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In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Law Enforcement, Self-Help on November 4, 2016 at 12:23 am
“We’ll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail.”
–Dave Barry
Several years ago, a private investigations agency found itself in serious trouble with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
One of its employees had suddenly quit the company–leaving behind a major financial disaster.
That employee–whom I’ll call Pete–had been tasked with sending payroll tax records to the IRS. The company’s owner, Bill, assumed he had carried out his assignment.
Until he learned from the IRS that they had never received the records.
Consider the potential consequences:
- Failing to timely and properly pay federal payroll taxes results in an automatic penalty of 2% to 10%.
- Similar state and local penalties apply.
- Failing to properly file monthly or quarterly returns may result in additional penalties.
- Failing to file W-2 Forms results in an automatic penalty of up to $50 per form not timely filed.
- A particularly severe penalty applies where federal income tax withholding and Social Security taxes are not paid to the IRS.
- The penalty of up to 100% of the amount not paid can be assessed against the employer entity as well as any person (such as a corporate officer) having control or custody of the funds from which payment should have been made.
About 70% of the annual revenue collected by the IRS comes from payroll taxes. Under-reported and unpaid employment taxes account for about $72 billion of the United States tax gap. So the IRS makes the collection of payroll taxes a high priority.
No doubt about it–Bill was facing serious trouble.
What to do?
Fortunately, Steve, one of Bill’s employees, had a B.A. in Communications and had worked as a newspaper reporter.
When Bill told him of the calamity he was facing, Steve offered his best advice: Immediately contest the charge that he had been delinquent in providing the records. And explain to the IRS–in writing–what had happened.
Bill agreed.
First, Steve interviewed him at length to make certain he fully understood the circumstances leading up to his present crisis.
Then Steve sat down and typed up a letter–on office letterhead stationery–to the IRS. Letterhead would give it an official appearance–and Steve wanted every advantage he could get.
Steve offered a straightforward presentation of what had happened: Pete, the number-two man in the company, had been entrusted with submitting payroll tax records to the IRS.
Apparently nursing a grudge against the company, he had, in fact, done nothing of the sort.
Instead, he had dumped the records in a box and stashed this in a locked filing cabinet.
Then he had given notice and left the company. Later, an investigation of his office computer revealed that it had often been used to access pornography.
Steve emphasized that Bill’s company had previously had an unblemished record for meeting its payroll tax obligations on time. And he stated that the newly-found records had been sent to the IRS by registered mail.
Finally, Steve wrote that Bill was prepared to fully meet his financial obligations to the IRS. But he asked that Bill not be penalized for the irresponsible actions of a single, malcontented employee.
The result?
Bill ended up paying only those monies that he legally owed. He was not forced to pay a penalty.
So what are the lessons to be learned from this episode?
- In dealing with an agency as powerful as the IRS, don’t ignore its letters and/or phone calls.
- You have nothing to gain by pretending it will go away. It won’t.
- If you owe money, don’t deny it.
- Remain calm, even if you feel angry or afraid.
- Don’t use profanity or insults.
- Don’t try to play tough-guy with the IRS. Even the Mafia fears this agency.
- If you have a legitimate reason for having missed a payment, say so.
- Remember that everything you say to the IRS–verbally or in writing–is considered evidence given under oath.
- If you lie and get caught, you can face perjury charges as well as those for failing to comply with tax laws.
- Offer to fully pay any monies that you legally owe.
- If these amount to more than you can meet in a single payment, say so. Ask the agency to set up a plan by which you can pay it off in installments.
- If the agency balks at cooperating with you, contact a veteran tax accountant or attorney.
- The best accountants or attorneys for dealing with the IRS are former agents now working in private practice. They not only know the tax laws; they know the best ways to short-circuit an IRS audit and/or penalties.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2016 at 6:20 am
The budget for the City and County of San Francisco for 2016-17 is $9.6 billion. Its proposed budget for 2017-18 is $9.7 billion.
San Francisco occupies 46.87 miles and has a population of 837,442.
Roughly half of the budget goes toward city-related business operations–such as the Port, the bus line, the Airport and the Public Utilities Commission.
The other half of the budget goes toward such public services as Public Health, Police and Fire Services, Recreation and Parks.
As the November 8 election quickly approaches, the most controversial issue on the city ballot is Proposition V.
Specifically, this calls for a tax of one cent per ounce from the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Currently, San Francisco does not impose a tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverage.
The initiative defines “a sugar-sweetened beverage” as “a beverage that contains added sugar and 25 or more calories per 12 ounces.
