Five Facts That Compel Biden Impeachment

jonathanturley  |  Consider just five established facts:

First, there appears to be evidence that Joe Biden lied to the public for years in denying knowledge of his son’s business dealings. Hunter Biden’s ex-business associate, Tony Bobulinski, has said repeatedly that he discussed some dealings directly with Joe Biden. Devon Archer, Hunter’s close friend and partner, described the president’s denials of knowledge as “categorically false.”

Moreover, Hunter’s laptop has communications from his father discussing the dealings, including audio messages from the president. The president allegedly spoke with his son on speakerphone during meetings with his associates on at least 20 occasions, according to Archer, attended dinners with some clients, and took photographs with others.

Second, we know that more than $20 million was paid to the Bidens by foreign sources, including figures in China, Ukraine, Russia and Romania. There is no apparent reason for the multilayers of accounts and companies other than to hide these transfers. Some of these foreign figures have allegedly told others they were buying influence with Joe Biden, and Hunter himself repeatedly invoked his father’s name — including a text exchange with a Chinese businessman in which he said his father was sitting next to him as Hunter demanded millions in payment. While some Democrats now admit that Hunter was selling the “illusion” of influence and access to his father, these figures clearly believed they were getting more than an illusion. That includes one Ukrainian businessman who reportedly described Hunter as dumber than his dog.

Third, specific demands were made on Hunter, including dealing with the threat of a Ukrainian prosecutor to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter was given a lucrative board position. Five days later, Joe Biden forced the Ukrainians to fire the prosecutor, even though State Department and intelligence reports suggested that progress was being made on corruption. Likewise, despite warnings from State Department officials that Hunter was undermining anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, he continued to receive high-level meetings with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and other State Department officials.

Fourth, Hunter repeatedly stated in emails that he paid his father as much as half of what he earned. There also are references to deals that included free office space and other perks for Joe Biden and his wife; other emails reference how Joe and Hunter Biden would use the same accounts and credit cards. Beyond those alleged direct benefits, Joe Biden clearly benefited from money going to his extended family.

Fifth, there is evidence of alleged criminal conduct by Hunter that could be linked to covering up these payments, from the failure to pay taxes to the failure to register as a foreign lobbyist. What is not established is the assumption by many that Joe Biden was fully aware of both the business dealings and any efforts to conceal them.

The White House is reportedly involved in marshaling the media to swat down any further investigation. In a letter drafted by the White House Counsel’s office, according to a CNN report media executives were told they need to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.” It is a dangerous erosion of separation between the White House and the president’s personal legal team. Yet, many in the media have previously followed such directions from the Biden team — from emphasizing the story that the laptop might be “Russian disinformation” to an unquestioning acceptance of the president’s denial of any knowledge of his son’s dealings.

Notably, despite the vast majority of media echoing different defenses for the Bidens for years, the American public is not buying it. Polls show that most Americans view the Justice Department as compromised and Hunter Biden as getting special treatment for his alleged criminal conduct. According to a recent CNN poll, 61% of Americans believe Joe Biden was involved in his family’s business deals with China and Ukraine; only 1% say he was involved but did nothing wrong.

As If Obsolete Infrastructure And Thinking Weren't Bad Enough - There's Political Corruption As Well

responsiblestatecraft  |  This week U.S. government officials and defense industry personnel are walking the halls of the UAE’s International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) to promote some of the latest U.S. defense technology to the UAE and other Middle East buyers. The officials, however, will largely ignore one increasingly risky aspect of the deals defense companies will put on the table.

Typically referred to as “offsets,” these secretive “sweeteners” or investments masks corruption risks that could harm U.S. security interests and help keep millions in a constant state of poverty and conflict around the world. This U.S. approach also seriously undermines the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage U.S. companies and foreign governments to fight corruption and protect democracies.

Big Business

This year’s IDEX will be sure to result in many major arms sales agreements.. The EXPO comes at a time when defense spending is rising globally in response to growing threats and new conflicts. The UAE remains among the top arms buyers in the world. In 2019, the UAE Armed Forces signed 33 deals worth $2.8 billion with international companies at IDEX.

The United States continues to dominate arms sales to the UAE, but it faces competition from major players like China and European countries, as well as the growing defense production capabilities of countries like Turkey and Israel. Defense companies often rely on offsets to make their proposed arms sales more attractive to foreign buyers. Offset packages are essentially the selling company’s promises to invest in the buyer country’s defense industry (direct offsets) or broader economy (indirect offsets).

