hospitals.
During his employment between July 2013 and May 2014, Watson claims he saw various violations
of federal aviation safety regulations, such as a pilot making cellphone videos in flight, and another
pilot trying to take off with frost and ice accumulated on the airplane. When Watson reported his
concerns to company management, he alleges that their response was to suspend, and then to fire
him. Watson then sued the company in Missouri state court for wrongful discharge in violation of
public policy. The company removed the case to federal court based on diversity of citizenship, and
later sought to have it dismissed on the ground that Watson’s state law claims were preempted by
federal law.
The district court agreed with the company and dismissed Watson’s retaliation claims as
preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act, a relevant federal law. The Airline Deregulation Act
contains an express preemption provision providing that a state may not enforce a law or other

192
provision “having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier that
may provide air transportation under this subpart.” In reversing the lower court, the Eighth Circuit
held that the Airline Deregulation Act did not preempt the Missouri wrongful discharge claims
because the effect the Missouri claims would have on the company’s operations was too tenuous
and remote to fall within the federal law’s preemption provision.
Stories from federal employees bold enough to expose wrongdoing in government agencies are
strikingly similar.
They are often “humiliated, marginalized, ostracized, given additional bogus assignments,” said
Valerie Riviello, a whistleblower retired from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany, N.Y., as
she described her ordeal.
At the same time, discipline is “almost unheard of” for the managers who retaliate against
whistleblowers, said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project (GAP), an
organization that works with whistleblowers. Instead, it is “almost routine that he or she will be
rewarded with a bonus or promotion.” That could change under a law President Trump signed last
week.
For a White House and Congress that often seem intent on undermining federal employee
rights and benefits, last week’s enactment of the Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick Whistleblower Protection Act
of 2017 was a welcome change.
The legislation — approved unanimously by both chambers of Congress — is designed to stem
management retribution by making supervisors face disciplinary measures for their actions.
If it is determined, by one of several officials, that a supervisor retaliated with a “prohibited
personnel action” against an employee, the official “shall propose suspending the supervisor” for at
least three days on the first offense and “shall propose removing the supervisor” for the second
offense.
Supervisors are allowed 14 days to fight proposed punishments. If they do not or if the agency
head determines there is insufficient cause to overturn the proposed discipline, then it stands.
One problem — if that determination rests in the hands of the agency head who proposed the
punishment, then that official would act as both prosecutor and judge of the supervisor.
Nonetheless, the law is potentially a watershed in Uncle Sam’s approach to whistleblowers.
Devine called it “a paradigm shift that may prevent far more retaliation than whistleblowers can
stop through lawsuits. By filling the accountability vacuum, the new law replaces virtually
guaranteed carrots with the specter of sticks for bureaucratic bullies who harass whistleblowers.”
The vacuum stems from what GAP calls the “absence of deterrence against whistleblower
retaliation. Currently, agency bullies have nothing to lose and can retaliate with impunity. In the
past, when they have not gotten away with it, they almost routinely received a bonus or promotion
as a reward for doing the dirty work of harassment.”
Not sharing in the unanimous approval Congress demonstrated are the Senior Executives
Association (SEA) and the Federal Managers Association (FMA) — organizations representing
managers and supervisors.
While “it is imperative that all federal employees have, and FMA strongly supports, the
strongest possible whistleblower rights,” as FMA President Renee Johnson said, the new law “is
seriously flawed,” added SEA President Bill Valdez.
In a letter to the House on the day it passed the legislation, Valdez complained that “specific
classes of Federal employees, in this case supervisory employees, are singled out for unique and
disparate treatment under the law. The notion of different sets of rules for different groups of
citizens is fundamentally un-American. Even worse, this class is being targeted based on anecdotal
information, not supported by data or facts …”
Here are facts about Chris Kirkpatrick.169 He was a Department of Veterans Affairs psychologist
and whistleblower who committed suicide by gun on the day, July 14, 2009, he was fired from the

169https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/12/va-whistleblower-killed-himself-after-
dismissal/25587367/

193
Tomah VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wis. Previously, he complained about overmedicating patients
at the facility.
“Chris Kirkpatrick did the right and honorable thing when he raised concerns about the over-
prescription of opioids to veterans,” said Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), when the law he sponsored was signed. “Today we are sending a
strong message that federal whistleblowers like Chris deserve protection and attempts to intimidate
or silence whistleblowers are unlawful.”
That sounds like good news for the federal whistleblowers who suffer the whip of retribution.
But they remain skeptical. Here are their words:
Richard Tremaine, a VA employee who blew the whistle while at an agency facility in
Montgomery, Ala.: “If what I’ve seen and experienced, until the VA actually publicly embraces
whistleblowers, as every leader claimed they will do, nothing will change, in fact things are already
worse.”
Germaine Clarno, who was a VA whistleblower in Hines, Ill.: “Will retaliation decline because of
this law? “No, [we] already have laws, conducted congressional hearings, supervisor trainings,
investigations, media exposure, and there is still an epidemic of retaliation with no signs of letting
up.”
Gayle M. Petersen, an Agriculture Department whistleblower: “Management sets the tone … If
the leadership …[will] notify staff members of the new bill and send the message that whistleblower
retaliation is unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated and follow this up with swift corrective
action as an example of their seriousness, then yes there will be change.
“What is the likelihood of this happening? Not much …”

Federal agencies are failing to take advantage of their authority to remove new supervisors and
managers while they are on their initial probationary period, according to a new report, allowing
those without the necessary skills to instead remain in their jobs.
Just six out of every 1,000 new supervisors fail to advance out of probation, according to new
findings from the Merit Systems Protection Board. Such a rate, said the quasi-judicial executive
branch agency tasked with enforcing civil service laws, almost certainly does not accurately reflect
the number of managers who are not up to the task.
“Given the weaknesses MSPB has previously identified in agency leadership hiring and
development practices,” the agency wrote, “it seems unlikely that, so few federal supervisors would
fail.”
Beyond A Failed Nominee: Whistleblower Retaliation Another Problem At The VA 170
10:47. April 27, 20183:55 PM ET. SAMANTHA RAPHELSON, ERIC WESTERVELT. Charles
Dharapak/AP
Dan Martin is chief of engineering services for the Department of Veterans Affairs' Northern
Indiana Health Care System, but for more than a year, he hasn't had much to do. He says he has
been designated to work at a remote VA office with no work assignments, ever since he raised the
alarm on what he believed were fraudulently awarded contracts for new water filtration systems in
local VA hospitals.
Martin tells Here & Now that the filtration system was like "a several hundred pound
paperweight" that didn't abide by VA regulations to reduce the spread of waterborne diseases in
the hospitals. He reported the problem to the Office of the Inspector General, which he says took
his allegations seriously.
Last year, the Trump administration tried to solve this problem by creating a new VA office
designed to shield whistleblowers from retaliation. The problem of whistleblower retaliation further
shines a light on the growing dysfunction inside the VA, which still awaits a permanent chief after
Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson withdrew his nomination this week.

170 https://www.npr.org/2018/04/27/606461746/beyond-a-failed-nominee-whistleblower-
retaliation-another-problem-at-the-va

194
The VA's Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection has taken on dozens of new
cases of alleged whistleblower retaliation. The controversy over how the VA handles reports of
wrongdoing from its own employees highlights the challenge of overhauling the troubled agency.
Some employees who are flagging fraud, waste and abuse are skeptical that the new office will be
able to protect them.
Veterans Affairs In Limbo After Jackson Withdraws As Nominee 171
After Martin reported what he believed to be fraudulent contracts, the inspector general's office
cooperated with him, he says. Martin filed his complaint prior to the creation of the new
whistleblower protection office.
But then last March, Martin says, his managers stripped him of his duties, accusing him of
inappropriate behavior with employees. Martin, who is a veteran and has PTSD, says he believes he
was targeted.
"They spun it up that I'm just a crazy veteran, and I think the term gaslighting would be pretty
fair," he says.
But the VA didn't fire Martin. He says he was isolated in an office with no heating or air
conditioning, and he says he hasn't received any responsibilities for over a year.
"I sit there all day. I do nothing. I get no job assignments," he says. "Nobody talks to me. I'm
isolated from everyone and everything."
A spokesperson for the VA told Here & Now in a statement that it is currently investigating
Martin's case and would not comment on open investigations.
"It should be noted that the Office of Special Counsel and VA's Office of Accountability Review
have previously investigated Martin's claims of retaliation and found them to be unsubstantiated,"
the VA spokesperson said in the statement. "Office of Special Counsel is investigating a subsequent
claim that it had previously closed."
For years, the VA has been plagued by allegations of whistleblower retaliation, which prompted
President Trump to sign an executive order creating the whistleblower protection office last April.
Since June 14, 2017, the office has received more than 1,000 complaints about operations at the VA,
according to a VA spokesperson, and as of March 26, the office was in the process of reviewing 148
open cases.
Retaliation against whistleblowers has been documented at other federal agencies in the past,
but Tom Devine, legal director of the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, who has worked
on federal whistleblower cases for decades, says the problem at the VA is much worse than in the
rest of the federal government.
"The VA is by far the most repressive federal agency in the government," he says. "Depending
on the year, between a third and 40 percent of whistleblower retaliation complaints for the whole
government comes from this one agency."
Devine says that Martin's case is typical of the VA's response to whistleblowers. The VA puts
whistleblowers "in professional solitary confinement," and they are often put under criminal
investigation and referred for prosecution, he says.
The VA's "structure is very feudal, and there's very little that the national office actually can do
to crack down on problems and abuses of power in the local areas," Devine says.
Privacy Violations Rising At Veterans Affairs Medical Facilities: Other VA whistleblowers say the
whistleblower-protection office is dragging its feet on these cases amid staffing and other
challenges. According to a VA spokesperson, the whistleblower protection office now employs 68
people with the goal of reaching a full staff of 98.
Prominent whistleblower Katherine Mitchell, a physician who testified before Congress about
threats to patient care at the Phoenix VA, says she hasn't seen any progress on the case she filed
with the office alleging she suffered retaliation.

171 https://www.scribd.com/article/377570485/Veterans-Affairs-In-Limbo-After-Jackson-Withdraws-
As-Nominee

195
"As far as I can tell, they're not doing anything substantially beneficial for anyone," Mitchell told
USA Today in January. "I've not heard anybody say that the office of whistleblower protection has
helped them at all."
Despite this criticism, Devine acknowledges that the new office has made a good-faith effort to
try to help whistleblowers, but he says the national VA office just doesn't have the power to
effectively police the local branches.
"I think that the agency needs a structural overhaul, so that they have the capacity to impose
accountability when the national leadership is acting as public servants," Devine says. "But until
they get some enforcement teeth, all they're going to be is background noise."
Senator Grassley Reminds FBI Agents of Their Whistleblower Rights. Ben Kostyack on May 25,
2018. GOVERNMENT WHISTLEBLOWERS: Grassley: FBI, DOJ Employees Have Protections, Legal Right
to Blow the Whistle Longtime advocate of whistleblower protections Sen. Chuck Grassley delivered
a strongly-worded floor statement to the United States Senate on Thursday, saying that FBI agents,
and all federal law enforcement agents, are protected when reporting misconduct to Congress, and
they should not fear retaliation. The Senator from Iowa and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee cleared up any misconception of agents not being able to approach Congress without a
subpoena.
“FBI agents and all federal law enforcement are protected for providing information to
Congress. That’s true whether it is by a subpoena or not,” said Grassley. “If that is news to you, I
encourage you to research the law yourself. It is found at title 5, United States Code, section 2303.”
Contrary to FBI institutional myths and some current press reports, FBI employees do not need
to receive a subpoena to be legally protected when providing information to Congress. Earlier this
year, Grassley responded to a memo written by Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructing Justice
Department heads not to communicate with Congress “without advance coordination and
consultation” with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA). Grassley
argued that the memo does not adhere with existing law, saying that the memo “fail[ed] to address
the rights of employees to make protected disclosures directly to Congress.”
The laws governing the rights of federal employees clearly state that non-disclosure agreements
or policies must contain a clear exception for lawful whistleblowing. Grassley stated that “if
unelected bureaucrats have so much contempt for an employee who voluntarily informs the
people’s elected representatives of facts necessary to do oversight… then the leaders of those
agencies are not doing their jobs. They are failing in their responsibilities as leaders.”
“No FBI agent or other government employee should be afraid to cooperate with Congress or
the Inspector General,” said Grassley. “Any FBI agent who has information to provide or questions
about their rights to provide it should not hesitate to reach out and ask.”
For many years, the National Whistleblower Center has been at the forefront of efforts to
support legal reforms to improve whistleblower protections for FBI employees. Congress
strengthened FBI whistleblower rights, most recently in December of 2016 when Congress
unanimously passed the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, originally introduced by
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). That law expressly amended the FBI
whistleblower protection statute to provide that FBI employees are protected if they report
information to Congress, by incorporating into the FBI whistleblower statute the provision of 5
U.S.C. § 7211, which states: The right of employees, individually or collectively, to petition Congress
or a Member of Congress, or to furnish information to either House of Congress, or to a committee
or Member thereof, may not be interfered with or denied.
Thanks to bipartisan support from a unanimous Congress, it is expressly illegal for the FBI to
interfere with or deny any FBI employee or agent the ability “to furnish information” to Congress.

US Government Bureaucracy: There’s a popular story, almost surely apocryphal, involving


either the philosophers Bertrand Russell or William James, and a skeptical woman who spoke up at
one of his lectures. What you have told us is rubbish, she asserted; the universe exists on a giant

196
plate balanced on the back of a turtle. Russell responded: Ah, but what is the turtle standing on?
“You’re very clever young man,” the woman replied, “but it’s turtles all the way down!”
This story comes to mind when pondering the relentless growth of bureaucratic
government in America. While conservatives typically attack the growth of centralized bureaucracy
in Washington DC, we are failing to perceive how fully bureaucratic rule nowadays permeates every
level of government right down to many small-town councils and county commissions.
Consider, for example, the more than three dozen cases reported around the country of
local bureaucrats flexing their power to stamp out the menace of children’s lemonade stands. The
Coralville, Iowa, police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s sidewalk lemonade stand because
she lacked a $400 city permit; a feat duplicated in Midway, Georgia; Appleton, Wisconsin; and
McAllen, Texas; among many other towns across the country. This kind of bureaucratic nonsense
wasn’t limited just to phantom fears of an obscure lemon juice-borne bacteria. Local bureaucracies
have even restricted or stopped annual Girl Scout cookie sales. Boys Scout door to door fundraiser,
school bake sales, throwing candy at parades and other bureaucratic silliness.
These mindless expressions of bureaucratic rule didn't stem from any mandate from
Washington DC. These idiocies were self-generated at the local level. Ask a businessperson or
entrepreneur where the most significant regulatory hurdles come from today: most will say local or
state government rather than Washington DC. It’s bureaucratic turtles all the way down.
Conservative orthodoxy, going back through Tocqueville to the American Founding,
championed local administration over centralized administration, on the sensible ground that the
government units close to the people, usually run by citizens governing in a part-time capacity on
city councils and county commissions, would be the most responsive and sensible. A key principle
of federalism is that state and local government would resist the centralization of power in
Washington and defend the principle of ruling with and by the consent of the governed. However,
we all know stories of out of control city councils, crooked count commissioners, local cops and
judges, on the take, school districts that falsify test results, trump up charges against employees in
order to get rid of them, administrators that embezzle, teachers have sexual affairs with students,
and administrators that falsify records to pad special programs with student who don’t qualify.
There is a term used in public administration; bureau-pathology. 172 At all levels. This syndrome exists
to the detriment of government doing the people’s business.
It is time to recognize that this kind of government no longer exists; the culture of
bureaucracy now permeates all levels of government in the U.S. Today local governments in the
U.S. are just as careerist, self-seeking, and mindlessly bureaucratic as any remote bureau in
Washington. Even in rural American these Counties are sleepy parts the nation. The Midwest, the
South, the Intermountain West were known for agriculture, ranching, tourism, some high tech, and
a few state universities. Compared to America the countryside has grown only modestly over the
last 30 years. Economics of the area has seen stores closed and people moving out. Their politics
ought to be fairly simple, but they are not.
County governments like to boast that their budgets have grown in line with inflation over
the past decade while its workforce has not increased at all. But like much of government at all
levels today, the real mischief is not to be detained on the “top line” figures of general spending and
number of direct staff. More and more local government are being directed by special agencies,
indirectly and tenuously accountable to voters at best, with opaque budgets and complex legal
authority. Some counties have county managers who are appointed by the county council and not
beholden to the voters. Local bureaucracies, like state and federal bureaucracies, exist mainly to
perpetuate themselves, and provide comfortable employment for their staff. The local budgets have
doubled. Its directors are paid close to hundreds of thousands a year plus healthy benefits. The
perverse incentives here are obvious and all at the taxpayers’ expense.

172 Also known as Red Tape Syndrome, Characterized by excessive rules, procedures, meetings,
formality that impede progress and are therefore counterproductive.

197
This kind of government is corrupt at profound levels: largely autonomous agencies violate
the basic principle of the separation of powers, as well as basic understandings of just about any
conception of democratic accountability. And this kind of government is spreading like weeds
throughout American government at all levels. The FBI is supposed to investigate government
corruption, yet they can’t even get their own house in order let alone the affairs of the nation.
If you pay attention and complain about this kind of rule, you tend to get the kind of
response when I tried to blow the whistle on a local school district, “I know these are the kind of
students you are used to working with (high-risk), but we don’t have these kinds of students at this
school.” These bureaucrats and administrators view all critics of unaccountable bureaucratic rule as
“conspiracy” theorists and must be destroyed.
Not only the superficially educated and narrow-minded, not only bumpkins with bad breath
and worse teeth, not only the gullible and aggrieved, not only those who are nostalgic for a past
that never was, not only those who are afraid of losing control; the fire-breathers, the weapons-
collectors, wearers of custom-made body armor, anonymous online trollers 173 who bait innocent
participants with inflammatory remarks, lovers of Ayn Rand novels for whom the gift of literacy is
truly wasted, not only the teacher’s pets from cardio-prayer class, and the self-appointed
reprimands of free speech and the memorizers of parables about power.
Keen observers of the American corruption going back to Lord Tocqueville, Lord James
Bryce, and Henry Adams have noted how elected office often attracts fools, knaves, and power-
hungry mediocrities. But in an age of increasingly autonomous rule, the phenomena of
bureaucratic turtles all the way down foreshadows the infinite regress to the abolition of eloquent
self-government. Then we wonder why voters are increasingly staying away from the polls in larger
numbers in recent years. Especially when we read stories of thugs guarding the polling centers,
rosters taken from cemeteries, prison rolls, and people who moved from the area years before.
When a brave someone blows the whistle on the wrongdoings of government, the
government rather than changing the way it does business and thanking the whistleblower for
alerting them to the problem, attempt to charge them with crimes, alleging mental illness, and in
some cases murdering the messenger.
During the controversy regarding the NSA domestic spying scandal, "Whistle-blower
AT&T technician Mark Klein says his effort to reveal alleged government surveillance of
domestic Internet traffic was blocked not only by U.S. intelligence officials but also by the
top brass of the Los Angeles Times." The following is a letter from Fred Burks about
corruption in the US intelligence agencies:

Dear friends,
We all know intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA, and NSA have dark secrets, yet few know of the
intense level of corruption and deception within these agencies. This collection of verbatim excerpts from
media articles and government documents fully reveals major corruption and deception in prominent
intelligence agencies spanning several decades.
A few of these eye-opening articles and documents are even from the 1950s to the 1970s, yet they
contain explosive information of which few are aware to this day. Links to reliable government and media
websites allow you to verify and learn more about each article presented.
Major whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning have risked their careers and even their
lives to reveal some of this previously secret information. You can support their bravery by spreading the
word. And we can all likely benefit from looking at our own lives and examining where we keep secrets which
end up harming others. As we work together for greater transparency in both our own lives and in our world,
we can join together in building a brighter future for all of us.

173 is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting
inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum,
chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise
disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,[3] often for the troll's amusement. Like any pejorative term, it can
be used as an ad hominem attack, suggesting a negative motivation.

198
With very best wishes for a transformed world, Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info

Julian Assange may be an arrogant narcissist, but he does make a point. Our government is
corrupt, and Obama and the Clintons are neck deep in the swamp. Assange was born in Townsville,
Queensland, 1951, to Christine Ann Hawkins a visual artist, and John Shipton, an anti-war activist
and builder. The couple had separated before Assange was born. In 1987, Assange began hacking
under the name Mendax. He and two others, known as "Trax" and "Prime Suspect" formed a
hacking group they called the International Subversives.
During this time, he hacked into the Pentagon and other U.S. Department of Defense
facilities, MILNET, the U.S. Navy, NASA; Citibank, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Panasonic, and Xerox;
La Trobe University, and Stanford University's SRI International; and Australia's Overseas
Telecommunications Commission and the Australian National University.
In September 1991, Assange was discovered hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of
Nortel, a Canadian multinational telecommunications corporation. The Australian Federal Police
tapped Assange's phone line and raided his home at the end of October, and eventually charged
him in 1994 with thirty-one counts of hacking and related crimes. In December 1996, he pleaded
guilty to twenty-five charges, was ordered to pay reparations of A$2,100 and released on a good
behavior bond. After his period of study at the University of Melbourne, Assange and others
established WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks published secret information, news leaks, and classified
media from anonymous sources. By 2015, WikiLeaks had published more than 10 million
documents and associated analyses and was described by Assange as "a giant library of the world's
most persecuted documents.” The published material between 2006 and 2009 attracted various
degrees of publicity, but it was only after it began publishing documents supplied by Chelsea
Manning, that WikiLeaks became a household name.
The Manning material included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010) which showed
United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, the Afghanistan war logs
(July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), a quarter of a million diplomatic cables (November
2010), and the Guantánamo files (April 2011). After WikiLeaks released the Manning material, US
authorities began investigating WikiLeaks and Assange personally with a view to prosecuting them
under the Espionage Act of 1917. In November 2010 US Attorney-General Eric Holder said there was
"an active, ongoing criminal investigation" into WikiLeaks.
It emerged from legal documents leaked over the ensuing months that Assange and others
were being investigated by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia. An email from an employee
of intelligence consultancy Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor) leaked in 2012 said, "We have a
sealed indictment on Assange." On 16 August 2012, Foreign Minister Patiño announced that
Ecuador was granting Assange political asylum because of the threat represented by the United
States secret investigation against him and several calls for assassination from many American
politicians. Assange wrote on WikiLeaks in February 2016:
"I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables.
Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread
terrorism. ... she certainly should not become president of the United States."

On 4 July 2016, during the Democratic Party presidential primaries, WikiLeaks hosted
information and content of emails sent or received by candidate Hillary Clinton from her private
email server when she was Secretary of State as originally released by the State Department in
February 2016, based on a FOIA request. Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chairwoman
following WikiLeaks releases suggesting bias against Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.
On 22 July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails and documents from the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) seemingly presenting ways to undercut Bernie Sanders and showing apparent
favoritism towards Clinton, leading to the resignation of party chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The New York Times reported that "Assange accused Mrs. Clinton of having been among those

199
pushing to indict him..." and that he had timed the release to coincide with the 2016 Democratic
National Convention.
In an interview with Robert Peston of ITV News, Assange suggested that he saw Hillary
Clinton as a personal foe. On 4 October 2016, in a WikiLeaks anniversary meeting in Berlin with
Assange teleconferencing from his refuge in the Ecuador embassy in London, reporters spoke of a
supposed promise to reveal further information against Hillary Clinton which would bring her
candidacy down, calling this information "The October Surprise.”
On 7 October, Assange posted a press release on WikiLeaks exposing over 2,000 emails from
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The emails, ranging from 2007–2016, revealed excerpts
of Clinton's paid Goldman Sachs speech in 2013. In the emails, she explained her relationship to
Wall Street and how she had previously represented the community: "even though I represented
people in finance and did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper, I called for closing the
carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing CEO pay. So when I raised early warnings
about subprime mortgages and called for regulating derivatives and over complex financial
products, I didn’t get some big arguments, because people sort of said, no, that makes sense."
According to Harvard political scientist Matthew Baum and College of the Canyons political
scientist Phil Gussin, Wikileaks strategically released e-mails related to the Clinton campaign
whenever Clinton's lead expanded in the polls. On the eve of the general presidential election,
Assange wrote a press release addressing the criticism around publishing Clinton material on
WikiLeaks. "We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical
importance and which has not been published elsewhere.
When we have material that fulfills these criteria, we publish." He explains that the website
received pertinent information related to the DNC leaks and Clinton political campaign, but never
received any information on Trump, Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson's campaign, and therefore could not
publish what they did not have. Assange has consistently denied any connection to or cooperation
with Russia in relation to the leaks damaging to Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Kathryn Bolkovac was originally hired by DynCorp Aerospace, a British subsidiary of US
based DynCorp International, in the framework of a UN-related contract, she filed a lawsuit in
Great Britain against DynCorp for unfair dismissal due to a protected disclosure (whistleblowing),
and on 2 August 2002 the tribunal unanimously found in her favor. DynCorp had a $15 million
contract to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia at the time.
She reported such officers were paying for prostitutes, raping underage girls and
participating in sex trafficking. Many of these officers were forced to resign under suspicion of
illegal activity, but none have been prosecuted, as they also enjoy diplomatic immunity from
prosecution in Bosnia. Madeleine Rees testified in her support. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska,
and Amsterdam, Nederlands.
Bolkovac's story was made into a film, The Whistleblower, released in 2010. Following a
film screening of The Whistleblower, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a panel
discussion on sexual exploitation and abuse in conflict and post-conflict situations. The film
maker and senior UN officials addressed issues raised in the film, including human trafficking and
forced prostitution as well as the organization’s effort to combat sexual exploitation of women
and children.
Bolkovac has also co-authored a 2011 book with Cari Lynn, "The Whistleblower: Sex
Trafficking, Military Contractors and One Woman's Fight for Justice. Her book inspired the movie
"The Whistleblower" (2010), starring Rachel Weisz as Kathryn Bolkovac.
Bolkovac: 'UN tries to cover up peacekeeper sex abuse scandal'
The UN has promised to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in the
Central African Republic (CAR). Human rights investigator and whistleblower Kathryn Bolkovac
tried to investigate similar cases in Bosnia and lost her job.
DW: Some would say the scandal over sexual abuse of women and boys allegedly
committed by UN-peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) is an isolated case. What are

200
your experiences from your work as a human rights investigator for the International Police Task
Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
I think that the pandemic of corruption within government and NGOs boils down to
simply lust, greed and power over the powerless. When those involved get caught they try
to cover-up their misdeeds anyway they can: lie, fraud, witness tampering, and when all
else fails, murder. The criminals who engage in corruption may think they will get away with
it today; and they might. Tomorrow and they might. Yet the more they engage in corruption
and attempt to cover it up eventually they will get caught and it will not go well for them.
They will be punished.

201
Chapter 14: Just to Illustrate…
The following are short stories, poetry, and articles that I’ve written over the years
to satirize the way governments work. Just as all legends exist in a grain of truth, my stories
were written based on actual experiences fictionalized to make a point about how
government doesn’t care for the people they rule, but for the power they can wield, and
the money they can make at the expense of the taxpayers they steal from and the taxes
with which they line their own pockets. They don’t start out that way. They begin as public
servants who want to do the right thing. Yet, once in power they get caught up in the lust
for the greed, the control and behind closed-door operations that are intoxicating and
addicting. As the wise man once said:
39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men (and
women), as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise
unrighteous dominion.

This can mean the dog catcher, the power company, the mayor and city council,
school administrators, teachers, the county commissioners, city cops, county sheriff, the
state governor, the attorney general, the legislature, Universities, US Congress, the Courts,
the President and his cabinet, the military, the FBI, CIA, IRS, State Department, and other
government agencies. This can also mean corporations from the mail room to the CEOs. In
can include NGOs and other charity groups such as organized religion; the UN and all of its
offshoots, Catholics and Protestant Relief Organizations. The Red Cross Haiti housing
scandal, the Islamic Organizations that masquerade as charities but in reality, support
terrorism. This especially includes Kings and Dictators and other likeminded individuals who
oppress their people under the heavy weight of tyranny. In order to fix the cancer we have
to understand the basic precepts of leadership. Again from the wise man, Joseph Smith:
1 We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds
men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for
the good and safety of society.