“These include some soft drinks, sports drinks, iced tea, juice drinks and energy drinks. The tax would also apply to syrups and powders that can be made into sugar-sweetened beverages, for example, fountain drinks from beverage-dispensing machines.”
Supporters of the initiative are trying to sell it via the “save our kids” argument. The Vote Yes on V campaign states:
“On November 8th, the health of children in San Francisco relies on us.
“Proposition V will tax distributors of soda and other sugary drinks that have direct links to obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart and liver disease.”
Left unsaid is how putting more money into city coffers would lead children to show more restraint in buying “sugar-sweetened beverages.”
Perhaps the real reason why many city officials enthusiastically back this measure can be found in a statement by the San Francisco Controller:
“Should this ordinance be approved, in my opinion, it would result in an annual tax revenue increase to the City of approximately $7.5 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017–2018 and $15 million in FY 2018–19. The tax is a general tax and proceeds would be deposited into the General Fund.”
San Francisco Controller’s Office
San Francisco takes in more than $9 billion in taxes every year. But for many San Francisco officials this just isn’t enough.
Yet for many San Francisco residents, it is. In 2014, they defeated a similar soda tax.
Opponents of the tax have attacked it as a “grocery tax.” They argue that grocers–especially those running the mom-and-pop stores popular in San Francisco–will pass on the costs to their customers by raising prices on groceries altogether.
Proposition V supporters claim this is a lie. Rebecca Kaplan, a member of the Oakland Council, told the Huffington Post: “People worry about having to pay for their groceries. To threaten that their groceries are going to be taxed when it’s not true is a totally despicable tactic from the soda industry.”
Actually, there is nothing in the measure to prevent grocers from passing the tax on to consumers.
Meanwhile, what are San Franciscans getting for the $9 billion in taxes City Hall collects?
- Call the general number of the police or fire department–and chances are you’ll get a recorded message telling you to wait your turn in line.
Call even 9-1-1 and the odds are great that you’ll get the same message. And if you complain to a city official about it, you’ll likely be told: “Well, we have only so many operators.”
The last thing someone calling police or the fire department in a crisis wants to hear is: “We’ll get back to you when we feel like it.”
- Or wander into downtown Market Street, a major thoroughfare into the heart of San Francisco.
You’ll find its red-brick blocks filled with stinking, disease-ridden, drug- or alcohol-addicted, often psychotic men and women whom city officials politely call “the homeless.”
In 2016, the city spent $241 million on “homeless” services. But the population surges between 7,000 and 10,000. Of these, 3,000 to 5,000 refuse shelter.
City officials admit that San Francisco ranks second to New York in homelessness. What they won’t admit is that they are largely responsible for it.
The city’s mild climate and social programs that dole out cash payments to virtually anyone with no residency requirement draw rootless, unstable persons like a magnet.
- The problems affecting the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) aren’t as obvious as the homeless infesting the city’s streets. But they are nevertheless real.
In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle found that the city’s violent criminals had a better chance of escaping punishment than predators in any other large American city.
The SFPD had the lowest violent crime “clearance rate” among the nation’s 20 largest cities. Among Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, the SFPD is considered a joke.
- At the San District Attorney’s Office, prosecutors often can’t decide if they want to lock up criminals–or defend them.
From 2004 to 2011, Kamala Harris served as the city’s District Attorney. In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.
Kamala Harris
Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law. It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.
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In Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on October 12, 2016 at 12:10 am
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thusly:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse.
“He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
What was true for Adolf Hitler is equally true for Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican nominee for President of the United States.
Most recently his vindictive streak was on nationwide display during his second Presidential debate with Hillary Clinton: “If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation–there has never been so many lies and so much deception.”
While this has played well with Trump’s essentially Fascistic followers, even conservatives like political columnist Charles Krauthammer have disagreed with it:
“I’m one of those who thinks there was a miscarriage of justice in not indicting her. But the problem here is the pattern from Trump.
“He has spoken about using the powers of the government to go after other opponents like the publisher of The Washington Post.
“Do we want to invest in him all the powers of the government if he acts where he seems to want to carry out vendettas?”
Charles Krauthammer
But making threats against anyone who has dared to cross him or has merely roused his ire is a longtime Trump characteristic.
In 2010, Tarla Makaeff, a former customer of Trump’s real-estate seminar business, filed a fraud lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University.
Trump retaliated by filing a defamation suit against her. The case was dismissed by a judge. But Trump continued to attack her during his Presidential candidacy.
