Law and Order?

...and the gaffes are over Governor Perry?

In a bid to rebuild confidence in a possible campaign for President, Rick Perry has once again stepped in it.  This time his campaign tweeted out a photo of his nemesis Rosemary Lehmberg as being the most drunk Democrat in Texas.

While his campaign has since deleted the tweet my question is has the staffer in question been fired?  If the tweet was as offensive and unauthorized as you claim Governor, why not fire the staff member for the total lack of judgement?  You are Mr. Law and Order, right?

Perry who is in legal trouble - not because of Democrat Lehmberg - but because of a Republican appointed special prosecutor should understand that this is the type of thing that is umimpressive to the voters that will win or lose an election for you.

While his current situation supposedly surrounds the question of whether or not Lehmberg should have resigned after his suggestion and whether she could run her office and the Public Integrity Unit after her own arrest for DWI, I do not remember Perry calling for the resignation of Kaufman County District Attorney Rick Harrison or Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern.

Harrison was arrested in Seagoville after driving the wrong way down a street and hitting another car. That was his second conviction for DUI.

In November 2002, Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern was arrested in New Mexico after failing a field sobriety test and refusing a breath test. He was found guilty of aggravated DWI in June the next year.


The problem in both of those cases was they were Republican office holders.  So much for law and order.

Crime And Punishment

A teacher was sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter and a concurrent sentence of ten years for failing to render aid after a hit and run accident last year.  Many comments are flooding the Dallas Morning News article saying "she should have been put to death" and "I have no pity for this thug."

What amazes me is not the sentence.  I might argue it is probably deserved when you consider she left the scene of an accident without checking on the child she hit.  What amazes me at the outrage at this teacher, yet no one seemed this up in arms when Josh Brent, the former defensive lineman for the Cowboys had a DUI that killed his team mate.

Despite having a DUI in college that meant he was driving without a license, Mr. Brent somehow managed to serve all of 180 days in county jail despite killing someone, yet this woman will serve years.

I'm not sure anymore whether justice is still blind, but you have to wonder based on sentences handed down of late.

I have no pity for this thug

I have no pity for this thu

Pessimism On Post-Racial Presidency

Again and again, President Obama seems to get it wrong.  Worse though, America hasn't seemed to figure it out that the President who wants to see the racial tensions of past erased, only seems to exacerbate them.

In July 2009, President Obama rushed to the defense of Henry Gates Jr. who had a confrontation with police after police were informed it appeared he was trying to break into his home.  Police responded to the incident and charged Mr. Gates with disorderly conduct.  President Obama rushed to judgement citing that the police "acted stupidly."

In 2013, President Obama rushed to defend Trayvon Martin who he had said "could have been me."  In the Martin case, Mr. Obama missed the fact that evidence on scene pointed towards the probability that Mr. Martin attacked George Zimmerman.

Now comes 2014 and an incident we are still learning about where President Obama decries the death of Michael Brown before evidence is in, but Mr. Obama seems to be the one who once again is playing the race card in the death of a black teenager.

The death of Michael Brown is heartbreaking, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family and his community at this very difficult time.  As Attorney General Holder has indicated, the Department of Justice is investigating the situation along with local officials, and they will continue to direct resources to the case as needed.  I know the events of the past few days have prompted strong passions, but as details unfold, I urge everyone in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the country, to remember this young man through reflection and understanding.  We should comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.  Along with our prayers, that’s what Michael and his family, and our broader American community, deserve.

Mr. Obama is very prevalent in this case, discerning evidence before it is presented.  What happens if the officer shot Mr. Brown because he was being attacked?  What happens if another innocent was shot because of his actions and not the officers.

One thing is for sure.  Mr. Obama has been conspicuously hard to find when it comes to issues like gun running to Mexican drug cartels by his ATF.  I do not remember this much effort on behalf of the Brian Terry family after the Border agent was killed by guns that Obama's Justice Department allowed to walk across the border.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama can not figure out if he wants to be a post racial President or not.  Again and again, it is clear he sees through a race based lens.  If the leader of the greatest country on Earth does it, why wouldn't lesser people?  Mr. Obama needs to remember his campaign promise and start looking at issues of fact and not fear or his will be a post-racial Presidency based on pessimism and not promise.

