In power. You think youre untouchable. What would americas founders think of todays washington, d. C. s overlord. Thats our show tonight. Its election season, and this year i keep hearing that voters are angry. President obamas Approval Rating is way down and approval of congress is even lower. It almost makes me feel sorry for our overlords in congress. Theyre all going to lose their jobs. Voters will vote in new representatives. Except they wont. Voters almost never throw the overlords out. Remember what was called the bloodbath election of 94. Republicans took back the house. Time magazine calls it a g. O. P. Stampede. Peter said voters were like two years old throwing a tantrum. In the bloodbath of 9 4 90 percent of congress was reelected. Heres a chart of reelection rates. See any trend there . I dont. The election rate never drops below 85 percent. And 98 percent is not unusual. Once in washington, the overlords are almost never pushed out. This year reporters say it will be different. Theres this antiincumbent if he everror. Thats just nonsense. . even this year, its going to be 90 percent again . Even this year. The challenge for anybody trying to change the system is getting voters to know you exist and raising money and breaking through this very complex set of rules written by incumbents to protect incumbancy. Its a virtually impossible wall to penetrate. People hate congress. But theyre much less likely to hate their congressmen. Stossel when he says that they rig the system to favor the incumbents. Explain that. Like they have networks of supporters. Once youre in office, you have network ties usually with a big party organization. You have ties to donors who helped you in your previous round of fund rising. You can continue that cycle on and on. Money plays a big role, but so do Network Connections even in the United States where we dont have kings we have political dynasties in connected families even. Stossel outside groups are now allowed to speak about politics via campaign ads. Today, democrats tell us that kind of spending by outside groups is a threat to democracy. Harry reid calls it dark money thats threatening to tear apart the fabric of democracy. They introduced a constitutional amendment to allow congress to limit constitutional spending. An amendment is necessary to allow meaningful Campaign Finance rules. All of this money is suffocating the airways. Suffocating the voices of the many. Stossel suffocating the voices of the many. Big money. Theyre trying to paint their party as the party of the rich. But democrats lets clear the air. Theres a lot of big money on both sides of the ales when it comes to politics. They want to silence those other billionaires. They want to rig the system so that their donors are able to give whether thats labor unions or people who typically support democrats, but they want to silence the opposition. Stossel they probably wont get that. Its hard to pass a constitutional amendment for a good reason. Expensive tv ads do allow unknowns to break through. A state legislator in, iowa, got my attention. I grew up casstrating hogs on a farm so when i get to washington ill know how to cut pork. Stossel she backed off from that now, but its joni earnest who is leading in the race in iowa. Thank goodness for more money. . i like more money and more competition and equal rules that apply acrosstheboard. The problem with Campaign Finance regulation it allows for an insane amount of discretion amongst the regularities so they can pick and choose who is punished for what. Stossel the insider says this is okay. The outsiders says its not. Thats what lois learner did. Stossel on my Facebook Page a lot of people want term limits. I think thats a good way to rotate people out of office. Put fresh faces into office. People who have spent more of their lifetime stossel Congress Wont pass it. Some states have. And it causes more turnover. The longer they stay in office, the more they spend. The ultimate job of our will d litigators is to uphold the constitution. . when they have they get so far outside of their important duties of passing a budget and doing basic legislative duties thats when we see more money flooding into politics. People attached to the power that Public Office can bring. Stossel thank you matt. One reasons why americans politicians fight so hard to stay in office because they are a little like overlords. They get privileges that you and i dont get the senate has a senators only shop. You can also get manicures. Waxing. Stossel the barbershop loses a third of a Million Dollars every year. Maybe thats why they didnt want kennedy taking pictures. You cant film this. The house once had a subsidizing barbershop. Now, it doesnt cost taxpayers any money. Pete of the National Taxpayers union explains why the senate hasnt done the same. The sergeant of arms says i will get to it. I will get to it. Part of the problem is some very expensive legacy employees getting paid 70, 80,000. Stossel another understood Congress Gets is an exclusive system thats so they can be whisked to the office and back. Its often empty, but it costs millions. Congressmen get their own parking lot at airport. Kennedy tried to park there. Can i park here . No, maam, you