This Bugs Me: The Secret Mitch McConnell Tape

The supposedly explosive Mitch McConnell tape"scandal" has backfired on the Democrats and has become a question of whether left-wing operatives committed felonies by recording a conversation between the Senator and his campaign staff: 

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative. 

Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2. 

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting. 

On the tape, McConnell and his advisors are heard laughing and joking about opposition research they had on actress Ashley Judd, who had been considering running against McConnell next year. Many Democratic groups blasted McConnell for the remarks yesterday, disgusted by the fact McConnell would potentially use Judd's suicidal thoughts as a child against her. 

Reilly and Morrison have declined to comment for this story.

I heard Jacob Conway's interview on Fox. What a laughable clown. And what a typical modern-day Democrat. Not only was he disingenuous, claiming in this fake-exasperated tone that these darn operatives were not authorized by the Democrat Party at all; but his voice was - how can I put this - *mincing*. If you catch my drift. We are definitely a long way from the lunch pail wing of the Democrat Party. 

More seriously, though, McConnell should hereby be on notice that he is Going Down on the slightest possible pre-text. Now that the "war on women" angle - McConnell and his staff were discussing Judd's well-publicized mental problems - has failed to work out, leftist activists are making a stink over possible ethics violations arising from whether McConnell was on "campaign time" or "government time."  It's not going to matter so long as McConnell is injured. 

Don't think that this can't happen? Read Robert Novack's description of his "role" (such as it was) in the Wilson/Plame affair.  David Corn was present at the creation of that media-driven "scandal." Whatever you might say about Corn, he knows how to create the impression of law-breaking out of the carelessness of Republican officials. 

(btw, you know who definitely gets hurt by these "secret tape" scandals? The tapers. Democrat politicians and journalists are happy to publicize these things, but it's the tapers who pay the bill. That kid who turned Sarah Palin's emails over to Gawker went to jail. Those two liberals who tape-recorded Newt Gingrich in 1997 - they were just a couple grandparents who thought they were hearing a bit of history! - plead guilty to federal wiretapping charges*. David Corn is going to get his awards and his publicity out of this, but it's anonymous Kentucky Democrats who will likely go to jail.)

A lot of conservatives like to dump on Mitch McConnell, but you won't hear that around here. McConnell has demonstrated over and over again an ability to lead the opposition in the Senate. His grasp of the law and the Constitution is deep and impressive. He has fought for conservative principles, going as far as to take multiple cases to the Supreme Court, where he has prevailed. He is a much steadier hand than John Boehner. That's why some of the Left's big guns are hunting McConnell. 

McConnell has played this affair well so far. He instantly recognized that no one could have recorded without breaking the law. But, he's going to have to be careful out there. 

* actually John Boehner sued lefty jerk Jim McDermott and won a multi-million dollar judgment against his colleague, so occasionally the bad guys do get dinged. 

Folklore Implosion: The Chris Dorner Saga

We're finally getting some clear-headed reporting about the Chris Dorner - uh, spree? saga? rampage? - as a counter-point to the nutty "He's like Denzel Washington" commentary we were hearing from the left. According to Dorner's enthusiastic supporters, he declared war on the "racist" "troubled" LAPD in an effort to clear his name. Let's see how the modern day folk hero did:

1.) Dorner claimed his first victims on Feb. 3. 

Monica Quan, 28, was an assistant women's basketball coach at California State University, Fullerton. She was also the daughter of retired LAPD Capt. Randal Quan — the man who had represented Dorner in his disciplinary hearings. 

She lived in an Irvine condominium with boyfriend Keith Lawrence — a former basketball player and University of Southern California cop whose shoes and buckles she had stayed up until the wee hours polishing when he was at the police academy. On Jan. 26, Lawrence, 27, had strewn the apartment floor with rose petals, gotten down on one knee and proposed, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Just over a week later, at 9:10 p.m., Quan and Lawrence were found slumped in their car in the parking lot of their condo complex. They were fatally shot. 

2.) The next day, Feb. 7, Dorner struck again. 

Around 1:30 a.m. two LAPD officers assigned to protect one of the people named in Dorner's manifesto spotted him in the Riverside County community of Corona. During a shootout, one officer was grazed on the forehead. 

A short while later in nearby Riverside, SWAT team Officer Michael Crain and trainee Andrew Tachias were in the middle of a graveyard shift. 

The 34-year-old former Marine had served two tours of duty in Kuwait before joining the Riverside force in 2001. As a Marine, Crain had once taught urban warfare tactics, but on this day he had no time to react. 

The two were waiting at a stoplight when someone — believed to be Dorner — raced up and opened fire on them. Tachias, 27, was critically wounded; Crain was pronounced dead at a hospital. 

3.) Jim and Karen Reynolds were in the process of refurbishing their condo near Big Bear, working on it off and on through the winter season. They had last been there on Feb. 6 and weren't planning to come back until Valentine's Day, but decided to check in early after learning that Dorner's truck had been abandoned nearby. 

When they walked into the upstairs living room Tuesday morning, Dorner was waiting for them with his gun drawn. He had been there at least five days — within shouting distance of a command post set up by the people hunting him. 

"Stay calm," he shouted. When Karen Reynolds turned to run out, he grabbed her from behind. 

Karen Reynolds said Dorner was calm and "very methodical" as he instructed them to sit, then tied their hands and legs. 

"I don't have a problem with you," he told the couple. "I just want to clear my name." (just like in a movie!) Dorner moved the couple to a bedroom and shut the door. 

When they felt he had gone, Karen Reynolds managed to get to her feet and, with her hands still tied behind her back, open the door. To her amazement, Dorner had left her cellphone on the living room table. 

She picked it up and dialed 911. It was 12:22 p.m. Tuesday. 

4.) Rick Heltebrake was driving the perimeter of a Boy Scout camp he watches over when Dorner — his bulletproof vest bristling with rifle magazines — emerged from the tree line. 

"I don't want to hurt you," Dorner said in a calm, businesslike voice as he pointed his rifle at the 51-year-old Heltebrake. "Start walking and take your dog." 

Heltebrake sensed that Dorner, who stole his truck, was on a mission, and that he wasn't part of the agenda. Suni took his 3-year-old Dalmatian and walked away.
Heltebrake had just called police when he heard gunfire. 

5.) Not far up the road from where Dorner had left Heltebrake, some game wardens spotted the white truck speeding erratically. Dorner opened the window and fired. 

According to sheriff's department officials, MacKay and his partner followed where they believed the truck had gone. They were unaware that Dorner had crashed it. They spotted tracks in the snow leading to a cabin and got out of their cruiser. 

