What A Shock: "Stand Your Ground" Apparently Only Applies To White People

You might want to sit down before you read this, but it turns out that apparently Florida's hideous "Stand Your Ground" law only applies to white (or half-Hispanic) people who shoot others in self defense. I know, I couldn't believe it either. Here is Atlantic Wire with the details:

What happened to Marissa Alexander sure sounds a lot like 'standing your ground': her abusive husband came after her, choked her, and when she finally broke free, she grabbed a gun fired a single warning shot into ceiling ... so why is she set to serve 20 years in jail? As Touré points out, her husband's deposition had a similar account, though he's providing a newer, conflicting report.

Well, we imagine her prosecutor Angela Corey (who's also charging George Zimmerman) and her team, have the unfulfilling answers. The Florida Times Union's Charles Broward reported on April 21, "A judge denied [Alexander] immunity in a Stand Your Ground hearing. And after a jury found her guilty, she faces a mandatory term of 20 years in prison." Yes, there's the rage-inducing fact that Zimmerman who allegedly pursued and (not allegedly) killed Trayvon Martin was allowed to walk free that night while Alexander is going to spend 20 years of her life in prison for a single warning shot while in her own home. But it's also complex in that, those seeking justice for Trayvon Martin may have to side with a prosecutor who denied Alexander's (and the NAACP's) plea for a "stand your ground" ruling, like the one that was initially afforded to Zimmerman.

"There's a double standard with stand your ground," says Isaiah Rumlin, president of the Jacksonville Chapter of the NAACP. "The law is applied differently between African-Americans and whites who are involved in these types of cases." As Time's Touré points out, "there is one last sliver of hope left for Alexander: the court will soon hear arguments for a retrial." Jacksonville's News 4 added yesterday, "Judge James Daniel set a post-trial motions hearing for 8:30 a.m. Thursday. Daniel said if the motions are denied, she could be sentenced as soon as next week."

What is really appalling about this case is that Alexander should have been acquitted on grounds of self defense regardless of Stand Your Ground. But rather than argue about whether the law is being applied in a discriminatory manner, how about we just go ahead and repeal it already?


Bonus: I think The Fixx was in in this case...Bada Boom!

The War on Drugs Sinks To A New Low

This story below from NBC San Diego is simply so horrifying in what it reveals as to just how far America has declined as a nation that I feel I have to post it in its entirety:

Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student who was left in a Drug Enforcement Agency holding cell for nearly five days, said the time spent in his cell was a life-altering experience.

Before holding a press conference Tuesday afternoon, the 23-year-old spoke with NBCSanDiego and said he was increasingly worried throughout the days he spent in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. cell, where he could not spread his arms out wide.

“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”

Chong and his lawyer spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the claim they will file with the federal court system on Wednesday.

“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said his lawyer Gene Iredale, who compared Chong’s experience to Abu Ghraib.

Chong said he was at a friend’s house in University City celebrating 4/20, a day many marijuana users set aside to smoke, when agents came inside and raided the residence. Chong was then taken to the DEA office in Kearny Mesa.

He said agents questioned him, and then told him he could go home. One agent even offered him a ride, Chong said. No criminal charges were filed against him.

But Chong did not go home that night. Instead, he was placed in a cell for five days without any human contact and was not given food or drink. In his desperation, he said he was forced to drink his own urine.

“I had to do what I had to do to survive….I hallucinated by the third day,” Chong said. “I was completely insane.”

Chong said he lost roughly 15 pounds during the time he was alone. His lawyer confirmed that Chong ingested a powdery substance found inside the cell. Later testing revealed the substance was methamphetamine.

After days of being ignored, Chong said he tried to take his own life by breaking the glass from his spectacles with his teeth and then carving “Sorry mom,” on his wrists. He said nurses also found pieces of glass in his throat, which led him to believe he ingested the pieces purposefully.

Chong said he could hear DEA employees and people in neighboring cells. He screamed to let them know he was there, but no one replied. He kicked the door, but no one came to get him.
By the time DEA officers found Chong in his cell Wednesday morning Chong was completely incoherent, said Iredale.

“I didn’t think I would come out,” Chong said.

He said when employees discovered him in the cell that they looked confused and nervous. A DEA employee rode with him to the hospital, where they paid for Chong’s visit.

He spent three days in the intensive care unit at Sharp Hospital and his kidneys were close to failing.

The DEA has not apologized to Chong, said Iredale.

The incident also caused Chong to miss his midterms at UCSD. He said he does not know if he will return to school, as his perspective on life has changed since his isolation.

San Diego defense attorney Gretchen Von Helms said the victim could get millions if he files a lawsuit.

"In all my years of practice I've never heard of the DEA or any Federal government employee simply forgetting about someone that they have in their care," she said.

"There has to be repercussions if people do not follow the safety and the care when they have a human being in their custody."

Before I continue, I just wanted to point out that the only reason this story is getting a lot of media coverage is because the victim of this gross governmental abuse of power was a middle class college student. Does anyone really believe that this is the first time anything like this has happened in the DEA’s detention cells? If so, I’ll take that bet. The agency’s “bad luck” in this case was that Chong wasn’t some poor, black kid from the projects.

There are so many levels of Fail in this story that I hardly know where to begin. Let’s start with the DEA busting into a private residence trying to defeat the “deadly scourge” of college students smoking pot. Really? In this day and age in which governmental resources are being stretched to the breaking point and vital agencies like the National Weather Service and the Department of Agriculture are undergoing cutbacks—not to mention that none of the criminals on Wall Street who crashed the economy back in 2008 have been arrested or punished?

Then there is the issue of Chong’s five day confinement, which was so profoundly negligent as to beg the question of whether it was done intentionally. As far as we can determine from the story, Chong was arrested for mere possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor offense at best. Given how, as I have documented numerous times before on this blog, the court system, including the federal courts, are also facing steep cutbacks in budgets and personnel, it seems highly possible that Chong’s case would have eventually been simply dismissed—and don’t think for a minute that those who locked him in that cell and then “forgot” about him didn’t know that.

Does it seem incredible to you that the DEA might have made an example out of Chong in order to send a chilling message to the other potheads at his school? If so, then you need to read some to the articles Exiled reporter Yasha Levine wrote about the treatment that he and other Occupy LA protesters received at the hands of the police after their encampment was raided. There is a cold, Machiavellian logic to the idea of sending a message that since the courts cannot be counted on to hand out stiff punishments to the young miscreants who are no longer going along with the program, they should expect to be badly abused during their time in custody to serve as a deterrent. From Chong’s comments about how “his perspective on life has changed since his isolation,” I’d say he got the message loud and clear.

And let’s also not lose sight of who it is that is ultimately responsible for this abuse of power—President Hopey-Changey himself. Maybe we can’t pin the Occupy LA abomination on the “Constitutional Scholar” in the White House, but the DEA is a federal agency directly under his control. The president absolutely does have the authority to stop this kind of bullshit if he wants to, but given that Obama has gone so far as ordering a federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries, he has conclusively shown which side he is on. Any young people thinking of making the mistake of voting for him again this November should take that under consideration.

All in all, the arbitrary indefinite detention of citizens for minor offenses in inhumane conditions is one of the key hallmarks of any authoritarian regime. While it is hyperbolic to say that America has already become a dictatorship, the overall trend could not be more alarming. Chong’s lawyer was absolutely right to conjure up visions of Abu Ghraib, and he might have mentioned Guantanamo as well. We citizens are now reaping what we have sown by not loudly condemning the crimes of the empire around the globe. It was inevitable that the evil at first being perpetrated against brown skinned foreigners overseas would eventually find its way back to our shores, and that by the time it did it would be far too late to stop it from beginning to consume us all.

