Lord grant us honesty, but not just yet!

Great NY Times article on Mexico with the headline, Mexico's Government is blocking its own Anti-Corruption Drive"!

This of course is the ultimate dog bites man story, especially under the current EPN government. Mexico has long been a country with beautiful laws that are not worth the paper they are printed on, and EPN is notorious for announcing major reforms to great fanfare that go nowhere.

But on to the specifics. How is the government blocking the corruption commission, you ask?


None of the 18 judges who are supposed to oversee anti-corruption cases have been appointed by lawmakers. The prosecutor empowered under the new system to pursue investigations independently has not been named. And members of the citizen commission say they have been routinely shut out of discussions about big corruption cases.

“It is a bad joke,” said Luis Manuel Perez de Acha, a tax lawyer on the commission. “I was naïve when the system launched. I believed and had hope that it would work.”

“I know now that they are trying to sabotage everything we do,” he added.


Here's a good summary. The guy gets it in the end. The system isn't broken, it's working exactly how the government intended.


“The Mexican government feeds us placebos and we believe they will cure us,” said Juan Pardinas, the president of the Mexico Institute for Competitiveness and one of the chief architects of the anti-corruption system. “I drank the Kool-Aid and I passed the jar to a lot of people, believing it was a path to change.”

Mr. Pardinas has been one of the most prominent public voices fighting corruption, its corrosive effect on democratic institutions, and the lives it sometimes claims. He ultimately became a target of the spying technology purchased by the Mexican government to surveil criminals and terrorists.

“I killed myself for three years to achieve this, and it’s basically broken,” he said of the anti-corruption effort. “Well, maybe the system isn’t broken. It’s actually working perfectly to allow impunity.”

At the Movies, with your host Leo Strauss

Watched "The Drop" last night with Mrs. Angus and Tyler. At its core, the film is a geo-political morality play where the US impresses China but horrifies Europe by killing Putin (and admitting to having done such killings in the past). However, the US has a very cute puppy and Europe comes back to us in the end. In his last ever role, James Gandolfini plays Japan.

Tyler seemed to think it was about the external benefits of gentrification, but what does he know? I'm pretty sure Tyrone agrees with me.

A chicken in every pot and a flat-screen in every precinct house

Assest Forfeiture must have really arrived. There are now "how to" seminars springing up. It's like house flipping for coppers.

Police are advised to focus on flat-screen TVs and cars. Jewelry and computers just aren't worth it.

Why?

Since the cops haven't figured out how to directly use jewelry and computers (really, I am not making this up) like they have cars and TVs, the former are sold at auction and are thus not very remunerative!

Other advice is for police to tell the city attorney what items they really want so the city can make sure the owners don't get those particular pieces back.

Legal Horror Stories

Here's two recent ones that really amazed and disgusted me

1. Meth charge dropped after only spaghetti sauce found on spoon

Here's the public defender describing the case: “From what I understand, she was a passenger in a car and had a spoon on her, near her, and I guess the officer, for whatever reason, thought there was some residue,”

I'd give you the cops' version but, "Attempts to obtain the original arrest report from the Gainesville Police were unsuccessful"

Now sure this seems pretty funny, but the woman was in jail for a MONTH AND A HALF! For no other reason that the cop thought she was a meth-head.


2. Before the Law: A boy was accused of taking a backpack. The courts took the next three years of his life.

This kid was accused of stealing someone's backpack. couldn't make bail, wouldn't plead out. 3 YEARS LATER, the charges were dismissed!

3 YEARS, people.

I'm sure that you don't have to be an aggressive authoritarian leftist to be Prez at Berkeley.  But apparently it does help.

Ken gives details, and counterarguments.

Ken had me at:

Pardon my incivility, Chancellor Dirks, but I don't give a shit whether you wish to honor an ideal; I care whether you will comply with the law. If you don't, you should be compelled to do so at the point of a lawsuit. You will find litigation rather uncivil.

Whee! 

Nod to Angry Alex...

Sexual discrimination justified by rules against sexual discrimin

Once you start making bizarre Jesuitical rules about personal conduct, you have to face some bizarre Jesuitical situations.  Like this one.  

