Pres. George W. Bush, corruption, and
how to prevent continued corrupt government
Commentary by Norman Black
Folk wisdom says we should judge a man by the company he keeps.
When this wisdom is applied to a U.S. president it means we should
judge the president by the people he appoints to his administration.
Let us look at what has been published about
a few of the more obviously shady characters in Pres. George W.
Bush’s administration.
There is Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman and
longtime friend of George W. Bush, who made Enron into Bush’s
largest campaign contributor. His resulting influence helped to
shape public policy in Enron’s favor.
Next, is the leading culprit, George W.
Bush, who rewarded Enron’s colossally large campaign support when he
refused to intervene when Enron’s profiteering caused a huge energy
crisis in California.
The next picture on the post office wall
should be Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. When he headed Bush’s Energy Task
Force, he enabled Ken Lay and other Enron executives to have
important influence on forming U.S. energy policy.
Other post-office-wall pictures include:
Ralph Reed, currently a candidate for the
Republican nomination for Georgia’s lieutenant governor was a
Republican strategist and head of the Christian Coalition. He was
hired by Enron, in 1997, for $10,000 a month, on the recommendation
of Karl Rove, then Bush’s political advisor. The contract was seen
as a way to keep Reed loyal to Bush, but far enough away from Bush’s
retainers so he would not disrupt the campaign’s slogan of
“compassionate conservatism”.
(Bush’s true compassion, judged by his
actions, is for his base, which, by his own admission, consists of
billionaires. His conservatism consists of ensuring his base
conserves it billions, while working American’s remain loaded with
taxes.)
John Ashcroft, former U.S. attorney general,
rescued himself from the U.S. Dept. of Justice investigation of
Enron, after he admitted Enron had given nearly $61,000 to his 2000
A.D. campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri. (He lost that
election.)
Karl Rove, Bush’s chief of staff, was Bush’s
chief political advisor and a major Enron shareholder, when he met
with Ken Lay to talk about Enron’s problems with U.S. regulators.
Thomas White, secretary of the army, a
10-year Enron executive, was involved in market manipulations and
price-gouging. He sold $12 million worth of Enron stock, after Bush
appointed him. White resigned in 2002 A.D., after repeated calls
were made by non-profit “watch dog” organizations for him to do so.
Phil Gramm, a U.S. senator from Texas,
shepherded legislation through to enactment that shielded Enron from
government oversight. He later thought it best not to seek
re-election in 2002 A.D.
Wendy Gramm, Sen. Gramm’s wife and former
chairwoman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, got a
measure enacted that exempted Enron from U.S. oversight. She later
became an Enron director and served on the company’s audit
committee.
Marc Racicot, former Montana governor,
served as Enron’s Washington, D.C., lobbyist. He dropped his
clients after he was named Republican National Committee chairman.
Robert Zoellick, former U.S. trade
representative, served on Enron’s advisory council. He provided
important access for Enron officials. In February, 2005, Zoellick
was promoted to be U.S. deputy secretary of state.
Spencer Abraham was appointed U.S. secretary
of energy, by Bush, who then called Ken Lay to talk about Enron’s
financial difficulties and their effect on energy markets. When he
became a senator, Abraham got Enron contributions.
Patrick H. Wood III was appointed, by Bush,
to be chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Wood
was the choice of Ken Lay to replace Curtis Herbert Jr, who was
forced out of that office by Pres. Bush, after Herbert disagreed
with Lay about regulatory policies.
Alberto Gonzalez was a White House counsel
who worked at Vinson & Elkins, the law company, in Houston, Texas,
which represented Enron. He approved Enron’s questionable
accounting schemes. Pres. Bush has since appointed Gonzalez to be
U.S. attorney general.
Don Evans was Pres. Bush’s main campaign
fund raiser. He was later appointed, by Bush, to be U.S. Secretary
of Commerce. It was Evans who gathered in Lay’s campaign
contributions and took Lay’s phone call, in October, 2001.
Basic changes are needed
Congress has not impeached and tried Pres.
Bush despite his apparent malfeasance and misfeasance. It has also
almost routinely approves the people he nominates to serve in his
administrations. This is not surprising, since both the U.S. Senate
and House are controlled by the same party as the president. If we
expect his own party’s members to prevent corruption, we probably
also expect inmates of an asylum to supervise its administration.
Just as important is the fact that each
senator and representative needed contributions from special
interests in order to win his party’s nomination and more
contributions to win the general election. Each incumbent also
looks ahead to the next election and continually solicits
contributions from special interests, so he will be ready to
campaign.
The failures of Pres. Bush and Congress
highlight serious problems with U.S. government. The U.S.
Constitution was created for a republic that would eventually be
only about one-third the geographic size of the present U.S. and
have about 50 million residents of whom about one-third would have
the right to vote. The Constitution’s framework was destroyed when
the Louisiana Territory was annexed and new states made within it.
Since then, even more territory has been added and the population
has grown to about 300 million people.
A new constitution is needed that will give
the people governments that represent them instead of representing
wealthy special interests. The new constitution must provide for
true political parties and multi-party political-representation in
Congress (as in other industrialized nations). The situation in the
U.S. is that anyone may run for the nomination of either party
regardless of his political positions.
The House should be elected by proportional
representation and the election process should enable more than two
political parties to be represented. The new constitution should
also require the creation of a standing committee of senators and
representatives to oversee all actions by the president, so the
country will not be led into more wars because a president wants to
prop up his popularity, distract voters from his inabilities, or
seize another country’s economic assets.
This would also, we hope, prevent the
existence of a Congress that allows a president to spy on Americans
without getting warrants, within 72 hours of spying, from special
judges appointed to hear the reasons for the warrants. The current
president has ignored this requirement, and congressional members
now talk about removing the protection of judicial review and
enacting a law to give presidents sole authority to decide on whom
to spy---without any accountability to anyone! That would enable
presidents to use U.S. secret state police (Geheime Staatspolizei,
a.k.a. Gestapo) to spy on U.S. residents, at his own sole
discretion. That freedom from accountability would invite misuse.
U.S. senators should be appointed by the
legislatures of their states and serve at the legislature’s
pleasure. This would return federalism to Congress, for the states
would be able, through their senators, to prevent unfunded mandates
and other congressional acts they do not want.
In order to ensure the state legislatures
appoint U.S. senators that represent the people of each state, the
state legislatures would be bi-cameral and the government would be
formed by the majority party in the lower house. (Or by a coalition,
if no party had a majority.) The clerk of each house would sign
each bill, when enacted, and when both houses’ clerks had signed the
same exact bill, it would become law. The governor would be elected
by both houses sitting together and would be head of state, but not
head of government.
There should also be single, fixed-duration
terms for U.S. Supreme Court justices, and only one of them should
be appointable in any given year. In addition, justices should not
be eligible to hold any other U.S. judicial post, after their single
terms on the Supreme Court end. The Supreme Court has, since it
inception, been an independent, unelected legislature and
executive. This court has sometimes made new laws by changing
existing statute laws or creating new legal requirements. Its
ability to do so should be ended.
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