|
|
May 21, 2013
|
|
|
|
 American Officials Enjoy Lives Without ShamePosted on Sep 2, 2011
Once upon a time, there was a specific word to describe the misdeed of an officeholder or custodian of trust who had betrayed his or her duties: malfeasance. That word, originating from ancient Latin, can be translated into modern English to mean a “bad doing.” If you believe the old tales, malfeasance once was an offense that carried stiff penalties: public humiliation, social ostracism, and civil or criminal sanctions. And in traditional cultures with shame, a disgraced official would resign—or worse. No longer, it seems. Advertisement The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was recently rocked by a massive scandal: reports that its agents had helped transport approximately 2,000 powerful weapons into Mexico—weapons that were then “lost.” The Los Angeles Times called it an “illegal trafficking program,” although the Fast and Furious operation, at it was dubbed, was ostensibly designed to allow law enforcement to track the guns back to drug cartels. Instead, it apparently turned into a U.S. government-sponsored armament program for some of the worst killers in the world. On Tuesday, Kenneth Melson, the man who led the ATF during the term of this operation, was allowed to leave his position and move into the ATF’s Office of Legal Policy. Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago, the ATF allowed agent William McMahon to make a similar move—landing him a job as deputy assistant director in charge of internal investigations, according to the L.A. Times. During the gunrunning program, McMahon was the supervisor of the agency’s Western operations, including the Phoenix field office, which was one of the central hubs of Fast and Furious. Two of McMahon’s subordinates who more directly oversaw the failed program were also allowed to switch to different departments in the ATF—moves that at least some observers said were promotions. McMahon recently told a House committee: “I share responsibility for mistakes that were made.” Not a big deal, I guess. Nothing to see here. Move along, people. Exposing a similar shocker, on Aug. 17, the brilliant reporter Matt Taibbi wrote an article in Rolling Stone in which he outlined allegations made by a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission whistle-blower that for years the regulatory agency has been quietly destroying potential evidence against banks. The allegations center around cases in which the SEC would open preliminary investigations, collect irreplaceable evidence and then close the cases and simply destroy documents. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was quoted in Forbes saying, “It doesn’t make sense that an agency responsible for investigations would want to get rid of potential evidence. If these charges are true, the agency needs to explain why it destroyed documents. … ” Meanwhile, the SEC has been for a long time a “revolving door” for industry insiders, with investigators being offered plush jobs at the very firms they were supposed to have regulated. From 2006 to 2010, 219 former SEC employees filed statements indicating that they were now representing a private client before the SEC, according to a study by the Project On Government Oversight. One employee filed “within two days of leaving.” According to POGO, many other former SEC employees may have simply ignored the reporting requirement after landing their big-ticket jobs. Coincidence? And these people are the guardians of our entire financial sector? Finally, there is the matter of the University of Miami and the NCAA. According to Yahoo Sports, jailed Ponzi schemer and Miami booster Nevin Shapiro has detailed a long list of troubling misconduct stretching from 2002 to 2010. According to the L.A. Times, Shapiro’s allegations include a list of forbidden gifts to athletes that sounds like a king’s ransom: “Jewelry, clothing, travel, televisions, house/yacht privileges and strip clubs.” And the reason this is particularly shocking? Many of these abuses allegedly occurred during the watch of Paul Dee, who served as Miami’s athletic director from 1993 to 2008. Dee’s latest job? Chairman of the NCAA committee on infractions—the same committee that crucified the University of Southern California with harsh sanctions while insisting that responsibility for infractions should be inferred up and down the university’s chain of command. “Institutional control,” Dee’s committee called it. Perhaps ironically, the new allegations by Shapiro are not the first time Dee has been accused of failure as an overseer. Around 1995, Dee was wrapped up in a major scandal at Miami, with ESPN magazine accusing him of “[suspending] critical parts of what had been a rigorous drug-testing policy” and then being appointed to “investigate why the athletic department ignored its own drug-testing policy, a mess to which he was a central party.” Meanwhile, an underling in his athletic department was sentenced to three years in prison for coordinating “more than $128,000 in fraudulent Pell Grants to 57 players.” Right. Let’s put this guy in charge of NCAA investigations. People are allowed to make mistakes. And I don’t believe in silly doctrines like zero-tolerance or police-state surveillance. But individuals who have previously displayed poor judgment or a lack of oversight should not be placed in charge of investigations, and institutions with a culture of corruption occasionally must be rebooted from zero. In a culture where shame is passé, we must ask often: Who is watching the watchers?  TAGS:
|
Warming Climate Endangers U.K. Farming
Email 
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Rixar13, September 7, 2011 at 1:16 pm Link to this comment
Republicans and Tea-Baggies = malfeasance = “bad doing.”
