This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Legal

  • DC’s $20 million shame

    I wrote a few weeks ago about Harriet Walters and Dianne Gustus of the Washington DC ‘ Office of Tax and Revenue who scammed US taxpayers out of betweeen $20 and $30 million by issuing bogus property tax refunds. You might ask yourself how a relatively low-level employee might get away carrying loads of cash out of the public coffers. Easy – everyone in the Washington DC government are corrupt.

    “How dare you say such a thing, paint with such a broad brush over every single District government employee” you might be asking. Well, judge for yourself. I found this in a Washington Examiner article from earlier in the week;

    The 51-year-old Walters was known as “Mother Harriette” in her office — the woman to see for emergency loans, designer clothes and accessories, even floor-level Wizards tickets, three sources with direct knowledge of the widening federal and local investigations said.

    She also paid out large cash rewards, in increments of up to $20,000 at a time, to fellow workers who helped her edit and complete her paperwork, sources said. Her annual salary was $81,000.

    According the source, a few months before her Nov. 7 arrest, Walters was called into a meeting with Terez Badger, a chief in the tax office, and Susan Lee, a deputy chief and Walter’s direct supervisor. They told her to stop giving out the presents and taking her co-workers on shopping sprees.

    Everyone in her office knew she was stealing – how else could she afford to hand out what amounted to 1/4 of her annual salary for doing her work around the office? And everyone knew her reputation for handing out goodies – everyone was in on it. But as long as they got their cut, they didn’t care. No one blew the whistle on her, no one asked any hard questions - her supervisors just told her to stop buying gifts for everyone. Not wondering for a minute where she got her money.

    See, Mother Walters was cutting property tax refund checks that never made it to the people for whom they were intended (whether they deserved refunds or not isn’t clear yet).

    Wonder what the District’s Chief Financial Officer’s office has to say about it? Washington Times’ Jim McElhatton;

    “It’s the belief of the CFO’s office that we should have done a closer investigation of the data,” Natalie Wilson, spokeswoman for the CFO’s office, said this week. “If we had gotten down in the weeds and closely examined the data, maybe we could have identified it.”

    “If we’d gotten down in the weeds…” Um, where I come from, 20 million bucks isn’t in the weeds. When property tax refunds skyrocket 110%, in just one year, how thick is that weedlot?

    From fiscal 2003 to 2004, for example, a review of the CFO’s monthly cash reports show real property-tax collections rose 11.8 percent. But refunds soared nearly 10 times that rate — by 110.8 percent.

    “That should have been a big red flag,” said financial specialist Larry Crumbley, a Louisiana State University professor and author of a book on forensic accounting.

    Ya think? Well, not in DC where corruption is just part of day-to-day life. “Well, at least DC officials caught up with Mother Walters”, you’re saying to yourself, “At least someone was on the job”. Think?

    D.C. officials only learned about the purported theft after federal authorities, acting on a tip from a local bank, began an investigation.

    $20 million in taxpayer money missing and it takes a tip from the bank to figure out the money is missing. No one’s accountable and criminals all have legitimate excuses for what they’ve done. I’m pretty sure Mother Walters will skate, relatively speaking, the criminal investigation will probably drain off another $20 million from the taxpayers coffers and she’ll get a slap on the wrist. Ask Marion Berry about his tax evasion trial and conviction.

  • Man Who Shot George Wallace To Be Released From Prison

    After serving thirty-five years of a fifty-three year sentence, Arthur Bremer is soon to be released.
    Wallace, a fiery segregationist during the 1960s, was wounded on May 15, 1972, during a campaign stop in Laurel, Md. He abandoned his bid for the Democratic nomination, spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair and died in 1998.
    Bremer was convicted of attempted murder.
    Sentenced to FIFTY-THREE YEARS for ATTEMPTED murder?! He actually served 35 years of that! That, alone is remarkable. Actual murderers have gotten shorter sentences and have served far less time.
    Don’t look for too much depth on this story in the MSM, they’d rather we forget Wallace’s racist past…

    Link to AP story

  • Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, You’re Suing the Wrong Person