The pair stopped about 30 yards from the cabin to devise a plan when shots were fired. Neither deputy had a chance to return fire. Both were hit multiple times. A doctor told Loftis death for MacKay came instantly or in "just seconds." 

Collins survived but has undergone multiple surgeries. A SWAT team arrived quickly and laid down covering fire to allow the officers to be airlifted.

Anyone see anything unusual in that narrative? Namely that he didn't kill, or even come within 20 miles of, a single member of the LAPD?! Instead, he shot a young woman and her black (take that Darrell Gates!) fiancee, killed a suburban officer, killed a rural county sheriff, kidnapped a late middle-aged couple, and terrorized a guy walking his dog. He wasn't even operating in LA! His victims were in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties.* It's no wonder the LAPD is re-opening the Dorner termination. A guy this wily and cunning should have been promoted to chief!

You also have to love the "controversy" that developed after the cabin he died in caught fire. The San Bernardino Sheriff had to practically apologize and announce that, no, his department did not set fire to the cabin. Dorner was the guy with the problem, but everyone else, especially the heads of the various jurisdictions where Dorner committed his murderous acts, had to crawl before the TV cameras. 

And, once again, leftists were able to pick the scab of the "racist" LAPD and its "troubled" history, even though the department looks to have been fully justified in firing this jerk. Makes you think that maybe the LAPD is "racist" only because they go to where the criminals are: namely the ghettos and barrios in the City of Angels. 

That Dorner had a reasonable political justification for his crimes is, of course, silly. But, that doesn't mean there wasn't a political element at work. The man was clearly not insane. He was acting too methodically and pragmatically to be crazy. Instead, he was angry, and the roots of his rage - as expressed in his manifesto - were the imagined "racist" slights he had endured. But, he didn't suffer from any institutional racism keeping him down. He was brought down by his own lies, caught making up a self-aggrandizing "whistleblower" story about LAPD brutality (by a lady cop!) Still, a guy can take himself pretty far telling himself that he lives in a racist society; just ask Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, whose politics inform every page of Dorner's manifesto. 

The fact is that the people on the left live to whip up the sort of frenzied anger that Dorner exhibited. If you've got the president of the United States railing against the 1%, don't be surprised if some of his more excitable followers take up arms in that spirit.

The final word properly belongs to one of the few who survived a direct encounter with Dorner:

Loftis is having trouble imagining life without his friend. Coming to grips with the depth of Dorner's betrayal is even harder. 

"He got the best of us. He took one of the best that we have," he said ruefully. "He lost a job because he didn't deserve it, and he takes these officers' lives, really, for nothing. It was stupid and senseless."

Amen. 

* even the notorious incident where some cops shot two women delivering papers happened in Orange County. 

The Broken Chain: What Happens When The Police Stop Arresting Criminals

You'd think the "More Arrests = Less Crime" would be one of those self-evident public policy formulas that resist all but the most blockheaded "cop watch" activist, but you'd be wrong. Witness Oakland, CA, where the City Fathers are expressing bafflement over that city's inexorable rise in crime despite a steep drop-off in arrests.

Oakland police officers made 44 percent fewer arrests last year than they had just three years before, city records show, a plunge in enforcement that extended from armed robbery cases to drug busts to minor crimes like public drunkenness. 

That's 6,410 fewer arrests - an average of 18 fewer per day - in a city that has the highest crime rate in the state and, this year, is grappling with a 23 percent spike in murders, muggings and other major offenses. 

The drop is so steep it has eased a backlog of cases in Alameda County Superior Court and may be contributing to a shrinking county jail population, officials said. 

The arrest figures, obtained under the state's Public Records Act, raise questions about the effectiveness and assertiveness of the Police Department, which is struggling under the weight of job cuts, low morale and the demands of federal court oversight.
... 

Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff to Police Chief Howard Jordan, who took his post in October 2011 following the resignation of Anthony Batts, said arrests were an important tool in crime-fighting but "not the sole answer." 

Bolton said a lot of the proactive work that yields arrests - operations that target gangs and drug dealers, for instance - has fallen off as a result of job cuts. More than ever, he said, officers spend their time hustling from one emergency call to the next. 

Due to layoffs and attrition, the force has 626 officers, a 25 percent decline from a high of 837 in December 2008. By comparison, San Francisco - which has twice the population of Oakland but 20 percent less violent crime - has 2,164 officers. 

"In 2010, we said we needed at least 900 cops to be effective," Bolton said. "The first units to go when we faced staffing reductions were squads that were not tied to calls for service and were designed to address gangs, drugs and guns through proactive enforcement." 

In a written statement, Mayor Jean Quan said, "We need to be taking more criminals off the streets, and tackling the problem requires both immediate and long-term solutions," including partnerships with outside agencies.

All I can say is, thank God I am a stoopid right-winger and not a liberal. Not that I am calling liberal politicians stupid. They know exactly what kind of line they can peddle to try to explain why it is that crime, which has been quiescent since the Willie Horton days, has come rocketing back. OTH, anyone who believes this stuff deserving of the patenting Free Will Glance of Pitying Scorn.


What liberals are desperate that no one notices is that they are the root cause of rising urban crime, and not because of the culture of dependency bred by the welfare state. Oakland started firing cops because the budget got out of control, and city progressives would rather pay pensions to retired bureaucrats, and pay "grants" to dubious non-profits, rather than police the streets. Add to that the state's determined effort to empty the prisons for the same reasons, and it's not hard to make the connection between an influx of criminals meeting a winnowed police force.


"Luckily" for Oakland's politicos, people would rather march in an anti-cop rally, and bitch about the decade-old "Riders" case, instead of giving the police the minimal resources to do their jobs.

Bruised Orange: The Anaheim Riots

It looks like the violent protests that arose in Anaheim after the police shot two known gang members (a phrase I try to keep off of my resume') have finally quieted down, but that doesn't mean the riot of grievance is going away any time soon. 

Rebecca Santillan lives just down the street from the grassy yard where police shot and killed a man over the weekend. She's had a front-porch view of the fiery protests and furious chants that followed. 

Her neighborhood is a place of families, immigrants and widespread poverty, where people know their neighbors and the gang members who hang out on the sidewalk. Many who live there have a deep suspicion of the police patrols that roll past every day, and are quick with stories about being stopped and questioned. 

It's that undercurrent of anger that helped fuel three nights of protests and confrontations with police after the shooting on Saturday afternoon, residents said.
"It was getting calmer," Santillan said. "But now, after this, it's a riot every day. Everybody's mad. Angry." 

Votive candles, flowers and bottles of beer mark the site where an officer shot 25-year-old Manuel Angel Diaz on Saturday afternoon. Police described Diaz, who was unarmed, as a known gang member and said he ran when officers approached. 

