New York Governor and Close Associates Under Scrutiny By U.S. Attorney

Joseph Percoco, VP Madison Square Garden

Photo: AP

[From article]
A former top Cuomo aide who is under criminal investigation for “consulting’’ with companies doing business with the state told potential clients he had the administration’s OK for the work — despite never receiving it, The Post has been told.
Madison Square Garden Executive Vice President Joseph Percoco, who until last January was Gov. Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary and one of his closest friends, “told various clients or potential clients that he had approval from the governor’s counsel’s office to work for them,’’ said a source close to the situation.
“It turned out the counsel’s office did no such thing. It didn’t give any approval,” the source said. “And Joe never gave the clients anything to prove what he said, so the clients didn’t get anything in writing.’’
Public records show that Percoco, who left the state payroll for several months in early 2014 to run Cuomo’s re-election campaign, said he received as much as $125,000 in still-unexplained “consulting’’ fees during that year from two companies, COR Development of Syracuse and Albany-based CHA Consulting, which have longstanding dealings and tens of millions of dollars in contracts with the state.
Percoco’s income from the companies didn’t become public until late last month, when US Attorney Preet Bharara served a subpoena on Cuomo’s office seeking records relating to Percoco’s work, as well as the work performed for those and other companies by influential lobbyist Todd Howe, a Percoco friend and longtime associate of both Andrew and former Gov. Mario Cuomo.
Howe, who sources said helped arrange the consulting work for Percoco, was fired last week by a longtime employer — Albany-based law/lobbying firm Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna — after being barred days earlier by Cuomo from having any contact with the state government.
[. . .]
The subpoena, excerpts of which were obtained by The Post, sought “phone logs, visitor logs, calendar entries between January 2012 and present that show meetings with any’’ entities on a list of 26 individuals and companies.
The subpoena also demanded information on “any actions taken by” Percoco, Secretary to the Governor William Mulrow, state Operations Director James Malatras, Buffalo-area Democratic operative Peter Cutler and other Cuomo aides related to the companies for which Percoco and Howe worked, as well as for several other companies connected to the governor’s high-profile “Buffalo Billion’’ economic-development efforts.
It also seeks “any documents concerning’’ two not-for-profit economic-development companies set up in conjunction with SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and its president, Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, a key “Buffalo Billion’’ adviser.
Sources in the Cuomo administration said the governor appears “increasingly nervous and anxious’’ about Bharara’s probe, and some noted that Cuomo has almost completely disappeared from public view during the past weeks as the scandal began to unfold

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/cuomo-crony-lied-to-potential-clients-said-he-had-governors-ok-to-work/

Cuomo crony lied to potential clients — said he had governor’s OK to work
By Fredric U. Dicker
New York Post
May 8, 2016 | 11:57pm

* * *



http://nypost.com/2016/05/09/fbi-raids-homes-of-two-cuomo-cronies-amid-corruption-probe/

FBI raids homes of two Cuomo cronies amid corruption probe
By Kaja Whitehouse, Kirstan Conley and Bruce Golding
New York Post
May 9, 2016 | 3:33am

* * *


http://nypost.com/2016/05/02/investigation-of-confidant-could-be-a-career-killer-for-cuomo/

Investigation of confidant could be a career-killer for Cuomo
By Fredric U. Dicker
New York Post
May 2, 2016 | 12:08am

* * *

http://nypost.com/2016/05/05/shady-cuomo-pal-received-nearly-100-financing-on-815k-home/

‘Shady’ Cuomo pal received nearly 100% financing on $815K home
By Kirstan Conley, Reuven Fenton and Bruce Golding
New York Post
May 5, 2016 | 12:55am

* * *

http://nypost.com/2016/05/06/cuomo-linked-lobbyist-fired-by-law-firm-amid-federal-probe/

Cuomo-linked lobbyist fired by law firm amid federal probe
By Kirstan Conley and Aaron Short
New York Post
May 6, 2016 | 4:11pm

* * *

Fund Raising Lobbyist Appointed To Seek Money For Taxpayer Funded Public Library

Yes. Yes. Just what is needed, a fund raising lobbyist bureaucracy for a taxpayer funded public library. How could so many highly educated academic wannabes not recognize this essential need for so many years? Does somebody need a job? Will Susan Hartnett be required to register as a municipal lobbyist when the city council makes it mandatory? Will increased patron services include foot massages? Will food tasters offer chewing for patrons whose teeth are painful? Where will all of this increased government end? When there are no more private citizens and everyone works for and is owned by government?

[From article]
The Cambridge Public Library Foundation recently announced the appointment of Susan Hartnett as special adviser.
This marks the first hire since the foundation formed in November 2015 with plans to champion and grow private financial support for the Cambridge Public Library.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160417/NEWS/160417431

Cambridge Public Library Foundation appoints special adviser
Posted Apr. 17, 2016 at 8:30 AM
Cambridge Chronicle

Is A Not For Profit Corporation With a $37 billion Endowment A Lobbyist?

