Category: Political

Ferguson: A Benefit of the Doubt

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 8, 2014

Ferguson protestor

My father was a cop. A Washington state patrolman. I like to think he was a good cop, and have never received any indication otherwise.

When Mike Brown was shot in Ferguson, less than 25 minutes from where I live, I wanted to give the policeman who shot him the benefit of the doubt. Even when I heard that Mike Brown was not armed. Even when I heard they left his body in the street for close to five hours. After all, my Dad was a cop, and if it had been my father who did the shooting, I’d like everyone to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But then there were all the things that just didn’t feel right. Mike Brown wasn’t shot in the dark of night in a back alley. He was shot in the middle of the day—the exact middle of the day—in the middle of a street, in the middle of a city, surrounded by people. I’m the daughter of a cop and I kept asking myself, how on earth a police officer got himself into such a situation where he feared for his life from an unarmed man who was running away from him, in the middle of a bright, clear day, in the middle of a city street, and fellow officers just minutes away?

And leaving his body lying there, in the heat, in the street—the exact middle of the street; face down, blood everywhere, with distraught and shocked people all around. We were told on TV that the delay to recover Mike Brown’s body was because the Ferguson police wanted the County police to take over the investigation, and it took time to manage the transfer of authority. But then we were told a large crowd threatened, and the coroner’s van couldn’t get in. And then we were told that shots were fired, the same nebulous shots fired that seemed to happen whenever it is oddly convenient for the police.

Benefit of the doubt. I was still holding on to that benefit of the doubt.

Surely, Brown must have been involved in some heinous deed when he was shot. Perhaps kidnapping a child? Beating up on an elderly person? Biting the heads off of kittens?

Jaywalking. The cop pulled Mike Brown over because he was jaywalking. To be precise, because Mike Brown and a friend were walking down the middle of the street. And when the cop yelled at him to get out of the street, Brown didn’t and that started the chain that left a bloody dead body, still in the middle of the same damn street.

Confusion turned to anger in the city and I watched the events unfold on TV and read about them in the Post-Dispatch online site. I still held tightly on to that benefit of a doubt, even when the police brought the dogs in to manage the growing crowds. I watched the cops with the dogs and the crowds of black people, and shook with the recognition of old black and white photos of cops and dogs and black people. I wanted to slap the face of the idiot who thought bringing out dogs was a good idea, but then the police brought in the armored trucks and mounted rifles, and I wanted to kiss the idiot because the dogs were actually the good part.

There’s something about seeing a cop in camouflage and bullet proof vest, on top of an armored truck with a rifle pointed at unarmed protesters, that shakes your faith in the police promise to protect and serve.

At the end of the week, my hold on that benefit of the doubt was more a matter of habit than belief, which means when the Ferguson police chief came out with the Mike Brown video just before giving the name of the cop who shot Mike Brown, the doubt vanished instantly, poof! Yeah, just like that.

I watched that man, sweating in the sun, stumble through the words about releasing the video because people asked for it when no one asked for the video. Chief Jackson knew exactly what he was doing by releasing that video, and his actions were not those of a man secure in the belief that his officer was in the right.

At that moment, the exact moment Jackson came out with the video, I knew without a doubt that the shooting was not righteous.

Photo by Jamell Bouie CC BY 2.0

Tags Ferguson

Political

Not Voting is Not an Option

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date November 2, 2014

It’s going to rain on Tuesday. It’s going to rain all day long. This means water backing up because of all the leaves not collected and blocking storm sewer intakes, wet kids waiting for the bus, a run on hot coffee and chocolate, and a dismal showing at the voting booth. Of course, that last holds true even if the sun is shining, and rainbows sparkle overhead.

People are protesting and dying for the right to vote in other countries, while we can’t be bothered to show up at the polls. We’re losing our easy access to the voting booth with all the new voter restrictions, aided and abetted by our Supreme Court, but we don’t seem to care. Someday I expect we’ll wake up and found out that our right to vote has been gradually restricted until it no longer exists in many of our states…and no one will notice.

Maybe we won’t notice because we all know that it’s all a fake, a fraud, and none of them damn idiots is worth our time. After all, why vote, we ask ourselves. What’s the point? They’re all corrupt., we say, thereby ensuring that our belief becomes fact.

