boutons_deux
12-20-2010, 06:09 AM
Congress should divest from defense stocks
The prohibition on staff and appointees is in place to prevent them and their family members from taking financial advantage of privileged information.
However, Congress is privy to the same information, some of which contains classified plans on expensive weapon systems.
Yet half of the 28 members on Senate Armed Services Committee held millions of dollars worth of assets in Pentagon-service companies from 2004 to 2009.
The current Senate ethics rules allow senators to keep their "worldly goods." Their financial disclosures are the only check against conflicts of interest.
In 1961, senators on the panel attempted to require its members to divest from the "military-industrial complex," but it failed to reach a vote.
The father and grandfather of two modern presidents, Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.), also spoke out in a closed-door hearing against such an exemption.
"When you pass a law like that, you will have the greatest mass resignation that the world has ever seen," Sen. Bush said.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/congress-should-divest-in-military-stocks-ex-bush-appointee-says/
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So that's how, at least one way, how the transfer of wealth from taxpayers and the transfer of debt obligations to taxpayers in the $1.5T/year maintenance of the American Empire finances Congressmen who vote up the DoD budget and other American Empire funds.
Blatant, irrefutable evidence of the oligarchy voting itself taxpayer wealth, while cutting veteran care ("there ain't nothing wrong with your brain, vet"), and other safety net, health care, infrastructure, and education programs.
The prohibition on staff and appointees is in place to prevent them and their family members from taking financial advantage of privileged information.
However, Congress is privy to the same information, some of which contains classified plans on expensive weapon systems.
Yet half of the 28 members on Senate Armed Services Committee held millions of dollars worth of assets in Pentagon-service companies from 2004 to 2009.
The current Senate ethics rules allow senators to keep their "worldly goods." Their financial disclosures are the only check against conflicts of interest.
In 1961, senators on the panel attempted to require its members to divest from the "military-industrial complex," but it failed to reach a vote.
The father and grandfather of two modern presidents, Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Conn.), also spoke out in a closed-door hearing against such an exemption.
"When you pass a law like that, you will have the greatest mass resignation that the world has ever seen," Sen. Bush said.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/congress-should-divest-in-military-stocks-ex-bush-appointee-says/
==========
So that's how, at least one way, how the transfer of wealth from taxpayers and the transfer of debt obligations to taxpayers in the $1.5T/year maintenance of the American Empire finances Congressmen who vote up the DoD budget and other American Empire funds.
Blatant, irrefutable evidence of the oligarchy voting itself taxpayer wealth, while cutting veteran care ("there ain't nothing wrong with your brain, vet"), and other safety net, health care, infrastructure, and education programs.