Addendum: After I wrote the initial post, it was reported that the DEA apologized to Chong. Sorry, but there are times when merely saying your sorry just doesn't fucking cut it. This is one of those times.

Addendum 2: Another news report indicated that a large stash of Ecstasy was found in the
house where Chong was arrested, but that the DEA agents who detained him quickly realized he was not involved with the drug stash.


Bonus: Roll another number

A Sucker Born Every Minute: The Franklin Mint Ripoff

Ever watch one of those ridiculous Franklin Mint commercials and wonder how a company peddling such a blatant ripoff could ever possibly stay in business? I mean, just how dense, for instance, does a person have to be to believe a "one ounce silver collectable coin" contains much if any silver when it is selling for half or less of the current spot price of the precious metal? Well, now we know the answer as shown by this letter sent to Financial Advisor Malcom Berko and published in the Herald-News:

Dear Mr. Berko: During the past 25 years, I purchased more than $47,000 in collectible silver coins and beautiful non-silver coins from the Franklin Mint for my retirement because I thought the scarcity and limited-edition minting of these coins would drive up their value over the years and because I believed the silver content in the silver coins would also increase in value. Now I’m 64 and decided to sell these coins to a coin dealer who offered me $2,500 for the whole lot. He told me most of the coins were worthless, and the only coins that had any value were those with silver in them. I was devastated because when I was buying all those coins, the people at the Franklin Mint told me these coins were minted in limited production and would be more valuable to collectors in the future. I called two coin dealers in Detroit (these coins are too bulky to carry around) and both said they had no interest in Franklin Mint coins and said they don’t know any dealers who would buy them from me. My son told me to write you because he said you might know of buyers for them, and at this point I’d be very happy to get at least half of what I paid for them if possible. Please help me if you can. And if you cannot help me, do you think I can sue the Franklin Mint and recover my cost? And could you recommend a lawyer for me to sue them?

DA

Troy, Mich.

Okay, I dabble a little bit in precious metals myself as I am sure many of you do who are part of the reality based community, so it was probably very cruel of me to be literally laughing my ass off when I read this. Sorry to be such a bastard. I just couldn't help myself. And how perfect is it that the letter writer is from TROY, Michigan. I tell you, the Gods these days are gleefully mocking us dopey chimps.

Actually buying a couple of Franklin Mint pieces of crap is one thing (I think the wife and I have a phone ordered "collectable" or two lying around somewhere). Blowing $47,000 over a quarter of a century without ever ONCE checking with someone who doesn't work for the company to find out the real value of the merchandise places this guy (or gal?) very high on the list of the world's all time biggest suckers.

Being a much better man than I am, Malcom Berko was far more diplomatic in his response to this inquiry than I would have been:

Dear DA: Certainly, you can sue the Franklin Mint. Frankly, it’s their fault you purchased those coins, it’s their fault you overpaid for the coins, it’s their fault the coins did not increase in value and it’s their fault the coin dealer in Troy won’t give you $47,000 for your collection or the dealer in Detroit doesn’t know a soul who would pay you at least $23,500 for your collection. And because it’s the Franklin Mint’s fault, I can’t help you recover your costs. But some lawyers will do their best to get you a settlement, demanding an advance fee before they pick up a pen. However, that settlement will probably be a 20 percent discount on your next Franklin Mint purchase and no shipping charges. But any attorney I know will tell you that you don’t have a chance in China for recovery.

In 1984, I purchased a die-cast, 1935 Mercedes Benz 500K Roadster from the Franklin Mint and sent them a check for $150. Although it was “to scale, “ it was made in China, poorly and cheaply constructed; parts and pieces would fall off, and when the Mint wouldn’t return my money, I tossed the Benz in the garbage. They also make limited edition plates, knives for collectors, figurines, Star Trek plaques and other ridiculous collectibles. One of the Mint’s biggest coups a dozen years ago was the sale of millions of dollars of collectible plates, jewelry and dolls with the image and likeness of Diana, Princess of Wales. Today, that stuff isn’t worth a penny, shilling or pound. You gotta be careful out there.

You overpaid for those coins by orders of magnitude. And you probably paid five or six times the value of the silver content for the silver coins you purchased. So while sliver has tripled in price since 1984, the silver value of those coins is still way less than your cost. I don’t know of a single item produced by the Franklin Mint that can be sold today for its original cost. The Franklin Mint, like the Danbury Mint, the Washington Mint and others with grand-sounding names are selling organizations that place full-page, impressive and official-looking advertisements in local papers with high-sounding words that give the impression of U.S. government affiliation. (It’s disappointing that some newspapers accept those advertisements because the acceptance gives instant credibility to those claims.) The advertisements always are carefully prepared with clever buzzwords designed to infer great value and urgency but grossly misleading to most readers who lack the knowledge to make an intelligent buying decision.

DA, you’ve been snookered, and there’s no chance for recovery. However, I suggest that you separate the silver content coins from the hundreds of medallions and other junk coins and visit the coin dealers once again. But be mindful that most of those dealers will try to swindle you. They recognize you’ve been swindled before (they know this is Franklin Mint stuff) so they figure you are an easy mark. You may have to wear out a lot of shoe leather till you find a dealer who is willing to give you a fair shake. Then try to sell the worthless coins on eBay, and you might get 100 bucks.

Okay, I've composed myself and am going to stop being so mean to the letter writer. After all, he or she really isn't any different than people who bought houses at the peak of the housing bubble because they believed the shysters who told them that home prices only go up, or people who have been furiously pumping their money into their 401(k) accounts and continue to do so even though they have seen little in the way of real returns these past 12 years and have actually lost a huge amount of their nest eggs due to inflation, or really anyone who falls for any of the countless scams being perpetrated by corporate America these days--fleecing their customers in pursuit of ever larger profit margins. Our whole "free market" economy has become one big swindle. The letter writer in this case just got taken a little easier than most people do.


Bonus: The letter writer would have been far better off investing in the New Pornographers' most recent CD

Oregon Court System Braces For Additional Layoffs

If you are a career criminal, you might want to consider relocating to the Great State of Oregon. Not only is the Beaver state closing prisons, and thinking about halting death investigations, but it is also experiencing mass layoffs in its court system. Here is the StatesmenJournal.com with the details:

Lines for services at Oregon courthouses could get longer as the court system moves ahead with elimination of 95 full-time positions by May 1.

The Oregonian reports the layoffs will mean fewer employees to accept payments for tickets, answer questions, pull files from archives and staff courtrooms.

The latest staff cutbacks will mean the loss of 296 positions since 2009, a 17 percent decrease, and it’s causing concern for the Oregon Judicial Department.

“People come to courts with life-changing problems: They’re accused of crimes. They might lose their homes. They’re being harassed or stalked,” said Phil Lemman, a department spokesman. “The more you scrimp and save on justice, (the more) philosophically troubling.”

Some positions were vacant as administrators anticipated budget problems, but dozens of current employees are expected to be laid off.

The operations budget for the Judicial Department was $243 million for 2007-09 and dropped to about $241 million for 2011-13.

The overall department budget increased from $372 million to $424 million in 2011-13. However, much of the increase goes for judges’ salaries, which are protected in statute at $114,468 a year, plus courthouse security, law libraries and Oregon eCourt, a web-based court document system predicted to eventually cut staff time and save money.

Chief Justice Paul De Muniz, the administrative head for the Judicial Department, said employee cuts follow years of searching for efficiencies, such as cutting travel and education.

State courts will be closed nine days over the two-year budget cycle that ends in June 2013. Also, employees will be required to take up to five additional days off without pay.

Doug Bray, trial court administrator in Multnomah County Circuit Court, said the cutbacks are the worst he’s seen.

“This is a huge shock wave for the court,” he said. “It is an enormous organizational change.”

