Government corruption is because of power. Not all politicians begin as corrupt individuals. The temptations are so grand that many become corrupt. The people empower politicians through elections, and the politicians, once elected, appoint bureaucrats. These unelected officials inherit as much and sometimes more power than the elected official.

Power is intoxicating. It changes many moral men and women to approve of immoral acts. Allowing and encouraging agencies to force innocent, hard-working citizens to pay bribes or send young men and women to places around the world to kill or be killed can be intoxicating.

They often use catchy slogans for the common good to justify their vote or support of these crimes. It is a dishonest claim. I cannot extort money from my neighbors to pursue a cause I decide is worthy. I cannot hire an assassin to kill someone I have quarrels with. These actions would put me behind bars.

Abuse of this corrupting power tempts politicians and bureaucrats because they can benefit directly from political favors. Bribes, campaign contributions, expensive vacations, post-retirement jobs, sinecures for family members, and the benefits are overwhelming. They use their support for the “public good” as the reason they deserve to stay in power. How convoluted is that? Washington politicians and bureaucrats use our mandatory bribe money (taxes), and the Federal Reserve created money to make favors to the select few so they can personally benefit.

Wealth transfer is the product of this relationship. Subsidies are a direct distribution. Tariffs are an indirect distribution. Both exemplify how money gets transferred from taxpayers, consumers, and disfavored businesses and delivered to a favored person, corporation, or industry. Central Banking (Federal Reserve) allows for money creation and government borrowing. This results in a dollar depreciation inflation that promotes wealth transfer from the underprivileged to the overprivileged.

Washington’s hierarchy of needs is corrupt. Favored persons, businesses, industries, and countries have surpassed the basic needs of our citizens. Look at how Washington has acted towards the victims of the Maui catastrophe. A one-time $700 check. Really, $700 to rebuild your life from scratch.

This callous response is only the tip of this corruption iceberg. Biden held the funds hostage to the approval of more funding for Ukraine. Ukraine is the country that has received over $100 billion from Congress. Congress’s common good money to fight a war they could never have won. For what? Do not be fooled. It is another example of how wealth shifts from the U.S. working class to oligarchs, politicians and bureaucrats, and weapon makers.

This corruption has destroyed the three-branch government system of checks and balances the founders wrote into the Constitution. How can we find a way to get the Washington power structure back in compliance with the Constitution? Is there a 2024 Presidential candidate independent, strong, and bold enough to wake the indoctrinated and rally the true Constitutional patriots?

Admit that Ukraine is yet another U.S.-led interventionist crusade that failed. Intervention because this war should have never occurred. Two acknowledgments: 1) an announcement that Ukraine would not be allowed into NATO; 2) Washington would work toward Minsk Agreement compliance by Ukraine could have prevented the Russian-Ukrainian War. The tragedy is that these monsters willfully destroy human life.

The fiascos in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan should have been proof enough that the Washington foreign policy is flawed. They always promote wars billed as democracy against authoritarianism. They use hooks like “rules-based” international order against the law of the jungle. The marketing of humanitarianism is just a cover for the monetary profits of the weapons makers and a total world hegemony that Washington envisions.

In Washington, there are whispers of dissatisfaction with Kyiv’s recent military offensive. It appears that Washington realizes that Ukraine’s usefulness to weaken Russia is drawing to a close. Ukraine’s “fifteen minutes of fame” has passed. The only unknown is how hard they will let Ukraine fall. The only softening of Ukraine’s fall will occur if it provides cover for Washington’s guilt.

A telling sign of a good friend is having each other’s back. Washington appears to be in a face-saving mode that will discredit its bloodied pawn. They are expressing concern with Ukraine’s military strategy and “willingness to fight” with a “growing unwillingness of Ukrainian forces to follow the advice of NATO advisers” and their excessively “casualty averse.” This verbiage prepares the American public for the possible abandonment of a U.S. client.

America’s foreign policy hawks may be smart enough to abandon a used pawn. But will the indoctrinated public be able to identify Washington’s next target? The weakening of Russia and the Putin regime failed. Who is next? China

Democratic Party prophet President Obama once promised: “to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.” Let us examine his disciple’s record. I will keep it political. I won’t even mention the lack of transparency (cover-up) associated with sonny boy, Hunter. 

In April, the Biden White House was blindsided by leaked US intelligence documents on the Ukraine proxy war they discouraged the public from reading them. “This is information that has no business in the public domain,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declared. “It is not intended for public consumption.” Transparency? Failure

55% of the public polled by CNN say the US Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine. Less than a week after this poll, the Biden administration asked Congress for an additional $24 billion for the Ukraine proxy war. This request, if approved, will bring the total aid to Ukraine to about $137 billion. How arrogant is it to demand more money from a public that does not support this war? So much for public participation and collaboration. Failure

The Biden administration instigated the Ukraine-Russia War and has never pressured Ukraine to pursue peace. That is because this is a war to weaken Russia. It is a war not to defend Ukraine. The Biden administration thumbs its nose at the US public as they watch the pathetic Ukrainian soldiers and innocent civilians die “to ensure a strategic failure for Putin so that Russia can pay a longer-term price in terms of the elements of its national power.” Jake Sullivan, United States National Security Advisor 

War is the heroine of our Ruling Class. It satisfies their addiction with every dose of armament or funds. At last month’s NATO summit, the New York Times reported the reality of their addiction. “American and European officials acknowledged” that their “commitments” to Ukraine “make it all the more difficult to begin any real cease-fire or armistice negotiations.” 

