Call it what it is...Moneylaundering

Moneylaundering: The process of concealing from the public or law enforcement officials the source, transfer, and final use of funds.

Members of the House and the Senate, with the massive "stimulus" bill and the omnibus spending bill, have fully committed themselves to a variety of moneylaundering schemes.

These are not new of course, and such shenanigans have gone on for the last couple of centuries, but they are now, apparently, considered acceptable and have reached massive figures only dreamed of by the crooks and cronies of the past.

The schemes fall into two major categories: 1) the traditional payoffs and bribes paid to companies owned in full or part by those lawmakers or by their family members and 2) what is being referred to on capitol hill in terms like "revolving campaign financing".

The traditional schemes are mostly successful when kept secret; such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pushing through earmark funding in the millions for her husband's business firms (whoops...there goes the secret). Such earmarks number literally in the thousands when the new spending bills are broken down and analyzed.

The second type of scheme, "revolving campaign financing" is far more heinous, if that's even possible, as it directly affects the balance of power between us, the owners of this nation, and the people we have hired to sit on the board (congress). It is, literally, a scheme to take away our ability to monitor...hire...and fire our employees (congress) and the schemers are using our money to pull it off.

It is clever...very deceptive...and possibly the most immoral practice ever put into play by those who are supposed to be representing our interests. This is how it works:

Lawmakers choose their favorite lobbyists, they obtain verification either through past support, or by a wink and a nod, that those lobbyists are ready to fund their re-election campaigns. Then the lawmaker funnels money to the lobbyist as an earmark or part of a "stimulus" package.

Anyone who has ever run for office knows that the majority of effort goes into fundraising. If you're challenging an incumbent, the process is more than tough as the incumbent not only has name recognition, but some historic funding already in place.

Funding can make all the difference in a race. There have been recent house and senate seats narrowly won by darkhorse candidates who outspent their competitors as much as ten-to-one. It doesn't always work, but the combination of being an incumbent, and being outrageously well-funded, provides a near 100% probability of keeping a seat.

What do I mean by outrageously well-funded? One lobbying group, the notorious ACORN, was given more than $2 Billion dollars in the "stimulus" bill. This is an immense amount of money...let's say a 20,000% increase in their budget. Pretty sweet, huh?

(To put that into perspective: that's 2,000 million dollars or $2,000,000,000. If Americans' average annual salary is $50,000...that's 40,000 people's annual salaries. And it's only one lobbyist out of hundreds now receiving funding from Congress.)

ACORN's function is to get selected politicians re-elected. The average congressional campaign is nearing $10 Million at this time. That $2 Billion will fully fund 200 congressional campaigns.

Such a deal...for the incumbents who took part in this sham at least. I can certainly understand why they are "stimulated" by the "stimulus" package.

So congress has taken your money, given it to a third party, who will then give it back to the congress members for their use. This is what we call moneylaundering. "Revolving campaign finance" is a great propaganda term...an attempt to cover-up the actual process...but it doesn't quite cut the mustard in the way the truth does.

So let's call it what it is! It is straight-out moneylaundering!

Unfortunately, if you or I were to practice moneylaundering at our local bank, misleading others as to the source of funds and then converting them to our own use, we would be invited to a long stay at a federal hospitality institution usually referred to as "prison."

Our employees in Congress have become so jaded, or have figured out we're too stupid to pay attention, that they are moneylaundering openly. The next step will be to simply place earmarks or "stimulus" money directly into their personal bank accounts. Why not? They'd probably call that "direct deposit"...we'd be wondering why it wasn't called "embezzlement."

But these petty legal terms are becoming somewhat fluid and we'd be dismissed as being "old fashioned" or "so yesterday."

It's just so hard to keep up with the times...

The Professor