If our founding fathers could see the cesspool that the U.S. Congress has become today, they would roll over in their graves.  Most Americans don't realize this, but we already have a "part-time Congress".  Members of Congress only "work" a little over a third of the days on the calendar.  The rest of the time they have off.  It is no wonder why so many members of Congress are involved in so much corruption - they have so much free time on their hands that they are bound to get into trouble.  Many members of Congress also use their positions of power and the information they learn during the course of their duties to become fabulously wealthy.  At a time when incomes nationally are actually declining, our Congress critters are becoming stinking rich at a staggering pace.  Yes, politics in America has always been a game that is funded and played by wealthy individuals, but things have gotten so extreme that it is hard to argue that average Americans have any control over Congress at all at this point.  Instead of a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", we now have a government "of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy".  If you doubt this, just keep on reading. (Read More.....)

Will the shocking insider trading revelations that have come to light in recent days finally be enough to motivate the American people to start throwing all of the con men and charlatans out of Congress?  On Sunday, 60 Minutes opened up a huge can of worms when it did a feature story on insider trading by members of Congress.  Up until now, the vast majority of Americans had no idea that insider trading was actually legal for members of Congress.  In fact, as will be documented later on in this article, members of Congress have been using secrets that they have learned during the course of their duties to make huge amounts of money in the stock market.  If you can believe it, during the financial crisis of 2008 some members of Congress were making huge stock moves that would only pay off if the stock market crashed really hard at a time when they should have been focusing on creating legislation that would help the U.S. financial system survive.  It is hard not to feel sick after learning how low some of our "leaders" have stooped to enrich themselves.  Now that the American people are learning the truth, how can they ever trust Congress again? (Read More.....)

We are never going to restore legitimacy to our political system until we get the money out of politics.  Typically, in federal elections the candidate that raises the most money wins about 90 percent of the time.  In 2008, Barack Obama raised almost twice as much money as John McCain did.  3 of the top 7 donors to Obama's campaign were big Wall Street banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup).  Now Wall Street is doing it again.  The big Wall Street banks are already trying to buy the 2012 election.  So who do they want to win in 2012?  Based on contribution patterns so far, the overwhelming favorite of the Wall Street banks to win in 2012 is Mitt Romney.  The big Wall Street banks have given to Romney as pile of money that is more than 4 times larger than they have given to anyone else.  Even though most Republicans really don't want him, if history is any indication this means that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2012. (Read More.....)

It would be easy to know how to defend America if enemy forces were invading our shores.  But how do you defend a nation that is rotting from the inside out?  How do you eradicate the internal decay that is eating away at the heart and soul of this nation a little bit more every single day?  Just like we saw happen with the Roman Empire, the internal rot that is eating its way to the surface threatens to bring us down as a nation.  Greed, corruption, gluttony, lust and pride have become national pastimes.  We are addicted to debt, food, entertainment and pleasure.  We have been taught to hate those that look different from us or that believe different things than we do.  Society is literally coming apart at the seams and the federal government is increasingly implementing "Big Brother" security measures in an attempt to maintain control and keep us "safe".  We have far more people in prison than any other nation on the planet and yet things just keep getting worse and worse.  So how can we fix America?  How do we rescue a nation that is rotting from the inside? (Read More.....)

There is wild disagreement about what is causing it, but what most people can agree on is that there is something fundamentally wrong with America.  The fabric of American society just does not seem to be as strong as it used to.  In fact, many would argue that society is coming apart at the seams. Corruption and decay seem to be everywhere.  I spend a lot of time in my other articles blaming a lot of this corruption and decay on politicians, bureaucrats and business leaders, but the reality is that they are only part of the story.  The truth is that those who are leading us are a reflection of what we have become as a nation.  If you got rid of all of our corrupt leaders that would not suddenly "fix" this country.  Millions of ordinary Americans have become deeply corrupt as well.  The kinds of things that you are about to read about below were very rare in past generations.  Society is falling apart all around us and we haven't even seen the complete collapse of the U.S. economy yet. (Read More.....)