It doesn’t matter if the leaders believe in God or not. They will still be held
responsible by someone; their constituents, the rule of law, their neighbors, or their
documents, such as the Constitution, the Ten Commandments, or The Universal Rights of
Man. Someone, somewhere, sometime, will hold the corrupt accountable. They can’t get
away with their crimes forever. The sad thing is that we are told that the poor will always be
with us. As such there will be those who will exploit the poor and get rich on their backs.
Therefore corruption will always be with us as well. And as such we must all be vigilant to
prevent corruption as much as is possible. We must all hold our elected officials responsible
for their decisions. We must hold corporate executives responsible for the way they do
business. We must hold our NGOs accountable for the way they accomplish their missions.
If we can’t then we are all doomed to international oppression.

202
Chapter 15: Government Joke

This page was intentionally left blank 174

174 This page is used quite often in regulations and other government documents.

203
Chapter 16:
Emperor Nero Played While Rome Burned
The Emperor Nero
Dressed in white,
Played his viol
While Rome burned
Throughout the night.

The Emperor Nero


Dressed in red,
Played some golf
While Sendai
Counted their dead.

The Emperor Nero


Dressed in blue,
Played some basketball
While America
Begged for crude.

The Emperor Nero


Dressed in green,
Went on vacation
While prices rose
To levels unseen.

The Emperor Nero


Dressed in Black,
Called his opponents racist
While unions and commies
Put us on a socialist track.

The Emperor Nero


Dressed in brown,
Went to a concert
While the Libyan people suffered
As their homes burned to the ground.

The Emperor Nero has a yellow streak.


He cannot lead.
He ponders and wonders what to do
Until the crisis is over
And everyone’s dead.

The Emperor Nero has pockets lined with silver


And wears a gold crown on his skull.
He sold his soul to the Devil
Who lead him skipping and dancing,
Carefully down to Hell.

204
THE BALLAD OF THE WHEAT AND THE CHAFF

The government man told me to go to work


And plant a bushel of wheat.
Said they'd pay me fairly
And I never knew the Government to cheat.

So I hitched my team to the old steel plow,


Tilled a field or two.
Planted and cultivated, watered and patiently waited
'Til the wheat seed finally grew.

When harvest time rolled around


I got out my scythe and cut 'er.
I moved through them golden waves
Like a knife through melted butter.

Then I gleaned the fields, thrashed the wheat


Took the straw and shocked it.
The harvest was good, had a good crop,
But I ran out of bins to put it.

Well the government man came, stuck out his hand,


"I'll take your wheat surplus and all; I'm the only one who can.
Now here's a token for all you've done,
Thanks a lot! You're a real fine man."

Well! I was never so stunned in all my life!


That government man just told a lie!
So here's lesson about bureaucracy.
Learn it well, and you will see:

How the government gets the wheat!


And the people always get the chaff.

205
Chapter 17: No Child Left Behind: The Scapegoat Of American
Education

Before I begin, I must explain my background. I was raised as a military


dependent. Therefore, I attended every type of school imaginable: from a two-room,
two-teacher school in Leota, Minnesota, to the DODDS school system in Bermuda and
the Philippines, to a school of approximately 1,400 students in Bellevue, Nebraska. My
graduating class was 520 students. I attended 16 different schools in twelve years. I
attended Weber State University (then College) in Ogden, Utah. I did my student
teaching at Intermountain Intertribal School in Brigham City, Utah. I graduated in 1978
with my BA in English, French, and Special Education.
Since then I have picked up endorsements in ESL and Bilingual Education. I also
did some recertification work in Theater Arts, Linguistics, and Public Administration in
International Development specializing in Third World Education Development,
Curriculum Development, and Education Administration. After graduation, my career
in education has seen many different settings and experiences. I’ve taught in the private
sector: two youth crisis centers, a refugee resettlement agency, and a company that
trained disabled adults to do custodial jobs and set up a workplace literacy program at a
hotel resort.
In the public schools I’ve taught on two Indian Reservations: The Duck Valley
Reservation in Nevada, and the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah. I also taught in a
small farming town in Heber City, Utah and a resort town in Park City, Utah. I have also
taught overseas and with the military. When I graduated from college in 1978, I taught
in a junior high equivalent in Niger, West Africa with the US Peace Corps. In the Air
Force I did a two-year special assignment at the Instructional Development Branch of
HQ USAFR at Robins AFB, Georgia than did a short tour as an instructor at the Reserve
Transportation School at Dobbins AFB, Georgia.
Then in 1998 I was assigned to work as the NCOIC of the Mobility, Disaster
Preparedness, and Combat Readiness Office in my Reserve Unit at Hill AFB, Utah. I
conducted annual training exercises in everything my airmen would need to know to
deploy, to get the job done, and to return home safely. After retiring from the Air Force
Reserve, I returned to the Middle East, where I had previously done four TDY’s with the
Air Force, to teach in a program sponsored by Brown University at a school for the royal
family in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Over the years, I’ve seen many programs come and go. I’ve seen the
bandwagons and heard the buzz words. However, since the No Child Left Behind Act, I
have seen so much greed and corruption in education that for the first time I truly feel
our education system is in trouble. For those who hated President Bush it had become
the scapegoat for the ills of education. For those who loved President Bush it had
become the justification for the increased bureaucracy and corruption I see in
education.
Now permit me to explain. When President Bush outlined his education reform
agenda, he told the nation: “The quality of our public schools directly affects us all as
parents, as students, and as citizens. Yet too many children in America are segregated
by low expectations, illiteracy, and self-doubt. In a constantly changing world that is

206
demanding increasingly complex skills from its workforce, children are literally being left
behind.”
“This blueprint represents part of my agenda for education reform. Though it
does not encompass every aspect of the education reforms I plan to propose, this
blueprint will serve as a framework from which we can all work together Democrat,
Republican, and Independent to strengthen our elementary and secondary schools.
Taken together, these reforms express my deep belief in our public schools and their
mission to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every
part of America….I look forward to working with Congress to ensure that no child is left
behind.”
To me, the idea was simple. Everyone knew that education needed reform.
Many schools in the cities were scenes of violence and falling into disrepair. In
secondary schools across the nation, teachers were teaching outside their areas of
expertise because of a system that hired coaches first and then plug them in whatever
academic opening they might have available.
Everywhere teacher morale was low, students were dropping out at staggering
rates, and parents were fed up with the whole system. Its time had come. The law had
four main points:
1. Increase Accountability for Student Performance: States, districts and
schools that improve, achievement would be rewarded. Failure would be sanctioned.
Parents would know how well their child is learning, and that schools would be held
accountable for their effectiveness with annual state reading and math assessments in
grades 3-8.
2. Focus on What Works: Federal dollars would be spent on effective, research-
based programs and practices. Funds would be targeted to improve schools and
enhance teacher quality.
3. Reduce Bureaucracy and Increase Flexibility: Additional flexibility would be
provided to states and school districts, and flexible funding would be increased at the
local level.
4. Empower Parents: Parents would have more information about the quality of
their child’s school. Students in persistently low-performing schools would be given
choices.
In my simple mind there should not have been a problem. However, No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) became a lightning rod for every politician, bureaucrat, and the
education industrial complex to further their political agendas and make a few bucks on
the side. Now I will attempt to show this by taking each of the four points to show how
greed, corruption, and politics, have changed NCLB from the simple idea to one more
program used to blame the problems in education on the classroom teacher. Yet if one
really wants to see what the driving force in Education is, follow the money.
Increase Accountability for Student Performance: First of all, the federal
government left the idea of achievement up to the states to define. Therefore, if one
looks at every state department of education website, they will find a link to not only
the federal site but a state site as well. The idea of accountability is a wonderful idea.
My grandfather used to say that we should all give a dollar’s work for a dollar’s pay. We
have a job to do so we should be where we need to be, doing what we are getting paid
to do. However, in a society where we are quick to criticize and slow to recognize, all too
often the teachers seem to be the only ones held accountable.

207
Students have discovered that if they want to sabotage a teacher or program, all
they have to do is perform poorly on their myriad of standardized tests and that teacher
is gone! The students, parents, administrators, politicians, and bureaucrats in the
system are virtually let off scot free! I might add that we are quickly becoming a society
that is also quick to litigate and slow to appreciate. Since NCLB, it is amazing how many
companies selling the education equivalent of snake oil have appeared promising to
share with State Departments of Education, School Districts, and Schools in general, the
panacea, the silver bullet that will make every student on the graduation assembly line
turn out the same.
They all promise that every child will learn. Every child will behave. If they don’t
then administrators will at least have the data base to fire the offending teacher. Of
course, none of these promises and programs come cheaply. Some are quite expensive.
In most states now, they require the Praxis battery of tests for a teacher to get
certification. These tests are very expensive. I had to take the English Praxis which is a
three-part test. The one test cost me $295. In order to transfer all of my six Utah
endorsements to my Nevada license would have cost me around $1400. 175
The initial Nevada176 license is around $300. Many states charge less: Utah 177 is
$35 for each endorsement. In New York,178 they have a series of fees. An initial license is
$50 depending which type of license one is applying for. However, the resulting license
is life time. Minnesota,179 Georgia,180 and California181 all have relatively inexpensive
licenses. However, there are other ways they gouge the teacher to be. They all require
some sort of testing such as the praxis, and an FBI background check. This requires
fingerprints. The cost for finger prints can range from $10 at a local police department
to over $100 in some states such as California.
At one time many states had reciprocity with other states; that is they
recognized the certification from other states. However, now that they have found ways
of gouging the school teacher there is very little reciprocity left as each state now can
stick it to the teachers who want to transfer to other states to teach.
I’ve noticed over the years since I left education that many other professions
require training, testing, and jumping through other hoops to collect high fees and
justify almost impossible certification requirements to work in other states. At the same
time, there are teachers and administrators who have been arrested and prosecuted on
a number of charges, in every state. Most of these revolve around money;
embezzlement. Some are busted for inappropriate sexual behavior.
If they get busted for misappropriation of funds they get fired with a non-hire
notice sent to the other districts. Sexual misbehavior is used for teachers or administers
who if the district wants to get rid of them, but they have no bad evaluations, no other
issues then the district will trump up charges of inappropriate behavior; molesting

175 Praxis. http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem


176 Nevada Department of Education Licensing.
http://www.doe.nv.gov/licensing/endorsements/html
177 Utah State Office of Education. http://www.schools.utah.gov/cert/Endorsements/
178 New York Department of Education. http://usny.nysed.gov/licensing/
179 Minnesota Department of Education. http://children.state.mn.us/mde/index.html
180 Georgia Department of Education Teacher Certification. Http://www.gapsc.com/Teacher
Certification
181 California Teaching Credentials. http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/fee-and-fingerprint.html

208
students, sexual harassment of other teachers or staff. They can always find a willing
accomplice just by threatening them with their jobs.
In some cases the teacher, whose life is ruined from the false charges gets so
despondent that he or she will commit suicide. The caring district is so moved by this
action they merely rule that the teacher was mentally unstable anyway. They find a new
replacement and move on to the next victim.
When I was a principal I received a letter every month about teachers and
administrators throughout the state who had been sanctioned for various infractions;
such as embezzlement or sexual misbehavior. They were usually forbidden to work in
the state for 5 years after which they could re-apply and many often got their jobs back.
Focus on What Works: It seems with every decade, there are favorite buzz
words in education. Over the years, I’ve heard PL94-142, phonics vs. whole language,
criterion-based education, curriculum standards etc. The current buzz word is research-
based methods. Use what works. Again, in my simple way of thinking this could have
been a positive thing. However, it has become just another buzz word for justifying an
assembly line mentality where every student reaches the end of the line, a perfect child
in every way with all the skills needed to be a contributing citizen practically flawless
and unblemished ready to go out into the cold cruel world. We will know a child has all
of these skills, because we have the test results to prove it!
Again, the idea is good, but we must remember we are dealing with
prepackaged little human beings. They are preassembled with all the baggage they have
already prepared before they ever left home to grace our classrooms. Therefore,
teachers must deal with issues related to their students as human beings not as some
bugs under a microscope. In order to ensure that teachers comply with the assembly
line mentality; some school districts such as Elko County in Nevada, for example, have
contracted with Professional Development companies such as Teaching for Success
(T4S)182 to conduct in-services for their teachers to improve their teaching methods.
Their mottos are “Success is the only option.”183 They conduct observations in
the classroom where one must teach their students according to the T4S model. They
have their hash marks and comment forms which is then calculated to a formula and
given to the administration to see how their school rated. This program is not cheap
either. A premium license for this program is $1,597 for one school. An extension
license for each additional school is $295. So, a district such as Elko could be paying as
much as $5000 a year for this program.184
Of course they send out their experts to conduct professional development with
district teachers. This expert, they told us at the one I went to, cost the district $10,000
for him to tell us how to teach more effectively. Again, the idea is good but is twisted to
further political agendas. However, what this program doesn’t consider are all of the
things that are beyond our control; such as whether the child got enough sleep the
night before, or whether she ate supper, or whether they are sick, or worried about
their parents’ impending divorce, or whether they had been bullied in the hallway.
Renaissance Learning has the accelerated math and reading programs.185 They
are very popular with school districts because there are lots of books and lots of tests to

182 Teaching for Success. http://www.teachingforsuccess.com/


183 Ibid
184 Ibid
185 Renaissance Learning. http://www.renlearn.com/ar/prodevel/OnsiteandRemote.htm

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help track students in their reading and math progress. The cost of this program is $149
an hour for in-service conducted over a telephone connection. If the school has the
expert from the company visit the campus the cost is $2,150 for the first day and $250
for each additional day.
There is also the factor that many of these experts once were in the classroom
but couldn’t handle it. So they developed a program, pitched it to an education
materials company and now they spend their time marketing their program and getting
rich at the same time. Many of these experts taught elementary school. Their programs
target all teachers as a one size fits all. Their examples usually use examples from math
or reading; on the lower grades. In the years I was in the classroom, I never attended a
workshop that showed me how to teach Shakespeare, French verbs, Haiku, speech and
drama, debate, journalism, Spanish idiomatic expressions, or drama more effectively.
They never addressed social studies, art, music or any other of the “fluffy” programs
that the bureaucrats tell us to stay away from.
My wife was a teacher for 40 years. She had a small poster on her wall that read,
“When I die I want to go during an in-service workshop. The transition between life and
death would be hardly noticeable.” The experts in her case never taught her how to
deal with a parent who threatens to kill the teacher. The student who throws things at
the teacher or takes punches at the teacher when the teacher tells the student to sit
down and get to work.
What the experts also fail to explain is, what happens if the student has
participated in the program for several years and is sick of all the testing? What happens
when they try to score as low as they can just to make a point? The other thing is that
with each program and accompanying workshop, are the books that the bureaucrats
quote by this expert and that expert. Every workshop includes a stack of free
promotional books by experts in the field of education. I’m sure these “free” books cost
someone a bundle of money to print and distribute at each workshop. Of course, let’s
not forget the workshop fee that the expert charges the district for the privilege of
hearing their wisdom. With all of these experts one would think that the teachers must
really love their jobs with so much support.
However, no one has ever taken into consideration the one missing factor in the
equation, the student. Students have figured out they can manipulate test scores. They
know that they can make or break a program, a teacher, or a school just by scoring high
or low on a particular test.
Education has become nothing more than a numbers game, like many federal
and state programs. It reminds me of the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars when success
in battle was measured by body counts. The numbers were inflated or deflated
depending who was keeping “score.” In both cases there is no concern for the troops in
the trenches or the students and teachers in the classroom. The numbers game is how a
program or operation gets funded. The higher the numbers the more successful the
program or operation therefore they deserve more money. The lower the numbers
heads will roll until the numbers come up.
Reduce Bureaucracy and Increase Flexibility: This is one of the things many
teachers hoped would free up their time and make it easier to do their job unhindered.
When I was a supervisor in the Air Force, a CMSgt came to me and asked how he could

210
help my section. I told him, “Chief, get me the training, and the tools to help me and my
troops do our jobs. Then get the hell of the way so we can do it.” 186
In education we have too many chiefs who want to micromanage every aspect
of our job. How we teach, how we test, how we discipline, what materials we use, how
much money we can spend and how to spend it. Just buying a text book almost takes an
act of congress. Text books aren’t cheap either. However, the state has mandated that
we are to use texts that they have chosen for the consistency of statewide instruction.
This is not a bad thing.
However, like everything else in education the system is being corrupted by
greedy corporations who are earning millions of dollars at the taxpayers’ expense.
Permit me to give an example. I used the Glencoe Literature Series in my English classes.
The basic student text was $61.50. If the school wanted to order the entire package of
workbooks and handbooks etc., it would have cost $212.88 per student. Now if a
teacher were to have 105 students such as I had in my English classes, the basic text
would have cost a total of. For the entire package, it would cost a total of $$22,352.
That doesn’t even include the languages arts packages or the teacher’s resource
package. 187
So not only did I have 105 students, but I had 15 seniors, 20 juniors, 30
sophomores, and 40 freshmen. All of them required a different text per the state
curriculum. Each book was priced differently, more or less depending on the curriculum
requirements. The curriculum also required us to have a classroom set of books for each
class. For the seniors it was Shakespeare or Charles Dickens. For the juniors it was
American lit such as Call of the Wild or Huckleberry Finn. For the Sophomores it was
Mark Twain, O’Henry or others. For the Juniors it was the Diary of Ann Frank, the
Wizard of OZ or some other classic recommended for each age group. These set weren’t
cheap either.
One of my professors used to say that text books were not written to teach but
to make money.188 Here is the proof that perhaps he was right. The standardized tests
we administered to our students were also expensive. The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills have
three forms A, B, and C.189 To order each test package grades K-8, costs $290. If a district
has 10,000 students, the total cost for this standardized test will cost the taxpayer
$2,900,000 to order and administer this test. The additional problem is that this test
may or may not be coordinated with the state core curriculum. Yet many schools and
teachers are held accountable for how their students do on these tests. To add to the
testing nightmare some universities want data for their research programs. 190 Any
participating school must administer the test they recommend.
Some of the Universities I have dealt with were U of U, BYU, USU, Great Basin
College, and Brown University. Then there were the State Proficiency tests. I agree we
have to collect data. However, are we teachers or glorified proctors? Our mania for
testing reminds me of the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia.191 The students take
quarterly state mandated tests. Once the exams are over, the campuses across the

186 CMSgt Ron Ocaña, 67th APS, Hill AFB, UT


187 Glencoe Publishing. http://www.glencoe.com/catalog/index.php/ 2007 prices
188 Dr. Orrin Moffatt, Weber State College
189 Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. http://www.riverpub.com/sales/pricing.html
190 Nevada-Reno. http://www.unr.edu/educ/el/programs/MA_ME_EdFound.html
191 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Education. http://212.71.35.4/openshare/englishcon/

211
country were strewn with the litter of notes that students threw away never to study
them again.
The curriculum consisted of math, science, computers, English, Arabic, and
Islamic studies. There were no sports programs, no art, music, or foreign language other
than English. In some US School Districts, like Washington County School District in St
George, Utah for example, they have done away with recess in the elementary schools.
Some districts have cut foreign language, art and music programs so that teachers have
more time to focus on preparing for tests. So, someone please tell me, what skills are
we really teaching? How to play jeopardy on nationwide TV? Even though NCLB has the
objective of allowing teachers more freedom in their classes, teachers actually have no
academic freedom, if any, in their classrooms because of their teaching time is spent
preparing for the myriad of tests required by bureaucrats, professors, and politicians to
come with the necessary numbers to assess the teachers; hire or fire.
They have teacher evaluations, mentor teachers, coaches, and curriculum
specialists who all try to remake the teacher in the bureaucrats’ image. However, the
evaluations all have a measure of subjectivity built into them so that the teacher is at
the mercy of the evaluator. Many districts have so many bureaucrats, and experts that
the district office building resembles many large high schools. The district office in Salt
Lake City, Utah, for example, is bigger than the State Office of Education. In many school
districts, professional grant writers write grants for money to improve the technology in
the school. Once the technology is installed, the teachers receive the training on how to
use it then they are told to only use it in moderation or not at all.
Therefore, teachers can only be flexible according to the narrow definition as
defined by their administration and at the end of the day they are actually subject to
increased bureaucracy rather than less. So is research really behind the plethora of
programs in our schools? I don’t think so. What is behind our programs are politicians,
bureaucrats, administrators and corporations who are only looking out for the bottom
line and could care less about teachers, students, and even parents.
Empower Parents: Has NCLB really empowered parents? Not really. Lawyers
have taken advantage of NCLB to help parents sue school districts if their demands for
certain educational services are not met, especially where the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is concerned. I have sat in on IEP’s where there were 15
people in attendance: the school district, the school, and the parents. Everyone also had
their advocates and lawyers. Some of those IEP’s lasted for six hours or more! 192
As soon as we thought we had overcome one obstacle, the parents and their
legal representatives would leave the room and come back to the meeting with more
demands. So NCLB has not really empowered parents. Lawyers have taken advantage of
the law to empower parents. If the school don’t comply with the parents’ demands
then the school is set up for a lawsuit. The teacher is then set up for failure because in
many cases there is no way that the teacher can meet all the demands of the parents
and lawyers and still meet the needs of the other 30 kids in the classroom.
In some schools, parents were discouraged from participating even as
volunteers. This was especially true if the parent didn’t have a college degree, a high
school diploma, and especially if the parent was illiterate. In other schools,
administration has stopped providing translators for parent-teacher conferences, for
192 This was a common occurrence when I was principal of Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center 2005-
2006

212
filling out paperwork, or school activities. Parents told me that they didn’t feel welcome
at the school. One student told me he was getting his GED. He said that everyone told
him that he was stupid for not staying in school until graduation.
So, what does this all mean? In conclusion, the No Child Left Behind Act was
simple. Yet 10 years later, it had become a bureaucratic nightmare. Politicians,
bureaucrats, administrators, and the education industrial complex have seen to it that it
furthers their personal agenda and makes some of them very wealthy as well, all on the
backs of the taxpayer, the teachers, and ultimately the students. Even the programs that
are meant to help are actually used as one more way for administrators and bureaucrats
to justify their jobs and hold their teachers accountable.
Now what do we do with parents who physically threaten teachers because
their darling child received a low mark? Or students who file molestation charges
against a teacher because the dear one did zip in class and received a low mark? Or
administrators who make it their personal mission to get rid of one teacher every year
to show the district he is keeping out the teachers who don’t belong. The fact the
administrator uses social isolation, psychological manipulation to do it is not a
consideration. Or the administrators who keep ESL, Special Ed or low functioning kids
out of the testing centers so that the school wide scores will be higher? Or expel
students in 10th grade so that the remaining students will show improved test scores in
their senior year? Or report fudged numbers to the school district and state to show
their drop-out rate is lower than ever before; those expelled students won’t be counted
as drop-outs because they were kicked out. It’s called keeping up appearances.
There was even a district who padded the rolls of special ed with jocks, so they
could get an easy A. At an elementary school a principal told the special ed teacher not
send his students to the library. He didn’t want them to ruin any of the books in the
library. There was even a principal who harassed the special ed kids because he thought
they were all “retards” and “losers.”
When parents and teachers complain from the overload, those who should care
but don’t, just shake their heads and say, “Hey! It’s the no child left behind law. Blame
President Bush!” I’m not against the basic idea. What I am against is the out of control
system that has taken a worthy idea and made it suit their own purposes. I’m afraid the
direction we are headed resembles the Saudi Ministry of Education. I taught under that
system once. I prefer not to go back. However, if we don’t get a handle on the madness,
that’s exactly where we are headed.
2018 Update: Since I wrote the original paper, the Obama administration has
taken education down the road of socialism. They have put a heavy emphasis on global
warming. They have stopped teaching social sciences; especially history, civics,
economics, and communications. They have discontinued speech, drama, music, foreign
languages, arts, and other humanities. They fill the students’ head with the lies of
socialism so that they enter society with no job skills, no work ethic, and the belief that
the world owes them a living.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

California Department of Education. http://www.cde.ca.gov/


California Teaching Credentials. http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/fee-and-fingerprint.html
Georgia Department of Education. http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/

213
Georgia Department of Education Teacher Certification. Http://www.gapsc.com/Teacher Certification
/Documents/cert_rules.asp
Glencoe Publishing. http://www.glencoe.com/catalog/index.php/
Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. http://www.riverpub.com/sales/pricing.html
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Education. http://212.71.35.4/openshare/englishcon/
Minnesota Department of Education. http://children.state.mn.us/mde/index.html
Nevada Department of Education Licensing.
Http://www.doe.nv.gov/licensing/endorsements/ secondary academic/english.html
Nevada Department of Education Legislation. http://www.doe.nv.gov/nvlegs.html
New York Department of Education. http://usny.nysed.gov/licensing/
No Child Left Behind Act. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/reports/no-child-left-behind.html
Praxis. http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.
Renaissance Learning. http://www.renlearn.com/ar/prodevel/OnsiteandRemote.htm
Teaching for Success. http://www.teachingforsuccess.com/
University of Nevada-Reno. http://www.unr.edu/educ/el/programs/MA_ME_EdFound.html
Utah State Office of Education. http://www.schools.utah.gov/cert/Endorsements/

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Chapter 18: A Story Of The Little Red School House With The Leaky
Roof

Once upon a time, in a quaint little village called Leota in the southwestern part
of North Dakota about 20 miles from East Woshicha, South Dakota, there was a little red
schoolhouse. It was like many schoolhouses in the Midwest; a small red, wood-framed
building with two rooms. The first through the fifth grades were in the first room and
sixth through the twelfth grades were in the other room. The school had about 15 to 20
students in each room and two teachers, one for the elementary side and one for the
secondary side.
The elementary teacher was also the director. Her name was Mrs. Pronk and the
other was Mrs. Wakowski. For half a century these strict but fair ladies saw students
come and they saw them graduate. They watched as they took their rightful places in
the Wyasket and Leota communities. Some became doctors and lawyers, ministers, and
respected businessmen but most just went on to be regular people who married, raised
families, farm their little God’s 40 acres, who in turn continued the tradition of
scholarship at the little red schoolhouse.
These two fine teachers taught the three r’s: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.
They also taught geography, history, science, art, music, some foreign language, and PE.
They didn’t have complicated stuff like computers, so their technology program
consisted of using hand tools in the shop class and a stove in the cooking class. They
didn’t have special programs like title I, II, III, IV, or IX; 504, special education, gifted and
talented, bilingual education, or ESL. They were too small to field a football team or
even baseball, basketball, track, soccer, tennis, skiing, swimming, chess or even
tiddlywinks. They did have spelling bees, quilting bees, and husking bees. Their
textbooks weren’t the most up-to-date but somehow the teachers made do.
The teachers didn’t come from the Ivy League schools or get on the latest
bandwagon panaceas in education. However, they loved their students and did the best
they could with what they had. Somehow in spite of their inadequacies the children
learned anyway and even had fun in the process. Leota was a farming town where the
main crop was “corn as high as an elephant’s eye." The town had one church (Bethel
Reformed), half dozen businesses on Main Street, and then the school. All of the
children ate breakfast every morning before they came to school. They brought their
own lunches and their families ate supper together in the evening after work. They had
one bus that brought the farm kids in for school every morning and took them home
every night. All of the kids in town walked to school without fear of predators of the
human persuasion.
In the town “the men were handsome, the women good-looking and all of the
children were above average.” They were in short just your garden variety All-American
town. Each day started off with a silent prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. The
teachers had no discipline problems, other than an occasional fight on the playground.
The students never talked back or were rude in any way. If on the rare occasion a
student swore or talked back, the teacher washed out their mouth with soap. If a child
was rude or difficult, they got their bums spanked at school and when the child got
home, the parents spanked them again.

