Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets

An easy, fast read which is supported by a comprehensive set of footnotes supporting all the painful facts. If you make the investment in this book, you will quickly learn the realities of our "raise campaign funds or loose" political system and how it has evolved into a "donate or get screwed" extortion system where the fundamental purpose of government is being lost in the seemingly unavoidable quest to capture power and money. This brilliant book finally explains the universal attacks on the tea party and Sarah Palin: The real reason they are portrayed by both parties as a radicals is because they are a huge threat to the current old guard methods of milking of donors by deliberately drafting threatening legislation, only to kill it when the coffers are refilled by another round of $30,000 a plate dinner guests. Nothing is sacred under the new system - intellectual property, high tech, the film industry, airlines, banking, telecommunications, energy, and, of course, health care. Every industry can be extorted for more political donations... at the expense of the American economy. Even more shocking is the revelation that neither you or I can bribe a politician - no surprise - however, it is perfectly legal for politicians to pass out the checks to other politicians right in the Capital building after a successful vote. Who pays? You do. If you ever had your suspicions about your local two faced Senator or House member, this book will confirm what was really going in by delivering hard, documented facts. Every American, regardless of party or political viewpoint, should read this book. Even if you are as critical of conspiracy theory allegations as I was, you will probably come to the same conclusion - it is time for some change in the way work in Washington gets done. Perhaps this is the one thing all Americans except for a minority DC elite can agree on.

This appears to be the second book Schweizer has written about the corruption in Washington. The first book explained how Congress gets away with insider trading and conflicts of interest. While private citizens can be jailed for insider trading, Congress has exempted itself through its ethics rules. Any member can trade in stock which is subject to pending legislation which the member will vote on.Conflict of interest occurs when members can accept contributions from special interests which are subject to pending legislation the members are working on. Another conflict occurs when members vote for subsidies that will benefit their personal interests. While they cannot vote for subsidies that will benefit their properties directly, they can always vote for subsidies which will benefit their properties indirectly such as nearby improvements like highway upgrades.This book details four more types of corruption. One used by the executive branch is to announce an investigation of some industry. After adequate donations pour in from the targets, the investigation usually quietly goes away. Schweizer calls this collecting protection money. Congress does the same by tabling pending legislation.A tactic often used by the House is for the Speaker to hold up a floor vote on legislation beneficial to some special interest. After adequate donations come in, a floor vote is called. Schweizer calls this the toll booth where payment must be made to proceed.On paper a politician cannot use campaign funds for personal use. In practice politicians can appoint family members to manage their campaign organizations and various PACs they set up. These family members get paid lavish salaries so the campaign funds end up going to the politician's family. Schweizer calls this operation a slush fund.While it is illegal for politicians to buy votes from the public, Congress has allowed itself to do so internally. Any member can give other members money, ostensibly to fund their campaigns, but actually to buy their votes for some legislation the donor is proposing. Schweizer calls this the Congressional underground economy, meaning a place for buying and selling votes.The book is called extortion because most of these tactics involve Washington politicians pressuring special interests with money to give them contributions.

A lot of the book is just going over examples about how Congress extorts money from companies. It does a good job at doing just that but some sections in the chapters were just example after example of the same thing but with a different politician/company. I learned some new things about how terrible and two-faced Obama was, but other than these less-than-shocking realizations, I didn't find too much value in the book. I enjoyed the book cause it was easy to follow and pretty short, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody trying to go down any sort of rabbit hole.

Extortion was a sad read all the way through. Our politicians extort money from business on both sides of the issue. Then table the issue, simply to bring it up again. Thus they extort additional monies - again from both sides. Our politicians do nothing except line their pockets with tax payer money. Stay in the job for a lifetime and then retire with even more taxpayer money. They are 535 members. We are 300 million citizens. Our job is to remove them from their job. Congressmen and Senators were never expected to serve more than one or two terms then return home. They've twisted the rules to have zero accountability. Fatten their wallets and defy the will of the people. The book is exactly what the public needs to understand what happens in our Congress. I'm ashamed of what they have been doing for so many years. Power is what they want. Power is what they get. We get a politicians dream - equality -everyone (except them) equally poor!

I've always had a healthy distaste for politicians, we all say they're corrupt. But to see it detailed in black and white and see the actual 'legalised extortion' and 'legalised corruption' in this book really opened my eyes.Congressmen and women refusing to indicate how they'll vote on a bill until donations flow into their office to push them in one direction or another, literally tens of thousands of dollars in some cases in one or two days.Politicians loaning themselves funds to run their campaign, then charging their campaign 18%+ interest and taking that interest back each year, without ever taking back the initial load, this allows them to continually dig into their campaign funds.Golf weekends costing upwards of $10,000, all paid for from campaign funds.Politicians relatives being hired as lobbyists by defence companies (at salaries around $60,000 for three months) to lobby the politician for defence contracts for example.The icing on the cake for me were the SOPA and PIPA bills when Obama, short on support and funding for re election, used these bills to play Hollywood studios against Silicon Valley, in this example he let the bill die, just so he could have a 'Double Milker' to return to milk them all again for funding down the road.The Left (I consider myself Libertarian Anarchist, neither Left nor Right) like to say the corporations are controlling the politicians. This book exposes the politicians as being as corrupt if not more so. This book exposes both the Democrats and Republicans as been equally corrupt when it comes to feathering their own nests and Schweizer details both Harry Reid and Roy Blunts families and their dubious stronghold.Schweizer estimates that congressmen and women spend about six hours per day related to fund raising alone. I've always thought government a scam, and I consider this book powerful evidence to support that. Schweizer wraps up the book with some examples of how to correct the system, which may be of interest to some, the only chapter of little interest to me.Jam packed with notes and an appendix of fund raising tables.If you think your vote counts, or that your congressman is different you should read this book.

Interested in politics this is a must must read?

A good read. Clearly shows how corrupt a lot of politicians are. How to solve the problem is to reward whistle blowers while protecting their identity as well as make sure the fake whistle blowers get penalized somehow.

Excellent book detailing fundraising in American politics and legal blackmail is thriving, no wonder this country is so totally screwed.