Transitioning to “Elective Dictatorship”

Whilst normally we sharpen half our wit on matters economic, I’m compelled this morning by a couple of recent news reports to raise a discussion about whether America – the one we grew up with – has already been  flushed by a negligent and a mostly incompetent Congress.

A bit of background here:  We are not the only “nominally free” country to go down this road.  In England, discloses Wikipedia, there was much discussion of “Elective Dictatorship” in the mid 1970’s:

An “elective dictatorship” (also called executive dominance in political science) is a phrase popularised by the former Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, Lord Hailsham, in a Richard Dimbleby Lecture at the BBC in 1976.[1] The phrase is found a century earlier, in describing Giuseppe Garibaldi‘s doctrines,[2] and was used by Hailsham (then known as Quintin Hogg) in lectures in 1968 and 1969.[3] It describes the state in which Parliament is dominated by the government of the day. It refers to the fact that the legislative programme of Parliament is determined by the government, and government bills virtually always pass the House of Commons because of the nature of the majoritarian first-past-the-post electoral system, which almost always produces strong government, in combination with the imposition of party discipline on the governing party’s majority, which almost always ensures loyalty. In the absence of a codified constitution, this tendency toward executive dominance is compounded by the Parliament Acts and Salisbury Convention which circumscribe the House of Lords and their ability to block government initiatives.

Fast-forward to present-day America  or whatever your more honest name for it might be nowadays (I like ‘Merica).

We see that there is no longer a genuine party sitting in opposition in Washington.  John Boehner sold out (trade deal) and I expect no less from Paul Ryan (border issue). 

When I have referred many times to the Obama Wing of the GOP I was not kidding. If you laughed it was because embarrassment is one caught of laughter.

The imperial presidency is here and this morning’s news flow (getting at last to the point) makes this clear more than ever with headlines like these.

“A Leaked DHS Memo shows Obama May Circumvent DAPA Injunction.”

“GOP:  Obama Circumventing Senate in Paris Climate Deal Talks.”

Here is what it comes down to:  Congress is bitter harvest from years of political ineptitude and incompetence.  I can barely count the number of times Congress was left blubbering and stupid while Obama (and Bush before him) seized power in the vacuum created by the bobble-heads we very unjokingly call the “Fools on the Hill.”

Even now, the GOP has its head upside down, in a bad smelly place, having failed to notice the huge portion of Americans who want someone besides yet-another-aristocrat or insider in Washington.  Add up the percentages of Trump, Carson, and Sanders.  It’s a non-trivial block.

The reason the administration is playing fast and loose with every lever he can pull is congress is afraid to bring out the word “Impeachment.”

Yet, war-making powers rest on the Hill, how is it that this administration has not gone asking?  The way the game in played, a 90-120 day window is a joke.  Once troops are on the ground anywhere – even China or Russia, the Dictator-in-Chief has only to wrap it up in “support for America and our troops” and Congress goes limp-wristed and lame.

Similarly, when the Dictator-in-Chief cuts an Iran deal and rubs the Fool’s faces in it, saying it is an agreement, not a treaty, I’m reminded of a previous weasel-worder who asked what the what the “definition of “is” is. “

When the president wildly expands illegal entry to America in violation of federal law, that again could be grounds for impeachment – failing to enact the laws passed by Congress, not interpreted for convenience which is what Elective Dictators do.

The sad fact of the matter is the high treason is not on Capitol Hill, other than the public shame of sending boys and girls to do grown up men and women’s jobs.  Real treason is in the lobbyist mafia that deals the cash, doles out the back-scratching, and has corrupted the way the Founders set-up America the beautiful to run.

With the sabotage acts running from innocently turning out nursing home votes, to letter-writing campaigns from the computer-orchestrated “organized grassroots” a small cadre of deal-makers now controls the stakes and in turn the purse, and in turn the offices and thence down to policy.

I don’t write this lightly.  It is not an attack on America – it is an attack on this something else we are becoming.  The closest term is Elective Dictatorship – which is why the democrats have put so much money behind Hillary.  They like a sham opposition party and holding onto the reins of power in near Bolshevik fashion.

It is an old book, but when you get some time, read Jack Abramoff’s eye opener from several years ago: Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist.

Along with John Perkin’s  Confessions of an Economic Hit Man your view of what’s ahead will likely change.

We are rolling-over as a country and people like George Soros are wringing their hands with glee; attacking the notion of borders because it is those boundaries alone that determine whether a country is or isn’t.

The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, is calling Soros out on his ploy to swamp and exploit the remains of Europe.

