Philip Giraldi — Revolving Door: How Security Clearances Perpetuate Top-Level Corruption in the United States

The problem arises when former officials use their clearances as bona fides to enhance their marketability for non-clearance jobs in the media or corporate world, particularly when those individuals are criticizing current government policies and behaving in a partisan fashion regarding specific candidates for office. Donald Trump was especially assailed by former officials John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden and Michael Morell before the 2016 election, all of whom continue to attack him currently, most particularly for the recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the 2016 campaign, Morell, who openly supported Hillary Clinton and is the designated intelligence on-air contributor for CBS news, deliberately linked the fact that he was ex-CIA Acting Director to his assertion that Trump was somehow an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation” to establish his credibility. That type of activity should be considered abusive and an exploitation of one’s former office.

Agree. It's a conflict of interest, unprofessional and unethical. Intelligence should never be politicized and now intelligence politicization is being normalized in the US.

And the revolving door is a form of corruption. It needs to be locked shut by law.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Revolving Door: How Security Clearances Perpetuate Top-Level Corruption in the United States

Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

See also at SFC

Kissinger was talking with Edward Luce of the Financial Times about the current US President: “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time, to mark the end of an era, and to force it to give up its old pretences”. Later in the conversation, he qualifies this assessment by adding, however: “It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.”

Luce, as might be expected, imputes Trump’s meeting with President Putin to signal a possible putative nadir in American diplomacy, and a betrayal of US intelligence claims of Russian disruption of the 2016 elections – even citing the N.Y. Daily News headline that what Trump uttered there, constituted “Open Treason”.

But Kissinger, who briefs both Trump and Putin, evidently refuses to be drawn - to take Luce’s bait. Rather, he says, matter-of-factly, that the Trump summit had to happen: “It was a meeting that had to take place. I have advocated it for several years. It has been submerged by American domestic issues. It is certainly a missed opportunity. But I think one has to come back to something.”

Why was the meeting so crucial? And what is ‘that something’, to which we must “come back”? Luce dwells on Kissinger’s opaqueness of messaging and complains that it is hard to discern the direction of his economical discourse. But in fact, Kissinger lays it all out clearly, and in plain view – and that to which he is leading – is indeed, crucially important.…

Forcing the Surrender of an Era’s Old Pretences – Henry Kissinger

Alastair Crooke

Reuters — Trump puts five-year lobbying ban on his political appointees

President Donald Trump on Saturday put restrictions on the kind of lucrative lobbying gigs his White House aides and other administration officials can accept after they leave government....

Trump's order also requires his officials to agree to a lifetime ban on working on behalf of foreign governments or foreign political parties....

Good move toward draining the swamp.

But the devil is in the details on these matters. Often headlines don't match reality. So we'll see. On the surface anyway this is a positive step toward shutting the revolving door.

Reuters
Trump puts five-year lobbying ban on his political appointees

David Dayan — Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team

Google is among the many major corporations whose surrogates are getting key roles on Donald Trump’s transition team.

Joshua Wright has been put in charge of transition efforts at the influential Federal Trade Commission after pulling off the rare revolving-door quadruple-play, moving from Google-supported academic work to government – as an FTC commissioner – back to the Google gravy train and now back to the government.

The Intercept
Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team

David Dayan

Pam and Russ Martens — WikiLeaks Bombshell: Emails Show Citigroup Had Major Role in Shaping and Staffing Obama’s First Term

According to emails released by WikiLeaks yesterday, which came from a hack of the email account of John Podesta, a co-chair of Obama’s 2008 Transition Team,  we learn that despite the obvious fact that Citigroup was both corrupt and derelict in handling its own financial affairs, Barack Obama gave executives of that bank an outsized role in shaping and staffing his first term.…

Because Robert Rubin did so well for Bill Clinton.

Conflict of interest if not outright corruption even though technically no cash was passed under the table. Absent quid pro quo, it all legal, and in the world of liberalism, if it is legal it also moral.

Wall Street On Parade
WikiLeaks Bombshell: Emails Show Citigroup Had Major Role in Shaping and Staffing Obama’s First Term
Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Bill Mitchell — The Wall Street-US Treasury Complex

Today’s part of the story, is to trace the growing US influence on the IMF and the way it manipulated that institution to further its ‘free market’ agenda on a global scale. We will consider what Jagdish Bhagwati called the “Wall Street-Treasury complex”, which referred to the way in which financial market interests in the US combined with (pressured) the US Treasury Department to advance the myth that liberalisation of global capital flows would deliver massive benefits in the post-1971 period after the convertible currency, fixed exchange rate system collapsed.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The Wall Street-US Treasury Complex
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Chuck Spinney reviews Mike Lofgren's The Deep State

While Lofgren does not say so, I would argue there are growing signs that the emerging American political economy combines many elements of classical fascism and corporatism with neoliberal laissez faire economics into something that is new and peculiarly American — a political economy that exhibits fascist tendencies, but unlike classical fascism, subordinates the state to neoliberal corporatist interests, while it exploits many of fascism’s authoritarian organizing principles to stabilize the emerging status quo. Don’t take my word for it. Read Lofgren’s book, then think about how you would check or redefine the boxes in Figure 2 and draw your own conclusions.