The next day, Sunday, a gang officer shot and killed Joel Mathew Acevedo, 21, who police said opened fire on them during a foot chase in a separate incident. It was the sixth officer-involved shooting in Anaheim this year. 

The two neighborhoods where the shootings happened share similar demographics, Census numbers show. They are both overwhelmingly young and Latino, heavily immigrant, poorly educated. Homes are crowded. But they are also stable neighborhoods, where people stay, built around families.
...
Police said they had noticed a recent upsurge in gang activity in the area. But people who live on Anna Drive said the gangs have long been a part of life. They said they heard occasional gunshots, the thump of feet hitting pavement when someone jumped a fence, but for the most part had learned to co-exist with the gang members they knew by face if not by name. 

"You kind of just get used to it," said Abraham Garcia, 20, an auto parts specialist who also goes to school part time and grew up on Anna Drive. "You learn to mind your business, do your thing, and people don't mess with you. If you see something going on, stay your course, don't try to do anything." 

Some residents of the street, young men in particular, said they didn't have the same live-and-let-live relationship with police. They said they felt harassed by officers who drove through the neighborhood at least a few times a day, sometimes in unmarked cars.

Pardon my brusqueness, but I don't see why any decent person should give a sh*t. The police shot two guys who were known criminals, and who did the one thing known to be an unwise career move: ran away from the cops after being told to stop. The protests were not peaceful civil rights marches. They featured the storming of a precinct station, the corralling of a group of cops in an intersection, and the inevitable vandalism of stores and homes. Everyone's dancing around this, but the pictures tell the tale. The "protesters" were gang-bangers, wanna-be's, and "community organizers." They were hardly representative of some wave of public anger, and Anaheim's city fathers were do well to ignore them, but likely they will only start acquiescing to an endless series of demands for pay-offs to neighborhoods groups and lefty non-profits. 


Look, not to get all gauzy-eyed and rosy-glassesed, but the Free Will Grandparents lived in Anaheim for decades, built a home, raised a family, etc. I don't remember their ever being worried that the Free Will Dad was going to join a gang and start strutting around like an a**hole. But, Anaheim has had a huge influx of Hispanics over the last two decades (the "minority" Hispanics are actually a majority population in Anaheim, although they don't vote like it, probably because it's illegal for them to vote in the first place). That influx has brought in more crime, more poverty, and more gang banging where none exited before. Yes yes, of course, there's more of that vibrant diversity but you don't need the sort of diversity that Anaheim has experienced in the last week. 


Anaheim was doing just fine, but a lot of the folks who've moved in seem determined to wreck it. 

Mosquito Coast: Corruption in (GASP!) Free Will's Hometown

I don't think any one group of people or political party have a monopoly on political corruption, but there's a grubby money-in-envelopes culture that is pervasive among Democrats, and the bluer your neighborhood gets, the more brazen it can be. Here in Burlingame, we have a major embezzlement scandal arising from a local agency called, get this, The Mosquito & Vector Control District, which sounds like a no-show sinecure for precinct walkers. Talk about draining the swamp...

The former finance director and accounting supervisor of the county’s mosquito and vector control district will stand trial on charges they embezzled nearly a half-million dollars from the agency. 

Joanne Seeney, 61, and Vika Sinipata, 35, have both pleaded not guilty but, after a preliminary hearing Friday, were held to answer on eight counts of embezzling public money. The defense argued the thefts were one continuous act and should not be charged as multiple counts for several incidents, according to the prosecution. 

They return to court July 17 to enter a Superior Court plea and possibly set a trial date. 

Seeney, who worked for the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District under the name Jo Ann Dearman, already has one embezzlement conviction under her belt. The pair’s alleged swindling of more than $400,000 from the district, which is funded with taxpayer dollars, helped set off a pending recommendation by an oversight group that the agency be dissolved and its duties taken over by the county. 

 Prosecutors say Dearman, then district finance director, and Sinipata, her bookkeeper assistant and accounting supervisor, embezzled the funds between 2009 and 2011 by giving themselves extra pay at a higher pay rate and fraudulent time off, excessively contributed to their deferred compensation funds, used credit cards for personal purchases and electronically transferred money into their own accounts. The audit reported more than $635,000 was missing, much of it in the last fiscal year. The district contacted the County Counsel’s Office which in turn handed the matter to the District Attorney’s Office which charged them with stealing more than $450,000. The district’s numbers might be closer to the actual loss but prosecutors are only alleging the amount they can prove.

Seeney, the ringleader, worked at the District under the name "Jo Ann Dearman." Normally, you'd think you wouldn't hire a finance director with an alias, but that's probably because I'm a hateful right-winger. Also, Dearman/Seeney had an interesting past in that she had already been convicted of embezzlement of a previous (or perhaps contemporaneous, the linked article is a little vague on this point) employer, and even spent time in prison while employed by the Mosquito District.

At the time of Dearman’s employment, she had been prosecuted in two different embezzlement cases, including one in which she ran up more than a half-million dollars on her boss’ credit card. She was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison on the two cases and ordered to pay restitution. Dearman was still employed by the district when she went on medical leave to begin serving that sentence.

The punchline? Dearman/Seeney used her medical leave from the District to take time off to serve her prison sentence! Pretty good for government work. 

If You Must Go, Then Go Quietly: George Zimmerman's Former Attorneys

There's been a lot of bizarre behavior with the Treyvon Martin case, but special mention should be made of George Zimmerman's now-former attorneys, who made a big show of resigning from the case the day before Zimmerman was charged with second degree murder: 

The lawyers for George Zimmerman, the member of a neighborhood watch group who killed an unarmed teenager, said they were withdrawing as his legal counsel, a surprise twist in a case that has riveted the nation. 

"We've lost contact with him," attorney Craig Sonner said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "He's gone on his own." Mr. Sonner said the last time he had communicated with his client was on Sunday. Since then, Mr. Zimmerman hadn't returned phone calls, text messages or emails, he said. 

Mr. Zimmerman fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., in February and later told police he acted in self-defense. Mr. Martin's family, however, says Mr. Zimmerman was the aggressor. State and federal investigations are under way. Mr. Zimmerman hasn't been charged with any crime. 

The attorneys cited a number of purported actions on Mr. Zimmerman's part that they said they found troubling, including his contacting media and the special prosecutor investigating his case without alerting them.
...
The lawyers also said they had received information that Mr. Zimmerman had spoken off the record to Sean Hannity of Fox News, without alerting them. They were unaware of what their client discussed with the news anchor, they said. Fox News is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal....The "final straw," said Hal Uhrig, Mr. Zimmerman's other attorney, was that Mr. Zimmerman contacted Ms. Corey's office, also without notifying the lawyers. Mr. Uhrig said clients should never speak to anyone, let alone a prosecutor, about their case without an attorney present.The lawyers said they had gone to great lengths to set up a website where supporters could send donations to their client. Yet the lawyers said they learned on Monday that Mr. Zimmerman had set up his own website—therealgeorgezimmerman.com—without consulting them.

