crime

Solyndra Scandal Update

Mark Noonan23 Comments

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work…

Which is a rather stupid defense – because now we’ve got the 1,000 people out of work, plus an additional half billion dollar burden on the American taxpayer.  When you start making stupid defenses of your actions, it means you know you’ve really screwed up and are just hoping that it doesn’t entirely blow up in your face.

This scandal, though, is starting to show signs of getting legs – legs which will keep it walking through American politics for quite a while.  And legs which just might lead us to ever more scandals just like this.  It is clear from Solyndra that at least some in the Obama Administration were happy to make deals which were bad for the taxpayers and good for Obama donors…the only thing we don’t know is the “Watergate” question:  what did the President know, and when did he know it?

In a lot of ways, Obama had better hope he loses next year – the rising tide of scandal bodes ill for an Obama second term, and after the 2012 elections, even if Obama does win, he is likely to be faced with a Congress entirely controlled by the GOP…no friendly Reid holding back the Senate half of government oversight.  A re-elected Obama might be forced to do nothing but defend himself against scandal after scandal flowing out of his complete control of government 2009-11.

UPDATE:  More information emerging in the “LightSquared” scandal – seems that President Obama was an early investor in the company.  To remind, there is evidence that Administration officials pressed an Air Force general to change his testimony to be more favorable to LightSquared.  This is getting to be the sort of run-of-the-mill corruption we see out of Chicago…has Obama really been playing that particular game while in DC?  Only an investigation will settle the matter…

Hatch: Who Wrote the SEIU Goon Handbook?

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Senator Hatch’s press release:

U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today wrote to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) member and former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) official Craig Becker to inquire about his involvement in union intimidation efforts. The letter sent to Becker comes after the SEIU’s “Contract Campaign Manual” was made public. The handbook tells union members to purposefully try to damage their employers’ reputations by coming up with allegations against their employers and managers and to even break the law to gain leverage in contract negotiations.

In the letter, Hatch writes that, “the manual explicitly advises union members to engage in tactics designed to attack the reputation of an employer as well as its managers and to purposefully damage an employer’s relationship with vendors and customers.  In addition, it advises employees to uncover “dirt” on management officials and publicize the information in order to obtain leverage in contract negotiations.  The manual even goes so far as to encourage union members to disobey certain laws when it serves the union’s purposes.”…

As a matter of free speech, you can write all the books on how to be a union thug you like – but who writes the thuggery how-to books is a matter of public interest.  Did Becker write it?  If not, then who?  Inquiring minds want to know…

As the unions become ever more irrelevant to the average, American worker they do appear to becoming more desperate in their tactics.  Remember, when you intimidate an employer you are also intimidating employees…if you are willing to smash the property of a corporation which can call upon financial resources to fight back, imagine what effect that will have on individual workers who have no such resources?  Essentially, the unions are trying to scare everyone – to prevent anyone from challenging the unions.  And that works out to a prohibition against challenging the union bosses, who often don’t act as if they give a fig for the cares of workers.

Finding out who wrote this manual is a good, first step in trying to curb this intimidation…and to call unions back to their duty.  A union dedicated to representing the legitimate interests of workers who voluntarily belong to the union is  good thing…but a union dedicated to advancing the cause of a particular party and keeping the bosses rolling in wealth, that is another mater, entirely.

Solyndra Raided by the FBI

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Interesting – from NBC Bay Area:

FBI agents armed with search warrants descended Thursday morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda.

The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy’s inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News…

Bit unclear what the issue is – but Daily Caller takes note of the number of times Solyndra execs visited the White House:

Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial  relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.

According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged…

So, what are we to make of this?  Best I can figure is that with calls being made for an investigation in to how Solyndra managed to get federal backing, this raid is a means of forestalling Congressional investigators…the Administration can say they are willing to cooperate but they can’t release all the data due to an on-going, criminal investigation in to Solyndra.  How much would anyone like to bet me that the investigation goes on until at least November 7th, 2012?

Rather fishy, I think…

Trying to Get “Fast and Furious” Answers

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Sen. John McCain has requested a Congressional hearing on the much-maligned gun trafficking investigation led by the ATF.

Up until recently, two fellow Republican legislators — Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., — have led the Congressional inquiries into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Fast and Furious” operation…

…“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses…

In this case, Obama had better hope he loses next year – you see, the only thing holding back Watergate-style hearings on this is the fact that Democrats still control the Senate.  Given the number of vulnerable Democrats up for re-election next year and the number the GOP needs to win to gain control, it is almost a certainty that Harry Reid won’t be in charge of the Senate come January, 2013.  At that point, there is no protection for the Administration in covering up this scandal…which is, in fact, worse than Watergate with the only thing entirely unknown at this point is the President’s role.