Without eliminating the drug, our rulers will not find an off-ramp from this war. They will not detox on their own accord. The only solution is cold turkey. Stop the funding and pursue peace. However, Congress is full of enablers not willing or able to intervene. Only a well-informed citizenry possesses the power to be a proper interventionist.

President Donald Trump increased military spending by 20%. Biden has now achieved a similar 20% increase in three years. In 2021, when President Joe Biden took office, the defense spending bill in front of Congress was $740 billion. For FY2024, the defense budget bill is $886 billion. That increase is incredible considering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Afghanistan war. After all, the troop withdrawal was supposed to be a $50 billion savings to the taxpayers.

In his July 4th tweet, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin praised, “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” After 9/11, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” Then in 2010, President Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.”

Is that what our exceptional nation status has become? This country can no longer boast of having the world’s best educational system, the best healthcare system, the most advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics. So our leaders are left with boasting about the strength of our military force.

Most political scientists believe that the most dangerous challenge to freedom is war. The end of the first Cold War should have been a cleansing and reduction in size, power, and restraint. Instead, the military complex was allowed to search for dragons to slay. The road was bloody, but the marketing was top-notch. They were smart enough to sell the war as our exceptional nation spreading democracy in countries that promoted the rule of law-based governments. It sounds humanitarian, but examining reality proves suspect.

The U.S. fought several wars after the Soviet Union’s implosion and before 9/11 were not for countries appearing on the Who’s Who of Democracies. The list of wars includes; Panama, the Gulf War (Iraq for the sovereignty of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia), Iraq (no-fly enforcements), Somalia, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti (once twice I lost count), and Kosovo. Comparatively small in nature but large enough to feed the military beast. Then came the 9/11 jackpot, a reason to declare war on a tactic, terrorism. In other words, the declaration removed all boundaries to include the whole world.

No other country comes close to our commitment of funds to wars and weapons. All spent in pursuit of global dominance. The Pentagon’s budget for “defense” in 2023 will exceed the military budgets of the next ten countries combined. Bragging about the most expensive military ever is not what I consider admirable or patriotic. The MIC sycophants in Congress will no doubt approve the request. And probably, as they have done before, add to it.

The founding fathers warned about worshiping a standing army. We are inmates in the Congressional Military Industrial Media Complex that promotes and practices warfare in favor of diplomacy.

August 9, 1945, marks the anniversary of the third and final Nuclear Test conducted by the United States Government. Test? The nuclear bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings were to “determine the power of the bomb.”

An official US Government booklet titled, “Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through December 1979.” New Mexico was at the top of the list as the first nuclear test. Second, on the list was Hiroshima. Third was Nagasaki. I must have been sleeping in history class when my teacher taught that lesson. Anyway, I am sure it was in the textbook assigned to read. How could I have missed that? Was I lied to?

Manhattan Project director, Gen. Leslie Groves, confirmed: “To enable us to assess accurately the effects of the bomb, the targets should not have been previously damaged by air raids. It was also desirable that the first target be of such size that the damage would be confined within it so that we could more definitely determine the power of the bomb.”

What type of Evil Empire would test a uranium-fueled atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki to determine its destructive power? How different is this from the Nazi experiments on human life?

The fallout from World War ll destroyed our once proud nation. We converted from a humanistic republic to a military-industrial security state. NATO, the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam, Yugoslavian wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, were about world hegemony and profits.

Contrary to the narrative, they were not about spreading democracy. On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower told us about the Military Industrial Complex cabal. President Kennedy became a casualty when he pushed hard against it.

The list of its victims is enormous: the innocent bystanders that are robbed of their wealth to support evil (taxes, Federal Reserve-induced inflation); those collaterally damaged in war (ie. killed and murdered); those killed wrongfully by the domestically aligned security forces (police, FBI); the despaired that resort to crime or addiction; those in poverty, the list goes on.

Is it too late to regain control? The corrupt Washington duopoly system bought and controlled by the security predators is powerless. They cannot correct it. Those few that attempt to expose this distorted power hierarchy are silenced.

I do not see a David capable, powerful, and popular enough to slay Goliath. I guess I will have to sit back and watch it destroy itself and hope it does not come at the expense of innocent American civilians.

The United States Women’s National Soccer Team has dominated international soccer for four decades, winning the last two World Cup Championships. Today this team was left at a rest stop along the road to the World Cup Championship. Hungrier and more pursuant sides choose to bypass the highway oasis. Is it comfort, age, leadership, or training? But they are now watching the tournament through the dust of more cohesive, not more talented teams.

However, the Americans are still unbeatable at the bank, claiming “11 of the 15 spots on the list of the highest-paid players at this summer’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand. The two highest paid are USWNT veterans Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, both cleared $7 million over the last 12 months.” Forbes 

Thanks to the US Women’s National Soccer Team’s massive success over the past 40 years, brands have been more willing to support the current professional women’s soccer players. However, they are cashing checks that others earned. (Akers, Heinrichs, Hamm, Lilly, Chastain, Wambach, Lloyd, and many others) I believe this is the base of their under-achieving play. Carli Lloyd pointed out that the “easy” money, off-field distractions, and politics translate into sporadic, unfocused, and disjointed play. 

Why else would it take the fourth World Cup game to finally show glimpses of the passion and play of yesterday’s heroines? It is time to show more respect for the pioneers that blazed your trail.