Duke's own policy is remarkably...bizarrely Jesuitical.  It appears that if a male has sex with a female, and both are too drunk to give consent, then the male has raped the female.  If the male is too drunk and the female is sober, there is no rape.  And so on, as interpreted by Duke sex-Jesuits. 

The cool thing is that this is all because of Title IX, which requires that there is no discrimination based on sex. 

Very cool:  a (plausible) requirement that there be no discrimination based on sex is being used to justify the claim that women are so weak and helpless that they are not responsible for their own choices, and need middle-aged Puritans to protect them.

Where will it end?  It may not end.  We asked for it, now we deserve to get it, good and hard.

The Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave

The set-up.

The update.

Willfully Annoying (corrected)

Oh, man.  Grand Rapids, MI, adopted hometown of one Angus Okieman, has a ban on being "willfully annoying."

That's a terrible law.  No wonder Angus moved away.

Think of it:  If that law were enforced, Angus and I would always be in court.  Scott de Marchi would have a life sentence, until the jailers found him so annoying they just sprung him loose. And P-Kroog would be prohibited from writing op-eds.

Strike it.  Strike it down.

Mourning Becomes Electra

And the Senate becomes the House.

This is interesting.

This is interesting, and also insightful.

The problem was not the filibuster, which actually was a problem.  The Repubs were abusing it, their obstruction was bad and dangerous.  That's all true.  However, if the Senate rule is that the rules are whatever a simple majority says the rules are....that's worse.

The U.S. is NOT a democracy, if by democracy you mean simple majority rule.  The dodge that "no, it's a republic" is true enough, but the real point is that many of our institutions are explicitly designed to prevent majorities from imposing their will.

An extremely insightful video, with a remarkably handsome commentator.

Angus and Thomas More

Angus makes a fair point.  If the President is going to pledge war, perhaps we should have protested then. 

Well, I made a mistake then, because I thought the international community would respond.   And that was the "we" in question.  So, I'm protesting now, because the "we" can't be the U.S., acting alone.  And the reason is law.  From my good friend Chris Nelson, at Arizona, the suggestion that we check out "A Man for All Seasons," and the rule of law.

Just so you have the program, and know the players:  Assad is the devil here.  And Obama is considering cutting down the law to get at him... So, for Hutter, the scene from "A Man for All Seasons."

Rule #1 at KPC:

Heavy Handed metaphor alert

How Can This Be Illegal?

So, a guy gets a speeding ticket.

He pays the ticket, on time, with a valid check.

But he adds a bunch of obscenities and editorializing on the ticket form.  Not threats, just pissed off.

So...he is arrested?  Really?  This is clearly political speech, in the sense of a petition for a redress of grievances.  No question it is political, so fails the Miller Test on what can be prosecuted.

And no one even saw it, until the state decided to make an issue of things that would have just remained private.

El Candigato!

The day the NSA sent Obama Mungo's internet profile

People, how did this internet spying thing stay secret for so long? It's not like Obama was hiding it even a little bit.

Juliet and Rosaline

Gay folk finally achieve full equality in Florida.   18 year old girl/woman charged with statutory rape for consensual relationship with 16 year old girl/woman.

Note that if the age of consent is 17, then this would have been legal 18 months ago, before older woman turned 17.  And now gay people can be classified as sex offenders under this dumb law, exposing them to death, beatings, and harassment. 

A surprising number of people on sex offender lists either (1) urinated in public, perhaps after a concert or frat party, or (2) had sex with a minor when the "offender" was only a year or two older, but technically above the age of consent.  Now, #1 is dumb, but not a sex offense.  (And let's just say that it's possible I may have committed this act, at some point).  And #2?  I'm not going to say anything more, but it's been more than 7 years ago anyway, thank goodness.

Many states (though not enlightened Florida) have "minimum age difference" add-on before statutory rape charges can be brought. (Also called "Romeo and Juliet" laws.)  A Penna judge actually decided this on his own, in a common-law way.

So, perhaps gay folks do still have a ways to go for equality:  if we have "Romeo and Juliet" laws, we should have "Juliet and Rosaline" laws, right?