cant. You can park in the garage. Stossel how much do the overlords in your state spend on their state. A website called open the books. Com lets you put in your zip code and track what your representatives do. Its run by adam. He tries to keep track of the more secretive ways that they spend our money. No longer does the senate barbershop give muchures. Money as they used to. You find that many of these guys continue to act like overlords. Certainly i think the Political Class in america has learned to gain the system for personal profit. How do they do it . They pad their payrolls. They set up payroll farms. Stossel employment farms . Like on the phoenix va veterans couldnt see a doctor because there were only 200 of them. At phoenix with where the scandal broke there was 3,000 employees. These were employment farms that we have determined in government. Not a medical system. Another way they do this is through passing bloated contracts to their friends. Stossel examples of egregious spending. 65 million. Theyve been Backing Congress asking for another 70 million of appropriation. We dont even have approved plans yet. No foundation built. The idea of 65 million for nothing. Were just falling the rules. In my Home Community college. The college of do you page, the president has a half million compensation package. He built a wine seller and an upscale french restaurant. Stossel and i was surprised to read in massachusetts that the governor was going to spend 9 million renovating his office. I thought this has to be a typo. I checked it out. Its not a typo. 9 million. And some of that is probably warranted. Its a historic property. There are broken windows. Things like that. Stossel we contacted his office and they said, oh, this is a historically significant landmark. Okay. It is. The state didnt meet federal accessibility we installed blast resistant storm windows. Maybe some of those things are good, but 9 million on an office . Real people dont do that. Exactly. If the governor of massachusetts wants to do something good on behalf of the great people in his state he can start by opening the pensions. Stossel thats the big money, the pensions. For instance, im from illinois, john. Stossel im sorry. Im from illinois too, but i dont live there anymore. A lot of people are moving out. One of the reasons is recently we discovered a Union Lobbyist had caught for one day in the Public Schools and then they stood in line to receive a Million Dollar worth of state teacher pension. Stossel you go into government youre paid less. But you get a pension. Now, theyre paid more and they get twice the pension, American Enterprise institute says 22 states pay so much more in lifetime retirements, and the workers in eight of 23 states get become a pension millionaire. If youre a retired educator in the state of illinois weve done the analysis, every single dollar you put in the system, you get all that cost basis money back in your first 20 months of retirement. Stossel lets go back to the ugly scandal at the va. People werent treated. Some may have died. And yet, 5 million in bonuses went to va executives. Over a threeyear period into that scandal breaking 5 million of bonuses was paid to the even in cheyenne she cannies office. The top Legal Counsel got bonuses. The Inspector General themselves got bonuses. Stossel remy describes what the va officials did. Going to grab a piece of paper. And well make a second list. . wait what . Well just say that wait times arent that long and that no deadlines were missed because there aint no doubt we cant be god bless the government. music . Stossel they can be be fired, but its almost impossible. This is why we need Citizen Engagement because when we showcase the bonuses in phoenix, the director of that facility sharon she received in 2013 the largest bonus out of the 3,000 employees. Stossel she got fired . Her bonus was rescinded. Shes still there, but her bonus was taken back. Stossel thank you, adam. To join this argument you can tweet hashtag overlords or post on my Facebook Page. Id like to know what you think about this. Coming up. This is why people think libertarians are stossel ann coulter will explain why she wants to drown me. Federal prosecutors who torture people and cheat to do it. Federal prosecutors knowingly withheld evidence. Stossel are they then punished for that . No. They got promoted. Obama were getting rid of regulations that dont work. Stossel haha. I so wanted to believe him, but he never does it. Its not just president obama none of the overlords do it. President george w. Bush actually hired 90,000 new regularities. Its always more. Heres a graft that shows the increase of wages in federal regulations. Today there are 175,000 pages of rules that all of you are supposed to obey. Thats 175,000 pages of rules looks like. Have you read all those to make sure youre not breaking the law . Of course, not. And yet any of them could get you in trouble. And this is just what the federal overlords impose. States and local governments have more rules. Susan dudley was in charge of president bushs office of regulatory affairs. Shes the author of regulation. You didnt get rid of many regulations, did you. No, i didnt. The pressure to regulate is intense. We