Will this procedure include lobbyists from the homosexual lobby, the women's lobby, the black racism lobby, the ACLU, CAIR, CCTV, and other special interest groups who derive much consideration from the City Councilors they lobby? What about the zoning lawyers? They are usually experts to who the City councilors and zoning board and planning board members defer during hearings and council meetings. Then there is the community organization with a $37 billion endowment, the training school for ministers, Harvard University.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/6/lobbying-bill-divides-council/

Lobbying Bill Reveals City Council Split
By JOSHUA J. FLORENCE and SAMUEL VASQUEZ,

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
April 6, 2016

Cambridge, MA Disability Commission Discusses Congressional Mental Health Bill

As noted by Kate Thurman in the below essay, the focus of a proposed bill (link below) in the US Congress, is on police and crime, as if disability itself is a crime. It is important to distinguish between disability and crime. Police,  politicians and journalists do not do that. They like to believe that mental illness, a psychiatric diagnosis causes crime. It is nonsense. But seldom are politicians, police and journalists logical these days. Politicians are focused on getting re-elected. Journalists want to get published, and invited to dinner by politicians. The psychiatric industry has wealth and a lot of influence to help them. It is supported by the pharmaceutical industry. Police want to get home safe and do not like to have to make accommodations for people who have been diagnosed as crazy. The simplest solution is to arrest if not to kill a suspect. The counter argument is just as illogical, i.e., that if a person has a disability he or she should not be held accountable for their crime. 

Journalists, police, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and politicians subscribe to the history of mental illness doctrine, whereby anyone with a history is guilty of violence because of the history. Again crime is equated to a psychiatric diagnosis. 

This essay argues that the bill is limited to addressing severe mental illness without defining it. That is true, but also there is no pathology for psychiatric illnesses. They are made up by consensus (see Boston University Psychology Professor, Margaret Hagan's book, Whores of the Court.) These illnesses are defined as speech and behavior, usually protected by the constitution, which psychiatrists do not like or do not understand. It is a system of social control with no due process protections. Personal opinion masquerading as science. 

Politically, liberals blame guns for violence. Conservatives blame psychiatric diagnoses. Neither makes sense. People are violent. It is extremely difficult to determine who will be violent, and when. Nonetheless psychiatrists with the encouragement of judges testify in court making predictions of people's future behavior. Politicians don't want to be bogged down. They have television interviews to do.  It takes up too much time and requires critical thought.  It is easier to blame a defenseless target. 

The bill weakens privacy protections for psychiatric diagnoses. One more instance of government bias, unequal protection of the laws for people with disabilities by the elected criminal class. Psychiatric treatment can be used against a person in a court of law. Lawyers and judges do not tell patients that downside of this business. 

The focus of this essay is on getting more taxpayer funded treatment by psychiatrists. But the psychiatrists do not cure their illnesses. They sell treatment. Once a patient always a patient. It is a good business model. But it is not science or medicine. 

In theory the protection and advocacy agencies (P&A) protect the rights of persons accused of mental illness. But there is little actual protection and advocacy. They refer petitioners elsewhere because it is too much trouble. There are so many people with physical  disabilities that they are prioritized over the crazy people. 

There are restrictions on what the P&A agencies can do. Unlike immigrants, illegal aliens who get free legal, health care, tuition and housing. Law abiding citizens with disabilities get bupkis.

This essay says  providing funds for police training and for research are good provisions. But police get billions and there are billions for research aside from this bill. The name of the bill suggests it is what NAMI is, i.e., a lobbyist for more taxpayer funded drug treatment. NAMI is a lobbyist for the drug companies. They allege they advocate for families. The individual with a disability has no advocate.  The bill does not protect persons with disabilities. It deprives them of rights enjoyed by others some who are not even citizens. The problem is that there is no strong disability lobby. There are academic research lobbyists. Harvard University has three full time lobbyists based in Washington DC. The police have hundreds of organizations actively lobbying state and federal legislatures. Disability advocates, not so much.  

[From the Cambridge, MA Disability Commission. January 27, 2016]



Mental Health Advocates Express Concerns over Murphy Bill

There is no doubt that our nation’s mental health system leaves much to be desired. Many people with psychiatric disabilities experience difficulty accessing treatment for a variety of reasons. These reasons include lack of funding and resources, low reimbursement rates for mental health services, a shortage of culturally competent care, and stigma perpetuated by inaccurate portrayals of mental illness in media, particularly following acts of violence, among other things.

To this end, it is admirable that the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, led by Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, conducted a review of the system beginning in early 2013, just after – and in response to – the Newtown shooting tragedy. The Subcommittee indeed found many systemic problems in our mental health system and made numerous recommendations that culminated in the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646), more widely known as the Murphy Bill.

