Rollerball

Title
Top U.S. Housing Official Resigns

Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/wa...rssnyt&emc=rss
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Excerpt

WASHINGTON — Housing secretary Alphonso R. Jackson resigned on Monday, saying that he needed to devote more time to his family. The announcement came as federal authorities were investigating whether he had given lucrative housing contracts in the Virgin Islands and New Orleans to friends.

His resignation, effective April 18, also comes as the Bush administration is increasingly relying on the department’s Federal Housing Administration to help stanch the widening foreclosures.

In recent weeks, Mr. Jackson had faced mounting pressure to leave his post. The FBI has interviewed several of his employees, and two senior Democratic senators called on him to resign, saying the allegations of wrongdoing had undermined his leadership. Lawmakers have also raised concerns about accusations that Mr. Jackson had threatened to withdraw federal aid from the Philadelphia Housing Authority after its president refused to turn over a $2 million property to a politically connected developer.

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Comment:

Another Bushie bites the dust.

Anytime a Republican starts talking about needing to devote more time to his family you just know the FBI is hot on his trail.

cheapseats

Exactly so. But RESIGNATIONS DO NOT CONSTITUTE PUNISHMENT.

If corrupt public officials need only, as a worst-case scenario, resign upon being caught dead to rights...with ill-gotten gains and benefits intact...it remains an easy and highly lucrative prospect for the next government official to be corrupted right behind him.

We are supposed to be bracing ourselves for attack by terrorists who mean to put our culture asunder and presume dominion over us, completely and forever. Do I or do I not understand that correctly?

John McCain is a loose canon who is calmly and composedly roaming the globe as the presumptive president of the United States because he can. Flying in the face of what would have been conventional wisdom two brief years ago, John McCain can do that because the Democrats can't figger out who to have preen and posture beside him, and because Democratic inability to figger out who to have preen and posture beside the Republican nominee re-raises the age-old specter that Democrats are too foolish and unruly to be trusted with big-ticket items like countries.

Nevermind, that the Republicans have been on a spending spree that would daze a Beverly Hills Princess. If things got THAT outta hand with Republicans at the helm, you can imagine how much worse it woulda been with a buncha Lib'rals...like children in an arcade, that would be. No-siree, Bob, what we'll need is REAL conservative leadership...after a one-term, lame-duck presidency that will serve largely to milk Iraq and America for four more years of unparalleled profitability for the Few, and to divert blame for the fallout of Bush Administration folly to either Tax & Spend Democrats or Misguided Maverick John McCain.

John McCain said that our enemies in Iraq are "dedicated" to following us home. Scary stuff, yes? You wouldn't know it by our ballsy in-your-face blogging but we are afraid of a fight.

We are too intimidated even to challenge, prosecute and imprison our OWN Big League Bad Guys...how the hell can we be expected to fight THEIRS? Dedicated to following us home, you say? By all means, fight them there, fight them there...if it takes a hundred years.

IF WE WILL NOT IDENTIFY, PROSECUTE AND IMPRISON SOME OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE CREDIT CRISIS...AND THERE ARE KEY PLAYERS...WE HAVE EVERY REASON TO EXPECT THE SAME THING TO HAPPEN AGAIN, PARTICULARLY NOW THAT THE TAXPAYERS ARE COMMITTED TO GUARANTEE BAIL OUTS.

A certain amount of regulation is necessary to civilized society. But ultimately, always, it is consequences rather than rules that are a deterrent to the offense.

We are literally run amok in greed and absence of ethics and STILL we do not take the bull by the horns.

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Rollerball

...and Bush will once again chuckle as he issues a pardon.

cheapseats

Indeed.

Here is a question that I would put to the candidates.

Cut the crap with equivocation about how the circumstances are not plausible, or about how a lot could change between now and then, or about how it's more complicated than we realize.

IF George Bush and Dick Cheney, along with a few others, were prosecuted and convicted for high crimes and misdemeanors, notably manipulation of intelligence for purpose of inciting Congress and the public to war, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment in federal penitentiaries...because Americans are squeamish about the death penalty, stateside...would you, as President, pardon them or let them rot?

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Jonesy

The Punishment itself has to be much more precise than anything current, or it will do no good. Our present system is far even from plain adequacy.

cheapseats

Our present system?

CRIME PAYS
Some crimes pay more than others.

.

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Rollerball

...and isn't getting paid what this country is all about!

Gotta love Capitalism run amuck.

babylonDon

'Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you a king.'

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http://action.credomobile.com/comics...ing_obama.html

McCain '08: 'He'll Get Those Kids Off Your Lawn'

The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.-Maureen Dowd

cheapseats

You bet.

Money is more important to us than country, pride, people, religion or honor. Money trumps racism, sexism, nationalism and Christianity. First and foremost...truly ponder the concept of first and foremost...we are a Moneyian Nation.

The Dollar is Almighty.

Capitalism requires certain regulation to coerce consideration of valid societal interests that would be disregarded in a pure profit paradigm.

That said, our problems lie FAR LESS in capitalism run amok than in crime run amok.

Conspiracies in restraint of trade, that's a biggie. Price collusion. Monopolies, horizontal and vertical. Creative-unto-fictional accounting. Predatory lending. Insider trading. All crimes.

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cheapseats

Of Big League White Collar criminals, who have we put behind bars?

Of Public Servants Turned Personal Opportunists With Moral Flexibility, who have we put behind bars?

Then let us take a look at the number of people who are languishing behind bars on non-trafficking, non-violent, marijuana-related charges.

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