During a campaign rally he assailed her as a “horrible, horrible witness,” and then posted on Twitter that she was “Disgraceful!”
Makaeff ultimately persuaded the judge presiding over the Trump University case to let her remove her name as a plaintiff.
Trump has long employed a series of hardball tactics against anyone who threatens his ego:
- Countersuits, threats and personal insults against outsiders; and
- Stringent confidentiality agreements against employees, business partners, his former spouses and now his campaign staffers.
As an authoritarian who demands the right to craft his own image. Trump furiously denies others the right to dissent from it.
In February, 2016, Trump said that he was “gonna open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”
After the New York Times published pages from his 1995 tax return, Trump tweeted that his lawyers “want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting.”
Trump claims the tax return was illegally obtained. The Times says it received it from an anonymous source with a return address at Trump Tower.
Trump is a master of “dog whistle” threats. On August 9, he falsely told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment.
“If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Hillary Clinton
The Clinton camp instantly saw it as a “dog-whistle” solicitation for political assassination.
“Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
“This is no longer about policy, civility, decency or even temperament. This is a direct threat of violence against a political rival,” wrote longtime broadcast journalist Dan Rather in a lengthy Facebook post.
“Many have tried to do a side-shuffle and issue statements saying they strongly disagree with his rhetoric but still support the candidate. That is becoming woefully insufficient. The rhetoric is the candidate.”
Trump–and his apologists–claimed he was simply “joking.”
But Trump was not done with making threats against Hillary Clinton–and her husband, Bill.
Donald Trump
On October 7, The Washington Post leaked a video of Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women (“I don’t even wait. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”).
The remarks came during a 2005 exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood.
The admissions ignited a firestorm against Trump, even among many Republicans.
Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, Trump blamed the Clintons–who had nothing to do with the release.
Speaking before a rally in Pennsylvania on October 10, Trump threatened: “If they wanna release more tapes saying inappropriate things, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks.”
In making this threat, Trump demonstrated:
- That there may be more evidence of his predatory actions toward women; and
- Like a terrorist, he is willing to harm others in a fit of anger or to demonstrate his capacity for cruelty.
And this is the man millions of Right-wing Americans want to entrust with the nuclear button.
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In Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2016 at 12:21 am
Gaius Caligula lived twenty-nine years and ruled Rome three years, ten months and eight days. When he died, his reign of depravity and terror died with him.
Today, millions of Americans fear a similar fate will sweep their country if Donald Trump becomes President.
Caligula’s life spanned August 31, 12 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.
Gaius Caligula
Trump was born on June 14, 1946.
Caligula became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Trump began his real estate career at his father’s real estate and construction company. His rose to wealth and fame after his father, Fred, gave him control of the business in 1971.
Caligula’s reign began well–and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral–then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished.
He gave bonuses to the military and destroyed lists of those Tiberius had declared traitors. He allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
Similarly, soon after acquiring the family business, Trump set out to build his own empire–hotels, golf courses, casinos, skyscrapers across North and South America, Europe and Asia. He named many of them after himself.
Donald Trump
He appeared at the Miss USA pageants, which he owned from 1996 to 2015. He hosted and co-produced The Apprentice, an NBC reality television series from 2004 to 2015.
The ancient historians describe Caligula as a noble and enlightened ruler during the first six months of his reign. But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began killing or exiling those who were close to him and anyone he saw as a threat.
Trump has never been charged with murder. But during his second Presidential debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he previewed the dangers of a Trump Justice Department: “If I win I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”
Caligula’s egomania soon reached psychotic heights.
- He gave himself several surnames: “Pious,” “Child of the Camp,” “Father of the Armies,” and “Greatest and Best of Caesars.”
- Flattered that he had risen higher than princes and kings, he began to believe himself a god.
- He appeared at the temple of Castor and Pollux to be worshiped as Jupiter Latiaris.
- He also set up a special temple to his own godhead.
Trump’s egomania is literally stamped on his properties. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them–52%–bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Among the references he’s made to himself:
- “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
- “I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”
- “My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”
- “My IQ is one of the highest–and you all know it.”
When Caligula wasn’t ordering wholesale Stalin-like purges–ranging from Roman aristocrats to slaves–he was setting new records for debauchery.
According to the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: “He lived in habitual incest with all his [three] sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor.”