Yet another example of the slow collapse of the American criminal justice system.


Bonus: Just for you, Oregon, another sweet, sad song from Portland's very own indie rock masters, Typhoon

Budget Cuts May Kill Death Investigations In Lane County (Oregon)

Thanks to reader Raeven at Silent Country for alerting me to this story.

The implications of this story are rather frightening. Here is the the Eugene Register Guard with the details:

The latest round of Lane County government budget cuts may kill a vital local service: death investigations.

Autopsies and signed death certificates also will be casualties, Oregon’s deputy state medical examiner for Lane County warned in an e-mail to area health care, mortuary and public safety agencies.

Because of staff cuts, come May 20 there will be no medical death investigators to respond to local reports of accidental, suspicious or unexplained deaths, the deputy medical examiner, forensic pathologist Dr. Dan Davis, wrote in the letter earlier this month.

Without such investigations and a morgue in which to perform autopsies, he will be unable to determine death causes and sign death certificates, he wrote. This will complicate far more deaths than the handful each year investigated because of crashes, homicides or suspected foul play, he and others said.

In a given year, the Lane County Medical Examiner’s Office investigates about 1,000 deaths — some merely because the person died of undetermined causes while not under a doctor’s care.

Without death certificates, burials and cremations cannot occur, and estates cannot be settled. The investigators’ absence will create an “ongoing local disaster” for area hospitals, nursing homes, paramedics, police, mortuaries and “most significantly, the citizens of Lane County,” Davis wrote.

Jobs in the medical examiner’s office are just a few of the many county government positions slated for cutting this spring in a financial crunch brought on by rising personnel costs and what is likely to be a steep reduction in so-called timber payments from the federal government. Also on the chopping block are lawyers and support staff in the district attorney’s office, sheriff’s patrols and jail staff, and animal services — although the job eliminations have not yet been carried out and officials are scrambling for alternatives.

Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner confirmed this week that he has notified two full-time and five part-time medical death investigators that they will lose their jobs after his office stops funding their work effective May 19. Collectively, those employees provide 24/7 response to accidental, homicidal, suspicious or unexplained deaths.

The DA’s office also will stop funding the part-time morgue attendant and supplies needed for Davis to perform autopsies in a basement room of Sacred Heart Medical Center, University District.

The meaning of this story ought to be pretty clear--the American criminal justice system is on the verge of beginning to break down due to decreasing resources. Prepare accordingly.


Bonus: "Go ahead, and give it to me"

Drug War FAIL: Cocaine Is Cheaper Than Ever

If one of the goals of the asinine war on drugs is to make them less available to users, then this is yet another example that it has been a dismal failure. Here is Slate with the details:

In laying out an argument for drug legalization in his Washington Post column Tuesday, George Will notes that the price of cocaine has dropped between 80 and 90 percent over the last three decades. Why has coke gotten so cheap?

Economies of scale. Cocaine prices are indeed much lower than they were in the early 1980s, but that’s mostly because of a precipitous change in the drug market during the Reagan era. Until then, cocaine was a small-time business, with coca leaves’ being processed in the basements of rickety houses in Colombian suburbs. Trafficking was a usually one- or two-man operation. In their early days, even legendary drug kingpins like Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers had to smuggle their cocaine out of the country in their own suitcases. With the surge in demand that began at the end of the 1970s, however, the kingpins built out their empires, modernizing processing, transport, and retail networks, and managed to lower prices by more than 60 percent over the next 10 years.

It took traffickers a little while to ramp up production at first. Within two or three years, many owned small planes that could transport a metric ton of cocaine in a single shipment. (You can’t fit much more than 50 kilograms of cocaine in a suitcase.) By the end of the 1980s, cocaine was traveling on submarines and cargo ships, too. Kingpins owned sprawling processing complexes that employed hundreds of workers and could churn out several tons of cocaine per week. They concocted clever risk-spreading mechanisms. Multiple producers broke their shipment into segments and pooled them together, so that a single interdiction couldn’t deliver a devastating economic blow to any one of them. Escobar offered insurance to smaller traffickers: For a 10 percent fee, he would replace any seized drug shipments. All of these moves drove down the cost of delivering drugs to the market, and the drug lords passed those savings on to the consumer.

Since then, the price has dropped more slowly, down to approximately $140 for a gram of pure cocaine in 2007. (That’s almost 80 percent less than it cost in 1982.) Some of the continued decline is attributable to increased production and softening demand, but a large component likely has to do with changes on the retail end. According to figures compiled by Jonathan P. Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University and Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, around 33 percent of the price of cocaine went toward compensating smugglers and dealers for the risk of violence in 1990. Gun violence is way down since that time, so dealers likely aren’t demanding the same risk premium. (The recent surge in violence in Mexico, however, may have partially offset this trend on the smuggling side.) Technology has also contributed to the labor savings. Dealers used to have to stand on street corners hoping to make a deal. Today, they arrange their transactions in advance using cellphones. That innovation enables them to make more sales per day, and reduces their exposure to violence and arrest. Another factor is that people who have been arrested a few times for dealing have a hard time finding other work. After 30 years of widespread arrests, incarcerations, and releases, there may be a surplus of labor in the drug industry.

It should be noted that enforcement of drug laws has added substantially to the cost of street drugs, but those increases haven’t been enough to outpace efficiency gains in the industry.

Aside from the libertarian argument that what any adult chooses to ingest into their own body in the privacy of their own home should be their own damn business and no one else's, the war on drugs should be halted because of its sheer stupidity. As long as there is big money to be made by the contractors that support the war and drug companies that would lose sales if they had to compete with narcotics currently illegal narcotocs, however, that is unlikely to happen.


Bonus: Sing it, J.J.

Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright (Kentucky) Closing, 170 Jobs Lost

This is yet another story that leaves me torn. On the one hand, I am sad to see people losing their jobs. On the other hand I'm thrilled to see a private, for-profit prison shutting down. Here is a local Kentucky television station with the details:

Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright will be shutting its doors at the end of June.

Officials say with capacity being added at other facilities in Kentucky, the state did not feel the need to continue using Otter Creek and did not renew its contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

"The department did not have a need for the continuation of that contract beyond its current term," said CCA spokesperson Steve Owen.

More than 170 people from the Wheelwright area work there, but after June 30 they will no longer have jobs.

"A lot of them live within the city and a lot of them live in the community, you know. We're a tight knit community around here," said Wheelwright Mayor Andy Akers.

"We are preparing our employees for the fact that at the end of June we will not have a population in that facility, and so we want to work very closely to take care of them," said Owen.

He said if those employees are willing CCA will try to help them relocate to other facilities in the state and across the country.

Mayor Akers says the prison's closing could be devastating to the local businesses, and Wheelwright's economy could suffer.

"If you don't have jobs you can't spend money at them. Money keeps rolling over and over when you spend it," said Akers.

Hats off to Mayor Akers for grasping what so few economists, politicians and corporate "leaders" in American seem to understand these days.


Bonus: Prison song

Whistleblower Accuses IT Giant Of Immigration Fraud

It's bad enough that American jobs are being shipped overseas because of globalization. It's even worse when cheap foreign labor is being imported into the United States with the complicity of the federal government. Here is CBS News with the details:

We've all had this happen: you call an American company's 800 number for help, and end up talking to someone in a foreign country. It's called outsourcing. American firms do it because foreign labor can be cheaper.

But now, one company is being accused of bringing those lower-paid workers to the U.S. illegally and that may be costing Americans jobs.

The allegations are the subject of a federal probe and CBS News has been investigating this story for months. The allegations have been made against a giant Indian information technology firm called Infosys. The charges are coming from inside the company, from an employee who has never spoken publicly before.