One of the most important aspects of Lofgren's analysis, at least to my thinking, lies in his frequent reminders that the structural aspects of this current state of affairs are not the results of a centrally guided conspiracy hashed out in a smoke filled room. The “structure” of the contemporary American Deep State is more an emergent property triggered by the incremental give and take by thousands of players, whose successes and failures are conditioned by an interplay of chance and necessity, in what is really a cultural evolution. To be sure, there are lots of smoke filled rooms conspiring invisibly to play this game of chance and necessity, but they are competing with each other as well as cooperating -- and it is the evolutionary character of the Deep State that enables it to survive, adapt, and grow on its own terms, and that emergent character is what makes the Deep State so dangerously resistant to change.

The Blaster
Inside the Deep State

Chuck Spinney

I don't know whether Chuck Spinney realizes it, but he is making a strong argument against modern managerial and financial capitalism.

See also

American elites want to conquer every corner of the globe and make capitalism the one true faith.

Ever since the end of WWII there has been fearful speculation and warnings of a possible Third World War that always seemed just over the horizon; but what people didn’t realize is that WW3 had already begun. An ideological war was fought between the US-led capitalist camp and the USSR-led socialist and anti-imperialist alliance.

Much of this war was waged in secret by the CIA through use of propaganda, psychological warfare, economic sanctions, sabotage, funding and manipulation of political parties, assassinations and coups. This silent Cold War would from time to time break out into major “hot wars” (revolutions and counterrevolutions).

In 1991 WW3 came to an end with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in eastern Europe. Following Soviet capitulation and defeat, the end of history was declared and President Bush I announced that there would be a new world order – the US would now be the world’s sole “superpower” and usher in a golden era of global capitalism with America at the helm.

WW3 had only just ended when World War 4 took over. The USSR had been defeated, but there was still a lot of work to do. A lot of territory, ideological and geographical, was left unconquered or had to now be consolidated and managed. For one thing, Red China remained, as well as other socialist countries such as Yugoslavia, Cuba and North Korea. The geostrategically and economically vital Middle East was also yet to be fully subdued.…

The Greanville Post
World War IV is Happening Now
Joseph Waters | Proletarian Center for Research, Education and Culture (Prole Center)


The National Interest
Great Power Pivot: U.S. Shifts Focus to War With China and Russia
Dave Majumdar

Matt Taibbi — Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold

Smackdown.

Who appointed this guy anyway?

Rolling Stone
Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold
Matt Taibbi

Gary Hart — America’s Founding Principles Are in Danger of Corruption

Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt.

From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth. Corruption did not have to stoop to money under the table, vote buying, or even renting out the Lincoln bedroom. In the governing of a republic, corruption was self-interest placed above the interest of all—the public interest.

By that standard, can anyone seriously doubt that our republic, our government, is corrupt? There have been Teapot Domes and financial scandals of one kind or another throughout our nation’s history. There has never been a time, however, when the government of the United States was so perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side deals, log-rolling, vote-trading, and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.

What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class....

The question is: By adhering to its highest principles and ideals, will America continue to have the moral authority to lead all people of goodwill? The answer remains to be seen. And that answer will have much to do with whether we have the courage to drive the money changers from the temple of democracy and recapture government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

In addition to the rise of the national security state, and the concentration of wealth and power in America, no development in modern times sets us apart more from the nation originally bequeathed to us than the rise of the special interest state. There is a Gresham’s law related to the republican ideal. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul....

Time
Gary Hart: America’s Founding Principles Are in Danger of Corruption

Gary Hart | former United States senator from Colorado

Rep. Dave Loebsack — Congress becomes lobbyist training school

Members of Congress are chosen by the American people to faithfully represent them. Our constituents don't send us to Washington to audition for a job with a special interest group. Unfortunately, growing numbers of these public servants are leveraging their constituents’ trust for cold, hard cash after leaving Capitol Hill.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1974, only 3 percent of members of Congress became lobbyists after leaving office. But today that figure has jumped dramatically – 50 percent of Senators and 42 percent of House members become lobbyists after they leave Congress. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics found there are now 28 registered lobbyists for every member of Congress.