Trump has never been charged with incest, but he’s repeatedly made sexually inappropriate comments about his daughter, Ivanka:
- “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …”
- When Trump appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, he was joined on stage by Ivanka. After they kissed, Dr. Oz said: “It’s nice to see a dad kiss his daughter.” Trump: “I kiss her every chance I get.” The remark was edited before the show aired.
- When asked how he would react if Ivanka, a former teen model, posed for Playboy, Trump replied: “I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
- “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body.”
Ivanka Trump
One final trait that Caligula shared with Trump: Both relished humiliating others.
Caligula’s fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death before other guards could save him.
The number of people, places and things Trump has insulted is so extensive The New York Times compiled a list of all 273 of them.
On October 7, Trump’s speaking insultingly about women (“I just start kissing them. I don’t even wait. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy”) threatened to derail his Presidential candidacy.
It remains to be seen if Trump suffers the final fate of Caligula.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 5, 2016 at 12:00 am
John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.
And Schnatter bluntly warned his employees: When the Act took effect, Papa John’s Pizza would change in two ways.
First, it would be forced to do something it hadn’t done since its founding in 1984: Offer healthcare coverage to its 16,5000 employees or pay a penalty to the government.
Second, it would raise the prices of its pizzas.
John Schnatter
How high would they go up?
By as much as eleven to fourteen cents price increase per pizza, or fifteen to twenty cents per order!
And Schnatter made it clear: He wasn’t going to take this lying down. He was determined to pass along those costs to his customers.
“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” Schnatter told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”
After all, why should a multi-million-dollar company show any concern for those who make its profits a reality?
Consider:
- Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza takeout and delivery chain in the United States.
- Its full year 2014 revenues were $1.60 billion, an increase of 11.1% from 2013 revenues of $1.44 billion.
- Its full year 2014 net income was $73.3 million, compared to 2013 net income of $69.5 million.
Click here: Papa John’s Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Results (NASDAQ:PZZA)
Nor should anyone expect Schnatter to take a pay cut, just so his employees can obtain medical care when they need it.
Schnatter’s total calculated compensation for 2014 came to $3,456,146.
Click here: John H. Schnatter: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek
“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter–a supporter of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney–admitted in a 2012 interview with Politico.
To demonstrate his opposition to providing medical insurance for all Americans, Schnatter hosted a fundraising event for Mitt Romney at his own Louisville, Kentucky mansion in May, 2012.
The luxurious setting for the fundraiser gave Romney a rush of pure, plutocratic ecstasy.
“What a home this is,” gushed Romney. “What grounds these are, the pool, the golf course.
“You know, if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this. Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this.”
John Schnatter’s estate
Of course, Romney conveniently ignored a brutally ugly fact:
For the vast majority of Papa John’s minimum-wage-earning employees–many of them working only part-time–the odds of their owning a comparable estate are non-existant.
In a typical demonstration of corporate thinking, Judy Nichols, a Papa John’s franchise owner in Beaumont, Texas, said:
“I have two options, I can stop offering coverage and pay the $2,000 fine, or I could keep my number of staff under 50 so the mandate doesn’t apply,” she told Legal Newsline.
In short: Defy the law, and employee healthcare needs be damned.
In fact, that’s exactly what Schnatter announced he would do: Reduce his workers’ hours–since Obamacare mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours per week are covered under their employers’ health insurance plan.
Nichols claimed that the the law might cost her $20,000 to $30,000 in taxes: “Obamacare is making me think about cutting jobs instead,” she said.
Translation: If you force me to behave responsibly, I’ll just have to take it it out on thousands of willing-to-work Americans.
So how can America cope with behavior that destroys not only lives but the economy as well?
By passing–and vigorously enforcing–a nationwide Employers Responsibility Act.
Among its provisions:
Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.
Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones–solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits.
Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions–and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.
The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.
Such “economic incentives” usually:
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
- allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
- allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
- allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.
Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:
- Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
- Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”
This would
- protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions;
- protect the environment in which these employees live; and
- protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.
It’s past time for America to protect employees who work for a living from CEOs who simply take credit for the work those employees do.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2016 at 10:46 pm
According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.
Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Really?
Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles–and emcompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
- Drug traffickers and human smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States–as they are now doing.
Click here: Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? – The Washington Post
There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now California’s Attorney General—created a secret program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.
She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.
(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(4) CEOs whose companies–like Wal-Mart–systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S.-Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
Without employers’ luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.
(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of their birth, they should not be considered citizens and should–like their parents–be subject to deportation.
(6) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.
Neither should Americans.
(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language–English.
Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish. There is no reason to cater to their hypocrisy.
(8) The United States should vigorously counter the argument that deporting illegal aliens “separates families.” There is absolutely no reason why this should happen. Those American citizens who wish to do so are perfectly free to accompany their illegal relatives to their home countries.
(9) The United States should impose severe economic and even military sanctions against countries–such as China and Mexico–whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2016 at 12:25 am
Mylan Pharmaceuticals CEO Heather Bresch is on a roll.
- Since 2004, she has hiked the price of a life-saving EpiPen from $50 to $300–or $600 for a package of two.
- She has seen her own salary steadily rise more than 600% to a current total of $18 million a year.
- The device now accounts for 40% of Mylan’s profits.
But in playing greed-based games with the lives of millions of Americans, Bresch, 47, may have put her company–and even herself–in jeopardy.
Heather Bresch
EpiPens have been mandatory for public schools in at least 11 states since Congress passed the 2013 School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act. This occurred after Mylan spent $4 million lobbying Congress.
When the lives of their children are threatened, adults who can stoically accept the inevitability of their own deaths can become dangerously emotional about the fates of their sons or daughters.
As national news media spread the word of Mylan’s unconscionable price increases, American consumers are making their rage increasingly known.
There are three ways this could be expressed: Political, Legal, and Illegal.
Political: Minnesota U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar has called for an official investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into the price hike:
Senator Amy Klobuchar
“I write to request the Federal Trade Commission investigate whether Mylan Pharmaceuticals has violated the antitrust laws regarding the sale of its epinephrine auto-injector, EpiPen. Many Americans, including my own daughter, rely on this life-saving product to treat severe allergic reactions.
“Although the antitrust laws do not prohibit price gouging, regardless of how unseemly it may be, they do prohibit the use of unreasonable restraints of trade to facilitate or protect a price increase.”
Other Senators who have called for hearings include Iowa’s Charles Grassley, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal and former Democratic presidential contender Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
“I have heard from one father in Iowa who recently purchased a refill of his daughter’s EpiPen prescription. He reported that to fill the prescription, he had to pay over $500 for one EpiPen,” wrote Grassley to Bresch. “The high cost has also caused some first responders to consider making their own kits with epinephrine vials and syringes.”
Senator Charles Grassley
“There’s no reason an EpiPen, which costs Mylan just a few dollars to make, should cost families more than $600,” tweeted Sanders on Twitter.
A second expression of political fallout could ultimately be the adoption of a single-payer healthcare system. Under this, a “single-payer” fund, rather than private insurers, pays for healthcare costs. The healthcare delivery system can be private, public or a combination of the two.
Owing to the belief of millions of Right-wing Americans that such a system is “Communistic,” this is unlikely to be adopted within the foreseeable future.
Legal: Individual Americans–and/or the U.S. Department of Justice–could file civil lawsuits against Mylan Pharmaceuticals under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Passed by Congress in 1970 to combat the Mafia, its provisions include punishments for extortion. This is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”
It could be argued that, by holding a near-monopoly over a product that millions of Americans depend on for survival, and raising its price beyond the ability of most Americans to afford it, Mylan has engaged in extortionate practices.
It would not be the first time a David-vs.-Goliath lawsuit prevailed against dismal expectations.
In 1994, amid great pessimism, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore filed a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. But other states soon followed, ultimately growing to 46.
Their goal: To seek monetary, equitable and injunctive relief under various consumer-protection and anti-trust laws.
The theory underlying these lawsuits: Cigarettes produced by the tobacco industry created health problems among the population, which badly strained the states’ public healthcare systems.
In 1998, the states settled their Medicaid lawsuits against the tobacco industry for recovery of their tobacco-related, health-care costs–amounting to millions of dollars. In return, they exempted the companies from private lawsuits for tobacco-related injuries.
Illegal: At one time, business titans like John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford lived apart from “the common herd.” Americans read about them in newspapers or heard about them on the radio, but had no way of contacting them directly.
If you wanted to “dig up dirt” on any of them, you had to be wealthy enough to hire private detectives–who were probably employed by the same people you wanted to investigate.
But the rise of the Internet–and especially the advent of “people-finder” websites like Instant Checkmate, Intellius and Veromi–has drastically changed all that.