never look back to see whether its working or whether theres thing we can remove from the books. Stossel and we get more regulations because of an evil partnership that baptists and bootleggers explain. Bootleggers of the 20th century benefited from the ban of liquor sells. So instead they relied on the baptists who also favored the sunday bans for moral reasons. You see that again and again. This bootlegger Baptist Stossel thats how we get the ethanol subsidiary ease. Its been shown to be harmful to the environment. It hurts people domestically and internationally. Stossel and even the environmentalist have wised up to it. The baptist argument is a little different now. . lets protect American Farms and way of life. Stossel and the business side are the ethanol producers of the farmers. Its the corn and soy farmers that benefit. The today show recently ranked des moines idaho as the richest city in the nation. Sounds good. Save people electricity. When you look at the two dishwashers. One costs a lot more up front. Its better. It will save you money over the long run. We choose the cheaper one because we make tradeoffs. They ban the cheaper ones so we have to buy the expensive one. Stossel the manufacture who had the expensive one wanted gets together with the environmental zealots and you might get a law. You might want a dishwasher that gets your dishes clean. John now we have egraduates which may help people quit, but the busybodies are piling they are proposing standards for egraduates that would regulate them like other cigarettes. All the car any generals arent there, but also the Secondhand Smoke isnt there. . stossel its new, but it frightens people. Then the overlords bring us the stupid rules like its illegal to own a small turtles. Turtles under 4 inches. You might put them in your mouth and get sal mosamnil a. Stossel why would you put it in your mouth. Wouldnt you think you would get what you deserved . . stossel the regulation said they would come and kill your turtle if it was under 4 inches . Okay. Then there are confusing regulations. The fda regulates frozen cheese pizza, but the Agriculture Department regulates Pepperoni Pizza . Yes, meat and cheese pizzas are regulated separately. It has identity standards. It has to pass approval of these agencies. Stossel this allows the overlords to lawyer up and spread work to all their colleagues. Its complicated because theyre from ageold statutes. They accumulate. And often the accumulation doesnt make sense and it goes back to your pile of regulations. Stossel they almost never go away. Theyre encrusted like barn cals. They keep adding more. Speaking of old ones. People are type one diabetes are not allowed to drive commercial vehicles across state lines without getting special permission from the department of transportation. You cant take your cupcakes across the line stossel well, if you have this diabetes there are 3 Million People with type one diabetes. The controls for diabetes have changed so much since those regulations grew in. John but the regulations are still there we have to live with that. Thank you susan du dudley. Coming up. Ann coulter says you libertarians are wimps. Oh, but we you fill up my senses like a night in a forest like the mountains in springtime like a sleepy blue ocean you fill up my senses come fill me again come let me love you let me always be with you come let me love you come love me again stossel american lawyers like to say our Justice System is the fairest in the world. If thats true, i pity the rest of the world. Because in america, a small powerful group of washington overlords, federal prosecutors, sometimes break rules to win cases, often wrecking the lives of people who did nothing wrong. You can read about this about this in this new book called licensed to lie exposing corruption in the department of justice. She writes that overzealous, ambitious, narcisse particular and dishonest prosecutors destroy innocent people by deliberately withholding evidence, evidence they knew contradicted their cases. For example, remember the Arthur AndersenAccounting Firm 80,000 people worked there, but they lost their job after they claimed anderson patterns helped enron commit a fraud. The prosecutor complained employees once they saw the government was coming to investigate. Tons of documents for stwregd. A year later they won and the company was ruined. It was the whole company. Instead of charging the individuals who allegedly destroyed evidence, but that might have taken more time, more trials, might have gotten less publicity, they instead indicted the whole company. Anderson lost most of its clients. They arent even allowed to do business with a company under investigation. Anderson went ouch business. The prosecutors purpose was to chill resistance from any other company that might dare resistant the feds. Cooperate or we will destroy you. And this was necessary, they said, because shredding documents is a crime that attacks the Justice System itself by impeding discovery of the truth. Well, maybe. But who actually hid the truth . The prosecutors, writes powell. Despite the prosecutors claims about shredded documents, anderson had in fact saved its documents and produced them to the government. Powell