Criminalizing Politics?
In response to the news in this CNN report, Former Virginia governor found guilty in influence-peddling case, I expect the ‘usual suspects’ to claim we are ‘criminalizing politics’. I look at it as a long overdue attempt to ‘decriminalize politics’ by throwing the crooks in prison.
Currently the governor of the state of Florida is the former CEO of a corporation that paid the largest fine in Medicare/Medicaid history for its practices. He has had to replace the Lieutenant Governor and multiple department heads after it was found that they were crooks of one sort or another. Of course, as the CEO nothing happened to him and he got to buy the Republican nomination for governor with the money he made at the corporation.
Corruption is what you get when ‘you run government like a business’ and the people at the top don’t think they will ever be held responsible.
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I always chuckle at those “run government like a business” yahoos. Every business I’ve ever worked for that wasn’t a personal business owned 100% by the founder, payroll was padded with relatives and close personal friends of the CEO and top executives, the top executives did little work for big pay and charged everything to the company, and the underlings were stealing the office supplies blind. And the top guys didn’t care because it wasn’t their money, it was investor money.
Meanwhile, when I was teaching, I was buying office supplies for my classroom because the supply cabinet was guarded like it was Fort Knox and getting a single piece of chalk for the chalkboard required almost signing my life away.
Running government like a business would cost *more* money. Just sayin’.
Every time they ‘privatize’ a government function down here the same thing happens – cheaper the first year, then much more expensive with a lower level service. The money flows to the top and the workers lose purchasing power so sales tax revenues drop. And, yet, they continue to try it.
Working for the Fortune 500 made me appreciate how much better the screwed up government bureaucracies were than the ‘private sector’, which is pretty sad when you think about it.
I think politics should be criminalized. Seems obvious to me since the majority of politicians are criminals. I don’t see the problem with that. Sir Terry Pratchett had the right idea! It’s especially appropriate here with Abbott apparently trying desperately to break ever law know in the World! Bit there may be some light in the tunnel! Seems Abbott had a dual citizenship (NOT passport!) With his primary being England! By Constitution and law, it is illegal for him to hold any Office, let alone PM! But… we’ll see!
Here’s his latest for September! Three already, on one day!
281. Delays superannuation increases for seven years costing workers thousands of dollars in retirement savings – 2 September 2014
280. Kills the Low Income Super Contribution payment and the Superannuation Guarantee which aimed to boost the retirement savings of 3.6 million workers who earn $37,000 per year or less – 2 September 2014
279. Repeals the mining tax on the profits of big coal and iron ore companies – 2 September 2014
But this one, is one of his worst the past week! (Watch the video for the story)
Tony Abbott to Keep Secular Workers Out of School Chaplaincy Program
He makes your crazy fundies seem almost sane. The Interviewer in the video piece works for Murdock. You can tell by his stupid attempt to derail the conversation.
Yep, Sir Terry has been right about a lot of the things that go on today and Discworld is the place they should be happening, not Earth.
Abbott is into magical thinking, austerity, corporate welfare, religion is the solution, &c. ad nauseum. He has drunk from the sacred pool of Thatcher/Reagan/Rand and accepted the delusion lock, stock, and barrel. The entire cult should be in cells with the optional extra padding getting their meds from the locked storage compartment on the cart. Just as the rest of the world is recovering from the Bush/Wall St depression he decides to plunge Australia into the worst of it.
I sometimes wish I was living on Discworld!
He’s added another despicable item to his ever growing list!