However, many advocates argue that from the get go, this bill was informed by and written from a public safety standpoint, and while our nation certainly has a lot of work to do to curb violence, our broken mental health care system is one of the foremost public health crises of our time, and it must be addressed as such.

Rather than overhaul the system from the ground up, this bill calls for diverting attention and funding away from prevention and health maintenance care to late-stage crisis intervention for individuals with the most severe psychiatric disabilities. Creating a system to address violence rather than healthcare needs inevitably removes the focus from the very people it purports to help – people with psychiatric disabilities – and creates concerns for civil rights.

If the Murphy Bill were to pass as it is currently written, many people with psychiatric disabilities could be turned away from help if their levels of illness are not determined to be severe enough; there is no clear standard as to what constitutes severity. Additionally, like many so-called physical illnesses, mental illnesses tend to operate on a spectrum; there are times when people are stabilized and doing well and there are other times when they may have more acute symptoms. In no other medical specialty would anyone consider cutting access to care at any point along the spectrum; think of medical centers removing resources for outpatient care and investing in just intensive care units.

Also, generally speaking, the earlier someone receives treatment, the better her or his outcome. This bill calls for cutting funding for community-based supports that have a proven record for being effective. Funding would be increased for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), which is court-mandated treatment that patients must follow or face punitive action, and for long-term involuntary inpatient hospitalizations, also known as institutionalization.

“We already know what works,” said Jennifer Mathis, Deputy Legal Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “Proven programs such as supportive housing, Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), peer support, mobile crisis services, and supported employment have extremely successful outcomes, including for people with the most significant mental health needs. The problem is that these services are not widely available to people who need them. This bill would make it even more difficult to take these services to scale, as it would invest mental health dollars elsewhere,” Mathis said.

The Murphy Bill also proposes changing portions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) by easing current privacy protection for patients with psychiatric disabilities, and allowing family members to access to portions of their mental health records. The protection of healthcare information is an important civil right currently afforded to all patients in the United States. This change would affect only those with mental health needs. This disparate treatment of one segment of the population is arguably discriminatory. Additionally, knowing that their families could access treatment information would likely deter many people from getting the help they need.

Each state has a federally funded protection and advocacy (P&A) agency that is charged with protecting the legal rights of individuals with disabilities (the Disability Law Center, a private non-profit in Boston, is the P&A for Massachusetts). The country’s Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) program provides a vital resource for individuals who experience discrimination due to having a mental illness. The Murphy Bill proposes cutting PAIMI funding from its current annual level of $36.1 million to $5 million; this greater than 87% cut in funding would drastically reduce the ability of P&A legal service agencies to protect the rights of this population.

In addition, the bill significantly reduces the authority of P&A agencies. According to the Bazelon Center, “the bill would prohibit the PAIMI program from providing advocacy and legal representation to help people with mental illness with a host of important issues, including housing, employment, education, community living, Medicaid benefits. Advocacy concerning anything other than abuse and neglect would be barred.” 1

Some provisions of the Murphy Bill could result in positive change. For example, it would provide funding for mental health awareness training for first responders. It also calls for increasing funding for brain research. But, while this bill may be well intended and include some provisions that may result in some improvements, many advocates feel that this bill fails to actually reform the mental health system and instead makes treatment more difficult to access for many, infringes upon the civil rights of people with psychiatric disabilities and removes key protections of a vulnerable population.

The full bill can be found online at http://murphy.house.gov/helpingfamiliesinmentalhealthcrisisact

If you would like to express an opinion regarding the Murphy Bill, contact your district’s U.S. House Representative (www.house.gov/representatives/) and the U.S. Senators for Massachusetts: Edward Markey (www.markey.senate.gov/contact) and Elizabeth Warren (www.warren.senate.gov)

--by Kate Thurman

Propaganda for Taxpayer Funded Psychiatry

This essay is propaganda promoting more taxpayer funded psychiatric treatment. It is misguided to rely on Treatment Advocacy Center, a lobbyist for the psychiatric industry run by E. Fuller Torrey who promotes treatment not rights of persons with disabilities. Suggesting police should treat violent criminals differently based on a psychiatric diagnosis is irrational. There is no evidence that the diagnosis causes violence and crime. 

When confronted by a violent person who threatens the safety of an officer, or another person, are the police supposed to stop, take cover and wait for a psychiatrist to talk to the suspect while the officer watches and protects the psychiatrist? Are police supposed to force drugs on the suspect? This essay promotes treatment over public safety. It is similar to the arguments of CAIR and extremist liberals who argue that Middle Eastern Muslim immigrants should not be suspected of terrorism, because it is profiling. Rational bias is ignored endangering public safety. Persons with disabilities who commit a crime should be treated the same as persons without disabilities. The initial error is calling police and expecting them to treat children as patients. That is not what police are for. The argument that psychiatric diagnoses are no different than physical illnesses is another element of psychiatric propaganda. 