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The parents even took turns inviting the two school marms to Sunday dinner
about once a month. They discussed their children’s progress and any issues they might
be experiencing in class. So, these two quaint little teachers in this picturesque little
town had no serious problems with either parent or child. The school had one
custodian. His name was Mr. Guy Kristofferson. His duties entailed sweeping and
mopping the ancient hardwood floors, dusting the furniture, washing the windows,
scrubbing the bathrooms, emptying the trash, and building fires in the old, black,
potbelly stove in the winter. This also included carrying in buckets of coal and firewood,
then cleaning out the clinkers twice a day.
Once in a while he’d tinker with some minor repairs around the two classrooms.
He never had reason to perform any major repairs. Partly, this was due to the fact there
hadn’t ever been a need for any major repairs. The other reason was that this would
have taken more initiative then he had in order to handle anything too difficult. He was
what they called the “town character.” But having the custodial job at the school, it kept
him off the street and out of trouble. Being in the great northwest, of the great
Midwest, Leota could receive some pretty serious blizzards. The Arctic winds would
come down from Cana Nadia, and dump ten feet of snow in one night.
One winter in southwestern North Dakota, they received a heavier than usual
snow fall. The snow began falling as light flutters but within a couple of hours, it was a
full-blown blizzard with temperatures dropping into the minus 70‘s. The air was so cold
it froze the hairs in your nostrils. The snow kept falling, getting deeper and deeper, and
deeper. The Chinook winds began to blow and piled the snow into higher and higher
drifts. Finally, the heavy snow became so deep on the roof of the school that it began to
blow down through the cracks in the wooden shingles where they so badly needed
repair. The heat from the potbellied stove caused the snow to melt. Soon there was
water pooling on the hardwood floor. It was just a drip, drip, drip; not much at first. But
later it became quite a nuisance as it turned into a constant stream.
The elementary teacher, who was also the director, cried, “This will never do!”
The teacher in the secondary class exclaimed in dismay, “My, my! We need to do
something about that terrible, leaky roof!” So, the two teachers went to the
superintendent, Dr. Nils Johansson, about the leaky problem. They made an
appointment and went into his office 20 miles away to the north in the big city of
Wyasket. They asked him if there were any way they could get their leaky roof fixed.
He told them that at the present time there was no money in the budget to fix
leaky roofs. They would have to settle for a bucket to catch the dripping water so as not
to ruin their hardwood floor. But they could get a petition on the ballot for the next
election to vote for more money from the taxpayers. Well, that wasn’t the answer they
were looking for. But they took a deep breath and found an old oaken bucket in the
custodian’s closet. They used it to catch the water. Well, they bought another bucket,
and another, and another, and soon they didn’t have any more buckets nor money to
buy any more.
Then they returned to Wyasket to petition the superintendent to petition the
school board to budget more money to buy more buckets because the leaky roof had
become worse. The school board voted down the requisition. Their rationale was, “How
can we justify to the taxpayer more buckets, when you would only need them three
months out of the year? If you ran your school more like a business, you would budget
your money more efficiently. We suggest that you use the buckets you already have

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more effectively and stop frivolously wasting the taxpayers’ money on something you
won’t use most of the year. Now if you can get the local citizens to support a school
bond election to raise more money, than maybe we’ll talk about more buckets.”
So, the two brave teachers decided to ask the PTA for help. The PTA got excited
and with their usual enthusiastic zeal, they decided to get involved and conduct a
fundraiser for more buckets. They sent the elementary school kids out to sell Christmas
fruitcakes. Then they sent the secondary kids out and to gather up surplus books in the
community to hold a book fair at the local Bethel Reformed Church. The good preacher
who volunteered to do what he could do to help, got up the following Sunday and
preached about the importance of a quality education in a Christian society. His faithful
congregation got excited and full of the Spirit to help the good teachers, who were also
members of the congregation.
Once the excitement began to spread around the little town of Leota, the people
began to argue about what was the best course of action to take in acquiring more
buckets for the little red schoolhouse. One group wanted to hold rallies, town
meetings, take up a collection, write grants, and appeal to the local businesses for
private funding. Another group thought they needed to petition the state legislature,
hold picket lines, demonstrate, and take their cause to the media at the state capital in
Bismarck. They felt they needed to get their message out to the public that the little red
schoolhouse with the leaky roof needed help, but no one cared.
There was also a group that thought there was too much wasted money and
time in education anyway. They opposed the 180-day school year. They wanted it
increased to 367. They felt the teachers were over paid for the time they put in. Why, if
they worked 25 hours a day like everyone else they might be worth the expenditure.
They were against any increase in any type of funding and proposed vouchers to send
the children of Leota to a private parochial school in Brookings, South Dakota 342 miles
away. They demanded an audit be held to make the teachers more accountable for how
they spent the taxpayers’ money. Well, while all this frenzy was going on, the roof on
the little red schoolhouse still leaked.
The two wise teachers then went to the halls of their local association, who took
the matter to the state association and then they in turn went to the NEA. The NEA told
them to organize a statewide walkout because their cause was very important to the
NEA. They promised support to the two teachers in whatever way they could, in order
to see that they got higher salaries, new textbooks, legal representation, and smaller
class sizes. “After all,” they said, “we must do whatever we can for the welfare of the
children!” they chanted. The NEA got their message on TV, the radio and in all of the
newspapers.
Every station in North Dakota put their public service announcement on in
between the polka hour and the farm report. The University of Southern North Dakota,
who broadcasted the National Public Radio news program every morning, even did a
story on the little red schoolhouse. Nina Totenbush did a story on how the little red
school house was in danger of being shut down and the students would be bussed to
Great Falls, Montana 500 miles away, causing global warming and brain damage.
Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes did a story exposing the corruption in public
education, which brought the viewers to tears. David Letterman and Jay leno each did a
monologue about little red schoolhouses, which kept their audiences in stitches. Then
the experts came out of the woodwork. They did the talk show circuit. They wrote

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editorials for every newspaper. They cussed and discussed the ills and problems with
modern education. They explained the effects of a bad education on society and what
needed to be done to solve these problems.
One retired school superintendent in an inner-city school district in Chicago
stated they needed to have a hot lunch program. Some intellectual tinker heads from
Berkley were disgusted that there were no programs to save Mother Earth and the
environment. They demanded that the school build some wetlands. Some professors
from the Big Ten Athletic Conference expounded on the fact that they needed to
expand their athletic program to include girls and minorities. One expert in the
archaeology of the area from Bob Walters Christian University insisted that the little red
schoolhouse be torn down because it had originally been built on an ancient Native
American burial ground; the indigenous people who had once lived in the area.
Another group who represented a coalition of a national historical site
preservation committee, suggested that the little red schoolhouse be designated a
national historical site and the building be renovated to resemble an original
schoolhouse of the mid-19th century. They thought it would be wonderful if the
teachers and students dressed in period costume and take tours through the building.
On and on and on, the talking heads in every advocacy group rambled on about what
the two teachers needed to do with the little red schoolhouse. Still, the roof leaked.
Finally, the problem reached the North Dakota State Office of Education. They
sent out a task force to study the issue and write a report stating that the two negligent
teachers needed more workshops on assertive discipline, and how to motivate and
empower their students to get in touch with their sensitive side. They reported that the
two teachers weren’t doing a good enough job of building their students’ self-image.
They said the little red schoolhouse needed to implement more of the special
government programs or risk losing funding for the programs they already had. They
said they would put the teachers on probation unless they were involved in more in-
service training to enhance their recertification process.
The problem reached the halls of the Department of Education in Washington,
DC. The all-powerful bureaucrats in the great marble halls decided that no child should
be left behind. So, they mandated that all students in America take the SAT test at the
beginning of the school year. Reading specialists who needed more data for their
dissertations petitioned the Department of Education to require a pre- and post-
reading test of every child. The state legislatures got on the bandwagon and passed
laws requiring all teachers in their states to develop a core curriculum and then test
every child at the end of every year to see if the teachers were teaching the core.
They also set goals for teachers that 99.9% of every child will read on grade level
or the state would send in education consultants to take over the school and show the
teachers how to properly teach so that every child will learn. At the same time, they
raised the WPU and transferred the money to the general fund where they spent it on
developing an Olympic ski resort in Lake Agassiz in case the International Olympic
committee ever chose the prairies of North Dakota for the winter Olympics.
Of course, the legislature organized a special task force who conducted
committee hearings on the matter. They concluded that they needed to write a bill
extending the school day, increasing the certification requirements for teacher
certification, and making schools and teachers more accountable by increasing
graduation requirements, and by studying and comparing the scores on standardized

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tests. They cut funding because the teachers were wasting the taxpayers money
anyway. If the teachers had enough money to pay for supplies out of their own pockets,
then they were obviously overpaid, so they didn’t need more money to buy supplies for
their classrooms.
They made English the official language and cut funding for special programs.
After all their ancestors learned English without help why couldn’t these immigrants?
Besides how dare they come into this country not knowing English! If they didn’t learn
to speak English in three years, they would be deported for being boils on the buttocks
of society. The legislature concluded that teachers were the major problem in
education. They were parasites on the taxpayer and needed to be dealt with
accordingly. Well then, the sauerkraut really hit the fan.
A grassroots movement began to get organized. They suggested to everyone
that they write their congressmen and senators demanding an investigation into a
misappropriation of funds by the two hapless schoolteachers. They organized a
telephone campaign to call the President to investigate the situation. He asked the
Secretary of Education to fly out to Leota to determine what was actually needed by the
people in that quaint little town. The dutiful secretary flew out to the international
airport at Minneapolis where he held a press conference and photo-op.
The governor of Minnesota presented him with a key to the city. He gave a
speech on the importance of education in a modern world. He had photo ops with the
state chairman for the local political party. He shook a few hands, kissed a few babies,
then he boarded his Air Force 2 and went back to Washington where he filed a full
report in triplicate to the President. His report stated that the school was not doing
enough to help the poorest of the poor, those at risk, the visually challenged, the
auditorily challenged, the physically challenged, the vertically challenged, the mentally
challenged, the racially challenged, the politically challenged, and the potentially
challenged.
Then the members of Congress and the Senate debated the issue. They
conducted hearings on the effects of the lack of education on pork barrel spending.
They cussed and discussed. Both sides of the political aisle accused each other of
politicizing the issues. One side accused the other of being mean-spirited, the other side
accused their opposition of being uncaring and politically motivated. So, then the
President flew Air Force One out to Wyknot AFB, North Dakota, to see for himself what
was going on in Leota, North Dakota.
At Wyknot, he rode his limousine, code named “the Beast,” to a bar-b-cue at the
US senator's mansion. Then he flew Marine Corps 1 to Leota where he landed on the
helipad at the local clinic, which the Secret Service closed down for the duration. He
took a tour of the lucky town with the city fathers. He ate fried chicken and sauerkraut
at the local restaurant. He took photos with the residents. He too kissed a few babies
and gave a speech, which he wrote in triplicate. He got a tear in his eye when he told
the people of Leota, “I feel your pain! My fellow citizens, I hear you! And those who
have done this to you will soon hear you too! I plan on asking Congress for
$20,000,000,000,000 to set up an additional cabinet as an offshoot of the Department
of Education so that no child will be left behind. We need well-educated children to help
fight the war on terrorism. We need every child to cross the bridge into the new
century!”

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With that he got back on Marine Corps 1, which took him back to his limo, which
took him back to Air Force One and on back to Camp David where he conducted a fund
raiser to support the war on terrorism and the Sadam Hussein Eradication Operation
which he code named: Operation Shwarma. He also worked on his speech for the
UNESCO Conference in Paris on the problems of multi-level marketing in Bangladesh.
And still the roof leaked.
Well it’s been over 30 years since the roof began to leak. The two courageous
teachers are now nearing retirement. The school is on a year-round schedule. The
classes run in shifts so that there are fewer students in the classroom. They have both
school breakfast and school lunch programs. They spend four months of the nine-
month calendar administering state and federally mandated standardized tests. They
spend the rest of the year making sure they cover the core so that the students can pass
the state core tests. The teachers now earn more than the local farmers in fact, the
school board had to raise taxes to pay for their salary increase. Thus, angering the
farmers.
They receive children bussed in from the homeless shelters, the inner city,
migrant workers, and the Indian Reservations just outside of Wyknot City and the
Winnebago Reservation in southeastern North Dakota. These children are bussed
according to a federal mandate in order to provide racial and social diversity. They now
have multi-cultural and linguistic balance in their curriculum. They have ESL, and
bilingual education because of the French Quebecois who moved across the border
from Cana Nadia to work in the cornfields. They have special education for the learning
disabled, children with ADHD, and severe mental disabilities. They even have gifted and
talented programs for those students who are more than above average. They have
implemented every unfunded mandate from both the state and federal governments.
They also have new furniture, new carpeting, and centralized heating. They
have some wetlands and a state of the art weather station. They have ten computers in
every room, complete with Internet and laser printers. They have a brand-new library
with a special section on professional journals for the teachers. Their playground is
equipped with the latest in playground equipment. They have just completed their new
football stadium where they can hold all types of sporting events on the best astro-turf
money can buy.
They have a football team, a basketball team, a baseball team, a soccer team, a
track team, a swim steam, a drill team, two ski teams, both Nordic and downhill; and
yes, they even have a tennis team and golf team. They have a chess club, a tiddlywinks
club and international club, in fact they have every kind of club because not to, would
be to discriminate against someone. They also have a state of the art water collection
system to protect their new carpeting...but still the roof leaks.

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Chapter 19: The School Board Meeting

Education has changed a lot in the last 200 years, especially since 2000.
Congress passed a law called the No Child Left Behind Act. It was designed to help every
child succeed in school according to their ability. However, the law has been associated
with President George W. Bush because if you don’t like any government program, just
blame him. Since 2000, anything associated with his presidency is looked upon with
disdain by the liberal elite. Liberals hate President Bush with a passion such that they
foam at the mouth anytime his name is mentioned in conversation. Some hate him to
the point just short of advocating assassination. Of course they can’t do that because of
all the anti-gun laws there aren’t any guns to do it.
After the election of 2000, they gathered in front of the National Capital and
publicly announced that they would do everything in their power to destroy President
Bush. They have too. They have lied and cheated, and have done whatever it took to
destroy him, and their plan has just about destroyed them in return.
They have predetermined that any program associated with his White House will
not work. They have bent over backwards to ensure it will not work. If it does work,
they try to minimize it and spin the facts to show that it wasn’t that big of a deal in the
first place, because it came from a President who can’t even speak English. If the self-
fulfilling prophecy doesn’t work, then they blame President Bush for being
incompetent.
Now to illustrate this I’m going to tell a story about a school board somewhere in
the Great American Mid-West. The President of the School Board is Skip Göbler, a local
turkey farmer. The members are Bubba Stinktierpisse, who owns and operates his own
tow truck business; Jonathon Horatio Billingsley III, president of the local bank; and Ms.
Gladys Zauberland, who is the token liberal on the board and a local soccer Mom and
active community organizer. Of course, last but not least, is the Superintendent of Public
Schools for Warren G. Harding County School District, Dr. Lawrence Emerson
Scheisskerl. The president began the meeting by having the secretary, Martha
Bleistiftschieber, read the minutes from last month’s meeting.
When she finished, the president called for a motion to accept the minutes as
read. The motion was seconded and voted upon and carried. Then the President called
for new items of business. The first agenda item involved two applicants who used to be
teachers’ aides until the district suggested they go back to school at their own expense
and get certified to be teachers. They did and then reapplied to work for the district
after graduation; one to teach third grade, and the other to do speech therapy. Their
applications were now before the school board to be decided upon for hiring.
Superintendent spoke, “President and members of the school board, when
these good people left the school district to get their teaching certification, they
unfortunately misunderstood that we would rehire them upon graduation. If that was
their understanding, then that was their own fault for not getting clarification from
someone who had the authority to make such a binding contract. I am sorry to say we
have no positions for them at this time. If they would like to be rehired as teachers’
aides or as substitute teachers we can use them but as regular teachers, I’m sorry.
He thought to himself, “Dumb asses, I guess the joke’s on them. How stupid
could they be to honestly think we would hire them back as teachers!” Then the

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President spoke, “All in favor of not accepting these teachers back into the district say
aye, all in favor say nay. Looks like the nays have it. What’s next on the agenda?”
“Now superintendent you want to make some changes in the school lunch
program?”
“Yes president. Permit me to present my ideas to the board. I propose that a lot of
money is wasted by supporting the vermin of education, the classified employees. Now
my idea is to require all teaches to get their food handlers’ license and put them in
charge of school lunch. The teachers have way too much time on their hands during the
lunch break. This would keep them occupied. Also, I suggest we change the menu to
bread and water. This would prevent the students from becoming overweight. This
would also satisfy those allergic to peanut butter, and the vegetarians. If they want
variety, we could go with Pepsi and potato chips; that would satisfy the junk food
crowd.”
The president asked, “Are there any comments?” Bubba Stinktierpisse moved to
close discussion and vote. Jonathan Horatio Billingsly III, seconded the motion. The
President called for a vote. The motion carried unanimously.
“Next agenda item is the length of the school year. Superintendent?”
“Yes, I would like to propose we lengthen the school year to 12 months with only
six days off a year for teachers and for students. I also propose that we lengthen the
school day from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Students have way too much free time before and
after school.
Teachers also have been rumored to have a life in their off-duty hours. We need
to put a stop to this and require they earn every penny of the tax payers’ money. This
would also make it more convenient for working parents. Also, the day will no longer
include fluff such as recess, PE, bathroom or water breaks, the arts, music, or foreign
language. English is the official language, so we won’t have any intrusion of foreign
ideas through the teaching of foreign languages. We need to buckle down and make
sure these students are ready for the real world of work, college or a spot-on Jeopardy.”
The President asked for comments. Gladys Zauberland moved to close
discussion and vote. This time, Bubba seconded the nomination. They voted, and the
motion carried in the affirmative. The next item on the agenda was teacher salaries.
Once again, the Superintendent had a proposal. “I have a proposal for teacher
salaries and the requirement for tenure. First, I want to propose that we do away with
tenure like Nevada did. This will make it easier to get rid of senior teachers without
cause. Because we live in a right to work state and the legislature has reduced the
teachers’ union to a powerless, gutless wonder that takes the side of administration
more than the side of teachers anyway.”
“This will make it easier to hire first year teachers, keep them for a couple of
years, promising them tenure but knowing full well they will never get it. When the
teachers discover that fact, they will be on the way out the revolving door only to be
replaced by younger teachers with part-time salaries and no benefits. We will save a
bundle on retirement and health insurance.
After all research done by the University of Northern South Dakota shows a
direct link between burn-out and teachers who have taught over 15 years and lower
test scores. After 15 years they become a vegetable waiting for retirement. With my
plan they will never make it to retirement. Therefore, anyone in the system longer than
fifteen years is out, saving us thousands if not millions of dollars over a ten-year period.”

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The President asked for comments. Gladys Zauberland moved to close
discussion and vote. Once again Bubba seconded the nomination. They voted, and the
motion carried in the affirmative.
Next item on the agenda was school bus drivers and other classified positions.
“Now the school bus drivers are a deficit to the district budget. We need a certain
number of teachers to earn their CDL and become bus drivers. Then we can save money
on hiring bus drivers. The teachers can also drive and maintain the busses, so we won’t
need maintenance people either.”
“Next the teachers can also do playground duty thus eliminating the need for
teachers’ aides. If we send them all to computer training, we won’t need computer
specialists. We can ask for volunteers to help out in the office throughout the day and
thus eliminate the school secretaries. If we required all teachers to get their special ed
and ESL endorsements, we could get rid of the special ed and ESL programs.”
“Finally, if we mandate that teachers take care of their own buildings we can get
rid of the operation and maintenance budget. This will also make teachers more
responsible and accountable for their own buildings as well as save money.”
The President asked for comments. Gladys Zauberland moved to close
discussion and vote. Once again Bubba seconded the nomination. They voted, and the
motion carried in the affirmative.
The next item on the agenda was the curriculum and testing. Superintendent
said, “Now we need to get back to the basics. We need to get rid of all the fluff in
education and teach only those things that will be tested: Language Arts, Reading,
Math, and Science. We need to get rid of Social Studies, foreign languages, PE, Art,
Music, Shop, Computers, ESL, Special Ed, and all of the entitlement programs. We don’t
need them. If the damned teachers did their jobs, we’d have perfect schools.
Teachers are lazy bastards. They are always whining about more money for less
work. We need to keep them gainfully employed. They have this demented illusion that
all they have to do is come to school and teach. Well I have another thing coming their
way. They need to do more testing, they are only administering 15 tests right now, but
that is not enough. There are so many people who need data. The Feds, the State, the
colleges and universities, the District curriculum specialists, and of course I need the
data to justify the teacher’s jobs. If teachers are not showing progress, then we will
have the data we need to get rid of the laziest of the drones in education.
After every test they will also be required to write progress reports. We need to
show student progress, and we need to document that progress or lack of. If the
students want exercise they can exercise when they get home from school. No more
recess at the elementary schools. If the teachers cannot or will not learn how to write
progress reports, out they go!”
“On the secondary level we will need to expand our sports program. We can’t
tolerate those students graduating without knowing how to play some kind of sport. We
will need to expand our sports program to include: Basketball, baseball, football, track,
swimming, golf, tennis, soccer, wrestling, skiing, snowboarding, luge, curling, bobsled,
sumo wrestling, jai-alai, camel racing, and the rodeos. By including all of these sports
we will give our schools an international flair. You ask who will pay for all these extra-
curricular activities, well the students of course. We can’t have all of the money we save
go back into the district funds. We need to save that for my pay raise... err, I mean
administrative expenses.”

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The President asked for comments. Gladys Zauberland moved to close
discussion and vote. Once again Bubba seconded the nomination. They voted, and the
motion carried in the affirmative.
Next on the agenda was the introduction of motivational tools to help inspire
the students and teachers to do their best work. Superintendent said, “I propose that
we remove all flags and copies of the Pledge of Allegiance from all schools. They are in
violation of the separation of church and state. Heaven knows we don’t need any more
suits from the ACLU. We will replace those symbols of the American capitalist state with
the German phrase, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Work makes freedom. I saw it in an old WWII
movie the other night. This will be more inspirational for both the teachers and the
students anyway.
Also, we need teachers to take a battery of tests to make them better teachers.
After all, why should the students have all the fun?”
“We are almost to the end of my proposals to improve education in our district.
The benefits will be that we save money, lots, and lots of money. We will fulfill the
legislature’s goal of busting the teachers’ union. Of course, if we get any slack from
parents, teachers, or students, we can always blame President Bush and No Child Left
Behind. The dumb bastards won’t know the difference.

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Chapter 20: The Certificate

About ten years ago, I applied for and renewed my teaching certification in the State of
Utah. What could have been a ten-minute procedure took all day and cost $80 dollars. In 2005 I
renewed my license again. It took six months and I still didn’t get everything on my license that I
wanted because some of my classes were not certified because they were done online at
nonaccredited universities. Now I am in Nevada and I have to jump through a whole new set of
hoops to get certified. I have to take so many classes, and a thing called the Praxis test. $295!!!
They make this a requirement to obtain a teaching license. They say it’s to make us better
teachers. They blame it on No Child Left Behind. In order to transfer all of my Utah
endorsements that took years to train for and obtain, it will cost $1475 on top of the $295 I
already spent.
When they try to blame President Bush and No Child Left Behind, I don’t believe them
for a second. They have found a way to exploit the law and the object is not better teachers but
a way to make more money and gouge the teachers at the same time. They have this other
program called Teaching for Success. It’s the new band wagon in education. The new buzz word
is “research based” teaching techniques. The problem with band wagons is that they start out
as a good idea but then people who have their own agenda twist them into something not
recognizable even by the people who originated the idea in the first place. They tie this stuff to
making teachers accountable. Teachers’ jobs are tied to this nonsense.
Teachers can only do so much in the classroom. They can only work with the students as
they are, complete with all the baggage they bring with them to the classroom from home. For
example, where in T4S or any other program do they help the student whose parents are
dying…one of kidney failure, the other of cancer? Or what about the student whose boyfriend
got her pregnant? Or the kid who has been from foster home to foster home? Or the kid whose
parents are going through a divorce? Where does it make allowances for that? Or the learning
environment? What happens if your class is 30 students and you want to use the computer lab
which only has 16 computers?
Politicians, parents, and administrators seem to think we can just pull rabbits out of our
hats and do the impossible! In my class I try to do the best I can. I try to motivate. To be both
mother and father to my students. To follow the state and the district curriculum and try to
remember every workshop from every motivational speaker who has every solution for every
situation. However, at the end of the day I still fall short because I don’t do it the same way the
director would do it.
My brother James, who is a carpenter by trade, also renews his contractor’s license
every four years. My brother Charles is a doctor and has to renew his medical license every few
years. I had a language translation business on the side, so both of us had to renew our business
licenses annually. There are so many hoops to jump through and huge fees to pay. It’s not about
making the profession better it’s the same as text books. It’s not about teaching, it’s about
making money. And therein lies the crux of the matter.
If one wants to discover why education is in trouble, just follow the money. The
thought then occurred to me, what would have happened to some of the world’s greatest
teachers if they too would have had to obtain a teaching certificate, a business license, or even
just a college degree in order to share with the world the brilliance of their intellect. Just for the
moment, I would like to examine Socrates, Galileo, and Jesus Christ. I think this is how it might
have been.
One fine sunny day, we see an elderly man in the streets of Athens. He is surrounded by
young people who seem engrossed in his teaching. His name is Socrates. He is dressed in the
robes of ancient Greece. He’s not rich, which is something today’s teachers could relate to. But
he is well known throughout Athens as not only a great teacher but also as a sort of a rebel, a
trouble maker, a corruptor of young minds. He uses what we would refer to today as the

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Socratic Method of teaching. He asks a question and then answers his question with another
question. Its purpose is to encourage the students to think for themselves and not be
dependent on the experts.
Of course, this doesn’t sit well with some parents, the local experts, and bureaucrats.
Today he is discussing government corruption. Right in the middle of his lecture, Greek soldiers
break up the informal classroom. They haul him to jail, where later they let him out on his own
recognizance. They take him to the court of the Emperor Alexander the Great. There he is,
Socrates, bound as though he were a dangerous criminal. He stands before the great Greek
leader.
The conversation went somewhat like this: “Your highness, may I ask an important
question?”
“Speak.”
“For what crime was I arrested?”
“For corrupting the minds of our young people, contributing to the delinquency of
minors, disturbing the peace, illegal assembly, and teaching without a license.”
“Teaching without a license?”
“Yes, if you want to influence the minds of our young people, you must have the
training and certification, to prove that you have had the training. For teaching without a
license, and operating a school without a business license, you must pay a fine of not more than
25% of your gross income and perform 1000 hours of community service. Then you must agree
to spend four years in a university of your choice, after which you must show a certificate
showing that you are qualified to teach in the city state of Athens.”
“Your highness? 25% of all my income? But I don’t have any income. I teach for free. All
of my expenses come out of my own pocket! With what little bit I do receive from some
generous patrons, I use it to buy all of my own supplies, so I don’t have money left. Besides I
already serve my community. I am a teacher!”
“Well, if you don’t have any money, then you can add the crime of not having a visible
means of support for which you ought to die as of no good use to society.”
Socrates couldn’t believe his ears. He had never heard of anything so ridiculous in all his
life. But he asked the king what he had to do to get a certificate. So the king told him that he
had to do four years at the University of Athens. He told Socrates to check with the registrar’s
office for the full details. So later that day he got out of jail on a 10,000-drachma bail and went
over to the university to check on the requirements for his teaching credentials.
After finding out what he needed to do, he decided to enroll as a freshman. He wowed
the professors. He took Greek choral. He played the harp in the university Greek festival band,
and he got a spot on the university Olympic team as the water boy for the decathlon events,
and the marathon. Their mascot was the Athens Doric’s. He studied Greek grammar, literature,
and composition. He tried to take logic and rhetoric, but they were all closed. So he signed up
for history of the Greek Empire, math, science, and Greek government.
He had a little trouble in his classes because he kept using his Socratic method of
answering the professors’ question with another question. They thought he was being rude and
unruly. They finally had to threaten him with expulsion if he kept it up. He was to sit back and
listen to the professors; not to debate them.
The second year he had to declare a major. So he decided on philosophy, and logic as a
minor. The third year he had to study Greek mythology, and the history of the Egyptian and
Persian Empires. His fourth year he studied languages: Babylonian, Aramaic, Egyptian, and
Hittite. He was so far ahead of his classmates, the university decided to graduate him magna
cum laude. This meant he received a real sheepskin and a laurel wreath.
Now that he had his diploma and laurel, he headed down to city hall to make an
application for his certificate. He walked up to the counter and asked to speak to the clerk. He
looked at him with that bureaucratic disdain, “So, you want to be a teacher, do you? Well you