Jay Palmer is a principal consultant at the company called Infosys. He is also the whistleblower whose charges sparked the federal investigation. Palmer says Infosys, the global high-tech giant, engaged in a systematic practice of visa fraud, a charge the company denies.

Palmer said the first thing to catch his attention was an employee that had been in the U.S. from India several times before.

"He came up to me and he was literally in tears," Palmer said. "He told me he was over here illegally and he didn't wanna be here. He was worried that he would get caught."

Palmer says he began digging into how and why Infosys seemed to be bringing in large numbers of workers from its corporate headquarters in Bangalore, India, into the U.S.

Palmer says at first, most came over on H-1B visas. These visas are for people with specialized talents or a level of technical ability that can't be found among American workers.

When asked if all the people had some special expertise that couldn't be found in the U.S., Palmer said, "Absolutely not. Not even close. Many of them is what we call freshers. People that would just come over, whoever they could get to come over. Whoever got accepted for a visa."

Many of the people brought in, in fact, didn't know what they were doing at all, Palmer said. "There was not a project or program that I was involved in that we did not remove somebody because they had no knowledge of what they were doing," he said.

So then what's the motive to bring them in? You could hire an American who is trained in that particular discipline and do better.

Palmer said, "It's purely profit."

Palmer says the Indian workers on his team were paid substantially less than an American would have made in the same job.

When the U.S. State Department began to limit the number of H-1B visas, Palmer says Infosys began using another type of visa, the B-1. The B-1 is meant for employees who are traveling to consult with associates, attend training or a convention. But Palmer says the employees were brought in not for meetings, but for full time jobs.

Palmer said the jobs were in "Everything from coding software to testing software to fixing software to installing."

So why would Infosys do this? And what advantage did it give them in the marketplace?

Palmer said, "They could outbid everybody or underbid everybody on every contract (because they were paying less.) For example...if I'm gonna pay you $15,000 a year why would I pay an American or a legal worker $65,000 a year? It makes no - it's just economics."

And Palmer says the B-1 workers never paid U.S. taxes because they received their salaries from India.

"They're basically a lot of times being paid on a cash card or a debit card where money was put in their account," Palmer said. "And the fact is, is they're just taking that money out and they're never paying U.S. taxes."

Infosys may not be a household name to many Americans, but in the technology business, the company is a powerhouse. It is one of the biggest consulting firms in the world with more than $6 billion in revenues last year alone, and 145,000 employees in 32 countries. But the bulk of its business comes from the U.S., re-engineering the computer systems of some of the biggest names in corporate America.

Federal officials say Infosys employees have 6,000 B-1 visas good for 10 years. Palmer says if just half of those employees were working on U.S. soil that would earn the company more than $150 million a year more than if they paid Americans the prevailing wage.

Infosys declined CBS News' repeated requests for an on-camera interview with a company executive or with chief executive officer and chairman S.D. Shibulal. But the company's chief financial officer, V. Balakrishnan, has denied the charges on Indian television, saying, "I think we are very clear that we have not violated any of the rules. We believe we have a strong case."

Infosys did give CBS News a statement saying, in part, "Any allegation or assertion that there is or was a corporate practice of evading the law in conjunction with the B-1 visa program is simply not accurate, and we will vigorously defend the company against any false allegation to that effect."

But one of Palmer's most serious allegations is that top company executives not only knew of the alleged fraud, but wanted to expand on it to increase profits. Palmer says during a 2010 meeting at Infosys' corporate headquarters in Bangalore the practice was discussed with a group of executives, including a senior vice president.

Palmer told CBS News, "There was some conversations about how to increase the share price, which is - in America is the stock price. So it's really about getting people over no matter what the cost or whatever. And you know, I think that's the first time I heard the term, you know, 'Americans are stupid.'"

If Palmer is telling the truth here, and I am inclined to believe that he is because as a whistleblower against a multi-national corporation he is the one who has placed his ass on the line, that assessment is absolutely correct, Americans ARE stupid. Forget for a moment whether or not Infosys is committing visa fraud. If they are, the company should obviously be vigorously prosecuted. What's even more outrageous is that at a time of record high unemployment, the U.S. government agreed to grant 6,000 visas for Infosys employees to come to work in the U.S. in the first place.

Does anyone still need to be shown a more glaring example of how the federal government now represents the interests of multinational corporations over those of the American people? There is NO justification for the U.S. to be importing cheap foreign labor, even if it was being done legally, when so many people are struggling to find work. It is all being done in the name of globalization, which was always a scam to enrich the elites at the expense of everybody else. We can only hope that these outrageous charges will be thoroughly investigated and the vigorously prosecuted if found to be accurate. But I'm not holding my breath on that last point.


Bonus: But don't worry, President Hopey-Changey feels your pain...he really does

Penn State Economists: Walmart Breeds Hate Groups

Regular readers will know that my sheer loathing for the predatory Walmart corporation knows few bounds. That said, even I had to laugh at the truly daffy conclusions reached by a report that appeared this week in Social Science Quarterly. Raw Story has the details:

The more Wal-Mart stores a county has, the more likely it is to have active hate groups in the area, according to Penn State economists.

“Wal-Mart has clearly done good things in these communities, especially in terms of lowering prices,” Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural economics and regional economics, explained. “But there may be indirect costs that are not as obvious as other effects.”

The study, published in Social Science Quarterly, found that the number of Wal-Mart stores was a better predictor of hate group participation than the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education.

There were 1,018 active hate groups in the United States in 2011, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, up from 1,002 in 2010.

The researchers believe that the correlation between Wal-Mart and hate groups exists because of breakdown of the community. Small local businesses are more likely to be members of civic groups and involved in the community. They are also more likely to have closer relationships among their employees.

“While we like to think of American society as being largely classless, merchants and bankers are part of what we could call a leadership class in a community,” Goetz said.

In contrast, people are more likely to feel alienated by big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, the researchers explained.

Hoo-boy, where to start on this one. Stretch Armstrong would have a hard time wrapping his arms around these findings. While the argument can certainly be made that big box stores have caused breakdowns in communities and lead to alienation among shoppers, asserting that they cause people to be more likely to join hate groups is a leap wider than the one Evel Knieval tried to make over the Snake River Canyon. Confusing association with causation is a basic logical fallacy, of course, and one you would think a couple of Penn State economists would scrupulously try to avoid.

There are a number of plausible reasons, in fact, why there might tend to be more hate groups in areas where there are more Walmarts that have nothing whatsoever to do with the company itself. One that I can think of right off the top of my head is that Walmarts predominate in smaller towns and cities that are usually less multicultural than the larger cities, and thus people who live there have far less exposure to those of other races, religions or national origin. People who live in such regions also tend to have less formal education on average because, as in my own case in having to leave my hometown for good after I graduated from college, there are far fewer white collar career opportunities available. Additionally, people living in such areas usually earn far less money and are less financially secure, which can cause them to look for scapegoats to blame for the dissatisfaction they feel in their own lives (though I would note that Walmart IS a factor in driving wages down, which directly contradicts the assertion made by Stephan Goetz above that Walmart's lower prices are a GOOD thing for these communities).

I think even the authors of this study realize that they are on shaky ground, because they qualified their conclusions with this statement:

“We’re not trying to pick on Wal-Mart,” said Goetz. “In this study, Wal-Mart is really serving as a proxy for any type of large retailer.”

“We doubt strongly that Wal-Mart intends to create such effects or that it specifically seeks to locate in places where hate groups form,” the researchers said.

What a relief it is that they only "doubt strongly" that Walmart is INTENTIONALLY responsible for their conclusions. Glad to know the billionaire members of the Walton clan don't secretly have Ku Klux Klan robes or SS Stormtrooper outfits tucked away in the back of their bedroom closets. Well, maybe. After all, the researchers didn't actually say they were willing to rule it out 100%.