Psychiatric illnesses have no pathology. They are made up by consensus, not science. Psychiatric illnesses are protected speech and behavior, which psychiatrists do not like or do not understand. Psychiatric industry lobbyists, e.g., NAMI and Treatment Advocacy Center promote false narratives, e.g., that mental illness is a chemical imbalance of the brain. When challenged the American Psychiatric Association was unable to provide evidence of any imbalance or even for a chemical balance of the brain. They promote multi color images of the brain claiming that is mental illness. Soon they will demand compulsory MRIs to force treatment on all people with colorful brain images. 



Psychiatric diagnoses are personal opinion masquerading as science. Psychiatry is a means of social control with no due process protections. This essay promotes using psychiatric diagnoses instead of the constitution and laws for taking freedom and using the legitimate state police power to control human behavior based on psychiatric diagnoses, not law. Curious that after gun violence or police shootings of civilians, liberals blame guns, and demand more gun laws; while conservatives blame psychiatric diagnoses and demand more taxpayer funded treatment. "The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." - H. L. Mencken. "One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them." - Thomas Sowell.



[From article]
Quintonio LeGrier’s father called police after locking himself in a bedroom when his son menaced him with a baseball bat. When the police arrived, LaGrier, a 19-year-old with emotional problems, allegedly charged them with the bat. An officer shot him dead, and accidentally killed a neighbor as well.
The heart-rending case is, tragically, almost routine. Consider two other recent cases. On Dec. 29, Siolosega Velega-Nuufolau of Santa Nella, California, a 50-year-old woman with mental problems, was shot dead when allegedly charging a sheriff’s deputy with a kitchen knife. On Dec. 19, police killed Ruben Jose Herrera, a 26-year-old Los Angeles-area man suffering from bipolar disorder, when he allegedly lunged for an officer’s gun in the hospital.
[. . .]



For all the attention devoted to police-involved shootings and race, mental illness is the more salient issue. A joint report by the Treatment Advocacy Center and National Sheriffs’ Association in 2013 examined cases between 1980 and 2008, and estimated that roughly half involved people with mental illness. A Washington Post analysis of 1,000 fatal police shootings in 2015 puts it at about a quarter.
These shootings are another tragic symptom of our contemptible outsourcing of the severely mental ill to law enforcement. The police are our de facto front-line mental-health workers — “armed social workers” in the pungent phrase of one observer — and jails are our de facto psychiatric hospital system.
[. . .]



It’s a poignant lament, but why do the families of the severely mentally ill need to rely on the police for medical assistance? When someone has a heart attack or gets cancer, we don’t call the police.
[. . .]
A more rational and humane policy would give families robust treatment options before it gets to the point of calling the cops. This would mean more psychiatric hospital beds and more options for mandated care. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) has a bill to push the mental-health system in this direction.
The alternative is to continue to default to police to cope with out-of-control people, often brandishing weapons, and hope for the best — and brace for the worst.

http://nypost.com/2016/01/04/dumping-americas-mental-health-woes-on-the-cops/

Dumping America’s mental-health woes on the cops
By Rich Lowry
New York Post
January 4, 2016 | 1:46pm

* * *

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429164/police-shootings-mental-illness-problem?target=author&tid=900170

Outsourcing the Mentally Ill to Police
by RICH LOWRY
January 1, 2016 12:00 AM
National Review

Sen. Jeff Sessions: How Trillion Dollar Budget Was Passed, In Secret

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

[From article]
Senator Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Republican of Alabama, in a blistering interview Thursday night, shed some light on the details.
According to Sessions, lawmakers found out what was in the bill by talking to lobbyists, who had a better idea than they did as to what was being included in the bill. “No member of even the House and Senate knew what was going on,” he told Portland, Oregon talk show host Lars Larson. “Special interests did because we heard from lobbyists what some things were being considered.”
Sessions went on to note that basically four members of congress put the deal together without consulting their colleagues. “It’s not right for ultimately four members, in secret — for reasons we have no understanding of — to make critical decisions on things,” he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/18/who-wrote-the-omnibus-four-lawmakers-many-lobbyists/