Negative hyperbole aside, it does seem as if there isn’t much to choose from. I’m about as lefty/progressive as you can get, but I’m not enamored with Missouri’s Democrats. We only have to look at how poorly Ferguson has been handled to see why local rap artist Tef Poe exclaimed The Democrats are Failing Us.

Too bad Tef Poe didn’t take an interest in the election before the primaries. The one person who has made most of us unhappy about how the Mike Brown shooting is being handled, our St. Louis County prosecutor-for-life, Bob McCullough, actually had a Democratic challenger: a black woman by the name of Leslie Broadnax. I have to think that Ms. Broadnax wouldn’t have been the lightning rod of distrust that McCullough has been.

If only more than 9% of Ferguson residents had showed up for the primary, we may be looking at a far different outlook related to the Mike Brown shooting today.

If elected, Broadnax says she wants to look into why some county arrest warrants can take years to process and why the county hasn’t done more with drug courts.

Strikes me that Ms. Broadnax would have been a breath of fresh air in the St. Louis area. Too bad no one showed up to vote for her.

We don’t have an “important” election in Missouri this year. We don’t have a senate seat up for grabs, or even a fight for governor. We have House of Representative elections, of course, but Missouri GOP incumbents are so sure they’ll win again, many aren’t even bothering to run an election. Heck, we even have one representative playing his own version of Where’s Waldo?

Then there’s the St. Louis County executive race, which became a little more exciting because of recent events. And our state legislature has several positions up for grabs. But who cares about state legislatures.

State politics…nothing to see here.

Jumping Jacks, anyone?

We do have more state Constitutional Amendments to vote on, but in Missouri, that’s the same as saying the sun rises in the morning and yes, that house in the woods in the Ozarks with the 500 “Do not trezpas or u’ll be Shot!” signs is a meth lab. Missouri has one of the most bloated state Constitutions, being 10 times the size of the one that seems to work for the entire United States of America. We also have one of the biggest state legislatures, third largest number of counties, and 92 separate dinky little townships in the St. Louis region, alone. Most with their own miniscule court system, police and fire departments.

I live in Shrewsbury, one of those 92 separate communities. We have a population of 6000, and the town council’s next meeting is to discuss adding a new assistant Fire Chief position, because the existing Fire Chief needs help with his 19 member department. However, the police department has 20 members, so fair’s fair. Last month the council voted to hire a chief financial officer, because the town Administrator just can’t manage all those town employees and handle all that fiscal stuff too. There’s a new Wal-Mart going up, you know. Puts us on the map.

There is no such thing as an unimportant election. Vote, and earn the right to bitch about the government. Continue to vote, and maybe someday we’ll have a government we won’t need to bitch about.

Legal, Laws, and Regs Political

Missouri Dives into the Rabbit Hole with Amendments 1 and 5

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date August 6, 2014

Photo by Stefano Corso, used without edits, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Missouri’s “Right to Farm” Amendment 1, and the gun support measure, Amendment 5, both won last night. The vote on Amendment 1 was so close that we’ll have an automatic recount, but I think the result will be the same: a win for Amendment 1 by a very narrow margin.

Both results are disappointing. Newspapers across the state noted before the election that our Constitution is already bloated beyond recognition, and all the amendments were either unnecessary, or should have been handled by an increasingly chaotic and under-performing state legislature. And Amendments 1 and 5 were the worst of a bad lot

Amendment 5 just creates confusion about enforcement of existing gun laws, and will take tax payer money for the court challenges the language will generate. But the court costs associated with Amendment 5 are nothing compared to the costs associated with Amendment 1. The very wording of the ballot measure is going to be used to challenge attempts to “enforce” this incredibly vague amendment. The proponents added the word “citizen” to the ballot, but the word “citizen” isn’t included in the amendment, leaving the protections open for foreign-owned farms and ranches. That Secretary of State Kander allowed this insertion was disturbing. That he eventually came out in support of the Amendment was a shocker—especially to the many people who supported him in the last election.

What helped pass both amendments was placement in a primary, rather than general election, and poor voter turn out in the cities. In addition, when Attorney General Koster decided that big agribusiness interests and the NRA benefited his personal ambitions more than environmental, animal, gun safety, or food safety interests, his actions in support of both amendments just added to the confusion about what they were really about.

So both Amendment 1 and Amendment 5 passed.

OK, the pity party is over. Now, it’s time to move on, and see these votes as a win, rather than a loss.

