Lizard's Weblog

I pulled a short clip from the No Agenda Show because it was a nice little 10-minute summary on what has been happening during several administrations in the Middle East. It's all about competition with Russia for the European energy market.

Adam Curry explains the process, the involvement of the Cliton Foundation, the disappearance of Eric Braverman, and the entire process of raiding money from the Middle East, building pipelines, making arms deals, and laundering the money.

Listen if you dare.  All of this is fully documented in the show notes for No Agenda show 892.

I've gotten into healthy eating lately, and I came across this excellent post by Donna Holt.  If you don't know Donna, she was diagnosed with a terminal respiratory illness years ago, and was on death's door before she decided to try some fairly radical dietary changes.  It worked miraculously for her, and her quality of life skyrocketed.  Here is her food regime in a nut shell.  — The Lizard

Nine Foods

What's up with Manoli Loupassi? My impression of the Virginia 4-term Delegate to the General Assembly was that maybe, possibly he was a thoughtful and ethical man. But his endorsement of the Congressional Turncoat Eric Cantor sent me over the fence.

This move should be unconscionable, for any conservative. In his emailed endorsement of Eric Cantor, he even went so far as to pull the "Bliley's seat" card.  Congressman Tom Bliley, started his career as a Southern Democrat, but became a Republican in the late 1970's to position himself as the heir apparent to Virginia's David Satterfield, a Southern Democrat that held the seat after his father, Dave E. Satterfield, retired.  So Loupassi's claim that Eric Cantor owns this seat is to claim Eric is heir apparent to a "legacy" of Southern conservative Democrats.

The switch from Southern Democrat to Republican is a thin facade, the seat is a symbol of Aristocracy, and Manoli Loupassi has evoked that Aristocratic Legacy with Eric Cantor as the Crowned Prince.  Sorry, Mr. Loupassi, but this is not aristocracy, and we have fought many wars to ensure that it does not become one. It is exceeding disingenuous for you to assume now, of all times, that we should head in that direction.

I urge all of my readers to follow the money on this one.  We all know that Eric Cantor is flush with cash (it is, after all, the wealthiest of Washington elites that pay for his support), so surely there is money flowing all over to help get Cantor elected.  He really doesn't have much else going for him.

Oh, and Delegate Loupassi, Eric Cantor is no Tom Bliley (htt://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Bliley,_Jr.)

"Honesty and integrity". Pft. Have you been paying attention at ALL, G Manoli Loupassi ?

On March 2, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) announced their opinion in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, with the majority siding with McCutcheon. It was the right decision based on the law and the first principles of free society that our Constitution is based upon.  I agree with Ilya Shapiro that the most troubling aspect of the opinion is that four of five justices wanted to side with the Federal Election Commission.

But similar to the Citizens United case, there has been a cry of outrage over the decision, claiming that elections will now be decided by the highest bidder. Predictably, Common Cause has claimed that the court "laid out a welcome mat for corruption," the Brennan Center for Justice says that it will "marginalize the average voter", and Charles Rangel terms it no less than "a threat to our democracy," (I'm sure he was referring to our method of democratically electing representatives, since I'm sure Rangel knows our system of government is a Republic, not a Democracy).

These reactions are expected, but what may be surprising is the number of self-identified "conservatives" condemning the decision in similar terms. Jeff Katz, billed as a conservative commentator on Richmond's WRVA radio, told his audience yesterday that it means "our elections will now go to the highest bidder."  John McCain said he was "disappointed" in the decision, and that "I predict that as a result of recent court decisions, there will be scandals involving corrupt public officials and unlimited, anonymous campaign contributions that will force the system to be reformed once again."

I won't go into the specifics of the decision or the various nuances, suffice it to say the that Court rightly found that the aggregate limits did nothing to prevent corruption. But a basic understanding of our current political climate should make it obvious that anyone with even the slightest interest in having a limited Federal government should be applauding this decision. That's because any limits on private funding of political influence only serve to expand the State.

First, it's important to understand that grassroots (that includes the "average voter" that Rangel falsely claims is being hurt) can always trump money. That's because while it's true that politicians need money to run their campaigns, if they cannot get voters to support them, their political life is dead. So even the threat (from enough constituents) that the next election will fail is enough to influence a politician's decisions, and it overrides any considerations from large donors. After all, there are no quid-pro-quo promises to these donors, that's still illegal, and always will be.

Second, the real power of money in politics is the ability to influence the voters. Slick issue campaigns from advocacy groups really do have an impact. And that goes back to the first point – when these campaigns can get enough "average voters" to contact their representative with their opinion, politicians listen. These are the votes they need to keep their job.

Third, it's the private money that is needed to combat the State funding used to influence public opinion. The state can use its money (that is, the money taken from taxpayers by force, as opposed to voluntary contributions to campaigns and committees) in various ways. Bureaucracies can influence the media both implicitly and explicitly. They can insure that when a bureaucrat releases a report, the mainstream media will pick it up and report it as fact. They can decide who gets access to Washington "newsmakers", which media outlets are allowed access to public airwaves, and which media outlets get preferred tax status or even direct funding.

But these are the obvious ways that taxpayer dollars are used to influence the public, along with blatant ones like "public service" campaigns. And the public is generally mistrustful of government these days anyway, and are becoming increasingly mistrustful of the mainstream media as well. That is a well-known phenomenon, and government has found a way around it. It was easy to do, once it's known who it is the public actually trusts. And that trusted information comes from the NGOs (Non-governmental organizations). In fact, these organizations are trusted more than governments in nearly every part of the world. I guess people assume that when an organization is a "non-profit", or that they are "above" politics because they only care about certain specific social issues, that they must be trustworthy.

So this is the technique the Federal government often uses to get its message out to the public. It's why so many NGOs now have addresses on K Street (the go-to location for Washington lobbyists).  And the funding comes from government grants. So if you are a politician, or a government bureaucrat, and you want the public to hear (and trust) your message, you set up a new NGO (or select an existing friendly one), design a grant tailor-made for that NGO, and you have a trusted organization shaping public opinion.

This is why big-state advocates like Bernie Sanders, John McCain, and, yes, even Jeff Katz are outraged that people can now use their own money to fund any number of like-minded politicians and political committees – because it undermines their efforts to control public opinion, determine the choice of politicians available for the public to choose from, and inevitably expand the power and reach of the Federal government.

On Wednesday night I witnessed the GOP Suicide Pact in action. Melissa Heath (I hope I got her name right) stood in front of the Richmond GOP mass meeting and told the attendees the story of how she wasn't able to vote in conventions, and wanted primaries, and her solution to that was to deny a whole group of duly filed delegates the ability to vote. Except a few people she had hand-picked.  She presented her "slate", and then the chairman called for a vote on the motion.

I've never seen such a wanton display of hypocrisy. A bunch of people, most of whom had never been around the Richmond Republican events before, voted in her favor, directed by a guy with a gigantic white professionally printed sign with "Vote Yes" on one side and "Vote No" on the other.  It appeared that this "vote director" was ineligible to vote a the meeting himself.

They even excluded dedicated members of the Richmond GOP committee, including the hardest working member of the party, a campaigner so effective you could track where he was responsible for the ground campaigns by the anomolously higher Republican voter turnout for the precincts.

The group of voters could not be shamed into changing even a single vote, or allowing even a single delegate not on the Melissa slate to have a voice, they effectively silenced every one of them, directed by white sign guy.  It was a sad sight to watch, sort of akin to watching a grey old man struggle for every breath on his death bed while a group of ungrateful heirs stand around wishing him to get on with it already.

This is how a party dies.