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Copyright © 2015 by Wayne Stegall
Updated December 20, 2015.  See Document History at end for details.


Politics of Extortion

Why have the Republicans surrendered to Obama?


Imagine that you could be charged with a crime or have your assets seized for conducting financial transactions below $10,000.  It is so.  Persons running businesses whose regular transactions fell within the range of $5000 to $10,000 have had their asset seized without warning to result in their or their business's ruin.  The law enabling this sort of abuse was originally enacting in the early 1970s as a means to deal with criminal money transactions meant to escape government notice by falling under IRS reporting guidelines.  The crime invented was named Structuring.  Perhaps this law of this sort should not criminalize the money transactions themselves but instead aid in enabling investigations of any real crime to which it may be associated.

More to the point, this law is being used to prosecute Dennis Hastert.  If Dennis were actually guilty of the alleged sex crime, I would be first to think he should be hanged.   However consider the severity of the crimes in question from worst to least:
  • The sexual crime to which Individual A has been accused.
  • The apparent blackmail of Hastert by Individual A.
  • The (non)crime of Structuring for which Hastert is being prosecuted.
It seems that the most immediate (and fresh) crime discovered is that of blackmail by individual A.  In Illinois extortion ranges from a class 1 to a class 3 felony depending on aggravating factors.  Yet while this seems to have been passed over, Hastert is instead prosecuted for jaywalking with an opening to accuse him of something monstrous.  Does this seem out of order to you?  What if Individual A turns out to be a Democratic operative?

If Hastert's plight does not seem so clear, consider others:
  • Rick Perry is indicted for vetoing an appropriations bill supported by his opponents as abuse of power.  Perhaps he has no right to his lawful privilege if it is against the liberal will.
  • Tom Delay's prosecution in advance of its helpful influence to the Democrats on the 2006 election was overturned on appeal.
  • Dinesh D'Sousa is prosecuted for illegal campaign contributions after he published a movie unfavorable to Barack Obama.
  • Bob McDonnell is prosecuted for minor gifts from a corporate representative.
  • Tea Party groups are denied tax standing that comparable liberal groups easily obtain.  The occurrence of the malfeasance occurs as the election of 2012 approaches giving it additional motive to manipulate the outcome of an election.
In contrast the current Democratic administration cannot seem to find any sense of justice to prosecute their own criminals:
  • Bill Clinton buddies with a known rich pedophile among a gaggle of young women who are near to if not actually underage.
  • A deal negotiated by Hillary Clinton selling an American uranium mine to a Russian company does not get investigated for treason.
  • Al Gore goes unprosecuted for a polluting zinc mine on his personal property.
  • Barack Obama and 340 sanctuary cities protect immigrants from prosecution of illegal entry.
After observing that Hastert's prosecution seems politically motivated, it also seems causal that a Republican congress is no longer able to resist Obama on any line after Hastert's indictment was announced.  They gave him an Iran deal and two budget concessions without resistance, and the resignation of Boehner.  Did they suddenly fear malicious prosecution themselves?

Consider the matter of the illegal espionage committed against Mitch McConnell by a Democratic operative named Curtis Morrison.  After the crime of espionage was committed, the video was leaked to Mother Jones to shame the Senator.  Nothing criminal was revealed, only impolite discussions of a personal nature pertaining to rival Ashley Judd.  However when the espionage crime went to a grand jury, expectations of an indictment against the operative fade as the matter drops silently out of public sight.  Morrison – still operating on the internet – continues free as if he was quietly pardoned.  However for the matter to go completely silent might be taken for an indication that it was turned against McConnell instead, something that might require the appeasement of Obama.  Indeed, the spy himself declared in an interview after he published his admission of the deed that he had hoped to convert his crime to the prosecution of McConnell, a motive if shared by his political allies could put McConnell to worry.  Then if Hastert's indictment seemed to him malicious, his peril could greatly increase in his eyes.  Then he and any allies sharing his concern would have to give way to the crooked regime until a more opportune moment.

All of this could proceed without any sort of communication of extortion; instead the alignment of unfavorable circumstances would inform them.  However, Obama often includes in his addresses assertive declarations of what he wants regarding the submission of his opponents to his agenda, so you could wonder.  Then again the lone disclosure by the spy may have signaled to McConnell the imminence of more disclosures of a more sensitive nature.  Then he would have comply with the terms submitted when the opportunity allowed.  For this deed the spy would get a pardon or non-enforcement against his crime by benefiting parties.  Indeed, Individual A may have sent the same sort of extortion signal when a caller to a talk show involving Hastert seemed to try to shame him with laughter and assertions that he knew him from the past.

Confirmation of this larger scheme may be taken from the following argument.  That  Morrison's public admission of the crime was a bad legal move for someone claiming a law degree.  He knew he was jeopardizing himself, something not serving his own self interest.  Then you could suspect that he sacrificed himself for something larger, something later protected also by the unwillingness of the Obama administration to prosecute the matter.  At the very least, McConnell himself implicated a larger plot calling the deed a "Nixonian" tactic by the "political left," which would play on his mind as to its significance and outcome so as to make him susceptible to political manipulation.  Then he could give his first gift of appeasement by the immediate reversal of Harry Reid's illegal Senate rule change, although it may have been – and I would like to think it was – an act of altruism on his part.

What has McConnell to hide?  Perhaps nothing.  Politicians are very sensitive to even unwarranted shame for fear of voters.  Anything, even audio of the proceedings of his marriage bed could be considered prejudicial to his reelection.  If you think this unlikely, remember a disclosure from a few years ago that the FBI had recorded Martin Luther King Jr. having sex, presumably with his wife.

When you think of it, Harry Reid seemed a very bitter pill playing the bad guy in protecting Obama from any possibility of having to cast a veto.  He seemed much happier contending with George Bush.  It seems unreasonable to diminish his own career to make Obama look good unless he had abnormal reasons for doing so.  Then his illegal Senate rule change seems a bigger risk than he would take himself if it were not foisted on him.  Do you suppose McConnell only assumed the same manipulated role as his predecessor?  Perhaps more are puppets than we know.

In the end, if Republican voters have revolted against McConnell and his allies because they have surrendered to Obama, this deed has subverted the entire Republican primary for the benefit of the enemy.  Will democracy survive?

Wake up America!

Related Facts you may want to know

  • Research shows alleged crime against Individual A out of statute of limitations.
  • One writer said it would be just to prosecute Hastert even if he had not wronged Individual A.  (What if liberals prosecuting their adversaries all felt this way?)

1Jake Miller and Lucy Madison, "McConnell: Democrats 'bugged my headquarters'," April 9, 2013, CBS News, cbsnews.com
2Curtis Morrison, "Why I secretly recorded Mitch McConnell," May 31, 2013, Salon, Salon.com

Document History
December 19, 2015  Created.
December 20, 2015  Corrected some grammar, and improved and added some wording.