Category: Corruption Corner

The State Protects Its Own

Remember that police officer that decided it would be a jolly good idea to pepper spray some peaceful protesters in the face? What do you think happened to him? If you think he was prosecuted for assault you would be wrong. He was found innocent of all wrongdoing:

The pepper-spraying of students by UC Davis police officers last November was not criminal conduct, Yolo County District Attorney’s office concluded Wednesday following an inquiry into officers’ response to protestors on the campus.

“(V)iewing the incident through the totality of the circumstances, there is insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of force involved in the November 18, 2011, pepper spraying was unlawful and therefore warrants the filing of criminal charges,” officials said in a statement announcing the report’s findings.

What the District Attorney meant to say was, “The officer in question works for the same violent state that I do. In return for lenient treatment by my fellow state employees I’m being lenient on my fellow state employee. After all he only pepper sprayed a stupid serf so nobody important was hurt.”

This just goes to show that allowing the state to both wield force and determine if its wielding of force is warrant is a bad idea. It only ensures that state employees remain free of consequences resulting from their violent behavior.

In Other News the Expected Happened

Surprising nobody the inspector general of the Department of Justice (DoJ) cleared the head of the DoJ of any wrongdoing:

The Justice Department’s inspector general cleared Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday of knowing about the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious that allowed thousands of weapons to cross into Mexico.

Who would have guessed that a DoJ investigation into the DoJ would result in finding no wrongdoing on behalf of the DoJ? That’s not to say no blame has been found, the inspector general found plenty of other suckers outside of the DoJ to throw under the bus:

The inspector general found fault with the work of the senior ATF leadership, the ATF staff and U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix and senior officials of Justice’s criminal division in Washington. He also said that poor internal information-gathering and drafting at Justice and ATF caused the department to initially misinform Congress about Fast and Furious.

[…]

While Horowitz heaped most of the blame for Fast and Furious on investigators in Phoenix, one senior official, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, is blamed for not acting to stop the tactics.

I wonder when, or if, anybody will question the wisdom of allowing the DoJ to investigate itself.

Executive Branch Says Restricting Executive Branch’s Power Unconstitutional

Brace yourselves because I’m about to dump a shocker of a news story on you. The executive branch has come out and said that it’s unconstitutional to restrict its power:

The Obama administration had some harsh words Friday after a federal judge appointed by Obama said the government doesn’t have a right to indefinitely detain anyone even remotely associated with terrorist groups.

[…]

Forrest’s ruling oversteps the court’s authority and infringes on Obama’s power to act as Commander in Chief, according to the government’s court filings.

Many constitutional scholars claim that the purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the state’s power. Supposedly the document lists very specific powers granted to each branch of the state. Looking at the document I don’t see where it states the president has the power to indefinitely detain an American citizen without due process. Are constitutional scholars incorrect in this assessment that the Constitution is meant to restrict governmental power or is the executive branch incorrect in claiming that it has the power to indefinitely detain individuals without due process? Thankfully the Constitution describes how these kinds of disputes can be resolved as it gives sole authority to decide such matters to a court of nine people that are part of the state. Wait… there seems to be some conflict of interest here.

Creating Green Jobs

The state has been on a kick about generating green jobs. In the pursuit of demonstrating its awesomeness the state has been showing off statistics that show a large increase in the number of green jobs. As with most state developed statistics its statistics regarding the number of created green jobs are a bit… inflated:

BLS compiled a list of 333 industries that can be classified as green, and those who are employed in those industries can be counted as “green workers.” Thus, the definition is extremely broad and includes both direct jobs and indirect jobs. Some examples of jobs considered to be green by this definition are[v]:

  • A person who sweeps the floor in a solar panel manufacturing facility
  • A driver of a hybrid bus
  • A school bus driver
  • An employee who fills the bus with fuel
  • An employee involved in waste collection or water and sewer operations
  • A clerk at a bicycle repair shop
  • A manufacturer of rail cars
  • An oil lobbyist whose company is engaged in environmental issues.
  • An employee of an environment or science museum.

