This is a story of street level crime by officers of various government anti-drug organizations in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
After evidence of the officers’ misconduct came to light, federal agent Brandon McFadden pled guilty to drug conspiracy and testified against other TPD officers. An excerpt from former Agent McFadden’s guilty plea reveals his involvement in the scandal:
From January 7th of — to May of 2008, I conspired with others, including Tulsa police officer, Jeff Henderson, to distribute methamphetamine in the Northern District of Oklahoma. During the time period . . . I used the position as a special agent with ATF to further the drug conspiracy and abused my position as a special agent. During this time, myself and Henderson seized drugs and money which were kept for our own personal benefit, falsified investigative reports, and failed to document events, and obstruct justice through falsely [sic] testimony under oath and persuading other individuals to do the same.
Ah. But it gets better (or worse - depending)
Larry Barnes and his daughter, Larita, have been deeply affected by the Tulsa scandal. Larry and Larita were imprisoned because several TPD officers fabricated a drug buy and coached an informant to lie about the buy. The informant later recanted his testimony and admitted that TPD officers told him to lie. As a result, Larry and Larita Barnes have been released from prison.
However, Larry and Larita were not the only individuals affected by police corruption in Tulsa. Many more were wrongfully convicted based on the lies and false testimony of TPD officers. In fact, since 2009, almost 40 people have been released from prison or had their cases dismissed.
I'm sure this was just an isolated incident. After all, America has the most moral people and the most moral police in the world. Especially in Oklahoma. The Buckle of the Bible Belt. Just a few bad apples. Besides it is probably worse elsewhere in the country. Uh. Oh.
Two former law enforcement officers allege that they cannot get anyone to investigate allegations that the Mexican drug cartels have corrupted U.S. law officers and politicians in the El Paso border region.
Greg Gonzales, a retired Doña Ana County sheriff's deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a rancher and former New Mexico state livestock investigator, said that instead of arrests and prosecutions of suspects, their whistle-blowing activities have resulted only in threats and retaliation against themselves.
"I lost my job for a security company at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces because I would not keep my mouth shut, and someone threatened me by holding a knife to my throat," Gonzales said.
Dutton, a rancher in Southern New Mexico, said an election official stopped by his ranch to ask him what was it going to take for him to retract his allegations concerning the official.
Both men were confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with investigations over an 18-month period.
Gonzales and Dutton allege that the FBI dropped them after "big names" on the U.S. side of the border began to surface in the drug investigations.
I just knew that with the cartels running a war in Mexico and probably actually running most of Mexico that they had to be running at least a few cities in America. It appears that the cartels are not only running a city - they own the FBI. Well here is something former CIA director William Colby was trying to tell us in 1995.
"The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government."
Well William [RIP] it looks like the evidence for your statement is becoming public knowledge. Very few secrets of this magnitude can be kept forever. Especially if some of the folks expected to keep the secrets have moral objections.
Evolution is providing the inspiration for University of Adelaide computer science research to find the best placement of turbines to increase wind farm productivity.
Senior Lecturer Dr Frank Neumann, from the School of Computer Science, is using a “selection of the fittest” step-by-step approach called “evolutionary algorithms” to optimise wind turbine placement. This takes into account wake effects, the minimum amount of land needed, wind factors and the complex aerodynamics of wind turbines.
What a Nice Bit Of Work. Collecting energy which is mostly useless more efficiently is a big advance. Evidently storage – which is the real missing ingredient is more difficult.
Today in Scotland, as the Great Recession rolls on, and as newly reprimitivized “wind farms” replace more tried and true — and apparently predictable – methods of electricity generation, history rhymes rather nicely. The BBC reports, “Six Scottish windfarms were paid up to £300,000 to stop producing energy, it has emerged:”
I guess wind is different. With normal power plants you pay for the energy used. With wind plants unusable energy now has value. Well not to civilization of course. But the wind farmers do quite nicely.
In late February, Charles Ferguson’s film – Inside Job – won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. And now the film documenting the causes of the 2008 global financial meltdown has made its way online (thanks to the Internet Archive). A corrupt financial industry, its corrosive relationship with politicians, academics and regulators, and the trillions of damage done, it all gets documented in this film that runs a little shy of 2 hours.