Our America?

Wow John Whitehead.  You might have hit the nail on the head with this post.

There's a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc.  Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don't like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love.

Here's what I don't like about living in the American police state: I don't like being treated as if my only value to the government is as a source of labor and funds. I don't like being viewed as a consumer and bits of data. I don't like being spied on and treated as if I have no right to privacy, especially in my own home.

I don't like government officials who lobby for my vote only to ignore me once elected. I don't like having representatives incapable of and unwilling to represent me. I don't like taxation without representation.

I don't like being bullied by government bureaucrats, vigilantes masquerading as cops, or faceless technicians. I don't like being railroaded into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite. I don't like being forced to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.

I don't like being subjected to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA. I don't like VIPR raids on so-called "soft" targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes. I don't like fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement.

I don't like being treated like an underling by government agents who are supposed to be working for me. I don't like being threatened, intimidated, bribed, beaten and robbed by individuals entrusted with safeguarding my rights. I don't like being silenced, censored and marginalized. I don't like my movements being tracked, my conversations being recorded, and my transactions being catalogued.

I don't like how the presidency has developed into a neo-monarchy replete with all the luxury and lasciviousness of the feudal lords of old.

I don't like politicians who spend most of their time running for office, fundraising and enjoying being feted by lobbyists and corporations alike. I don't like being kept at a distance from my elected representatives, including the president (a.k.a. the Emperor). I don't like free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws that restrict Americans' First Amendment rights.

I don't like laws that criminalize Americans for otherwise lawful activities such as holding religious studies at home, growing vegetables in their yard, and collecting rainwater. I don't like the NDAA, which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely. I don't like the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.

I don't like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has become America's standing army in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country. I don't like military weapons such as armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like being used against the American citizens. I don't like government agencies such as the DHS, Post Office, Social Security Administration and Wildlife stocking up on hollow-point bullets. And I definitely don't like the implications of detention centers being built that could house American citizens.

I don't like the fact that since President Obama took office, police departments across the country "have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft."

I don't like America's infatuation with locking people up for life for non-violent crimes. There are over 3,000 people in America serving life sentences for non-violent crimes, including theft of a jacket, siphoning gasoline from a truck, stealing tools, and attempting to cash a stolen check. I don't like paying roughly $29,000 a year per inmate just to keep these nonviolent offenders in prison.

I don't like having my hard-earned taxpayer dollars used against me.

I don't like the partisan nature of politics today, which has so polarized Americans that they are incapable of standing in unity against the government's abuses. I don't like the entertainment drivel that passes for news coverage today.

I don't like the fact that those within a 25-mile range of the border are getting a front row seat to the American police state, as Border Patrol agents are now allowed to search people's homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant.

I don't like public schools that treat students as if they were prison inmates. I don't like zero tolerance laws that criminalize childish behavior. I don't like a public educational system that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.  

I don't like police precincts whose primary purpose—whether through the use of asset forfeiture laws, speed traps, or red light cameras—is making a profit at the expense of those they have sworn to protect. I don't like militarized police and their onerous SWAT team raids.

I don't like Department of Defense and DHS programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police. I don't like government programs that reward cops for raiding homes and terrorizing homeowners. I don't like local police dressing and acting as if they were the military while viewing me as an enemy combatant.

I don't like being treated as if I have no rights.

I don't like cash-strapped states cutting deals with private corporations to run the prisons in exchange for maintaining 90% occupancy rates for at least 20 years. I don't like the fact that American prisons have become the source of cheap labor for Corporate America.

I don't like feeling as if we've come full circle back to a pre-Revolutionary era.  I don't like answering to an imperial president, who operates above the law. I don't like the injustice that passes for justice in the courts. I don't like prosecutors so hell bent on winning that they allow innocent people to suffer for crimes they didn't commit. 