My view is that the Administration, in an effort to gin up support for gun control, cooked up a plan to have American weapons transferred to the drug cartels, knowing they would be used in crimes which Mexico would then blame on us…a media frenzy would erupt and demands would be made for restrictions on gun ownership.  Presto, gun control is back in to the American political mix after having been dead and buried for more than a decade. The only reason it didn’t work out like that is because an American border patrol agent was murdered with the guns and a couple people involved blew the whistle.

We do need to get to the bottom of this – who ordered the program and why they did it.  Putting Holder, especially, under oath is important here.  I don’t expect him to tell the truth, but I either want prosecutable perjury against him, or the spectacle of him taking the 5th.  Such actions could break lose other people who do know the truth and then we’ll find out what happened and why.

Democrat Treasurer Arrested

Mark Noonan10 Comments

From the Orange County Register:

A prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state legislators Lou Correa and Jose Solorio has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, The Orange County Register has learned.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed Saturday afternoon that Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. Special Agent Steve Dupre of the bureau’s Sacramento office said she was arrested in connection with her position as a campaign treasurer…

Since this is being done under a Democrat Administration, I can only figure that she stole above her station…because when you have a party of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel, I can’t see how dipping your fingers in to the campaign coffers is considered all that bad.  I mean, it isn’t like this is her first brush with the law – as the report goes on to note:

…Durkee has had enforcement actions taken against her four times by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, primarily for failing to report transactions or information. She has also received at least a half a dozen enforcement warning letters from the commission and stipulated to a violation before the City of San Diego Ethics Commission…

So, serial ethics problems over the years hasn’t deterred Democrats from working with her…in other words, par for the course in Democrat politics, where the only moral test is that of success.  If you win, then you did good…and it doesn’t matter how you win.  Given all this, it must be something other than her corruption which got a Democrat controlled Justice Department after her…and it will be interesting to see how this unfolds; who did what to whom, as it were.

What are the Limits of Self Defense?

Mark Noonan75 Comments

Interesting story from the Colorado Springs Gazette:

An El Paso County jury on Friday awarded nearly $300,000 to the daughter of a burglar who was fatally shot in 2009 while breaking into an auto lot…

To nutshell the linked article – a family-owned business had been victimized of late by burglars and the owners (realizing that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away) decided to stand vigil over their property through the night.  Some time during the night, two drug-addled, petty thieves broke in and the family members sprang in to action, firing a total of four shots, one of which killed one of the two burglars.  The DA referred the shooting to a Grand Jury which declined to indict, so no crime was committed  as far as Colorado is concerned.  The plaintiff’s attorney argued that the family deliberately set out to kill whomever might break in and as they were never in personal danger, this was a wrongful death…the civil jury agreed.

I, personally, would never kill to defend property – not even 100% sure I would kill to defend myself, but I would kill to defend any innocent person, if there was no other way to protect them.  But my attitude about criminals is that they have chosen a path fraught with danger…if they wind up injured or dead as a result of their voluntary actions, then no fault accrues to anyone who assists them in to the hospital or the hereafter (except if some weirdo took captive a criminal and then did him in, or some such thing like that – once a criminal is definitely rendered harmless, no one has a right to take his life except by due process of law).  It is too bad that the burglar died – but his death sentence was signed when he got stoned and decided to steal to support his habit.  If it hadn’t been this bringing an untimely end to his life, it would have been something else…and perhaps something much worse, and maybe with the burglar taking innocent people with him.

On that jury, I would have told the burglar’s family to take a hike.  People have a right to defend their lives and property – and anyone who enters property without the owner’s permission and with an intent to do wrong has just taken his life in to his hands.

What do you think?

 

Our Broken Police Forces

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Over at Huffington Post, Radley Balko covers a disturbing story:

Jose Guerena, a 26-year-old Marine and Iraq war veteran, was killed May 5 when a SWAT team broke into his home a little after 9:30 a.m. According to Guerena’s wife, Vanessa (who was home at he time, along with their 4-year-old son), Guerena thought the police were home invaders. He ushered his family into a closet, then grabbed a rifle. When the police battered down the door, they saw Guerena and his rifle, and opened fire. The SWAT team released 70 rounds. Guerena didn’t fire a shot; the safety of his rifle was still on.

Last week, Arizona attorney Chris Scileppi filed notice of a $20 million lawsuit against Pima County, Ariz., on behalf of Guerena’s family. The lawsuit provides a good opportunity to look back at what has happened since since the morning of May 5…

Do read the whole thing – because it does bring to my mind, at least, a question about the utility of “special forces” units in our local police forces.  Indeed, it brings up along with it a question about what the police are for, and how civilian control is to be effected.