If you want to support the people who made the film buy a copy from Amazon:
...the filmmakers themselves were hunting for something they did not find. And they did not find it because it is mostly not there. They had decided that the story of the boom of the 2000s and the bust of 2008 was a story of scandal and rampant criminality that purposely sucked away resources from the middle class and the poor to feed the lifestyles of the big shots in high finance. They wanted to find those white-collar criminals who made this whole thing happen and make a case for why they should all be rounded up and jailed.
What they found instead – though they apparently never realized this – was a bunch of interesting and smart people who had mastered the art of chasing prices and chasing paper up during the boom times and down again during the bust times. That’s what entrepreneurs do. If they aren’t going to do that, they could go into some other profession. This isn’t criminality. This riding the business-cycle wave. The problems they are looking for are deeply embedded in the system. They are structural, not personal. If criminals exist in this story, they are most likely to be found within the halls of government. But those people are rather inaccessible whereas the private traders are happy to go on camera.
The biggest problem was that the narrative never asked where all these paper profits were coming from. The monetary angle eluded them completely. The filmmakers missed this structural point because they decided at the outset to trace our problems all the way back to the “eighties.” Now, in the vocabulary of the left, the “eighties” is a curse word. It means Reagan, which means evil. It means capitalism, greed, the rich getting richer, and all the other political cliches we know so well. So rather than looking carefully at the monetary system that generated all this paper, they filmmakers looked to presidents and their great black beast of “deregulation.”
Contrast this point of view with the wonderful speech of David Stockman at the ASC the other day. He was just as passionate about the corruption generated by the system but he found the source in the end of the gold standard. He had a coherent theory that allowed him to see, understand, and explain the world coherently.
The makers of “Inside Job,” by contrast, were all over the place. They are against the boom. But they are against the bust too. They are against the bailouts. But they are against failing to bailout too. They are against housing subsidies. But they are against rationing housing too. They are against the government. But they are against private finance also. Most absurdly, they demand government controls over finance but their own film demonstrates that government is largely captured by private financial interests. They are reduced to looking for ghosts and wishing upon stars.
The movie is a "who done it?" What they should have focused on is what done it.
The FM chip mandate is an attempt to mollify the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters); under the terms of the Performance Rights Act, the [broadcast- ed.] industry would pay approximately $100 million to broadcast music on terrestrial radio. The inclusion of FM chips in all mobile devices would purportedly give broadcasters access to a wider audience. But it’s the consumer companies (and by extension, the consumer) who get the shaft in this deal.
This is little more than a government-mandated crutch for a legacy technology—no better than the EPA’s attempts to legislate a longer lifespan for incandescent lifebulbs. The high popularity of Sirius, XM, and internet radio shows where the market is headed. This new government mandate apparently removes a “competitive disadvantage” (to quote an EPA spokesman) for AM/FM Radio.
CEA President Gary Shapiro is furious, and rightfully so. “The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity,” he said. “Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do.” It’s understandable that Shapiro would feel blindsided, since the CEA (the very companies to implement the FM chips) wasn’t consulted.
Having worked in the music industry a long time ago: juke box servicing, juke box mfg., Chief Engineer at a radio station, I can tell you the whole industry is totally mobbed up. I was just discussing it with my mom who used to know a lot of the people in the industry in Omaha and she agrees.
And now the criminals get to whisper in the ears of our government. And just to get a political dig in: is it any surprise when the head of our government comes from one of the most mobbed up cities in the nation?
And who is going to pay for another chip that must be included in the cell phones? Well it is not going to be the music industry. Plus, I wonder if they have considered the antenna issues?
Retired police officer Howard Wooldridge meets up with some big time illegal pot growers (inadvertently) and finds out what they fear. Hint: it isn't the police.
I spent my second week of the Oregon speaking tour like the first… speaking to various groups, media etc. The most memorable question of the tour came from a guy in Coos Bay in SW Oregon. He asked what would happen to the price of pot, if California legalizes it this fall.
The price would fall hard I replied, though I admitted to not being an expert. I later learned the questioner and several of his friends were big-time illegal growers.