Report thisBy bogi666, September 6, 2011 at 10:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
COUNTERFEIT DEBT, i refer those interested to the web site oftwominds.com , where it explains the only recourse out of counterfeit debt is debt forgiveness. Meanwhile, the FORCED CONTRIBUTIONS, withholding taxes, by taxing labor pays for the interest being paid for counterfeit debt. Whenever debt is used to fund graft, corruption, outright thievery it is counterfeit. This a real wake up call
Report thisBy drbhelthi, September 6, 2011 at 12:36 am Link to this comment
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was quoted in Forbes saying, “It doesn’t make sense that an agency responsible for investigations would want to get rid of potential evidence. If these charges are true, the agency needs to explain why it destroyed documents. … ” Lazzaro article
Rather than “explain”, a congressional investigation is in order, to uncover who gave the orders and who carried out the destruction of evidence that would support criminal prosecution in Federal Court. Certainly, to be followed up by federal charges against all guilty CEO-types; at the minimum.
The findings of the Reece Committee (1950´s) Report by Congressman Dodd, found that the tax-exempt foundations, e.g. Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, were actively destroying the U.S.A. However, the Rockefellers and similars suppressed the data. Insight into what continues to happen is found at this link: http://www.sweetliberty.org/shadow.htm
Report thisBy Ron Ranft, September 5, 2011 at 11:14 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
While completing my BA back in 1991 I had a Modern American History Professor say, “the acceptable level of misconduct by elected officials has continued to rise to the point where we will see a member of one of the 3 branches of the Federal Government get caught with a smoking gun standing over a body and nothing will ever come of it.” I thought he was merely being hyperbolic. And then Cheney shoots someone and nothing happens. Off course Bush lied us into a needless war and he is responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people deaths and Obama may match him if he hasn’t already surpassed him in the murders of innocent children, women and men all in the name of Democracy and the War on Terrorism. How much worse can it get? Well, I guess they can order our deaths now and get away with it. Hell, Obama has already declared Manning guilty! When is the execution?
Report thisBy bogi666, September 5, 2011 at 11:13 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
American politicians,judges, and the pretend christians have no healthy shame, replacing shame with unhealthy shame in accordance with the false doctrines of the pretend christians which is unhealthy shame. The blasphemy of the phony preacher pontificating from their towers of babel.This unhealthy shame christianity is the “I’m not responsible,god told me to do it and/or Satan made me do it but I’m not responsible” which creates the rational for amoral and/or immoral conduct and is used by the politicians, businesses and phony preachers. Unhealthy shame is orchestrated by the government, businesses, pretend christians to instill the USA society with mindlessness which makes it institutionalized mindlessness giving it legitimacy with peer pressure.
Report thisBy prosefights, September 5, 2011 at 2:32 pm Link to this comment
Robin and Robin Carman of New Mexico beat the IRS pro se in federal court.
Below may illustrate more government incompetence?
http://www.ram-v-irs.com/scanned_docs/RAM-060.pdf
Mr Carman sent
From: “Robert Carman” <rocar14@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 5, 2011 9:41:43 AM
Subject: FW: RAM IRIS Summons response
I couldn’t have responded to an IRIS summons better. RAM will be harrassed for years, but will prevail. He sticks to the law, and refuses to waver in his reliance on scotus decisions. Even the mighty DOJ and IRIS cant overrule either.
Great cites/ammo for one’s next encounter w/thugs. Everything you need, plus.
Bob Carman
Report thisAll Rights Reserved,
Without Prejudice or Recourse, UCC 1-308.
By burkai, September 5, 2011 at 9:56 am Link to this comment
The day the common citizen’s tipping point is reached will be the day of the
Report thisbeginning of freedom from criminal sociopathic politicians. Karma is a guarantee.
Previews of coming attractions. Will you be there?
http://www.OneTao.com
By aacme88, September 5, 2011 at 6:27 am Link to this comment
With Wall Street tycoons continuing on with the party, dreaming up ever-riskier schemes that, if they fail instead of provide huge profits, the taxpayers will bail them out of again, and G.W. Bush and “Uncle Dick” Cheney walking around free after killing a million people in the process of stealing hundreds of billions of dollars, yeah, I think you have a point.
