Last night Ted Cruz exposed the Political Industrial Complex (PIC) in all its arrogant and self-centered glory. He is the next (but not the last) of a long line the GOP-algned members of the PIC to confirm why Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump are necessary and legitimate grass root movements.

As a reminder, the Political Industrial Complex encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain. It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad news will disrupt said power. It is sect of society just as insidious as the  Military Industrial Complex, from which I derived the label:

The military–industrial complex (MIC) is an informal alliance between a nation’s military and the defense industry which supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.

Established to funnel funds to the crony defense industry, the MIC simply exploits the PICs power via taxpayer money and skewed laws to funnel that money. The PIC has no power if it cannot reap financial reward from redistribution of tax payer money.  Just look at how the Clinton’s used the Office of Secretary of State to grow wealthy:

At least two dozen different companies, groups or foreign governments paid former President Bill Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees at the same time that they had issues pending with the State Department that was being run by his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alleges a new report this week.

More than $8 million was eventually paid out to the former president – and 15 of the organizations also donated as much as $15 million to the family’s charity, The Clinton Foundation, according to the report published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.

These people you see on TV this week at the convention – with the exception of the the Trumps and those business owners who spoke on behalf of Donald Trump – are all part of the PIC. The talking head media especially is in the tank for the PIC, as can be seen by their rabid attacks on the Trumps and those average Americans speaking at the convention:

CNN Pundit Equates Hillary to Jesus, Christie’s Speech ‘Was Everything Except Crucify Her’

Chris Matthews: ‘Bloodthirsty’ GOP Delegates Ready to ‘Kill’ Clinton?

ABC, MSNBC Denounce Christie as ‘Inciting’ a ‘Mob,’ Pushing a ‘Banana Republic’

Film Critic Called GOP Convention the ‘World’s Largest Lynch Mob’

This is the news media protecting its gravy train – plain and simple.

So back to Cruz – who is a creature of the PIC and is as afraid of Trump’s grass roots forces as much as any other insulated member of the PIC.  What Cruz did, in withholding his support of Trump, is join the line of GOP-leaning PIC members who are actually trying to circle their wagons to protect themselves from THE VOTERS!

The #NeverTrump movement was all about one thing – overturning the primary election results. It was all about negating not just the votes of the Trump supporters, but all the volunteered hours they put in to bring this phenomena to fruition. Cruz was the last ditch option of the GOP-aligned PIC. They tried Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco (Marco, Marco, Marco) Rubio, and others to derail the grass roots.

It is no coincidence that outsiders such as Herman Cain and Ben Carson have been pushed out of races by the PIC-aligned news media. The PIC cannot afford outsiders who will disrupt the flow of wealth.

But make no mistake, this realignment began in 2010 with the Tea Party turning the tides on establishment candidates. Surprisingly, those grass root outsiders are now the insiders fighting Trump and his broader coalition of voters (Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to name two). It does seem that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And quickly in DC. I was born inside the beltway and grew up and raised our family just outside. I know DC, and I know what it does to people.

It makes their careers dependent on towing the line. A great example of an average good person being consumed by the PIC is Vince Foster.

Hillary Clinton relentlessly browbeat her clinically depressed former law partner Vince Foster shortly before he committed suicide in 1993, according to notes from a final jailhouse interview with a former close business partner of the Clintons.

Jim McDougal, a long-time member of the Clintons’ Arkansas inner circle and a central figure in the Whitewater scandal, passed away from a heart attack in prison in 1998. But he said in a final interview before his death that Hillary Clinton had a “hard, difficult personality” and was “riding [Vince Foster] every minute” about Whitewater before Foster took his own life.

The leaders of the PIC are very aggressive. They will do things most people would not think about doing to gain power and prestige. Which is why the PIC is circling the wagons and trying to mute and control the voters. They will be working to control who can be a viable candidate. They will be putting in stops and checks to thwart voters – for “convenience” of course:

Without doubt, one of the most troublesome aspects of the current system is its gross inefficiency. Whereas generations ago selecting a nominee took relatively little time and money, today’s process has resulted in a near-permanent campaign. Because would-be nominees have to win primaries and open caucuses in several states, they must put together vast campaign apparatuses that spread across the nation, beginning years in advance and raising tens of millions of dollars.

The length of the campaign alone keeps many potential candidates on the sidelines. In particular, those in positions of leadership at various levels of our government cannot easily put aside their duties and shift into full-time campaign mode for such an extended period.

….

Though the reforms of the nominating process that began in the 1960s and ’70s were intended to better represent the will of the voting public, the result has been a system that does not reflect the interests and values of the nationwide Republican electorate at all. Instead, inordinate amounts of power are held by a handful of groups that do not represent the broader party or its interests.

Emphasis mine. I was dumbfounded the by the string of “logic” in this argument. It sounded straight out of the European Union (where they have eliminated the role of the citizen voters all together). So, it is hard (weep, weep,, wah, wah) to gain the support of the voters in enough states to win primaries and caucuses. This is especially hard on government leaders!!

Like non-government leaders don’t have to sacrifice to win an election? What a bunch of PIC-centric crap.

And wait to you hear the solution!

During the week of Lincoln’s birthday (February 12), the Republican Party would hold a Republican Nomination Convention that would borrow from the process by which the Constitution was ratified. Delegates to the convention would be selected by rank-and-file Republicans in their local communities, and those chosen delegates would meet, deliberate, and ultimately nominate five people who, if willing, would each be named as one of the party’s officially sanctioned finalists for its presidential nomination. Those five would subsequently debate one another a half-dozen times.

Bottom line – remove the voters who may just not agree with the party apparatchik.

This solution – couched in claims of efficiency, purity of GOP doctrine and bizarrely accountability to the “voters” – is a path to a new form of communism. When the PIC down selects for us  all we will get is PIC-approved (donor funded) Manchurian candidates.

Charles Lipson said it well today:

For years, rank-and-file Republicans had been sending the same message, and their leaders have refused to listen. This year, the voters pounded their fists and said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Their message: The GOP’s elected leaders had failed in their core obligations. They had been elected to staunch the progressive tide of Washington centralization, Big Government legislation, and endless regulation by faceless bureaucrats.

They had not just failed. They had hardly tried. When big bureaucracies broke the laws or botched their responsibilities, they escaped the consequences. That was true for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service, Government Services Administration, and many others. After some theatrical congressional hearings, there were few punishments, fewer firings, and no budget reductions—this by a Republican Congress. The predictable result is a bloated, unaccountable, incompetent government slipping away from its constitutional moorings.

We don’t need to reform the primaries – we need to reform the entire PIC.

Trump has shaken the GOP-aligned PIC to its core. So badly the insulated denizens have openly called for MORE insulation – from the voters. If you want a sign Trump is the person to shake up Washington and break the elites’ hold on our country – just keep watching how various elements of the PIC  react. Watch how news media, Supreme Court Justices, pols like Romney/Bush/Cruz and now the punditry all are thinking of ways to remove the voters from the equation.

Trump must be doing something right – or is planning on it. And remember, those in the PIC standing beside Trump now are a mixed bag. Some agree completely with him (Christie, Guilani, Gingrich, etc), and some are just positioning themselves to survive (Ryan).  We will find out who is who very soon.

Tags: 2016 Election, Brexit, Convention, Cruz, European Union, Political Indu, Trummp