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need a copy of your diploma in triplicate, and your transcripts. Then you need to pay for a
criminal background investigation from the Athens Bureau of Investigation. We also need a
fingerprint analysis, plus the name and age of your first-born child as collateral. When you finish
that, bring it to this desk. You also need proof that you have taken the Greek National Teacher’s
Test, and then you should receive your certificate within six to twelve weeks or 90 to 120
working days whichever comes first.”
Well in the meantime, Socrates had to feed his family. He obtained a job shoveling
manure at the horse stables. He had to suffer abuse from the rich and famous who didn’t
recognize him with his irrigation boots on. They treated him quite rudely. 120 days came and
went. He became despondent and realized that his police record would probably keep him out
of teaching. So one night he went into the kitchen and mixed a cleaning solution of hemlock
with strawberries and kiwi juice. He drank it and later died from hemlock poisoning.
Later, one of his students, Plato discovered his writings and had them published, from
which he received royalties. He donated all royalties to the Socrates Memorial School of
Pedagogy, where the Socratic Method was taught. Every student was required to read and
memorize the Dialogues of Socrates. So you see the only reason we have the writing of Socrates
today, is the fact that Plato wrote his memoirs and told how Socrates was his mentor. Everything
he was or hoped to be he owed to Socrates.
Now, let’s look at the story of Galileo. He was a famous Italian scientist and teacher. He
taught at the University of Verona. However, he began teaching ideas that went against the
accepted theories of the time. Anyone who went against the authorities of accepted ideas, were
generally ostracized by the Vatican as well as the other teachers and scientists. He taught such
blasphemous concepts as flying machines, the telescope, automobiles, and the fact that the sun
was the center of the universe, not the earth.
Galileo began receiving complaints from parents, then other professors. Then the dean
of students began watching him. When he heard what he considered sac religious, he went to
the department chairman, who went to the university president, who eventually went to the
Pope. The Pope got involved because he was considered by some to be the font of all
knowledge because he was also the head of the Roman Catholic Church and therefore had
direct link to the font of all knowledge, God.
He sent word to Galileo that he had better retract his ideas or face excommunication
from the faith. Well, Galileo felt this was a freedom of speech issue, and therefore would not
cease his teaching. So the university officials had no choice but to let him go. They could stop
him from teaching at the school, but they could not stop him from teaching out of his home.
Well now he not only had to listen to complaints from the university, but from the Prince of
Verona, and the Pope himself. Galileo mistakenly thought his home was his castle and what he
taught in his home was his right. Well, evidently the authorities disagreed with him on that
concept as well.
One spring day, soldiers from the prince came to his house and arrested him for
blasphemy against the teachings of the church, corrupting the minds of his students, plus
teaching on a suspended license. They arrested him and threw him in the city dungeon. They
tried to break him of his wicked ways and incorrect thoughts by stretching him on the rack. He
wouldn’t break. He insisted that right or wrong he had the right to teach any ideas he wanted.
He felt he had the right to do any scientific research he wanted. If he wanted to contradict the
experts, he also had that right. He reasoned, just what if...the experts...might be wrong?
So they continued torturing him in the dungeon but still failing to break him. Eventually,
facing riots in the streets of Verona from his students and supporters, they released him from
the dungeon and placed him on house arrest until the day he died. Centuries later we found his
writings covered with dust, and then discovered, he was right after all, and the experts of his
day were wrong. What does that say about the experts of our day? Will they be proven wrong

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some day? Especially about those things they call correct by a consensus of all the experts
around the world.
Finally, let’s look at the teaching career of the greatest teacher this world has ever
known, Jesus Christ. Christians look at him as the Son of God. Muslims look at him as one of the
greatest of all the prophets. The Jews respect him as a great rabbi. So three religions look at him
as a great teacher. Now he really had it tough. First, he had to get a contractor’s license to be a
carpenter. He had to go to Bethlehem to pay the tax and get the paper that said he was a legal
carpenter. It didn’t matter he had apprenticed with his father, Joseph, since he was old enough
to hold a hammer and saw.
When he went to the clerk’s office, the bureaucrat at the desk asked him where he was
from. Christ answered him by saying he was born in Bethlehem, moved to Egypt until he was
three, and then was raised in Nazareth. The clerk asked him why he was getting a license in
Jerusalem, when he needed to go to Bethlehem. Christ answered that he was just passing
through on his way to Galilee by way of Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and decided to stop
there to renew his license.
So the bureaucrat told him to wait to see if there was a law that covered Jesus’
situation. He then went to his superiors who assured him that there were none. Then he
reluctantly renewed his license. Then Jesus got into trouble again. When he was twelve, the
Pharisees found him teaching in the Temple. They tried to bust him for underage teaching, but
when his parents came to pick him up, they released him to their supervision with the warning,
“Don’t do it again!”
Well, when he was at the wedding in Cana, he performed his first miracle. Some do-
gooder turned him in for performing miracles without a license. The next couple of years he just
continued to get into mischief. He walked on water, raised the dead, cast the devil spirits into
the swine, and fed the five thousand. So then the authorities bent over backward to try to
arrest him. They tried to arrest him for polluting a watershed, and trespassing in the Palestine
wetlands, raising the dead without doing an environmental impact statement, ritual cruelty to
animals, and serving food and water without a food handler’s license.
However, the greatest sin they accused him of, was teaching in the temple without a
teaching credential. Even when he took his teachings on the road, they tried to arrest him for
teaching on the Sabbath, teaching blasphemy, and unauthorized teaching to the
disenfranchised Sumerians. Eventually the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, got together to
determine what they could do to put a stop to this guy once and for all.
They were pissed that he had a greater following than all of them put together. So they
sent out their spies to watch him like a hawk. They needed to get as much dirt on him as they
could, so they could turn him over to the Romans for trial and punishment, as they couldn’t
really legally do anything to him under Roman law. Well what could they to do to the Son of God
and the Messiah?
Well, after a couple of years, they had what they thought were enough trumped up
charges that they figured they could turn him over to the Romans. They took their dossier to
Pontius Pilate. When they first presented their evidence to Ponti, he laughed them right out of
the palace. They wanted him to arrest Jesus for 1. Picking figs on the Sabbath. 2.Healing the
sick without a license to practice medicine. 3. Turning water into wine without a brewer’s
license. 4. Impersonating Deity by calling himself the Son of God. 5. Treason.
At these charges Pilate began laughing so hard he almost lost his toga. “Ah, come on
guys! You sound like you’re really stretching it now! What did he do that was treasonous?” The
crowd said, “By claiming to be King of the Jews, he not only impersonated royalty, but he
conspired to overthrow Caesar by claiming that he was the Messiah who was come to save the
world.”
Well, that convinced Pilate, who put out a warrant for his arrest for treason against
Caesar. He sent his Roman centurions to arrest him. They found him out in the Garden of

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Gethsemane praying and teaching his disciples. They brought him to Pilate, who wanted to
merely cite him for misdemeanor disturbing the peace, but Christ’s enemies wouldn’t hear of it.
So he sent Jesus to King Herod, the puppet king, who thought he was more powerful
than he was. He wanted to just put him in the protective witness program, but when Jesus
refused to talk to him, he had his loyal minions get a crown of thorns, and an old purple cloak
and slap him around a bit. He thought that might loosen his tongue. Well, Christ held his tongue
which really irritated King Herod. So he cited Jesus for contempt of court and released him back
to Pilate, who was really getting out of sorts with these Jewish rednecks.
So he tried to stall for time. Finally he washed his hands of the whole thing and released
Jesus to the crowd to do with him whatever they wanted. Well, you know the rest of the story.
They took him out, crucified him, Jesus looked down at the pious Pharisees, and the silly
Romans. He looked up to Heaven and shook his head in amazement and disgust, “Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani!” Which is loosely translated, “Father forgive them. They’re clueless these
guys!” Then he died.
The poor disciples had to bury him in a borrowed grave because he didn’t have enough
money to pay the death tax. So in conclusion we see three of history’s greatest teachers,
Socrates, Galileo, and Jesus Christ. How even then in their respective times, bureaucrats made
their lives miserable. However, even the worst bureaucrat could not crush their legacy. The
more they tried to silence them the brighter their light shone and the more their ideas
enveloped and influenced the world. The more the clergy, the bureaucrats, scientists, and
teachers of their times tried to stop their work, the truth being mightier than the sword, spread
throughout the world. Simple truths for the masses, yet so difficult for the educated of their day
to accept. This also shows that just because someone might be certified, licensed, and legal,
does not always mean that they are qualified, caring, or able to lead our governments, or
conduct the business of the people, or heaven forbid, educate our young people!

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Chapter 21: A MEMORANDUM TO ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS
FROM: THE STATE OFFICE OF EDUCATION

RE: CUTBACKS

Dear fellow educators: (The following is a memo one will never see from any bureaucracy
but is another reflection of how government really operates�)

1. The legislature has determined that the state government is in danger of going bankrupt.
The state considers educators and support staff the leeches of society. Therefore the following
austere measures will be implemented immediately upon receipt of this memorandum. All
teachers will be cut to part time. All class sizes will be increased to 45+ students. The school
year will be extended to 375 days per year, including weekends. There will be no more summer
vacations. Children can work year-round, the same as adults. Specialists will need to carry a
caseload of 500 students to be considered fulltime. There will no longer be holidays for teachers
or for students. Parents can’t take time off from work to tend their children. Besides that is what
the taxpayer pays the teachers to do. All supplies will be used until gone, all equipment will be
used until inoperative, and then all orders for resupplies and new equipment will be rejected
because there just isn’t any money in the budget.
2. All textbooks will continue in use until the turn of the next century. If they wear out
before then, the State Office will send an adequate supply of duct tape, along with a duct tape
specialist to train teachers on its use. Lane change credit will be offered for the workshops.
3. All superintendents, district staff, state office specialists, and any other educational
bureaucrat who has no contact with students and have not had for the last century, will
continue their 50% pay raises as scheduled. All retirees will receive a 50% cut in retirement and
a cap on all COLA’s. All retired superintendents et al will received a 50% raise on all COLA’s. Since
classified employees are parasites to the system, all classified programs will do more with less.
All classified programs will cut staff by 50%. Customer service is not an issue.
4. Busses will double the number of students on their routes. Any bus that carries less than
200 students will be penalized. If the student lives less than 50 miles from the school, they must
walk or pay an annual bus fee of $1,000 per child. School lunches will begin serving bread and
water for all school lunch and breakfast programs. There will no longer be full time teacher
aides. Teachers will return to performing lunchroom, playground, and bus duty. Elementary
teachers will work 12-hour shifts. They will no longer have planning time. They can do that on
their own time. Safety, accountability, security, and morale are not issues. Secondary teachers
will receive 15-minute lunch breaks, and their student load will be determined by the following
simple formula: the number of registered students multiplied by the square root of their shoe
size, added to the height and social security number of their mother. In the case they have no
mother, and then they will use the same measurements as their father. They also will no longer
have prep periods. They don’t need to prep to get the kids ready for the state mandated 15
standardized tests.
5. All high schools will teach English only. There will no longer be foreign language programs
as they violate the English only law. High schools will only teach basic math, science according
to Copernicus, and US History according to the Aryan Nation. There will no longer be fluffy
classes such as art, music, PE, Recess or any other class that gets in the way of preparing for the
standardized testing. Classes such as special education and English as a second language will no
longer be taught. They can suffer just like everybody else. Besides there is no such thing as
mental retards, it’s all in their heads. And foreign students can learn to talk English just like our
ancestors did. The old-fashioned way.

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6. Sports will consist of football, basketball, and baseball only. All of those other sports, like
soccer, golf, volleyball, track, and tennis, are just for foreigners and sissies.
7. All teachers will be held accountable for the rise and fall of student test scores. They rise
they get to keep their job for another year. They fall and it’s hasta la vista baby. Directors,
Superintendents, and Office bureaucrats (Specialists) are exempt from the accountability rules.
In order to enforce the accountability rules, the state has hired 5,000 experts in the field of
education (At $10,000 each paid on a daily basis) who will conduct workshops on absolutely
nothing in order to ensure our teachers do something about raising their test scores. Students
who don’t give a damn about school will not be taken into consideration.
8. All state colleges and universities will be publish or perish schools. After all, it’s the
research that brings in the money, not student tuition. Basketball and football will be the only
non-research programs as they are the only other programs that bring in the big bucks. Colleges
and universities will no longer teach (Wait, they don’t do that now.) which will help free up
professors to do research.
9. In order to ensure teachers are properly prepared for their duties, they will take a state
mandated test at $300 each in their subject area. All initial teaching licenses will be impossible
to acquire, as they will require an FBI and INTERPOL background check, a blood test, a
psychological evaluation, a complete health check-up, and a video-taped try-out in front of the
Miss Universe judges who will cut or keep the potential teacher. At which time they will then
receive an interview from the potential director, a jury of their peers, parents, and students.
10. Once they run the gambit, they must still pay for their teaching certificate. The initial fee
which is scheduled to rise annually will begin at $1,000. A renewal license will cost $2,000 and
the teacher will be required to renew every other year so that we can keep the bureaucrats’
employed and well-compensated. Since the Teacher’s Union is a leftist conspiracy to warp the
minds of our children, we have decided that once a teacher has reached the third year of
probation, they must be required to prove they are of sound mind in order to receive tenure as
defined by their director.
11. Any teacher who has been teaching longer than 5 years will be considered out of date
and forced to retire so that younger, more flexible teachers can take their places. What is good
for the students’ education is not an issue. What is good for the political power base, job
security, and personal finances of the Legislature, the Governor’s Office, and other upper
bureaucratic management is.
12. In order to pay for the cutbacks, property taxes and fees will also rise another 300%-
600%. In order to equalize state funding for education, any district that has more money in their
budget than the state deems necessary, will be audited, and the excess money will be
confiscated and added to the state general fund to pay the lawyers of the environmental
lobbyists who keep suing our state road projects. Thank-you and have a good day!

Sincerely,

Johnny B. Good
State Superintendent

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Chapter 22: Dear Mr. Hatch: A Letter To My Legislator
Dear Mr. Hatch,
I watched the news the other day and saw that the legislature is worried we don't have
enough teachers for Utah schools. Permit me to help you all to figure this out. Even though I am
in administration now and not in the classroom, I haven't been out so long that I forgot where I
came from.
1. First let's start with the teacher training system: For a secondary education degree,
one has to have a major and a minor as well as the education classes. The average time a
student can face is 5 years in college. When they graduate their student debt can be as high as
$250,000 at the end of 5 years of college.
2. The certification process: I know people who have applied for their teaching
certificates in April and didn't receive them until December. I sent my package for my
administrator's license to them in November. It is now February. Despite repeated e-mails I can't
find out what is taking so long. I know some who have actually given up. It wasn't worth the
time or money. So far, I've spent $120 just to add an endorsement, and upgrade my license. Last
year I spent $40 to renew it. I applied for renewal in February and didn't receive it until June
when my old one expired. It took less time to do the FBI background check then it did to get the
actual license. Why?
3. The job search: In 2003, I got laid off from my job in Park City because my Hispanic
students moved to Heber City when Park City got too expensive to live. I applied in every school
district within 50 miles of my home in Heber. I had no luck. When I did get an interview, I was up
against 30 or so fresh college graduates. The schools never even had the common courtesy to
let me know I didn't get the job. I just surmised as such when I never heard from them. I even
looked nationwide. Some of the states had so many hoops to jump through I just gave up and
went international. So many have given up the search and went elsewhere because the barriers
into the profession were just too formidable.
4. The job itself: For the average teacher there are so many requirements and
restrictions many are getting out because they are fed up. Directors don't support their
teachers. Superintendents look at them as the enemy to divide and conquer. Parents don't
support teachers like they used to. My wife has been threatened with her life at least once a
year for the last couple of years. Neither the school district nor the teacher's union lifted a
finger to help her. The teacher's union is more interested in saving whales than helping
teachers. They cannot by law represent provisional teachers. So districts have found that they
can let third year teachers go without even giving them a reason why. They make them feel like
they aren't "worth a damn as a teacher." When the real reason is that they can let them go and
get a cheaper first year teacher who they can hire part-time, so they don't have to give any
benefits. Recently, the State Board has mandated that we have to take a test to ensure we are
qualified to do our job. Then our districts require us to attend workshops by teachers who
couldn’t teach when they were in the classroom and now they are telling teachers in the
classroom how to teach. Of course they wrote a book about it or developed a program so that
makes them an automatic expert in the field. On top of that they charge the districts $10,000 a
day for the privilege to hear their wisdom.
5. The bureaucracy: When I used to work in Wasatch School District, the district office
was a converted house. We had the superintendent, his secretary, and the payroll office with
one clerk. Now at last count they now have more than 30 bureaucrats and growing. They have
specialists who haven't been in the classroom for years, coming up with more busy work to keep
teachers occupied. Most of their programs are ones that didn't make it 20 or 30 years ago, given
a new name, and repackaged and still don't work. They mandate this program and that
program, and the teachers see them not doing anything except creating more programs and
more testing to validate their programs and personal agendas to the point teachers can't teach

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any more. They are too busy prepping for tests, giving tests, and prepping for the next test, and
on top of it all they get threatened with their jobs if their students don't pass the bloody tests!
Then the administrators pass the buck and blame all of the nonsense on No Child Left Behind
which they have come to see as the ultimate scapegoat. They can require teachers to be
accountable but not themselves.
6. Then as every year teachers leave the profession, they are called selfish and
unprofessional because they have the audacity to want to find a job where they can support
their family. I remember when I was in Duchesne County I knew teachers who couldn't afford to
buy a house, so they lived in a trailer and lived on welfare. In Washington County where I have
several friends, they say they open a new school every year. However, many of the available jobs
go unfilled because the cost of living is so high new teachers can't afford to live there.
7. In conclusion, if you want to know why teachers are leaving the profession, it's
because they are fed up. Why aren’t college students going into the profession? It's because
they see what I have just described and figure the hassles are not worth it. It's not just about
low pay. It's the hostile work environment, the long hours, the fact there is no future anymore,
and it is a thankless job. Every problem in society gets blamed on the teachers. Combine that
with the low pay, the micromanaging, lying, pompous, psychotic administrators, and that's why
Utah can't get enough teachers to fill her schools. Until the legislature figures that out they will
never have enough teachers. In fact the older teachers will eventually retire, there will be a
revolving door of new teachers. The up side is that there will be plenty of money for the
administration and the bureaucrats. The down side is that is that our children will suffer.

Sincerely,

John Lemon, PhD

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Chapter 23: When Will It End?
It all began with the children. Another here, another there. The parents were too
young. They weren’t ready. So they killed their unborn fetuses. Some called it abortion. So
what? It was just a piece of tissue. It was not a viable life form. Snuffed out as easily as a breeze
snuffs out a candle flame. It would have been an inconvenience they say. They rationalized that
the world had too many unwanted children. So they killed them. Every day they killed them. I
asked myself, “When will it end?”
When they had no more unwanted children, they went to the orphanages. They needed
real estate for malls and high rises. So they emptied the orphanages to build a mall. The
children were turned out to the streets to fend for themselves. The state hired thugs to deal
with the problem. Children began showing up face down in the rivers and lakes. A gunshot
wound to the back of the head. The authorities said it was the worst case of suicide they had
ever seen. I asked myself, “When will it end?”
They looked around with blood in their eyes and death in their hearts. The
handicapped. They are so bothersome! They are breathing precious air we need. They must go!
So they killed the disabled. They called it euthanasia. They took them by the busloads to special
schools. One by one in the middle of the night. One painless needle full of morphine. They
cremated the bodies and buried them in nameless graveyards. I continued asking myself, “When
will it end?”
Then they looked at the elderly. The seasoned citizens. They are so old and feeble. They
are such a burden to their families. What good are they? They have outlived their usefulness to
society. They will die anyway. So they put these people in rest homes and retirement centers. In
the dark of night, they stole into their rooms and smothered them with a pillow while they
slept. They removed the bodies before anyone became the wiser. I asked myself, “When will it
end?”
Those in the homeless shelters were next. The drones of society. Not really the ones
who were dangerous, just the human garbage. The drunks and drug users and sellers. They have
no useful purpose on this earth. We must destroy them all! So they arrested them and threw
them all in jail. They tortured them and used them for medical research. They wanted to see
what made them tick. Then they built the gallows and hung them until these hopeless creatures
could burden society no longer. They burned the bodies and buried them in shallow graves in
the silence of the woods. I asked myself, “When will it end?”
Then they realized that soldiers returning from war were becoming a nuisance. They
claimed to have untreatable diseases; Agent Orange, PTSD, Gulf War Illness….They decided that
if they did nothing they would all die anyway so they did nothing. Claimed they had no diseases.
It was all in their heads anyway. So they waited until they all died and pat themselves on their
collective backs for the great job they had done, saving the taxpayers money so the politicians
and bureaucrats could line their pockets with the money they saved. I asked myself, “When will
it end?”
They looked again and noticed there were whole races that were inferior. They too must
go. They have no useful purpose in this world. We cannot have them mixing with the superior
race, the Aryan Nation. Those of the blond hair and blue eyes. The masters of all the races. So
they rounded up the Gypsies, the Slavs, the black man, the brown man, the yellow man, and
finally the Jew. This would be the final solution to all the ills of the world. They built the death
camps. They told the people that work would make them free. The only way they would actually
be free would be the gas chambers. They tortured them. They took away their names. They
gave them numbers. By the numbers they would live and by the numbers they would die. And
they did die. Every day, hundreds, thousands, and finally the millions. They buried them in mass
graves because there were so many. Why did there have to be so many? I asked myself, “When
will it end?”

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They looked and beheld God. He too must go. If there were no God, there could be no
Devil and therefore no sin. So they burned the image of God. They told the people that it was
for their own good. That God was a drug. After all they argued, “religion is the opiate of the
masses.” So they put out an extermination order: “people of faith will be treated as enemies of
the state and driven from the land or exterminated for the public good.” So they shut down the
churches, the synagogues, mosques, temples, and shrines. Then they rounded up everyone who
claimed to be people of faith. They arrested every Christian, every Jew, every Moslem, every
Buddhist, every Hindu, and every animist. They loaded them on boxcars and treated them
worse than cattle. If they survived the ride to the camps, they didn’t live to tell their story. They
tortured them. They beat them and ridiculed them publicly. If there was a God, they mocked,
why didn‘t he come down and save his people?
They demanded that all people of faith denounce their god or be killed. Some refused
to deny God and the monsters slit their throats. The others scared for their lives joined the
unbelieving persecutors. I asked myself, “When will it end?”
Then they looked and beheld, other enemies of the state. Teachers, businessmen,
political rivals. They must go as well! They laughed and sneered. Childish! And they called them
mean-spirited. They called them partisan. They accused them of conspiracies. They found them
guilty of treason and sentenced them to die. They drove them to the death camps as well. There
were so many it resembled a cattle drive. They marched them to the death camps. Many were
so weak it became a death march for them.
Once they arrived at the camps, they were forced to endure hard labor. Many died from
exhaustion. Many were shot for no reason. Some of the weaker ones took one last shower to
de-lice themselves. They never came out alive. They too were buried in mass graves. And I still
continued to ask myself, “When will it end?”
Next, they looked around and noticed there were still those with red hair and green
eyes. Brunettes and brown eyes. Some had freckles. Some were too passionate to be a member
of the master race. Some looked too suspicious. Some offended just by breathing. They too had
to go. They rounded them up and pushed them off a cliff. Their cries for mercy were drowned
in the ocean foam.
Now I looked around me. No family, no friends--Lonely. Then the black hearts of the
Aryan Nation, the master race, the superior master race, was all that was left. I wondered,
“Would the jealousies end? Would the hate and deception cease? Would there still be rich and
poor? Would the final solution that was based on some silly myth have been worth it? Would
there be no differences? Would everyone really be the same? Would there be good and evil? I
wept at the reality.
As long as there were the leaders and the followers, there would never be an end to the
final solution. I heard the alarm. I woke up. I realized this was just bad dream. I trembled as I
hoped that in the eternal struggle between good and evil, the good never give up. I prayed that
the good never find themselves in the position of asking themselves, “When will it end?”

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Chapter 24: The Aristocracy Of Education Versus The Common Man
Throughout the ages there has been a constant struggle between those of privilege in
political power, the learned, and the wealthy; and everyone else. The privileged are the elite
among us. They are those to whom the fates have been gracious. They have the power to rule,
the education to make decisions, and the riches which none of the rest of us will ever hope to
have. Because of the rarity of these gifts they have used them to exercise unrighteous dominion
over the rest of us. They also guard the secrets to these gifts very carefully.
They have restricted the obtaining of these gifts to a very selected few. The history
books are full of those who dare to question this monopoly of power over the Common Man.
Whenever someone comes along to question their authority, the elite feel threatened and they
strike swiftly with a vengeance to remove any threat to their status by any means possible.
Sometimes this has meant even to the point of death.
Take for example the story of Socrates. He challenged the authority of the rich and
famous of Athens. He dared question their society. He dared teach the youth of Athens in the
streets. In the end they had him arrested and put to death. Jesus Christ was probably the most
famous example of this challenge to the authority of the rich and powerful. He, like Socrates,
taught in the streets of Jerusalem, in the hills and in the fields of Galilee. He taught the masses;
those others who were looked down upon, mocked, ridiculed, and even spat upon.
He even cleared the Temple in Jerusalem of the moneychangers. He confounded the
lawyers, the Pharisees and Sadducees. In the end, the rich and powerful had him arrested by
the Romans and put to death upon the cross at Golgotha. Others, who challenged the
authority of the domineering wealthy classes, as well as the Pope, were Copernicus and Galileo.
They dared question the accepted fact that the sun did not revolve around the earth but that
the earth did indeed revolve around the sun.
“That is preposterous!” they sneered. How dare they contradict the teachings of the
ancients? Who did these men think they were? In the end they were excommunicated and held
under house arrest because they refused to refute what they were teaching. Others, heroes of
the reformation, met death at the fiery stakes for trying to clean up the corruption of the
established church. Their members were massacred by king and pope for witchcraft and
blasphemy.
In 1776, a group of backwoodsmen in the British Colony of America actually decided to
question the authority of the King of England. They revolted and fought to break away from the
tyranny of the English Crown. For the first time in World History, the Common Man fought for
their rights to rule themselves independently of the traditional rule of monarchy. The American
colonies fought and won their independence.
In the 1800’s there appeared a great movement across the American Nation regarding
religion. A young unlearned farm boy from the frontier regions of Upstate New York, received
visions, translated an ancient book, and restored a religion like that of the New Testament. He
was ridiculed, and he and his followers, persecuted for challenging the traditions and beliefs of
the clergy. He taught that the Common Man had a divine destiny. The clergy in the end had him
arrested and killed for what he taught. It’s interesting that the rich, the powerful, and the
learned can kill the man but they have never been able to kill the dream.
In the 20th Century, there came many technological advances such as the telephone,
the light bulb, the car, and the airplane. Just imagine, two bicycle repairmen who had never
been to university in their lives actually had the audacity to challenge the idea that men could
fly. Why the elite of the time laughed and ridiculed them? “If God had wanted man to fly he
would have given him wings.” All the while the Wright Brothers worked quietly away on their
dream. In 1907 on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Common Man flew for the
first time in the history of the world.