There's a lot of bad attorney behavior on display here. First of all, who calls a press conference to announce to the world that you are resigning from the case? If you are going to resign, then resign. More important, they trash their client as they head out the door, making him seem like a fugitive on the run, rather than what he is: someone who probably can't walk down the street in Central Florida without fearing death at the hands of a member of the mobs whipped up by the "civil rights" community. They even manage to hint at Zimmerman's location. Ridiculous. 


And, worst of all, this press conference was the first time I'd ever heard of these guys. Zimmerman's already been tried and convicted in the media. His desperate family and friends have taken to the airwaves to defend the man. Zimmerman himself has set up a website, one that (shudder) his former attorneys did not approve of. Uh, fellas, maybe Zimmerman and his few supporters are doing this because you guys aren't doing your damn job. The one thing a defense attorney is supposed to do is defend their client, and I have seen no indication that either of these guys has done so. Instead, it looks like they've been hiding under a desk, not wanting to be associated with this case, and took the first chance to noisily "resign" (I'd call it abandon) from the case on the eve of Zimmerman's indictment. 


Zimmerman has already retained new counsel, Mark O'Meira. You may have heard him on the news last night, as he gave a quick press conference in the wake of the newly filed 2nd degree murder charges. Hopefully, Zimmerman will be better represented this time around. 

Sanctuary City: Another Illegal Immigrant Mass Murderer In San Francisco

The last big San Francisco mass murder was the Bolagna murders, where a local butcher and his teenage sons were murdered by Edwin Ramos, a MS-13 thug who also turned out to have been an illegal immigrant protected by the District Attorney's office. 


Now, there's been another spectacular act of mass murder - five Asian-Americans brutally murdered in their home with some sort of blunt instrument - and you'll never guess the immigration status of the accused murderer: 

The suspect in last week's slayings of five people in San Francisco was ordered deported in 2006 after he served a prison term for robbery and assault, but immigration authorities had to let him go free because his native Vietnam would not take him back, officials said Monday. 

Binh Thai Luc, 35, of San Francisco was released under the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said undocumented immigrants must be released after six months if their country of origin won't allow them to return, according to officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

Luc is the only suspect to have been arrested in the killings in a home near City College of San Francisco. A source familiar with the investigation said authorities suspect the killer or killers may have been trying to collect on a gambling debt.

"Incredibly" (scoff) Luc had repeated run-ins with the law, but no one could quite figure out how to keep him separated from law-abiding folk.

Immigration officials had been eager to deport Luc after he was sentenced to an 11-year, 4-month term at San Quentin State Prison for a 1998 conviction for robbing a Chinese restaurant in San Jose at gunpoint, according to agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen. 

Federal agents took him into custody when he was released from prison on Aug. 2, 2006, after serving eight years, and a judge ordered him deported a month later. 

"However, because Vietnamese authorities declined to provide appropriate travel documents, Luc ultimately had to be released because of the Supreme Court's ruling" in a 2001 case, Zadvydas vs. Davis, Christensen said. 

Officials at the Vietnam Consulate in San Francisco could not be reached for comment.

I guess this isn't San Francisco's fault, per se, as it was loser federal immigration officials who let Luc go (and the smarter-than-they-look Viet Namese who refused to take him back). Still, you have  to ask yourself what grand principle is being upheld when an obvious member of the criminal element is allowed to remain in the US indefinitely. I note that Luc's status is that of "undocumented" so it's not like he needed to kill someone to be deported. 


Oh, and I'm sure Luc won't be getting the death penalty either...because SF is special that way.

Strike Up The Band: The "Cause" Finds the Treyvon Martin Matter

Everyone and their dog has weighed in on the death Treyvon Martin. The details of his shooting are murky and ambiguous, but that hasn't stopped the Democrat-media complex from treating this as another episode in the "War Against Blacks" (the War Against Women having not worked out as well as they like). I can't improve on Powerline's response to this:

Anyone who spends time looking at crime statistics will discover the basics of race and crime before too long, but you better be careful not to talk about them in polite society. They are protected by a taboo even stronger than the Victorian taboo against public discussions of sex, but with good reason. The facts are painful. No one can take joy in publicizing them. 

Murder is the crime which has the greatest “clearance rate,” i.e., it is the crime most frequently resolved and prosecuted. We know a lot about the victims and perpetrators of the crime of murder. 

Murder is largely an intraracial crime. Almost all murders of blacks are committed by other blacks. 

Blacks as a group commit murder at a rate astronomically higher than other groups. The rate of murder committed by blacks exceeds that committed by whites by approximately seven times. See, e.g., Heather Mac Donald’s essay “Is the criminal-justice system racist?” 

If race hustlers like Al Sharpton really had the interests of the black community at heart, they would devote themselves to doing everything in their power to have violent black criminals separated from the community of law-abiding black citizens. The criminals are serial tormentors of law-abiding members of the black community.

What's really depressing is how tired all of this civil rights caterwauling is. The last big civil rights moment was in the early-to-mid Nineties when Rodney King and OJ were never out of the news. The same old faces - Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Spike Lee(!) (where's Chuck D?) - are back, spouting the same old lines about prisons, crime, and white people, as if black on black crime is a chimera and the KKK has never stopped riding. Interestingly, there aren't any new faces in the ranks of the professionally aggreived, except one: the president of the United States. But, the news media and their Democrat allies are running around in a state of high dudgeon as if this were the worst thing happening in the world right now. 


Sorry, it's not. 


The president says this is a moment when we should reflect on where we are as a society.


No it's not. 


Kids the same age as Martin are killed everyday. Just a few weeks ago, some loser in Oakland was sentenced to life in prison for killing two teen aged black girls in the back of a van. The reason? They had seen him shoot a guy and (cue ominous music) the killer didn't want any witnesses. He would have gotten away with it too, except there was yet another guy in the van he didn't shoot, and who promptly called the cops. Where was Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, et al? Oh, sorry, the shooter was Hispanic (and likely illegal) while George Zimmerman is a "white Hispanic."


There is a crime wave against black youth, but the killers are other blacks, and occasionally Hispanics. Rather than put on his Brave Civil Rights Barricades Face for the ambiguous sake of Treyvon Martin, the president would show some real bravery by focusing the presidential attention on the real killers. 