Let's just say the jury is still out on this one

Wow, Elba Esther Gordillo, aka "La Maestra" esta detenida!

The long time head of the Mexican Teachers Union (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación) has been a powerful retrograde force in Mexican politics, consistently blocking education reform and long rumored to be corrupt.

At least one Mexican "expert" loves the move:

This new development destroys those doubts about the seriousness of the Pena Nieto government to take on the union, and to mobilize the sovereign power of the state against vested interests.


But this is Mexico, where criminalizing political differences is an art form.

La Maestra burned new President Enrique Peña Nieto during the campaign by pulling her political party (the PANAL)out of an alliance with his party (the PRI). And all she wanted to stay in was for multiple family members to be Senators!

So it's far from clear whether this arrest marks a bold move against impunity and a step forward against corruption and toward rule of law, or just the same old "payback's a bitch" political culture at work.

It's not the HABBAL

So, it is useful to know HABBAL.*  And B. Nyhan is right to admonish people who blame Obama for not being able to control or direct the nut jobs who make up the U.S. Senate. 

But I think it is just fine to blame Obama for stepping up DEA and Justice Department enforcement against state-legal pharmacies and growers.  For expanding the scope and impact of executive orders and extra-constitutional decrees.  For expanding the use of drone strikes, without due process, and for imprisoning and mistreating citizens, of the world and of the US, without evidence or chance for a hearing.  For being a coward on immigration policies that are entirely in the control of the executive branch.

In short, you apologists have your heads up your Birkenstocks.  Obama is quite a bad president.  When you defend him, you are basically saying that Mussolini was better than Hitler.  Okay, yes, that's true, Obama is better than Bush was or McCain would have been.  But stop making excuses.  Obama is quite a disappointment, if you are anything but an unreasoning Democratic hack.

*How A Bill Becomes A Law.  If you don't know HABBAL, you'll be needing some more Schoolhouse Rock! 


Notice that there is nothing there about executive orders and systematic violation of the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment.  And THAT is why Obama is a bad President:  he ignores the Constitution.  Not because the Senate is even worse.

Grand Game: Road Kill Time!

A disclaimer at the outset:  This is "satire."  It's WV, so it could be real.  On the other hand, I had no idea that it was illegal to eat stuff you ran over in the first place.  Yes, you can't take deer that way (though I've been tempted!), but if you hit a squirrel and want ya some stew, what's the problem?  It's fresh, and already tenderized, so you can put away that mallet.

But apparently the legislature of WV wanted to make honest women (and men) out of its citizens, and validate the already widespread (?) practice of taking those little delicacies home to the fam.

This is a KPC GG opportunity, though, because of the description, and quotes.  They attached "ryders"?  Really?  Big rental trucks, to make sure no wildlife survives that frantic scurry or waddle across the highway?  Wow.

Special bonus (LMM:  Do not watch this):  A roadkill cartoon.

UPDATE:  Is VA reacting to WV?  By using this "don't tread on me!" metaphor?  So, something like "don't run me over and then put me in the trunk to eat later?"  Why else would VA rip off this South Carolina symbol?

On PSU Punishment....

A friend writes....

Ok, are you bothered by the NCAA action against PSU? I hate PSU and I hate Paterno even more, but this seems to be way over the top. Any punishment before the accused is allowed to put on a defense is wrong, but this punishment is “cruel and unusual.” I do  think Paterno and others made some serious mistakes, mistakes for which they should be held to account, and they are being held to account. BUT to destroy the football program and the school’s reputation is wrong. What Paterno did and is alleged to have done did not involve cheating at his sport. Where Spanier, the VP, the AD, Paterno and the BOT went way wrong was in trying to protect the PSU brand and reputation at all costs. This was their first instinct. Everything else became consciously secondary. All athletic programs with big reputations and “legendary” coaches are subject to this same mistake. As a member of the ******** here, I saw this up close 6 years ago. The first official meetings were focused on protecting the institution and its brand, rather than attempting to find out what if anything happened for which [university] needed to answer. (MORE BELOW THE FOLD)