U.S. defense companies regularly agree to offset packages worth billions of dollars each year. In 2019, U.S. defense contractors reported entering into 31 new offset agreements with 12 countries valued at $8.2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. The value of these agreements often equaled more than half the total value of the arms deal. Some of the common types of U.S. company indirect offsets include agreements to purchase items from the procuring country, subcontract with their businesses, transfer desirable technologies, or provide credit assistance.

At the 2019 IDEX, the UAE announced a new offset policy for their arms purchases, which requires defense companies to include offsets for contracts at $10 million or more. Unlike some previous policies, this one focuses more on offsets to areas outside the defense sector (indirect offsets), including infrastructure, food and water security, and other strategic sectors. The policy encourages defense companies to use cash payments to satisfy offset requirements. The UAE has made it policy not to release any information publicly about its offsets agreements.

Facilitating Corruption

The use of offsets is controversial. In 2007, the European Commission directed European countries to put significant restrictions on companies using offsets as they viewed them as anti-competitive, and pushed member states to outlaw the use of indirect offsets. A common concern is that offsets transfer substantial resources, often to authoritarian governments, with very little transparency and even less accountability. Offsets, especially cash payments, can also serve as bribe money to help win a contract, avoid paying fees/penalties, or serve other corrupt purposes.

The Commerce Department has for years warned U.S. companies about investing in sovereign wealth funds in Persian Gulf countries and beyond out of concern that these funds could easily serve as vehicles for bribes. These funds can also be used to support foreign lobbying of the U.S. government. In 2016 and 2017, The Intercept reported that U.S. companies offset cash payments to the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Tawazun Holding, resulting in some $20 million reaching the DC-based Middle East Institute, which has promoted expanding sales of U.S. arms to Gulf countries.

The UAE’s refocus on indirect offsets, after a decade of focus on direct offsets, elevates the risks for U.S. companies indirectly supporting strategic sectors of the UAE economy that fuel conflict in Africa and facilitate money laundering. In 2009, an Italian defense company agreed to a joint production project to build a gold and silver refining plant in the UAE as part of its offset deal. Gold trade experts have raised concerns about the central role the UAE is playing in allowing gold acquired illicitly by African armed groups to be refined and resold to European and U.S. markets, masking and reinforcing conflict dynamics and death in Central and Eastern Africa.

U.S. and European defense companies have also invested in the UAE’s real estate markets through offsets. This strategic sector, however, has reportedly been a major source of money laundering for foreign public officials and U.S. sanctioned individuals. Think-tank reports on this sector have described how foreign public officials have invested millions in UAE’s luxury homes with money stolen from national budgets, leaving their own citizens in a perpetual state of poverty. International arms traffickers, such as AQ Kahn and Viktor Bout, have also used the UAE as a base of operations to ship weapons to U.S. adversaries.

The Ukrainian Corruption That Infects Washington D.C.

sonar21  |  Yaacov Apelbaum wrote an amazing investigative piece in September 2019 that is more relevant and timely now. He provides photographic and video proof of how a certain segment in Ukraine has penetrated the U.S. political system. Did you know the following:

• Adam Schiff relied on Igor Pasternak, who was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and graduated from Ukraine’s Lviv Polytechnic National University, to raise funds for Schiff’s congressional campaign. Pasternak is a naturalized American citizen.
• Igor Pasternak is tied directly to Nancy Pelosi and Ukraine’s network in the United States.
• Pasternak’s company, Aeros, partnered with the Government of Ukraine in 2015–The Government of Ukraine and Aeroscraft Corporation (Aeros) held a press conference today in Los Angeles, revealing further details about the cooperative partnership to strengthen the border protection agency of Ukraine with additional wide area situational awareness capabilities. The partnership with Ukraine, Aeros, and UkoBoronProm first announced in Kiev earlier this month will see the Ukraine-Russian border protected by a series of Aeros made Elevated Early Warning Systems (EEWS). Senior Ukrainian officials were joined for the conference today by Aeros’ CEO Igor Pasternak and CA State Assemblyman, Matt Dababneh (45th District).
• Notes from the desk of Yaroslav Brisiuck’s the Ukrainain Chargé d’affaires in Washington DC suggest that Democrat operative Alexandra Chalupa could be a long term Ukrainian intelligence asset
• Alexandra Chalupe was involved actively with a Michael Avantti, Linda Sarsour, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and the August 2020 effort to impeach president Trump.
• Alexandra Chalupa’s Ukrainian handler was Okana Shulyar. Chalupa held multiple intelligence briefing and debriefing sessions regarding president Trump with her handler Okana Shulyar .
• The Atlantic Council is tied closely to Ukraine and Adam Schiff is engaging in intelligence collection and political patronage in Ukraine with his collaborator Geysha Gonzalez (who paid for Schiff’s aid trip), an expert on disinformation, misinformation, and false information, and the Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