The Center for Responsive Politics also found that over one third (27 out of 75) of members of Congress who left during or at the end of the 113th Congress have already taken up lobbying as a career. Over half of the former members of the 112th Congress are currently engaged in lobbying contracts.

It’s not hard to see why - a study by Republic Report found that, on average, lawmakers who became lobbyists boosted their salary by 1,452 percent, with many exchanging their public careers for seven-figure salaries.

As former representatives and senators move through the revolving door to K Street, they continue to earn pensions paid for by you, the American taxpayer, as they rake in huge salaries to lobby current federal legislators.

Operationally, Rep. Loebsack is incorrect about taxpayers funding the federal government but practically speaking he is technically correct under the current rules of PAYGO.

Quad City Times
Congress becomes lobbyist training school
Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA)

Disclosure: Dave Loebsack is my congressman, whom I support.

Techdirt — Revealed Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The TPP

Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as "national security information" (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic to sue. As part of that lawsuit, the USTR has now released a bunch of internal emails concerning TPP negotiations, and IP Watch has a full writeup showing how industry lobbyists influenced the TPP agreement, to the point that one is even openly celebrating that the USTR version copied his own text word for word....

Techdirt
Revealed Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The TPP

ht Neil Wilson

The New Corrupt Elite That Is Running Our Economy — Lynn Parramore interviews Janine Wedel

Social anthropologist Janine Wedel, author, most recently, of Unaccountable: How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security, has spent decades getting to the bottom of how powerful people wield influence. In her view, old ways of talking about formal systems of power and corruption don't begin to capture new realities. Truth and transparency, she warns, have devolved into performance art. The buck stops nowhere.

AlterNet
The New Corrupt Elite That Is Running Our Economy
Lynn Parramore interviews Janine Wedel

Bill Black — Geithner: “The End of Capitalism as We Know It”

Anyone that wants to save “capitalism” must destroy the current corrupt system “we know” that is posing as “capitalism.” To sum it up, there was no greater service that the Obama administration could have done for (real) capitalism than to produce “the end of capitalism as we know it.” Geithner was absolutely right in his diagnosis and absolutely wrong in his response. Wall Street hates “capitalism” – Geithner and Summers acted to save, rather than exorcize, its corrupt doppelgänger.…

New Economic Perspectives
Geithner: “The End of Capitalism as We Know It”
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

John Helmer — Meet And Greet Natalie Jaresko, US Government Employee, Ukraine Finance Minister

The revolving door now extends all the way to the Ukraine. A US neocon as the finance minster of Ukraine?

Dances With Bears

Meet And Greet Natalie Jaresko, US Government Employee, Ukraine Finance Minister

John Helmer

Washington's Blog — Are Attorney General Holder’s Statements on Banks and Drones Connected?

Connecting the dots.

Washington's Blog
Are Attorney General Holder’s Statements on Banks and Drones Connected?
WashingtonsBlog

And who has the high ground on this? Rand Paul, preparing for his 2016 bid.

Randy Wray — Prospects for the State of the Union: More Risk-Taking, More Crime, and More Crises

I don’t know what President Obama is going to say in his State of the Union address. He’s been trying to “rally the troops”, to press Americans to nudge their elected representatives to govern rather than to simply throw roadblocks in the way. Yet, the President continues to come up short on concrete proposals. It would be too much to say that he panders to the population—I think he’s doing a better job than most politicians in trying to appeal to higher motives. Yet public discourse today suffers by comparison with that of our nation’s past. Keep the following Presidential address in mind as President Obama delivers his. While we like to think that we are evolving—as a species and as a nation—it might be pretty hard to tell.

Economonitor | Great Leap Forward
Prospects for the State of the Union: More Risk-Taking, More Crime, and More Crises
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, UMKC

Scott Turow — Suggestion for Occupy

Now that the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been driven from many of their encampments, I have an unusual suggestion for how they should next deploy their considerable energies: work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections.

Let me connect the dots. The heart of the protests is a lament about widening income inequality in the U.S., brought about, in part, by a government that seems to favor disproportionately wealthy interests. The Occupiers have focused their outrage on the bailout of banks that reaped huge profits on mortgage-backed securities and are now profitable again, while millions of homeowners have been foreclosed upon or lost their jobs.

The best antidote to this imbalance of income and influence would be to greatly reduce the role of private funding in our elections. Nothing is more empowering to the well-heeled -- corporations, unions, lobbyists, political-action committees, trade associations and bundlers -- than our political leaders’ need to come to them hat in hand for the money to get elected....

Read the rest at Bloomberg
How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%: Scott Turow

I agree that this is absolutely top priority. Without getting the money out of politics and locking the revolving door for good, nothing substantial will change and if it does, it will undermined in committee with loopholes or soon be reversed if made law that has teeth.