This story is extra meaningful to me because we here in Las Vegas also had a case of police officers wantonly gunning down a military veteran of excellent character…and then we watched as the police slandered the dead man, and then used a rigged investigation system to ensure that no officer was called to account for his errors.  If even our military veterans aren’t safe from out of control police actions, whom among us is?  When will the heavy club of law enforcement fall upon us?  Whom among us has the resources to fend it off?

Keep in mind that I am pro-police.  As I stated in my linked article, the police do a job I am not good enough to do.  Those people who are dedicated police officers are better men and women than I could ever hope to be.  But a baleful spirit of careerism, bureaucratic infighting and union corruption has taken over all too many of our local police forces.  The good cops are powerless against these forces…the bad cops get to rule the roost because they have gained control of the levers of power.  And, so, when a SWAT team goes on a stupid raid which results in an innocent death, no one is called to account.  Time and time again we have all seen this.

To me, the reason we have things like SWAT but don’t have a cop on the beat is because of the bad influences which have taken over the police.  Rather than have armored, heavily armed combat forces which can come crashing through my door at 2 am, I’d rather have a patrolman walking my neighborhood at night.  The patrolman will ensure that no one is breaking in to my home, that the teenagers are off the streets at a reasonable hour and that there is thus no need for anyone out there to think that my door should be battered down.  Corrupt and bureaucratic police forces like flashy things like SWAT teams; they make it seem like the cops are doing something good, when all they are donig is wasting time and resources which should be spent on crime prevention.  Police forces made up of people dedicated to law enforcement and keeping the peace have cops on the beat, who know their neighborhoods…who is supposed to be there and when.  It isn’t as sexy as SWAT, but it gets the job done.

My view is that what is most needed is a re-assertion of civil control over the police as this will ensure that the police get back to business.  That is, get back to seeing their primary task as peace keeping…preventing crime, rather than investigating crimes after they have happened.  Making certain the crack house never gets started, rather than raiding a house with machine guns at the ready, even if they’ve got the wrong house.  To that end, in my linked article I suggested the Civil Review Board – a means whereby average citizens can submit complaints about the police without the police being able to stop  or control an investigation.  That, in and of itself, would go a long way towards fixing the police…the next step would be to find political leaders who would be willing to take on the police unions (who really drive the corruption) and force the law enforcement agencies to do what the people need, not what corrupt unions bosses want.

Among the many callings a person can have, being a police officer is one of the most honorable.  Done properly, it is the height of service – the definite willingness to show the greatest love of all: that of being ready to lay down one’s life for another.  The police should never lack for support – monetary and moral.  They do one of the dirtiest jobs in the world and all of us should be wary of second-guessing a police officer in the performance of his duty.  But the police must be what we need them to be – guardians of the peace in our communities, not armed forces using razzle-dazzle, super-cop nonsense to cover up incompetence.

Wisconsin State Fair Incident

Mark Noonan71 Comments

JS Online has an excellent, detailed report of what happened.  To nutshell it, for reasons unknown a large group of black youths went on a rampage at the State Fair, appearing to single out whites for attack.  This event took place in Wisconsin, a State noted for its liberal efforts at “diversity” (in fact, the State Fair, itself, has been taking great pains to be be more “diverse”), with only a relatively small black community (a bit more than 6% of the population) and no history of racially motivated attacks.  So, why did it happen?

Because we told these kids to do it.  Yes – you, me; all of us.  For more than a generation we have poured filth in to the mind of youth…pornography, violence, glorified gangsters, racialist divisions created by politicians on the make, go ahead and fornicate we’ll get you an abortion, ignorance disguised by self-esteem training, lack of respect for law and tradition.  We’ve shoved this relentlessly in to the youth of our nation…and now we’re going to get all shocked that some of them went on a rampage. I’m not – I’m expecting more of this, and for it to get worse.  We’re supposed to take our youth and civilize it…instead, what we’ve done is barbarize it.  And there is a thing about barbarians – they act barbarically.

It is going to be difficult to deal with this.  It might get so bad that only the crudest and cruelest force will make the most incorrigible in to responsible citizens.  But however we deal with it, this will be a protracted and difficult process.  The cure for it will be found in protecting the current crop of little kids from the filth.  We have to stand up and start acting like adults – start insisting that “free speech” does not include making profits off of selling pornography and violence to kids; start insisting that kids learn in school, not learn to merely think highly of themselves; start teaching kids to respect law and tradition.

Or we can ignore our duty and allow more and worse things to happen.  It will.  You can rely on it.  This was just some kids out on a rampage.  But eventually they or their successors will kill…they will become the tools of those who want to use violence to get what they want, whether it is mafia-like criminals, or budding tyrants who want to destroy our republic.  We have it in our power to call a halt to this and restore decency in our nation…and ensure that the next generation of young people will not do such things as this.