Drug prohibition is a price support mechanism for criminals and terrorists
And yet my anti-price support (it is socialist) anti-terrorist friends on the right are the staunchest friends of prohibition. Maybe it is just another deal like the case of Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) a staunch champion of abstinence education and traditional family values. Who recently got caught cheating on his wife with a staffer. The staffer Tracy Jackson interviews Souder on a (pulled - and possibly restored) YouTube video.
In the November 2009 abstinence video, Jackson introduces Souder this way: "You've been a longtime advocate for abstinence education and in 2006 you had your staff conduct a report entitled 'Abstinence and its Critics' which discredits many claims purveyed by those who oppose abstinence education."
It has been reported that their get togethers have been going on for four years. Which would mean the affair was ongoing when the video was made. Another case of a "the rules are different for me" politician.
Well back to pot. How is the California initiative polling? By a 56% to 42% margin California voters favor legalizing marijuana. As Officer Wooldridge has told me in one of his weekly e-mails (roughly), "prohibition will be over five years after the first state legalizes." To get his weekly updates contact Howard.
For nine months last year, Ron Mills was locked in the Camden County Jail.
For nine months he held firm to his story that the drugs he was charged with possessing didn't exist.
Last month Mills' story was validated when a former Camden police officer admitted in federal court that for more than two years he and four other officers arrested suspects with planted drugs, carried out illegal searches and wrote false arrest reports.
Mills' story, which was detailed by former Patrolman Kevin Parry in court, is now being laid out in one of a growing number of lawsuits planned against the city.
That is the trouble with status crimes. Only a police officer is needed to give evidence. If you are going to falsely accuse some one of robbery you generally need a civilian accomplice who will testify "I wuz robbed". Somewhat more difficult than just planting evidence and making up stories. A tactic often referred to by police as Testilying.
The Rampart scandal refers to widespread corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (or CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Rampart Division in the late 1990s. More than 70 police officers in the CRASH unit were implicated in misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police misconduct in United States history. The convicted offenses include unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and covering up evidence of these activities.
Those Rampart boys sound a bit excessive. Even for out of control police.
But back to Camden.
In announcing the case dismissals for the first time last month, Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk described their extent as "unprecedented in the state of New Jersey."
Cherry Hill attorney Michael Pinsky said in his 46 years as an attorney he has "never seen mass dismissals like this."
But the corruption in Camden isn't completely unique, as rogue officers from Philadelphia to Los Angeles have caused thousands of cases to be dismissed.
In the mid-1990s, a police scandal in Philadelphia's 39th District led to at least eight officers pleading guilty to corruption charges. Hundreds of criminal cases were thrown out by judges and lawsuits against the city tallied at least $4 million in settlements, according to media reports.
Say didn't they have problems like these during alcohol prohibition? Yes they did.
Prohibition also fostered corruption and contempt for law and law enforcement among large segments of the population. Harry Daughtery, attorney general under Warren Harding, accepted bribes from bootleggers. George Remus, a Cincinnati bootlegger, had a thousand salesmen on his payroll, many of them police officers. He estimated that half his receipts went as bribes. Al Capone's Chicago organization reportedly took in $60 million in 1927 and had half the city's police on its payroll.
One of the reasons I think police have a need for prohibition to continue for as much longer as is possible is that there are a lot of ugly things that are going to be uncovered when this rock is lifted.
The public scenes (Senate hearings) are pretty faithful to the record according to what I can tell. Very few words have been changed or left out. Compare the movie version to newsreel clips of them.
This came up because of Congressional hearings threatened against companies revealing material losses caused by the Health Care Bill. And you know what else amuses me? Such revelations are required by law when a bill passes.
It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.
This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”
…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”
As Mark Twain was reputed to have said: "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
San Francisco prosecutors told judges Friday that they could not "ethically go forward" with 46 narcotics trials because of evidence problems arising out of the scandal at the Police Department's drug-analysis lab - signaling that the district attorney is likely to dismiss nearly all 750 pending drug cases in the city.
"Based on what the district attorney's office knows about the issues within the narcotics division of the crime lab, we cannot ethically go forward with this prosecution," Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung told a judge overseeing a case that was serving as a test of how much police and prosecutors had to disclose to defense attorneys about problems at the drug lab.