Who Wrote the Omnibus? Four Lawmakers, Many Lobbyists
by PETER SCHWEIZER

18 Dec 2015

https://youtu.be/PBqrWL3h9-g

US Education Bureaucracy Intentionally Dumbs Down Students

[From article]
Perhaps you are an eternal optimist, hoping the Education Establishment will reform itself. I have bad news: the top people in education like what they're doing just fine.
[. . .]
G. Stanley Hall [, John] Dewey's mentor said: "Reading should no longer be a fetish. Little attention should be paid to reading."
[. . .]
Professor Hall would be proud of our dumbed down K-12 schools. So please don't expect the Education Establishment to fix things. It's up to you.
[. . .]
The Education Establishment has a largely hidden ideological agenda intended to transform every aspect of the school. Their first concern is not academics or learning, no matter what they say. The real emphasis is on creating cooperative children. In this way, children become accustomed to being on the same level, as socialism requires. Additionally, cooperative children are docile, controllable children. Let's be realistic: our ideologues will not be able to create their brave new world if students learn to think for themselves. For concerned citizens, the first order of business is resisting this political agenda whenever possible.
[. . .]
the Education Establishment doesn't leave much to chance. They have created an interlocking array of bureaucracies, unions, foundations, think-tanks, political parties, publishers, media, and agents of influence. So you can expect a continuous bombardment of wrong-headed answers. Everybody needs to dig in his heels. Stay focused on some simple points: if these people were sincerely trying to improve education, would we have 40 million functional illiterates? Would our schools be mired in widely acknowledged mediocrity? Would more than one third of the students entering college need remedial education?
[. . .]
A hundred years ago, Frank Norris wrote a famous book called The Octopus. It was about the interlocking, all-powerful railroad company. Today's Octopus is the Education Establishment. There seem to be more than 100 separate entities that exist to make public schools conform to liberal/progressive templates.
[. . .]
multicultural means that your kids are supposed to learn as much about foreign cultures as about their own country. American third-graders know the names of rivers in China but don't know the word Mississippi. That's just quackery, and sneaky as well. There is nothing accidental about it.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/only_you_can_prevent_bad_public_schools.html

December 16, 2015
Only You Can Prevent Bad Public Schools
By Bruce Deitrick Price

Gary Hart Laments Corruption in and Around Government

Gary Hart wrote 21 books after running for president. He is an unlikely candidate for being targeted by the FBI,  police, crime families and Communists. He is and was a prominent politician who says he got religion. Ahem! My question is about the role of homosexuals in the increasing corruption of the nation and the various state, local and federal governments. In a history class in college the instructor mentioned that when homosexuals come to power, the society does not last long. Homosexuals in power indicate the end of a civilization. That does not mean they are evil, just that they are like the canary in the mine. In this once great democracy the President and the Attorney General for seven years demonized white people stirring up racial animosity. They did it with smiles. It is how they fooled white people, with their smiles. Oh, and yes, with their degrees too.

So now homosexuals are taking power, in the local and state governments, the courts and the executive division. For the past 45 years the FBI broadcast extreme character assassination about me. One element was "He's a homosexual." Never was and never will be. But everyone I know, knew and met thinks I am. In 1990 the California Syndicate hired police employees in Cambridge and Somerville, MA for a police frame  up. 25 years later that malicious prosecution remains on police files for anyone to see. Every local member and associate of the crime families, every local policeman and politician, Communist who saw that entry tried for days, weeks, months to provoke violence in order to make the frame up be true. They did it over and over, again  and again for the past 25 years. 

In June 2015 homosexuals from San Francisco  arrived in Cambridge and now they are trying to provoke violence. It is a never ending parade of psychopaths who target me. What if the arrest was proper? What is the explanation for all of these depraved criminals to target me for the report on police files? The matter was closed by the courts in 1991. Why do they try to repeat it, whether it is true or not? Then there is the $2 billion funded human services industrial complex (MA State Rep. Marie Parente's term) in Massachusetts, whose mission is to protect vulnerable persons. They were informed about this abuse hundreds of times since before the initial arrest. But they continue to stand by and to allow it to continue. The reaction of the FBI to my revelation that, e.g., I am not a homosexual, is to target me for more criminal abuse. It is how they cope with being exposed as liars. They accompany their abuse with threats, most recently on Sunday, June  28, 2015 "They [homosexuals] will  kill you." It is only the latest in a 45 year campaign of threats made to me by police and criminals. It is how they relate to others. They only know brute force and to scare people to try to get control of them. It is how most people react, they get scared. See how docile most people are when they react to the extensive corruption which Hart refers to in this article?  