I wonder how oil lobbyists managed to get their job on the green list. It’s not like they spend all of their time greasing politician’s palms or anything. Either way, as you can see, the statistics regarding the number of green jobs in this country are artificially inflated malarkey.

Another Example of New York City’s Finest

After hitting nine innocent bystanders with gunfire the New York City Police Department (NYPD) decided to again demonstrate their staunch recognition of firearm safety by shooting another innocent person:

A terrified Bronx bodega worker fleeing armed thugs who held up his store was shot dead by a cop responding to the scene — and the three alleged robbers have been charged with his murder.

Robbers entered a story, the worker called the police and fled, and upon exiting the store was gunned down by the police he called (this demonstrates the fact that you should never call the police). This case is made more interesting by the fact the police, who murdered the worker, have charged the robbers with the murder. How does that make sense? It doesn’t, which is why I’m not surprised to see it happen in New York City.

Nothing Surprising Here

Try to at least pretend to be shocked by this evidence that demonstrates collusion between the New York Times and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA):

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times’s national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA’s role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama’s re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd’s column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: “Any word??”, suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd’s impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

[…]

Here we have a New York Times reporter who covers the CIA colluding with its spokesperson to plan for the fallout from the reporting by his own newspaper (“nothing to worry about”). Beyond this, that a New York Times journalist – ostensibly devoted to bringing transparency to government institutions – is pleading with the CIA spokesperson, of all people, to conceal his actions and to delete the evidence of collusion is so richly symbolic.

The relationship between the New York Times and the US government is, as usual, anything but adversarial. Indeed, these emails read like the interactions between a PR representative and his client as they plan in anticipation of a possible crisis.

None of this surprises me as I’ve read Legacy of Ashes and therefore am well aware of the marriage between the CIA and popular news sources. It’s not unusual for the CIA to recruit individuals working at news organizations. Once recruited the CIA will sometimes feed these employees false stories, controlled stories, or other information they want made public (usually as a means of supplying other countries with false information). To find evidence of a New York Times employee collaborating with the CIA is entirely unsurprising.

Bribery

I’ve become convinced that the way to make an immoral act moral in the United States is to add a layer of obfuscation. Advocates of gun control often claim that shooting another human being, even in self-defense, is immoral yet having the police shoot an aggressor is moral. Mugging another person is an immoral act yet taking their money by voting to increase their taxes is moral. Bribery is treated no differently.

In much of the world bribery is considered a fact of life but here in the United States it’s viewed as an immoral act, at least if you bribe somebody directly. When you’re pulled over by a police officer and attempt to bribe them they can arrest you for that act alone or suffer later consequences if they accept your bribe. This is interesting because that same police officer can write you a ticket and a ticket is nothing more than a state sanctioned bribe. People don’t pay tickets because they feel they deserved to be punished for a transgression, they pay tickets to keep themselves from being locked in a cage. Effectively paying a ticket is nothing more than bribing the state in the hopes it won’t lock you in a cage. How does the act of bribery suddenly become moral when a layer of obfuscation is introduced? I would much rather be able to bribe a police officer directly.

Consider what a police officer is likely do with bribe money. In all likelihood a police officer is going to use that bribe money for personal satisfaction. He may use it to buy a boat, feed his family, or acquire some hookers and blow. None of these things negatively impact my life, unlike the purchased made by the state with bribe money. When the state obtains bribe money it use it to buy more police cars, hire more officers, and build more cages. Like the police officer, the state spends bribe money on personal satisfaction. Unlike the police officer, the state’s personal satisfaction negatively impacts my life. With more officers and more police cars available the chances that I can be issued a ticket go up and an increase in the number of cages allows the state to threaten more people with incarceration.

Why is bribery immoral when done directly but moral when done indirectly? It seems the amount of damage caused by direct bribes is less than the damage caused by indirect bribes. If I’m going to be forced to pay bribes at least let me pay those bribes to the entity less likely to cause more harm to my life.