We have had a state legislature (and leadership) that is increasingly in the pockets of both the NRA and large agribusiness interests. Our cities are grossly underrepresented, real work isn’t being accomplished, and it seems every legislative session is focused either on undermining every single environmental, consumer, and animal welfare law related (even remotely) to farming, or to increasing gun interests. The legislature even tried to redefine deer as livestock in order to undermine the Department of Conservation’s efforts to add essential safety restrictions to captive deer hunt businesses.

Now the supporters of these two amendments have successfully embedded extreme and vague measures into the Constitution, and they’re probably indulging in a fit of self-congratulation. However, they haven’t realized that the aggressors have now become the defenders.

Take Amendment 1, the “Right to Farm” bill. Or as we’ve come to know it, the Right to Harm bill.

Previously, those who fought against this Amendment have also had to fight to defend our water, our air, our animals, and the safety of our food. We’ve always been in positions of being the defender, except when we pulled together enough people to pass Proposition B, the puppy mill bill. Even then, we had to defend the sanctity of our vote, and suffer disappointment when its necessary restrictions were undermined.

Now, we’re no longer in positions of defending against the bad laws, the bad laws have been passed. Now we can turn our attention to the fight. Now we can be the aggressors. We can be the challengers in the courts, the watchful eye on every state decision related to farms, the ones who scrutinize every back room deal. Now we can be the ones who chip away, day by day, year by year, at the platform on which those who would profit from these bad laws now stand.

AG Koster believes that two years from now when he runs for Governor, we’ll forget his actions, or no longer care about them. He assumes that most environmentalists, animal welfare folks, and food safety and sustainable agriculture people are Democrat, and Democrats will vote Democrat no matter what.

He is in error.

Every foolish act, and there will be many, resulting from the passage of Amendment 1 will be brought to light and documented in intimate detail. Every connection to elected politicians will be traced and exposed. We will follow the money down to the penny, and every drop of water contaminated, every fluffy puppy harmed, every person made sick by contaminated food, and every necessary law that is undermined, will be used against those who brought about such actions.

We’ll keep a tally of the costs to tax payers for every court case arising from the Amendment, and paint this tally in big, bold letters. We’ll read every court document, and make sure the best bits are disseminated in weblog and newspaper, and in Facebook, Twitter, and the other social media engines. By passing Amendment 1, the backers have forged disparate groups concerned about the environment, food safety and sustainability, public accountability, and animal welfare into one single, solid unified force with but one focus: stopping the “Right to Farm” supporters from causing harm.

Enjoy your day of victory, Amendment 1 supporters. Tomorrow is a new day, and you’re no longer the ones setting the rules of the fight.

Political

Missouri’s Amendment 1: Missouri’s sucker bet

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date July 26, 2014

$3, 173.70.

That’s the amount that Missouri tax payers have paid between March 3, 2014 and May 30, 2014 for Chris Koster’s lawsuit on behalf of large egg producers against California’s egg laws. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money until you realize that this just covers the fees paid to the California legal team representing Koster (and supposedly, Missouri). It doesn’t cover the time that J. Andrew Hirth, our Assistant State Attorney General, has put into the case, or any of the other members of the AG office staff. It also represents only about 6% of the likely cost, overall, for the lawsuit if it manages to survive the California Motion to Dismiss. If the case goes to trial, the cost will easily exceed $55,000 in legal fees.

This, just to defend a couple of larger egg producing companies in Missouri.

Doesn’t sound like a good use for tax payer money, does it? After all, wouldn’t we expect the companies to defend themselves, rather than take a ride on the tax payer dollar? In fact, this is one of the arguments California gives in the motion to dismiss: stripping aside the legalese, why on earth is Missouri suing another state on behalf of a tiny, miniscule group, when typically states only sue on behalf of a significant number of citizens?

Well, the reason why Koster and Missouri are seemingly fighting this lawsuit is because in Missouri, large agricultural concerns take precedence over the average citizen. In fact, if we look more closely at Mr. Koster’s recent actions, large agricultural concerns are the only interests that he seems to think are worth defending. Because not only did he file this lawsuit that benefits so few, he’s also campaigning across the state for Amendment 1, the so-called Right to Farm Constitutional amendment up for a vote on August 5th.