Report thisBy mackTN, September 4, 2011 at 12:21 pm Link to this comment
We the people must force these people out! But so many allow ourselves to be
deceived by campaign slogans and platforms that get tabled once governing
begins. Obama went in thinking that if he compromised with the Right that it
would mean progress and establish his powerbase. Wrong. All it’s done is
weaken the Democratic party, depress the middle class, and embolden the
Republican plan to oust Democrats from governing altogether.
Based on Obama’s campaign platforms, he should have rid these agencies of
corporate tools from day one. His dawdling over Elizabeth Warren has injured
that much needed department. He should have set the table with his own
budget plan
from the outset—a big mistake.
Unfortunately we may have to re-elect Obama only because the alternatives are
absolutely terrifying (I’m seriously preparing to leave the country should any
Republican be elected president.) But we can strengthen Congress by voting
everybody but a select few out and installing people who can drive the
president in a more responsive direction.
Time to take to the streets and put a stop to this now…or never.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, September 4, 2011 at 7:17 am Link to this comment
The SEC is a good example of regulatory capture, a situation in which the regulated capture the agency which was supposed to regulate them.
Instances of regulatory capture argue against the effectiveness of regulation, as any libertarian will tell you (often, many, many times over). On the other hand, regulation seems to be a panacea for proggies.
In banks, a few people control enormous amounts of money, their own and other people’s. It isn’t hard for them to find people who see things their way and get them installed in the right places.
If you owned your own banks, that is, participated in credit unions, you wouldn’t have this problem. Forget regulation; go for ownership and control of the means of production.
Report thisBy Congressional Dysfunction, September 4, 2011 at 7:15 am Link to this comment
Congress is filled with officials without shame; it does not represent We the People but the two political parties.
Drawn from recent headlines, Congressional Dysfunction is a fact-based expose on the root causes of the legislative problems in Washington. The book explores the lack of standards of conduct in Congress, lavish Congressional pay and benefits and their fundamental legislative incompetence. Both political parties have gerrymandered “safe” seats to disenfranchise moderate voters and run weak candidates that represent a choice between Tweedeldee and Tweedeldum.
Congressional Dysfunction identifies the root causes that have resulted in the creation of the partisan nest of vipers that currently infest Capitol Hill. The book’s opening paragraph sets the stage for the discussion of a Congress that has become an elite millionaires club more concerned with reelection than in solving national
problems:
Is the Congress of 2011 what the Founding Fathers planned for it to be, or has it become the embodiment of their worst nightmares? During their serious and public debate on the nature of the proposed legislative branch, the Founding Fathers probably never expected that the Congress they were creating would degenerate into a legislatively incompetent, over-compensated millionaires club whose members would accept sexual predators in their midst and condone lying to We the People. Not anticipating modern political parties, the Founding Fathers would not be pleased to know that elections would be rigged to create safe districts to create a balance of power between those parties in a way that effectively disenfranchises voters. The Founding Fathers would be disheartened to know that the bond they intended between We the People and Congress has almost been obliterated; they knew that such a bond was critical if We the People were to have any confidence in our representatives. Faced with a Congress more interested in reelection than solving problems, the United States has achieved their worst nightmares.
Congressional Dysfunction is available for download as an ebook (including Kindle) at Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77612. Paperback versions may be ordered at createspace
https://www.createspace.com/3667563 or through Amazon http://tinyurl.com/3suo824.
Read more, get informed and help find a solution; join the discussion at http://congressionaldysfunction.wordpress.com/.
There is no little blue pill to treat Congressional Dysfunction, only the ballot box.
Report thisBy Congressional Dysfunction, September 4, 2011 at 6:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Congress is filled with officials without shame; it does not represent We the People but the two political parties.
Drawn from recent headlines, Congressional Dysfunction is a fact-based expose on the root causes of the legislative problems in Washington. The book explores the lack of standards of conduct in Congress, lavish Congressional pay and benefits and their fundamental legislative incompetence. Both political parties have gerrymandered “safe” seats to disenfranchise moderate voters and run weak candidates that represent a choice between Tweedeldee and Tweedeldum.
