Tag: corruption

Good Golly, Healthy Holly

One reason to talk about corruption a lot is that there is a lot of corruption to talk about.

The scheme was to get Kaiser Permanente to buy 20,000 copies of her children’s book, Healthy Holly, at a decidedly non-discounted price of $5 a pop, while the health provider was negotiating a contract with UMMS and while she was serving on the UMMS board deciding that contract.

It’s been several months since I’ve discussed Baltimore, Maryland, a hotbed of Big Government degeneracy. Now that former Mayor Catherine Pugh has been indicted — this Tuesday — on multiple federal charges, we should take a moment to appraise her own tricky larceny against the city’s taxpayers and the patients of University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS).

What a scam.

And not her only one. She leveraged this scam to fund her mayoral campaign, for example.

So, it is good that she is being prosecuted.

Odd, though, that it is the federal government doing the prosecuting. Baltimore is a corporate entity under the sovereignty of the State of Maryland, not the United States.

What have state and local investigators and prosecutors been doing?

While this might seem a picky point, the federalization of law and order is, as the college crowd says, ‘problematic.’ Tasking the Federal Government to the rescue is great, insofar as it actually rescues. Yet, it is also an unmistakable sign not only of the corruption of the criminal justice system, but also of a failure of representative democracy to hold government officials accountable in that state or locality.

This is certain: government, removed from citizens’ vigilance, almost necessarily breeds corruption … and not just in Baltimore.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment property rights U.S. Constitution

Injustice Blocked

asset forfeiture, theft, police, corruption,

Civil asset forfeiture is one of those government practices that good people, when informed of it, often express, at first, incredulity. How can something like that exist in these United States?!?

Good question.

One reason seems to be that very incredulity. Normal Americans trust their government not to be evil. When shown that it regularly engages in actual highway robbery, then denial — ‘this cannot be happening.’

But it is.

Another reason it exists? It is so profitable.

For those in government, anyway. They get to fill their department coffers without having to ask for tax hikes. They — and by ‘they’ I mean ‘the police’ and government attorneys at state and local levels — just take the wealth.

Indeed, police routinely “keep whatever they can grab off anybody they arrest, claiming it’s all proceeds or property connected to criminal activities,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason, “and using it to line their own pockets. This incentivizes police to look for people who have assets that can be seized.”

In South Carolina, Shackford reports, police agencies “across the state had seized more than $17 million in assets across three years. In one-fifth of the cases, nobody was charged or even arrested for a crime.”

Fortunately, there is good news. “Circuit Judge Steven H. John has ruled that the South Carolina’s civil asset forfeiture regulations violate the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the citizens.”

Unfortunately, the fight against this evil practice is far from over.

But maybe the judge’s ruling will inspire citizens to petition their government and place politicians’ greed into check.

And might not this judge inspire other judges around the country?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption

A Safe Bet

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 1, 2019
1 Comment on A Safe Bet

Washington DC, corruption, sports gambling,

“We certainly cannot comment,” said a spokesman for the Chief Financial Officer of the nation’s capital city, “on documents that are not supposed to be public.”

Welcome to Washington, D.C., where governing is done opaquely.

In a typically shady political maneuver, a $215 million contract was awarded to Intralot, a Greek company, to manage the region’s newly legalized sports gambling.

Citizens were not supposed to learn that Intralot subcontracted with city political insiders.

“Confidential city records obtained by The Washington Post,” the paper reported Saturday, “show that those who would benefit from the no-bid contract include a former D.C. State Board of Education official, the head of a marketing company that worked on the political campaigns of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and her protege, council member Brandon T. Todd (D‑Ward 4), and an executive whose company lost a contract at a city homeless shelter because of allegedly falsified documents.”

“Every time, there will be politically connected CBEs attached to a contract of this size,” Council Chairman Phil Mendelson generously explained. “It’s how business is done everywhere.”

“This is why we have a competitive process to begin with,” Councilmember David Grosso countered, “to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen and you don’t give a contract to your friends.”

The sports betting bill was introduced by Councilmember Jack Evans, who just resigned from the troubled Metro transit system after an investigation found he “knowingly” broke ethics rules. He is also “the subject of a federal probe into whether he improperly used his public office to benefit paying clients of a consulting business he owns.”

All in a day’s work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption term limits

House-Cleaning & Law-Following

Post author By Redactor
Post date June 10, 2019
No Comments on House-Cleaning & Law-Following

Larry Hogan, Maryland’s popular Republican governor, has vowed to “clean house” in the wake of the scandals rocking the “private” non-profit University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), set up by the State of Maryland.