These are not manufactured linkages. Yaacov’s research and evidence pull the curtain back on the Ukrainian corruption that infects Washington, DC.

Youtube Has Suspended Judicial Watch's Account For A Week Over This Video

Seriously Folks - Aside From The Bidens Being CCP Assets - There's NOTHING TO SEE OVER HERE!!!

WaPo  | Hunter Biden’s relationship with CEFC took root during a time of financial strain and turmoil for his family, according to court filings and Hunter Biden’s accounts. The Bidens were reeling from the May 2015 death of Hunter’s older brother, Beau, and Hunter was struggling with drug use.

“I was in the throes of addiction,” Hunter wrote in a memoir published last year.

During divorce proceedings with his wife Kathleen, a court filing in the case described “outstanding debts [that] are shocking and overwhelming,” with the couple carrying maxed-out credit cards, double mortgages on both properties they owned and a tax debt of $313,970. Three checks to their housekeeper had bounced, and they owed money to medical providers and therapists, according to a February 2017 filing in D.C. Superior Court.

An intermediary from CEFC initially reached out to Hunter Biden in December 2015 to set up a meeting between the then-vice president’s son and Ye Jianming, the founder and chairman of the Chinese firm, according to verified emails from a purported copy of the laptop hard drive reviewed by the outside experts for The Post.

Vuk Jeremic, a Serbian politician who had recently served as president of the U.N. General Assembly, wrote in an email to the younger Biden that he was hosting a small private dinner in Washington with Ye — whom he called “one of the 10 wealthiest Chinese businessmen” — and wanted Hunter to attend.

“He’s young and dynamic, with the top-level connections in his country,” Jeremic wrote in the Dec. 1, 2015, email.

Hunter Biden was unable to attend the dinner and Jeremic said in an email to The Post that while he knew both men, he was “not involved in their mutual introduction” and found out from media reports that the two had eventually connected.

CEFC, a massive oil and gas company founded in 2002, had financing from government development banks and ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, according to people who studied the firm. Ye’s official biography said he was once deputy secretary of the China Association for International Friendly Contact, an organization that a 2011 U.S. congressional report called “a front” for the People’s Liberation Army.

While CEFC was ostensibly private, experts on the Chinese economy say it is unlikely that it operated independently of the government.

The Chinese Embassy declined to comment on CEFC ties to the Chinese government or Hunter Biden’s involvement with the firm.

Shortly after Joe Biden left the vice presidency, Hunter Biden and Ye met over dinner in Miami.

The two discussed business opportunities for CEFC in the United States, including a $40 million joint venture to produce liquefied natural gas in Louisiana, according to a July 2019 New Yorker report based on extensive interviews with Hunter Biden.

That deal failed. But Ye was so pleased with his initial meeting with Hunter Biden that after dinner he sent a 2.8-carat diamond to Hunter’s hotel room with a card thanking him for the conversation, according to the New Yorker.

In divorce proceedings, Hunter’s wife would claim the diamond was worth $80,000. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker the value was closer to $10,000, that he gave the diamond to his associates, and that he doesn’t know what they did with it.

Did Hunter Biden's Firm Fund Biological Research On Ukrainian Soldiers?

sputniknews |  In recent weeks, the Russian Defence Ministry has peeled back layers of information about 30+ Pentagon-funded biolabs feared to be engaged in dangerous and illegal research into deadly pathogens in Ukraine. US officials and media initially denied that the labs existed, but a senior Biden administration official later confirmed their presence.

An investment firm connected to US President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been implicated in the financing of the Pentagon's military biological programme in Ukraine, the head of Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops has announced, citing fresh documents.