As a good lefty, Soros began a recent blog post he authored this way:

The European Union needs to accept responsibility for the lack of a common asylum policy, which has transformed this year’s growing influx of refugees from a manageable problem into yet another political crisis.

The trick of the polemics here?  Where is it claimed anywhere that Europe should accept a second Muslim invasion?  False premise but if you miss it, you’ll get sucked into Soros’ packaged solution.  He backs the non-local governance of Europe – the EU so this is what?  Easy-peasy.

And yet, in fact, that is what is going on.

So if you would do a little reading, I think over time you’ll come around to my view:  Once dynamically-balanced systems of government are being spun out of control by piling inordinate and inappropriate cash on the delicate mechanisms of governance, the break up is in sight..

The result in Europe has been a momentary attempt to Utopian dreams now being followed with an invasion under cover.  Instead of warlords, look for corplords to lead.  Wanna buy a corplord franchise?

And in America, too, the same fetid process is working it way through the system.  Aided and abetted by the check-wielding lobbyist shock-troops and the Fools on the Hill, an elected Dictator consolidates seized power as millions of Americans sleep.  Lulled into complacency by meaningless drivel on Facebook and Twitter.

In an earlier time, it would have been bread and circuses.  But we’re now an advanced society that has moved on to tweets and posts.  The narrative is controlled and you miss the tricks.

The election next year is a foregone conclusion.  Voting machines with audit trails? Hahaha. That boat sailed in 2000, helmed by a democract.

Republicans trust Trump on the economy says a new poll.  Yeah, but they also trusted Boehner and now Ryan.

With a Supreme Corporate Court, since Citizens-United, what could go wrong?

Three years tops to find out.

Could the Fed Have Done a Secret QE?

Where is all this money coming from that continues to drive the market ever-higher – on toward our Dow 25,000 level?

I’ve been wondering lately if the Fed couldn’t do a stealth quantitative easting.

How would it be done?  Like any other QE, the Fed would quietly start to buy up assets from banks and hand out cash to the banks.  The banks would then roll the dough into the market. buying up (among other things) stocks.

“No, that would show up on the Fed’s balance sheet!”:

Not if I were cooking the books.

The way I would do it is simple:  I would make up some “accounting justification” to write down some of the already $4+ trillion in paper that the Fed now has. 

“Garsh, Gomer, we could just do a series of mark to markets on our $4 trillion – say writing them down 25% as a mark to market – and then we could hand out another trillion and no one would be the wiser because the net holdings could remain essentially unchanged.  Think we could make that fly?”

Don’t mind me – I just look at how crooked accountants might run  things if they were not of an absolutely pious and of trustworthy stock.  Accountants?  What am I thinking!

Ask yourself the hard questions, not the easy ones.

Yah know, Mel, even in an audit who would catch it?  We are just doing an exchange to keep the authorized levels…and we had to mark to market on some of that old paper – so it wouldn’t be illegal, would it?”

Where could all this new money be from?  There’s one answer….Need another?…hmmm….how about…

Car Sales

As we have told you before, auto sales are keeping the country alive.  Gotta wonder if there is a “no doc car loan” program going that I haven’t heard about…

Toyota and Fiat-Chrysler among the early winners this morning.

Mainstream Catch-Up

The other day I suggested the Russian jet crash might have been a bomb – and wildly, even might be payback for MH-17. 

The MSM  is now leaning a little bit in that direction.  Explosion is moving up the list. Warmer, Warmer…

Gaming Notes

Activision is buying King video games (*Candy Crush Saga) for $5.9 billion.

To show you how hopelessly out of touch I am, I didn’t even know this morning there was a Candy Crush Saga. (Knowing it hasn’t changed my life so far.)  My arrested development stopped with GTA and CoD, sorry.

18 thoughts on “Transitioning to “Elective Dictatorship””

  1. The Imperial Presidency has been in full swing since at least the eighties . . . we invaded Grenada for god’s sake! And congress didn’t ‘do’ anything back then either . . (I don’t believe that hooey about it being of strategic importance as well.)

    The average person is of little consequence to those in D.C., and it is only trends that the powers-that-be pay attention to. Managing ‘trends’ is what political power is all about, and if this is noticed it means that the people running things are less adroit than other groups.

    One day it will all come crashing down because nothing stays up forever (to paraphrase The Allan Parson’s Project.)

  2. Re the Russian jet blow-up-down….Russia has been lucky until they started ‘helping’ in Syria……m

  3. Well you know George the Russians already stated that it was an explosion from the inside, so lol I wouldn’t wait for CNN MSM or any of those in the media to report anything that comes close to the truth, and of course the jury is still out on MH-17 until the contents of the black box is produced.!!!

