Infowars
July 19, 2009
Cynical observers of the U.S. political scene weren’t surprised when it was revealed in June 2009 that Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina, who is married, had been carrying on a long-term affair. Sanford admitted that the affair had been going on for at least a year and soon resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
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| Sanford had resisted accepting stimulus funds for South Carolina from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which he correctly saw as part of the process of bringing the states further under Federal control. | |
Matters became worse for Sanford when it was revealed the following month that he had visited and entertained his mistress, an Argentine commodities broker named María Belén Chapur, using public funds. As of this writing, Sanford is clinging to the governorship, but his hold appears to be tenuous.
Here’s the more interesting part. Earlier in 2009, Sanford had resisted accepting stimulus funds for South Carolina from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which he correctly saw as part of the process of bringing the states further under Federal control. His resistance led to a lawsuit heard by the South Carolina Supreme Court, and the state was ultimately forced to accept the money.
The public humiliation of Mark Sanford following his fight against the U.S. Treasury Dept. and the Federal Reserve banks that control it is part of a clear and disturbing pattern:
Governors who speak out against member banks of the New York Federal Reserve and other major Wall Street institutions tend to be publicly humiliated and taken down through the discretionary leaking of compromising information.
Consider the case of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York. Prior to serving as governor, he had been New York Attorney General, a role in which he made a name for himself by taking on organized crime and securities fraud. Among those he charged in lawsuits was Richard Grasso, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Spitzer also campaigned against stock price inflation by investment houses, predatory practices by mortgage lenders, and mutual fund fraud. He continued to pursue his campaign against corrupt banking practices as governor.
In March 2008, the NewYork Times reported that Spitzer was a client of a prostitution ring then under investigation by the Federal government. Spitzer resigned two days later. Who leaked the information? The New York Times wasn’t saying. Could it have been retaliation for Spitzer’s campaign against Wall Street corruption?
Or consider the case of Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois. He was nabbed by the Feds in December 2008 on a comprehensive catalog of charges, including wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. Many observers thought Blagojevich was simply carrying out business as usual and had simply had the misfortune of being caught.
The public was treated to the entertaining spectacle of politicians across the ideological spectrum—including” Blagojevich’s former allies and supporters—stumbling over one another to express their indignation and moral rectitude. Of course, none of them would do things like solicit bribes and accept kickbacks.
The day prior to his arrest, Blagojevich had declared that the State of Illinois would stop doing business with Bank of America, a member bank of the Federal Reserve. His action came in response to Bank of America’s cutting off a line of credit to a Chicago factory—an incident that had gained wide press coverage in the Chicago area and become a cause célèbre that Blagojevich would have been foolish to ignore.
Early on the morning of Dec. 8, 2008, the day following his declaration that Illinois would no longer deal with Bank of America, Blagojevich was taken away from his home in handcuffs by Federal agents. Interestingly, on the same morning but before the arrest had hit the news wires, Bloomberg.com quoted John Douglas, attorney for Bank of America and former general counsel for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as describing Blagojevich’s declaration against Bank of America as “dangerous.”Dangerous for whom? For the banking industry, or for those who dare to resist it? Perhaps for both?
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