Latter-day Saints and friends should be digging into the Book of Mormon more deeply than ever to understand the prophesied crises before us. In Ether 8, Mormon, the ancient prophet who saw our day, warned that our freedom would be in jeopardy due to secret combinations in our midst, including the multinational aspirations of a powerful secret combination, and pleaded with us to awake to a sense of our awful situation. This would be a good time to turn off the video games and see the big picture we are facing.

Bernie Madoff, an integral part of this nation's financial establishment, tripped up and got caught running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that has wiped out pensions and robbed charities. Entire retirement accounts of some workers are gone. Red flags were all over his operations, but the authorities somehow turned a blind eye. But this kind of looting and corruption is nothing compared to the trillion-dollar thievery going on by the Federal Reserve Bank, the Treasury Dept., and Congress. The former CEO of Goldman-Sachs has defrauded us of hundreds of billions of dollars and has strengthened Goldman-Sachs and peers, but won't tell us many details of what he did with it the money. The American people overwhelmingly said no, but Congress - including both Presidential candidates - said yes and voted to give away our economic future. Do you think this was done without money influencing personal decisions? Is anybody grilling Secty. Paulson to ask if he owns stock in any of the companies he is giving money to, or if he has other relationships with them that might be a conflict of interest? Does being the former CEO of Goldman-Sachs play any role in the exceedingly generous treatment that company has received? Why isn't the media asking the tough questions?

This brings us to a much smaller case of conspiracy and fraud, junior wannabe level. I refer to the massive political corruption that dominates Illinois politics, especially in the Chicago area. In Chicago, "everyone knows" that corruption is rampant, but nothing happens to address it except in rare and highly bungled cases like the shockingly clumsy case of Governor Blogojevich. Now a former mob lawyer turned Federal informant explains why this kind of corruption -- secret combination stuff, right out of the Book of Mormon -- can go on so long with so little media attention. It's simple: those who succeed in graft and corruption have the money to buy media influence, so some of the most important stories never get reported. Simple and obvious, I suppose - but it's an often overlooked principle by Americans willing to believe that they are told by authorities in the major media. It's not just a one-man scam -- it's the combination aspect that makes it so insidious. Combine with enough movers and shakers, and you can get away with financial murder over and over again. Who's going to take the story if someone squeals?

Junior crooks Blogojevich and Madoff were scamming us for years before they stumbled into trouble. How long can the really big crooks keep their power and corruption intact?

Don't see a relationship or parallel between these crooks and what's happening at the Federal level? Here, hold still while I take off a shoe and . . . never mind. Just read "Is Bernard Madoff Running the Federal Government?" by Cliff Kincaid at AIM.org.

Wii, anybody?
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