says the prosecutors simply lied. Once that was revealed, the Supreme Court overturned that conviction. Too late. 80,000 people lost their jobs. So the prosecutors were then jailed or at least punished, disbarred . No. The overlords protect their own. Believe it or not they were promoted. Next, they accused four Merrill Lynch investors for falsifying enrons books. The government told the media that enron aspired with to carry a sham transaction. Three to four jail sentences. Powell writes that the government never alleged anything that actually stud a crime by Merrill Lynch execs. It cobbled together parts of different statutes to make up some new kind of crime to that didnt even make sense. At appeal courts, tossed most of the verdicts and the Merrill Lynch executives were released after they spent a year in jail. That led paul of the Washington Legal Foundation to say this. We hope this decision will send a strong message to the Justice Department to stop this kind of abusive misconduct. Stossel you would hope, but it didnt. The prosecutors next went after republican senator ted stevens of alaska. It all came crashing down for ted stevens. The federal jury here in washington found he ted stevens of alaska guilty on all counts. Seven felony counts of making false statements. He accepted gifts. He said the prosecutors got 250,000 gifts from rich donors and never reported that. I recall believe that ive not done anything wrong. Stossel and it turns out it may not have done anything wrong. For example, he did not get 250,000 in gifts. An explosive report alleged misconduct against ted stevens. The report is alleging that federal prosecutors knowingly withheld evidence. There was clear misconduct by prosecutors in that case. Stossel they found they hid and evidence witnesses lied under oath. A judge threw out that conviction. Were the prosecutors punished for their misdeeds. Matthew left for a higher paying job at a private law firm. The director of the Enron Task Force became an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. Andrew weisman who helped prosecuting the Merrill Lynch employees was made Deputy Director of the fbi and Merrill Lynch prosecutor was promoted to Deputy Attorney general then promoted again to white House Counsel and now its reported that shes president obamas first choice to replace eric holder to become the first woman attorney general. They were rewarded for abusing their power. They always have an advantage anyway. They have endless time and money. If they sue you, you have to stop your life and probably spend all your savings on lawyers. You never know when their attack might end, if you fight all the way to trial, you might lose. So everyone settles. Even those who think theyre innocent. Unless youre very rich, you cant afford to fight the feds. If they want you, theyll probably get you. And then they may get promoted even if they lie. We invited prosecutors friedrich, caldwell, to reply to the charges laid out in powells book, but they did not respond. Next, life is good for our overlords in washington, d. C. Today most of americas richest counties surround the capital. More excess of our imperial overlords next. Live. Upon first entering the home you have this incredibly gracious staircase. Washingtons Real Estate Market is hot. You can really see the Crown Molding when you get to the top. Stossel there are lots of expensive homes here. Beautiful gourmet cooking. Culinary delight. Stossel all glass ceilings. This home is a steal at 2. 8 million. 2. 8 million is a steal he says because our Real Estate Market has been relatively recession proof. Because government is its main industry. We continue to have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Stossel because government keeps growing. So much so that today, for the first time, most of the richest counties in america surround washington, dc. The rest of america had a housing recession. Everybody else housing prices went way down not in washington. Stossel hirch say people that control the government and get to tax you live here. They move there and they like it there. Lobbyists, politicians, government contractors. Theres a reason they go there and stay there. Stossel consider where they work. The architecture is grand. Many Office Buildings resemble pal i says. The whole french nobility they spent their lives in the rich neighborhoods and they didnt know what else went on outside that world. People never leave washington. Stossel congressmen ran again and then he run. Grayson says if there is royalty in america. Its not the congressmen, its the lobbyists. Lobbyists are the royalty in washington, dc. And who made it that way . You congressmen made it that way by passing all these laws. If you have Big Government, there is more money to fight over. Theres that argument, but the real royalty is not in washington, dc. Stossel its on wall street he says. And there is lots of money here, but theres a big difference. In the private sector if you can find a way to cut costs, youre a hero. If you can find ways to cut costs in bureaucracy, youre a goat. They measure success by the size of their budget. Stossel and it gives them reasons to invest in d. C. And invest they have. Unions say teachers are