SHAME ON VIRGINIA
Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Another Scandal That Isn’t

Posted

In 2007, I wrote a little bit about the United States Attorney scandal that rocked the administration of President George W. Bush (R) around that time. Bush had fired seven federal prosecutors—all of which are presidential appointees—for apparently political reasons. This may well have been politically unpopular, and it may well have been a bad or even immoral decision depending on the circumstances, but it was in no way illegal. Presidential appointees serve at the pleasure of the president, and can be legally removed at any time for pretty much any reason.

The real scandal at that time, which did not directly involve Bush at all, was that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez lied under oath about the firings. That, my friends, is perjury . . . even if he was being questioned over something completely pointless and stupid. That’s something President Bill Clinton (D) learned almost a decade earlier; lying under oath is a crime, whether or not the thing you’re being questioned about is.

Now a new scandal is rocking President Barack Obama’s (D) White House, and again I’m a little perplexed. Apparently, when Obama put his support behind Senator Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) bid for reelection, he indirectly contacted Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA 7th) through former President Clinton in an effort to keep him from running against Specter in a potentially damaging Democratic primary. These discussions involved options for un-paid positions in the Obama administration if Sestak chose to stay in the House and let Specter stand as the Democratic candidate for the Senate. Sestak chose not to accept Obama’s offer and went on to defeat Specter in the primary. Sestak will stand for election to the Senate in November against Representative Pat Toomey (R-PA 15th).

Now some Republicans are calling for a Special Prosecutor and a long, drawn-out investigation into what went on . . . despite there being no evidence whatsoever that any law was broken. We do have a word for what went on here: politics. The trading in executive branch positions for political reasons is part of our politics and is not illegal. Obama should be criticized by the pundits and people for what he did, especially since he campaigned against this kind of ‘politics as usual’ quid-pro-quo stuff, but to act as if he broke a law is just plain silly. From what I can see, he didn’t.

If we’re going to have a Special Prosecutor for anything, it should be the Bush/Obama bailout bonanza. Our federal government buying General Motors and dumping billions-upon-billions of dollars into Wall St. bigwigs’ pockets actually was a crime, as it was a direct violation of the plain text of the United States Constitution. Let’s look into the TARP bailout under Bush too; I’m reasonably certain that if Congress writes a law saying ‘do X with this money,’ and then the president does Y with it . . . well I think that’s probably a crime too. There have been near-constant real examples of our government officials violating the law since the autumn of 2008; let’s stay focused on them!

Busy Busy!

Posted

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much. I know, I know. I’m totally missing my ‘five posts per week’ goal.

I have no good excuse; I’ve just been busy. It’s been busy at work and I’ve been putting in some extra hours, and I have a million-item-long to-do list at home. Hopefully I’ll be able to clear things up over the next week and get back into the regular cycle of posting.

In the mean time, I’m posting occasional status updates on Facebook and you can always peruse my links section to find other stuff to read ;-). Take care!

Share to:

Send to:

Posted in: Life

More N. Korean Brinkmanship

Posted

I remarked to Melissa earlier this evening that, of all the ‘hot spots’ in the world, I am most concerned about North Korea. The conflict between democratic South Korea and reclusive, totalitarian North Korea has festered for more than half a century now, and while the Korean War effectively ground to a halt with the 1953 armistice, a state of war still technically exists between the two states. North Korea has since become a nuclear power and last year declared unilaterally that it will no longer abide by the armistice. Then the country rattled sabers with missile tests and weapons shipments.

If all that wasn’t enough, South Korean and international investigators have now determined that the mysterious sinking of a South Korean navy ship in March was due to a North Korean torpedo attack.

This really isn’t that out-of-the-ordinary . . . North Korea has been antagonizing South Korea with periodic violence on-and-off since the ’50s. But the stakes didn’t used to be this high; North Korea didn’t used to be a nuclear power with missiles capable of reaching many U.S. allies in the region. South Korea—and our own government, which maintains a significant military presence on the Korean peninsula—cannot allow the North’s aggression to go on un-checked, but at the same time we can’t risk provoking a nuclear war with a maddeningly belligerent country like North Korea.

Mark my words: North Korea is very, very likely to be the spark that sets off the next major world conflict.

Look Behind GM’s Curtain!

Posted

There’s been a lot of good news coming out of federally-owned General Motors (GM) lately, which you should pay attention to since you, the American taxpayer, are the majority shareholder in this company whether you wanted to be or not. I’m still searching for the clause in the Constitution that authorized this, by the way . . . I’ll let you know as soon as I find it.

So, the good news from Detroit: First, GM announced last month that it was going to pay off its entire $5.8 billion in government loans. Then, this month, the company announced its first quarterly profit since 2007. Awesome!

The problem is that it’s all a lie. That’s not a word I use lightly, but it’s the only one that really describes what’s happening here. It’s like a home listing in a newspaper showing a picture of the front porch of a lovely house, without revealing that—just out of frame—the vast majority of the house is a burned-out shell. What do you find when you look behind the curtain?

Read more . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.