Prosecutors dropped that test case, a cocaine-sales trial, after having been deluged with 1,500 pages of police files about the lab that a spokesman for the district attorney called "troubling" and said pointed to possible larger problems in the Police Department.
As if you needed more evidence of what a waste the drug war is.
But it gets worse.
The exact contents of the 1,500 pages of police files have not been made public, but Buckelew said the documents hinted at problems with police and the drug lab that go beyond Madden's conduct. Buckelew called the files "troubling."
"At the very beginning this was a case about Debbie Madden and isolated incidents that could have been resolved by retesting," Buckelew said. However, he added, "the face of this has changed."
Bell's attorney said he believed the material included audits of the crime lab at Hunters Point, and its drug-testing section, going back at least six years.
Among the questions raised since the suspicions about Madden were made public is why the Police Department took more than two months to open a criminal investigation into her actions after her sister said she had found what she believed to be a stolen lab vial of cocaine in Madden's home. Documents contained in the files could help answer that question and reveal who in the Police Department knew what and when.
If you have been a libertarian as long as I have you know what a waste government is in general. So what will be the outcome? Most likely the government will ask for more money to fix the mess the government caused. The bigger the screw up the more government will take from citizens. Heads we win and tails we win bigger. You'd almost think the game was rigged.
The government has no interest in fighting drugs per se. That is incidental to emptying your wallet. I can't wait for the marks to wise up.
I missed this video when it first came out. It is reporter Phelim McAleer asking Stephen Schneider some questions. Check out the totalitarian response to an inconvenient question.
And just who is Stephen Schneider? He is the academic who said:
“To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
Ah. So honesty is no longer the best policy. Nice to know where he stands. If he is talking he is lying. Unless conclusively beyond a reasonable doubt proved otherwise.
Evidently the contact has been a bit too much for him.
Schneider is also a member of the Club Of Rome. Here is a bit on The Club of Rome along with a cast of characters.
"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
David Rockefeller
Well on to the video.
And these folks wonder why there is a Tea Party movement? It seems like a rational response to their plan for world domination.
Click on the above image and learn how to spread it around.
Fox News is reporting that the bank owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias will fail.
Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias says things don't look good for the struggling bank his family owns.
Giannoulias told the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board Wednesday that it's likely the bank his father founded 30 years ago will fail.
Broadway Bank entered into a consent decree with regulators in January and has 90 days to raise about $85 million in new capital. The bank also has to deal with bad assets and improve its management.
Ah. Yes. Most unfortunate. But there is a kicker:
Giannoulias touted his banking experience when he was elected Illinois state treasurer in 2006.
I'll bet he doesn't do that again.
Unfortunately for Giannoulias it looks like it is already too late.
Democratic Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias spent 10 hours on Wednesday in eight interviews with Chicago print and broadcast outlets, taking questions about his family owned Broadway Bank. Giannoulias, 33, was a loan officer at the bank before he was elected treasurer in November, 2006.
A loan officer? Aren't those the banking guys who decide who is credit worthy and who is not? Yes they are.
If it is Illinois (and especially Chicago) the boyz at Hill Buzz have the best rumors around. Check this one out:
The rumor today in Chicago is that Alexi Giannoulias is going to be forced to step aside as the Democrats’ nominee for the Senate race to fill Roland Burris’ seat upon retirement. Not to “spend more time with his family”, as slimeballs like this usually say, but because the criminal enterprise his family runs, the mob’s bank, Broadway Bank, is collapsing.
It’s coming out the Giannoulias family siphoned more than $70 million from the bank, to pay their back taxes, and to pretty much recreating the HBO series “The Sopranos”, all around Chicago.
There is absolutely nothing good we can say about Alexi Giannoulias, except that it’s nice he’s not a twin, and great he’s fathered no children. Perhaps, dare we dream, his genes will end with him.
Former Senator John Edwards is going to be indicted soon, for misappropriation of campaign funds. We wonder if an indictment of the Giannoulias Family is all that far away: how can they just take $70 million out of a bank? That has to be illegal.
How can Democrats think they can run this man for the Senate when the mob bank his family runs is going under, and all its secrets will be revealed once the government seizes it?
Things sure will get messy, once taxpayers realize government funds will be going directly to Giannoulias, to bail his family out…with tax dollars also going to mobsters, since those are Giannoulias’ clients…and they will be the ones the government bails out when it takes over Broadway Bank.
