What is City Councilman Chuck Turner accused of? Kidnapping people in foreign countries, holding them in his basement and torturing them for seven years all in violation of numerous federal, local, and military laws? Nope.
Our intrepid local EffBeeEye in their "ongoing corruption investigation" that first ensnared a councilwoman for taking a whopping 23 grand in bribes for a liquor license for a local establishment- has now arressted Turner for bribe taking as well- for the same license for the same establishment!
You go git em Tigers! Grrrrrr! What do you want to bet the EffBeeEye has spent more in their investigations of this liquor license scandal than the alleged bribes paid out for it?
This is a banner year for our local G-men. This really really important sting follows up their huge arrest of master mind North End "Mob Boss" last May- Carmen Denunzio- for offering a 10 grand bribe to an agent they sent to him to solicit a bribe! Of course- there is no North End Mob effectively and hasn't been one for 25 years but that doesn't stop our FBI from nabbing the occasional ethnic from the neighborhood who deals in the gray market of the construction trades- pinning him with the label of "Mob Boss" and then holding a self glorifying press conference celebrating their "Big bust" against the "Mafia" that exists now only in H-wood imaginations.
Back to Turner. Again, as to his guilt or innocence? I don't care. That is a secondary concern for me as a localist. What I want to know is why the hell are the Feds leading up these investigations? What possible jurisdiction do they have? How did this get started? Where are our local cops? The Commonwealth pays for a rather large and well funded State Police undercover task force that is more than capable of handling such things- if they indeed need to be handled at all- which should be the decision of our local government entities!
Why is this alien foreign bureau whose primary allegiance lies outside this state being allowed to simply run investigations against our elected local officials?
Turner is playing the race card in his defense already (He is black.) Bad move Turner. That will get you exactly nowhere and will alienate potential allies. He should be playing up the local vs federal angle.
Friday, November 21, 2008
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9 comments:
The reason the FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation is involved is because bribery and corruption of a senator are FEDERAL crimes. More specifically, the charges against Wilkerson were "attempted extortion under color of official right and theft of honest services as a State Senator", among other thigns.
I don't understand why you're so hot and bothered about this.
I'm sorry- they are STATE SENATORS. They are not Federal. And I'm bothered because this agency is a foreign agency with no local allegiances that serves an agenda all its own and is under ZERO local scrutiny. Not to mention they happen to have protected the biggest mass murderer for a generation while they made headlines nabbing small timers in the North End for their career advancement and threw innocent men in jail for 30 years that they KNEW were innocent!
They have NO BUSINESS investigating these alleged crimes. These are our concerns to deal with as WE see fit- not Federal G-MEN whose first loyalty is to that putrid city on the Potomac.
Is there any Fed investigation into our local matters that would concern you?
Anything?
Correction:
Wilkerson is a State Senator not a Council woman as I stated above.
Turner is a City Council member.
And by the way- I know our local cops are not angels- but as far as I know- they don't throw black bags over peoples heads in airports and whisk them off to foreign countries to be tortured and or murdered. Our local investigators wouldn't sit around and DO NOTHING if Mayor Menino decided one day that he was going to simply violate numerous laws (not to mention common decency) and start throwing people in dungeons located on the harbor islands for 7 years without charges.
These Feds think they have the moral authority to investigate OUR politicians? To pry their torture loving/lying us into wars asses into OUR business?
Give me a break. The Feds investigating our local pols? After what they have been complicit in as an organization over the last decade? NO. Uh uh.
If you left it up to local agencies to investigate these crimes, you would never see anyone indicted. You would just have more backroom deals and stuffed bras and greased palms.
Politics is a dirty sport and Massachusetts politicians revel in it.
Oh- yes. Why we just wouldn't know what to do without the oh so morally superior feds? Why we would just let our politicians steal the kitchen sink while we sat on our thumbs because we are incompetent boobs who can't govern ourselves and need an outside agency from a distant corrupt capital to tell us what to do.
Why not just cancel election entirely and have the awesome feds just appoint a provincial governor since we are retards who can't govern ourselves and are corrupt by nature?
Thanks. Great local pride you have there (if you even are).
"If you left it up to local agencies to investigate these crimes, you would never see anyone indicted. You would just have more backroom deals and stuffed bras and greased palms."
And?
Can we seriously contemplate eliminating corruption?
Everyone wants "reform" whatever that means.
On the Federal level it has been simply been legalized to a certain extent.
What we see here is a classic example of the surfeit of democracy in government.
Nor is one willing condemn the right honorable senator. He wasn't spending public monies after all and a license or bribe is all the same.
Damn Fed puritans!
He wasn't spending public monies after all and a license or bribe is all the same.
As the great ward boss James J Pinkerton once said- their is a difference between honest graft and dishonest graft.
Chuck Turner takes an envelope full of cash? Oh- how low class. He doesn't have a dumb blond wife that can be given a no show sinecure job at a "defense firm" in Crystal City for 125 grand a year like every other congressman does.
Chuck Turner isn't being promised six figure incomes as a "consultant" when he retires if he votes this way or that way on legislation. No 80 grand for a one hour boilerplate speech at prayer breakfasts stuffed with General Dynamic middle managers who aren't listening and who all pretend that what is going on isn't a bribe as they suck down their eggs Benedict . . .
Nope- but take an envelope under a table over a damn liquor license- something the city dispenses out as if they were Hope Diamonds with almost the intention of creating an opportunity for graft- and the Feds swoop in and get their "corruption" headlines. . .
PFfffffft. Sickening. 3 Trillion in bailouts among the same parasites on Wall Street and they are nabbing Chuck Turner - a Boston City Councilman- for this petty shit?
Give me a break.
So sickening it is beyond belief.
We can determine what is or what is not "corruption" ourselves Mr. Fed. Mind the timber in your own eye first before pocking at the splinter in ours.
Anon is right.
Long, Wallace--lone gun men are just messy, unfortunate realities without G-men, unbecoming of Democracy.
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