No Signs Means...No Signs

The fuss over two men arrested for refusing to obey police orders to leave their protest signs outside Gov. Corzine’s town hall meeting at the Middle Township School District Performing Arts Center Jan. 19 is beyond belief.
I’m not using their names because that’s all they wanted was publicity. And they got it.
Republicans picked up on the arrest of these two jokers, nether of whom apparently could read the words “No Signs,” fed their sources, and suddenly it was the biggest violation of the U.S. Constitution since somebody last burned a flag.
It’s a real pleasure to apparently be the only person in the world to congratulate Middle officials for doing what was right and arresting these guys who, incidentally, were booked and released fast enough to get back to the PAC and shout questions at the governor.
One of the slow readers reportedly is a talk show host; the other placed third in seeking the Republican nomination for governor when Democrat Corzine won in 2005.
The latter has had a full week on the front pages of a local paper.
The governor, who probably didn’t even know about the arrests at the time, has been compared to Stalin who, by most accounts, was worse than Hitler.
The apology for the arrests from Middle officials was almost certainly a lawyer’s advice to attempt to avoid a time-consuming law suit.
The sign carriers are calling for investigations by everyone from the State Police to the state Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney, U.S. Marshal, FBI, CIA, and Scotland Yard have yet to be summoned. Guess I’m the only person in this county to think providing security to the governor is no minor matter.
I also might be the only person who remembers freeholder meetings at which sheriff’s officers showed up to confiscate signs from protesters. Two differences. The people gave up their signs without incident.
And the freeholders are Republicans.

More U.S. Troops Heading to Afghanistan

The U.S. will send another 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan in March or April to fight the Taliban.
One could write long and hard about whether we would even still be in Afghanistan if we had gone in there originally with sufficient forces to find al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden instead of sending our troops to Iraq, where al-Qaeda was not.
But what would be the point? What good would it do?
Secretary of Defense Gates has made it clear he feels we need to send more troops to Afghanistan because our NATO allies aren’t pulling their own weight. We are believed to have 26,000 of the 40,000 troops.
Gates is accused of suggesting soldiers from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands were not well trained in counterinsurgency.
He has previously said that he believes Germany and France have kept their troops off the front lines.
It’s a mess.
“I would beg the Americans to understand that we are their closest allies and our men are bleeding and dying in large numbers,” British Conservative lawmaker and former officer Patrick Mercer told the AP.
The performance of America’s heroes in Afghanistan has never been questioned.
But journalist J. Malcolm Garcia, writing in the Virginia Quarterly Review, says we have failed to keep our promises of development.
Just back from Kabul, he saw few signs of the $13 billion in foreign aid pledged since 2004.
Too much money promised to the poor has gone for “cars, housing complexes and hotels for top government officials...” he wrote.
A $4 million fund to build schools never got spent because what he called “western interests” have taken over the land.
Military victories alone will not bring stability and peace to the suffering people of Afghanistan.

FBI: Dead Heads and Dead Lines

The FBI has done it again.
This time, a Justice Department audit reports that phone companies have cut off hundreds of FBI wiretaps because — the FBI didn’t pay its phone bills.
You couldn’t make this up.
The investigation looked at five FBI field offices, which it declined to identify, of course,
More than half of 990 bills to pay for surveillance of suspected criminals, including suspected terrorists and spies, were not paid on time.
The Associated Press story said in one office alone the unpaid bill ran $66,000.
I’ve watched enough “Law and Order” shows lately to qualify for a diploma from the county’s Public Safety Training Center.
In most of those TV programs, if the FBI shows up, the local police take their case notes and go the other way. Now I better understand that and the many plot lines where undercover money went astray or all the witness protection participants seemed to vanish.
Do I want the FBI to come if my bank is robbed or a loved one is kidnapped? Of course I do. But that doesn’t change the facts of this mess.
Inspector General Glenn A. Fine released an 87-page audit last week, but most of it was edited out as “too sensitive.” Naturally.
Incidentally, the same audit found one FBI employee stole $25,000 from the agency.
Assistant FBI Director John Miller said they’re working on solving the problem and will not tolerate “financial mismanagement or worse...”
Maybe the agency should offer a course in common sense business practices, to be taken right after qualifying on the firing range. What do you think?

Shorter Sentences for Crack Dealers

Last month, while you were Christmas shopping, the U.S. Supreme Court, in two separate cases, eased sentencing guidelines for judges in crack cocaine cases.
The net result: shorter sentences are possible for distributors of crack cocaine.
Both were 7-2 decisions.
The background: Congress, in the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, mandated far stiffer sentences for crack cocaine than powdered cocaine. Example: the same five-year minimum for possession of 5 grams of crack as for 100 times as much powdered cocaine.
There was an assumption then that crack cocaine was deadlier. Subsequent studies challenge that.
But no one challenges that crack cocaine is more common in cities, powder in suburbs, and, as a result, more black people are convicted for
crack cocaine use. They make up 80 percent of those sentenced for crack-dealing, according to David Stout of the New York Times.
Many felt that low-income minorities in cities were unfairly receiving harsher sentences.
In the first case, the court upheld a Virginia district judge who had refused to follow the stricter guidelines.
In the second, the court upheld a three years’ probation sentence, instead of the recommended three years in prison, for a young man who sold Ecstasy while in college.
He had since finished college, served with the Marines in the Gulf war, and had no felony convictions.
The dissenting justices in both cases were Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Of course Congress also could have dealt with this issue with new legislation, but the poisonous air in this country’s politics probably would have punished those who wanted a change as being soft on drugs.

Where Were You Drinking?

As you may have noticed in recent months, I am fed up to here with drunk drivers.
Southern New Jersey seems to have more than its share: both sexes, all ages,
They maim and kill our loved ones., And then they are sooo sorry, They weep. They apologize to the survivors. They beg for forgiveness.
They are thoughtless, selfish, inconsiderate people with no concern for anyone but themselves. They think they can drive impaired and never have an accident.,
Not that long ago, I urged police who investigate dui cases to include in their probe where the drunk driver was doing his or her drinking, and where the last drink was consumed.
Now state Attorney General Anne Milgram has issued a directive authorizing police to ask those questions of suspected drunken drivers.
Guess who doesn’t like the idea?
Some bar owners. who could receive penalties including suspension or revocation of their licenses if they serve intoxicated persons.
They say the drunk drivers could lie.
But Jerry Fischer, director of the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said no action against a bar could happen without a full investigation.
“Statistically, once you see a bar mentioned 10 times, it isn’t a plot against the bar, ” he said.
According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, New Jersey had 224 fatalities involving motorists who were legally drunk un 2006. That’s 30 percent of all auto fatalities and a 10 percent increase from 2005.
I know police are busy. But I urge them to add the question, “Where were you drinking?” to their investigations.