282. Fails to provide adequate medical care to asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei who died after developing an infection from a cut on his foot – 5 September 2014
The thing that actually annoyed me personally were that the above were done on my birthday! Happy birthday to me! I don’t ‘celebrate my Birthday (and I follow my Mom in that). But it’s a day of reflection and remembrance. I had two tragic death’s happen on my Birthday (years apart), and I used to spend the day going to the Faulkner Cemetery in Melb. and spend a few hours or more. Three of my grandparents are buried there, as well as two close friends (one from college, and one who was my snr. Engineer and close friend when I was Manager of the R&D department designing industrial machinery). Also, the two others who died on my Birthday. There are a few others I know from my first couple decades who are there also, including my first real girlfriend (when I was 12!) who died at 19, I was 18. And even though I hadn’t seen her in 4 years, I cried my eyes out! I know more people I cared deeply about at that Cemetery than I currently do in life! 🙂 My Mom was supposed to be there also, but my cheap assed asshole father had her cremated and dumped the ashes, and cashed in her Funeral policy she had paid for. So, now you know why I never talk about the bastard. Well that and the fact that he’s a gutless coward and bully. Anyway, since I moved to Bendigo, I haven’t been to the cemetery and I wanted to this year. But… shit happens. *shrug* But Abbott even made that day worse than it already was (unintentionally obviously. Given he doesn’t give a f*ck about anyone apart from Murdock and his mining magnate mates).
Happy birthday, even if you don’t celebrate it.
Abbott, like conservatives everywhere, allows business to import all of the foreign workers it wants to undercut their country’s wages, but want to blame economic problems on ‘illegal immigrants’, rather than their stupid, counterproductive, abysmal economic policies. Immigrants are another scapegoat to divert people from the real reasons for most of the problems they face – electing ‘conservative’ politicians.
Abbott is just another sociopath hellbent on helping himself and his ‘friends’ to the detriment of everyone else. What he really wants to do about the immigrants is to sink the boats and let them drown at sea.
Well, thanks for the wishes. I’ll take them as intended. 😉 And yeah… You get Abbott. I wish more Aussies were like you. Not sure when we went from the ‘Smart Country’ to the USA clone! 90’s I think it started.
Remember that post a little while ago about the gun nuts in the USA, and my opinion? When i mentioned the Mk19 AGL?
Well, check out this young woman’s Pin board on guns! Scroll down about half-way to the Mk19 pic and her caption! You tell me what’s wrong with the ‘culture’ in the USA!
http://www.pinterest.com/CaribbeanTink/ooo-oooo-oh-killem/
WTF is WRONG with these people??!
Too many Americans believe in the philosophy of Mao Tse-tung that power comes from the barrel of a gun. They live in fear and assume that everyone else also lives in fear and the people with the most guns always wins.
The reality is that an aimed .22 will kill more people than spraying the area with .44 magnums. Accuracy is more important than capacity, because it you take out the target with the first shot, you don’t need the rounds in your magazine.
Like these?
That 2nd one epitomizes American stupidity! Because only a moron would ever hold a gun like that and expect to hit the target! And I see so may photo’s in the media where they do just that! Even cop’s! Jeez!
Typical American: Aiming is for wusses.
Reminds me of the opening scene of an episode of The Wire, where gang-bangers have a shootout in the middle of the street. They’re spraying bullets all over the place but don’t hit a damn thing as they empty their guns from behind the hoods of parked cars in the general direction of the other gang. Well, except for an innocent bystander’s kid, who got hit by a bullet that went through a wall. That’s pretty much how shootouts go in the USA today. The notion of actually *aiming* seems to be a lost idea.
It is well known that most Mafia hit-men used .22 revolvers to do their hits. One quick shot up the brain stem from point blank range, and throw the gun away.
Yeah, the .22 doesn’t need a silencer; it’s cheap; it does the job. All it needs is someone who can actually shoot and hit what they’re aiming at.
I can consistently hit center mass of the target with my 2-inch at 25 feet without aiming, but the technique exposes you. I would rather get behind something and take the aimed shot that I know will neutralize the target. It isn’t a game. I don’t want to trade shots – I want to kill the sucker as quickly as possible with the minimum of risk to anyone else.
Kryten, the first photo is a moron pretending he’s Arnold Schwartznegger in The Predator, and the second is just pretending she’s “bad”. The really bad people would take them out without breaking a sweat. I would let them win their richly deserved Darwin’s if I didn’t think that a lot of innocent bystanders would be hurt or killed in the incidents.