underpaid, but their union sure looks rich. Were told this Headquarters Building is worth millions of dollar. Its an environmental zero ace i say. Its impressive, but we cant take pictures of it. We cant take a picture of the beautiful a triup until. They debated whether we could envelope. You needed something. Weve read about the beautiful lobby, and id like to show it viewers. Theyre building palaces for yourselves. Ive been to that building, i didnt feel that way at all. Have you been to any mall in america in the past few years. Isnt it more grand . Stossel no. I would have to disagree. Stossel i was passed from one official to the next. Find out a little bit about what is going on. Im going to have to check. Stossel he went back inside for a while and finally ruling came down. No . Their reason . Were not opening the building up to you. Stossel i tried another beautiful building. Another headquarters. The murals made of marble, glass and gold. I want to take pictures of the beautiful lobby. They let me wait inside. I had plenty of time to think about the 12,000 active lobbyists now working in washington. Theyre smart to be here since washington controls so much, but this union doesnt want you to see what theyve got. Ive been notified by our Legal Department that were not because of the state of the mural were not allowed to do that. Stossel oh, well. The bottom line is that washington, once a sleepy, parttime home for politicians now resembles ver sad. Power brokers work in buildings that look like palaces. And after work, they go home to castles. It overlooks the pond. The property is on 5 acres. Beautiful shower. . and his or her water closets. Stossel it all helps to understand why people spend millions to win jobs here. Once people come to d. C. They never leave. Stossel coming up, ann coulter will explain why she wants to track me down and drown me. She wont have to track me down. Im right here. This is why people this is why people think stossel washington insiders like to talk about how competitive our elections are. Campaign commercials are vicious. We have debates. Elections are often close. Thats all true, but that doesnt mean washingtons overlords actually allow open competition. They rarely do. Elections are limited to republican versus democrat. Outsiders. Youre not welcome. So where does that leave people like me . I dont like some of the choices offered me by the two big parties. Democrats want government control of the economy and many other things republicans want government control of our personal lives. Thats why im a libertarian and i often vote for the libertarian candidate. Even though they always lose. So far. And ill probably vote for the libertarian again this year just to make a statement. And because of that, ann coulter wants to drown me. Really, thats what you wrote . You want to drown libertarians. Youre voting in new york . Stossel yeah. My vote wont matter. Thats okay. I really like the republican gubernatorial candidate. I think you should like him. I mean, thats those are the libertarians i said i would like to drown. There are a lot of very important elections and you cant tell me theres no difference between the two parties. A lot of the reason theyre so similar, certainly the Republican Party is the more libertarian party. When the republicans are bad it is often because you have to be bad to get a vote. If you want to make a point id rather you go out and create vandalism than cause republicans to lose the senate. Republicans dont take 53 senate seats were losing two in two years. Obamacare is not going to be repealed. You are not going to have any concept of privatizing social security. We lose everything. This is such an important election. And democrats dont have to put up with this nonsense. They dont have their equivalent of the tea party or libertarians. They run in states like new york or california where their vote it just doesnt make a difference. If youre a libertarian in mississippi or utah. Fine. I will not waste my time flying out to drown you. If youre voting in one of these tight states, louisiana, alaska, georgia, youre going to cost republicans the senate and thats it. Stossel libertarian candidates are more competitive and may sway some elections. In virginia, Libertarian Senate candidate robert is pulling in about 6 percent. George a candidate, amanda so a ford might get 5 percent. In North Carolina sean how is doing enough to get the attention of meet the press. Hes got 7 percent of the vote enough to swing the election. Exactly the same in florida. That gubernatorial race. Hes getting double digital support in recent polls. Stossel this makes you grit your teeth . Yeah, you know, you see any red flags with the Mainstream Media playing up the libertarian candidate. Meet the press . Theyre not going to interview scott brown. Hes a good candidate. Stossel they dont play us up. Youre going to ruin republican elections thats why they love to play up libertarians. This is a total disaster. Those elections you just cited, this will cost republicans the senate. We will be living in our obamacare concentration camps and admiring you for your principle. That will be such a wonderful moment. Stossel a Libertarian Senate candidate about helping