Bonus: "I know politics bore you, but I feel like a hypocrite talking to you...and your racist friend"

Ha-Ha! Law Firm Sues Wells Fargo After Falling For Nigerian Wire Fraud Scam

This story really made my day. Here is the Minneapolis-St.Paul Business Journal with the details:

An Edina law firm that lost nearly $400,000 in a Nigerian wire-fraud scam is claiming that Wells Fargo, which handled the fund transfers, should cover its losses.

The Star Tribune reports on the lawsuit by Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, which three years ago received an e-mail from someone purporting to be a Korean woman who needed the firm's help to collect a settlement. You can probably see where this is going: When the dust settled, Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz was a lot poorer. It has parallels — down to the account numbers involved — to a investigation into a Nigerian fraud ring that targeted law firms; two people have been indicted in that investigation.

In his suit, Robert Milavetz argues that Wells Fargo & Co. should have recognized the red flags involved — a counterfeit check used in the scam had the bank's address spelled wrong, he claims. The suit also says the bank told the firm the check had cleared, only to later say it hadn't, really — but the firm had already wired the money away by that point. Wells Fargo said it will defend itself in the case.

Gee, you hardly know who to root for in this case. I guess the best outcome would be a long, drawn out court case that costs both concerns a shit pot load of money.


Bonus: What the heck, how about a song from an album that was actually recorded in Lagos

Patient Says Fix-a-Flat, 'Toxic Tush' Butt Injections Ruined Her Life

image: trust me, I'm a doctor. Don't you see my white lab coat?

Good morning. It's not just Sunday but Easter Sunday, meaning that the blog traffic will almost certainly take a double hit today in terms of page views. So I beg your kind indulgence if instead of my usual from-the-wilderness rant about America's hopeless economic, political and energy predicaments, I indulge in a topic that's a bit more humorous. At first glance, this article from a local Florida television station appears to be one of those run-of-the-mill, "Gawd, how can people be so STOOPID" stories the media never seems to tire of running. But if you scratch beneath the surface, there is something else going on here that is frankly illustrative of where we are headed as a nation:

A Tampa woman claims a fake plastic surgeon ruined her life after injecting her buttocks with fix-a-flat and cement.

Patients of Oneal Ron Morris, known to them as "Goddess", claim the woman said she worked for a plastic surgeon and knew how to perform procedures like butt injections.

Some of you may remember when the original arrest happened in this case a few months ago because it got a lot of media play at the time. If so, I'm sure you were probably wondering like I was how anyone could be so dimwitted as to allow their ass cheeks be injected with fix-a-flat and cement. Well, now we know the answer:

"She had a white coat on and a little badge, so I felt comfortable with it," the woman said.

Okay, I'll admit that I laughed when I read that. It's hard not to. But then it got me to thinking about how what this unfortunate woman really did was put her blind faith into someone she thought was an authority figure. Is that really any different than what a majority of her fellow citizens do every single day, innocently trusting that the politicians, the government, the corporations, the big banks, their stock brokers and the media have their best interests at heart? I really don't think so.

The article then goes on to describe what caused the desperation of the victim in this case:

The woman, who doesn't want to be identified, lost her job as a mortgage broker when the market crashed and started dancing at strip clubs to make quick cash. She soon learned a bigger backside would boost her business...

If you think about it, the fact that someone who was educated enough to be able to work as a mortgage broker could subsequently do something this breathtakingly dumb explains an awful lot about the housing bubble. And when the bubble finally popped she then turned to a far more desperate measure to try and maintain her lifestyle. There was only one little problem with her brillant idea to enhance her revenues from stripping:

...but when she went to see a doctor, he quoted her $5,000 for the procedure. Morris, she says, would do it for just $1,500 at her apartment.

"She said it was 100% silicone," the woman said of the substance Morris kept in a Pedialyte bottle.

Okay, five grand is not an insubstantial amount, but it doesn't seem like it would take that long to save up for it. But the idea of saving up for something you really want is an anathema to most people in Spoiled Rotten Nation. So instead she decided to take a very risky shortcut. Again, it was a decision not that much different that those who run up massive credit card debts to buy what they want NOW, with no thought about how it will cripple them financially in the future.

Like those people who binge with the credit cards, at first it seemed like a great thing that she saved all of that money on a real plastic surgeon, until reality began to set in:

Immediately after the injections she and four others underwent in 2009, the woman says she was pleased.

She raked in thousands of dollars more at work, and liked the way her backside looked.

But within six months, she started coughing. That turned into pneumonia. When doctors tested fluid in her buttocks, she says she learned the "100% silicone" was 100% something else.

"It came back as bathroom caulking," she said. "You would put a substance in me to kill me? It's not fair to me."

She claims Morris, now facing several more charges of practicing medicine without a license, used super glue on her during the procedure.

"It's to block the holes so the medicine doesn't come back out," she remembered Morris explain. "I said, 'Why is it burning like that?' She said, 'That's just the medicine. That's how the medicine feels. It's normal.'"

In addition to pneumonia, she had discoloration of the skin and a rear-end she describes as "rock hard".

And ultimately, her fate is not that much different from those who run up their credit card bills:

Unable to work, or barely sit anymore, she relies on food stamps, her house facing foreclosure.

She still has the fix-a-flat injection in her because, she says, her case never reached a severe enough level for insurance to consider it anything but elective reconstructive surgery.

Most people who read this story will just laugh at this woman's stupidity, confident that such a thing could never happen to them because they are way too smart to ever be taken in by such a huckster. Instead, they will go on trusting that their stock portfolio is a sound investment, that their employer will never renege on their pension, that their savings account at Bank Of America is perfectly safe, that Social Security will be there for them when they retire, that the media cannot report a story if it isn't true, that the government would never manipulate economic indicators, that billionaires really are job creators, that wars of choice are necessary for the nation's "defense," that either Obama or Romney will keep all of his campaign promises and that America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen and nothing could ever possibly cause its downfall.

The Latest Trend in Metal Thefts: Truck Tailgates

As I have posted here before, metal thefts, especially copper, have been an epidemic even since the beginning of the Great Recession back in 2008 as desperate people do whatever they can to raise cash. Now there is an alarming new angle to this problem, as reported by AOL Autos (warning, annoying slideshow format):

Thieves, especially in a tough economy and high unemployment, have been known to steal seemingly odd things that most people wouldn't think had much value. But the thieves know different. Among the vulnerable: copper pipes from building and vacant condos; freshly planted landscaping; plumbing fixtures from vacant condos. Now you can add tailgates from pickup trucks. Huh?

That's right. Law enforcement in at least eight states this year have been reporting rashes of tailgate thefts. Unlike the stuff you might leave on the seat of your truck, the tailgates are not protected by locks or barriers such as windows. Thieves have become adept at wrenching the tailgates, as well as pricey accessories, off the truck.

What's the take? Tailgates, depending on the model of pickup can sell for between $1,000 and $4,000 on Craigslist.com or out of black-market parts shops. Thieves often sell them for much less, but they can cost that much for the victim to replace through legal means.

Recently, criminals have been targeting truck tailgates across the country. In Marple Newton, PA, a truck tailgate was reported stolen from a local school's bus garage parking lot. Similar thefts have occurred everywhere from Georgia to California in recent weeks.

In Spring, Texas, authorities caught up with a man who specializes in selling tailgates on Craigslist.com. It was pretty obvious that the man, actually advertising himself as "Mr. Tailgate," was dealing in stolen tailgates when one of his victims was looking for a replacement, and spied the perfect tailgate on the classifieds website: it was his own! The thief-turned tailgate seller was lured to a parking lot by authorities where he as apprehended trying to sell the tailgate back to its rightful owner for $350.00.

