Who is in charge in Washington D.C.?

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Who is in charge?  It’s a question that every American wonders from time to time.  President’s ask it when their CIA Director, or their Homeland Security Secretary, or their FBI Director, or anytime that there is a failure or a scandal involving their administration.  Americans wonder it when they see chaos and looting in Baghdad and in New Orleans.  Americans also wonder it of their Congress.

When a single party controls every branch of the Federal government and cannot pass Social Security reform, tax reform, medical reform, and cannot make a dramatic change in the war on terror and/or the war in Iraq over a four year period, then the question of Republican Congressional leadership is asked, “who is in charge?!”  Meanwhile, when Democrats decide to oppose the war in Iraq, this same question is asked.

Democrats voted for the war in 2002 without ever having read the classified National Intelligence Estimate that they demanded.  The Washington Post reported that only a handful of Congressmen and 6 Senators signed in to view the classified report.  Then, after authorizing the war, they claimed that they had not seen the intelligence caveats that detailed the confidence in various intelligence claims about Saddam’s regime…caveats that were in the classified version that they chose not to read. (1)

One would think that the next time Congressional Democrats demanded intelligence assessments, they’d actually read them.  Nope.  Since last August, Congressional Democrats have “demanded” that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) provide a briefing to Congress on the war in Iraq.  In January the DNI arranged for briefers from all of the different intelligence agencies to spend a full day briefing all of Congress.  Your Congressman and mine, your Senators and mine all chose not to attend.  No members of Congress attended the briefings they had demanded.(2)

Then in February, having also “demanded” a new National Intelligence Report on Iraq, one was provided to Congress, and while 6 Senators and a handful of Representatives saw the one before the vote authorizing the war, none chose to read the one before voting on the resolution against the latest “Surge” offensive.  Asked why they chose not to attend briefings and read classified reports, leaders from both parties said they learned all they needed to from the media, or from tours to Iraq.(3) Congress-Republicans and Democrats-is not making decisions on the war based on intelligence reports.

This week, after having been unanimously appointed by Congress, America’s commander in Iraq, General Petraeus took a break from his duties to make a public statement for the first time since taking command.  Prior to his press conference, the general (who submits reports to the President every single day) offered to take time for a teleconference with the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority leader (both Democrats).  They declined.  Instead, they chose to meet with leaders from anti-war groups like Moveon.org and others (some of which are actually socialist groups like ANSWER).  After meeting with the anti-war lobby instead of the General that Congress appointed to lead operations in Iraq, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid held their own press conference and unveiled their latest attempt at ending the war in Iraq by any means other than success.  They did not consult with the commanders in Iraq, the experts.(4)

Meanwhile, over the past few weeks, something interesting has appeared in polls.  While polls still indicate that Americans “do not support the war in Iraq,” more specific polls have been published.  These new polls show that while Americans are “against the war” an even higher percentage of Americans are against a Vietnam defeat pt deux (a defeat brought about by cutting funds, redeploying/retreating all driven by politics).  Congressional Democrats had deliberately misled the American people all throughout last year when they promised a “New Direction in Iraq” while having never even formed a committee to discuss what that new direction might be(5), and since taking Congress in November, the Democratic Party leaders have taken their seizure of power as mandate to end the war by any means other than success.  Contrary to that perception, Americans do not support such an end.  Americans want success.  Democrats in control of Congress do not care, and are clueless on how to bring about the desired success.  America can put a man on the moon, but quelling an insurgency of 30,000 ill-supplied, disconnected, untrained, and undisciplined terrorists is beyond the comprehension of the Congressional leadership.

So, Congress is not making decisions based on:

  1. Intelligence reports
  2. Intelligence briefings
  3. Experts they appoint to run the war in Iraq
  4. Or polls indicating the American people expect success not defeat

Why have so many members of Congress decided to try and end the war irregardless of success?  Where do they get the idea that this is a good idea?

Perhaps it’s the money.

Barely 700 days remain before the next election night.   At the Federal Election Commission website(6) every member of Congress has their campaign contributors listed for the world to see.  Check it out sometime.  Far and away the money that they are given to keep their jobs comes not from the American people, but from the party, PACs (political action committees), and a handful of wealthy elites.

If one believes in Aliens, Chemtrails, Global Warming, or whatever, as long as they can make a group and pour in some re-election money…they get twice as much representation in Congress as the average American does.  PACs are limited to donating $5000 to a candidate, and it takes on average a million bucks to get elected to Congress ($40million if you’re Hillary Clinton and trying to get into the more expensive Senate).  However, PACs can give $5000 to each and every candidate.

On the other hand, your average American is limited to giving $2500 to a candidate.   Sure, average Americans are allowed to give $2500 to 535 candidates, but average Americans don’t have $2500 to give away let alone $1.34 million to give away ($2500×535 candidates).  Wealthy Americans can do that, but not average Americans.   Most Americans don’t HAVE the maximum $2500 to give to one candidate let alone all.