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In the 1920’s, a Black Man descended from Slave Ancestors actually thought he could go
to university. “What? A Black Man go to school?” they mocked. “That would be the day! Black
people are incapable of learning much less go to university.” Well, he did and then he went on
to start his own university specifically for other members of his race with the dream of
attending university. Many of the simple innovations such as peanut plastic and soy bean oil
came from the tireless research of Booker T. Washington.
In literature the author of the Common Man, Samuel Clemens, or better known as Mark
Twain, was ridiculed, and shunned by the elite of the Ivy League universities and the polite
literary circles. “He was just a crude frontiersman. He had no education,” they said. “Why his
books would never sell because they were rough and unrefined.” Yet who remembers the rich
and famous of the time who criticized this famous writer of the Common Man, but everyone
knows the adventures of Tom and Huck. Everyone has read about the Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County.
In music, the name Leonard Bernstein has long been known in classical circles. However,
when he had the boldness to write a musical he was laughed at by those same classical circles
as going beneath this dignity and by the musical community as being out of his league. Again
does anyone remember his detractors? Yet everyone knows and loves The West Side Story.
It’s interesting that dreams are the most important weapon man has ever known. The
dream to be free from tyranny, to get an education, to do things no one has ever done before,
the dream to serve our fellow man. Whenever the dreams of the Common Man challenge the
authority of the rich, the powerful and the cultured, try as they might they have never been
able to destroy the dream of the Common Man. In 2001, 19 men, boys really, filled with hate for
the things America represented; democracy, freedom, the American Dream, toppled three
towers that they thought would bring Americans to their collective knees. However, they didn’t
understand the concept of the dream. And life went on in America. While the terrorists died
and continue to die for what? They love death while Americans love life?
In 2016, the Common Man voted for a billionaire who said he could make America
great. Once again the elite, the educated, the celebrities, the shadow government tried to do
everything in their power to make sure he failed as president of the United States. They
threatened his life, they threatened to impeach him because of what? They concocted false
charges to conduct an endless investigation against him.
All the while he did things no other president before him ever did. He knew that doing
the same ting over and over again and expecting different results was the definition of insanity.
So he cut taxes. He made it known that the US was longer the world’s piggy bank. If they
wanted foreign aid they would have to earn it. He put rogue nations on notice. The US was
going to be no-more mister nice guy and allow the rest of the world, both friends and foes kick
us around. He put stipulations on treaties and agreements. And last but not least he threatened
to drain the Washington DC swamp of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. Those who this
affected were the very ones who have threatened the president with assassination and
impeachment. Time will tell what become of this. It took many decades for the swamp to fill
with swamp water and therefore it will take decades to drain it.
In the field of education, universities began in the 13th Century. At first, they were
intended to prepare men for the Priesthood. After the invention of the printing press the
universities were open to the aristocratic sons of the rich and powerful in Europe to learn the
classics, Greek and Latin, math and science. They remained that way until the 18th century.
Even in America the colleges and universities were restricted to only the wealthy. Today they are
known as the Ivy League Schools. For the most part they are still restricted to the wealthy. Even
today when we look to who are the experts in any field of educational endeavor, we look to the
elite schools of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, and Stanford; just to name a few.
In the 19th Century, there came a challenge to the traditional university system. States,
of the United States, were beginning to build state universities. They were for the Common Man

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to learn agricultural technology primarily as well as to prepare teachers to teach in the public
schools. The Ivy League Universities thumbed up their noses at the state universities. “Who do
they think they are?
Commoners actually thinking they can masquerade as college educated bumpkins! The
very idea! Why next they’ll be thinking they can join the nouveau riche and dabble in politics!”
By the time the 20th Century came along, the idea of the state university had become accepted,
at least by the average American. For the first time in the history of the world the average guy
on the street had access to a college education. After WWII many GI’s wanted to go to college
and the GI Bill made that possible.
Again the elite felt threatened. “Why do all these people actually think they can be
equal with us?” As they did many times before the elite tried to extinguish the dream of many
to go to college. However, as they had done many times before, the elite failed to deter young
people from realizing their dreams. In the 1970’s the trade and technical schools were being
built for those who didn’t want the four-year education of the regular university. This made it
even more possible for young people to go to school. The government also made it possible
with interest free loans, grants, and scholarships for students to afford to go to school. Then in
the 1980’s the cost of tuition began to go up in exponential proportions in an effort to keep the
Common Man from attending university. The elite was trying to keep out the ruffians by make
making it so expensive that only those with money could afford to go.
Professors were telling their classes that anyone who needed to work to keep
themselves in college had no business being in college. Eventually the trade schools became
accepted, but the elite still considered them inferior to the university system. When that didn’t
work, universities devised other ways to keep out the Common Man.
They tried “weeding out” the ones they didn’t think would make it. They tried entrance
exams. They tried waiting lists to get into certain programs such as law schools, medical schools,
and nursing schools. They tried making the classes so impossibly difficult that only the best and
the brightest could pass them. Yet nothing could deter the masses from going to university; the
masses that the elite continued to say was impossible to educate.
As time went on, the universities and colleges strengthened their monopoly on the
system. Tuition became more and more expensive. Students were taking out loans in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to school. Books and fees were rising as well. Textbooks
weren’t just going for $20 or $30, they were going for hundreds. As a last resort professors told
student that if they wanted to be well-round they had to take more and more classes that had
nothing to do with their major or minor. Of course many of these classes were those that the
professor just happened to teach. With the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a
freight train coming toward them; making it impossible to reach graduation.
Finally, students were getting discouraged and going straight into the workforce instead
of going to college or university. Finally the elite had found a way to legally keep the masses out
of the sacred halls of their universities. As they did, the dream of a college education was
growing dimmer and dimmer for the average American. By the 1990’s, the dream of earning a
college education was almost non-existent for many students. Forced out by the weeding out
process, the impossible classes, and the high tuition, many students gave up on their dream of
ever receiving a diploma.
For 150 years Traditional American Universities had a virtual monopoly on education.
They controlled who attended and who graduated. They established the curriculum, and none
dared to challenge their authority. This even influenced all education right down to the public
schools, secondary and elementary education as well. As the noose of the academic monopoly
grew tighter around the neck of higher education, signs of corruption and degradation began to
appear. Professors prided themselves on being able to destroy the faith of religious students
who attended their classes. Professors began teaching the beauties of Marxist economics and
the evils of the free market systems, democracy, and the American way of life.

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The universities began to be the bastions of the liberal, hedonistic, and atheistic
thinking that is the hallmark of socialist ideology. Students who tried to maintain the
conservative faith-based philosophies were ostracized and forced to leave the universities if
they didn’t accept the socialist way of thinking. Some professors failed these students as part of
the weeding out process, not on their work, but on who they were. Professors escaped
accountability by developing the bell curve. Professors publicly ridiculed students who didn’t fall
into line with the socialist curriculum. In the end they wanted every student who graduated to
reach the assembly line of education as mere parrots of the professors.
Universities tried to find ways of funding their schools even if it meant unscrupulous
means. For example, they refused to allow a student to transfer credits from one school to
another, then making him start his program all over again. They forced students to take
unnecessary classes in order to keep them longer, even after they completed the required
number of credits for their courses of study. To the students the light at the end of the
graduation tunnel grew further and further away. They would tell students that their credits
were outdated and so must start all over again. Some universities would change the catalogue
and then require students to complete the requirements under the new catalogue rather than
the old one under which they started. Again this usually meant taking more classes than the old
catalogue required. Most universities began the “publish or perish” policies whereby professors
had to get their research published or risk losing their jobs. It didn’t matter what kind of teacher
they might be in the classroom. Thus their true colors were beginning to show. Students didn’t
matter, money did.
The results were that a bachelor’s program merely consisted of lots of boring classes,
impossible tests, and meaningless research papers, which students could now buy on the black
market for an affordable price. A master’s program consisted of more of the same. Finally a
doctoral program was all of the above piled higher and deeper. After a set number of hours of
seat time or until their financial aid ran out, the students would get to the end of the assembly
line as good little liberals ready to take their place as community organizers in the world. They
had a diploma that was in all actuality legal but “worthless as teats on a bull.”
With the advent of the personal computer and the internet in the 1990’s, a new
challenge raised its ugly head to challenge the monopoly of the traditional university. They were
called the online universities. The main difference was that they allowed students to study from
the comfort of their living rooms rather than attend classes in the “brick and mortar”
universities. Many of the classes were also taught by professionals in the field of study rather
than by some professor who hadn’t been in the field for ages and had no clue what the real
world was like. The main drawback was that like the traditional universities the student paid a
handsome price for this luxury for a diploma that may or may not be accepted on the outside.
Once again, the traditional elitists labeled these schools “diploma factories.”
Now we are in the new century. One would expect new developments in the field of
education. As an extension of the online university, one more innovative approach developed to
help make the dream of a university education available to the Common Man. It is called the
Experiential Degree. I’ve known many people who have told me, “No, I never went to college. I
went to the school of hard knocks.” Well the experiential program makes it possible for the
school of hard knocks to count for university credits.
In response, the traditional elites, as well as the regular online universities have gone
ballistic. They are saying things like, “We can’t accept those degrees. They are deceptive. They
are nothing more than diploma factories. There is nothing in life’s experiences that will equal a
legitimate college education.” Some have even tried to stop these programs in the courts. The
US Department of Education has even put out a list blackballing these universities. Anyone who
gets a degree from these schools will be guilty of fraud if they try to use them as proof of a
college degree. However, it won’t be long, and this new idea will win out. I have to ask myself,

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though, how are these degrees anymore deceptive than the corrupt and degraded education
that one receives in the elitist traditional universities?
Well, in my way of thinking the experiential degree is a justifiable idea whose time has
come. Sure the elites of academia may fight it. However, now the dream of a college education
has finally come to the Common Man at an affordable price. The lessons that he learns over a
period of his lifetime can finally be given credit. By the time word gets out, nothing the elites
can do will stop this idea from rolling down the hill like a boulder crushing every tradition in its
path.
At last, the final monopoly of the aristocrats of the world, the monopoly of the mind,
will be destroyed. As for me, I have taken the classes. I have the work experience. While my
peers were sitting through boring classes reading history, I was out busily making history. All I
ask that the credits that I earned in college and in my occupation, be given the recognitions they
deserve. Finally with the experiential degree I can earn my masters and perhaps a doctorate. To
me the experiential degree finally makes the American Dream a reality for not only me but for
all Americans who fill the ranks of the Common Man.
Note: Since I wrote this one more major accomplishment has taken place. Those online
universities have become associated with brick and mortar schools so that their credits and
diplomas will be accepted by the credentialing agencies. So instead of a degree from Kaplan
University, the degree will show that it came from Purdue University. BYU also has a program
called Pathways that is a door to an education; and affordable for many student who previously
could afford to go to school. Its credits come from BYU-Idaho. So the time has come that the
elites can no longer keep students from earning an education. Our current president is the first
one in some time who was not a graduate of an Ivy League School, making one strike against
him with the elites in society. However, it has endeared him to the American Common Man.

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Chapter 25: An Observer’s History Of Bureaucracy
It’s been said that the Germans invented bureaucracy. The French turned it into an art
form. The English turned it into a science and the Americans made it a way of life. It was during
the 19th Century when Kaiser Wilhelm was trying to unite the German States. He sent his
minister of transportation, Hans Von Volkswagen to check out the status of hitching posts in
Berlin. He was gone for several days. When he returned he brought back this report: ((The
translation is provided by the translation committee of the German Department at the
University of Southern North Dakota.) In the interest of simplicity I render the English version of
this report:

Zu mein heir Kaiser Wilhelm:


The following is my report to his highness, der Kaiser Wilhelm, on das status of hitching
posts in Berlin. After spending a great deal of time I have calculated that there are 5.149.181
hitching posts in the incorporated city limits of Berlin. There are an estimated 7.155.139.510
horses in the greater Berlin area. Therefore there is a shortage of 2.005.958 hitching posts in the
Berlin metropolitan area. I propose the Kaiser recommend to die German Parliament a tax
increase on all horses in order to generate the necessary revenue to construct more hitching
posts for der city of Berlin.
Sincerely, Your Servant, Minister of Transportation.

Hans Von Volkswagen


Hans Von Volkswagen

Later as the result of the efforts of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, the République
de France elevated their bureaucrats to the status of artistes and bureaucracy from the crude
German process to the refined art form we know today. In spite of his propensity of tackling all
of the armies of Europe with one hand tied in front, and his army traveling on their stomachs,
he did do much to improve the lot of his countrymen.
He set up the French education system. He organized the country into départments and
arrondissements. He set up the French postal system, the French systems of highways and
waterways. Some say his greatest achievement was the evolution of French bureaucracy, which
the French are very proud of even today. In fact they were so proud of their systems; they took
them on the road when they conquered their colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast
Asia.
This all started when M. Napoleon asked his aide-de-camp, Jean-Paul Chauvin to
arrange a meeting with all of his ministers, (This could have doubled as a family reunion as well.)
He wanted them to investigate how they might centralize and nationalize all of the powers of
government into one location, a sort of one-stop-shop if you will. The following is a copy of the
original letter that the Emperor Napoleon wrote to M. Chauvin: (The translation is again
provided by the translation committee of the French Department at the University of Northern
South Dakota.)

M. Chauvin,
I salute you and your family. It is my duty and privilege as the Emperor of the République de
la France, to request that you call a meeting of all my ministres. The agenda will consist of
discuter all the ways and means of improving les services gouvernements pour chaque citoyen

241
français. We must commence by creating a repositoire for all the great works of art in the entire
world. I will use les armées of France to collect them in the fertile fields of war. I will attempt to
share the enlightenment of la culture française with the whole earth. Do this if you will, so that
les peuple de la France will know that their Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, has brought to them
the most beautiful tresors d'Europe to enjoy and to remind them that France is the heart of all
art and culture in Europe. I am encouragé that you will carry out my request rapidement. Merci
mille fois!
I am your Emperor Toujours,

Napoleon Bonaparte
Emperor of France

They had the meeting, and all decided that they would support the Emperor’s desire to
conquer the kingdoms of Europe. At the same time they would bring back the art treasures of
Europe and store them in Paris. They began by taking on army after army and defeating them.
They sent the art treasures of Europe from every city they conquered and began hanging every
painting ever produced throughout history in the Louvre.
Et voilá, the French turned bureaucracy into an art form. However, when Napoleon got
bogged in the Russian fiasco and then his defeat at Waterloo, the French people decided he was
too expensive and sent him to a nice little retirement home on the Island of Elba where he
could harmlessly conquer whomever he wanted. The good people at the home put him in a bed
next to a guy who thought he was a god. They grew old together basking in each other’s glory.
His wife Josephine decided to run for political office. Her example would greatly influence
modern women officials, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her husband too, thought he was
greater than he was in reality.

The English of course could not be outdone by the French. They have been in
competition ever since Harold and William battled at Hastings in 1066. They wanted to
standardize the methods they did government business. They began with the Magna Carta.
Later, when Oliver Cromwell overthrew the King of England, he set up parliament and had them
pass the Irish Penal Laws. This essentially penalized all Irish people, for the crime of being Irish.
This began the first of several migrations of the Irish to America. In the 19th Century,
Queen Victoria was the ruling monarch. The English had by this time regulated the Imperial
units of measurement, which they used to measure the distance between couples in the
process of courtship. The task was given to a chaperone whose job it was to reassure the
couple’s parents that there was no impropriety. Other regulations governed the paces and
choice of weapons in a duel. However, there were no regulations as yet for the number of hours
an employer could force his help to work in the sweat shops which were becoming quite
popular during the Industrial Revolution.
Since England was quickly becoming a world power, Queen Victoria wanted to ensure
that the manner of taking tea was universal for each country in the British Empire, the empire
where the sun never set. So in the following letter, she asked Parliament to regulate the times,
quantities, and manner of drinking tea by all subjects in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and even
Ireland. By doing so, the English elevated bureaucracy in to a whole new science.

To My Dear Mr. Gladstone:

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As you know, the Empire has become so widespread that the sun never sets on the British
Empire. The time has come that we are no longer able to rule our colonies with fairness,
consistency, and equality. Therefore, I must ask you to assist me in petitioning Parliament to
publish a law mandating the times, the quantity, manner, and condiments necessary to properly
take tea. Thus all Englishmen everywhere or those who may call themselves Englishmen may all
share in the responsibilities of being English. Thereby we will know that at any time, in any
location in the Empire, all those who call themselves loyal subjects of the British throne can
share in the knowledge of what it means to be truly English, isn’t it? Be a dear and do this for
me, won’t you?
Sincerely your highness,

Queen Victoria, HM the Queen of England

When the American Colonies won their independence from England and King
George the III, they immediately began to set up their own kind of government. They wrote the
Constitution, set up Congress, elected the President, and appointed the Supreme Court. The
one thing they were missing were the government workers whose job it is to carry out the
everyday working of their fledgling government. Impressed by their Yankee ingenuity, they
decided to improve and amalgamate the foundations set down by the Germans, with the help
of Von Steuben, the art form of the French with the help of Lafayette, and the science of the
English with the help of Cornwall.
The Americans turned the European system into an American Way of Life known as the
Civil Service System. It came about in its purist form right after the assassination of President
James Garfield, when he was shot by a disappointed postal worker. Up until President Garfield
and including his presidency, all civil service workers were political appointees. After the
election, the president would then give government jobs away to those who had supported him
in his campaign.
Well, there was one Polish gentleman who was an obscure mail clerk who wanted to get
the assignment of Ambassador to Jamaica. Well, he stewed about it and finally bought a gun
before the background checks were vogue and vowed he would make President Garfield pay for
his neglect. He met the president at a combined political fundraiser and photo op where he
stood in line to shake the President’s hand. When his turn came he pulled out his gun and shot
President Garfield in the gut.
The president lingered in the hospital for several days and finally died. His successor
was President Chester A. Arthur. He decided it was time to clean up the Civil Service System and
make it a system where only the inept and incompetent could get jobs. So he petitioned
Congress to create the Civil Service System, as we know it today. The Civil Service System of the
United States government has become the model by which all Third world nations have copied
and by which all Americans have accepted as a way of life. The following is the letter that
President Arthur wrote to Congress:

To the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives, J. Warren Keifer: In light of the
recent assassination of the late President Garfield, I feel we need to make some important
changes in the way the Federal Government does business in hiring its civilian work force. It is
my opinion that we need to change the spoils system of presidential appointees to a system
based on merit. We need to hire only those incompetent and inept enough to not do their jobs.
I think we need an eighty-page application process so that only those extremely desperate

243
enough to work for the government need apply. Then we need to ensure that each job is held
accountable based on standards set forth in a codified set of federal regulations. This will be
across the board in all federal agencies and all levels of the executive branch and department of
each cabinet. Then we will have to require each government employee undergo a lobotomy to
ensure they follow the regulations to a T. Then we will make sure they become as corrupt as the
Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court. Hopefully, by doing so we might prevent
another assassination from a disgruntled office seeker. I hope the Congress will act
expeditiously on this matter in a timely manner.
Sincerely, the President

President of the United States of America

Well, as you may have guessed by now, both houses of Congress were infected by
political gridlock. So the issue never came to a vote in either the Senate or the House. So
President Arthur was forced by circumstances to create the Civil Service Commission by
executive order. The Civil Service became an early example of the government’s desire to hire
the politically handicapped, the geographically disadvantaged, and the drones of society.
Therefore, those who were inept and incompetent in all other walks of life could in some small
way acquire some element of power in their otherwise meaningless lives. By controlling society
through a system of restrictive regulations they would force the American people to jump
through the inexhaustible hoops of the bureaucratic process.
The requirements were simple. Those GS-15 and higher must undergo a complete
lobotomy, followed by training to help them become authorities on absolutely nothing of
importance. Then this was followed by learning to communicate this by memos in politically
corrected gobbledygook and doublespeak. All government documents were required to be
accomplished in triplicate and in the passive voice. Passive Voice is the verbal equivalent of
chloroform in print. The Passive Voice also assists the bureaucrat in avoiding accountability by
creating a vague subject of the verb.
All documents would require a team of lawyers to translate for the common American
as the documents in question were written by politicians who are nothing more than out-of-
work attorneys and their teams of lawyers. Thus American bureaucracy has been elevated from
the basic German authoritarian form, the French art form, and the English science to a process
so confusing, so invasive as to affect every aspect of the life of the average American citizen;
Thus becoming an American icon and a deeply, ingrained way of life.

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Chapter 26: A Tale From The Halls Of Bureau Pathology
(Thanks to Mark Twain for the inspiration)
One day, my wife and I noticed that more and more of our hard-earned paycheck was
going for this tax and that tax. The result was that we were consistently finding ourselves with
more month and bills than paycheck to cover them. I had been raised with the idea that a good
citizen gets involved. If there’s something going on in the government I didn’t like, I should write
my elected officials to try to change the situation. So like the good citizen I try to be, I began a
letter writing campaign to try to get some tax relief. Little did I know that when taxes are
concerned, the government could be frustratingly difficult. One might as well overturn the
Constitution as to obtain tax relief from the IRS. The first person I decided to write, was our
governor. I wrote the following:

“Dear Governor: Why are you raising our taxes when we’re already paying 60% of our
income in combined state, federal, and local taxes, and fees? What will you do when you have
100% of our income? What will you do for revenue then? I think it’s about time you politicians
reeled in your spending and started cutting some of these taxes, so we can pay the rest of our
bills. If you need somewhere to start, maybe you can start by cutting your automatic pay raises
that you get every year.”

About six months went by and I didn’t hear anything back from him. Then right after he
got re-elected I received this “personalized” reply from his secretary:

“Dear Sir: The decision to raise taxes is never an easy one. We must take into consideration
the impact that raising taxes has on the local community, but we have to ask ourselves what
this program would mean to the community should we not be able to fund it. In the end we
consider all avenues before we raise taxes. But in general if we want the services of our
government, we have to be willing to fund those services, which are increasingly becoming
more and more expensive to offer. Therefore that is why we find ourselves raising taxes.
Sincerely,
The Prince of Pretense
Governor of Your Great State”

“Well, that didn’t answer my question,” I thought. So I decided to write to my state


legislators. I never heard from one of them, so I guess I, as a constituent, wasn’t worth the
trouble. So I wrote the same letter as the above to my state senator, and after a year, I received
this reply:

“Dear Sir: I find myself also paying most of my paycheck too, in taxes. However, the
process is both difficult and unpopular. Therefore, I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you.
Sincerely,
The Duke of Do Nothing
State Representative of Your Great State

Well, I could see I was going to get nowhere with my state capitol. So I decide to see
what kind of redress I could get from my Congressmen. I looked in the phone book, and my
congressman didn’t even have a phone number or address. So the next time I received a letter
asking me for campaign contributions, I took the address from that. I wrote him a similar letter
that I wrote to my state officials. I explained my situation and asked him if he could possibly look
into the situation. After a year and a half, I received this reply from one of his congressional
aides:

245
“Dear Sir: I read your concerns with much trepidation. In fact, the more I thought about it,
the angrier I became. You know, it’s selfish people such as yourself that have kept this country
from improving the lot of the homeless. If everyone just paid their fair share of the taxes they
owe, we would have the ability to wipe out poverty as we know it in this century.
Sincerely,
The Protectorate of Pomposity
House of Representatives”

So, that letter really made me think. However, I couldn't imagine anyone blaming me for
poverty. I’m so poor I can’t even pay attention. So I decided to write to my US senator. I never
heard from him either. He was busy in senate appropriations hearings. He probably lost my
letter anyway. So after that, I decided I would write the big guy himself; the President of these
United States. He had just returned from some sort of international good-will tour and photo
opportunity. He was headed to yet another Congressional Hearing on one his many scandals.
However he did find time to have his press secretary drop me a “personalized” note:

“Dear Sir: I don’t recollect having raised taxes. I don’t know any more about this tax thing
than you do. In fact the first time I knew anything about it was when I received your letter. I do
remember something concerning a middle-class tax cut, but you misunderstood me. I said if I
could get the full cooperation from the Republicans in Congress, I believe I said I might consider
it. But I just couldn’t get it passed through Congress. I blame the partisanship and the right-wing
conspiracy in the Congress for the failure to pass the middle-class tax cut. Besides, if I cut the
middle-class taxes, then I’d have to cut the taxes of the wealthy and that wouldn't be fair.
Therefore, in all fairness to all concerned, I cannot approve a tax cut for anyone. But I want you
to know, I do feel your pain, and God bless America.
Sincerely,
The Knight of Know Nothing
The President”

Well, I concluded there would be absolutely no recourse with my elected officials.


They were more concerned with opinion polls, their legacy, keeping up appearances, and photo
ops than doing anything for their constituents. So I decided that I would go right to the heart of
the matter. Yes, I girded up my loins fresh courage did I take and went straight to the Internal
Revenue Service (The infamous IRS). I made a call on their toll-free number to ask if there were
any way possible to obtain some kind of tax relief. I had to go through menu after menu until I
finally connected to a human voice. I asked the question and after being on hold for ten minutes
and then listening to two more minutes of shuffling papers, a woman came back in an
unemotional voice of the typical lobotomized bureaucrat:

“Sir, the regulations of the Internal Revenue Service clearly state that the required forms
must be completed in triplicate and be postmarked no later than 15 April of the year after the
fiscal year in question. They must be witnessed by no more than two notary publics certified by
the IRS. Failure to comply with the aforementioned instructions will result in a rejection of any
claim to tax relief benefits. If there are any errors committed by yourself, you will be penalized to
the full extent of the law. If the error is ours you will still be penalized and charged interest until
the full amount of the taxes owed is paid in full. It may be our mistake, but it will still be your
problem, because as you know, the IRS never makes mistakes. If you have any more problems,
please feel free to call anytime. Just ask for me, the person to whom you are speaking, I’m
known as the Guardian of Gobbledygook. Good-bye.”(Click!)

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When she hung up, I sat and tried to digest everything she said but I got nauseated,
and my head began to swim. So then I decided I’d better go in person. I had to go through three
layers of metal detectors and a body cavity search. Once inside the hallowed halls of the sacred
publicans, I stood facing a wall full of seemingly endless shelves of various tax forms. I
attempted to find the necessary forms mentioned over the phone. After an hour of quiet
desperation, I finally chose at random 25 pages of forms.
I took them home. I hired a tax lawyer, three CPA’s, and a retired military cryptologist to
help me decipher the stack of Infernal Revenue paperwork. After what seemed like six weeks of
nerve-wracking work, I was finally able to deliver my forms to the IRS office. After two more
hours of musical chairs, as the IRS bureaucrats passed me off from one office to another, I finally
found a kindly, elderly gentleman who seemed willing to help me.
He looked up from his stacks of paperwork and squinted over his spectacles at me. He
took my forms, thumbed through them, glared at me while shaking his head. He whined at me
through his nose, “These are all the wrong forms!” With that I totally lost my self-control. I was
forced to admit defeat. The bureaucrats had won. I was conquered.
The protocol of pencil pushers finally pushed me over the edge. The bespectacled tax
official called for security. Four giant, uniformed, IRS security guards came in and had me
spread-eagled to the floor. They brought in the German Shepard bomb dogs that sniffed me.
While the guards had me still on the ground at gunpoint, two white-jacketed paramedics
entered from a heavily guarded room carrying a straightjacket. They put that jacket on me and
led me out of the room, down the hall, back through the metal detectors, out the building and
put me kicking and screaming into a waiting ambulance and took me to the state mental
hospital.
Once in the hospital, they took me to an interrogation room where they brow beat me
into submission. They kept at me until I broke down and repeated the mantra," You cannot beat
city hall. You cannot beat city hall. You cannot beat city hall.” And I might add especially where
taxes are concerned.

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Chapter 27: A Comprehensive Report On Global Racism
By the United Nations Commission For Civil Rights
1. Problem: We find a disproportionate number of minorities incarcerated in every country.
In the United States we find there, double the minority population in US prisons, to that of
white prisoners.
Suggestions: We suggest the following options:
a. Arrest whites until they equal the minority population. Whether or not they have
committed a crime is not a factor.
b. Release the prison population to the streets until the minority population equals that of
the white population. Eligibility for parole should not be a deciding factor.
c. Execute the minority prisoners until their population equals that of the white prisoners.
Whether or not they are on death row should not be a deciding factor.
d. Execute one white prisoner for every minority prisoner until the population is equal.
e. Stop arresting the minority population.
f. Arrest whites only. It’s their fault anyway for oppressing the minorities.

2. Problem: We have too many children born in poverty, single parent families, and into
illiteracy.
Suggestions: We suggest the following options:
a. Round up all homeless, latchkey, orphaned, and any other unsupervised children. Sell
them to the benevolent Chinese to work in their factories in Honduras.
b. Build a super YMCA, where they can play supervised, midnight basketball until they reach
the age of eighteen when they can be treated as adults and enrolled in the government welfare
system.
c. Allow parents to confine them to their bedrooms with a Nintendo until they become
adults when they can be released into society as productive adults.
d. Allow gays and lesbians to adopt them in order to perpetuate their species and as a form
of heterosexual birth control.
e. Allow the government to adopt all children and raise them in government training
centers from birth to adulthood, thus negating the negative effects of subnormal parenting. This
would especially be important in the areas of such foolish traditions regarding religion, family
values, and morals.

3. Problem: We find that the generation of the 40’s and 50’s (Baby Boomers) is getting older
and will soon become a burden to the younger generation.
Suggestions: We suggest the following options:
a. Round up everyone over the age of thirty. Sell them to the benevolent Chinese to manage
their factories in Honduras.
b. Employ Dr. Kevorkian as a government employee in Research and Development to study
the possibility of humanely euthanizing society of anyone with more than the common cold,
allergies, arthritis, athletes’ foot, or the common hang nail as one method of controlling the
population of the elderly.
c. This could also be used for cleansing society of any undesirables: the educated, the
wealthy, Republicans, the religious right, combat veterans, and any one deemed to be enemies
of the socialist state.