I don't like the double standards that allow government officials to break laws with immunity, while average Americans get the book thrown at them. I don't like cops who shoot first and ask questions later. I don't like police dogs being treated with more respect and afforded more rights than American citizens. 

I don't like living in a suspect society. I don't like Americans being assumed guilty until they prove their innocence. I don't like the fact that 38 states require that a property owner prove his innocence when police have laid claim to it in a civil forfeiture proceeding, whether or not that individual has done anything wrong. 

I don't like technology being used as a double-edged sword against us. I don't like agencies like DARPA developing weapons for the battlefield that get used against Americans back at home. I don't like the fact that drones will be deployed domestically in 2015, yet the government has yet to establish any civil liberties protocols to prevent them from being used against the citizenry.

Most of all, I don't like feeling as if there's no hope for turning things around.  Now there are those who would suggest that if I don't like things about this country, I should leave and go elsewhere. And there are certainly those among my fellow citizens who are leaving for friendlier shores. However, I happen to come from a long line of people who believe in the virtue of hard work and perseverance and in the principle that nothing worthwhile comes without effort. 

So I'm not giving up, at least not anytime soon. But I'm also not waiting around for the government to clean up its act. I'm not making any deals with politicians who care nothing about me and mine. To quote Number Six, the character in the British television series The Prisoner: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"

I plan to keep fighting, writing, speaking up, speaking out, shouting if necessary, filing lawsuits, challenging the status quo, writing letters to the editor, holding my representatives accountable, thinking nationally but acting locally, and generally raising a ruckus anytime the government attempts to undermine the Constitution and ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.

As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we're at a crisis point in American history. If we don't get up off our duffs and get involved in the fight for freedom, then up ahead the graveyard beckons. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."

I get that he seems mad, but if you haven't looked around, he is right throughout.  As ordinary Americans we have abdicated our responsibility to keep our government, ours.  The center of power needs to be restored to those governed.

Focus

Again I must beg your forgiveness.  For some reason I thought we had the freedom to speak our minds in this country - even when it is offensive to someone else.

Apparently the right to speak only extends to certain people who are allowed to say what they like and that right also seems to extend to those who don't wish to speak - but only certain folks.

The Department of Justice has recently send out a team to investigate a Nebraska parade float.  They meanwhile do not apparently have enough agents to deal with an IRS crisis that demonstrates that employees used the IRS for political purposes.

Again and again, the warning signs are apparent as the US government is using the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans, the DOJ attacks reporters who question their motives, and will use the full force of the federal government against a man with a beat down blue pick up who poked fun at the President, yet they do not police themselves when it comes to the political use of government agencies against its citizens.

This President seems to believe his own press.  I know it sounds crazy President Obama, but you are not God.  You may wish to think you are and send out your jackals to stifle dissent, but while you enjoy a vacation in Martha's Vineyard - children are washing up on to the shore of the Rio Grande.  You worry about people criticizing you, but not the criticism.  You are a poor excise for a leader and you needn't worry about the criticism of today because it is the history books that will bring you the most shame.  A President who could not focus on anything, but the mirror.

Waco 2.0

When I look at the situation in Nevada with Clive Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management, it appears to me that I am watching Waco 2.0 all over again.  While Waco involved David Koresh and the Branch Davidians and the possible sexual assault of teenagers and girls as young as nine and ten, it is not clear to me why the federal government feels the need to show up at someone’s property with armed agents and snipers over what is essentially an unpaid parking ticket.

I have no idea the actual penalties faced by Mr. Bundy in terms of grazing fees etc., but what I do know is it appears that we are asking young men and women to go to another American’s house at point of bayonet.  That we threaten violence over these bills in an era where Americans feel more polarized than ever is embarrassing and potentially dangerous.

Our country already feels like they are on the precipice and this can not help the situation any having armed agents threatening an individual like this, much less the ensuing reaction force that are showing up on the fence line as well.  When I look at current media accounts there appears to be almost a demilitarized zone at this gentleman’s ranch and that is not the America any of us should want to live in.

And The Headaches Are About To Begin...