Type “Heather Bresch” into the Intellius “Confidential People Finder” subject line, and–for a $20 month’s subscription–you can obtain “some or all of the following”:
- Full Name
- Age and Date of Birth
- Address
- Address History
- Phone Numbers
- Aliases
- Relatives
- Neighbors
- Email Address(es)
- Social Networks
- Property Records
- Marriages & Divorce
- Criminal Records
- Bankruptcies
- Liens
- Judgments
- Lawsuits
It doesn’t take a genius to see how the parent of an allergy-suffering child–desperate to save his son or daughter and enraged at what he believes to be the extortionately high price of EpiPens–might put such information to use.
What is truly astonishing is that, in our publicity-saturated culture, greedy, self-destructive “celebrities” like Heather Bresch don’t realize this.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on August 29, 2016 at 1:04 am
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, delivered this sage advice in his political masterwork, The Discourses:
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unfortunately, it’s advice that members of the United States Congress have blissfully chosen to ignore. And, in doing so, they have condemned millions of Americans to suffering and death at the hands of greed-based, predatory corporations.
One of these corporations is Mylan Pharmaceuticals.
In 2007, Mylan acquired the patent for the EpiPen, a lifesaving device for anyone allergic to common foods like peanuts, shellfish and eggs. Millions of people with life-threatening allergies depend on the EpiPen for survival.
During an allergy attack, the EpiPen injects an emergency dosage of epinephrine to the user, preventing a possibly fatal reaction, known as anaphylaxis, from occurring.
Between 2007 and 2015, the wholesale price of an EpiPen skyrocketed from $56.64 to $317.82–an increase of 461%.
According to NBC News, compensation for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch similarly skyrocketed during the same period: From $2,453,456 in 2007 to $18,931,068 in 2015–a 671% raise in eight years.
Bresch wasn’t the only one to profit at the expense of the most vulnerable.
Mylan’s president, Rajiv Malik, got an 11% pay increase to $1 million annually by 2015. And Mylan Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Mauro got a 13.6% raise, amounting to $625,000 per year.
Between 2007 and 2015, Mylan’s stock price tripled, going from $13.29 per share in 2007 to a high of $47.59 in 2016. By late August, 2016, Mylan’s stock is hovering around $45.68 per share on the NASDAQ index.
Bloomberg states that the EpiPen now accounts for about 40% of Mylan’s profits.
Ironically, Sheldon Kaplan, the man who invented the now-famous device, never made a dime off it, and died in obscurity.
After working at NASA, Kaplan worked for Survival Technology, Inc., in Bethesda, Maryland. His assignment: Create a device to quickly inject a victim of anaphylaxis–a potentially fatal allergic reaction–with an emergency dose of epinephrine.
In 1973, when Kaplan was finalizing the design concept for what would ultimately become the EpiPen, the Defense Department asked him to take on a new assignment. The military needed a device that could quickly inject an antidote for nerve gas.
Kaplan’s design perfectly fitted this need: When a victim plunged a needle into his thigh, a spring-loaded mechanism shot a needle containing life-saving medicine into his bloodstream.
Kaplan’s invention became known as the ComboPen, and was initially used by the Pentagon before becoming available for use by the general public several years later as the EpiPen.
Kaplan left Survival Technology shortly after creating the ComboPen to become a biochemical engineer. He didn’t follow the success of his invention–and didn’t reap any of the huge financial rewards that it has produced.
That has certainly not been true for Mylan Pharmaceuticals.
After cornering the patent on the EpiPen in 2007, the company has made billions on the life-saving device.
According to Bloomberg, a package of two EpiPens costs $415 in the United States after insurance discounts. The same package in France–which has price controls under socialized medicine–costs $85.
The chief beneficiary of this legalized price-gouging has been Mylan’s CEO, Heather Bresch.
Heather Bresch
The daughter of U..S. Senator Joseph Manchin (D-WV), she joined Mylan in 1992 and held various positions within the company. Among these: Its chief lobbyist before Congress.
It was in that capacity that she persuaded Congress to enact a bill requiring all public schools to carry EpiPens for students with food allergies. It was signed into law by President Barack Obama in November, 2013.
Over the next three years, schools nationwide bought EpiPens by the truckload. And Mylan jacked up its prices for the EpiPen every other quarter.
On January 1, 2012, Heather Bresch became Mylan’s CEO.
But it wasn’t enough to have a monopoly on a device millions of men, women and children desperately needed. In 2014, true to its “profits-at-any-price” philosophy, Mylan reincorporated in the Netherlands to lower its effective tax rate.
It did so through a corporate accounting trick known as a tax inversion, and thus claiming the status of a foreign-owned corporation although its headquarters remained in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
Even her own father, U..S. Senator Joseph Manchin, condemned Mylan’s use of the inversion scheme and said it should be illegal.