 

"Incoming materials have allowed us to trace the scheme of interaction between US government bodies and Ukraine's biolabs. The involvement in the financing of these activities by structures close to the current US leadership, in particular the Rosemont Seneca investment fund managed by Hunter Biden, draws attention to itself," RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov said in a briefing Thursday.

 

According to the MoD's information, the fund has at least $2.4 billion in investment capital. "At the same time, a close relationship has been established between the the fund and key contractors of the US military, including Metabiota, which alongside Black & Veatch is one of the main suppliers of equipment for Pentagon biolaboratories around the world," Kirillov added.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory - birthplace of the US atomic bomb, has served as one of the chief curators of the US military biological programmes in Ukraine, Kirillov said.

 

 

Russian Defence Ministry presentation detailing coordination between Ukraine-based labs and US agencies and companies, including Hunter Biden and George Soros (far left), the US State Department, USAID, Gilead Sciences, SkyMount Medical, Metabiota, Black&Veatch, CH2M Hill, the US Embassy in Ukraine (center) and the CDC, the National Laboratory at Los Alamos and the universities of Tennessee, Alaska, Florida, New Mexico and Virginia (right). Below, ties are shown to the Lugar Center in Georgia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and associated centers and institutes, and teh Ukrainian Defence Ministry's epidemiological departments.

© Photo : Russian Defence Ministry

What Is Rosemont Seneca?

sputniknews | Salacious stories have swirled for years about US President Joe Biden’s son, Robert Hunter Biden, but they have concealed a deep web of corruption in which Hunter sought to use his father’s notoriety to score unscrupulous business deals from Ukraine to Hong Kong.

On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense revealed new information about US-funded biolabs it has discovered in eastern Ukraine amid the Kremlin's special “neutralization” operation in the nation. According to findings by Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops, one company connected to these biolabs and their work was founded by Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, the latter the stepson of former US Secretary of State John Kerry.

 

"Incoming materials have allowed us to trace the scheme of interaction between US government bodies and Ukraine's biolabs. The involvement in the financing of these activities by structures close to the current US leadership, in particular the Rosemont Seneca investment fund managed by Hunter Biden, draws attention to itself," RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov said in a briefing Thursday, noting the fund has at least $2.4 billion in investment capital.

 

Rosemont Seneca Partners was founded in 2009 by Biden, Heinz and Heinz’s college roommate and fellow financier, Devon Archer, according to the Financial Times. Biden and Heinz were described as company co-owners and Archer as a “managing partner” in a report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

The private equity firm was anchored by the Heinz family alternative investment fund, Rosemont Capital, and was formed to “be populated by political loyalists and positioned to strike profitable deals overseas with foreign governments and officials with whom the US government was negotiating,” according to the 2018 book “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” by Peter Schweizer.

 

Some of those deals attracted significant concern as they seemed contrary to US political interests, including in China and Ukraine. In a deal in 2014, Rosemont Seneca raised some $1.5 billion for a fund launched by Harvest Fund Management and Bohai Industrial Group, a group closely tied to Chinese state-owned enterprises. The resultant group was dubbed Bohai Harvest RST.

 

This became a problem the following year, when BHR joined the Chinese state-owned defense firm Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to buy anti-vibration automotive parts from American precision-parts manufacturer Henniges - a deal agreed to during the Obama administration. A US Senate investigation in 2019 found a significant conflict of interest in the deal, as anti-vibration technology is considered “dual use,” having both civilian and military applications.

 

Out Of Office, What Do The Hard-Grifting Clintons Have Left To Peddle?

dailycaller |  The Clinton Foundation’s rapid decline in donor cash has alarmed top ethics watchdogs who say it shows clear red flags of political corruption.

Financial disclosures show a precipitous decline in contributions to the Clinton Foundation in the years following former president Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton’s fall from the heights of their political power.

The Clinton Foundation received roughly $16.3 million in contributions in 2020, according to their newly released Form 990. This was a 93.6% decrease from the nearly $250 million the charitable organization raked in during 2009 after Hillary Clinton was appointed Secretary of State.

“For years, the Clinton Foundation raised ethical concerns and blurred lines between the foundation, private entities, and the State Department,” said Scott Amey, General Counsel for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan, independent government corruption watchdog organization.

“Money was pouring in when Hillary Clinton was a senior official and a candidate for president. The fact that foundation donors received special access to the Secretary of State isn’t surprising, nor is the fall in foundation funding after her 2016 election loss. Many people thought people were supporting the former president, but it really looks like they were cozying up to who they thought was going to be the future president — a situation that can’t be repeated,” the POGO General Counsel told the Daily Caller.