Question Authority: Sheriff Mirkarimi's Guilty Plea

I continue to be surprised that San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's domestic violence scandal hasn't captured the fancy of right-wingers beyond the Bay Area. While the GOP has supposedly been waging some kind of "war on women," Mirkarimi's pre-trial maneuvering led to the revelation that he not only was a cad, but also got rough with other women in the past. Mirkarimi has copped the inevitable guilty plea, and appears poised to keep his job (the local media has already begun the "let's move on" drumbeat), but the DA claims to be dissatisfied: 

San Francisco District George Gascón said today he is not convinced Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi really believes he is guilty of the misdemeanor false imprisonment crime he pleaded to earlier this week, and will raise his concerns with the judge at sentencing Monday. 

"There is a guilty plea here and I know there's almost an attempt (by Mirkarimi) to deny that this has occurred: 'I didn't really do this. I'm being forced to do this.' That's very concerning to me, to be very honest with you," Gascón said in a meeting with The Chronicle editorial board. 

"We're going to address this on Monday because we're not in the custom, not in the habit, of taking a guilty plea from somebody who is not guilty," he added. "If the defendant in this case believes he is not guilty, then we should go to trial and let a jury decide."

Amazing, especially as Gascon, who used to be chief of police, is undercutting not only Mirkarimi, but also his own deputies who negotiated the plea. 


The biggest joke in all this is that Mirkarimi was elected sheriff to begin with. The guy is a typical San Francisco Green without a minute of law enforcement experience (although he did manage to graduate from the Police Academy). The sheriff's job is to run the jail, enforce evictions, guard the courthouse, etc. It's a serious, workaday job, not the sort of thing you like to see grandstanders and poseurs take on after being termed out of their previous elective office. Having Mirkarimi elected sheriff was unseemly enough, but the current groundswell of support for the idea that everyone should just move on is even less seemly. 


Dems might squawk about GOP "violence" but when one of their own actually manhandles actual women, suddenly the situation is much more "complicated."


  

Police State: Berkeley Police Chief Harasses Reporter

The murder of Berkeley resident Peter Cukor - this was the guy whose 911 calls went unanswered because the BPD were busy babysitting an Occupy march - continues to resound in the People's Republic. The chief of police has been forced to apologize to a reporter after the chief had the guy rousted at home to correct a story he had just filed. 

The Berkeley police chief's decision to send an officer to a reporter's home after midnight Thursday met with more criticism Sunday, with the city's rank-and-file officers saying they were "gravely concerned" about his actions. 

Chief Michael Meehan has apologized for ordering the department's public information officer to go to the Berkeley home of Bay Area News Group reporter Doug Oakley at 12:45 a.m. Friday after efforts to reach the journalist by phone and e-mail failed. 

Oakley, 45, had written a story about a raucous community meeting Meehan attended Thursday. The story, which appeared online late that night, reported that Meehan had apologized for the department's slow response in connection with the Feb. 18 slaying of Berkeley hills resident Peter Cukor by an intruder on his property. 

The report upset Meehan, who said he never apologized for a slow response - which he has steadfastly denied - but instead had said he was sorry he had failed to quickly release information to the public about the slaying. 

The chief's decision to send Sgt. Mary Kusmiss to Oakley's door has rankled many on his 160-member force. Many are privately grumbling that the former Seattle police captain is more worried about burnishing his image and spinning the story instead of responding to concerns about whether police staffing was adequate the night Cukor was killed.

Give the chief's minion who visited Oakley credit for telling him how embarrassed she was to be there. And, give Oakley a demerit for suffering a panic attack. Man up, dude. And, of course, we can all agree that the chief "acted stupidly."


But, still, it's understandable why the chief might be a little punchy. It's a little rich to see so many Berkeleyites querulously wondering "where were the police?" when so many of them see themselves as bad-ass street rebels (at least in their Walter Mitty fantasy lives) who no doubt have supported "cop watch" style programs, and other anti-cop measures. 


How many of these complainers have supported Occupy over the last 6 months? It was an Occupy march that distracted scarce police resources, after all. It's that support that has caused Occupy to act unpredictably: now peaceful, now violent. You don't know what they're going to do next, so the police have to babysit them without arresting them. (by contrast, a violent right-wing march, should one actually occur, would be shut down without comment). Like it or not, that means no police to respond to "regular" crimes. 


What about Cukor's alleged killer, a familiar Berkeley type: the young man wandering the streets and "off his meds." How many of these new-fangled "law & order" types have seen the crazies and homeless wandering Telegraph Avenue, and effectively accepted it (by repeatedly voting into office politicians who believe lunatics have civil rights, and that homeless people are out there because it's "Reagan's fault")? Now they're upset that one of these nuts has predictably done what the voices in his head said to do?


And, what if Cukor had confronted his killer with (shudder) a gun? What if he'd killed the man who ended up killing him? I can promise that the chief would be explaining to angry "community meetings" why the police didn't think Cukor hadn't committed a crime. 


The chief acted stupidly, but that's only because the community he is protecting and serving has a history of acting stupidly. 

Scandal Sheets: What's Going On With The Sheriff Mirkarimi Trial?

I've been so distracted by "slut-gate" that I haven't had a chance to comment on the domestic violence trial of SF Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi and his wife swear up and down that he did nothing wrong and this all a big misunderstanding, but that hasn't stopped them from trying to keep out two key bits of prosecution evidence: the videotape of Mirkarimi's bruised, tearful wife & testimony from an ex-girlfriend who says Mirkarimi bruised her arm. That's their right, of course, but all of this effort hasn't prevented some unsavory information from coming to light. 

Ross Mirkarimi forcefully grabbed his then-girlfriend's arm hard enough to leave a small bruise during a heated argument four years ago "without really realizing he was doing it," and then let go quickly and apologized after she yelled out in shock, according to newly released court documents. 

Christine "Christina" Flores, who dated Mirkarimi for about 1 1/2 years starting in 2007 when he was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, has taken the stand twice to offer pretrial testimony in the domestic violence case against Mirkarimi, who was sworn in as sheriff in January. 

The prosecution, over the objection of Mirkarimi's attorneys, wants Flores to testify to show a pattern of abusive behavior leading up to the alleged incident involving his wife, Eliana Lopez, for which he faces three misdemeanor charges.

You'll never guess what Mirkarimi and his ex were fighting over. 

The court recently released a transcript of her testimony that described how Mirkarimi was verbally abusive to her, and how on one of those occasions, in February 2008, they fought after she found another woman's pair of underwear in his home and he got physical and grabbed her, pushing her against a wall, after she threatened to leave him.

That's the difference between the right and the left, I guess. We may label some women as sluts, but leftists treat women as sluts. 

Crazy: The Deadly Insanity of the Berkeley Hills Killer

Last weekend's murder of Berkeley Hills resident Peter Cukor has been blamed, at least in part, by the diversion of police resources to babysit an Occupy march. But, don't let that distract you from the more basic fact that the alleged murderer was a sadly familiar Bay Area "type:" the mentally ill - indeed deranged - person wandering the streets, secure from institutionalization because of his "civil rights."