Harris County Texas authorities had received numerous complaints about heisted tailgates before hitting on "Mr. Tailgate," identified as 35-year old Noel Cabello of Spring. Local deputies later searched the suspect's garage and found some 24 tailgates with a combined retail value of at least $50,000.

Police around the country are warning truck drivers about the rise in tailgate theft and some recommend locking tailgates after hours.

According to police in Oswego, Illinois, six tailgates were stolen from Ford pickups between May 2 and Oct. 14 of last year. Two tailgates were taken off Ford F250s, three from Ford F350s and one from a Ford F450. None of the trucks was more than three years old. One of the tailgates had a rearview camera installed on it, police said.

Anyway, a word to the wise for any of my readers who own or drive pickup trucks.


Bonus: A appropriate track from the dawn of electronica

Austerity Porn: Feds Consider Closing 60 Court Facilities In 29 States

Let's be clear about something right up front. Despite the deficit reduction deal agreed to by our great and glorious "leaders" this past summer, the federal government has yet to meaningfully reduce its spending. The total number of cuts to date scarcely even represent a rounding error on the deficit, let alone the overall budget. Keep that in mind as you read the excerpt from this story that appeared last week in Newsmax:

The federal government is considering closing dozens of courtrooms across the country, many located in small, rural communities, as part of an effort to cut costs.

The Associated Press obtained documents showing that 60 federal court facilities in 29 states could be on the chopping block. Most of the courtrooms are in buildings that house other federal agencies including in post offices and many are located in remote areas. Critics say closing them could make it more difficult for people to get to court proceedings.

Six of the 60 court sites that could be closed are located in Arkansas. Texas and Georgia have five courts each on the list of possible closures. Officials are even considering shuttering the location where judges hold federal court in Alaska's capital city, Juneau.

There are 674 federal courthouses and facilities around the country, according to David Sellers, a federal courts spokesman. The 60 sites being considered for closure do not have a resident judge. Instead, judges based in larger cities travel to these smaller locations as needed.

As I said, this action is NOT the result of actual budget cutting:

"The federal judiciary is going through an aggressive cost containment effort because the money Congress has provided for the operating expenses for the courts has been essentially frozen the last three years," Sellers said in an email.

That's right, the budget for the federal courts has been FROZEN, not cut. What that tells you is there is increasing cost pressure. What's more, that increasing cost pressure is likely due largely to increased energy costs as the salaries for federal employees have essentially also been frozen the past two years.

So what is going to happen when the federal government DOES finally have to start wielding the budgetary axe as the reality of our out-of-control deficit spending hits home? I don't think it really strains the imagination.


Bonus: A little courtroom humor

The “Gun Nuts” Finally Went Too Far

Let me start off this post by reassuring my readers that I am neither a gun control advocate, nor do I hold any animosity towards people who feel they need a gun (or several) for their personal protection. Given that the main theme here at TDS is the likelihood of economic collapse, which by definition would include a collapse of law and order, it would be silly for me to advocate any attempt to restrict the rights of responsible, law abiding citizens to own guns. I’ve handled and fired about every type of firearm there is, from revolvers, Colt .45’s and 9mm semi-automatics to shotguns and even M16A1 rifles for the U.S. Army. To me, a gun is a tool that can be used for good or bad, but anyone who owns one has an obligation to train themselves to the point where they don’t become a danger to themselves or others while using it.

Having dispensed with the disclaimers, let me also define what I mean by the phrase, “gun nut.” A gun nut is not synonymous with someone who is lawfully allowed to own and carry firearms. A gun nut is instead an unbalanced individual who, rather than dispassionately looking at guns as a tool to be handled responsibly and carefully, loves them a little TOO much. I’ve had the unfortunate experience to be around people like that and frankly they scare me. They are the people for whom gun ownership is a fetish akin to a fundamentalist religion, and are also the ones who give gun owners in general a bad name among those who don’t like guns or would like to see them banned.

Obviously, I don’t know George Zimmerman and have never met him. Yet I think it is safe to say from the evidence released to date of how he took it upon himself to accost Trayvon Martin, who was doing nothing more sinister than walking alone along a public thoroughfare, and then shoot him down that Zimmerman had an extremely unhealthy attraction to the power that carrying a handgun seemingly bestowed upon him to uphold his twisted view of “law and order.” Yes, Zimmerman's lawyer now claims that the shooter was injured during his confrontation with Martin. Doesn't matter. Zimmerman was the aggressor, even after being told by a 911 operator to stand down, and the unarmed Martin is dead as a result.

But I’m not writing this post to rehash the facts of the case against Zimmerman, or to speculate whether the shooting was racially motivated. That is being done in plenty of other quarters. Instead, I’d like to point the finger of blame at those individuals, even though they may not have actually pulled trigger, who are at least partially responsible for creating the conditions that led to young Martin’s death: the gun nuts who pushed for passage of Florida’s insane “stand your ground” law.

Just for the record, the law states that any individual who is in a place where he/she has a legal right to be, and who is “not engaged in an unlawful activity...has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” It does sound reasonable at first glance, as many awful laws do when reduced down to legalese, but there’s a hole in there that you can drive truck through. Very simply, how in the hell can anyone determine whether a shooter acted properly if there are no eyewitnesses to what happened? Simply put, this is a license to commit cold blooded murder, just so long as you can ensure no one is around who can contradict your story. Heck, maybe you can even shoot the witnesses and claim they were attacking you was well.

The brilliant legislative minds who sponsored the Florida law are now backtracking by trying to claim that it does not in fact immunize George Zimmerman and that he should be prosecuted. To which I would very pointedly reply: bullshit. If Zimmerman is successfully prosecuted in this case, it will only be because there was enough evidence subsequently collected to demonstrate that he initiated the confrontation which ended in Trayvon Martin’s death. But the fact remains that the local police who responded to the shooting were so confident that Zimmerman was within his rights under the law that they did not even arrest him or initially make any attempt to verify his version of what happened. Had Zimmerman not had the “bad luck” to shoot a “good kid” instead of a gangbanger under the exact same circumstances, a kid whose family is now rightfully demanding that justice be served, this marauding thug would have literally gotten away with murder. Moreover, had the police not felt they were handcuffed by the law, instead arresting Zimmerman and conducting a thorough investigation, this likely would have remained a local (if still regrettable) story.

So who was responsible for lobbying to push through this hideous abomination of a law? Why, the National Rifle Association, of course. Specifically, it was NRA lobbyist Marion P. Hammer, whom you can read more about at this link. Hammer appears to be living proof an old saying of mine, which is that there is nothing worse than a zealot, even if you happen to agree with whatever it is they are zealous about. In fairness to Hammer, she is hardly the only one, and the NRA has been pushing for the passage of such laws all over the country.

Again, I’m not criticizing the NRA because it is pro-gun ownership. I’m criticizing it because it is yet another out-of-control lobbying group that uses scare tactics to raise money from its membership while pushing a radical, self-interested agenda greatly detrimental to the common good. Which is pretty much par for the course among lobbyists in Washington these days.

The NRA’s biggest problem is that it has been TOO successful. Except for a few minor setbacks such as the Brady Law and the assault weapons ban, the political climate in America these past 30 years has been squarely in favor of the gun lobby. You would think the NRA would acknowledge this fact and pop the cork on some expensive champagne in celebration. But no, that’s not what keeps those many millions of dollars in membership contributions coming in. Instead, you have to rile up your members, get them thinking that the evil, dark skinned socialist commie in White House is personally coming over to their house to confiscate their weapons cache despite the fact that Obama has scarcely lifted a finger to curtail gun ownership. We’ll fight Obama and his gun confiscating minions for you, just be sure to send in that nice, fat check.

