We've Sprung Leaks

 The chaotic state of affairs we find ourselves in at the moment would not be that difficult to solve, but it will take a yeoman’s effort to tighten things up.

Lots of commentators are ruminating about how America has lost its way and what, if anything, can be done to fix it.   Fixing the leaks would go a long way towards a solution.   A little duct tape and spackle in our institutions would work wonder.   It comes down to accountability—financially and otherwise.

Ukraine aid. 

 Rand Paul voted no on the aid package to Ukraine, and held it up for awhile even though he came under fire for doing so.  He didn’t oppose the aid.  What he opposed was $40 billion of our money being sent over with no oversight.   All he wanted was an inspector general to account for the spending.   It’s almost as if we learned nothing from the wasted billions in Afghanistan.   Unaccounted for funds tend to end up in peoples’ pockets.   Rand’s request was reasonable and sensible.  His colleagues mostly were having none of it.  This money will vanish down a rabbit hole.

BLM

And speaking of unaccounted for funds flowing into someone else’s pockets, there is Patrice Cullors, one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter.  With millions flowing in to its coffers from individual and corporate donations, you would think that a number of HBCU’s would have endowed professorships, new building and scholarship funds.  New health care centers would be popping up in Chicago, New York and Atlanta.   Early childhood development centers would be springing up in inner city Philadelphia.

Well, actually, none of that happened.  We heard of no signature projects that actually helped black people.  What we did hear of are the mansions Ms.  Cullors purchased, the lavish parties she threw, the thousands she took out and thousands more that found their way into the pockets of Cullors’s squeeze and her brother.

Shame also on the corporations that wasted these donations on BLM, bypassing the usual vetting and accountability that goes with corporate giving.  Usually, charities have to make a case for the gift solicitation, and develop a proposal that shows exactly what the money will be used for and often keep the donor advised as to progress.  In the post- George Floyd frenzy, however, corporations simply wired money to BLM (a form of protection money?) with no accountability whatsoever.  Shame on them.

Gov’t money

The COVID “stimulus” money was shoveled out faster than they could print it (so now we have 8.5% inflation).  And state and local governments marinated in the largesse.   Illinois and Chicago were pretty typical.  COVID funds were diverted to favored political allies.  No budget reforms were enacted.  Illinois was able to get a credit rating upgrade without enacting a single budget reform. 

Most egregiously, both Mayor Lightfoot and Governor Pritzker sent millions to NGO’s for crime prevention and “violence interrupters”  without any accounting of exactly where these funds were going or any measure of the efficacy of the programs.  We have a pretty good idea of how well this is going with 4 mass shootings in the past week or so.  We also learned that some of these “violence interrupters” on the payroll of these community groups are themselves gang members.

Supreme Court leak.

Of course, the biggest leak lately was the draft of Justice Alito’s opinion purportedly overturning Roe.  Justice Clarence Thomas has asserted that it will change the nature of the Court, as judges will no longer be able to trust their clerks, or the process.  Several weeks on, we still don’t know who the leaker was, even though the number of possible suspects is quite  limited.   We also need to know who this person had connections with and whether he or she acted alone.

Like the Nashville bombing and the Las Vegas shooter, I suspect we may never get to the bottom of this.

The Vote

Dinesh D’Souza’s film 2000 Mules documents the “ballot stuffing” that went on during the 2020 election with a strong inference that the deficiencies in the system (along with data analysis and video evidence of ballot box stuffing) were enough to tip the election in Biden’s favor.  While actual fraud is difficult to prove, enough questions were raised to question the outcome.  As with the Supreme Court leak, we not only need to have faith in the outcome, but we need to have faith in the process.

Grifting and corruption can be stopped.  Our institutions can be cleaned up.  But we need accountability, transparence and a restored faith in the process.   We need to stop the leaks.