“Now, with ethics concerns raised about Mnuchin and Kushner, as well as judges, it is vital that Congress put politics aside and pass an ethics reform package for all three branches of government. Congress must eliminate conflicts of interest, restrict special access, prevent trading on insider knowledge, and stop public servants who cash in for personal or private gain. Recent surveys show that corruption is a major public concern, but with the foxes guarding the henhouse, I’m unsure who will step forward to fix the problem,” said Amey.

“We’ve been seeing a decline in the cash flow to the Clinton Foundation since the 2016 presidential election,” Anna Massoglia told the Daily Caller. Massoglia is an Investigative Researcher at OpenSecrets, a non-profit transparency organization that tracks money in politics.

The Investigative Researcher said that when OpenSecrets spoke with the Clinton Foundation, they explained the strained revenue stream was “due to a lack of events due to an inability to have conferences” and “receiving less money from fundraising events, programs, and services.” Massoglia reasoned that “it would make sense for there to be a significant decrease in 2020 since there were even less in-person events around that time.”

“During the presidential election, of course, Clinton had said that they were going to step back from the foundation for the duration of the election, and if she came into office, that they would wind things down. However, because she was not elected, it was not expected that the foundation would get smaller for any other reason, at least externally,” added Massoglia.

In 2018, Massoglia and OpenSecrets were the first to obtain the Clinton Foundation’s annual 990 Form that showed a $38.4 million revenue stream. While slightly higher than the previous year, donations were still significantly lower than in years when Hillary or Bill Clinton were more influential in American politics.

 

Future Good Jobs: Not About Technology As Much As Corrupt Law And Tax Policy

technologyreview  |  A major question is not whether there will be enough jobs but whether there will be enough good jobs—jobs that provide middle-class earnings, safe working conditions, legal protections, social protections, and benefits (e.g., unemployment and disability benefits, health benefits, family benefits, pensions). The slow growth of pretax incomes for the bottom 50% of earners has been the main driver of increasing income inequality over the past half-century. Access to good jobs—as well as to education and health care, so people have the knowledge and good health required to work—is key to lifting these incomes and making technology-­enabled growth inclusive.

Several types of policies could make good new jobs more likely to be created in the United States. These include taxes on labor and capital that affect business investment decisions; R&D policies that can direct technological change and influence both the pace and extent of new technologies’ adoption by business; training policies that enable workers to gain new skills; direct labor market interventions that provide benefits to temporary and contract workers; and measures that strengthen workers’ voice in business decisions.

Rethink tax policies 

Tax policies influence businesses’ decisions to invest in new production technologies. In the United States and other advanced economies, labor is taxed at a much higher rate than the physical capital and knowledge capital required to produce goods, encouraging investments that use capital and save labor. A reduction in payroll and other employment-related taxes would moderate this bias. So would an increase in taxes on capital, including corporate income. Recently, the US corporate tax rate was cut dramatically. Proponents argued that the cut would increase business investment and that this in turn would increase employment and wages. As technology becomes more labor-saving, however, business investment in physical and knowledge capital becomes less likely to create good jobs, and the new US tax law does nothing to offset that effect. 

Another issue is that as capital has become more mobile across national borders, many multinational companies have been able to make their profits “stateless” for tax purposes by shifting them to locations where they have little or no real economic activity and pay little or no tax. Stateless corporate income erodes the tax base and reduces the capacity of individual countries to raise revenues for infrastructure and social protection programs. It also exacerbates the tax disadvantage of labor, which is far less mobile than capital. In their recent book The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman discuss the consequences of stateless capital income for income inequality and suggest national remedies as stopgap measures in the absence of an international agreement to tax such income. In the long run, given the magnitude of cross-border capital flows, such an agreement is essential

In the US, taxes on capital income should also be increased by raising the rate on capital gains (which are now taxed at a lower rate than personal income) and by eliminating the carried-interest loophole. Both the preferential capital gains rate and the carried-interest feature of current tax law have encouraged technology investments favoring capital and profits over labor and wages. They have also fueled the “financialization” of the US economy and increased income inequality.