The 23-year old who is suspected of killing a 67-year old man in the Berkeley hills on February 18 is a paranoid schizophrenic who has been in and out of mental institutions for the past five years. 

Despite his severe mental illness, Daniel Jordan Dewitt has never been committed to long-term psychiatric care, which his family felt he needed, according a family friend who asked not to be named. State laws make it very difficult for anyone to be institutionalized against their will. 

“I can’t tell you how many times he has been in and out of the hospital,” Candy Dewitt told the Oakland Tribune. “I don’t know what happened but our system has to change or else this will keep happening.” 

“Our system is such that they go in, they shove them full of all kinds of antipsychotics and put them back out on the street again,” DeWitt told KTVU Channel 2.

All sympathy to Cukor and his family, but you don't go outside to "confront" someone without carrying a baseball bat. The police likely weren't going to come, Occupiers or not. The fact is that there are enough nuts walking around, especially in progressive paradises like Berkeley, that the police simply can't respond to every call about some guy lurking in the garage. Hey, it happens. 


If you read the comments in the linked article, you'll see the standard line you read/hear from Progs anytime a crazy person kills an innocent: they always say "It's Reagan's fault." (hey, what isn't?) "Reagan" must be a ghost who wanders the halls of the State Capitol preventing liberal legislators from appropriating funds to institutionalize the insane. Progs can't be referring to the former governor of California since that Reagan left office 40 years ago and has done nothing to keep California from putting some of these nuts away. 


No, the real problem is that, at some point, it became a matter of left-wing legal orthodoxy that the insane have civil rights, so any and all attempts to rein these people in is welcomed with lawsuits and the like. So nothing gets done, the insane wander the streets, and every once in a while some unlucky soul crosses paths with a guy at the precise moment he does exactly what the voices in his head tell him to do. Sad. 

Defensive Crouch: Are Occupiers Responsible For The Murder of a Man In The Oakland Hills?

Oakland has, for whatever virtues it may lay claim to, a well-deserved reputation as a violent, crime-ridden urban area. Of course, most of the crime-ridden areas of Oakland are readily identifiable. Most of the city is as safe as any other place you could name, especially as you go uphill. But, living in the tony Oakland Hills is not a protective shield, as one unfortunate resident learned over the weekend:

Residents of the tranquil Berkeley hills were in shock Sunday after police described a horrific slaying, with a homeowner beaten after confronting a young man - an apparent stranger - who had trespassed onto his property. 

Authorities did not identify the victim, but neighbors and public records indicated that the owner of the home where the Saturday night killing occurred was Peter Cukor, 67, who owned a logistics consulting firm. His family declined to talk. 

Shortly after the attack outside the large home near Tilden Park, a Berkeley police officer found Daniel Jordan Dewitt, 23, of Alameda, less than a block away. Dewitt was booked on suspicion of murder, and was being held Sunday without bail. 

Dewitt suffers from mental illness, said his mother, Candy Dewitt.

Cukor had found Dewitt lurking around his garage, and called the police. It was when Cukor went back outside that Dewitt beat him to death. And, what were the police doing that was so important that they could not respond to Cukor? Why, escorting an Occupy Oakland march, of course. 

The victim had called police on a nonemergency line after first seeing Dewitt, according to sources familiar with the case. But police were busy monitoring an Occupy Oakland march to UC Berkeley, and officers were dispatched only to high-priority call 

An officer who noticed the call about Dewitt on his computer told a dispatcher he would respond, but was told not to go, sources said. 

Minutes later, the victim's wife heard her husband yelling for help and called 911 after seeing the suspect dragging him into bushes and hitting him with a potted plant, sources said.

Evil right-wingers have drawn the obvious conclusion, pointing out that the Occupiers' repeated insistence on marching to and fro, with spontaneous bouts of street fighting mixed in, have caused East Bay police departments to divert police resources away from run-of-the-mill criminals in favor of the lawless faux-revolutionaries of the Occupy Movement. This has inevitably given rise to some defensive reactions by Occupiers and their allies who say the usual crap about how their protests are "mostly" peaceful, that the violence is by a relative handful of agitators (who use the "peaceful" protesters as willing human shields), and that, at some indeterminate time in the past, the Oakland Police Department "started it." Wah! Wah! Hey, you guys, I'm not saying the police are perfect, but you've shown yourselves of in need of babysitting every time more than 3 of you get together for any purpose. That's diverting police resources, and it's your fault. 


The Occupiers have long overstayed their welcome. It's too bad there still seems to be little will to do anything with them besides babysitting. 

Downward Spiral: Nadia Lockyer's Double Life

More information has emerged about how Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer ended up getting beaten up in a Newark motel room, but the slow pace of revelations and their scandalous nature make clear that the Lockyer family is trying desperately to cover up the complete breakdown of a life, not to mention political career. And, incredibly, some members of the local media continue to aid in the cover up through the sort of discretion and circumspection that would simply not be available to a Republican:  

The man described as the ex-boyfriend who allegedly assaulted Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer at a Newark hotel two weeks ago has a history of methamphetamine arrests dating back 15 years and is facing drug charges in a separate case in San Jose, law enforcement records show. 

The 35-year-old San Jose resident is the focus of the investigation into the possible battering of Lockyer, wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, at the Homewood Suites on Cedar Boulevard early Feb. 3, according to Newark police. We're withholding his name because he has not been arrested.

Can't be identified because he hasn't been arrested? That's a new standard I had not previously been aware. This guy is, supposedly, running around beating up public officials, yet he can remain anonymous? Luckily, other local media outlets are more hard-nosed. They are publishing the guy's name, and even the contents of some emails he provided to them. 

The seeming perfection of the couple's life in their modest split-level house high in the Hayward hills had masked addiction and deceit. Nadia Lockyer, a beautiful, ambitious woman who had hitched her star to an old political warhorse, apparently was anything but happy. In a text message sent the day after Christmas to the "other man" -- a fellow substance abuser from San Jose with whom she had her affair -- she came across as bitter and angry, all in uppercase. 

"THE LAST 3 MONTHS U PUT ME THRU HELL N BACK -- N MORE. YOU WILL SEE N FEEL THE PAIN YOUR LIES HAVE INFLICTED IN MY HEART SOUL EVERY MOMENT YOU FIND YOURSELF ALONE OR BORED WITH ANOTHER," she wrote to Stephen Chikhani in the text message.