4. Problem: We find that 2.4% of the population possesses 97.6% of the wealth.
Suggestions: We suggest the following options:
a. Confiscate the wealth of the 2% and redistribute it to the other 98% until 100% of the
population has no desire to work nor incentive to succeed; therefore all are equally poor.

248
b. Tell the 98% that you feel their pain.
c. Tax 100% of the income of the 98% and blame their poverty on the selfishness of the 2%.
d. Ensure that the 98% understand that they must endure the sacrifice for the benefit of the
whole nation.
e. Lull the 98% into a false sense of security by telling them repeatedly they are doing the
right thing in supporting the lavish lifestyles of the rich and famous left.
f. Blame their poverty on the greedy right-wing extremist bourgeoisie and the religious
conservatives while denying them a tax cut as only benefiting the rich.
g. Divide the nation by class, by race, and by sexual perversion so that each group can blame
the other, thus finding empowerment in their own identity, and killing each other through hate
masked in ethnic pride.
h. Eradicate any philosophy with moral, spiritual, or religious values to allow those with an
amoral, materialistic, hedonistic, and atheistic lifestyle to feel good about themselves and to
advance their socialist agenda.
i. Drive home the idea that all is well in America by reminding the 98% that they are
experiencing the best economy in 20 years.
j. If that does not work, tell them to eat cake.

5. Conclusion: By following the above suggestions, we feel the economic status of those in
poverty will improve and we will finally accomplish our goal of eradicating poverty from the
world as we know and define it forever.

Signed: Jean-Claude Le Bouche, Rwanda Juan Antonio Hablador de Chiste, Cuba


김정일 사망, North Korea 他媽的你 謝謝你 People’s Republic of China владимир рвота,
Russia ‫ الحمق آل بشير‬, Syria The High Commissioners for UN Civil Rights

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Chapter 28: THE MAN WHO CORRUPTED SALT LAKE CITY
(SORRY MR. CLEMENS)
When the Mormons settled Salt Lake City in 1847, they were able to forge from the
American Frontier wilderness, a city that blossomed as a rose. By the end of the 20th century, Salt
Lake City had an international reputation as the most honest and upright city in the nation. They
were known far and wide for their friendliness, cleanliness and beautiful streets and buildings set in
the top of the snow topped mountains.
Traditionally, the children of Utah in general, and Salt Lake specifically, were taught from
birth to be honest, thrifty, and hard working. From the pulpits of all the various denominations,
integrity was taught. The temptations and vices of the world, while could be found, were as a rule,
kept from their young people.
These good people only had one fault, they didn’t trust strangers. It’s understandable,
taking into consideration their history of being expelled from community to community, only to
watch while an armed mob under the guise of the state militia gunned down their beloved prophet
and leader in cold blood as he sat in Carthage jail awaiting trial. Then to watch while the US
government sent the US Army to the Utah Territory to put down the “Mormon Rebellion.” It was a
charge brought to the ears of the Congress and the President by non-Mormon residents who still
thought it possible to extinguish the faith of the people by using the army.
President Brigham Young sent the people south and kept the Utah Militia back ready to
torch the city if the army under the leadership of General Sidney Johnston, came into the city
looking for a fight. As it was, the Utah Militia had conducted a type of guerrilla war against the army
all along the way. They burned supply wagons, which slowed them down so that they were caught
by the winter snows of Wyoming. So even though most Utahns were friendly, they didn’t take
kindly to any outsiders who they suspicioned might be up to no good.
Then some time, many years ago, it seems it was probably 1980, someone, perhaps
unknowingly and unintentionally, offended a stranger. Even though they didn’t mean to, they
offended just the same. This stranger was so offended that he swore under his breath that he would
make Utah and Salt Lake City pay. He would have his revenge. He schemed, and he planned. It
would take 20 years to put it into place, but he figured he needed to hurt them where it would hurt
the most -- their pride.
He wrote a letter to the mayor of Salt Lake suggesting that since the city was the friendliest
one in the world, that they needed to consider hosting the winter Olympics. So he helped city hall
organize the Salt Lake Olympic Committee (SLOC). Once SLOC was up and running, he helped them
make application to the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). He then helped SLOC convince
the USOC that Salt Lake was the place. Then he went with the USOC and SLOC to the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) to convince them that Salt Lake was the place. He helped SLOC wine and
dine the members of the IOC. They helped get some of their children into their university of choice.
They got them gift certificates to hotels, resorts, and the best restaurants. They gave them whatever
it took to convince them that Utah was the right place to hold the winter Olympics. After the
Nagano Olympics, the IOC announced that Utah was definitely the place to hold the 2002 Winter
Olympics.
The pride began to swell in each and every breast at being able to host the world in little,
old Salt Lake City. Their imaginations began to run wild. At first it was exciting to think of the
prospect of having the world come to Utah and feel the spirit of the Lord in this corner of Zion. Then
the dreams turned into dollar signs, buying a mansion on snob hill, dinner parties, stock options,
hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Visions of fame and wealth began running through their
naive little heads. The price of everything began going up; Gas, food, lodging, real estate. The
people seeing this chance for a golden egg began purchasing cars and homes on credit. Their
mantra became, “It’s the Olympics!” They rationalized everything from excuses for greed, to feeling
guilt and shame for living their religion.

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At first the energy was electric. Olympic fever buzzed all over the state. Everyone was
excited. Everyone ignored the nay Sayers as liberal party poopers. Then as the cost of living began to
rise, the poor began migrating to Upalco, Whiterocks, and Jensen, where the inflation had not
reached the isolated Uintah Basin. Provo, Ogden, and Salt Lake began fighting over who was going
to sponsor what venues. Disagreements arose over VIP protocol, beer advertising, and logistical
nightmares.
Then the politicians got involved. They promised that no taxpayer monies would be used to
pay for the Olympics. Then they promptly raised taxes to pay for new roads, new skating rinks, and
housing for the Olympic participants. They lied more than usual to the citizens of Utah and residents
of Salt Lake by making promises they couldn’t keep.
Then someone leaked to the press that there had been bribes. I had a hard time
understanding this because the SLOC, USOC, and IOC members were not elected officials. In fact
they weren’t even bureaucrats. However, the news leaked to the media and all of the bad omens
from Pandora’s box hit the fan and blew to every corner of the world. The politicians launched an
investigation that pointed to the Olympic organizers.
The pulpits rang with the strains of deliver us from evil. Let us try to get along so that the
world will see us at our best. Everyone wanted to put on their best face and they didn’t need any
scandals to ruin this chance of a lifetime. They called the members of the SLOC to repentance. The
politicians had the leaders arrested. They did some time in jail. They began losing support as people
shook their heads in disgust. Then SLOC announced that tickets would be on sale. They were going
for $800 a ticket. They would use the locals for volunteer labor. Besides no one in the local area
could afford the tickets so if they wanted to see the Olympics up close and personal, they would
have to volunteer and see the Olympics for free.
As the time approached, cracks began appearing in Salt Lake City’s glass house. The people
grew weary of the graft, corruption, and greed that had grown like cheat grass and pig weed out of
the frenzy. Tickets had become so expensive that the locals would only be able to watch the games
on TV if they wanted to watch at all. The anti-Mormon establishment accused the Church of having
too much influence. The legislature wanted to raise taxes to pay for unforeseen expenses in
preparing for the Olympics. The governor denied any participation in what the media called the
Olympic scandal. Day after day the people more and more began withholding support for the
Olympics.
Finally the much-anticipated day of the winter Olympic games arrived. Terrorists from the
Middle East and the Balkans phoned in threats which kept the locals at home. The previous few
years had been warm and dry. Utah found herself in the middle of a long drought. The temperature
never dropped below 33° at night and the daytime temperatures rose to 40° in the daytime. They
tried to make snow, and import snow, but whatever they tried, didn’t work. Utah which had for
years been touted as having the greatest snow on earth, was now the laughing stock of the whole
world. The games became a bust for the people of Utah and Salt Lake City. The SLOC, USOC, IOC and
every politician were thoroughly embarrassed.
Now that the pride of the good people of Utah had been shattered, the mysterious stranger
published a letter to the editor in both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News. He wrote the
following:
Some thirty years ago I passed through your lovely town on my way to
Australia. I was having car trouble. I stopped at one of your gas stations for
assistance. The proprietor answered me quite rudely. He could tell I wasn’t from
around those parts. But he said that he didn’t have no time to be helping no
tourist. He was closing up shop for the weekend. He told me if I still needed some
help, I could bring the car in on the following Monday and he’d try to schedule
me in. Well, if that’s what you call a Christian community then I think Jesus would
be very disappointed.
I was offended to the core. Where I came from in the Ozarks, some men
would have killed for less. However, I decided that dead men don’t suffer. The
people of Salt Lake needed to suffer. At that moment I vowed I would hurt you

251
people where I could damage you the most -- your civic pride. Pride is where
fools and the vain are the most vulnerable.
After twenty years I came back disguised as an Olympic consultant and
honest citizen and put my plan into place. I set my trap and baited it with: Utah,
the Greatest Snow on Earth! My objective was to turn all of you into greedy,
corrupt, liars, and thieves. Once you took my bait, you didn't just welcome the
world, you groveled at their feet. You prostituted yourselves to make a fast, easy
buck.
Your pride made you an easy mark, but when Mother Nature didn’t cooperate
and deprived you of the reason for the Olympics in the first place, and that
brought the world to your doorstep, I was ecstatic. Then the world saw you for
what you really are: ordinary men and women with the ability to let down your
guard and be corrupted the same as any other man or woman. Instead of a
showcase, you became the laughing stock and it couldn’t have happened to a
kinder, gentler, people. Sincerely, A Mysterious Stranger

The next morning, the people awoke to the editorials in their newspapers, they were
shocked. The SLOC, the USOC, and the IOC skipped town in the dead of night. Some of the people
realized the error of their ways and hung their heads in shame, sadder but wiser. The people
blamed SLOC, who blamed the politicians who called for another investigating committee. The
investigation determined that the people were to blame for not whole heartedly supporting the
games. The conservative ranchers blamed the liberal environmental tree huggers, who blamed the
vast right-wing conspiracy. The hard-shell Baptists blamed the Mormons who blamed the atheists.
The minorities blamed the police for practicing ethnic profiling on the Palestinian Bobsled team who
was actually a terrorist cell working for Usama Bin Laden, who blamed the American Jewish lobby.
The whole thing boiled down to finger pointing and accusations.
When the dust finally settled, no one had learned anything from the whole affair. The way I
look at this goat rope, is that it could have all been avoided if the mechanic at the service station
twenty years before had learned that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If he had been a
friend to the mysterious stranger instead of a businessman, then the stranger wouldn’t have
become offended and the Olympics would never have occurred in Utah, and the people of the
pretty great state of Utah and the city at the crossroads of the west would have remained the desert
rose with her reputation intact.
However that would have been against human nature. Humans are just basically rude when
they’re tired, or when they’re in a position of power, or authority, or wealth. So in another four
years, another city will learn the hard way. How easy it is to turn the incorruptible into the
corruptible, thus continuing a long, distinguished Olympic tradition.

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Chapter 29: Democrats
The Democrat Party was the party of slavery.
Was the party of secession
The Confederacy
The KKK

Lynchings
Jim Crow Laws
Segregation
Sitting in the back of the bus

The Democrat Party is the party of the dole.


Is the party of divide and conquer
Welfare
Food Stamps

Affirmative Action
Socialism
Racism
Lie, Lie then deny

The Democrat Party is the party of socialism


Scandals
Politics of Personal Destruction
The party of slavery.

The master used to live in a white house on a hill.


Now the master lives in the White House on Capitol Hill

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Chapter 30: Suicide Bombers: The Job Interview
By John F. Lemon
I keep reading in the newspapers about these guys in the Middle East called suicide
bombers. Well, now there’s a job for you. Where do I go to sign up for that? I’ll bet the line is
long at the temporary job service for that one. I can just picture the job interview.
“Well you’re here for the ad on the Suicide Bomber?
“Yes sir. I want to kill those American Pigs!”
“Ok, well you certainly have one of the qualifications for the job. You definitely have way
too much time on your hands. Have you had any experience in this line of work? Oh, wait I
guess this is like a one-way ticket to nowhere.” Once you have the experience you’re out of a
job.
“I want to blow them up and then cut off their ears. I hate Americans. I spit on them.”
“Uh, do you realize that once you blow them up, you won’t be able to cut off their ears
because there won’t be anything to cut ears off from? By the way there won’t be much left of
you either.”
“I don’t care I just want to kill all of them!!!”
“Well, I guess you have one of the other qualifications. You definitely have idiot tattooed on
your forehead.”
“What kind of car do you prefer? A Chevrolet or BMW?“
“I don’t care. Do you have anything in a Japanese compact?”
“No we only have these two left. Abdul, our pick-up and delivery guy hasn’t been able to get
us any new cars for a while. They all seem to be using the club these days. Beside once you
finish this job; your car will be a compact no matter what we give you, OK?”
“Ok give me the BMW. When I go, I want to go in style.”
“We won’t need to check your references. It’ll be hard to blow this job anyway. Ha! Ha!
Sorry that was just a little joke.”
“The Islamic Jihad is no joke! We are in a deadly battle with the infidel. We must be willing
to sacrifice ourselves in order to bring the glory to Allah and the Palestinian struggles. We want
to kill every Israeli dead and bury them in the ground!!! Every Jihadi loves death more than
life!!! Allahu Akbar!!!” Besides I have 72 virgins waiting for me in paradise.
“Well, buddy, we can sure help you do that.”
“Can you show up for work tomorrow at 7:00 AM?”
“Whatever you say!”
“Good. So let’s make sure we have all the necessary information. We don’t need your social
security number. We don’t need the IRS forms filled out. We don’t need the INS forms filled out
because we don’t care if you’re an illegal alien or not. We do need to see your driver’s license.
We’d hate for you to get a ticket on the way to your
first, and I might add, your last assignment. Hmmm,
that all seems to be in order.
OK, we need for you to fill out these insurance
forms so that your next of kin can collect the
insurance and your paycheck….Ummm, hum.
There now that seems to be it. Be here
tomorrow morning and we’ll tell you where to go.
(He can go to Hell for all I care, sucker! What a
fetching idiot! Well as long as we have useful idiots
I’ll have a job.) Good day sir see you tomorrow!”
“Yes, inshallah, we’ll see you tomorrow!”

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Chapter 31:The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs

One day a farmer went out to his henhouse and discovered to his surprise that his
goose had laid a golden egg all yellow and glittering. When he picked it up it was as
heavy as lead. He was going to throw it away, but he took it home on second thoughts,
and soon found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold!
Every morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs.
Once his neighbors spread the word that there was a goose that laid golden eggs, people
came from far and wide to get some for themselves. People lined up the length of the
street waiting for the farmer to hand out free eggs. The farmer used his gold to build
schools, hospitals, theatres, cathedrals, factories, and libraries. He wanted to help his
town be a shining city on a hill for the rest of the world to see. He made it possible for
the people to work and improve their lives.
When the king heard about the golden egg he knew this was a new source for taxes.
So, he sent the royal tax collector to collect one golden egg every year. Then he decided
that rather than the farmer handing out golden eggs, the king should be handing out
golden eggs. So, he raised the tax to one golden egg every month. The king’s advisors,
parliament members, and judges wanted to partake so they raised the tax to one golden
egg every week. Rather than handing out golden eggs to the people as he promised, he
sliced the eggs and gave the people small slices and told them that they should be happy.
He needed the rest of the gold to run the affairs of the kingdom. So he again raised the
tax to one golden egg every day.
As the farmer grew rich he also grew greedy. He started to hoard his gold. No more
did he spend it. What with lazy neighbors who wanted his gold without working for it,
and the king who continually raised his taxes, he realized that he couldn’t trust anyone.
He saw thieves around every corner. He built a large brick wall around his home. He
fortified the outside with a moat. He used his money to hire knights in shining armour to
defend his fortress. The more precautions he took the less safe he felt.
Meanwhile the people began petitioning the king to do something because it wasn’t
fair that the farmer has so much, and they had so little. The King should make the farmer
pay his fair share. The king thought that he must have the golden goose for himself. So,
he sent his henchmen to confiscate the golden goose for the good of the kingdom. That
way he could have as much gold to himself, more than he could ever imagine. Day after
day the king became more and more impatient waiting for one egg twice every day.
Finally, he thought he needed to get all the gold the Goose could give. He went into the
royal counting room where he kept the goose under lock and key. There he killed the
goose and opened it only to find it was no different inside than any other goose.
The moral to this story is that when government destroys free enterprise it kills the
goose that lays the golden egg, because it’s the goose that makes it possible for the
kingdom to prosper not the king.

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Chapter 32: The Emperor's New Clothes
By Hans Christian Anderson modified by John Lemon
Once upon a time there lived a vain and arrogant Emperor whose only worry in
life was to dress in elegant clothes, ride in a golden carriage that he called the Golden
Beast; keep his wife and children well cared for and eat the best food money could buy.
He loved his clothes so much that he changed them almost every hour and loved to show
them off to his people.
Word of the Emperor’s arrogance and vanity spread all over his kingdom and
beyond. Two scoundrels who had heard of the Emperor's narcissism decided to take
advantage of it and make a little money on the side. They introduced themselves at the
gates of the palace with a brilliant scheme in mind.
"We are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented
an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a
matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its
quality."
The chief of the guards heard the scoundrels’ strange story and sent for the court
chamberlain. The chamberlain notified the prime minister, who ran to the Emperor and
disclosed the incredible news. The Emperor's curiosity got the better of him and he
decided to see the two scoundrels.
"Besides being invisible, your Highness, this cloth will be woven in colors and
patterns created especially for you."
The emperor gave the two men a bag of gold coins in exchange for their promise
to begin working on the fabric immediately.
"Just tell us what you need to get started and we'll give it to you."
The two scoundrels asked for a loom, silk, gold thread and then pretended to
begin working. The Emperor thought he had spent his money quite well. He just
employed two men who would not only make him a wonderful suit, but he would be able
to create and save many jobs in the kingdom making new suits every day. In addition to
getting a new extraordinary suit, he would discover which of his subjects were ignorant,
stupid, and incompetent. A few days later, he called the old and wise prime minister, who
was considered by everyone as a man with common sense.
"Go, see how the work is proceeding," the Emperor told him, "and come back to
let me know."
The two con artists welcomed the prime minister, "We're almost finished, but we
need a lot more gold thread. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, feel the softness!"
The old man bent over the loom and tried to see the fabric that was not there. He
felt cold sweat break out on his forehead. He became very nervous because he didn’t
want the king to think of him as stupid and incompetent.
"I can't see anything," he thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or,
worse, incompetent! That could cost me my job!" If the prime minister admitted that he
didn't see anything, he would be discharged from his office.
"What a marvelous fabric!” he admired. “I'll certainly tell the Emperor!" The two
bounders rubbed their hands gleefully. They had almost made it. More thread was
requested to finish the work.
Laughing, they gloated, “These guys are more gullible than even we could have
imagined!”
Finally, the Emperor received the announcement that the two tailors had come to
take all the measurements needed to sew his new suit.

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"Come in! Come in!" the Emperor ordered. Even as they bowed, the two
scoundrels pretended to be holding a large roll of fabric.
"Here it is your Highness, the result of our months of labor," the two conmen
said. "We have worked night and day but, at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is
ready for you. Look at the sheen of the brilliant colors and feel how fine it is, your
majesty."
Of course the Emperor did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth
between his fingers. He panicked and felt like fainting, but luckily the throne was right
behind him and he sat down before he fell over. Then he realized that no one would
know that he did not see the fabric, he felt better. Nobody would find out he was stupid
and incompetent, so his secret was safe with him alone.
The Emperor didn't know what everybody else around him thought. No one
wanted to tell the Emperor the truth because no one wanted to be thought incompetent,
stupid, and ignorant. Therefore they all did the very same thing. They effusively praised
both the cloth’s workmanship and the tailors’ skills at creating a fine masterpiece.
The charade continued as the two scoundrels had planned it. Once they had taken
the measurements, they began cutting the air with scissors while sewing an invisible
cloth with their needles.
"Your Highness, you'll have to take off your clothes to try on your new ones."
The two scoundrels draped the new clothes on him and then held up a mirror. The
Emperor was embarrassed but since he felt his advisors were seeing the marvelous work
of the two tailors, he stopped worrying.
"Yes, this is a handsome suit. It suits me just fine," the Emperor said trying to
look contented. "You've done a fine job, sirs!"
"Your Majesty," the prime minister said, "We have a brilliant idea for you. The
people have heard about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your
new suit."
The Emperor wasn’t so sure he wanted the people to see his nakedness, but then
he shook off his fears. After all, no one would know about the marvelous cloth except
the ignorant and the incompetent.
"Yes! A wonderful idea!" he exclaimed. "I will grant the people their wish."
He formed the ceremonial parade. His guards, the prime minister, parliament
members, and a special group of dignitaries walked at the very front of the procession,
followed by the emperor in all his regal glory. They all anxiously scrutinized the faces
of the people lined along the street. All the people had gathered in the main square,
pushing and shoving to get a better look. Everyone wanted to know how stupid or
incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the Emperor passed, quiet whispers rose
from the crowd.
All the people greeted the Emperor and his entourage with applause and
cheering. Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear, "Look at the Emperor's new
clothes. They're gorgeous!"
"What a marvelous train! Simply marvelous!"
"And the colors! The brilliant colors of that magical fabric! I have never seen
anything like it in my life!"
They all tried to cover up their distress at not being able to see the new clothes,
and since nobody was willing to admit his own gullibility, they all reacted as the two
scoundrels had known they would. They hid in the shadows, laughing hysterically at the
ridiculous spectacle.

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They say from the mouths of babes come words of wisdom. A young child was
watching the whole charade. She had no government job and wasn’t worried about
making a positive impression to the Emperor. She could only see the truth of the matter.
"Momma, Daddy, hey! Looky over there. The Emperor is butt naked!” she
exclaimed.
"Shhh!” her father hushed her. He scolded, "Don't talk nonsense!"
However, the other witnesses had heard the child's remark at the spectacle.
Finally the crowd broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Everyone yelled, “The child is
right! The Emperor is butt naked! It's true!"
The Emperor realized that the people were right but because of his arrogance and
vanity he could not admit that he was the one who was gullible. Therefore, he continued
the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either
stupid or incompetent. His parade continued on as though nothing had happened. In the
end the Emperor was able to keep up appearances of authority in spite of the fact the
people now knew how gullible he was.

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Chapter 33: Welcome to the Republic of Koruptia

Many years ago, there was a gentleman, Alex Toquerville, who went on a trip around
the world. First, he went to Europe, then Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, Polynesia, South
and North America and finally he landed at an airport on the Island of the Republic of Koruptia
to little village of Kamba.
The first thing he noticed when he walked down the steps at the aircraft, that they were
surrounded by military guards with weapons slung over their shoulders. The weapon of choice
was the AK-47 used by many third world militaries because they are inexpensive and easy to
use; very user friendly in today’s vernacular.
As he walked through the airport terminal he saw more guards. He thought he would
take a picture. The guards stood in front of him and wagged their fingers, told him not to take
pictures or they would confiscate his camera. Alex quickly put his camera back in his knapsack.
He was there to work for the US Embassy as a diplomat. He saw that all of the
embassies in the capital city of Legos were all trying to vie for the chance to assist Koruptia in
their development and help them enter the community of nations as one who could stand on
its own. He noticed that they were all trying to get the contract to give Koruptia agricultural
equipment, foreign aid money, industrial machinery, and military aid to protect them from the
recent incursion of international terrorism.
The people were traditional farmers. In other words they were farming the same way as
farmers did 500 years ago, by hand tools and by ox drawn plows. They irrigated from wells, hand
dug and bricked up along the sides to keep them from caving in. They harvested their crops by
hand tools. They stored them in adobe huts. Life was hard but for them it seemed to work just
fine.
The US Embassy was going to give the farmers the latest model of John Deere tractors.
The farmers were happy and amazed at the brilliant technology; courtesy of the People of
America made possible by the bureaucrats of the State Department and US AID. The farmers
had formed a Farmer’s Co-op and had a warehouse of 2 tons of Spam, 3,000-500 lbs. sacks of
rice, barley and rye. They also had tractors, plows, and disk harrows. They gave every farmer in
the district one sack of rice, one of rye, and one of barley. They kept the spam for themselves.
They loaned out the equipment to farmers on a rotating basis. As soon as they finished their
plowing, planting, and harvesting, they turned the equipment back in for other pieces of farm
equipment like grain combines, manure spreaders, planters, bailers, and windrowers.
The farmers gassed up their equipment and ran them until they ran out of fuel then
parked them in the middle of the fields and walked away to go back to the technology they
were familiar with. They didn’t understand how to use the equipment, so the furrows were
quite deep and resembled a child’s drawing. The rows traveled all over the fields with no rhyme
or reason. Even with their traditional tools they didn’t have a firm grasp of the concept of row
cropping.
The good people of America sent the people of Koruptia a warehouse full of Spam. The
manager of the warehouse loved Spam. He would get into the cases in the warehouse and get
himself a can of spam for his lunch. He’d pass it out to visiting dignitaries from the capital city
and the guys who worked there in the compound. The spam never made it to the villagers in
Kamba. In fact none of the bags of grain made it to the local farmers unless they paid a hefty
dash to the warehouse manager. A dash is a local term for a type of bribe.
In the third world corruption is a way of life. When people go to the post office to get
their mail, they may get it, or they may not. If any of them receive liquor, chances are they
won’t receive it. The customs agents will confiscate it and drink it for themselves. If they receive
any food, the customs guys will intercept it and eat it. Clothing is the same way. If they receive
any money; be it check or cash… forget about it. It’s gone.

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At this post office there was a young lady who spent her monotonous days just
stamping letters. She held a chew stick193 in her mouth and stamped letters with all the focus of
a woman on an important mission. If anyone dared interrupt her to ask if they had any mail, she
looked up and glared at the offending fool. Under her breath she mumbled, “Il n y a pas.” (Ain’t
none.)
Alongside of the road sat the beggars, most of them had leprosy 194. They wore a cloth
across their faces, wrapped their hands and feet in cloth to hide the missing fingers and toes
from the hideous disease. Koruptia had no welfare system so whatever money that the lepers
had was from the generosity of strangers, tourists, and fellow villagers. Most people turned off
by the repulsive appearance of the beggars just turned their heads and walked on.
The government of Koruptia at one time was a colony of France but they received their
independence in 1960 and since then have had several turnovers of government: elected a
president but 10 years later was overthrown by a military junta. They ruled for 30 years and
finally turned it over to another elected president but was overturned within a couple of years
by another military junta. The charges are always corruption, but it doesn’t matter. Every new
government is as corrupt as the last.
Alex was assigned to visit some schools across the country. He visited a small
government combined elementary and secondary school in a town called Goshen. It sat on the
banks of the Round Rock River. He met the director who was very helpful. His concern for the
students was obvious. This was during the time of the school year when the 9 th grade students
were taking the National Battery of Basic Skills Tests. They were needed to move the students
on to the Lycée National. Once a student made it to the Lycée then it was only a short jump to
university and a well-paying government job as part of the functionaries embossed in the
bureaucracy .
Because the NBBST are so difficult few students pass it. It they do, no problem. If they
don’t, then they either go to the back of the line and retake the test or wait for an opening in
the secondary school and repeat the last year over. They might have to wait several years for an
opening. That’s what comes of a nation who doesn’t have enough schools for all the students
who want to get an education.
So concerned parents bribe the teachers who are the ones who score the tests and
determine who gets in and who goes to the back of the line. Alex was approached by several
dads who tried to bribe him to make sure their kids passed the tests. Alex was honest to a fault
and told the dads that he could not do it. They told him that no one would know. He told them,
“But God will know!” With that they walked away being very religious fellows.
This country of Koruptia had check points at the entry of every town and one more as
one left the town. It had check points at the borders to every province and at the borders of the
country. While Alex was going through a checkpoint on the border going into Les Grands Tétons
de Molly, the border guard pulled him off the bus and led him into the office where he shut the
door and demanded to see his passport and visa. Alex only had a diplomatic pass which caused
the guard to yell at him, “You must have a passport and a visa to enter into this country!” Alex
responded calmly that he was just going into town to check out the weekly market. Then he was
going back to the capital. The guard reluctantly let him go.

