Get ready for government control of the U.S. auto industry, including a possible “car czar.” And another industry falls to central planning. Bush seems to be doing everything he can to prevent Obama from making America a socialist country–by beating him to it.
Homeland Security forks over a $275,000 anti-terror grant to get the local police department a Bearcat armored personnel carrier . . . in Longview, Texas.
Here’s the lede: “Utica Police have released numbers from their drug raids over the past year, and it appears their aggressive campaign is working.” Why, just a few more years of this, and Utica will be drug free!
Illinois governor taken into custody, apparently for trying to auction off Barack Obama’s open senate seat.
Pulitzer Prizes now open to online-only publications. Which is probably good, because that appears to be where most of the newspaper industry is headed.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under General Drug War, Police Militarization.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
TheAgitator.com
Re Utica: It’s hard to argue with such hard-hitting journalism. Hooray for drug arrests!
Re: Illinois governor taken into custody, apparently for trying to auction off Barack Obama’s open senate seat.
Good thing a corrupt politician from Chicago wasn’t elected pres…. errr, nevermind
Re Utica: 149 arrests, $53,000 and 3 handguns. Why no mention of the amount of drugs seized?
“…it appears their aggressive campaign is working.”
1. arrests are up- campaign is working as they’re getting all the scum off of the streets
2. arrests are down- they’ve cleaned the streets so thoroughly that there’s no one left to arrest
3. arrests are static- they’ve stemmed the onslaught of drugs from ravaging the streets further
4. drugs are legalized, no arrests made- we’ve lost the war on drugs, expect to see the citizens of Utica airlifted out to Schenectady in “Operation Broken Wind”
FYI, my favorite part of the Blago complaint thus far (and this is coming from a Cubs fan):
“Defendants ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS, together with others, offered to, and threatened to withhold from, the Tribune Company substantial state financial assistance in connection with Wrigley Field, which assistance ROD BLAGOJEVICH believed to be worth at least $100 million to the Tribune Company, for the private purpose of inducing the controlling shareholder of the Tribune Company to fire members of the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper owned by the Tribune Company, who were responsible for editorials critical of ROD BLAGOJEVICH.”
Oh, and I suppose I should add you can find the complaint here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/acrobat/2008-12/43789434.pdf
Ah, Who is John Galt?
Giving the Barney Fife’s of Longview, Texas an armored personnel carrier seems like a pro-terror move to me…..
So are we going to end up with a reprise of the French automobile industry?
I really don’t doubt that the Governor is corrupt, but I certainly no longer trust the FBI and DOJ to refrain from political prosecutions. The article talks about the Governor’s stand on the workers occupying the empty building (to Bank of America’s detriment). I don’t respect union thuggery but I wonder if the writer of the below has it right about what the company was about to do with respect to the workers’ pay.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/679-Dangerous.html
Am I paranoid because it occurs to me that government will act at the behest of the big banks and send the FBI against those who thwart the banks and the fed. govt.?
They finally got Gov. Blog-radish in custody huh? After conviction, that will make 4 of the last 8 illinois governors to do some time. Nothing like a job that carries a 50% incarceration rate.
“said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.). ‘If senators are willing to work together…we can pass legislation.’”
So, if enough senators vote for something it will pass, eh?
Damn party politics! Why can’t they overcome their school yard squabbling and just pass that legislation…whatever it is.
Would you buy a car that was “Designed by Pelosi?”
Bush seems to be doing everything he can to prevent Obama from making America a socialist country–by beating him to it.
An important distinction between socialism and ‘capitolism’ (our current system) is that in the one, government controls business and uses it to implement social policy; in the other, businesses control parts of government and use them to finesse their markets. Depending on who gets appointed to the relevant boards and what they do, the bailout could yet prove to be just one more example of ‘bought government’ without any systemic significance at all.
Corruption. It’s not just for Republicans anymore.
I’m putting my order in now for a 2014 US Trabant.
“Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents on federal corruption charges Tuesday morning.”
Was it the Chicago office of the FBI? I guess he didn’t bribe them enough :)
Good thing a corrupt politician from Chicago wasn’t elected pres…. errr, nevermind
“In a conversation with Harris on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.”"
Everyone relax. There’s nothing more natural than a corrupt Chicago politician.
(Must read link about environmentalists/beavers)
Robin wrote: “Damn party politics! Why can’t they overcome their school yard squabbling and just pass that legislation…whatever it is.”
What if they pass legislation that raises taxes on people named “Robin” to 90%? Would THAT be “good” legislation?
>Get ready for government control of the U.S. auto industry,
>including a possible “car czar.”
As the saying goes, if the government were responsible for designing a horse, the result would be a cow.
I’m sure in a few years there will be all kinds of legislation intended to coerce us into buying the coming cow-cars.
Radley, your blood pressure should be screaming out of your ears. $4500 bail for that scuzzball Governor of Illinois. I wonder what bail is for a simple posession charge? I bet it is more than $4500.
While I don’t dislike either President Bush as much as the Political Left seem to, both men have a nasty knife-fighting streak to their thinking. I have long suspected that the elder Bush set up Somalia (as it stood as he left office) in some part because he was sure that Clinton would screw it up.
Similarly I have a sneeking suspicion that Bush the younger is letting the Liberal Democrats in congress have their way because he is sure they will screw up royally, and that Obama will be left with a vast economic mess that he is – by reason of his beliefs – unable to manage.
Obama better hope that there is a major terrorist attack on US soil, because as matters stand he is going to lay a large and very smelly egg. If he manages to handle the aftermath of a terror attack well (however unlikely I think that is) he might just escape the fate of Jimmy Carter, otherwise he is going to go down in history as a charismatic and well meaning fool who absolutely drowned in the White House.
Regarding the Blagojevich story, I can’t believe they went after a politician for simply doing his job: exchanging favors for cash and/or campaign contributions. If the FBI makes a habit of that, who will run the government?
Is Nick Gillespie aware that Blagojevich stole his hair?