Right to farm? More like, right to undermine existing animal welfare laws, right to allow Chinese owned large animal operations (CAFOs) to disregard state water and air laws in order to minimize costs, and right to undermine this state’s initiative process by putting one industry, just one, outside the rule of law

Political

Billy Sol Estes and Congress are why the USDA is ordering machine guns

Post author By Shelley Powers
Post date May 25, 2014

The tea-soaked conspiracy crowd has a new rai·son d’être this week: a procurement request from the USDA for machine guns and ammo. As RT.com notes, “The request has captured the attention of many conservative, pro-gun websites…which have raised questions about it.” These same gun loving web sites even managed to excite an Oklahoma Congressional member, Representative Jim Bridenstine, who sent a letter to the USDA demanding answers.

It’s ironic that sites that support arming every single human being for any reason object to arming federal agents who are enforcing criminal laws. And it’s unfortunate that Congressional members are unaware of laws passed by Congress.

The weapons requested are for the USDA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), tasked with investigating criminal acts related to the USDA’s own specific areas of interest. Congress established the Offices of Inspector General within each of the departments, such as the USDA, in the Inspector General Act of 1978. The USDA’s OIG was, however, created administratively in 1962 following an incident known as the Billy Sol Estes Scandal.

Who is Billy Sol Estes, and why was there a scandal related to him? According to the New York Times obituary for Billy Sol Estes:

In the late 1950s, Mr. Estes launched a bewildering array of interlocking enterprises involving liquid fertilizer, storage tanks, grain elevators, cotton crops, illegally borrowed money, secret payments to farmers and thousands of sham mortgages. It leaned heavily on government programs that compensated farmers for storing surplus grain and for lands taken under eminent domain laws to build public works projects.

There were clandestine lease-back arrangements, phony mortgages on nonexistent fertilizer storage tanks, illegal transfers of federal-compensation rights, kickbacks for bankers and bribes for Washington. The scams were so complex that prosecutors eventually had to break them down into 50 state and federal indictments.

The cover was blown in early 1962, when The Pecos Independent and Enterprise published an exposé by its city editor, Oscar Griffin Jr., on thousands of mortgages for nonexistent fertilizer tanks. The articles, which did not name Mr. Estes, won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and led to an avalanche of investigations.

You get a feel for how widespread the corruption was, especially in the local community where Estes was treated almost like a god, when you read how the key Estes investigator was found battered about the head, carbon monoxide in his bloodstream, with five rifle blasts to his chest and his death was originally ruled a suicide by the local authorities.

One of the outcomes of the multi-year investigation and criminal trial was the establishment of the first non-military OIG, embedded in the USDA. The reason for the establishment was to facilitate cooperation between auditing and investigating enforcement arms—a cooperation that was missing, as was painfully discovered with the Estes investigation.

When you consider the fate of the original Estes investigator, including those five bullet holes, you might understand why the USDA would be ordering bullet proof vests. And it can do so because it was granted law enforcement authority via Section 1337 of the Agriculture and Food Act of 1981, which specifically authorized that properly designated agents could carry firearms, conduct searches and seizures, execute warrants for arrest, and in specific circumstances, make arrests without warrants.

If all of this was too involved for the good Congressman from Oklahoma, a quick search of the USDA OIG web site provides the answer to his question about why the USDA needs weapons, and where it gets its authority for doing so:

Pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978 and Section 1337 of the Agriculture and Food Act of 1981 (P.L. 97-98), OIG Investigations is the law enforcement arm of the Department, with Department-wide investigative jurisdiction. OIG Special Agents conduct investigations of significant criminal activities involving USDA programs, operations, and personnel, and are authorized to make arrests, execute warrants, and carry firearms. The types of investigations conducted by OIG Special Agents involve criminal activities such as frauds in subsidy, price support, benefits, and insurance programs; significant thefts of Government property or funds; bribery; extortion; smuggling; and assaults on employees. Investigations involving criminal activity that affects the health and safety of the public, such as meat packers who knowingly sell hazardous food products and individuals who tamper with food regulated by USDA, are also high-profile investigative priorities. In addition, OIG Special Agents are poised to provide emergency law enforcement response to USDA declared emergencies and suspected incidents of terrorism affecting USDA regulated industries, as well as USDA programs, operations, personnel, and installations, in coordination with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, as appropriate.

I can understand why conservative pundits avoid Google like a plague when it comes to investigating their next controversy of the week, but I’m assuming that Representative Bridenstine’s staff, which cost tax payers $915,521 in 2013, is capable of using a search engine before he takes pen to paper and demands explanations from a government agency about why it is enforcing laws established by the very organization in which he works.