Wednesday, January 13, 2016

We're ruled not governed

From the files of Dan Bongino at The Conservative Review

Available on Amazon
It's now crystal clear: We are no longer being governed; we are being ruled. Our constitutional republic is the historical exception, not the rule, because it provided for a representative government with objective limits on its behavior.

Those limits have long since been erased. The rules which the Washington D.C. ruling class live by in no way represent the rules which you and I are forced to live by, under the penalty of law. In my second book, titled The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine, I expose some of the unethical and immoral behavior of the DC insider-class which, if you were to engage in it, you would find yourself inside of a prison cell.

The growing divide between government rules that are good for the ruling-goose and government rules that are good for the citizen-gander is a source of friction for Americans tired of being dumped on by the DC ruling class.

One of the most disturbing examples of this is the growing scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email system to share U.S. national security secrets, a potential crime which would have, unquestionably, sent me to prison had I done it as a Secret Service agent on assignment to protect her.

And as I state in my book, and as was relayed to me by an unimpeachable source, Mrs. Clinton's private server WAS HACKED, and Mrs. Clinton's team knew about it.

Combine this with recent revelations that Mrs. Clinton ordered subordinates to remove classified markings from emails before sending them to her over her private, non-government server, and more salt has been poured in this gaping wound.

Does Mrs. Clinton think the American people, and the federal government work force, are ignorant? She must know that they are intelligent people and are aware of the rules governing proper email security procedures.

How does anyone working for the federal government, aware of the email rules by which they happily abide, vote for a presidential candidate with a history of ignoring the rules that only the "little people" have to live by? This is only reconcilable if everything the United States stands for is meaningless to you and the idea of a power-constrained constitutional republic interferes with your power-hungry, top-down, big government agenda.

One of the lesser known, but nearly as damaging, scandals which I cover in the book from the perspective of someone who has witnessed the inner-workings of this broken administration is the March 2013 testimony of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the NSA metadata collection program.

When Senator Ron Wyden asked Clapper if they were collecting data on American citizens, Clapper, incredibly, responded, "No, sir," and "Not wittingly." Really? There are only two possible answers here: first, Clapper knew that metadata was being collected on Americans and lied about it.

Or Clapper didn't know and still lied about it by saying, "No, sir." Either way, if you did this as a rank-and-file member of the federal workforce, your career would be over and you would likely be subjected to intense investigative scrutiny.

A final example of the D.C. ruling class hubris, which is destroying our sense of national cohesion, is the behavior of former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. In February 2012, Secretary Sebelius spoke in her official capacity at a Human Rights Campaign Gala Dinner in North Carolina, and began campaigning for Democratic candidates by stating,

"It's hugely important to make sure that we re-elect the president and elect a Democratic governor here in North Carolina." This was a clear violation of the Hatch Act, which strictly and clearly prohibits political activities by government employees in their official capacity.

Was Sebelius punished for this? Barely. She was given an inconsequential slap on the wrist and was allowed to reimburse the government for the costs of the trip.

What would have happened to me if I did this as a Secret Service agent using my official title? I likely would have been immediately suspended and later terminated. This is deeply personal to me because I had to walk away from a career I loved as a Secret Service agent to run for office and engage in political activity precisely because of the Hatch Act.

But I'm not a personal friend to the Obama administration or a connected D.C. insider, so I had to follow the rules of the "little people."

Sound the alarm folks; we are reaching critical mass. One of the universal characteristics of human beings which separates us from animals is our sense of fairness. Human beings do not like seeing people harshly punished for minor infractions, and they despise seeing people under-punished and CONSISTENTLY getting away with activities which they would be sanctioned for.

I hope the D.C. ruling class is listening because I've heard the growing chorus of complaints from American citizens of all political stripes, and they are tired of being tired of this. Something's gotta give.

Click here to read the rest of the story
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Dan Bongino is the bestselling author of the book Life Inside the Bubble and is a Contributing Editor at Conservative Review. He was the 2012 and 2014 Republican nominee for the United States Senate and 6th congressional district in Maryland. He served for over a decade as a special agent in the United States Secret Service, and currently owns a security consulting business. 

You can follow Dan Bongino on his website, at Facebook or on Twitter.


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