The GOP is blocking an investigation into possible corruption involving an earmark secured by Alaska Rep. Don Young. Unbelievable. Forget ethics and morality. How many times does this party have to get its ass kicked at the polls before they’ll learn?
Politicians in the state of Minnesota can’t keep their budget in order. So they’re turning to banks and financial institutions to do their police work for them, and help catch tax cheats. The reader who sent me this asks, “What happened to the Fourth Amendment?” I assume he was joking.
Pretty cool use of imaging technology to figure out what was really going on a few weeks ago with that reflection in Dick Cheney’s glasses.
Wrong door raid in Britain. Welcome to the drug war, American style!
Very cool photos of a native tree-dwelling tribe in Indonesia.
Correction: At the first link, I misstated what’s going on. Most of the Senate, several GOP leaders, and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer want the matter referred to the Justice Department. Pelosi and maverick GOP Sen. Tom Coburn want Young’s case referred to the Ethics Committee. I’m not sure I’d trust either to do a proper investigation. The Ethics Committee is notoriously soft on the members it investigates. And this Justice Department is overtly political, especially on matters of public corruption. But I apologize for misstating what actually happened.
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on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 10:01 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
There are some critical differences in the wrong door raid, though. The police immediately apologized for the mistake and had repairs done quickly, according to the article. Then… you ready for this? They actually publicly took responsibility and pledged to make sure it didn’t happen again.
Of course, it almost certainly will happen again, and maybe because of the same failure of process, but when do you really hear about law enforcement agencies taking responsibility like that? They usually blame it on dark lighting, and dirty mailboxes, and bad information from informants, as if they weren’t the ones responsibility for vetting their information and ensuring the right address in the first place.
Yeah, I was about to comment on what Hunter commented on. If it was American-style, they would have terrorized the woman, got the throw-down drugs, arrested everyone in sight, and then shut the hell up afterwards, not admitting anything.
I’d LOVE to see responses like that after wrong-door raids in the US. But the cops here are too stuck on themselves
To the other items: The Republicans aren’t that scared of losing votes, because the only competition is the Democrats. And the only voters they’ll lose are the people who bother to think critically, which is a rapidly shrinking population. The majority of the people who vote for EITHER party at this point is made up of folks who find the other party abhorrent. They’re not going to switch.
And for the Minnesota banks thing, it reminded me of this quote by Warren Meyer yesterday (talking about government making you fill out stupid extra tax forms):
“Because the government treats us all as serfs. As far as they are concerned, our labor is free, because they have the power to compel us to do whatever they ask without compensation.”
Same deal here. They don’t want to do the dirty work, spend the money, track the people down. So let’s just make someone else do it, and punish them if they don’t.
The GOP isn’t blocking anything. Nancy Pelosi is the one saying that the Ethics committee should be investigating and not the DOJ (well, it’s been almost three years and the Ethics Committee hasn’t looked into it yet, what are they waiting for?). The linked article didn’t even mention anything about the GOP (other than Don Young, of course).
I think I would actually like Cheney more if it had been a naked woman…
(though admittedly, he really has nowhere to go but up…)
Ah, yes, highway, all “critical thinkers” vote democrat. Right.
I also second what the first two posters say, this is not even comparable to the American style where the police “secure the house” and arresting people before admitting they got the wrong place.
I dare you to Rickroll me to my face, boy.
Damnit, you got me.
Michael Chaney, you thoroughly misunderstood my statement.
The only people who are *able* to switch their votes are the ones who aren’t dogmatically attached to either party. You could switch ‘Democrat’ for ‘Republican’ in my prior comment and I’d think it’s equally valid.
It’s the fact that the people either party would ‘lose’ is becoming a smaller percentage of their voters that removes any disincentive from pathetic political shenanigans.
Re: Those tree dwellers. Man, I thought trailer park dwellers had it bad in stormy weather.
The article flatly states that Nancy Pelosi was in opposition to the investigation and wanted it handled by the Ethics Committee of the House. The GOP is blocking nothing. Didn’t you even read the article? I think you should correct your post immediately, for your own credibility’s sake.
I am not sure what’s more humorous about the wrong-door raid, that they actually said “Sorry, love, wrong house” and gave her a bouquet of flowers, or that last year they “force-raided” a house because a Lara Croft cutout was in the living room.
The latter has a rather scary element involved as well, and might only be funny to me because of my appreciation for dry British humour.
And the former is much better than the American style; they not only didn’t treat her as a criminal anyway, they apologized quickly, and again thoroughly, promptly repaired the damage, and sent flowers. I wish we had that sort of “kinder, gentler oppressive militaristic overlords” mentality here.
Hmmm… “The linked article didn’t even mention anything about the GOP,” Nando?
Which part of this quote from the article is confusing?
“Some House Republican leaders previously said they oppose any congressional action directing the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation.”
Hobbit,
Ah, yes, seems like you’ve figured out my plot to blame it all on Nancy Pelosi. Good investigative skills!
The tree-dwelling tribe pictorial is fascinating.
I wonder at what age they marry, and if Radley believes the government should step in to stop them?
I’ve never been rickrolled before. Until now. Bravo!