Posted on 09/26/2010 12:42:48 PM PDT by Mark
The Russians have an interesting idea on how to fight political corruption. Igor Lebedev, a party deputy for the Liberal Democrats in the Duma, the Russian Parliament, has proposed branding the hands of any government official caught taking bribes.
Apparently "Liberal" in Russia is a little less liberal than Santa Monica.
If Igor's law passes, sticky-fingered Russian pols would have the letter K (for krookski?) branded onto their paws. All future voters would know at the handshake to hide their wallets.
I know we could never do something like this in Los Angeles because we don't have enough blacksmiths. The thieves in Bell alone would keep a stable of smithies busy, but you have to give the Russians credit for thinking outside the box.
Last week, L.A. County DA Steve Cooley beat Jerry Brown to the campaign commercial by chartering a prison bus to round up almost the entire government, past and present, of Bell. Mayor Oscar Hernandez, council members George Mirabal, Luis Artiga, and Teresa Jacobo, former council members Victor Bello and George Cole, former assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia and the biggest fish, whale really, former City Manager Robert Rizzo, did the perp-waddle in steel bracelets, something the folks in Bell have been dreaming of for months.
And then there's the one that got away.
Apparently Cooley believes former Bell Police Chief Randy Adams obtained his outrageous $457,000 legally. Or maybe Cooley simply left Adams for Jerry Brown to arrest. Why not? There are plenty of crooks to go around!
The thugs in Bell were so blatant their house of cards tumbled down at the first light breeze of public inquiry. Rizzo's Rat Pack only got away with it for as long as they did because nobody was paying attention. That should be the takeaway for the rest of us.
While it's easy to get worked up about Obama or Bush before him, what happens in Sacramento also matters. The same goes for Spring Street or the city hall nearest you. An informed, active, engaged public is like a clove of garlic to a vampire. It's the best protection against criminals using the cover of public service to pillage the people they were elected to serve.
When politicians know the public isn't paying attention it's practically an invitation to steal.
With all the attention on the Tea Party and incumbents falling, we have an opportunity to clean house locally by broadening our horizons beyond the usual Left/Right, Republican/Democrat nonsense and insist upon integrity and transparency in our local institutions.
The iron is hot.
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Doug McIntyre's column appears in the Los Angeles Daily News on Wednesdays and Sundays. You can reach him at dncolumnist@dailynews.com.
krookski?
I wonder if anyone living in Bell ever attended a city council meeting or questioned where the officials were getting all the money? I know we have some very lively city council meetings over finances.
The big fish is also a Mexican guy who just happens to be the "mayor" of Los Ahng-heles.
Cooley needs to retarget his guns.
And I want pictures of the L.A. county sheriffs going through Tony VivaLaRaza's front door with the battering ram.
They'll bring him out in his shorts with some Univision slut trailing him, shrieking and screaming.
That's the Big Fish.
It will be (sort of) interesting to see whether any of the City Council members of Bell actually violated any black-letter law. With the exception of one or two of the folks who stupidly paid personal expenses out of city funds (as if their $800K salaries they voted themselves weren’t enough, the greedy pigs) I am not sure they did. As far as I know, those salary levels were properly voted on and approved...by them! As far as I know, it’s not illegal for them to be paid more than the POTUS.
What will be absolutely hilarious in a macabre way is if they are found not guilty and the city of Bell ultimately has to pick up their legal expenses. Nobody should be surprised at such an outcome.
Being in L.A., that would soon be made into a movie.
The investigations in Bell are a good example of what should happen in “every” town and city in the USA. Do we have enough prisons to house all these political crooks?
98% of DC would be a good start.
Bookmark
They’ll bring him out in his shorts with some Univision slut trailing him, shrieking and screaming.
That’s the Big Fish.
Can’t you just see it! Need a prosecutor with guts and evidence, lots of it.
Maybe what these pols did was technically legal. Maybe they will be acquitted, and found to be legally entitled to the pensions based on the salaries they stole under color of law.
But this sort of outcome would drive home the disconnect between law and justice. It might be the tipping point, saying that we can't depend on legal processes to protect us, and some pols have to be strung up from the light poles.
I agree, both for the teeth-pulling aestethic and the fact they're going to be flipping on county- and state-level co-conspirators left and right...
Once we start arresting, prosecuting and jailing corrupt guvmint officials...
we’ll REALLY bankrupt the country!
Especially CA, IL, NY, NJ and all other Democratic Single-Party-Rule states
and municipalities!!!
Krookski? ROFL! Doug McIntyre is great.
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