193 A teeth cleaning twig or chew stick is a tool made from a twig of a tree. It can help to prevent
tooth decay and gum disease. Many countries in the Third World as they are considered healthier and
less expensive than the Western Tooth Brush.
194 Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term skin infection. Symptoms that
develop include granulomas of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This may result in a lack of
ability to feel pain, thus loss of parts of extremities due to repeated injuries or infection due to unnoticed
wounds. Weakness and poor eyesight may also be present. Leprosy is spread between people. This is
thought to occur through a cough or contact with fluid from the nose of an infected person. Leprosy
occurs more commonly among those living in poverty and filthy conditions.

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When Alex returned through the checkpoint the guard pulled him off the bus again and
this time he asked Alex, “What do you mean to understand by this place?” Alex had no idea
what the guard meant. So the guard repeated the question. Alex told him, “I hear the words,
but I don’t understand what you are saying.” The guard was so frustrated he told Alex to go and
never come back. Alex got back on the bus and returned to the capital not realizing that the
guard was trying to get him to pay a dash both coming and going. The guard could very easily
have arrested Alex, and no one would have ever heard from him again.
Another time as they crossed the bridge to Ouélessébougou, the motorcycle he was
riding yanked the rope on the border out of the guard’s hands. The guard quickly trained his AK
on Alex and clicked the round into the chamber. He didn’t speak English and Alex didn’t speak
Dandy. So they found themselves in a staring competition, each one waiting for the other to
blink.
Finally Alex asked him what he wanted him to do. The guard remained quiet with his
rifle still pointed at him. Then after an hour of standing in the hot tropical sun, the guard’s
commander came outside to see what was going on. Alex recognized him as a friend of his he
had known on a previous visit. The commander yelled at the hapless guard for delaying his
friend. The guard lowered his weapon and motioned for Alex to continue on his way.
One of the things he needed to do was to get a driver’s license. So the embassy gave
him a driver to take him to the DMV to get his license. The building was a huge auditorium.
There were probably 500 people all sitting waiting for their turn to take the myriad of tests
necessary for one to be found worthy to drive on Koruptia’s roads.
The first stop was the eye test. Alex looked in the eyeglass and saw some shapes. He
looked up and asked the clerk what he was supposed to do. The clerk just waved him on to the
next stop. The next stop was a Ukrainian nurse who was supposed to take his blood pressure.
She put the cup on his arm, blew up the cup and the pressure reading was 110/70. She looked
at him, shook her head and took it again. The second time it read 115/78. She shook her head
again and wrote down, 120/80.
She sent him on to the next stop which was to type his blood. Now he already knew his
blood type was O+ but he was interested in what these guys would find. The nurse pricked his
finger and squeezed the blood on to a slide. Alex noticed there were no microscopes in the
room. The nurse undaunted held the slide up to the light and announced, “O-!” Alex protested,
“No, no, no! My blood type has always been O+!” Alex showed him his US driver’s license and
his blood donor’s card. They all said O+. The nurse just looked at Alex and said, “Korupti right,
Amriqi wrong.”
Then Alex had to go back to the auditorium to wait for his license. As he sat there and
waited, a blind man walked in with his seeing eye dog. He also had a blind man’s cane that
tapped-tapped along the concrete floor. Alex looked at him with wondering eyes and mumbled
to himself, “That explains a lot!” Whenever he had been to Koruptia before for short visits, he
saw several wrecks every day. Some were fender benders, some were terrible with casualties.
He even saw one where a semi-truck ran over a Volkswagen. Alex knew that wreck had
casualties… and it wasn’t the truck driver.
After some 30 minutes the clerk at the license window called his name. He went to the
clerk and picked up his nicely embossed license and sure enough it read on the blood type, O-.
He shook his head and met his driver and they left together and headed back to the embassy.
Once he arrived, one of the clerks there took his license, very carefully lifted up the plastic
cover, made the required change to O+ and resealed the license. Alex was amazed.
A short time later the minister of foreign affairs called the embassy to have Alex come in
to visit him. Alex went, not quite knowing what to expect. The minister met him at the door.
They shook hands and took their seats. They talked about the weather, their families then the
minister ordered some tea. A secretary brought in some tea that was piping hot. They slowly
sipped their tea in nervous silence. Then the minister asked Alex more direct questions such as

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why was he there? What was His objective for being in Koruptia. What were his credentials for
investigating the information he was looking for. Finally, how long would he be there.
Alex tried to answer the minister’s questions without divulging too much information
but enough to the satisfaction of the minister. They continued their small talk and finally the
minister allowed Alex to leave. He returned to the embassy where he was called into the office
of the American Ambassador.
The Ambassador wanted to have Alex give him a debriefing on his meeting with the
minister. Alex told him everything that went on while the ambassador quietly and thoughtfully
listened. When Alex finished the ambassador told him that this meeting was tit for tat. It
seemed that a Koruptian diplomat was detained in New York and held for questioning. The
Koruptians decided they needed to return the favor by interrogating one of our diplomats. So
that was why Alex had the meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The following week Alex was asked to go to another rural school to observe the
operations there. The female director met him at the front door and abruptly told him that he
was not welcome. They had their own ways of doing things and they didn’t need him snooping
around spying on them. Alex assured her that he was not trying to get anyone in trouble. He
was just there to try to determine if the school could use any aid from the American Embassy.
The director told him in no uncertain terms that if he was there to save the poor little Koruptian
children then he was not welcome. Alex again insisted that he was not trying to save anybody.
He was there to observe and report.
The director seemed to be satisfied with his answer but still told him to do his
observations, stay out of the way then leave as soon as he was finished. So Alex observed a
couple of classes in the secondary portion of the school then he observed a couple of classes in
the elementary portion of the school. He saw classes that were somewhat orderly. The teachers
seemed to be quite strict with the students, even to the point of perhaps bullying. The teachers
told Alex that they had to be that way because the director was more interested in keeping up
appearances than educating the kids. If a student was unruly the teachers were not to send
them to the office for discipline. The director didn’t want to be bothered.
They told Alex that the director made it her mission every year to get rid of one teacher
by trumping up charges against her or him. She isolated him by telling him that he was not
welcome at the school. She told the staff that this teacher was being investigated for
misconduct and she told the teacher that he was a pathetic human being. So the other teachers
kept their distance and the teacher didn’t know who to trust and so now all were suspect. One
teacher, they told Alex, committed suicide. Another teacher had a nervous breakdown and quit
mid-schoolyear. Another teacher had a serious meltdown and the school had to fire him. Having
hm there unnecessarily put the students in danger.
They also told Alex that the director was known for falsifying her reports to the state.
For example, she told the state that they had dropouts. However that wasn’t quite true. She
expelled the students who would bring the test scores down so that the school would have
perfect scores in the data base. She also kept all the students who struggled, out of the testing
so that the test scores would be perfect.
She was mean with certain students from families in the village who weren’t on the
right side of town. They were poor, not leaders in the community, and were considered the
trash of the village. She paid attention and made sure the outstanding students who were from
the wealthy and well-placed families. Those students didn’t really have to work for their marks.
The director made sure they passed every class, every subject and even passed their state tests.
Whenever the state sent delegates to the school to see how they were doing, the
director kept the poor kids out of sight and made the outstanding students do a dog and pony
show so that the delegates returned to Legos with glowing reports. The director was such that
she would tell any lie, destroy any one who disrupted her system.

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She had to pull the wool over the eyes of the state such that they wanted her to submit
a package for director of the year for Koruptia. She conspired with the English teacher to write
the text and put together the package for her. The English teacher needed some favors from the
director, so they scratched each other’s backs. The director sent the package in and by the end
of the school year she was voted the director of the year for all of Koruptia.
The state was looking at another teacher at one of the schools to determine if she
would falsify records to generate more funding for her program and the school. The teacher told
the state in no uncertain terms that she would not falsify any records. The state then considered
her a traitor and had her arrested as an enemy to the state. She was serving time in the national
penitentiary for treason.
Of course the great source of corruption was In the government at the highest levels in
Legos, much like the majority of corruption in our government is in Washington DC. The most
common was bribery but other types were also rampant to the point that sometimes murders
were committed to keep individuals quiet who knew too much. As with governments
everywhere, the favorite buzz word was compromise. It seemed though, that it was always one
group who did the compromising and the other did the browbeating. It doesn’t matter whether
a country has a one-party or multiple party system. There is still corruption. In the one-party
system, it always amazed Alex that the media reported that the president won the election by
97% of the vote! In a multiparty system, the losing party would protest the results and claim
election fraud.
They would do whatever it took to overthrow the election so that their candidate would
sit in the office of the president or prime minister. It seems that the holdovers from the previous
administrator would organize a shadow government in order to discredit and in extreme cases
assassinate or overthrow the legally elected officials. Of course everyone would do whatever it
took to control the vote so that their candidate would win. In some countries they stuff ballot
boxes. In some they assassinate candidates. In some they engage in character assassination,
also known as mudslinging, or control who went to the polls.
Another source of corruption in many countries is the economy. The government owns
every business such as the oil industry, or transportation industry. They control healthcare,
education, and agriculture, and others. The industries they didn’t own were heavily taxed.
When the government is in control of business, the government and the economy become
entangled in unholy alliances. This includes bribing officials for tax breaks or relief from certain
oppressive laws. Sometimes the government will buy shares of a business under the table, so
they will have more say and therefore control the business so that officials get a cut of the
profits.
For example, they put out a notice that they wanted to encourage more Koruptians to
start and build more businesses in the country. The American Embassy checked it out because it
seemed too good to be true. Of course if it seems that way it probably is…. And it was. They
discovered that anyone who started a business would have to share part ownership with the
government. They had to make sure their business was approved by the government and that
they must pay K$1000 (US$500) per month in taxes to the government. Then they would pay
10% on all profits and renew their business licenses every six months at the cost of K$500
(US$250). Any skilled labor would need a license to practice their skill. They would have to
enroll in a training course, take a national exam and then have background checks and finally
pay a handsome fee for the fingerprinting and licensing.
After a couple of years the government couldn’t figure out why no one had applied for a
business license. Why everyone wanted to remain on the government dole. The people didn’t
want the hassle of government regulations and taxes. Of course the government hadn’t figured
out what everyone else knew, the corrupt officials wanted to control everyone as a source of
money. Like most governments everywhere, the people were well aware of the graft and
corruption, but the government felt because they were so much smarter, being educated at the

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best universities, they were much wiser and wealthier than everyone. The officials had lulled
themselves into a false sense of security that the Koruptia gravy would continue forever. Maybe
even a 1000 years.
Alex returned to the embassy to write his report. He wrote a 20-page report to the State
Department and sent a copy to the ambassador, the minister of the interior, the State
Department Deputy Director over Tiny Obscure Islands in the Middle of No Where. Alex was
sent back to Washington DC to analyze why Koruptia had so many ethical problems. He
concluded that like humans everywhere they were all subject to the same foibles and weakness
that humans around the world share: pride, lust, greed, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
Alex decided he just might stumble on a solution for international and national corruption
and human nature in general. By the way, a year after Alex visited Koruptia, the people became
so tired of the corruption in their country they rose up and overthrew the dishonest politicians
and bureaucrats.

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Chapter 34: The Seven Deadly Sins, Human Nature and Corruption

It doesn’t matter whether a person is religious or not. Most behaviors can come under the
category of the 7 deadly sins. According to the standard list, they are greed, lust, envy, pride,
gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Their opposites are known as the 7 holy virtues. The early Catholic
Fathers used them to describe sinful behaviors that would condemn a person to hell and the virtues
one needed to get into heaven.
GREED: Greed as seen by the Catholic Church is applied to an artificial, voracious desire and
pursuit of material possessions. Hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by
means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by
Greed.
Such misdeeds can include simony, where one attempts to purchase or sell sacraments,
including Holy Orders and, therefore, positions of authority in the Church hierarchy. This was one of
the reasons why Martin Luther wrote his 96 theses and nailed them on the church house door. In
the words of Henry Edward, avarice or greed, "plunges a man deep into the mire of this world, so
that he makes it to be his god."
As defined outside Christian writings, greed is an inordinate desire to acquire or possess
more than one’s needs, especially with respect to material wealth. Greed can lead to not just some,
but all evil. As human beings we are greedy when we want what we don’t really need. How many
times have we heard in a conversation where one or several people drop names and talk about how
much they are worth in monetary terms, or where they went to university, or what their standing is
in the community, or what political office they’ve held. Politicians have insolated themselves to the
point they are removed from the rest of us. They were rich before they became politicians. They
amassed serious wealth after they were elected to office. They passed laws that they have no
intention of obeying. Laws are for the “little people.” 195
They follow different tax laws. They have different health insurance, retirement, and a host
of other perks and benefits. It’s become so frustratingly, blatantly corrupt, that they have begun to
think our money is not ours but theirs to do with what they want. Whenever there is a problem in
our country they will cuss and discuss, hold investigatory committee hearings, they’ll debate the
issues in both houses of Congress, they’ll vote and many years later after the American people have
forgotten and moved on the next big thing at the time the issue may become law and vetoed by the
President.
LUST: Lust, or lechery (Latin, "luxuria,") is intense longing. It is usually thought of as intense
or unbridled sexual desire, which leads to fornication, adultery, rape, bestiality, and other immoral
sexual acts. However, lust could also mean simply unbridled desire in general; thus, lust for money,
power, and prestige, other things are sinful.
In the Bible the term is known as coveting as in Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house,
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s. (Exodus 20:17) Lust is important because it can lead to
other sins such as theft, adultery, murder, and corruption. For examples look no further than our
current events.
Hillary desired the White House and all the trimmings so badly that she was willing to do
anything to move in: lie, cheat, steal, murder, make entangling alliances with foreign governments,
bribe, graft, use other government agencies to commit fraud, waste and abuse of their powers.
Even after she lost the election, her supporters formed a shadow government that has broadcast
fake news, lies, threats, some have even accosted Trump supporters. They have attacked
conservatives, Christians, some have attacked Jews, Republicans, and even threatened to
assassinate our President and his family. They have launched a phony investigation of the President
for possible collusion with the Russians. At every turn the left get egg on their face when it comes

195 Laws Are For Little People. Patrice Lewis. Wnd. http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/laws-are-for-little-
people/

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out that they molested women, they colluded with the Russians to control 29% of US uranium, they
lied to the American people, they are working to undermine the Constitution, and the American
way of life. Not dissuaded they continue to try to convince the American people that they are the
good guys and the Republicans, Christians, Jews, and conservatives are the bad guys.
ENVY: Envy, like greed and lust, is characterized by an insatiable desire. It can be described
as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. It arises from
vainglory196 and separates a man from his neighbor. Malicious envy is similar to jealousy in that they
both feel discontent towards someone's traits, status, abilities, or rewards. A difference is that the
envious also desire the article and covet it. Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments,
specifically, "Neither shalt thou covet... anything that belongs to thy neighbor," a statement that
may also be related to greed and lust. Dante defined envy as "a desire to deprive other men of their
possessions.”
Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious is to have their eyes sewn shut with wire
because they gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low. 197According to St. Thomas
Aquinas, the struggle aroused by envy has three stages: during the first stage, the envious person
attempts to lower another's reputation; in the middle stage, the envious person receives either "joy
at another's misfortune," if he succeeds in defaming the other person, or "grief at another's
prosperity," if he fails; the third stage is hatred because "sorrow causes hatred." Envy is said to be
the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel, as Cain envied Abel because God favored
Abel's sacrifice over Cain's.198
In today’s world the left is envious of the 1%’s wealth. They pass laws that would steal
people’s belongings in the way of taxes. Politicians are part of the 1%. Therefore they would never
blatantly pass a law that would make the 1% pay their fair share. However, they are very good at
passing laws that everyone except them must obey. Besides I have never worked for a poor person.
I’ve always worked for someone with money so that I could get a paycheck. Even when I was in the
military I was enlisted, so I worked for a living. We had to follow a budget so that we could be
accountable with the American’s taxpayers ‘money.
Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing
sorrow to committers of envy whilst giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others. If one looks
deep in to the troubles that plague the Middle East, one will soon realize that Muslims are jealous
of Israel, Europe, and the US because they have what the Muslims don’t have; freedom to make
their own decisions, education, law and order, free agency, a constitutional government rather than
kings and dictators or revolutionary councils.
They have less poverty than the filthy Muslim countries where garbage is stacked in the
streets. Beggars with fleas and leprosy line the perimeters of the market places begging for a bit of
alms. Corruption in Muslim and socialist countries is pandemic and like a cancer it is even gaining
hold in the West and Israel. Muslim and socialist governments will do anything to maintain power
over their people. It doesn’t matter if they beg, borrow, steal, lie, cheat, or even murder, if that’s
what it takes to reign tyranny over the people of their nation and spread their Islamic caliphate
around the world, so they can have what the rest of us have. The socialists want control over the
world either through infiltration of governments or through violent revolution. The Muslims have
their eyes set on winning power over the whole world so that they can destroy the liberty of the
West and exterminate Israel from the earth and set up an international caliphate. However, like
Hitler’s 1000 year Reich, they can’t succeed forever, because it’s the human dream to have freedom
from tyranny. Eventually all people around the world will be free. There’s not a thing the Muslims or
socialists can do about it.
PRIDE: In accordance with the most widely accepted views, only pride weighs down the
soul more than the others among the capital sins. Just like pride, envy has been associated directly

196 inordinate pride in oneself or one's achievements; excessive vanity.


197 http://historylists.org/art/9-levels-of-purgatory-dantes-purgatorio.html
198 Ibid

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with the devil, for Wisdom of Solomon, 2:24 states: "the envy of the devil brought death to the
world.” The negative version of pride is considered, the original and most serious of the seven
deadly sins: the perversion of the faculties that make humans more like God, dignity and holiness. It
is also thought to be the source of the other capital sins. Also known in ancient Greek as hubris or
futility, it is recognized as dangerously corrupt selfishness, the putting of one's own desires, urges,
wants, and whims before the welfare of other people. In modern terms this is a description of
narcissism.199
Besides individual narcissists, there is a culture of narcissism. In The Culture of Narcissism,
Christopher Lasch200 defines a narcissistic culture as one where every activity and relationship is
defined by the hedonistic need to acquire the symbols of wealth, this becoming the only expression
of rigid, yet covert, social hierarchies. It is a culture where liberalism only exists insofar as it serves a
consumer society, and even art, sex and religion lose their liberating power.
In such a society of constant competition, there can be no allies, and little transparency. The
threats to acquisitions of social symbols are so numerous, varied and frequently incomprehensible,
that defensiveness, as well as competitiveness, becomes a way of life. We see this in our society,
both liberals and conservatives, religious and non-religious, rich and even poor. I’ve seen it in my
family, among friends and acquaintances. I’ve seen it in big cities and small towns. In small towns
we call it snob hill. In big cities it's a certain part of town where the rich and famous live.
In even more destructive cases, it is irrationally believing that one is essentially and
necessarily better, superior, or more important than others, failing to acknowledge the
accomplishments of others, and excessive admiration of the personal image or self, especially
forgetting one's own lack of divinity, and refusing to acknowledge one's own limits, faults, or wrongs
as a human being. This describes the elite and narcissistic of the world. There is one truth they
ignore, “No one is indispensable.”
Hitler’s final solution, the Muslim’s religious superiority over other religions, the
communist’s belief in an international revolution where communism and socialism 201 will triumph
over other systems of government; In all three cases, They do not build but destroy. Those who do
not fit their profile of worthy people who are allowed to live, must die. They destroy art, music,
architecture, history, and culture. They force everyone to accept their way of doing things or those
who don’t must die; men, women, and children. They don’t have the creativity to invent but they
steal other people’s creativity.
As pride has been labelled the father of all sins, it has been deemed the devil's most
prominent trait. C.S. Lewis writes, “in mere Christianity, that pride is the "anti-God" state, the
position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God: Unchastity, anger, greed,
drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil
became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."
Pride is understood to sever the soul from God. One can be prideful for different reasons.
Author Ichabod Spencer states that "spiritual pride is the worst kind of pride, if not the worst snare
of the devil. The heart is particularly deceitful on this one thing." Jonathan Edwards said,
"remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's
peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was and lies lowest in the
foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden,
secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and
sometimes under the disguise of humility."

199 Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from erotic vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own
attributes.
200 http://thezeitgeistmovement.se/files/Lasch_Christopher_The_Culture_of_Narcissism.pdf
201 Socialists of all types including national socialists (NAZIS) destroy everything they touch. Look at
the countries and US states that have adopted socialism as a way of life. They destroy the will to work.
They destroy religious liberty, economic stability, and political integrity. Just look at Europe, Asia, North
and South America, and Africa.

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In Ancient Athens, hubris was considered one of the greatest crimes and was used to refer
to insolent contempt that can cause one to use violence to shame the victim. This sense of hubris
could also characterize rape. Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything
that happened to the perpetrator or might happen to the perpetrator, but merely for the
perpetrator's own gratification. The word's connotation changed somewhat over time, with some
additional emphasis towards a gross over-estimation of one's abilities. I’m sure many employers
have had the sad and perhaps humorous experience of reading resumes where the applicant blew
himself so much out of proportion to reality that he became a legend in his own mind.
The term has been used to analyze and make sense of the actions of contemporary heads of
government by Ian Kershaw (1998), Peter Beinart (2010) and in a much more physiological manner
by David Owen (2012). In this context the term has been used to describe how certain leaders,
when put to positions of gigantic power, seem to become irrationally self-confident in their own
abilities, increasingly reluctant to listen to the advice of others and progressively more impulsive in
their actions. Dante's definition of pride was "love of self, perverted to hatred and contempt for
one's neighbor.”
Pride is associated with more intra-individual negative outcomes and is commonly related
to expressions of aggression and hostility (Tangney, 1999). As one might expect, pride is not always
associated with high self-esteem but with highly fluctuating or variable self-esteem. Excessive
feelings of pride tend to create conflict and sometimes terminating close friendships, dividing
families and which has led it to be understood as one of the few emotions with no clear positive or
adaptive functions (Rhodwalt, et al.). Pride is generally associated with an absence of humility. It
may also be associated with a lack of knowledge. John Gay states that "By ignorance is pride
increased; They most assume who know the least." Also someone with no humility is someone who
is not teachable. I had the occasion of a group of people asking for directions. As I tried to give the
directions they tried to argue with me. So I looked at them and asked, “If you already know the
answer why in the hell did you ask the question?”
In accordance with the Sirach's202 author's wording, the heart of a proud man is "like a
partridge in its cage acting as a decoy; like a spy he watches for your weaknesses. He changes good
things into evil, he lays his traps. Just as a spark sets coals on fire, the wicked man prepares his
snares in order to draw blood. Beware of the wicked man for he is planning evil. He might dishonor
you forever." In another chapter, he says that "the acquisitive man is not content with what he has,
wicked injustice shrivels the heart."
Benjamin Franklin said "In reality there is, perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to
subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive
and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history.
For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my
humility."203 Joseph Addison states that "There is no passion that steals into the heart more
imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride." 204
While pride is generally thought to be committed by individuals, it can be committed by
groups. Discrimination and prejudice are often the result of group pride. The proverb "pride goeth
before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs, 16:18), is thought to sum up the
modern use of pride. Pride is also referred to as "pride that blinds," as it often causes an offender of
pride to act in foolish ways that belie common sense. In other words, the modern definition may be
thought of as, "that pride that goes just before the fall."

202 Sirach is a work of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BCE, written by the Jewish
scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his father Joshua son of Sirach, sometimes called Jesus
son of Sirach or Yeshua ben Eliezer ben Sira.
203 Benjamin Franklin (2008). “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, p.139, Applewood Books
204 Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1804). “The Guardian”, p.321

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In his two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, historian Ian Kershaw uses both 'hubris' and
'nemesis' as titles. The first volume, Hubris, 205 describes Hitler's early life and rise to political power.
The second, Nemesis, gives details of Hitler's role in the Second World War, and concludes with his
fall and suicide in 1945.206 Much of the 10th and part of 11th chapter of the Book of Sirach discusses
and advises about pride, hubris, and who is rationally worthy of honor. It goes:

"Do not store up resentment against your neighbor, no matter what his offence; do nothing in a fit of anger.
Pride is odious to both God and man; injustice is abhorrent to both of them. Sovereignty is forced from one
nation to another because of injustice, violence, and wealth. How can there be such pride in someone who is
nothing but dust and ashes? Even while he is living, man's bowels are full of rottenness. Look: the illness lasts
while the doctor makes light of it; and one who is king today will die tomorrow. Once a man is dead, grubs,
insects, and worms are his lot.
The beginning of man's pride is to separate himself from the Lord and to rebel against his Creator. The
beginning of pride is sin. Whoever perseveres in sinning opens the floodgates to everything that is evil. For this
the Lord has inflicted dire punishment on sinners; he has reduced them to nothing. The Lord has overturned the
thrones of princes and set up the meek in their place. The Lord has torn up the proud by their roots and has
planted the humble in their place. The Lord has overturned the land of pagans and totally destroyed them. He
has devastated several of them, destroyed them and removed all remembrance of them from the face of the
earth.
Pride was not created for man, nor violent anger for those born of woman. Which race is worthy of honor?
The human race. Which race is worthy of honor? Those who are good. Which race is despicable? The human
race. Which race is despicable? Those who break the commandments. The leader is worthy of respect in the
midst of his brethren, but he has respect for those who are good.
Whether, they be rich, honored or poor, their pride should be in being good. It is not right to despise the
poor man who keeps the law; it is not fitting to honor the sinful man. The leader, the judge, and the powerful
man are worthy of honor, but no one is greater than the man who is good. A prudent slave will have free men as
servants, and the sensible man will not complain. Do not feel proud when you accomplished your work; do not
put on airs when times are difficult for you. Of greater worth is the man who works and lives in abundance than
the one who shows off and yet has nothing to live on.
My son, have a modest appreciation of yourself, estimate yourself at your true value…. The bee is one of
the smallest winged insects, but she excels in the exquisite sweetness of her honey. Do not be irrationally proud
just because of the clothes you wear; do not be proud when people honor you. Do you know what the Lord is
planning in a mysterious way? Many tyrants have been overthrown and someone unknown has received the
crown. Many powerful men have been disgraced and famous men handed over to the power of others.
Do not reprehend anyone unless you have been first fully informed, consider the case first and thereafter
make your reproach. Do not reply before you have listened; do not meddle in the disputes of sinners. …if you
run after them, you will not succeed, nor will you ever be free, although you try to escape." — Sirach,10:6–31
and 11:1–10

Jacob Bidermann's medieval miracle play, Cenodoxus, pride is the deadliest of all the
sins and leads directly to the damnation of the so-called famed Parisian doctor. Perhaps the
best-known example is the story of Lucifer in the Bible, whose pride filled him with so much evil
that he forced a third of the hosts of heaven to worship him, causing his fall from Heaven, and
his resultant conversion into Satan. In Dante's Divine Comedy, the penitents are laden with
stone slabs on their necks to keep their heads bowed.
GLUTTONY: Gluttony (Latin, gula) is the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to
the point of waste. The word derives from the Latin gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow.
In Christianity, it is considered a sin if the excessive desire for food causes it to be withheld from
the needy. Because of these writings, gluttony can be interpreted as selfishness; essentially
placing concern with one's own impulses or interests above the well-being or interests of
others. Aquinas went so far as to prepare a list of five ways to commit gluttony, comprising:
 Laute – eating too expensively
 Studiose – eating too daintily
 Nimis – eating too much
205 excessive pride or self-confidence. synonyms: arrogance, conceit, conceitedness, haughtiness,
pride
206 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/jan/29/highereducation.germany

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 Praepropere – eating too soon
 Ardenter – eating too eagerly
Of these, ardenter is often considered the most serious, since it is extreme attachment to
the pleasure of mere eating, which can make the wrongdoer eat impulsively; absolutely and
without qualification other than to live merely to eat and drink; lose attachment to health-
related, social, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures; and lose proper judgement. An example is
Esau selling his birthright for ordinary food of bread and pottage of lentils.
WRATH: Wrath can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred.
Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. In its purest form, wrath presents with
injury, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may
persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of wrath can
manifest in different ways, including impatience, hateful misanthropy, revenge, and self-
destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide. "People who fly into a rage always make a
bad landing."— Will Rogers.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin
of wrath when it's directed against an innocent person, when it's unduly strong or long-lasting,
or when it desires excessive punishment. "If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill
or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin." (CCC 2302) Hatred
is the sin of desiring that someone else may suffer misfortune or evil and is a mortal sin when
one desires grave harm. (CCC 2302-03)
People feel angry when they sense that they or someone they care about has been
offended, when they are certain about the nature and cause of the angering event, when they
are certain someone else is responsible, and when they feel they can still influence the situation
or cope with it.
Dante described vengeance as "love of justice, perverted to revenge and spite.” In
accordance with Henry Edward, angry people are "slaves to themselves.” Wrath is the only sin
not necessarily associated with selfishness or self-interest, although one can of course be
wrathful for selfish reasons, such as jealousy; closely related to the sin of envy.

