Rep. Ken Buck Blames Government Dysfunction For Sudden Retirement

Republican congressman Ken Buck made headlines  by announcing his early retirement last week, in his announcement, he blamed the fact that  Congress has become completely dysfunctional. And he said he just couldn't be a part of it anymore.  It was pretty telling, I mean, we've known this. You and I have talked about how dysfunctional  it is. Nothing ever happens. But can you imagine taking your life. Okay. You're saying, okay, I'm  gonna be away from my family for months at a time. I'm gonna be

dealing with this problem for months  at a time, knowing there's really never gonna be a resolution. That's basically what he said. Yeah. And it is very telling because we're having more and more lawmakers, on both sides that have  come out just in the last month or two saying, we are not doing anything. Look at what's happening  right now. We've still got another budget battle, which means for the, this was the fifth time in  10 months, we've been right at the precipice of a government shutdown

. We can't even get the  budgets passed. They're just kicking the can down the road each time, another month or two,  five near government shutdowns in 10 months. Buck is not the first one. You understand,  probably in the last year and a half, there's been three or four of these folks. And  they've all had the same story. Why am I wasting my life? That's the headline. Why am I wasting  my life in Washington DC with these numb nuts that really don't want anything to move? Right. Well, and it is

so frustrating because these people should be leaving DC saying, wow, I've  made a difference. I'm proud of my body of work. Instead they're literally giving up because they  look at the people around them and there are, it's filled with freaks. Let's be real. We have too  many freaks in Congress. And they look at these people and they say, this is a circus. What am I  even doing here? And Ken Buck even said, I think this place is dysfunctional. To me it's important  to get in the mix of this el

ection cycle and start talking about the issues that people recognize are  such a problem right now. So he says, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna work for an outside organization.  Now, I'm willing to bet that outside organization probably offered a pretty big paycheck. No doubt. But at the same time, at least he's saying. Gonna look something like lobbying. Yeah. He's saying, look, I know we're not doing  anything. I know there are important issues that do need action. And I'm gonna leave.  Whether o

r not he actually does it is one thing. But what he's saying is true. I think it's funny, over the years, I know you've been asked, Farron, why  don't you run for politics? Why don't you run? The truth is, you accomplish so much  more by doing what you do every single day. Yeah. That it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world,  including at least 800. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants provided money and medical goods to  terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Jaysh al-Adl.

This is a well organized business for these individuals  that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business. They  knew about what was going on for a decade. They absolutely, absolutely no question about it knew  that HSBC was washing money. They had every reason to understand it was for terrorism and it was  for drug cartels. Took no action whatsoever. These banks are involved, their accounts are  connected, and they're using them to mask the transactions. Th

e more complicated they can make  the transactions, the more distance they could put between the bad guys and a seemingly legitimate  purpose of these funds. They pay $1.9 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what  they've made. And nobody goes to prison. These CEOs, these bankers that made this decision,  they're safe at home. They know what they've done. They know it's resulted in the death  of Americans, contractors and soldiers, not just hundreds but thousands. And we look  the

other way because they don't look like criminals. The die cast, the people that are  responsible for it, are on Wall Street. And they don't look like criminals. It's almost a  suspension of disbelief. Sometimes I'll have people call me and say, is this, is this real?  Do they really get away with this? Yeah, they do.