There was also some panicked texting over a stolen Radio Shack gift card: 

An hour after sending the Dec. 26 text, Nadia Lockyer sent Chikhani another: "You stole my house key AND a radioshack giftcard," she wrote. "If you don't return both ASAP tonight (or the Iphone you got with card) by leaving them both at our front door TONIGHT -- Bill's security will have to take you into custody. Just leave it at door asap -- before its too late -- please. We're far away."

As you read through those ALL CAPS communications, try to recall that this the 40-year old County Supervisor and wife of the State Treasurer, and not a bi-polar college girl.   


Nadia Lockyer and the boyfriend met in a drug rehab program back in 2010, the same year Nadia was running for office. Amazing that the voters, and Nadia's opponents, did not learn this information until now. 


Bill Lockyer doesn't often obtain my sympathy, but you can't help feeling bad for the guy. He married into a hellish life. Nadia seems to have told him a story that she couldn't get pregnant because of a car accident injury to her pelvis. But, then, magically, she got pregnant and they married (their son was born two months after the wedding, and if I were Lockyer I would look into taking a paternity test). Whatever you might say about their 30 year age difference, Nadia was happy to use Bill's campaign treasury to bury her political opponents in advertising, and win a seat on the county board. And, all along, she was carrying on a frankly depraved double life of drug use and illicit sex. Bill's largely been silent, but some enterprising journalist managed to catch up with him:

Her husband, whose illustrious political career has spanned four decades, hunkered down in his home. The day after news of the scandal exploded, he answered the door at noon, unshaven and wearing a blue plaid bathrobe.

Can't say I would blame Lockyer if he kicked her to the curb. 

Rough Trade: What's Going On With Bill Lockyear's Wife?

Odd doings in the East Bay, as a member of the Board of Supervisors for Alameda County, who is married the State Treasurer (and former AG) was apparently beaten up when she met up with a former boyfriend at a Newark motel. Yes, you read that right:

Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, was "violently assaulted" by an ex-boyfriend she met up with at a Newark motel after the Lockyers fought, her husband says. 

Newark police confirmed to us that they investigated a "politically sensitive" incident Feb. 3 after receiving a late-night 911 call from the motel on Newark Boulevard. When police arrived, they found a woman who was "despondent," a police spokesman said Friday. 

Police would not identify the woman, but Bill Lockyer confirmed that it was his wife.
He said he and Nadia Lockyer had recently been separated but had gotten back together before the Feb. 3 incident. 

The trouble that night began when they were arguing over the phone, he said. Nadia Lockyer hung up and headed off to the motel to meet with her former boyfriend, Bill Lockyer said.
She portrayed the boyfriend as "a troubled person," he said. "She thought he was having a crisis and she thought she could get him to calm down and to be OK and not to threaten suicide. 

"And he turned out to be angry ... and she was violently assaulted by someone she was trying to help," he said. 

But she wouldn't have gone to the motel, Bill Lockyer said, if he hadn't said "something to her that was unkind and hurt her feelings. ... That's what caused her to go."

I'm leaning on treating this less as a political story and more a psycho-sexual one. Nadia Lockyer made her name as an attorney with an interest in domestic violence issues, and yet here she is apparently getting beaten up herself by a romantic interest. I'm sure there are people out there who are just baffled that an  beautiful, accomplished wife and mother (and daughter of a prominent Latino civil rights attorney) would end up making her way to an anonymous motel to meet up with her ex-boyfriend with a criminal record. Attention bafflees: chicks dig jerks. It's just the way of the world. Don't make me expand on this any more than I need to. 


It's hard to know what effect this odd story will have on Lockyer's career, not to mention her marriage. I guess she's lucky that the police are treating this as a "politically sensitive" case, but don't seem to be turning over every stone looking for the ex-boyfriend who has conveniently vanished from the face of the earth. And, I guess she's lucky her husband* is loyally blaming himself from for driving her into the arms (and fists) of said boyfriend via some unkind comments made over the phone. 


Right now we are being carefully spoon-fed information, but what little we know is sordid enough. The fact is that members of the Board of Supervisors, whether of Alameda County or anywhere else, probably shouldn't be meeting up with their ex-boyfriends-with-criminal-records at motels, whether in Newark or anywhere else, if that is, indeed, what happened. And I kind of have my doubts. Isn't it odd that the wife of California's former AG would have a boyfriend with a criminal past? And isn't it odd that, though we know of the boyfriend, we don't know his name or have a picture? (the linked article lacks both) Doesn't anyone want to catch this guy? Or is he just a fall guy for the real story as to how Lockyer ended up getting roughed up at a motel, rather than staying at home with her husband and child?


Look for this story to get a lot uglier.


UPDATE: right on cue, Nadia Lockyer has announced she is entering a program to treat an unnamed chemical dependency. 

Lockyer, 40, the wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, said in a statement that she entered a “wellness and recovery center” last week for treatment of the unspecified chemical dependency and “my injuries from the assault.” 

She also said she was being treated for “chronic pain from a past debilitating car accident,” without giving specifics. 

“Alcoholism and addiction are diseases from which many of us suffer, and unfortunately I have not been spared,” Nadia Lockyer said. “I understand that the public and the press have an interest in the health of their elected officials. That is why I am publicly disclosing my medical condition and that I am seeking treatment.” 

The statement did not say how long the treatment may take, only that she planned to continue “doing the work I was elected to do.” 

Few details have been released about the incident that apparently led Lockyer to enroll in the treatment center. 

According to Newark police logs, a 911 call came in at 2:40 a.m.  Feb. 3 from the Homewood Suites on Cedar Boulevard regarding an altercation involving a man and a woman.
“The male left prior to officers arriving,” the log said. “The female suffered injuries to her head and neck. She was medically treated.”

Again, it's all the fault of the evil ex-boyfriend who continues to go unnamed and unphotographed despite  everyone's professed desire to catch the SOB. And, you've gotta love the discretion and circumspection with which the media is treating this story. If a Republican politico's wife was beaten up by her drug dealer at a motel...


*who gained a degree of fame in his AG days by blustering that he wanted to prosecute Enron's Ken Lay and then introduce him to his cellmate "Spike." Haw! Haw! What an ineffectual little man. 

Mega-piracy: Megaupload And When "Sharing" Becomes "Stealing"

The dismantling of file-sharing service Megaupload, and the arrest of its executives, has elicited a lot of techno-libertarian commentary about the heavy hand of the state ("how can American law enforcement shut down a site based in Hong Kong?!" they ask querulously) and the even heavier hand of Big Music lobbying shutting down a competitor. The hipsters are up in arms, but when you look at what megaupload was doing, you can't help wondering what all the fuss is about. The fact is, these guys were, at the least, aiding and abetting in theft.