But what can NRA lobbyists do when the politicians have become so cowed that there is no longer any realistic threat of serious gun control legislation being enacted? After all, they’ve grown accustomed to the cushy perks and expense accounts that come with their responsibility to wine and dine legislators. If there no longer is any realistic legislative threat to gun ownership anymore, they might just be out of a job. So instead they look around for ways to pass laws enhancing the rights of gun owners. And with each success, they become more emboldened and cocksure. Until before you know it they are pushing for extreme measures like the “stand your ground” law.

Only this time, it looks like the gun lobby finally went too far. Popular revulsion against the shooting of Trayvon Martin is mounting quickly, and may represent the NRA’s “Rush Limbaugh” moment, in which average citizens who don’t give a damn about guns laws one way or the other finally wake up recognize what a hideous, bullying, out-of-control beast the gun lobby has become. Responsible gun owners would be well advised to get out in front on this issue and support repeal of “stand your ground” laws wherever they have been enacted. It would be a great way to separate those law abiding citizens who own guns and respect the awful power they have from the gun nuts who give gun ownership a bad name.


Bonus: A song about a justifiable self-defense shooting that didn't need a stand your ground law.

See your reflection in the blue steel
and it's too late to run
The romance was gone with that first bruise
See cupid don't shoot arrows out the barrel of a gun
and love don't make the ten o'clock news

Medicare Cracks Down On Power Wheelchair Claim Fraud

You can hardly leave the house these days without seeing someone riding around on one of those power wheelchairs. And if it seems like some of the people using them don't really need them and should be up and walking around, there might just be a very good reason for that. Here is the Tampa Bay Times with the story:

Whether covered by insurance or not, many Americans have power wheelchairs and scooters, as anyone visiting a supermarket or shopping mall can attest.

Now Medicare says it has been spending far too much on them, and Florida is one of the first states where the agency is cracking down.

In 2009, the most recent year for which figures were available, Medicare spent $723 million on power wheelchairs and scooters. And after a study, the agency estimated that at least 60 percent of claims were paid despite shoddy paperwork or were for devices that the recipient didn't need.

So just how bad is this form of Medicare fraud?

How much is Medicare losing? A review of power wheelchair claims for the first part of 2007 found that more than half of $189 million in claims were medically unnecessary or so poorly documented it was impossible to tell whether they were needed, resulting in $95 million in improper payments.

But beyond scammers trying to rip off there government, there is a larger problem here:

Dr. William Quillen, who directs the University of South Florida's school of physical therapy and rehabilitation science, agrees that some people really do need these devices.

"But there are also people you see at Target, Walmart or the mall (using power devices), and there doesn't appear to be any readily apparent medical need," he said.

But if you're capable of rehabilitation, the longer you spend in a power chair makes it more likely you'll never get out of it.

"They lose muscle strength and gain weight," said Kavita Jain, a therapy team leader at the Florida Hospital rehab unit. "We view it as equipment of last resort."

Etman said she thinks some doctors don't want to lose a patient by taking a tough stand, and so they sign the prescription.

"But they don't realize that it's hindering the patient, not helping them," she said.

Quillen said patients often ask about power chairs and scooters.

"Our first line of response is, 'let's not get down that road until we complete your rehab,' " he said. "We're not going to throw in the towel."

Staying active is especially important for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

"It's kind of move it or lose it," said Dr. Richard Morrison, a Tampa heart surgeon. "We want them up and moving. If they stop that . . . (their) cardiovascular system isn't going to be in good shape."

Etman said she sometimes gets patients who have used a power chair for years.

"They hate us," she laughed. "We're trying to get them to where they can use a walker or a cane, or nothing, and they don't want to."

I really cannot fathom the mentality of a person who would rather be helplessly confined to a wheelchair rather than have the freedom to get up and walk around on their own. A few years ago, I suffered a total ACL tear and could not walk without crutches for about a month after the knee operation. Being essentially confined to my couch for all that time drove me absolutely stir crazy. I couldn't wait to get the physical therapy started so I could start moving around without assistance again.

The bottom line with this story is that you have several of the very worst traits of modern America all intertwined: corporate greed on the part of the companies that sell the chairs, an unaccountable big government program carelessly throwing taxpayer money away, and patients who have been conditioned to be lazy and helpless while expecting someone else to pick up the tab for their bloated medical expenses. It's upon reading stories like this one that you begin to realize just how traumatic collapse is eventually going to be for a very large percentage of the population.


Bonus: For anyone who doesn't realize that this band actually recorded more songs than just "Stuck in the Middle With You"

L.A. County Court System To Lay Off 350 Employees Due To Budget Cuts

Last October, I posted a story about overcrowded court systems suffering due to staffing cuts. Here comes the latest such tale of woe from the Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles County Superior Court system is expected to lay off about 350 employees in June and "restructure" more than 50 courtrooms because of deep cuts in funding by the state, according to a memo obtained Tuesday by The Times.

The latest reductions come after the court has already reduced staff by 500 -- or about 10% -- due to layoffs and attrition over the last two years.

More troubling was this quote:

"These changes will affect every judicial officer and staff member -- as well as the millions of attorneys and litigants who depend upon our courts to deliver justice," Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon and Executive Officer John A. Clarke wrote in the four-page memo. "Nonetheless, there is no escaping the fact that this next round of cuts will be the most significant event to happen in our court .... Never before has a budget crisis dealt so crippling a blow to our court."

A lot of people in the peak oil and "reality based" communities often ask when exactly collapse is going to come to America. Take this as yet another sign that collapse is already here--it's just happening in slow motion.


Bonus: "Next time you come into my courtroom, you will look lawyerly"

U.S. Prisons Are Becoming Old Age Homes

I am not one of those who is opposed to the death penalty as a matter of principle or moral conviction, but I do admit that the judicial system in the U.S. is so flawed that it cannot be trusted to wield the power of life and death. There have been too many instances since America resumed executing prisoners back in the late 1970s in which innocent people have ended up on death row, wrongly convicted because of incompetence or even corruption in the criminal justice system.

Those who are adamantly opposed to capital punishment, however, have never sufficiently answered the question of exactly what society SHOULD do with those who commit heinous crimes such as premeditated murder. Most would just say, give 'em "life" imprisonment, without stopping to think what that really means. For what exactly do you do with an aging prisoner who has been behind bars for half a century, whose health is failing and who is no longer a threat to anyone. Do you let them back out on the street where they likely have no remaining living relatives or friends, let alone any ability to care for themselves? It's a very tricky issue that is about to get trickier, as reported last week by Digital Journal:

A dramatic increase of aging prisoners in the United States is leaving prison officials stretched in providing proper housing and medical care, and now find themselves operating “old age homes behind bars,” a new report reveals.

Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States, (pdf), a 104-page report by Human Rights Watch, reveals that in just three years, between 2007 and 2010, federal and state prisoners age 65 or older grew 94 times the rate of the total U.S. prison population. The number of prisoners age 65 or older is now 26,200, an increase of 63 percent.

“Prisons were never designed to be geriatric facilities, said Jamie Fellner, senior adviser to the U.S. Program at HRW and author of the report, in a statement. “Yet US corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars.”

In U.S. state and federal prisons, the number of those incarcerated age 55 or older has nearly quadrupled between 1995 and 2010, a 282 percent spike, even as the total number of prisoners grew by 42 percent. There are now 124,400 prisoners age 55 or older.

According to the report, almost one in 10 state prisoners (9.6 percent) serves a life sentence. Additionally, 11.2 percent are serving sentences longer than 20 years.

The report notes that in New York, 28 percent of state prisoners age 60 or over have been in prison continuously for 20 or more years.

