2016, The Summer Of Discontent

In today’s media frenzy world where terror can strike at will anywhere around the globe comes the summer of discontent. In Great Britain voters displayed an overwhelming vote of no confidence of the status-quo by pulling out of the European Union. It can be arguably said that the United States foreign policy decisions and actions from the past 16 years almost single handily tipped the scales in which the people of Great Britain voted to break ties with the European Union. Through a series of foreign policy blunders of those 16 years the US completely destabilized the entire Mid-East and effectively undermined the European Union. And, now we come to the Democratic and Republican Conventions let alone the Summer Olympics. The summer of discontent has arrived.

From a reporters point of view the summer of 2016 has all the earmarks especially for the political Conventions to be as tumultuous as the Chicago Democratic Convention was in 1968. It has been the parties own establishment that continues to do everything possible to negate the will of the people. And, yet with a complicit media have done nothing to alleviate the mounting frustration that so many Americans are feeling that their voting rights have been literally stolen.

With mounting violence occurring here and abroad the scope of terror has only added to the growing frustration of the American people. What is fueling much of this frustration especially on the political front are several questions that have arisen this past year. Questions that has fueled so much discontent. For me and many like minded people we can’t fathom why would the DNC, the media, and so many gullible Americans support a candidate who is currently under Federal Investigation. Then there is this class action law suit filed against the DNC and their chairperson Debbie Wasserman for rigging primaries. Now, comes another Federal investigation by which the Justice Department is citing questionable contributions made to Clinton’s 2008 campaign chairman Terry McAuilffe when he ran for governor in 2013.

This action by the Justice Department follows a long line of questionable contributions, ethic violations, and boarder line criminal actions not only by Mr. McAuliffe but the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary Clinton as well. It should be very discerning that we have two presumptive Presidential candidates who are the least favorable of any candidate in the history of our nation. And, when these two presumptive nominees one of which is under federal investigation being supported by the President, the DNC establishment and much of the main stream media raises a red flag that something is generally amiss about our democratic process.

Are the American people so desensitized to the realm of reality today and just lying down letting the media continue to distort the facts while the establishment continues to keep the status-quo? Or do we voice our discontent and frustration the way the British did by voting for change? Make no mistake the disillusionment of much of the American public stems form the fact that the media continues undaunted convinced that they are the voice of the people in aligning them selves with the establishment to secure that the status-quo remains.

To add insight to all of this starts with Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe.  According to a CNN report the FBI investigation which has been going on for more than a year now calls into question Mr. AcAuliffe service as a board member to the Clinton Foundation appointed by Hillary Clinton herself when it was revealed that an over $120,000 donation was given to the Clinton Foundation by a Chinese businessman. We have to further point out that what the media calls improprieties is really is a blatant attempt to cover over what amounts to unethical and criminal activities by the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe.

Governor McAuliffe is just one of several close associates to the Clintons currently under investigation for corruption. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign co-chair, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is currently under pressure to resign thanks to her favoritism for Ms. Clinton throughout the Democratic primaries. It was Debbie Wasserman Schultz who essentially tipped the scale against Senator Bernie Sanders. This was a blatant and willful violation of the impartiality that her position at the DNC demands. Now, we have another prominent Clinton supporter New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is also under review as part of an ongoing federal investigation into two businessmen with close ties to the mayor. The Podesta Group, implicated in the release of the recent Panama Papers, was founded by Tony Podesta and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. Several other prominent donors to the Clinton Foundation have also been linked to the Panama Papers, and the Clinton Foundation itself has been frequently cited as a source of money laundering and exchanging political favors for large donations.

It should be of no surprise either that Hillary Clinton’s closest associates are involved in a litany of ethics violations as corruption has been the modus operandi of the Clinton’s campaign for the entire duration of the primaries. Hillary Clinton has publicly vocalized support for campaign finance reform, yet owes much of her success in the primaries to the current corrupt system, which enables her to fundraise unethically, bending and possibly breaking current campaign finance laws.

The Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between the Clinton campaign and the DNC was recently revealed by Politico to be laundering money to the Clinton campaign to circumvent campaign finance laws. Mr. Sanders’ campaign has also highlighted additional violations and ethical breaches made by the Hillary Victory Fund. Stating “The financial disclosure reports on file with the Federal Election Commission indicate that the joint committee invested millions of extremely large-dollar individual contributions which have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising’ according to the letter to the DNC. This huge amount of finance contributions benefits only the Hillary campaign rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.

In an interview with two campaign finance experts they have emphasized that what the Hillary Victory Fund has done is unprecedented and should be illegal. Their argument is usually that it helps the party generally, but the practical and legal reality is that it benefits only Hillary Clinton. You just don’t expect this kind of thing to happen in the primaries. It should be noted that this type of fundraising has only been legal since 2014, when the Supreme Court, in the McCutcheon v. FEC ruling, revoked what legal protections in campaign finance law remained after the 2011 Citizens United ruling.

The DNC has completely disregarded the democratic process by colluding with the Clinton campaign to simultaneously raise funds for itself while helping Hillary Clinton secure the presidential nomination. The Party should be pushing to reform campaign finance law not embracing policies that allow wealthy individuals and corporations to buy off elections. While a few members of Congress push to get big money out of politics most notably Bernie Sanders the Democratic leadership has only strengthened its ties to wealthy and corporate donors who have hijacked the party for their own interests over the progressive agenda held by voters identifying as Democrats. The summer of discontent continues