Congressional Dysfunction identifies the root causes that have resulted in the creation of the partisan nest of vipers that currently infest Capitol Hill. The book’s opening paragraph sets the stage for the discussion of a Congress that has become an elite millionaires club more concerned with reelection than in solving national
problems:
Is the Congress of 2011 what the Founding Fathers planned for it to be, or has it become the embodiment of their worst nightmares? During their serious and public debate on the nature of the proposed legislative branch, the Founding Fathers probably never expected that the Congress they were creating would degenerate into a legislatively incompetent, over-compensated millionaires club whose members would accept sexual predators in their midst and condone lying to We the People. Not anticipating modern political parties, the Founding Fathers would not be pleased to know that elections would be rigged to create safe districts to create a balance of power between those parties in a way that effectively disenfranchises voters. The Founding Fathers would be disheartened to know that the bond they intended between We the People and Congress has almost been obliterated; they knew that such a bond was critical if We the People were to have any confidence in our representatives. Faced with a Congress more interested in reelection than solving problems, the United States has achieved their worst nightmares.
Congressional Dysfunction is available for download as an ebook (including Kindle) at Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77612. Paperback versions may be ordered at createspace
https://www.createspace.com/3667563 or through Amazon http://tinyurl.com/3suo824
Read more, get informed and help find a solution; join the discussion at http://congressionaldysfunction.wordpress.com/.
There is no little blue pill to treat Congressional dysfunction, only the ballot box.
Report thisBy Morpheus, September 3, 2011 at 6:32 pm Link to this comment
The real shame falls on “We the people”. We put up with it.
Cheer up! The Revolution has started -
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )
FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
Report thisTime to throw out the garbage before we become the garbage!
By Chris Herz, September 3, 2011 at 9:12 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
No one could possibly say it better than Textynn. Kudos.
Report thisBy Big B, September 2, 2011 at 6:28 pm Link to this comment
America is the living personafication of the Peter principal. A true “idiocracy”
Report thisBy Textynn, September 2, 2011 at 5:42 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The American people continue to treat criminals with
respect. We continue to vote for them like it’s
normal. Watch as people defend Obama as he sells out
our country by destroying what was left of the Dem
Party from within. Of course, he was just the last
straw. Pelosi showed us what the Dem party was all
about when she declared that “Impeachment was off the
table” after the Bush Administration tortured
secretly and even put our brave soldiers, following
orders, on trial and kicked them out of the service
to cover up before they came clean.
If you don’t know about that, ask Randi Rhodes who
was sued for a million dollars by the Bush Peeps for
saying on her radio show that she didn’t believe that
the solders were acting on their own.
America has reached its “Caligula Moment”. We dare
not go against our leaders. They are openly corrupt, destroying lives, and utterly incompetent sociopaths
leaving a wake of blood and destruction behind them
without apology. Still we continue on as usual like
nothing is really wrong, not daring to do anything
individually because doing something will only bring
harm, arrest, imprisonment, and destruction from the
all powerful in question.
America is no longer a democracy, it is a slave
nation with an miserable and incompetent royalty that
honors theft, killing for profit, and misuse of the
American people. It is actually honored. The better
these people are at these money making acts of
misery, the more they are rewarded.
Shame on all the people that could have stopped it
before we got this point. Shame on all the people
that allowed the corrupt to continue to move higher
and higher unchecked. The people we put our trust in
and continue to do so. Law enforcement and the
keepers of the law across this nation. Judges in
courtrooms who have obviously been paid off ad
nauseum.
The shame is on us for not sticking up for our fellow
workers who have been replaced to save money, or
worse, destroyed because they didn’t play the game.
I’m not talking about the national level, I’m talking
about at your place of employment where supervisors
traditionally squash anyone demanding a fare wage for
their work. The shame is on us for obeying
constantly to demands of horrible bad people because
we were told to like school children.
Just like the victims of pedophile priests. We are
subservient children allowing ourselves to be
repeatedly raped because we allow wicked people too
much power and are taught to *always submit* and
never take up for each other….NEVER. All that
power is built and sustained by child like
subservience.
Everybody in this country needs to be reading the
Milgrim experiment and conducting similar tests,
talking about it, writing about it, and teaching
their family how it works.
Together we can stop them and that is by all of us
TOGETHER demanding that these sick incompetent people
answer to the law and that the law represents us.
Until then, keep bending over cause Father Likes-
Report thisyour-Butt-crack is in charge.