You’re Paying for the Democratic and Republican Party Convetions

Who’s footing the bill for the massive political conventions being used by the political minded to select new masters for everybody in the country? You and I are:

I encourage all Americans to tune into the Republican and Democratic conventions in the coming days, because, after all, you’re paying for it.

Yes, the U.S. Treasury last year cut a $17.7 million check to the Committee on Arrangements for the 2012 Republican National Convention, and a check for an identical amount to the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee.

That’s $35.4 million taxpayers are paying for things like balloons, speech prep, liquor, newspaper subscriptions, hotel rooms,as I wrote last year. It’s not security spending. Perusing the convention committee’s spending records shows what you’re paying for.

Isn’t it great? Money is taken from you at the point of the state’s gun so the state can spend it on massive spectacles meant to boost the egos of politicians and make everybody involved in the political process feel special (and thus connivence them to continue throwing away time and money on political campaigns). Politics really is a sucker’s game.

Protecting and Service the Crap Out of You

It’s a good thing New York City has such strict gun control laws. Without those laws potentially dangerous individuals may be able to carry firearms. Imagine the insanity! A minor scuffle could turn into a wild shootout with innocent bystanders being gunned down by crazy gun-totting lunatics. Fortunately this isn’t the case because Mayor Bloomberg has ensured dangerous individuals can’t obtain firearms. What’s that? Gun control laws don’t apply to police officers? They only apply to you and me? I guess that explains this:

All nine people injured in Friday’s Empire State Building shooting were hurt as a result of police fire, New York’s police chief has confirmed.

During the incident, which was captured by surveillance cameras, police officers shot dead a gunman who had just killed a former work colleague.

Commissioner Ray Kelly said bystanders had been hit by bullets or fragments of bullets striking objects.

[…]

“It appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police,” said Commissioner Kelly.

This is one of the reasons why gun control laws are idiotic. Advocates of gun control demand that firearms be taken away from nonviolent individuals while letting violent state thugs keep their firearms. In essence individuals who are basically immune from consequences resulting from misdeeds are allowed to carry firearms while individuals who have to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds are left defenseless. This case shows what happens when legally shielded individuals who couldn’t care less about the lives of individuals employ firearms, they throw caution to the wind and act as though any caused damage is irrelevant. An individual beholden to the law, that is to say people like you and me, are generally far more careful because we realize employing our firearms can result is negative legal consequences on top of the potential loss of lives.

Politics is a Corrupt Business, Party is Irrelevant

Politics is a corrupt business run by corrupt people. Both major parties are guilty of this. While the Democrats lambasted the Republicans because one of their own said women rarely get pregnant from “legitimate” rape, a member of the Democratic Party was fooling around with a 17 year-old male:

Hours after releasing a statement saying he will seek re-election, a Minnesota state lawmaker who police say had a rest-stop liaison with a 17-year-old boy told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he has reconsidered his position and will not be running again. He also says he will not be at the upcoming special session to discuss flood relief for the area he represents. He says he does not want to be a distraction.

[…]

Gauthier hasn’t been charged in the July incident, and authorities said he wouldn’t be because the boy was older than 16, the legal age of consent, and no money was exchanged. Police say the teenager responded to the lawmaker’s Craigslist ad for “no strings attached” sex.

I really could care less what some politician is doing behind closed doors. The only reason I bring this up because both parties have a holier than thou attitude. Members of the Democratic Party like to claim themselves morally superior to members of the Republican Party while members of the Republican Party like to claim themselves morally superior to members of the Democratic Party. Guess what? Neither party is full of moral and righteous people. Politics attracts the worst of the worst and when you work within the political system you’re likely to be working for some downright terrible individuals. When you think about it there has to be something wrong with anybody who wants a political office. Being in a political office gives you power over fellow individuals, it gives you access to the state’s gun. Individuals who want to wield violence against their fellow man are, at least somewhat, sociopathic.