[From article]
Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt.
From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth. Corruption did not have to stoop to money under the table, vote buying, or even renting out the Lincoln bedroom. In the governing of a republic, corruption was self-interest placed above the interest of all—the public interest.
By that standard, can anyone seriously doubt that our republic, our government, is corrupt?
[. . .]
What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class.
[Harvard University has three full time lobbyists in Washington DC]

[. . .]
This development in recent years has been so insidious that it now goes without notice. The key word is not quid-pro-quo bribery, the key word is access. In exchange for a few moments of the senator’s time and many more moments of her committee staff’s time, fund-raising events with the promise of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars are delivered.
Corruption in a federated republic such as ours operates vertically as well as horizontally. Seeing how business is conducted in Washington, it did not take long for governors of both parties across the country to subscribe to the special-interest state.
[. . .]
Frustrated, irate discussions of this legalized corruption are met in the Washington media with a shrug.
[. . .]
the ultimate victims of the corruption of the democratic process are not defeated candidates and parties but America’s citizens.
[. . .]
You have a billion, or even several hundred million, then purchase a candidate from the endless reserve bench of minor politicians and make him or her a star, a mouthpiece for any cause or purpose however questionable, and that candidate will mouth your script in endless political debates and through as many television spots as you are willing to pay for. All legal now.
[Putting words in government officials' mouths was demonstrated in detail in the film Wag The Dog.]
[. . .]
sponsored candidates will not be openly promoted by Exxon-Mobil or the Stardust Resort and Casino but by phony “committees for good government” smokescreens.
[. . .]
the largest by far is WPP (originally called Wire and Plastic Products; is there a metaphor here?), which has its headquarters in London and more than 150,000 employees in 2,500 offices spread around 107 countries. It, together with one or two conglomerating competitors, represents a fourth branch of government, vacuuming up former senators and House members and their spouses and families, key committee staff, former senior administration officials of both parties and several administrations, and ambassadors, diplomats, and retired senior military officers.
WPP has swallowed giant public relations, advertising, and lobbying outfits such as Hill & Knowlton and BursonMarsteller, along with dozens of smaller members of the highly lucrative special interest and influence-manipulation world. Close behind WPP is the Orwellian-named Omnicom Group and another converger vaguely called the Interpublic Group of Companies. According to Mr. Edsall, WPP had billings last year of $72.3 billion, larger than the budgets of quite a number of countries.
[. . .]
Why pay for a senator or congresswoman here or there when you can buy an entire committee? Think of the banks that can be bailed out, the range of elaborate weapons systems that can be sold to the government, the protection from congressional scrutiny that can be paid for, the economic policies that can be manipulated.
The lobbying business is no longer about votes up or down on particular measures that may emerge in Congress or policies made in the White House. It is about setting agendas, deciding what should and should not be brought up for hearings and legislation. We have gone way beyond mere vote buying now. The converging Influence World represents nothing less than an unofficial but enormously powerful fourth branch of government.
[. . .]
America’s founders knew one thing: The republics of history all died when narrow interests overwhelmed the common good and the interests of the commonwealth.
[. . .]
Welcome to the Age of Vanity politics and campaigns-for-hire featuring candidates who repeat their sponsored messages like ice-cream-truck vendors passing through the neighborhood.
[. . .]
[Thomas Jefferson] was way ahead of his time. The limits of his imagination would not have encompassed the early twenty-first-century financial world where vast sums of money are manipulated like the world’s greatest three-card-monte game and nothing tangible is being produced—except fees and more money. Even the titans ruling over this game confessed, after the 2008 financial collapse, that they did not know what collateralized debt obligations, bundled derivatives, and other tricky instruments devised by clever twenty-eight-year-olds were about. All they knew was how to respond to their industry lobbyists’ requests for very large contributions to compliant members of congressional finance committees and to do so quickly and often. And they did get their money’s worth.
[. . .]
For all practical political purposes, the government of the United States is for sale to the highest bidder.
A harsh judgment? Indeed. But it is impossible to claim to love one’s country and not be outraged at how corrupt it has become.
[. . .]
When the founders discussed virtue, they were harking back to ancient Athens and the ideal of the republic. And, as scholars of ancient Greek and Roman political texts, they knew in their minds and in their hearts that a republic with leaders who lacked virtue would not long survive.
[. . .]
When the founders discussed virtue, they were harking back to ancient Athens and the ideal of the republic. And, as scholars of ancient Greek and Roman political texts, they knew in their minds and in their hearts that a republic with leaders who lacked virtue would not long survive.
[The current White House disagrees, thinking laws are made to be broken and helping friends and punishing enemies is justice. This White House greases the corruption skids.]
[. . .]
There is a Gresham’s law related to the republican ideal. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul.
[. . .]
The treasurers of most campaigns have only to funnel the checks from lobbyist-bundlers (those who collect bundles of checks) into the accounts of the campaign management companies. It is a great hydra-headed monster, one that is rapidly devouring American democracy.
The significant issue is the effect of this relatively recent conversion of a democratic process to a major industry that devours money.

http://time.com/3937860/gary-hart-america-corruption/

Gary Hart: America’s Founding Principles Are in Danger of Corruption
Gary Hart

June 26, 2015

Major DC Lobbying Firm Rejects Israel as Client, Accepts Muslim Brotherhood

Rachid al-Ghannouchi, veteran leader of the Islamist Ennhada party, which has hired Burson-Marsteller 