It isn’t just former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned from the UMMS board after it was disclosed the board had purchased $500,000 worth of her self-published children’s book, “Healthy Holly.” Yep, it’s always for the children. (Pugh also resigned as mayor after the FBI raided her home and office.)

In fact, nine of the 23 UMMS board members had money-making contracts with the system they “manage.” Not to mention that a recent Post exposé detailed how former state legislator and long-time board member, Francis Kelly, whose legislation established the system, had multi-million-dollar insurance contracts with UMMS.

Yet, as The Washington Post reports, “state law long has called for housecleaning … specifying that board members can’t serve more than two consecutive five-year terms.”

Gov. Hogan and his predecessors — both Republican and Democrat — simply ignored the law, reappointing board members beyond the limits.

“If members were allowed to essentially stay on the board in perpetuity,” former state senator, now U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D‑Md.) argued, “it’s a direct threat to the independence and accountability of the board.”

Abandoning term limits, State Senator Jill Carter (D‑Baltimore City) told the Post, was “part of the problem,” resulting in self-dealing.

Hmmm, think they’ll ever apply this knowledge to establishing term limits on their own powerful legislative bodies?

So much corruption, too few limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment Popular property rights

Of Loot and Leverage

civil asset forfeiture, police, corruption, theft

Without a special kicker, why should police bother to do their jobs?

The subject is civil asset forfeiture. This legal procedure makes it easy to take property from criminals. For the War on Drugs, civil forfeiture was so loosened as to allow police to take property from anyone … without due process.

No wonder citizens in a number of states have demanded limits upon the practice.

But since police departments get to keep the loot they “interdict” — spending it on better cars, weapons, office furniture, plush employee lounges, drug-sniffing dogs — law enforcement personnel aren’t exactly always on board with citizens’ concerns.

Jarrod Bruder, South Carolina Sheriff’s Association executive director, defends the sorry practice, as quoted by Greenville News. He asks what, sans civil forfeiture’s profit motive, could be a cop’s “incentive to go out and make a special effort?”

Dollars to donuts, this will not play well with those who distrust the police already.

And note the biggest incentive police face: to take property away from innocent people. Easier pickin’s. No surprise, then, that in “19 percent of cases, there is no criminal arrest.”*

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz (R‑Tex.) has suggested that President Trump take the confiscated billions from the accounts of drug kingpin El Chapo to “build the Wall.”

Genius?

Regardless, this mere suggestion could add incentives for pro-Wall Republicans to go soft on civil asset forfeiture.

There is no point in being secure within our borders if we are not secure within our homes and wallets and cars and … any other place jeopardized by this police-state practice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*Blacks represent 71 percent of cases, while only 28 percent of the state population.

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Photo Credit: Chase Carter on Flickr

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ballot access insider corruption local leaders

Clown Car of Felonies

Michael Madigan, Speaker, House, Illinois, corruption, machine

“It’s overkill of epic proportions,” John Kass writes in the Chicago Tribune, “like using a sledgehammer to kill a gnat, or firing off a nuclear weapon to kill a sparrow.”

In three columns, Kass tells the story of David Krupa, a 19-year-old DePaul University student, who gathered over 1,700 voter signatures on petitions to gain a spot on the ballot for alderman of Chicago’s notorious 13th Ward.

Why notorious? It’s Boss Madigan’s home.

Yes, the “Land of Lincoln,” home to nearly 13 million people, is ruled by one man, Michael J. Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House, “the longest-serving leader of any state or federal legislative body in the history of the United States.”

And 13th Ward Alderman Marty Quinn, the incumbent, is Madigan’s guy.

Quickly, a lawsuit was filed challenging Krupa’s petitions and, as Kass explains, “A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature.”

While almost three thousand people executed affidavits stating that they wanted their signatures removed from Krupa’s petition, only 187 actually signed his petition.

Since the revocations require swearing to a legal document, under penalty of perjury, and perjury is a felony, more than 2,500 people — and their knowing helpers — appear to have committed what Krupa’s attorney calls a “clown car of felonies.”

Then — voilà! — the legal challenge evaporated. Young Krupa won’t be squashed; there will be a challenger on the 13th Ward ballot for the first time in decades.

Is that enough? No.

Election process corruption and the possible suborning of thousands of felonies must be investigated.

No quarter for boss rule.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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