But Bresch fiercely defended it in an interview with the New York Times: “You can’t maintain competitiveness by staying at a competitive disadvantage. I mean you just can’t.”
No doubt, with her $18 million-a-year CEO salary and moneyed ties to high-powered attorneys and influential members of Congress, Bresch thinks herself invulnerable.
But all that could quickly change–if even a small number of her victims become angry enough.
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In Business, Law Enforcement, Self-Help, Social commentary on August 26, 2016 at 12:01 am
Receiving unsolicited, get-rich-quick emails has become a regular headache for millions of Internet users.
All too often, the result is fraud for their recipients. In 2013, losses from Nigerian scams alone totaled $12.7 billion.
Here’s how to spot the warning signs of fraud:
- Addressed Generally: “Attention!” “Dear Friend,” “Attention the owner of this email,” “Hello, Dear.” Your name is not mentioned, because this email has been mass-mailed to thousands of intended victims.
- Unsolicited: You’re told that you’ve won a lottery you never entered, or have inherited a fortune from someone you never knew existed.
- Appeals to religion: Appeals to Religion: “Hello Beloved in the Lord” or “Yours in Christ” seeks to create a bond with those who deeply believe in God.
- Misuse of English: Misuse of English: Mis-spellings and faulty grammar usually denote someone–probably a foreigner–using English as a second language. Examples: Run-on sentences; “you’re” for “your”; “except” instead of “accept”; “Dear Beneficial” instead of “Dear Beneficiary.”
- Appeals to Sympathy: Appeals to Sympathy: “My husband just died” or “I am dying of cancer.” This is to make you feel sorry for the sender and lower your guard as an intended victim.
- Use of Important Titles/Organizations: “Director,” ‘Barrister,” “Secretary General of the United Nations,” “Police Inspector.” This is to impress recipients and convince them that the email comes from a trusted and legitimate organization.
- Request for Personal Information: This includes some combination of: Name / Address / Telephone Number / Bank Name / Bank Account Number / Fax Number / Driver’s License Number / Occupation / Sex / Beneficiary / Passport Number
- Claims of Deposit: “We have deposited the check of your fund to your account” is a typical line to instantly grab your attention. Someone you’ve never heard of claims he has just put a huge amount of money into an account you know nothing about. Nor can you access it unless you first pay a “contact fee.”
- The “Bank” is in Africa: Unless you know you have relatives there, this should be a dead giveaway to a scam. Africa is a continent kept alive by the charity of other nations. It’s not in the business of doling out large sums of money to Westerners.
- Overseas Phone Numbers: If you call these, you’ll have a huge bill. So many people skip calling and just send the money “required” to receive their “cash prize.”
- Highly Personal Requests: Asking you–someone they’ve never met–to assume the burden of acting as the executor of their “Last Will and Testament.”
- Love Scams: The scammer poses as a man or woman–usually outside the United States–seeking love. A series of emails flows back and forth for days/weeks, until the scammer says s/he will be glad to fly to the United States to be yours. All you have to do is put up the money for the flight cost.
- “Make Money From Home”: With most employers refusing to hire, “work from home” scams promise a way to support yourself and your family. You’re required to provide bank information or pay an up-front “registration fee.” Then you wait for job orders–that never come.
- Debt Relief: Scammers promise to relieve most or all of your debt–for a large up-front fee. You pay the fee–and are not only out of that money but still in debt.
- Home Repair Schemes: Huge down payments are required for home repairs that never happen.
- “Free” Trial Offers: The service or product is free for awhile, but you must opt out later to avoid monthly billings.
- The Email Claims to Be From the FBI: Often the “address” includes “Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crime Division.” One such email was addressed: “Dear Beneficiary” and offered help in obtaining a “fund.” The FBI is an investigative agency responsible to the U.S. Department of Justice. It does not resolve financial disputes or secure monies for “deserving” recipients. If the FBI wants to contact you, it will do so by letter or by sending agents to your address. The FBI’s own website states: “At this time we do not have a national e-mail address for sending or forwarding investigative information.”
- “I Need Help”: You get an email claiming to be from someone you know–who’s “in jail here in Mexico” or some other foreign country. S/he begs you to send money for bail or bribes to win his/her freedom. If you get such an email, call the person to make certain. Don’t rush to send money–chances are it will go directly to a scammer.
FBI Headquarters: Where stopping cybercrime is now a top priority.