How in the world are Americans living in the southwest United States supposed to sleep peacefully at night when the U.S. government has given thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels and continues to leave the border completely wide open?  The brutality and viciousness of Mexican drug cartels is almost beyond description, and yet the U.S. government has armed them to the teeth and does next to nothing to stop their incursions into U.S. territory.  "Project Gunrunner" was supposed to be a U.S. government initiative to fight the flow of guns into Mexico.  Instead, it has now come out that ATF agents were ordered to facilitate the acquisition of thousands of U.S. guns by Mexican drug cartels and then halt surveillance on where those guns where going.  One of these operations was known as "Fast and Furious" and the revelations that are now coming out have Congress in an uproar.  If the full truth about what has been going on is revealed to the American people it is going to turn Washington D.C. upside down. (Read More.....)

What in the world is happening to America?  It seems like all we get out of politicians at the federal, state and local levels is a steady stream of really bad ideas.  Even when our government officials appear to have the best of intentions things still turn out badly.  "What were they thinking" is a phrase that is being uttered by millions of Americans on a daily basis.  Sadly, instead of focusing on real problems and real solutions, the mainstream media loves to focus on the latest scandal.  Last month everyone wanted to talk about Anthony Weiner.  This month everyone wants to talk about Casey Anthony.  Next month it will be somebody else.  There is a never ending stream of scandals for the mainstream media to latch on to, but what is America going to look like if we do not start addressing our real problems?  The United States has become a cesspool of corruption, greed, debt and depravity.  Everywhere you look there are signs of decline, and yet all our leaders come up with are more really bad ideas.  Time is running out on this nation, and with each passing day there seems to be fewer reasons to be optimistic about the future. (Read More.....)

What is the appropriate word to use when you find out that the top executive at the third largest health insurance company in America raked in 68.7 million dollars in 2010?  How is one supposed to respond when one learns that more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies make over a billion dollars in profits each year?  Is it okay to get angry when you discover that over 90 percent of all hospital bills contain "gross overcharges"?  Once upon a time, going into the medical profession was seen as a "noble" thing to do.  But now the health care industry in the United States has become one giant money making scam and it is completely dominated by health insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, lawyers and corporate fatcats.  In America today, just one trip to the hospital can cost you tens of thousands of dollars even if you do not stay for a single night.  The sad thing is that the vast majority of the money that you pay out for medical care does not even go to your doctor.  In fact, large numbers of doctors across the United States are going broke.  Rather, it is the "system" that is soaking up almost all of the profits.  We have a health care industry in the United States that is fundamentally broken and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. (Read More.....)

What in the world is happening to America?  Perhaps you have asked yourself that question from time to time.  Today it seems like everything is falling apart.  Our economy is crumbling, our politicians are incompetent, we have just gotten involved in another war, corruption is everywhere and the Americans people are so addicted to entertainment that hardly anything can wake them from their stupor.  It is enough to make you think that there is just not much hope for America.  But the truth is that we should never give up.  It is when the times are darkest that the greatest heroes arise.  We truly do live in challenging times, but that just means that there are great victories to be won and great stories to be written.  There may be a whole lot of things that are very wrong with America right now, but that doesn't mean that the game is over quite yet. (Read More.....)

When our founding fathers established this nation, they did so with the intention that government would be very limited and that there would be a tremendous amount of liberty and freedom.  But today that is such a distant memory that we don't even remember what "the land of the free and the home of the brave" actually means anymore.  Our lives are constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations and it gets worse every single day.  The federal government, state governments, local governments and even homeowners associations have become absolutely tyrannical.  There is a "law" or a "rule" for almost everything now, and many of them are absolutely ridiculous.  Big Brother is ripping our liberties and freedoms away from us at a blistering pace.  Just about any activity that you can think of other than sitting completely still in utter silence in your own home is tightly regulated by government.  This is not what our founding fathers intended. (Read More.....)