My PC disclaimer, as always, is that there are some necessary functions of government, and a lot of the jobs are filled with decent, hardworking people who do a good job. However, when the people are not vigilant, and allow government to grow beyond what’s necessary, especially utilizing government for charity roles, it allows for morally repugnant programs (like gov-subsidized needles, gov-funded abortions, etc), and corruption.
Once the government grows way too huge (as our federal, state, and municipal govts have in most cases), it will continue to grow like the blob, sucking up everything in it’s trajectory and turning it into inefficient blobbiness. And in the blob, maggots thrive (link):
Baltimore Mayor Sheila A. Dixon was charged today with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office, becoming the city’s first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted.
The case stems in part from at least $15,348 in gifts Dixon allegedly received from her former boyfriend, prominent city developer Ronald H. Lipscomb, while she was City Council president. She also is accused of using as much as $3,400 in gift cards, some donated to her office for distribution to “needy families,” to purchase Best Buy electronics and other items for herself and her staff.
Lipscomb was not indicted in the Dixon case, but he and City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton were charged this week in a separate $12,500 bribery scheme. Both cases grew out of a nearly three-year probe by the state prosecutor into City Hall corruption.
The investigation has hung over Dixon, a Democrat, even as she became the city’s first female mayor and oversaw a significant decrease in the city’s homicide rate, reducing killings to a 20-year low. Viewed as an energetic and charismatic leader, she has earned praise from residents for implementing an easy-to-use recycling program and displaying a willingness to tackle the city’s systemic racial and economic disparities.
It is unclear what the indictment will mean for the mayor. She has pledged to remain focused on her job, and many local officials rallied behind her today. But even ceremonial events will take on new dimensions. Many wondered today, for example, whether Dixon will appear with president-elect Barack Obama next week when he makes a planned stop in the city.
At a news conference today at her attorney’s office in Clipper Mill near Hampden, a composed Dixon said she was innocent.
“I will not let these charges deter me from keeping Baltimore on the path that we have set, or from carrying forward the significant progress we have made thus far,” she said, reading a prepared statement. “I am being unfairly accused. Time will prove that I have done nothing wrong, and I am confident that I will be found innocent of these charges.”
If convicted on all charges, the 55-year-old former teacher and mother of two could be sentenced to 85 years in prison. The most serious charges, two counts of felony theft, each carry a possible 15-year prison term.
Her attorney, Arnold M. Weiner, in a half-hour presentation carried live on local television and designed to win over the court of public opinion, accused those investigating the mayor of partisan motivations.
Weiner noted that State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh and former U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who investigated her earlier, were appointed by Republicans, and he accused Rohrbaugh of harboring an “obsession” in pursuing the mayor.
Of course it’s gotta be a partisan witchhunt if the prosecutor is a Republican… note also that CNN did not mention her being a Democrat (link) for a little game of “guess that party affiliation”, and that all the local “D’s” are circling the wagons.
You see, those who are big-government tax-money addicts don’t care if there’s corruption around them, they feel like they are entitled to big money anyway. They’re smart, they have big ideas, they’re popular.. if only they had the money… your money…