Archive for March 24th, 2007
This could also be the understatement of the day.
“The insurgents are inventing new methods to hurt us.”
— Police Cpl. Hussam Ali
Source: Attacks against U.S.-led security crackdown in Iraq kill at least 74
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The FBI is investigating a renovation project in a downtown building where a worker fell to his death Tuesday.
The probe was disclosed shortly after Buffalo’s first deputy mayor was accused of blocking city inspectors’ efforts to shut down the project.
But Mayor Byron W. Brown denied that Steven M. Casey intervened on behalf of a developer who was a contributor to Brown’s campaign. Brown argued that inspectors never filed an official stop-work order to halt renovations at the Webb Building, 90 Pearl St.
Brown and has top attorney confirmed that federal investigators met with numerous city employees Friday and also subpoenaed city documents on the project.
“I really don’t know why the FBI is here, but I can confirm for you that the FBI was in the building today,” Brown told reporters during a City Hall news conference he held to defend Casey.
Talk about an over-the-top reaction to a common government problem, this is it. Steve Casey’s involvement with the construction on the Webb Building is the result of corporate welfare for private developments. The government has a vested interest to see the project through and will frequently do what it has to in order to further that goal.
It is unfortunate that it took the death of construction worker to bring this subject to the public’s attention. However, the death is an accident. The real crime is the government taking the taxpayers’ money to prop up projects that would not otherwise be financially viable. That money, if left in the private sector, could be used for the creation of self-sustaining projects that create real jobs and economic growth.
The corporate welfare scams happen day in and day out, on a legal basis, because the politicians have found a way to spend our money to make themselves look good. They have no financial risk, therefore, they have no reason to evaluate the economics of a project.
Playing by the rules is often avoided by those who make the rules.
Many developers, including Rocco Termini, make quite a good living for themselves by relying on corporate welfare. Their good living is being subsidized by the rest of us.
The rush to place blame has begun with fingers pointed in all directions. The blame belongs with the system.
Source: Buffalo News: Home
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There was a fairly substantial uproar last October when George Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Among other things, that Act authorized the use of torture by the Military, the detention of alien enemy combatants without a right to Habeas Corpus and severely restricted the ability to retain a defense attorney.
What didn’t get much attention the day George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act is the other law he signed at the same time. That law is H.R. 5122, otherwise knows as the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. That was a mouthful, it should have been named the Nazi Martial Law Act.
H.R. 5122 modifies The Insurrection Act and the Possee Comitatus Act to give the President the power to declare martial law. George Bush can now sieze National Guard bases, without a Governor’s approval, during a declared public emergency. The President can use those bases to station military troops to suppress public disorder.
You can’t make this shit up.
LAS VEGAS — A battle is brewing over a new Las Vegas ordinance that bans providing food or meals to the indigent at city parks.
The Las Vegas City Council unanimously passed a law, which went into effect Thursday, making it a crime to feed the homeless at city parks. It carries a maximum penalty of $1,000 and six months in jail.
The law bans giving away or selling food to anyone who could get assistance from official sources under state law, and officials said city marshals will get specialized training to enforce it.
The city’s mayor, Oscar Goodman, dismissed questions about how marshals will identify the homeless so that they can enforce the ordinance.
“Certain truths are self-evident,” Goodman said. “You know who’s homeless.”
I would agree with the Mayor, “certain truths are self-evident.” My self-evident truth is that Mayor Goodman deserves an Asshat Award.