    The Houston Chronicle has this story

    Marsha Richard, widow of executed Rapist and Murderer Michael Richard is suing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller in federal court for not giving special treatment to the convicted rapist and murderer’s attorneys. Keller ordered the clerk’s office close at promptly at five o’clock, you know, what most people recognize as the end of the business day. Her lawsuit claims that because her (murdering, raping) husband’s attorneys were not able to file an appeal to the Texas court, which would have had to have been ruled on before their planned appeal to the US Supreme Court, caused her husband to be unjustly executed. Here’s the thing: Richard wasn’t claiming innocence in that appeal, what his attorneys were trying to do was latch on to a case out of Kentucky, that was before the USSC, that claimed lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment. It isn’t the Judge’s job to make sure attorneys do their work in a timely manner. Yes, the attorney had asked for more time due to computer problems, but, you know what? It isn’t the Judge’s job to ensure the convicted murdering rapist’s attorney’s computers worked properly either.
    If Mrs Richard wants to sue someone, perhaps she should sue the attorneys who failed to file the appeal in a timely manner, and who overlooked judges that were available after business hours:

    Three other judges later said they were available that evening and could have handled Richard’s appeal if they had known about it.

    Here is a lovely quote from the grieving widow:
    “He was on death row, so chances are he was going to be executed. But to have your appeal denied for no rhyme or reason? That’s wrong,” Marsha Richard, 43, said during a news conference outside the Houston federal courthouse Wednesday. The home health aide married Michael Richard in 2002. “No matter what side of the death penalty you fall on, we’re still dealing with human beings. Their lives are in the balance.”
    Come on now, Marsha, the appeal wasn’t filed in time, that is neither the fault, nor the responsibility of anyone other than the lawyers who were trying to keep your husband alive, despite his crimes. Mrs Richard is quoted by the AP
    as saying: I would ask her why she just couldn’t wait a few more minutes. It wouldn’t have cost her anything to do this
    I don’t know Marsha, perhaps the Judge thought, as I do, that the rules should apply to everyone equally and that convicted murderers shouldn’t get special treatment. Or, maybe, she [the judge] thought that after over twenty years the victim’s family finally saw Richard pay for his crimes. Either way, justice was done.

  • Father of Slain Marine Wins $11MILLION from Westboro Loons

    Albert Snyder, father of slain Marine LCPL Matthew Snyder won every count of his lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church loons who protest at his son’s funeral in 2006. The jury awarded Mr Snyder $2.9 million for compensatory damages and a staggering $8 million in punitive damages.
    The Westboro Church is headed by Fred Phelps, who also runs the WWW.godhatesfags.com website. Some thirty thousand protests are claimed by the, largely Phelps family group.

    U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, who had sealed the church’s financial documents, said from the bench that the compensatory damage award would already eclipse Westboro’s assets.

    Good! Hopefully these jackals will be forced into poverty, then they won’t be able to disrupt any more funerals of servicemen.

    The Baltimore Sun has the story

  • North Carolina Hangs Nifong Out to Dry

    After a prosecution rife with horrendous errors of judgment and prosecutorial misconduct the state of North Carolina has decided to let Mike Nifong stand or fall on his own. Having attempted to railroad 3 innocent young men, in a manner that should chill anyone, I can only hope he gets what he deserves.

    Is the state’s motivation in hanging him out to dry simply justice and a strict reading of regulations as this Breitbart article states or is it a jaded effort to distance the state and hope the attorneys for the falsely accused men don’t set their sights on the really deep pockets? I don’t know, and I honestly don’t care. As District Attorney Nifong’s job was to ensure actual criminals were prosecuted and convicted for their crimes, in this case he failed to do that and instead attempted to make his bones on the backs of three men who committed no crime.

  • Judge orders ‘migras’ to stand down

    In this bizarre world in which we live, a San Francisco Federal judge has told Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration (notice the use of the word “security” in both agencies) to stop enforcing Federal law according to Washington Times’ Jerry Seper;

    A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday blocked plans by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to crack down on employers who hire illegal aliens.

    U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued an order saying the agencies could not go forward with plans announced in August to send letters warning employers they face stiff penalties — including fines of up to $10,000 — if they hire workers whose Social Security numbers do not match their names.

    Judge Breyer, appointed by President Clinton in 1997, said the new work-site rules likely would impose hardships on businesses and their workers, adding that the plaintiffs had “demonstrated they will be irreparably harmed” if the rules are enforced.

    Hmmm – San Francisco, Clinton appointee, ignore the law…I’m beginning to see a pattern here. So the Administration – the branch of government which “executes” the laws (hence the name “Executive Branch”) of the legislative branch – has been ordered by the third branch of government – the judiciary – to stop enforcing the laws designed to protect American citizens.

    So I guess employers now know that they have another year to flaunt our laws and to exploit the underground population. And potential illegals know that they’ve got a year to get here and the terrorists know they have a year to hide in the illegal population to plan their next attack. So it works out for everyone – well, except the American people who’ve been calling for the laws to be enforced for the protection that enforcement might provide.