Photo by FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images

[From article]
Despite this appetite for controversy—and the juicy retainers that companies in trouble will pay—apparently even Burson-Marsteller has its limits. They refused to work with the democratic nation of Israel to help the tiny Jewish state improve its image. In turning down a potential $3.5 million engagement, Sigurd Grytten, Burson-Marsteller’s Managing Director said, “We will not deliver tender to such a project… we are running a commercial venture. If we accept this project, this will create a great amount of negative reactions … Israel is a particularly controversial project.” Representing Israel, apparently is worse than offending American Indians, anonymous smears, and shady defense contractors involved in extra-curricular killing.
Newly released documents reveal that Burson-Marsteller’s squeamishness about controversial Middle East clients is rather selective. Just released government filings reveal that the PR agency has been hired to improve the foreign image of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, the Muslim Brotherhood of Tunisia.
[. . .]
One understands the need for Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood to have such a powerful lobbying and communications firm. What is troubling, however is that Burson-Marsteller deemed working to improve Israel’s image as too controversial, while determining that the Muslim Brotherhood’s money is kosher. Interesting times we live in.

http://observer.com/2014/09/the-muslim-brotherhoods-new-pr-agency-rejects-israel/

Burson-Marsteller Rejects Israel as a Client; Accepts Muslim Brotherhood
PR Giant Signs Tunisia Branch of Muslim Brotherhood But Thumbs Nose at Israel's Shekels
By Ronn Torossian

09/26/14 8:25am

Muslim Lobby Intimidates Television Production

[From article]
Before the show officially premiered, groups were already taking offense at its portrayal of the Middle East. After a pilot screening in Washington last week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) fired off a release asking TV reviewers to address the cliches.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/06/25/tyrant-fxs-middle-east-drama-draws-complaints-of-arab-and-muslim-stereotypes/
‘Tyrant,’ FX’s Middle East drama, draws complaints of Arab and Muslim stereotypes
BY EMILY YAHR 

June 25, 2014

Proposal To Eliminate Corporate Income Taxes

[From article]
the 35 percent U.S. corporate income tax.
Britain’s corporate income tax is 20 percent, and Pfizer stands to save over $1 billion a year by moving there.
In what are called “inversions,” dozens of U.S. companies have bought up foreign rivals, and then moved abroad to countries with lower tax rates, cutting revenue to the U.S. Treasury.
But Pfizer is far and away the biggest.
[. . .]
How could we make up for the lost revenue to government?
Simple. The corporate income tax last year produced $273 billion, less than a tenth of federal revenue. Imports, which kill U.S. jobs and subtract from GDP, totaled $2.7 trillion last year.
Put a 10 percent tariff on imports, and the abolition of the U.S. corporate income tax becomes a revenue-neutral proposal.
[. . .]
Two decades ago, Ross Perot and this writer joined Ralph and the head of the AFL-CIO to stop NAFTA, a trade deal backed by America’s corporate elite and its army of mercenaries on Capitol Hill.
Congress voted with corporate America — against the country.
Result: 20 years of the largest trade deficits in U.S. history. Transnational corporations have prospered beyond the dreams of avarice, as Middle America has seen its wages frozen for a generation.
[. . .]
For America never voted for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, mass immigration, amnesty, or more H-1Bs to come take the jobs of our workers. These votes have been forced upon members of Congress by leaders carrying out their assignments from corporate America and its PACs, which reward the compliant with campaign checks.
Both parties now feed at the same K Street and Wall Street troughs. Both have oligarchs contributing tens of millions to parties and politicians who do their bidding.

http://buchanan.org/blog/abolish-corporate-income-tax-6399

Abolish the Corporate Income Tax!
Tuesday - May 13, 2014 at 1:17 am
Pat Buchanan

Drug Corporations Join Police Creating Rules To Take Freedom

This unidentified press release, likely a product of police PR flacks and a lobbyist for drug corporations announces new rules for taking the freedom of vulnerable persons. (no byline, "Cambridge Police begin new training for mental health responses," May 20, 2014, CAMBRIDGE Chronicle) NAMI promotes a deceptive image as being a civil rights advocate for mental patients. Formed as a parents organization it morphed into a lobbyist funded by drug corporations ($11 million or more each year from drug companies) to promote drug treatment. Here is an example of how thoroughly drug corporate interests control treatment and incarceration of troubled individuals. Notice there is no mention of any disability advocates to protect the rights of vulnerable citizens. None of the many taxpayer funded agencies with well paid attorneys contributed to the creation of this protocol for taking the freedom of citizens. There are no assurances of the Right to Due Process as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. It is one more example of how unelected corporate lobbyists make policy, and run government agencies, now police agencies too, who can take freedom and life with no accountability. It is one more dangerous step in the elimination of freedom in this country. The Nazi doctors and Stalin's psychiatrists extensively used psychiatry to silence dissent and criticism, and to incarcerate political activists. Due to dumbed down journalists and the general population the image psychiatrists in America have, is that their genes have been cleansed of mendacity, greed and sadism. They show contempt for laws which regulate their behavior, and abuse humans as control freaks with limitless power, while they speak of love for their vulnerable clients. The state legislature writes laws determining when and how police can take the freedom of civilians. This is a dangerous effort in the name of good.  It needs scrutiny by disability rights attorneys. 