SLOTH: Sloth, (Latin, tristitia or acedia means "without care") refers to a peculiar jumble
of notions, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical
states. It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual unwillingness to exertion. Spiritually,
acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they
became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God.
Mentally, acedia has a number of distinctive components of which the most important
is irresponsibility, a lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to
boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mental activity. Physically, acedia is
fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds
expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.
Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit:
 Wisdom,
 Understanding,
 Counsel,
 Knowledge,
 Piety,
 Fortitude, and
 Fear of the Lord);
Such disregard may lead to the slowing of one's spiritual progress towards eternal life,
to the neglect of manifold duties of charity towards one’s neighbor, and to animosity towards
those who love God. Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do. By
this definition, evil exists when "good" people fail to act. Unlike the other capital sins, which are

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sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of
the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger.
Chaucer, too, dealt with this attribute of acedia, counting the characteristics of the sin to include
despair, excessive sleeping, idleness, tardiness, negligence, indolence, and naïveté, the last
variously translated as "anger" or better as "peevishness“ Some scholars have said that the
ultimate form of acedia was despair which leads to suicide.
These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural
faculties or passions. The seven deadly sins in their current form are not found in the Bible,
however there are biblical precedence. One such precedence is found in the Book of Proverbs
6:16–19, however only in the Masoretic Text. 207 Among the verses traditionally associated with
King Solomon, it states that the Lord specifically regards "six things doth the LORD hate: yea,
seven are an abomination unto Him,” namely:
 A proud (vain) look
 A lying tongue.
 Hands that shed innocent blood
 A heart that deviseth wicked acts
 Feet that be swift in running to mischief
 A false witness that speaketh lies
 He that soweth discord among brethren
Ferdinand Mount maintains that liquid current events, especially through tabloids, has
surprisingly given valor to vices, causing society to regress into that of primitive pagans:
"covetousness has been rebranded as retail therapy, sloth is downtime, lust is exploring your
sexuality, anger is opening up your feelings, vanity is looking good because you're worth it and
gluttony is the religion of foodies." In other words, “We call good evil and evil good.”
With Christianity, historic Christian denominations recognize seven virtues, which
correspond in opposition to each of the seven deadly sins. The following lists the seven virtues:
• Chastity
• Temperance
• Charity
• Diligence
• Patience
• Gratitude
• Humility

In today’s world people who try to follow the seven virtues are often ridiculed by those who
belong to the elite. They believe that there is no God and therefore no Devil. If there is no God,
there is no good. If there be no good, there is no Devil and therefore no evil. The atheist like it
that way. Then they can do what they want to whom they want. Because they don’t believe
there is a God therefore they believe they don’t have to worry about accountability. They forget
that the law of consequences is in force no matter what they believe. The law of consequences
is a strict taskmaster and if one dances eventually they must pay the fiddler. It may not be today
or tomorrow, eventually they must suffer the consequences of their actions.

207 the earlier translated Septuagint version of this passage lacks a clear preface and lists only five

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Chapter 35: Scriptural Lessons Of Corruption

Corrupt people are not religious. In fact they hate those who are and would like nothing better
than to eradicate us from the face of the earth. They may feign belief but in reality, religion is a tool
to use, to manipulate, to coerce, gain wealth, exercise unrighteous dominion, and to commit the
sins of the dark side. It doesn’t matter to me if person believes in God or not. That’s his business.
However, the atheist demands freedom from all religious expression in the public place.
It’s taken me several years, but I finally figured out why. They want the “freedom” to do
whatever, to whomever, whenever, and wherever they want. Religion reminds them that there are
rules, with consequences. They don’t believe in God or the devil. They go ballistic when they see a
copy of the 10 Commandments in a public place. Most atheists are also socialists. They believe that
religion is the opiate of the masses. So they don’t believe in God. Why can’t they just let it go at that
and leave the rest of us alone? Because they can’t. They say that religion has caused more wars and
killed more people than any other cause in history.
Of course that isn’t entirely true. Socialism was the cause of all the wars of the 20 th century.
They murdered more people in the hundred years of the 20 th century than all the wars of the last
10,000 years put together. When it comes down to it, it really wasn’t religion per se that caused the
wars, but politics coupled with the lust for power, the greed for real estate, and the desire for
vendettas and revenge that have caused all wars. Religion was merely used to justify the many
conflicts throughout history. Even the never-ending Islamic jihads that began in the 7 th century and
have continued to our current day, were on a quest to enslave the world into an international
caliphate.
This why the Founding Fathers warned us about keeping church and state separate. However,
atheists don’t just want a separation of church and state but the eradication of church and the
absolute power of the state. There is a saying, “The atheists can leave the church, but they can’t
leave the church alone.” They can’t coexist in a religious world.
However, it doesn’t really matter if those who engage in corruption are religious or not. There
are still consequences for their actions. They may not get caught today or tomorrow or even next
year. Eventually they will get caught and they will still have to pay the piper. Belief in God or not.
The scriptures tell us about emperors, kings, judges, high priests, the Pharisees, and Sadducees
and their corrupt governments. I am using scriptures from the Bible to modern scriptures: Book of
Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. The first reference is from the Ten Commandments. The
atheists have tried and have nearly succeeded to remove any display of the Ten Commandments
from public places. Why? Because they don’t want anyone telling them they can’t do something.
Just look at California. They have decided that they no longer want to obey federal laws. So they
have decided that they are a state exempt from any federal laws. It reminds me of the Civil War. The
south seceded from the union because they refused to obey federal law. They wanted slavery and
they didn’t want anyone telling them that slavery should be illegal.
California wants to give sanctuary to illegal aliens who are criminals breaking the law just being
in America illegally. They call them dreamers. Some of these dreamers have committed murder and
California has provided them sanctuary from the law by letting them walk. There are many more
states and cities who call themselves sanctuaries. Will we have a new Civil War? Only time will tell.
But that is the result of corruption. It enslaves good people, rewards the bad, and turns nations into
cesspools of lust, greed, and enmity.
The Ten Commandments
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of
them that hate me;

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6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger
that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested
the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 ¶ Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord
thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s. (Exodus
10: 3-17)

The next scripture is from an ancient prophet who lived about 600 BC. He had a vision
of a great and spacious building. In it were filled with people who were mocking the
righteous. Eventually the building fell. Today we also see the wicked getting their just dues.
It doesn’t matter if they believe in God or not. Justice will not be robbed. Whether it is
through the corrupted justice system or by trial in the public square, they will be brought to
justice one way or another. Look at all of the celebrities who have been destroyed by the
accusations from people who have been wronged by the rich and powerful; In government,
in the media, and in corporations.
26 And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a
great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.
27 And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of
dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers
towards those who had come and were partaking of the fruit.
28 And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing
at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.
30 But, to be short in writing, behold, he saw other multitudes pressing forward; and they came
and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press their way forward, continually
holding fast to the rod of iron, until they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the
tree.
31 And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way towards that great and spacious building.
32 And it came to pass that many were drowned in the depths of the fountain; and many were
lost from his view, wandering in strange roads.
33 And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter
into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit
also; but we heeded them not. (1 Nephi 8:26-31)
36 And it came to pass that I saw and bear record, that the great and spacious building was the
pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great. And the angel of the Lord
spake unto me again, saying: Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and
people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (1 Nephi 11:36)

The next set references the rule of law. In other words, where there is no law the
people are miserable. It explains that just because the corrupt say there is no God doesn’t
make it so. It explains the saying that wickedness never was happiness. That there must be
opposition in all things; light and dark, good and bad, sadness and happiness… Those who

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believe in atheism will be miserable forever. Like Richard Cory they will lust for happiness in
parties, drink, sex, corruption and in the end will come to a terrible end.
1 And now, Jacob, I speak unto you: Thou art my firstborn in the days of my tribulation in the
wilderness. And behold, in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of
the rudeness of thy brethren….
5 And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto
men. And by the law no flesh is justified; or, by the law men are cut off. Yea, by the temporal law they
were cut off; and also, by the spiritual law they perish from that which is good and become miserable
forever….
11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the
wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor
misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if
it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor
incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would
have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the
wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.
13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin,
ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness.
And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these
things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could
have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have
vanished away. (2 Nephi 2:1-13)

The next set describes an ancient people who suffered under much corruption in their
government and society. They had not guarded their frontiers. The government did not
seem concerned with the freedom and security of their country.
13 And it came to pass that Moroni was angry with the government, because of their
indifference concerning the freedom of their country. (Alma 59:13)
18 And it came to pass that because of so much contention and so much difficulty in the
government, that they had not kept sufficient guards in the land of Zarahemla; for they had supposed
that the Lamanites durst not come into the heart of their lands to attack that great city Zarahemla.
(Helaman 1:18)

Now, we begin by talking about a man in ancient times called Gadianton. He could be
likened today to our corrupt ministers and imams, corporations, identity thieves, organized
crime, street gangs, corrupt bureaucrats, and shadow governments that desire to enslave
the world under the chains of socialism.
23 And it came to pass in the forty and ninth year of the reign of the judges, there was continual
peace established in the land, all save it were a secret combination which Gadianton the robber had
established in the more settled parts of the land, which at that time were not known unto those who
were at the head of government; therefore they were not destroyed out of the land. Go thou and say
unto them, Why teach ye men the law and the commandments, when ye yourselves are the children
of corruption? (Helaman 3:23)
2 For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they
who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for
destruction, for the laws had become corrupted. (Helaman 5:2)
17 For there was one Gadianton, who was exceedingly expert in many words, and also in his
craft, to carry on the secret work of murder and of robbery; therefore he became the leader of the
band of Kishkumen.
18 And now behold, those murderers and plunderers were a band who had been formed by
Kishkumen and Gadianton. And now it had come to pass that there were many, even among the
Nephites, of Gadianton’s band. But behold, they were more numerous among the more wicked part
of the Lamanites. And they were called Gadianton’s robbers and murderers. (Helaman 6:17-18)

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39 And thus they did obtain the sole management of the government, insomuch that they did
trample under their feet and smite and rend and turn their backs upon the poor and the meek, and
the humble followers of God. (Helaman 6:39)
3 And they did reject all his words, insomuch that he could not stay among them, but
returned again unto the land of his nativity.
4 And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers
filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the
commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of
men;
5 Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the
wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of
government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world,
and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according
to their own wills—
6 Now this great iniquity had come upon the Nephites, in the space of not many years; and
when Nephi saw it, his heart was swollen with sorrow within his breast; and he did exclaim in the
agony of his soul:
…25 Yea, wo be unto you because of that great abomination which has come among you;
and ye have united yourselves unto it, yea, to that secret band which was established by Gadianton!
26 Yea, wo shall come unto you because of that pride which ye have suffered to enter your
hearts, which has lifted you up beyond that which is good because of your exceedingly great riches!
27 Yea, wo be unto you because of your wickedness and abominations!
28 And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye
shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth. (Helaman 7:3-28)

1 And now it came to pass that when Nephi had said these words, behold, there were men who
were judges, who also belonged to the secret band of Gadianton, and they were angry, and they
cried out against him, saying unto the people: Why do ye not seize upon this man and bring him
forth, that he may be condemned according to the crime which he has done?
2 Why seest thou this man, and hearest him revile against this people and against our law?
3 For behold, Nephi had spoken unto them concerning the corruptness of their law; yea, many
things did Nephi speak which cannot be written; and nothing did he speak which was contrary to the
commandments of God.
4 And those judges were angry with him because he spake plainly unto them concerning their
secret works of darkness; nevertheless, they durst not lay their own hands upon him, for they feared
the people lest they should cry out against them.
5 Therefore they did cry unto the people, saying: Why do you suffer this man to revile against
us? For behold he doth condemn all this people, even unto destruction; yea, and also that these our
great cities shall be taken from us, that we shall have no place in them.
6 And now we know that this is impossible, for behold, we are powerful, and our cities great,
therefore our enemies can have no power over us.
7 And it came to pass that thus they did stir up the people to anger against Nephi, and raised
contentions among them; for there were some who did cry out: Let this man alone, for he is a good
man, and those things which he saith will surely come to pass except we repent;
8 Yea, behold, all the judgments will come upon us which he has testified unto us; for we know
that he has testified aright unto us concerning our iniquities. And behold they are many, and he
knoweth as well all things which shall befall us as he knoweth of our iniquities;
9 Yea, and behold, if he had not been a prophet he could not have testified concerning those
things.
10 And it came to pass that those people who sought to destroy Nephi were compelled because
of their fear, that they did not lay their hands on him; therefore he began again to speak unto them,
seeing that he had gained favor in the eyes of some, insomuch that the remainder of them did fear.
(Helaman 8:1-10)
10 O Lord behold this people repenteth; and they have swept away the band of Gadianton from
amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct, and they have concealed their secret plans
in the earth. (Helaman 11:10)

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In this next section, there are a group of people who want to alter the laws to suit
themselves. They demanded a king or in today’s vernacular, a dictator. The judge refused to
alter the law, so those who wanted a dictator demanded that the judge be dethroned or
again in today’s speech, impeached. The people were divided into two groups: the Kingmen
and the freemen. Today we also have two groups. They are those believe in the rule of law,
the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Judeo-Christian codes of behavior, free enterprise,
our republican form of government, the importance of families, education, self-reliance,
virtues, and hard work. They believe in the safety and security of our borders and protect
our national sovereignty from those who would destroy us, enemies both foreign and
domestic.
The other group hates any belief in God. They believe that certain groups should
dominate others. Those that don’t belong need to be eradicated. They believe in myths that
masquerade as science such as global warming and climate change. They believe that the
ends justify the means. They believe in enslaving the nation under the weight of the dole,
regulations, heavy taxes, and rule by the corrupt. They believe that good is evil and evil,
good. They divide the country in to groups that see themselves as victims of history and
demand reparations for their supposed mistreatment. They rewrite history and make it tell
the tale of their own demonic delusions. They lie, cheat, steal, bribe, rape, murder and
grind the faces of the poor. Finally they don’t play well with others.

2 Nevertheless, they did not long maintain an entire peace in the land, for there began to be a
contention among the people concerning the chief judge Pahoran; for behold, there were a part of
the people who desired that a few particular points of the law should be altered.
3 But behold, Pahoran would not alter nor suffer the law to be altered; therefore, he did not
hearken to those who had sent in their voices with their petitions concerning the altering of the law.
4 Therefore, those who were desirous that the law should be altered were angry with him, and
desired that he should no longer be chief judge over the land; therefore there arose a warm dispute
concerning the matter, but not unto bloodshed.
5 And it came to pass that those who were desirous that Pahoran should be dethroned from the
judgment-seat were called king-men, for they were desirous that the law should be altered in a
manner to overthrow the free government and to establish a king over the land.
6 And those who were desirous that Pahoran should remain chief judge over the land took upon
them the name of freemen; and thus was the division among them, for the freemen had sworn or
covenanted to maintain their rights and the privileges of their religion by a free government.
7 And it came to pass that this matter of their contention was settled by the voice of the people.
And it came to pass that the voice of the people came in favor of the freemen, and Pahoran retained
the judgment-seat, which caused much rejoicing among the brethren of Pahoran and also many of
the people of liberty, who also put the king-men to silence, that they durst not oppose but were
obliged to maintain the cause of freedom.
8 Now those who were in favor of kings were those of high birth, and they sought to be kings;
and they were supported by those who sought power and authority over the people.
9 But behold, this was a critical time for such contentions to be among the people of Nephi; for
behold, Amalickiah had again stirred up the hearts of the people of the Lamanites against the people
of the Nephites, and he was gathering together soldiers from all parts of his land, and arming them,
and preparing for war with all diligence; for he had sworn to drink the blood of Moroni.
10 But behold, we shall see that his promise which he made was rash; nevertheless, he did
prepare himself and his armies to come to battle against the Nephites.
11 Now his armies were not so great as they had hitherto been, because of the many thousands
who had been slain by the hand of the Nephites; but notwithstanding their great loss, Amalickiah had
gathered together a wonderfully great army, insomuch that he feared not to come down to the land
of Zarahemla.

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12 Yea, even Amalickiah did himself come down, at the head of the Lamanites. And it was in the
twenty and fifth year of the reign of the judges; and it was at the same time that they had begun to
settle the affairs of their contentions concerning the chief judge, Pahoran.
13 And it came to pass that when the men who were called king-men had heard that the
Lamanites were coming down to battle against them, they were glad in their hearts; and they refused
to take up arms, for they were so wroth with the chief judge, and also with the people of liberty, that
they would not take up arms to defend their country.
14 And it came to pass that when Moroni saw this, and also saw that the Lamanites were coming
into the borders of the land, he was exceedingly wroth because of the stubbornness of those people
whom he had labored with so much diligence to preserve; yea, he was exceedingly wroth; his soul
was filled with anger against them.
15 And it came to pass that he sent a petition, with the voice of the people, unto the governor of
the land, desiring that he should read it, and give him (Moroni) power to compel those dissenters to
defend their country or to put them to death.
16 For it was his first care to put an end to such contentions and dissensions among the people;
for behold, this had been hitherto a cause of all their destruction. And it came to pass that it was
granted according to the voice of the people.
17 And it came to pass that Moroni commanded that his army should go against those king-men,
to pull down their pride and their nobility and level them with the earth, or they should take up arms
and support the cause of liberty.
18 And it came to pass that the armies did march forth against them; and they did pull down
their pride and their nobility, insomuch that as they did lift their weapons of war to fight against the
men of Moroni they were hewn down and leveled to the earth.
19 And it came to pass that there were four-thousand of those dissenters who were hewn down
by the sword; and those of their leaders who were not slain in battle were taken and cast into prison,
for there was no time for their trials at this period.
20 And the remainder of those dissenters, rather than be smitten down to the earth by the
sword, yielded to the standard of liberty, and were compelled to hoist the title of liberty upon their
towers, and in their cities, and to take up arms in defense of their country.
21 And thus Moroni put an end to those king-men, that there were not any known by the
appellation of king-men; and thus he put an end to the stubbornness and the pride of those people
who professed the blood of nobility; but they were brought down to humble themselves like unto
their brethren, and to fight valiantly for their freedom from bondage. (Helaman 51:2-21)
2 And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another
into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy
the government of the land. (3 Nephi 7:2,6,11,14)

The next story is about an ancient assassin named Akish. It talks about how Akish
discovered the ancient secret oaths that created a secret combination or as we would say
today, shadow government. These oaths were all about destruction as we have seen in
modern times: socialism, fascism, and jihadism are also about destruction. They don’t build
anything but through hate they destroy. Look at East Germany. The Soviets and East German
government had 50 years to rebuild after WWII, yet they didn’t. When the Iron Curtain fell it
was the West Germans that went in and rebuilt East Germany after reunification. Go to any
socialist country in the world. The people are poor. The streets are filthy. Now one might say
but what about Scandinavia? They have the highest income in the world. I answer, they also
have the highest taxes in the world. Go into the rural areas.
Go to any Muslim country in the world. They are among some of the poorest
countries in the world. They have garbage in the streets. Some don’t even have the
infrastructure to provide the most basic needs of the people: electricity, running water,
health care, education, and even proper nourishment. The governments are corrupt, the
people die by the hundreds and thousands from the warring factions; the Shiites and
Sunnis.

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Because they are admirers of Adolf Hitler and the NAZIS, they have adopted many
of the tactics of the original final solution. Anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of the perfect
Muslim is put to death. Muslims destroy their own mosques, Christian churches, Jewish
synagogues, Buddhist and Hindu temples, whole communities, and nations. They aspire to
create an international caliphate, and eradicating Israel, Europe, Asia, and the Americas
from off the face of the earth.
The last time they built anything was during the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire
when they built universities, libraries, and great works of architecture, science, medicine,
and learning. Then in the 18th century the Wahabis who felt there was too much un-Islamic
influence decided to purge that from the Muslim world. Since then they have continued
their path of destruction, hate, and slavery.
Even in the US, look at the states where socialist programs have enslaved the
people. They are poor, dirty, lazy, corrupt, with crime running rampant in the streets. A
report recently came out of California, that their homeless population is so bad that
garbage is stacked in the streets. When INS tried to round up illegal aliens the mayor of
Oakland broadcast an alert to them that INS was in town. Governor Jerry Brown also known
as Moonbeam, put the federal government on notice that they would not recognize federal
law in California.
Detroit, Michigan has become so corrupt that they elected a communist mayor.
Once again it has become so bad there that murder is the number one health problem.
Chicago, New York City, and Washington DC have also become the murder capitals of the
US. They are also socialist, gun free zones. Corruption has been a scourge to these cities for
more than a hundred years.
Read the following story and see if there aren’t similarities to our time.
15 And it came to pass that thus they did agree with Akish. And Akish did administer unto
them the oaths which were given by them of old who also sought power, which had been handed
down even from Cain, who was a murderer from the beginning.
16 And they were kept up by the power of the devil to administer these oaths unto the
people, to keep them in darkness, to help such as sought power to gain power, and to murder, and to
plunder, and to lie, and to commit all manner of wickedness and whoredoms.
17 And it was the daughter of Jared who put it into his heart to search up these things of
old; and Jared put it into the heart of Akish; wherefore, Akish administered it unto his kindred and
friends, leading them away by fair promises to do whatsoever thing he desired.
18 And it came to pass that they formed a secret combination, even as they of old; which
combination is most abominable and wicked above all, in the sight of God;
19 For the Lord worketh not in secret combinations, neither doth he will that man should
shed blood, but in all things hath forbidden it, from the beginning of man….
21 And they have caused the destruction of this people of whom I am now speaking, and
also the destruction of the people of Nephi.
22 And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain,
until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer
that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground
for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.
23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto
you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall
get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of
destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you,
to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you
that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall
be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from
the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all
lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by

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the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even
that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the
hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the
beginning…. (Ether 8: 15-19, 21-26)

The Book pf Proverbs teaches us what happens when the wicked rule. It also explains
why the wicked hate the righteous. As it is said, money and hate is the enemy of the truth.
2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the
people mourn.
12 If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.
16 When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth: but the righteous shall see their fall.
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
20 Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
22 An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.
23 A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
24 Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul: he heareth cursing, and bewrayeth it not.
25 The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.
26 Many seek the ruler’s favour; but every man’s judgment cometh from the Lord.
27 An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is abomination to
the wicked. (Proverbs 29: 2-27)

The New Testament is just as serious when it comes to prophesying our time. Notice verse
19. Socialism and jihadism promise people freedom and yet they accept their lies, they
immediately find themselves enslaved to shariah law, socialist programs that destroy families,
societies, and nations.
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them,
and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil
spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government.
Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things
that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the
day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they
feast with you;
14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart
they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son
of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness
of the prophet.
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of
darkness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh,
through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom
a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift
of God may be purchased with money. (2 Peter 2: 1-20)

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The next set describes the reason for governments. Governments are not for enslaving
people under an onerous tax code, or burdensome laws that strip away the rights of the
people. Government’s role in society is to protect the people it serves. Notice that verse 80,
talks about raising up wise men to establish the Constitution. Yet in our day we hear people
on the left who attempt to destroy their credibility by attacking their integrity. They consider
the Constitution an outdated document and the Declaration of Independence full of
glittering generalities.
5 And that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in
maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me.
6 Therefore, I, the Lord, justify you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law
which is the constitutional law of the land; (DC 98: 5-6)
77 According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established,
and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy
principles;
79 Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.
80 And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise
men whom I raised up unto this very purpose and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.
82 There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man.
83 And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying: Avenge me of mine
adversary.
84 And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself: Though I fear not God,
nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming
she weary me.
85 Thus will I liken the children of Zion.
86 Let them importune at the feet of the judge;
87 And if he heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the governor;
88 And if the governor heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the president;
89 And if the president heed them not, then will the Lord arise and come forth out of his hiding
place, and in his fury vex the nation;
90 And in his hot displeasure, and in his fierce anger, in his time, will cut off those wicked,
unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint them their portion among hypocrites, and unbelievers;…
93 What I have said unto you must needs be, that all men may be left without excuse;(DC
101:77-93)
39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as
soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise
unrighteous dominion. (DC 121: 30)
2 And also of all the property and amount of damages which they have sustained, both of
character and personal injuries, as well as real property;
3 And also the names of all persons that have had a hand in their oppressions, as far as they can
get hold of them and find them out.
4 And perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements
and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat;
5 And all that are in the magazines, and in the encyclopedias, and all the libelous histories that
are published, and are writing, and by whom, and present the whole concatenation 208 of diabolical
rascality and nefarious and murderous impositions that have been practiced upon this people—
6 That we may not only publish to all the world but present them to the heads of government in
all their dark and hellish hue, as the last effort which is enjoined on us by our Heavenly Father, before
we can fully and completely claim that promise which shall call him forth from his hiding place; and
also that the whole nation may be left without excuse before he can send forth the power of his
mighty arm.

208 a series of interconnected things or events, as in a chain of events.

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7 It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to
stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief,
sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and
urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the
fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion,
and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and
the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.
8 It is an iron yoke, it is a strong band; they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and
fetters of hell.
9 Therefore it is an imperative duty that we owe, not only to our own wives and children, but to
the widows and fatherless, whose husbands and fathers have been murdered under its iron hand;
10 Which dark and blackening deeds are enough to make hell itself shudder, and to stand aghast
and pale, and the hands of the very devil to tremble and palsy.
11 And also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in
heart—(DC 123: 2-11)209

1 We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds
men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for
the good and safety of society.
2 We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held
inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of
property, and the protection of life.
3 We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce
the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought
for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.
4 We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him
only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and
liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules
of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the
civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never
suppress the freedom of the soul.
5 We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which
they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments;
and that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished
accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are
best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom
of conscience.
6 We believe that every man should be honored in his station, rulers and magistrates as such,
being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty; and that to the
laws all men owe respect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted
by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our
interests as individuals and nations, between man and man; and divine laws given of heaven,
prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship, both to be answered by man to his
Maker.
7 We believe that rulers, states, and governments have a right, and are bound to enact laws for
the protection of all citizens in the free exercise of their religious belief; but we do not believe that
they have a right in justice to deprive citizens of this privilege, or proscribe them in their opinions, so
long as a regard and reverence are shown to the laws and such religious opinions do not justify
sedition nor conspiracy.

209 This is why I write. I owe a debt of gratitude to my country, to my ancestors, to my family and
friends. When I enlisted in to the Air Force I took an oath to defend our nation against all enemies foreign
and domestic. I am retired now. I don’t have the means or the health to continue defending our freedom
actively in the military. However, the oath is still in force. It doesn’t ever expire. I have a gift from God to
write. So since I retired I have taken my pen in hand and have written books to help bring a conscious
understanding of the dangers that threaten our nation, our society and people in today’s world.

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8 We believe that the commission of crime should be punished according to the nature of the
offense; that murder, treason, robbery, theft, and the breach of the general peace, in all respects,
should be punished according to their criminality and their tendency to evil among men, by the laws
of that government in which the offense is committed; and for the public peace and tranquility all
men should step forward and use their ability in bringing offenders against good laws to punishment.
9 We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one
religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights
of its members, as citizens, denied.
11 We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances,
where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws
exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their
friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all
persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief
afforded. (Doctrine and Covenants 134:7-9,11)

Conclusion: So ends my discussion of corruption. It is found in every government, every


corporation, every organization, and every society. It has caused the death of many innocent
people, propped up the wicked to reign in blood and horror all over the earth. Corruption has
been involved in every war and scourge throughout history. The basic idea behind corruption is
to enable wicked and evil men and women to enslave people and destroy their God-given
rights. They do this through bribery, lies, lust, murder, extortion, graft, shadow governments,
scandalous behavior, cover-ups, taxes, regulations and heavy laws that weigh like a rock on the
backs of the people they were sworn to protect and lead. My objective was to help everyone be
aware of the threat to our country by corruption both foreign and domestic. If I have helped
even one person take up the banner of liberty and fight to protect our freedom, then I have
been successful.

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