Politics

Politics

There are 1,050 posts filed in Politics (this is page 58 of 105).

Lining pockets

Last summer, I participated in a one-day community discussion facilitated by a local institution and including folks from all over the county. One of my fellow participants was a former politician of a fast-growing Wake County municipality.

As we were chatting about some subject (I don’t remember which), he nonchalantly mentioned how, while he was serving, he had learned of development plans for an area of town and had promptly bought up property there.

I nodded as he said that but internally I was shocked that this man would blatantly take advantage of his position for his own financial gain. He had no shame about it, either, which was what really stunned me. Hell, he seemed proud of it.

Looking back on that moment, I suppose I should not have been so surprised as I’m now convinced that these shenanigans take place more often than I first realized. Politicians have been lining their pockets for centuries and there’s no reason to think it will end anytime soon.

Coble throws volunteers under the bus

I’m still in disbelief over last week’s meeting of the Wake County Commissioners in which chair Paul Coble completely dissed a report on sustainability that the Commission itself requested and whose task force Commissioner Joe Bryan chaired.

I have served as an unpaid, volunteer member of various city boards for over three years now. I don’t do it for the money, or to enrich myself, or for the prestige. I do it because I love Raleigh and want to help it grow. The countless hours I’ve devoted to these causes; all the evenings I missed tucking my kids in for bed; all the soccer, baseball and basketball games I’ve missed; those are sacrifices I’ve accepted because I feel its important to serve the greater good. Like everyone else, I have only so many days to live on this planet and I like to know that my time matters.
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Making the “Open Source City” a bit more open

I was away from my home the other day and wanted to tune into the streaming video of the Raleigh City Council meeting using my smartphone. Lo and behold, the proprietary Microsoft Silverlight video format that the Granicus service uses to stream Raleigh’s government channel does not have a player for my Android phone. I’d be surprised if a client exists for iPhone, either, for that matter. It seemed I would need to be glued to my desk if I wanted to keep up with Raleigh politics.
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Recycling theft ordinance

While on my morning walk this past Friday I was crossing Glascock at Brookside when I noticed a blue pickup truck pull past me. I’d seen this truck the week before and suspected it was involved in some suspicious activity, so I stopped to watch what it did. From across the street I watched as a man hopped out of the truck, crossed the street, and began rummaging through the neighbor’s recycling bin, fishing out the aluminum cans. It wasn’t the suspicious activity I’d thought it was but noted the license plate anyway and continued walking.

I took the kids to school by car that morning and when I returned to the neighborhood I was amazed to see yet another man in a pickup truck, rummaging through a neighbor’s recycling bin. This wasn’t a case of some homeless guy collecting a few cans to get by, this looked like an entire team was out to steal the cans people had put out for the city.
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Shame on Thom Tillis

NC House Speaker Thom Tillis kicks the people out of the second floor of the North Carolina General Assembly but lets his buddies from the Big Telco Mafia continue to hang out and buy votes. What’s he afraid of? That folks will see how Tillis is selling off our future to whichever corporation is the highest bidder?

Thom Tillis should be ashamed of himself. Is it any wonder the public takes such a dim view of our state legislators as a whole?

The protesters entered the building, forfeiting signs larger than 25 square inches, per the rules, and climbed the stairs to the second floor where they quietly lined the hallway from the speaker’s office to the House chamber. They said they wanted to make their presence known after few people witnessed last month’s impromptu late-night session.

Police greeted them on the second floor and cited the rule adopted Nov. 18, 1987, by the Legislative Services Commission, a now-defunct body. (The rule’s purpose is "to make visitors feel welcome and at the same time make it possible for the General Assembly to function effectively.")

Adam Sotak, the demonstration’s organizer, appeared baffled. "I’ve been coming here since 2000. I have never been told I can’t walk around the second floor," he told the police officer.

A group of suited men with Time Warner Cable badges clustered in front of Tillis’ door moments before the crowd arrived.

via Little-known House rule limits access to chamber – State – NewsObserver.com.

Citizen reps at all levels

I learned today that another long-serving member of North Carolina’s General Assembly is stepping down. Serving in today’s legislature cannot be much fun, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on.

I think part of the problem is the grueling schedule of the General Assembly. My previous post about fairly compensating city councilors also applies to state legislators. If serving in the legislature is going to be a full time job we should compensate our representatives accordingly.

Grown-up Raleigh politics

At ages 7 and 9, my kids are growing like weeds. They’re growing almost faster than I can acknowledge.

The same goes for Raleigh. A fact I liked to share when former mayor Charles Meeker was in office was that Raleigh grew so quickly during his tenure as mayor that one out of three Raleigh citizens had never known another mayor. That’s right: in the span of ten years Raleigh population grew by fifty percent.

Fifty percent! It’s hard to wrap one’s mind around that.

Over the holidays my aunt came up to visit from Tallahassee. Knowing my interest in politics, she asked if I was interested in running someday.

“If only it paid the bills,” I sighed, explaining how our mayor and councilors serve as de facto volunteers.

My aunt was surprised that Raleigh, the country’s 43rd largest city, has volunteer leaders. “Even little Tallahassee pays its mayor and city commissioners,” she pointed out.
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Republicans need more than rhetoric on defense

George Will takes aim at Republican blustering about defense.

Osama bin Laden and many other “high-value targets” are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever, and Guantanamo is still open, so Republicans can hardly say that Obama has implemented dramatic and dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism. Obama says that, even with his proposed cuts, the defense budget would increase at about the rate of inflation through the next decade. Republicans who think America is being endangered by “appeasement” and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough.

via Republicans need more than rhetoric on defense – The Washington Post.

Happy Two Years In Hell, Jefe de Jefe

Here’s a sobering look by a former federal officer at America’s failed drug policy and its disastrous effect on our neighbor south of the border.

Just a short while after the operation, the DEA’s intelligence chief — Anthony Placido stated: “Nobody left out there has the extensive contacts that Arturo had. He moved thousands of metric tons of drugs into the United States, including cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin,” Placido said. “In addition to that … he is responsible for much of the violence in Mexico. Arturo Beltran Leyva wasn’t a big fish. He was a whale.”

Though frustrating, I can’t help but brush off some of those comments. For starters, I’m in awe that he actually said there wasn’t anyone left out there with the extensive contacts that Arturo Beltran had. Secondly, I’m bewildered by the fact that marijuana is completely left out of the equation. Revenues from marijuana smuggling produce the majority of capital for Mexican drug trafficking organizations, and in the case of the Beltran Leyva Organization, I witnessed it firsthand. Yes, Arturo had plenty of contacts in the South American Andes, and for sure cocaine earned his organization boat loads of cash — but the coca plant played second fiddle to cannabis sativa as it nearly always does with the cartels in Mexico. Yet this DEA executive is reluctant to utter the “M” word, perhaps out of fear that mainstream America might soon wake up to the role that marijuana prohibition is having in the killing games being played out below the Rio Grande.

via Jamie Haase: Happy Two Years In Hell, Jefe de Jefe.