Possibly the biggest anti-piracy bust of all time took place on January 20th, when a global sting operation led by the FBI and the Department of Justice brought down the file-sharing giant Megaupload – and arrested its founder, the 38-year-old German hacker and playboy Kim Dotcom. "I defy anyone to go back and find something bigger than this," says a source at a major record label. "This makes LimeWire look like kindergarten." 

Born Kim Schmitz, Dotcom was arrested in Auckland, New Zealand, where he lived in what is reportedly the country's most expensive private home. Six other Megaupload executives were also arrested. The crew is charged with "criminal copyright infringement and money-laundering on a massive scale" – an estimated $500 million of pirated content, with a combined $175 million in income. (Megaupload claimed to have 50 million daily visits and four percent of the Internet's total traffic.) Authorities seized Dotcom's mansion and 18 luxury cars, including a 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé with a GOD license plate. 

Dotcom, who was denied bail, is in an Auckland prison facing as much as 20 years if he's found guilty. Megaupload's U.S. attorney, Ira Rothken, insists that the company was a content-storage site, similar to Dropbox, and Dotcom had no knowledge of any of its users' piracy activities. "This is basically a showing of copyright extremism by the government, in taking down an entire site in an overbroad manner, without giving Megaupload an opportunity to be heard in court," says the attorney.

The actual service isn't hard to understand. They were providing server space for people to upload music and then share that music with anyone with access to the file. And that's fine as long as you're talking about sharing music with your buddies, but a lot of megaupload customers took things way beyond that. 


A perfect example is the Plow That Broke The Plains, a well designed blog that used to post uploads of a ton of music. Most of the music was obscure and out-of-print, so no one's really going to care. But they were posting plenty of major label stuff as well. In the last months of its existence, they uploaded albums by Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Scott Walker, Earth Wind & Fire, and several others. The hosts provided you with a link and a password that took you to the Megaupload site where you actually downloaded the tunes. After about the 30th time they posted a Bob Dylan album I wondered, "how could this possibly be legal?" Their way of addressing this was an anodyne statement that the music was not hosted on their own servers and that you (the downloaders) should delete the files after 24 hours, which I am sure happened all the time (snort). Legal or not, I note that they are no longer there, the blog having gone down the memory hole, along with Megaupload. 


Whatever its merits, Megaupload itself looks like it's up to no good. Clicking a  Plow  link would take you to the Megaupload site, which looked to me like the internet without spam filters. The thing had so many banner ads, "click-this-link" ads, and flashing pixels it was hard to see where to click for the download. Clicking the download button unleashed another torrent of ads. If you could digitize the concept of "The Hustle," then megaupload was a hustler's paradise. It looked more like a spam factory or a phishing farm than a legitimate business. (similar sites like Mediafire are not nearly as bad). I never finished a download from megaupload because they seemed fundamentally untrustworthy.


Megaupload's founder, "Kim Dotcom," (uh huh) doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Here is his house: 





And here he is with a babe and a boat





The guy screams "Mafia!" not "Mogul!" I would advise those well-intentioned folks making a martyr out of Megaupload to search more carefully for your Jesus. 

Don't Be Illegal: The Feds Sting Operation Against Google

You may recall hearing that Google paid a $500 million fine to settle a complaint arising from illegal drug ads that appeared in Google's search results. The WSJ finally has the gory details. The thumbnail: a government informant was able to work with Google executives in setting up ads for websites selling steroids, HGH, RU-486, along with Chinese bootleg Prozac, and the like. The ads (set up and paid for by the government!) were so lucrative that Larry Page was aware of them. Ever get the feeling that, were Google names "Exxon," this story wouldn't have dribbled out so slowly?

Posing as the fictitious Jason Corriente, an agent for advertisers with lots of money to spend, Mr. Whitaker bypassed Google's automated advertising system to reach flesh-and-blood ad executives. Federal agents created www.SportsDrugs.net, designed to look "as if a Mexican drug lord had built a website to sell HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said in his account of the sting. 

Google first rejected it, along with an anti-aging website called www.NotGrowingOldEasy.com. But the company's ad executives worked with Mr. Whitaker to find a way around Google rules, according to prosecutors and Mr. Whitaker's account. 

The undercover team removed a link to buy the drugs directly—instead requiring customers to submit an online request form—and Google approved it. "The site generated a flood of email traffic from customers wanting to buy HGH and steroids," Mr. Whitaker said. 

To pay Google's fees for the growing online traffic, undercover agents made payments every two or three days with a government-backed credit card. 

Federal agents grew more brazen. They created a site selling weight-loss medications without a prescription, according to Mr. Whitaker and people familiar with the matter. They also added another site selling the abortion pill RU-486, which in the U.S. can only be taken in a doctor's office. 

Google's ad team in Mexico approved the site, so U.S. consumers searching for "RU 486" would see an ad for the site. Google ad executives allowed the agents to add the phrase "no prescription needed." 

Days later, federal agents added links to buy the drugs directly. Such sales broke U.S. laws prohibiting the sale of drugs from outside the country and without a prescription. "There were photos of the drugs, descriptions, labels that clearly printed out that we were shipping without a prescription and it was from Mexico," Mr. Whitaker said. 

By the end of the operation in mid-2009, agents were buying Google ads for sites purportedly selling such prescription-only narcotics as oxycodone and hydrocodone. Agents also got Google's sales office in China to approve a site selling Prozac and Valium to U.S. customers without a prescription. 

"Google's employees were instrumental in bypassing policy regarding pharmacy verification," Mr. Whitaker told the Journal. "The websites were blatantly illegal."

Amazing stuff. The government finally pulled the ads (which apparently generated a lot of customer response), and flew to Mountain View and told Google that the jig was up. The feds were ready to file criminal charges against Google executives, so the company wised up and hired (are you sitting down?) Jamie Gorelick to negotiate a settlement. They happily disgorged their profits from the ads and went on their way. 


The late Larry Ribstein defined the "Apple Rule" in reference to the unusually circumspect manner in which the media, politicians, the SEC and the Justice Department handled allegations of backdating in Steve Jobs's compensation package. In the words of The Economist, "Mr Ribstein's rule “provides for an exception from corporate criminal liability when a popular business executive is accused of, or presides over a company that is accused of, misconduct. 'Popular' is defined here as 'liked by journalists'. In the event of allegations of criminal misconduct touching a ‘popular’ business executive, said executive or his company may avoid trouble by aiming the investigation toward an underling.”" It sure looks like Google benefited from a similar circumspection. 


This isn't meant to excoriate Google, by the way. I think they are a great company whose products have aided in the spread of knowledge and freed many people from their desks. But, while their public face is all of their innovative products, their private one is that of a money grubbing company looking for profits at any cost. That's capitalism, of course, but we sure do hear a little too much smug sermonizing about not being "evil" from these guys.