Government corruption has become rampant:
- Senior SEC employees [23] spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers [24] watch porn [24] instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants
- NSA spies pass around [25] homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people
- NSA employees have also been caught using [26] their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests [27], such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives [28] … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives [29] back home. And see this [30] (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” … “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)
- An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans [31] of passengers.
- Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General [32] found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy
- The Minerals Management Service [33] – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts”
- Agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency [34] had sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop
- Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Secret Service [35] investigating Bitcoin money laundering extorted and stole over $1 million in Bitcoin
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has conspired with big banks to manipulate commodities prices for decades [36]
- The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud [37] (and see this [38])
- The Treasury department allowed banks to “cook their books” [39]
- Regulators knew of and allowed [40] the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks
- The Secretary of Treasury (Tim Geithner) was complicit in Lehman’s accounting fraud [41], (and see this [42])
- The former chief accountant for the SEC says [43] that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted
- The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this [44] and this [45]. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud [46], and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud [47]. Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen [48]
- Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated [49] that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. The Treasury Secretary also falsely told Congress [50] that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely
- A high-level Federal Reserve official says quantitative easing is “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time” [51]
- The SEC has been shredding Wall Street documents for decades [52] to help the big banks cover up their fraud
- The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest [53]. Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz says the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy [54]. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption [55] in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said
- Arguably, both the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks [56]
- Congress may have covered up illegal tax breaks [57] for the big banks
- Police have been busted [58] framing innocent people
- Warmongerers in the U.S. government knowingly and intentionally lied [59] us [60] into [61] a war of aggression in Iraq. The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest ranking military officer in the United States – said that the Iraq war was “based on a series of lies” [62]. The same is true in Libya and other wars [63]
- The government lied when it said it doesn’t conduct mass surveillance on Americans [64], and then lied again when it said that spying was aimed at protecting America [65] against terrorists
- The government also lied when it said American doesn’t torture [66] (and see this [67]), and then lied once again when it said torture was aimed at protecting America [68] against terrorists
- The government made sure that false claims were made about the amount of oil spilled by BP in the Gulf [69]
- The government has framed whistleblowers with false evidence [70]
- The Pentagon falsely smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda [71]
- When one of the most respected radiologists in America – the former head of the radiology department at Yale University – attempted to blow the whistle on the fact that the FDA had approved a medical device manufactured by General Electric because it put out massive amounts of radiation, the FDA installed spyware to record his private emails and surfing activities (including installing cameras to snap pictures of his screen), and then used the information to smear him [72] and other whistleblowers
- In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of wrongdoing – the Department of Justice told Bank of America [73] to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this [74])
- The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers [75], bloggers [76] and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war
- The FBI smeared top scientists [77] who pointed out the numerous holes in its anthrax case
The biggest companies own [78] the D.C. politicians. Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University [79] has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”. They are in fact pimps … selling out the American people for a price [79].
Government regulators have become so corrupted [53] and “captured” by those they regulate [80] that Americans know that the cop is on the take. Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in our government and our institutions [81].
Indeed, America is no longer a democracy or republic … it’s officially an oligarchy [82].
The allowance of unlimited campaign spending allows the oligarchs [83] to purchase politicians [84] more directly than ever. Moreover, there are two systems of justice in America [85] … one for the big banks and other fatcats [86], and one for everyone else [87].
But the private sector is no better … for example, the big banks have turned into criminal syndicates [88].
Liberals and conservatives tend to blame our country’s problems on different factors … but they are all connected [89].
The real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship [90] between big corporations and big government.