Reductions in payroll taxes and other direct taxes on labor, even if offset in part by higher taxes on capital, would leave less government revenue available to fund health care, education, and benefits for workers—all key components of good jobs. A national carbon tax should be used to offset this revenue loss. Lower taxes on labor to promote employment, and higher taxes on carbon to discourage carbon use, are a wise recipe for a future of good jobs and a sustainable environment.

 

The Constitution Was Engineered To Prevent Political Corruption And Has Utterly Failed...,

nakedcapitalism |  A final example from everybody’s favorite obstructionist Democrat, Joe Lieberman Joe Manchin. From Ryan Grim:

On Monday, Joe Manchin met with a group of wealthy donors to coordinate a strategy to defend the filibuster. The biggest threat to it, he argued, was Republicans’ refusal to support a January 6th commission, because it made anybody who claimed bipartisanship is still possible look like a buffoon, with people saying to him, “How’s that bipartisan working for you now, Joe?”

The obvious solution, then, he argued, is to find a handful of Republicans who will switch their votes and support a commission. A key target, he said, is Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. His suggestion was extraordinary for how explicit it made the link between legislative behavior and the pursuit of post-career riches.

“Roy Blunt is a great, just a good friend of mine, a great guy,” Manchin said in audio The Intercept obtained. “Roy is retiring. If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country. That would be very good to get him to change his vote. And we’re going to have another vote on this thing. That’ll give me one more shot at it.”

Forget it, Jake. It’s K Street.

Looking back at Article I, Section 8, there’s a loophole you could drive a trump: It really ought to read “accept any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” (I thought it was simpler to generalize it, rather than attempt to parse out all the kinds of private entities that might seek to curry favor with the government.) I doubt that would stamp out gift-giving entirely, but it would sure put a crimp in the culture. The same should be written into the bylaws of professional associations (which I assume would cover institutions like CalPERS, a fine example of the culture of gift-giving; see NC here at “junket“).

If the Framers had access to a Time Machine, and could fast-forward to the present day, they would see a culture, and a political culture, that had become — at least with respect to corruption — everything they sought to avoid, and tried to engineer the Constitution to prevent.

The Common Root Of Obvious American Dysfunction Is Corruption

pluralistic |   In a technologically complex world, there will always be official advice whose technical arguments we can't understand. Our only reassurance is the process by which that advice is arrived at.

We may not understand the arguments, but we can recognize an open, independent process refereed by neutral regulators who show their work and recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

We don't always understand what goes on inside the box, but we can tell whether the box itself is sound. We can tell judges are financially interested in outcomes, whether they publish their deliberations, whether they revisit their conclusions in light of new evidence.

That's all we've got, and it depends on a balance of powers that arises from a pluralistic, diffused set of industrial interests.

When an industry says with one voice that West Virginians are so fat that we can poison them without injury, it carries a lot of weight.

(so to speak)

It's a stupid argument. It's a wicked argument. It's a lethal argument. It's the kind of argument that might get you laughed out of the room if it is filled with hundreds of squabbling chemical companies looking to dunk on one another.

That's the thing about conspiracies (and Dow was, in fact, engaged in a conspiracy to poison West Virginians to enrich its shareholders) – they require a lot of discipline, with all the conspirators remaining loyal to the conspiracy and no one breaking ranks.

The bigger a group is, the more it struggles to keep a united front. That's why there's so much billionaire class solidarity. Sure, it's hard to maintain unity among a clutch of grandiose maniacs, but it's much harder to maintain unity among billions of their victims.

Monopolization is corruption's handmaiden – not just because it lets Dow hire fancy lawyers and "experts" to dress up "fat people are immune to poison" as sound policy, but because the industry can sing that awfful song with one voice.

Dow spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a policy that will save it millions – and cost the people of WV hundreds of millions or even billions in health costs, lost productivity, and, of course, the intergenerational trauma of ruined and lost human lives.

The reason millions in gains can trump billions in losses is that that the millions are reaped by just a few firms, who can wield them with precision to secure the continued right to impose costs on the rest of us, while the losses are spread out across the whole state.

For Dow to corrupt West Virginia's legislature, it need only tithe a small percentage of its winnings to political causes and dark money orgs.

For West Virginians to fight corruption in the cash-money world of political influence campaigns, they have to overcome their collective action problem and outspend Dow – all while bearing the human and monetary costs of Dow's corruption.

America is a land of manifest, obvious dysfunctions, and close examination reveals their common root in corruption.