  4. The way you keep saying Obama has some magical control over establishment Republicans is bass-ackwards.

    The Occam’s Razor solution is that one wolf in sheep’s clothing is easier to create and disguise than hundreds of them. So let’s look at what the US Chamber of Commerce wants, and see who is dancing to their tune:

    The Chamber wants cheap labor in the US that has no bargaining power for wages. Answer: More H1B’s and more illegals. Obama gives them half of that.

    The Chamber wants more ability to extort profits using US intellectual property laws overseas, and much less friction on profiting from offshore manufacturing. TPP, anyone?

    The Chamber wants more Alitos, Roberts and Thomases on the Supreme Court so they can continue the work begun in Citizen’s United and Hobby Lobby.

    The first two goals were achieved (by no action on immigration reform, and fast-track on TPP) against the votes of a majority of the Dems in Congress, and with a majority of the Reps in Congress.

    Only the third goal (6-3 or 7-2 corporate control over SCOTUS) has been a disappointment to the Chamber.

    Naturally, all the goals will be achieved more quickly with ANY of the current candidates on the GOPer side, along with other goals, like never taxing corporate or investment/speculation profits, and ensuring that oligarchic families retain their wealth and power to continue rent-seeking.

    So you need to shift your polemic, and tell it like it is: Obama has sold out to the corporatists on several key issues they care about, and joined the GOP in screwing over America. If the GOP gets the White House again, it will be Bush2 on steroids, no matter which of them holds the title.

    • Still believe in left / right paradigm? These idiots in DC don’t “run” anything. They remind me of corporate mid-management. Anyone who has ever worked for a bigger company knows the kind of “yes” men are in mid-management.
      We are in serious trouble, and unlike the movies or television, there are no super hero like saviors coming to save the day.

    • Still believe in left / right paradigm? These idiots in DC don’t “run” anything. They remind me of corporate mid-management. Anyone who has ever worked for a bigger company knows the kind of “yes” men are in mid-management.
      We are in serious trouble, and unlike the movies or television, there are no super hero like saviors coming to save the day.

  5. Only our own US military could clean the domestic political mess, as reported. Is that why they are constantly applied to rather create other messes around the world? I didn’t send anyone out to get themselves maimed for nothing. Try some cleaning at home for a change before it is too late. Bruno

  6. The video that was released claiming responsibility for the downing of the Russian airliner clearly shows an aircraft much lower than 31 thousand feet. It was more like 5000 feet. Easily within the range of a Stinger.
    We should remember, over 200 stingers was the target of the Benghazi raid, which they did acquire. This would give the reason why a failed coverup was conducted, lest the truth get out. The coverup worked, nobody remembers the Stingers.

  7. George I flew jets for 24 years and was a ground pounder for 4.5, and the country I swore to defend in May of 73 does not exist any more. The evil Fed should loose its charter as only Congress has the power to create money. Hoosain Obama’s executive orders violate the constitution. The military industrial complex and coorporate “Elective Dictatorship” runs the country. Time to build that rainwater barrel colletion system and get ready for Iran’s/ Koreas EMP attack from container ships in the gulf! As the Ops Officer use to say over intercom when the red command post phone rang at the Ops counter, “Men This Could Be the BIG One!” Keep posting survival tips and I will keep preparing, for one day it will be “The Big One!”
    Mark “Red Dog”

  8. The feds use a $1,000 rounding error on a million dollar budget. What’s the rounding error for a trillion dollar budget?

    • Dearest George,
      THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WRITING ABOUT OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS.
      I am so happy that you have turned your attention to such issues.

      You are one of the few who can help us understand financial repercussions from current events and to help us prepare.

      Welcome aboard, Sir!
      Best wishes!
      StarFireWarriorPrincess

  9. Obama and the Left are determined to destroy the very system that allowed them to practice their Marxist beliefs . Apparently a large portion of the population agrees with the Left but a larger group does not. To retain power the Left has flooded the country with illegals who apparently vote in some numbers . The adjustable Diebold voting machines make up the difference when the elections are close. Much of the Middle Class or what is left of it is mad. Mad at the blatant disregard of them and all that they have worked for while they are being financially drained of power and position. It is no wonder that a guy like Trump can get support from the Middle when he appears to be saying everything they are thinking.

    • oh god i don’t like Obama, but you I’ve in fairy tale land. Since you don’t seem to have a clue-go to a pawn shop and rent one.

  10. The scope of the con is simply amazing. They dream up this war on terror and simultaneously finance and facilitate global terrorism. Surely they are up there with the most evil who have ever walked the earth.

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