So if Chris Christie thought it was bad earlier this month, I think the headache is about to be a full blown migraine with the report this afternoon that not only did Christie know about the George Washington Bridge closings that have caused the initial headaches, but that he ordered them.  Woops!

As I noted before, the Republican Party would have done well before they anointed another moderate as the party fave for President.  This appears to be exactly what is was first reported to be...political bullying by a guy who thought he could get away with it.

Fear not, Governor Christie, MSNBC loves you, or used to when you were useful to them slamming the conservative principles that Republican candidates should be carrying.  Instead, you are just another self serving jerk who set back not only yourself, but Republican efforts to keep people aware of the issues of Benghazi, Obamacare, and so forth.  So much for leadership...

NFL And Booze

Am I wrong or is the NFL fueled by alcohol?  Budweiser, Miller/Coors, and even Sam Adams seem to be as omnipresent with the NFL as Ford, Dodge, and Viagra.  (By the way, does anyone else find it odd that a rough and tumble sport that intimates they are the be all, end all when it comes to manhood has to advertise a prescription pill to...support your manhood?)

I am not sure what is more common that the issue of alcohol in the NFL, but I am open to hearing it.  Whether it be the athlete or the executive, it seems that the NFL can not operate without someone acting like, or actually being, a drunk.

While Major League Baseball has struggled with steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, the NFL mostly scoffs at the idea of handling it.  Instead, inebriation, either through repeated head trauma or through alcohol is the cross the NFL must carry.

In the last year alone there were at least seventeen incidents involving players being arrested for DUI, public intoxication, or other assorted alcohol related offenses.  Seventeen!  And this does not even include the January 22, 2013 arrest of Dallas Cowboys' defensive linesman Jay Ratliff who was popped only a few months after team mate Josh Brent killed his team mate Jerry Brown.  An important note in the Brent case, this was not his first DUI offense either.  Instead, he was arrested during his college playing days and clearly did not learn his lesson then.

Don't think I only blame the players because the executives have gotten in on the action too.  As you watch the Super Bowl and think about the various alcohol ads, don't forget that your Denver Broncos have an executive who had a 0.246 Blood Alcohol Concentration, or three times the legal limit anywhere.

Maybe it is my career choice, but I have seen gallons of blood over the years spilled on our highways because of the gallons of alcohol that consumers didn't control.  These personal choices have real and serious consequences and it would be nice if the NFL would stop talking about alcohol abuse and start doing something about it.

Rising Stars Burning Out Fast

A few years ago I was told Bob McDonnell, the 71st Governor of Virginia, was a possible candidate for Vice-President on a Mitt Romney ticket.  Just a few years later, I am told that Chris Christie is the 2016 nominee for President.  A few days ago, everyone realized neither is going to happen and these two are just two more fallen stars in the American GOP.

Again and again, we see corruption and asinine behavior from those who are supposed to be the prime players in the GOP farm club...the candidates who will restore the Republican party in the near future.

Instead, one is indicted by federal prosecutors for corruption and the other appears to have misused his office to pay back political opponents by shutting down roads, DMV offices, and ultimately who knows what else.

I apologize to all my friends in the Republican Party, but the McDonnell defense that I just did what everyone else did, doesn't cut it.  I get that we are the stupid party.  I'm even accepting of that.  I am not willing to lower my standards though so that I can become the Evil party...the party where it is okay to take from one person who works to give to someone who doesn't; the party where it is okay to kill a baby, but not a convicted murderer [for the record, both are wrong]; the party which says spotted owls are more important than humans.  When did it become okay for Republicans to lower their standards to that of their opponents Governor McDonnell?

You were one of the first people I talked to when I was appointed by Governor Gilmore to an advisory board.  If I had known you were so hard up for cash, I wouldn't have wasted your billable hours.

As for Governor Christie, you have campaigned twice on "getting things done," but now you just sound like the blowhard bully you cry that you aren't.  You were the knucklehead who ran his mouth until someone would bloody your nose and guess what.  Folks in New Jersey seem lined up to return the favor to you.

If the charges against McDonnell and potentially Christie, weren't so serious, I would laugh, but instead the "bright stars" of the Republican Party have burnt out...