    But, see, this wasn’t a plan by the administration to begin enforcing any laws – the judge blocked the agencies from MAILING A LETTER (Effort to Curb Illegal Workers’ Hiring Blocked – Washington Post);

    In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs — an unusual coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration’s plan to mail Social Security “no-match” letters to 140,000 U.S. employers.

    “There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule’s implementation will be severe,” Breyer wrote, resulting in “irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers.”

    Innocent workers and employers – who are employed and employing illegally – how are they innocent? They know they’re breaking the law, so what exactly are they innocent of? 

    What kind of Bizarro World do they live in out there? 

  • Marion Barry robbed – again

    Watching the news last night, i saw that perennial DC hero and typical citizen, Marion Barry was robbed this last weekend. (Washington Post);

    The Southeast Washington home of D.C. Council member Marion Barry was burglarized recently, D.C. police said last night.

    Police said the items taken included watches and jewelry. The value of the items stolen was not immediately available.

    Barry had been on a five-day trip to China last month when the burglary occurred, an aide said. On Sept. 20, the former mayor addressed an association of Chinese mayors. It could not be learned from police exactly when the burglary was reported.

    Yeah, well WaPo got it wrong, somewhat – according to the local Fox Five news, the value of the items taken was about $14,000 in jewelry. Keep in mind, Barry owns this much jewelry and takes trips to China while he still owes back taxes to the Federal government all the way from 1999 – which to the last of my knowledge, he’s made no attempt to repay despite the fact that he’s escaped jail by the grace of a Clinton-appointee Federal judge. I’m sure that same judge would keep you or I out of jail, too, for the same offenses.

    I think the most amazing part of the story is that Barry, now twice a victim of crime in the last two years, still thinks gun control in the District is a good idea and he’s still sponsoring a gun control bill to block a Federal court finding on the issue earlier this year. In fact, Fox Five used the burglary incident to highlight his stance against legal guns. Disregarding the fact that crime is on a steep climb in the District according to Metro Police crime statistics.

    Of course, he’s not known as a cracksmoking whore-monger for nothing, I guess.

  • A nation of criminals

    The purpose of government is to create an environment in which the citizens can prosper and live in relative security. James Madison explained, in the Federalist Papers that governments exist because “men are not angels”. Governments make rules to protect the many from the few by taking a certain measure of rights from the many – everytime government makes a rule, someone losses rights and choices.

    Until recently, the rules made sense, and were generally accepted by all except the sociopaths who pray on the unsuspecting innocent. But lately, our law makers reach has exceeded the grasp we intended for them to exercise. We can all remember the stories of Prohibition when our grandparents (well, my grandfather, anyway) decided that government had exceeded it’s authority when it banned alcohol and began brewing their own concoctions in their bathtubs until government realized it’s folly and repealed the faulty amendment.

    But it continues on today. More recently, the most liberal Republican President ever, Richard Nixon, forced States to lower their speed limits to 55 miles per hour, ostensibly to lower fuel consumption. Hardly anyone obeyed the new speed limit. When I returned from four years in Germany, I took particular care to drive 55 on the New York State Thruway – with my German-built auto designed for the limit-free Autobahn. I was the slowest driver on the road – 80 year-old ladies were zipping by me in their ancient Buicks. 

    Now , cell phone bans, smoking-free areas and buildings, traffic cameras, even government-sponsored health care programs are reducing our choices and while creating an aura of safety and security, do not. We pay ghastly sums of money in taxes to pay for volumes of new legislation that pours out of our local, State and Federal legislatures at a staggering pace everyday that regulates everything from the width of theater seats (yes, there’s a Federal regulation for that) to the recent proposal in New York State to ban smoking in cars.

    No one obeys these laws, and no one enforces these laws. The laws are written to make us feel good about ourselves and our willingness to do the right thing – even though we have no intention of actually doing the right thing. The law is there, it’s on the books and we approve of it, but we’re not going to restrict ourselves by complying with it.

    Writing laws is a business, now. Government agencies, despite the fact that they each have a huge staff of lawyers and technical writers, hire contractors to write the laws for them. Legislators, with huge staffs, research and receive lobbyists on a given subject, churn out volumes of background and facts, and emotional appeals spend hours debating one side or the other. The end result is always someone losing their rights to a particular degree.

    The actual result is a law that no one will obey because no one will enforce it. Writing laws is a big business – one we can do without. There are laws that restrict nearly everything we do – and it’s turned us into a nation of criminals, to varying degrees.