democrats. Youve got 7 percent right now. You could be a spoiler. Im very happy to give people an alternative to the candidates offered by the republicans and democrats in this race. I want to kill him. Stossel there is evidence that libertarian votes dont just get taken from the republican. That is absolutely not true. Stossel it doesnt mean its true. It means its not true. Stossel the virginia race. And the libertarian got 6 percent of the votes. Some republicans said his presence of on the ballot hurt cuccinelli. But the reality it didnt. The exit polls without him, the republicans would have won by the same margin. Some would have stayed home and some would vote for the democrat. Thats like saying everyone knows of the two parties which one is closer to the influence the Republican Party. Run in primaries. Do not be the spoiler to hand the United States senate, the entire government over to democrats. I promise, do not share a single principle with you. Stossel if i vote for republicans, im supporting the war on drugs, the war on most everyone around the world, the militaryindustrial complex. Farm subsidies. Talk of suspending spending cuts. Some i agree with you. We can at least influence the Republican Party. You have no influence on the democrats. With them its Big Government working hand in hand with big corporations to screw the rest of america and things are getting completely out of hand right now. You have no shot with the democratic party. Run in primaries, libertarians. Stossel you left out thousands of pages of new regulation well get from the democrats. Thank you ann coulter. Coming up, oppressive as washingtons overlords maybe. We should be glad we live in america because other places are much worse. Killed anyone he considered an intellectual. Gaddafi employed a squad so,as my personal financial psychic, im sure you know what this meeting is about. Yes, a raise. Im letting you go. I knew that. You see, this is my amerivest managed. Balances. No. Portfolio. And if doesnt perform well for two consecutive gold. Quarters. Quarters. Yup. Then amerivest gives me back their advisory. Stocks. Fees. Fees. Fees for those quarters. Yeah. So, im confident im in good hands. For all the confidence you need. Td ameritrade. You got this. The least Productive Congress in american history. Stossel the Mainstream Media routinely complain about the donothing congress. But why . Were better off with a donothing congress or at least a congress that does less. Much of what congress does in the name of solving problems, takes our freedom, increases spending and ends up creating worse problems. Im happy when we have gridlock. Americans often say they want bipartisan, but, again, why . Bipartisan brings us some of our worst laws. People say that they hate congress. And they are right to hate congress. Its filled with pandering opportunists and when those teuntsz opportunists get together, they pass awful rules. Congress repealed the law preventing them from trading stocks based on insider trading. That vote was unanimous. Without objection, the bill was passed. Stossel they gave us ethanol the wasteful stimulus act. All thanks to bipartisanship. And, of course, thats also how we got the tsa. The senate voted 100 to zero for that. When overlords are unanimous, we in the public, should cringe. Politicians and voters can dream of higher incomes for all. Cheap green energy. An end to ebola, but politicians rarely bring us those things. Approximate the private sector might, but only if our government overlords would stay out of the way. When the overlords say, yes, we can. We should say, no, you cant. Not if we means government. Government cannot and it shouldnt try. Heres a whole book that explains they cant. They cant. But individuals can. And often do. If were left free. But our overlords have no intention of leaving us free. They want to spend more and impose more rules and so we get more of that every week. But it could be worse. Be glad you dont live in ancient roam. Nero held long recital and see forbade anyone to leave during his performance. Women sometimes gave birth. They pretended to be dead just so they could escape by being carried away for burial. Okay that was back then. Roman empire excess. Kim jung had his staff inspect every grain of rice he might eat to make sure each grain adhered to proper standards of length and color. I guess hes the ultimate. He killed some just because they wore glasses. Gaddafi employed a squad of female bodyguards all virgins, allegedly. Today, in russia, you can be fined in your car is dirty. If you fail to insure its free of dirt and grime. France requires all drivers to carry a breathalyzer with them in their cars. Canada creed it illegal to use coins for anything that costs more than 25. Even as our washington overlords strangle entrreneurship and keep passing freedom killing rules its still we live in america. Thats our show. A paid advertisement for starvista entertainment and time lifes music collection. These are songs about real life. Songs about love. Songs that come straight from the heart. Here you come again just when ive begun to get myself together oh, baby, im gonna love you forever forever and ever, amen mama, hes crazy crazy over me just the good ol boys