They're All Corrupt
- Fred
- 15 hours ago
- 5 min read
Bill Clinton's last day in office was January 20, 2001.
People forget that the Clintons gave a fateful interview within a month of leaving office claiming that, according to AI: "They were indeed heavily in debt, primarily due to millions of dollars in legal fees accrued during various investigations, including the Whitewater real estate deal and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hillary Clinton famously described them as "not only dead broke but in debt."
How far in debt? "Their total debt was estimated to be between $2.28 million and $10.6 million (and in some reports up to $16 million), almost entirely from legal bills."
So what happened when the Clintons walked away from a Washington D.C that had bled them dry? They frantically tried to get that $200,000 a year job back. You say that's some fuzzy math? It sure is. Somehow, before the days of bitcoin, they parlayed a negative cash flow into a $100,000,000+ surplus.
On the same day Bill Clinton left office, his vice-president, Al Gore, made a similar leap in wealth. Al Gore Sr. was a Senator from Tennessee for almost 20 years. So during Al Gore's vice-presidential term, he was able to hold onto most of the millions of generational wealth that he had attained.
But Al Gore turned a few million in seed money into a half a billion when Al Jazeera purchased Current TV back in 2013. The magical internet has Al Gore's net worth at a quarter of a billion dollars today. (And that's AFTER the divorce from Tipper Gore.)
Where am I going with all this information?
Eastern Europe.
Earlier this week at the Wall Street Journal:
Inside the Ukrainian Corruption Probe Edging Closer to Zelensky
Then over at Zero Hedge:
As 'Golden Toilet' Corruption Scheme Rocks Ukraine, Support For Zelensky Plunges Below 20%
At the Atlantic:
Corruption Probes have Dogged Ukraine’s Leadership During the War. The Latest One Could be its Undoing.
Zelensky's Anti-Corruption Missteps
Listen-
I am going to annunciate this very slowly.
I don't care if Volodymyr Zelensky is taking stacks of hundred dollar bills and shoving them directly into his pant pockets, Ukraine has the right to exist.
Screaming that Zelensky is corrupt is like going to a Frat House and yelling that there's drinking going on.
That map above is the Corruption Index. Yellow countries are least corrupt, Deep Red countries are the most corrupt. Almost every day now, I am reading about corruption probes in Ukraine with the angle that we can't let this corrupt Ukrainian entity exist. Most of that content is based out of Russia.
Which is funny because Russia is the most corrupt country in Europe, receiving scores equivalent to despots in Central Africa and Arabian Princes in the Middle East. Every argument you make for Ukraine not being independent, I could make the same exact argument for Russia not being independent. What I see is corruption across an entire swath of where the Soviet Union used to be.
Vladimir Putin, who has never worked in the private sector in his life, and has only been employed by the Russia government, has garnered a net worth of $200 BILLION. But his tentacles don't only reach into monetary corruption, he personally re-wrote parts of the Russian Constitution.
I don't know any other Russian Civil Servant worth over a billion dollars.
The problem with Zelensky isn't that he's corrupt, it's that he's not SOVIET corrupt.
Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is known as "Europe's Last Dictator."
Turkmenistan's Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow's government is described as "one of the most oppressive regimes in the world."
Tajikistan's Emomali Rahmon has been in power for over 30 years. Even if you could get rid of him, the entire government is run by his extended family.
What do these 3 corrupt men have in common? When Vladimir Putin says jump, they respond "how high?" Putin has been re-assembling the Soviet Union based on a leader's kneeling toward Moscow.
Philosophically, Ukraine does not want that. They want to be Poland, Lithuania, or even Germany. They want to be out from the Russian Yoke.
You or I may see Ukraine as an independent country, all Putin sees is Civil War. You cannot re-create the Soviet Union with an independent Ukraine. A century ago, it was Ukraine's Engine that powered the Soviet Machine.
All Putin sees in Ukraine is insolence. Putin is happy to bomb Ukraine in perpetuity, just like Stalin was happy to starve Ukraine in the Holodomor. In a hundred years, Russia's attitude toward Kyiv has been remarkably consistent, that they are subordinate to Moscow.
And that's why Ukraine is loaded with true Anarchists, Eastern Europe only knows Moscow and puppets of Moscow. In theory we Americans should ideologically support a truly independent Ukraine, (not with troops), but Donald Trump kneecaps Zelensky at every turn.
Why? Because Zelensky is Ukraine first, not America First or Russia First. There's a lot of people on both sides of the ocean that HATE that.
You went to the No Kings Rally and want me to know that we have a dictator right here in the United States named Donald Trump?
All Donald Trump is doing today, is just like what the Clintons and Gores did, except while he is still in office. He's cashing in and attacking his political foes.
The Democrats and Republicans are two giant corporations that continue to grow government and pick winners and losers between the citizens that vote for them.
The Founding Fathers created the Constitution on the basis of limited government. That's why they loathed the political parties, like the ones in Europe. But no major candidate in America is arguing for smaller government, just their brand of big government. Why aren't we talking about defunding political parties?
Over at Axios, this quote caught my eye: "New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said in an interview aired Sunday he still believes President Trump is a fascist and a threat to democracy, even as he pledged to work with him to deliver for New Yorkers."
The Fascist and the Socialist? That sounds like a comedy that Tina Fey would pitch to NBC. That quote shows what a farce modern politics have become.
Socialism is just a step or two from Communism, that's why it is so dangerous.
The Constitution protects us from Fascism, that's why we have 3 branches of government.
In our little corner of the Libertarian World, we admit that true libertarianism is just a step or two from anarchy.
And a collection of Anarchists is scary.