Not only will the White House own General Motors, but it could end up running the Chicago mob, too.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed cutting spending and raising taxes to deal with one of the biggest state budget crises in the nation, but his plan will likely be unpopular with some voters and lawmakers during a tough election year.
Illinois's deficit through mid-2011 is estimated at $11 billion to $13 billion—close to 50% of the expected $26.7 billion in available revenue for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. That is among the worst such percentages among states. Health-care and social-service agencies routinely wait three months or more for the state to pay its bills.
The state pension system also is the worst-funded in the U.S. Illinois borrowed nearly $3.5 billion last year to make its annual pension payment. State auditors estimate that the pension systems are underfunded by $62 billion.
Jeeze. It looks so bad that Illinois may go down before California. And raising taxes on business? Swell. Illinois already has too many businesses. And no doubt too many jobs.
The unemployment rate in Illinois is back over 11 percent. New data released today by the Illinois Department of Employment Security shows that non-farm payroll fell for the 23rd straight month and the jobless rate jumped to 11.1 percent, the highest it's been since 1983.
That report was from late January. I haven't heard of much improvement since then.
- Obama has to buy a Congressman's vote by appointing his brother to the Federal Apellate Court
- Charlie Rangel (D-Ghetto) has to step down from Ways and Means due to bribe taking
- Mary Landrieu (D-Mardi Gras) is the poster child for "Buy My Vote Please" on ObamaCare
- Congressional approval rating (Pelsoi's leadership) is lower than the outside temperature at the North Pole
- One DEM Congressman changed parties
- Congressman Massa (D-Blow Job) is leaving office having sexually harrassed a MALE employee
Not in crisis? OK maybe the crisis is over and we can all attend the burial in November. Sadly the Jefferson/Jackson Day dinners they used to hold will be sparsely attended. But they haven't honored the frugality and limited government of Jefferson and the militancy of Jackson for a very long time.
When Ali Babba is the Treasurer of Illinois and wants to be governor you can see a party that has lost its way. And it is not like we won't have other thieves to contend with. As my grand pappy Max used to say about politicians, "they are all crooks". The question is are they bringing 40 thieves with them or 40,000?
I think this video is an excellent illustration of the errors of the Illinois crooks. "Never underestimate the mark." Or as William Burroughs liked to say: The Marks Are Wising Up.
Here is a headline I never expected to see in my lifetime. U.S. Steel Exports Surpass Imports. So far it is only for the month of August. Still.
A steel industry trade group said the United States exported more steel than it imported in August for the first time in more than 50 years. But another group said that assessment was based on a selective reading of government data.
The American Institute for International Steel said late Monday that government data indicated U.S. steel exports totaled 800,000 tons while imports amounted to 975,000 tons during the month.
But the group, which advocates for free trade and opposes tariffs, subtracted imports of 156,000 tons of semifinished steel and 30,000 tons of hot-rolled steel because that metal is turned into other steel mill products that are considered domestic, the group's president, David Phelps, said Tuesday.
OK. So it looks like they are cooking the books in search of a headline. They got one from me. So I guess it is working - for them.
Chief executives from the biggest U.S. corporations worry that the slumping dollar could sap U.S. credibility around the globe, spur inflation and ultimately undermine the economy.
The dollar has fallen to a 14-month low; and while a weaker dollar makes U.S. products cheaper overseas, chief executives gathered for the Business Council meeting in Cary, North Carolina, expressed deep concern that the anemic dollar signals serious jitters.
"The issue is currency devaluation, and the worry is that it essentially lowers our credibility in the world," said Office Depot Inc (ODP.N) CEO Steve Odland in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
CEOs say that a slew of government spending programs on health care and other priorities could undercut economic recovery.
And all that is true.
But let us take a look at the numbers. US imports have exceeded exports for a very long time. This is balanced by loans and other investments, thus more or less balancing the books. It does argue that at least on a materials basis the dollar is overpriced. But I got to tell you that a 14 month low is not exactly panic city. My worry is not about the amount but the continued direction.
One thing that does happen in a market system when costs are rising is that the people in the markets work very hard to reduce costs. No one wants to be the first to raise prices. It is bad for business. It is the usual: the greed of the honest businessman leads to a better deal for the consumer.
Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton set bail at $100 million to be secured by $20 million in collateral despite a request by prosecutors to deny bail. He also ordered Rajaratnam, who has both U.S. and Sri Lankan citizenship, to stay within 110 miles of New York City.
A guy like that has to know who his friends are.
Rajaratnam, 52, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world's wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth.
According to the Federal Election Commission, he is a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. The FEC said he made over $87,000 in contributions to President Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various campaigns on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the past five years. The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, said he has given a total of $118,000 since 2004 -- all but one contribution, for $5,000, to Democrats.
And it seems that he was interested in some rather unsavory characters.
...even before his arrest, Rajaratnam was under scrutiny for helping bankroll Sri Lankan militants notorious for suicide bombings.
Now why would a guy friendly to suicide bombers also be friendly to Democrats? Let me think. It will come to me soon I'm sure.
Did some one say economics? All I can say is that the Democrats are moving in the wrong direction. A slide in the dollar may be a good thing for some and a bad thing for others (gasoline prices say - and didn't Sarah Palin have a word or two recently about developing more domestic supplies? Yes she did.) But a cratering of the dollar would be a disaster. Time for a new direction? You betcha!
It appears that Ron Paul is against having Charlie Rangel leave the Ways and Means (Taxes) Committee due to his problem paying taxes.
As predicted, the Democrats stomped down Rep. John Carter’s resolution calling for tax cheat Charlie Rangel to be ousted from the Ways and Means Committee, which he chairs. A few Republicans crossed the partisan line, including Texan Ron Paul, voting to let Rangel keep his seat on the committee.
Mississippi Democrats Gene Taylor and Travis Childers voted to kick Rangel out, and they’re probably still sore about the way Rangel insulted their state.
So much for our one official Libertarian in Congress. Another reminder of why I am no longer a Libertarian. At least the Republicans in general make no pretense of being honest. Making them honest crooks. If there is such a thing.
One of the things that helped end alcohol prohibition was police corruption.
Barry Cooper (Kop Buster) also helped bust a police officer who was soliciting underage boys.
“Within a short time, we hope to have a corrupt police chief in jail for seven felony warrants [for] harming kids,” he told reporters. “I acted as a undercover journalist-informant, they listed me as the informant on the arrest affidavit. I befriended this officer and made him believe that I was his friend and that I wanted to clear his name. The truth was, I was relaying all that information to the Combine police department.”
Cooper continued: “As an ex-narcotics officer, I’ve experienced corruption and seen it myself. My wife suggested that I use my experience to go and start busting corrupt police officers instead of citizens. That’s when we formed ‘KopBusters,’ a reality TV show. We’re hoping to have 13 episodes up on [...] TV very soon. I feel [passionate] about my job, and we’re using these stings so I can win Texas attorney general in 2010, because in that position I can expose police corruption even further, take their salaries and begin paying police officers six-figure incomes … The one’s that deserve it.”
I wish Barry good luck. However, the very best way to end the corruption of drug prohibition is the same way we ended the corruption of alcohol prohibition. Legalize.
By Peter Ingemi (Worcester County, Massachusetts United States)
Michelle Malkin's new book "Culture of Corruption" is a damning review of a connected Chicago Pol and his connected wife who have surrounded themselves with other connected and corrupt people who only seem to have one thing in common; living off the proceeds of those connections.
The book details how over and over people have been given positions of power and used that power to direct public monies to friends, political sponsors and their families. The reward? Political support both funds and muscle, employment for family and friends and when their time of "public service" is through; "jobs" to establish or increase their personal wealth.
There are two distinct groups the first are Direct members of the "Chicago Crowd" such as the first lady and Valerie Jarret detailed in Chapter 2. These are the folks that greased the wheels to get this president where he is today. The SEIU and ACORN Chapters also reflect the Chicago connection. They are a great example of what is wrong with machine politics.
The other group are appointments unrelated to his Chicago crowd who bring their own connections/ethics/money issues to the table. It is the willingness to embrace that 2nd group, much to the surprise of "locals" familiar with the foibles of these connected pols, Washington and wall street insiders that is striking but not surprising. If after all you are going to run things the Chicago Way you need people who understand the ground rules of connection and reward. These people do in spades. (The Joe Biden chapters fits is perfectly here).
