TV news producer & documentary filmmaker interested in politics, foreign policy, the culture war, motorcycles, Muay Thai, and classical guitar.
Swamp Watch is a series I research, write, and produce for Fox News Channel's The Next Revolution. Every week, I expose a different industry, company, or elected official abusing public trust and enriching themselves through corrupt and unethical behavior. If we're going to proverbially "drain the swamp", we must define what it is. Swamp Watch does that, and its popularity is proof that we've tapped into something that's resonating.
Swamp Watch is a series I researched, wrote, and produced for Fox News Channel's The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton. Every week, I exposed a different industry, company, or elected official abusing public trust and enriching themselves through corrupt and unethical behavior. If we're going to proverbially "drain the swamp", we must define what it is. Swamp Watch does that, and its popularity was proof that we tapped into something that's resonating.
The annual UN General Assembly starts in New York this Tuesday, with President Trump scheduled to speak that morning.The UN is a sprawling international bureaucracy with endless different bodies and agencies. Its executive arm, the Secretariat, has a five and a half billion dollar budget... 22 percent of which is funded by you, the U.S. taxpayer. So, where exactly is your money going?
The United Nations is tonight's Swamp Watch.
Given Swamp Watch's measurable popularity, Fox decided to run a Swamp Watch Special on Sunday. We aired a montage of Swamp Watch clips and interviews with the indispensable Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, former lobbyist and convicted felon turned anti-corruption activist Jack Abramoff, Representatives Mike Gallagher and Ro Khanna, and New America senior fellow Lee Drutman.
You're going to hear a lot over the next few months about tax reform. But as you listen to the arguments, remember that our tax code is as much a part of the swamp as any other aspect of government. And the real scandal is that it benefits the elite at the expense of working Americans.
Hostile foreign governments have infiltrated the D.C. swamp. Even Saudi Arabia, whose state religion inspires ISIS, has an army of lobbyists doing their bidding. And what they want is often the opposite of what Americans want. We expose them on this Swamp Watch.
An insular club of elite lawyers have corrupted our justice system. Eric Holder and his friends move between the Department of Justice and white collar criminal defense firms like Covington & Burling. They’re the reason why bank executives who admit to committing crimes still get to avoid prison. And they’re the subject of this installment of Swamp Watch.
Some of the swampiest parts of Washington operate in the dark. The little-known Export-Import Bank is our official export credit agency, helping foreign buyers of American manufactured goods with sweetheart deals. It's also a hub of corporate welfare and a burden on the taxpayer. The bank benefits huge corporations and harms the taxpayer through subsidized loans at below-market interest rates.
There's a revolving door between the federal government and health insurance companies. And they're writing legislation that harms customers and is a giant windfall to the companies. It's an abuse of public trust that is enriching a small group of people, and it's the subject of this week's Swamp Watch.
Health care is so expensive in the US partly because hospitals are charging exorbitant fees for their services. They can do so because local hospitals are being increasingly replaced by megahospitals, giant conglomerates that operate as regional monopolies shielded from competition. I profile this practice that is harming patients in this week's Swamp Watch.
The pharmaceutical industry is ripping us off, driving up the cost of health care, lying to patients, and enriching an elite group of well-connected executives. This is one of the biggest, most profitable swamps in the country, and it's in the crosshairs of this Swamp Watch segment.
Our $600 billion defense budget is a giant swamp of people getting rich and inefficiently, to say the least, delivering national security. There's also a well-known revolving door between the defense department and defense contractors.
Alternative energy companies are spending tons of money on lobbying, getting huge subsidies from the Department of Energy, defrauding consumers, and subsequently going bankrupt. It's a swamp that hardly anyone is talking about.
There's a revolving door between big banks and the Treasury Department, and lots of people are getting rich off our tax dollars. Jack Lew is a great example. He worked at CitiGroup, which received a lot of TARP funding; then he got a large bonus from the company; and shortly afterwards, he started working for the federal government. How nice. Let's see who else we'll find in this swamp.
This site is a digital portfolio of all of Kayvon Afshari's academic, policy, and satirical work. Kayvon is the host and EP of The Mideast Show, a satirical newscast all about the Middle East. He also serves as the Director of Communications for the American Iranian Council, a think tank dedicated to improving US-Iran relations.
Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are, in some ways, more powerful than our federal government. The tech giants decide what information we see - and what we don't. Their decisions can close down whole industries. For many years, they stuck to sunny California. But today they're a huge presence in the Washington swamp, spending millions to make sure legislation goes their way, providing a lucrative revolving door between industry and government. And they're even secretly funding lapdog professors to make their arguments for them.