A horror story lies within this map.
….and focusing only on race just makes understanding and dealing with the real problems impossible. Nonetheless, activists, the news media and the government intentionally ignore the complexities involved, which collectively define a human tragedy and a failing of U.S. governments at all levels.
Washington Post writer Radley Balko has delivered a shocking, disturbing, depressing and eye-opening investigative report on how small municipalities in St. Louis County operate, and how demographic, political and economic trends inevitably cause the tensions and distrust we saw burst into conflagration in the wake of the Mike Brown shooting. If Balko does not win a Pulitzer for this marvel of reporting and analysis, then the awards should eliminated.
You must read the whole piece here. It’s unethical for a responsible citizen not to; I really believe that. I was originally going to post some excerpts,but I’m not going to, because I know many will just read them and skip the whole, long report. This is a significant and brave work, and attention must be paid. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
Slickwilly, in his estimable Comment of the Day on the post, “President Trump Reportedly Will Not Cooperate With The House Democrats’ Effort To Keep Investigating Him Until They Can Find Something To Impeach Him With,” explores the related and important ethics issues of over-criminalization, prosecutorial abuse and “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” (Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s secret police chief. Of course, he said it in Russian…)
I know I’ve written on the topic, and would love to include some links, but for the life of me I can’t figure out the key words that would lead me to any of those posts.
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Of course Trump broke laws.
So did I. So did Jack. EVERYONE breaks laws every day they draw breath. This is a fishing expedition to find them and prosecute anything at all. There are so many laws from so many jurisdictions that you cannot live outside a rubber room and not actively break one.
“…the Congressional Research Service cannot even count the current number of federal crimes… If the federal government can’t even count how many laws there are, what chance does an individual have of being certain that they are not acting in violation of one of them?”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/federal-copyright-laws-americans-break-them-every-day-without-even-knowing-it/5381302
For instance: It is illegal to lie down and sleep with your shoes on in North Dakota; singing off-key is illegal in North Carolina; unmarried Florida women who parachute face jail time; taking a picture of a rabbit (without a permit) from January to April is verboten; walking a dog without a diaper (on the dog) is forbidden in Mississippi; and California insists you not eat an orange in a bathtub.
Take a picture of a rabbit? This one is easy to prove, too: Metadata in digital pictures can tell the time, date, and location of a photo. Post that little indiscretion online and *poof* you are a criminal.
Those are only some looney state laws. Federal laws include confusing copyright infringement with terrorism; taking a fake sick day is “a scheme or artifice to defraud” your company; and failing to affix a mandatory sticker to your UPS package could send you to prison. (You likely break copyright law any time you forward a meme, email, or text someone else created that violates the law… and those laws have TEETH!)
We all have heard of the ‘lying to a federal agent’ non-crime. We know where it has been abused lately, at the highest levels, even where it seems no false statements were made. How does that apply to you? Say you tell a National Park ranger that you cleaned your campsite. He then finds a paper plate you missed. You just lied to a federal agent. Continue reading →