[From article]
Funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, police departments in Cambridge and Somerville, working with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, developed the CIT-TTAC regional program to provide 40 hours of CIT training for police officers, while fostering partnerships between law enforcement and community human services providers, to improve law enforcement response to people with mental illness.
[. . .]
"We laud the Department of Mental Health and our partners — the Cambridge and Somerville Police departments — for their leadership and for serving as a model for communities across the commonwealth," said June Binney, director of the NAMI Mass Criminal Justice Program.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20140520/NEWS/140529723

Cambridge Police begin new training for mental health responses
Posted May. 20, 2014 @ 12:13 pm
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Anti Lawful Gun Ownership Lobby Tired

[From article]
Antigun extremists are exhausted and demoralized. Newtown filled them with rage, which was understandable, but the direction in which they turned it--against lawful gun owners and defenders of the Second Amendment--was not. The effort to incite a moral panic was largely a failure, and nobody seems to have the energy to try it again.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323308504579083172531448290.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

September 18, 2013
Tired Guns This time the "debate" is desultory and meta.
JAMES TARANTO

Obama Care Lobbyists Have Interest Keeping Law In Force

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/318577-architects-of-obamacare-reap-windfall-as-washington-lobbyists

ObamaCare's architects reap windfall as Washington lobbyists
By Megan R. Wilson
08/25/13 12:06 PM ET

MA State Court Judge Issues Misguided Ruling

MA Secretary of State William Galvin

[From article]
Galvin argued that the lobbying law requires lobbyists to report their "direct business associations" with public officials.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders rejected his interpretation. "To put it bluntly, this argument makes absolutely no sense," she wrote. Galvin's case was based on a "mangled use of the English language," she said.

What part of "direct business associations" does this judge not understand? It is curious at best that the Harvard Law School educated judge supports less openness when more scrutiny is needed in the corrupt halls of Massachusetts government. One more example of the courts having gone over the side to the criminals who exploit taxpayers.

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2013/08/mass_secretary_of_state_faulted_by_judge

Mass. Secretary of State faulted by judge
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Boston Herald
By: Associated Press

Casino Jack, Film

Casino Jack 2010

This film shows the details of how lobbyists work. How they get elected officials to make speeches on TV. It explains why they say so  many inane things with no connection to reality. They are paid to do so.

Harvard Spends Half a Million On DC Lobbyists

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/2/university-lobby-totals-congress/

Harvard Reports Spending on Lobbying
By Hana N. Rouse and Justin C. Worland
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Published: Thursday, February 02, 2012

Governors and Bubbles

[From article]
"Governors move about in a bubble. From home to car to statehouse to plane, from ribbon-cutting to banquet to car to home, they are cushioned in a space built by bustling aides and scary-looking troopers in buzz cuts and plain clothes. In the bubble the governor is king, pasha of his own status-sphere, a singular figure of unchallengeable importance. There’s no one else quite like him in Helena or Jefferson City or Columbus.

And then the bubble transports him to somewhere like the Republican Governors Association conference, held last month at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The bubble encounters other bubbles. Awkwardness and disorientation ensue. At the Hilton’s VIP entrance the black SUVs nosed one another to get closer to the red carpet so the pashas could be disgorged. Troopers eyed other troopers and whispered darkly into cuff links. Advance men fidgeted, as they always do, indifferent to all pashas but their own, trying to pick one governor’s luggage from a great dogpile of gubernatorial luggage. At the elevator banks and escalators, in the lobbies and meeting rooms, it was the same: a collision of status-spheres, a paralyzing standoff."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/boy-yazoo-city_523551.html?page=1

The Boy from Yazoo City
Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s favorite son.
Weekly Standard
Dec 27, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 15
By ANDREW FERGUSON

Scanner Maker Lobbied US Heavily

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-11-22-scanner-lobby_N.htm

Body scanner makers doubled lobbying cash over 5 years
By Fredreka Schouten,
USA TODAY
November 22, 2010

* * *

http://dailypaul.com/node/149723

Naked Body Scanner Manufacturer's CEO Obama's Guest on Trip to India
Submitted by yogmama
Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:07
in Daily Paul Liberty Forum

New Book: Saudi Lobby

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-24/the-arab-lobby-in-america-alan-dershowitz/?cid=hp:mainpromo7

How the Arab Lobby Rules America

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Daily Beast

August 24, 2010
Info