But wait, there’s more!  A quick look at ANY of the Democratic Party anti-war caucus members shows something that’s interesting.  It might be across the board in the records of all our members of Congress.  Take a quick look at some of these PACs.  They’re insane.  You have groups like the American Sugarbeets Grower’s Association giving the maximum amount to candidates in districts where sugarbeets aren’t grown, and when you look to see how some of these groups can afford to give millions in contributions…there’s nothing.  Contributions made to PACs in amounts under $200 don’t need to be reported.  So, a lot of these PACs get their money from political parties, and then disperse it to candidates to circumvent rules that are supposed to make sure political parties don’t just buy seats in Congress.

Who funds the political parties?  PACs.  Yes, it’s a legal, circular, money-laundering scheme that allows anyone with a checkbook to make donations.  Someone with enough money can:

  • Give their maximum of $2500 to 535 candidates
  • Give a million+ bucks to a PAC to have it distribute the money in $5000 increments to 535 candidates
  • Then Give another million+ to another PAC and another and another and so on

Eventually, candidates get their $500k-1.5million in campaign money, and then they’ve got a lock on their seat. Individual donations make up about ½ that money on average.  The other half is listed as PAC money and “labor organizations,” but “labor organizations” are usually just PACs that click that box on their paperwork.  Take a look at just two of the thousands of such “labor organizations”:

BAKERY CONFECTIONERY TOBACCO WORKERS AND GRAIN MILLERS INTERNATIONAL UNION PAC(7)

AMERICAN SUGARBEET GROWERS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE(8)

Those pastry chefs sure must make a lot of money to be giving out so much.

But are the pastry chefs, sugarbeets growers and grain millers really yanking the ears of Congress and controlling it?  That’s doubtful (surely tugging more than most people), but looking for simple answers here is foolhardy.  Surely they get more attention and respect from members of Congress than people who vote them into office.  The salary that the American people pay a House Rep from Boondogglesburg, Ohio is barely as much as the DNC gives the same rep (directly and through political action committees), and where does the DNC get its money?   It’s the fringes, the far left and far right; people who are so emphatic about their causes that they form groups, gather money, and effectively payoff reps, but members of Congress ultimately get their advice from their advisors.  That’s where the answer to “who is in control” in Washington lies.

Advisors to members of Congress rarely differ in party from the member for whom they work.  Does anyone believe that far-right, conservative, Republican Representatives have socialist staffs or vice versa?  In fact, typically these people are more politically partisan than their own Congressmen for the Congressmen they work for must at least appear to represent all of their constituents, but their staffers are not so limited.  These staffers are of the same level of political advocacy as the people who volunteer, contribute, and support the political action committees and the political parties.  Their interests are too often the party’s agenda first, and the American people second.  Too often it is contributors not constituents who are granted meetings or consideration when it comes to legislation.  They bow to the David Geffens of the world and the KOSsack online atm machine. American popular opinion and popular funding is fickle, undependable, and secondary in quantity and quality, but party partisans will buy and sell anything as long as it’s opposition (a habit of the Democratic Party’s four years out of power).

Today, Congress seeks an end to the war in Iraq by any means, but Congress is not making decisions based on:

  • Intelligence reports
  • Intelligence briefings
  • Experts that they themselves have appointed to run the war in Iraq
  • Or polls indicating the American people expect success not defeat

Their plans for Iraq are not the results of meeting with generals, but are based on:

  • Party doctrine as created by the Democratic Party which was caught with its pants down after campaigning on the false promise that there was a plan for a New Direction In Iraq and misled Americans that the plan was one that included success instead of cutting funds and running away to Okinawa.
  • People who run PACs that are little more than money laundering for politicians and wealthy elitists who contribute at least half of all campaign funding(9)
  • Partisan members of the far left who are the most active and most partisan supporters in the Democratic Party and get more consideration on Iraq War plans than the generals who are in the field.

Congress is no longer representative of the people, or representing the people’s interests. They are representing the interests of the party, political action committee treasurers, wealthy elitists, and the fringe groups that fund both.

Iraq will be lost not by a lack of American will in the hearts and minds of average Americans, but a lack of political will in the hearts and minds of politicians, wealthy elitists who fund them, and the people who run the political action committees that get them into Congress.  That lack of political will even comes with a receipt for public viewing of contributors, but how many can stomach reading through the Federal Election Commission listing of who paid for your Congressman?

This Administration will often be remembered for its lack of planning and images of chaos/looting in Baghdad and New Orleans will stereotype it to history as will the war in Iraq, and the failures to prevent the 911 attacks.  In contrast, the legacy of the Democratic Party’s 2007 and 2008 reign of Congressional power will be of deliberate capitulation without representation on Capitol Hill.  At one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, people aren’t trying hard enough, and at the other end, they’re trying their best to lose a war.  After all, that is what they’re paid to do.

(1) washingtonpost.com
(2) foxnews.com
(3) thehill.com
(4) redstate.com
(5) newsbusters.org
(6) fec.gov
(7) nictusa.com
(8) nictusa.com
(9) news.yahoo.com

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This ought to be required reading. I guess it’s time to axe PACs.