These long sentences mean many prisoners will be very old when leaving prison, if they leave at all.

The article doesn't explore the ramifications, but here is the biggest problem this situation is causing for the federal and state governments:

Medical expenses in relation to these aging populations are three to nine times higher, depending on the state, as for other prisoners. In Michigan, where the average annual health care cost for a prison inmate is estimated at $5,801, costs increase dramatically: from $11,000 for the 55-59 age group to $40,000 for those age 80 or older.

So, leaving aside any humanitarian concerns, the cost of housing a rapidly aging prison population is about to explode just at a time when the lingering affects of the Great Recession are decimating state budgets, yet it should be pretty clear that the solution is not to just dump these older convicts on the streets to fend for themselves. Ultimately, the routine imposition of long prison terms was yet another short-sighted public policy that has now left cash strapped prisons systems between a rock and a hard place...so to speak.


Bonus: I wanted to use the "Brooks Was Here" clip from The Shawshank Redemption for this piece, but it was "embedding disabled" on You Tube. So here is some more Social Distortion instead:

Houston Police Department Rape Kit Examination Backlog Hits 6,600

Here is another story about the effects that the slow collapse of the tax base of state and local governments is having on public safety and law enforcement. Click2 Houston.com has the rather scary details:

Since 2011, the Houston Police Department has faced mounting criticism over the thousands of untested rape kits sitting in evidence. Now, because of a recently completed audit, HPD knows exactly how big the problem is and just how much of a challenge the department still faces.

Last year, Local 2 Investigates was first to report on a massive back log of untested rape kits stored in the department's property room. These kits can contain vital pieces of evidence that can help catch and convict sexual predators and help rape survivors find justice.

Last year, HPD was one of only two police agencies in the country to be awarded a federal grant from the National Institute of Justice to conduct an audit as to exactly how many rape kits have been sitting in evidence untested. HPD officials told Local 2 that audit is complete.

HPD reported, as of Dec. 1, there are 6,663 untested rape kits stored in evidence. HPD officials said some of the untested kits date back to the 1980s.

"Rape kits have to be a No. 1 priority," said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union. "These kits have to be tested and they have to be tested quickly."

So how many other jurisdictions do you suppose are having this problem but haven't received federal grant money to do what they should be doing anyway...figuring out how big a problem they have?

As with so many other bad things happening in our economy these days, it all points back to declining revenues:

However, HPD officials said one of the biggest challenges will be finding the resources to tackle the backlog while at the same time handling an average of 930 new rape kits submitted to the department each year.

I'm sure the victims of these henious crimes will find plenty of cold comfort in that last statement.

Oregon Planning Prison Closures, Up to 400 Layoffs

Back on January 19th, in my post, "Endgame: Close the Prison, Kill the Town," I highlighted a story about the economic blow being dealt to the Sunshine State by the planned closings of a number of prisons. Now comes word from the Statesman Journal.com that the same thing is happening on the opposite coast in Oregon:

The Oregon Department of Corrections is considering closing multiple prisons in the state’s 14,000-inmate, 14-prison corrections system, going far beyond previously disclosed plans to shut down one Salem facility.

Corrections leaders have drawn up budget-cutting plans that call for scrapping 1,500 to 1,800 beds and laying off 350 to 400 employees.

New corrections director Colette Peters outlined the potential cuts — totaling $17.2 million — in an e-mail sent to all DOC employees late Friday.

The big reason for these cuts is not a drop in the crime rate so much as it is because of budget cuts. It is just too expensive to continue to house millions of people as wards of the state:

The prospect of additional prison closures is rippling fear and anxiety through the 4,000-employee corrections agency, which has a two-year budget of $1.3 billion.

The budget crunch puts Peters squarely on the hot seat. She recently took the reins as corrections chief, moving from her post as director of the Oregon Youth Authority, the juvenile corrections system.

In her note to DOC employees, Peters said she had hoped to send out an introductory message to all agency employees without budget information.

“Unfortunately, this cannot be the case and I want (to) share information with you, as we are midway through the 2012 Legislative Session,” she wrote.

The DOC faced a $100 million gap in its budget prior to the legislative session, Peters said.

Of course, changing our insane drug laws and decriminalizing the possession of cocaine and marijuana would be a great first step towards lowering the prison population. The states have been slowly coming to their senses on this issue of late, but the federal government, under Obama no less, has actually been cracking down on those efforts. From this story and others like it, it's pretty obvious that something will soon have to give before the prison-industrial complex bankrupts every state government around the country.


Bonus: There aren't a lot of cool rock songs out there about Oregon for some reason, but here's one

America's Most Miserable Cities, 2012

image: The Machesney Park Mall, Rockford, Illinois...yesterday and today

The new Forbes list of America's Most Miserable Cities is out. Here is Yahoo Real Estate with the details:

Miami is a playground for the rich and famous. Celebrities flock to parties at South Beach clubs and then return to their $10 million mansions in Miami Beach and Key Biscayne. It’s a leading city in culture, finance and international trade. But away from the glitz and glamor, many ordinary Miamians are struggling.

A crippling housing crisis has cost multitudes of residents their homes and jobs. The metro area has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country and workers face lengthy daily commutes. Add it all up and Miami takes the top spot in our ranking of America’s Most Miserable Cities.

The most famous way to gauge misery is the Misery Index developed by economist Arthur Okun in the 1960s, which combines unemployment and inflation. Our take on misery is based on the things that people complain about on a regular basis.

We looked at 10 factors for the 200 largest metro areas and divisions in the U.S. Some are serious, like violent crime, unemployment rates, foreclosures, taxes (income and property), home prices and political corruption. Other factors we included are less weighty, like commute times, weather and how the area’s pro sports teams did. While sports, commuting and weather can be considered trivial by many, they can be the determining factor in the level of misery for a significant number of people. One tweak to this year’s list: we swapped out sales tax rates for property tax rates. Miami would have finished No. 1 under the old methodology as well.

Miami has local company in misery on our list: the West Palm Beach metropolitan division ranks fourth and Fort Lauderdale is seventh. Both areas have been hit hard by the housing crises.

Michigan’s troubled duo of Detroit and Flint clock in at No. 2 and No. 3 among the most miserable cities. The cities have been reeling for decades due to the decline of the U.S. auto industry and in recent years have been demolishing houses to change their city landscapes. Detroit has closed schools and laid off police, while Michigan appointed an emergency manager last year to take over Flint’s budget and operations. Detroit and Flint rank No. 1 and No. 3 when it comes to violent crime, and unemployment over the past three years in both communities has also been among the worst in the U.S.

Last year’s most miserable city, Stockton, ranks No. 11 this year. Stockton got a boost as housing prices have stabilized to some degree after a 45% drop between 2006 and 2008. They also benefited from our replacement of sales tax rates with property taxes in the methodology (Stockton would have finished No. 6 under the old methodology). Stockton still has plenty of problems, though. It ranks among the country’s six worst when it comes to unemployment, foreclosures and violent crime.

The Top 10 List is below, with details for each one at the link:

10. Warren, Michigan

9. Rockford, Illinois

8. Toledo, Ohio

7. Fort Lauderdale, Florida

6. Chicago, Illinois

5. Sacramento, California

4. West Palm Beach, Florida

3. Flint, Michigan

2. Detroit, Michigan

1. Miami, Florida

Interesting that two cities in which I used to reside, Chicago (6) and Rockford (9) made the list. Perhaps that is why I am such a sunny personality. I chronicled Rockford's descent into hell last May 23rd in my post, "Worst City in America" -- How Rampant Globalization Transformed Rockford, Illinois." I'm sure it must be cold comfort to the citizens of Rockford that eight other cities have passed them up in their misery.


Bonus: "They say misery loves company. We could start a company...and make misery"