The 300 pages and the copious notes including tons of web references with dates of access very much support the thesis that the "hope and change" of the administration is a lot of Hotair.
You can read the rest of the review at the book link above.
You can also watch Ms. Malkin on PJTV discussing her book. She brings up a lot of questions based on recent news that are not included in her book.
The Cash For Clunkers Program that I wrote about here is a rousing success. So much so that the $1 billion that was supposed to last three months is gone in a week.
The Obama administration is telling lawmakers that its much-touted "cash-for-clunkers" program is already running out of money, according to three Senate aides familiar with the discussions.
The program — aimed at giving at boost to the U.S. auto industry — was supposed to expire at the end of October. But in the one week since it took effect, it appears to have run dry of the $1 billion allocated to it, aides said Thursday.
The Obama administration had told senators that the program would be suspended at midnight Thursday, aides said, but a White House official told POLITICO that the administration is "working tonight to assess the situation facing what is obviously an incredibly popular program.
Well why wouldn't it be popular. It is a direct subsidy on the order of $3,000 to $4,000 for the purchase of a new car. All you need is a drivable junker that you have owned for a year to trade in to get the Government Cash. Can't afford a new car? Credit bad? Tough luck. This is not for the peasants. It is to help boost Government Motors, Crisis Motors, and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) Motors.
Now here is where the Republicans come in on the "deal".
One Michigan Republican, Congresswoman Candice Miller, has already come out in favor of extending the program, saying in a statement: “There can be no doubt that the Cash for Clunkers program is a complete success given the fact that the entire $1 billion allocated to the program was expended in less than a week."
She called the program "simply the most stimulative $1 billion the federal government has spent during the entire economic downturn."
Stimulative for the folks getting the money. A stone rip off for the taxpayers who will wind up paying the bill. And we have a Republican dancing in the street over this? Doesn't the Republican Party have any principles any more? Well I guess I already knew the answer to that question. Still.
Glenn Beck explains the American oligarchy/government organization chart.
Is your blood boiling yet?
The Greeks have seen all this before. Something like 3,000 years ago. The one thing we have in our favor is that oligarchies are rarely popular when self-government is at least a theoretical option.
Time to take to the streets. See you at the next Tea Party.
Think carefully about what's happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored.
In the process it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House's power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.
Michigan politicians of both parties joined Obama in denouncing the holdout bondholders. They point to the sad plight of UAW retirees not getting full payment of the health care benefits the union negotiated with Chrysler.
But the plight of the beneficiaries of the pension funds represented by the bondholders is sad, too. Ordinarily you would expect these claims to be weighed and determined by the rule of law. But apparently not in this administration.
Evidently the pension funds that invested in what was formerly known as Chrysler Motors (now Crisis Motors) are out of luck. I guess the deal is: if you want to retire make sure you are politically connected. Or even better advice: don't invest in any company with a strong union. Let me amend that: don't invest in any company with any union. In these times it pays to play it safe.
According to FTC regulations I am required to disclose any material benefit I receive from any blog post.
OK.
I get paid from Amazon if you order from any of the links provided. I will give you an honest opinion of any products I have ordered if I blog about them.
If you don't trust me read the Amazon reviews. If there is no review you are on your own.
If you pay me enough and promise to cover my lawyers fees I may say something nice about you. Or I may not. Enough is generally more than you can afford. Unless you have a a really really big bank account or more that a few large gold bars under the mattress.
If you do pay I expect to be transported to a country with no extradition treaty with the US.
If I review a book it may be because the author or publisher sent me a review copy. Other wise I will quote a review of some one else. If I say a product looks interesting it is because it interests me. Sometimes I will link to books so you can educate yourself on a subject and so I can make some off the sale.
If some one employs me I will probably say good things about them as long as the money keeps coming. Or I may say nothing. To keep out of trouble with their lawyers.
That covers most of what I can think of. I'm getting old and sometimes I don't think of everything.
And if you have read this far please Buy Something From Amazon. I can use the money - well actually I will use the proceeds to buy something from Amazon. I get a better deal that way.
) says the Democrats are not in crisis. 
Posts