There are several commonsense rules to follow in protecting yourself from online scammers:
- Don’t trust people you’ve never met to want to give you money.
- Shop online only with well-known merchants who have a good reputation.
- Don’t click on unknown links–especially those in emails from unknown senders.
- If you’re required to pay an advance fee–“on faith”–to receive a big amount of money, the odds are it’s a scam.
- If you can’t find any solid information on a company, chances are it doesn’t exist.
- For additional information on how to protect yourself from cybercrime, check out the FBI’s page at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber.
- If it sounds too good to be true, the odds are: It is untrue.
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In Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 5, 2016 at 1:26 am
March 6, 2016, marked the 180th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, a crumbling former Spanish mission in the heart of San Antonio, Texas.
It’s one of those battles like Thermopylae that have passed from history into legend.
It’s been the subject of novels, movies, biographies, histories and TV dramas (most notably Walt Disney’s 1955 “Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier”).
The Alamo
Perhaps the most extraordinary scene in any Alamo movie or book occurs in the 1993 novel, Crockett of Tennessee, by Cameron Judd.
And it is no less affecting for its being–so far as we know–entirely fictional.
It’s March 5, 1836–the last night of life for the Alamo garrison. The night before the 2,000 men of the Mexican Army hurl themselves at the former mission and slaughter its 200 “Texian” defenders.
The fort’s commander, William Barret Travis, has drawn his “line in the sand” and invited the garrison to choose: To surrender, to try to escape, or to stay and fight to the death.
And the garrison–except for one man–chooses to stay and fight.
For the garrison, immortality lies only hours away. Or does it?
An hour after deciding to stand and die in the Alamo, wrapped in the gloom of night, Crockett is seized with paralyzing fear.
“We’re going to die here,” he chokes out to his longtime friend, Persius Tarr. “You understand that, Persius? We’re going to die!”
“I know, Davy. But there ain’t no news in that,” says Tarr. “We’re born to die. Every one of us. Only difference between us and most everybody else is we know when and where it’s going to be.”
“But I can’t be afraid–not me. I’m Crockett. I’m Canebrake Davy. I’m half-horse, half-alligator.”
“I know you are, Davy,” says Tarr. “So do all these men here. That’s why you’re going to get past this.
“You’re going to put that fear behind you and walk back out there and fight like the man you are. The fear’s come and now it’s gone. This is our time, Davy.”
“The glory-time,” says Crockett.
“That’s right, David. The glory-time.”
And then Tarr delivers a sentiment wholly alien to money-obsessed men like Mitt Romney and Donald Trump–who comprise the richest and most privileged 1% of today’s Americans.
“There’s men out there with their eyes on you. You’re the only thing keeping the fear away from them. You’re joking and grinning and fiddling–it gives them courage they wouldn’t have had without you.
“Maybe that’s why you’re here, Davy–to make the little men and the scared men into big and brave men. You’ve always cared about the little men, Davy. Remember who you are.
“You’re Crockett of Tennessee, and your glory-time has come. Don’t you miss a bit of it.”
The next morning, the Mexicans assault the Alamo. Crockett embraces his glory-time–and becomes a legend for all-time.
David Crockett (center) at the fall of the Alamo
David Crockett (1786-1836) lived–and died–a poor man. But this did not prevent him from trying to better the lives of his family and fellow citizens–and even his former enemies.
David Crockett
During the war of 1812, he served as a scout under Andrew Jackson. His foes were the Creek Indians, who had massacred 500 settlers at Fort Mims, Alabama–and threatened to do the same to Crockett’s family and neighbors in Tennessee.
As a Congressman from Tennessee, he championed the rights of poor whites. And he opposed then-President Jackson’s efforts to force the same defeated Indians to depart the lands guaranteed them by treaty.
To Crockett, a promise was sacred–whether given by a single man or the United States Government.
And his presence during the 13-day siege of the Alamo did cheer the spirits of the vastly outnumbered defenders. It’s a matter of historical record that he and a Scotsman named MacGregor often staged musical “duels” to see who could make the most noise.
It was MacGregor with his bagpipes against Crockett and his fiddle.
Contrast this devotion of Crockett to the rights of “the little men,” as Persius Tarr called them, with the attitude of Donald Trump, the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee.
Donald Trump
On June 16, 2015, while announcing his candidacy, Trump said:
- “…I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money. I’m using my own money. I’m not using lobbyists, I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”
- “I did a lot of great deals and I did them early and young, and now I’m building all over the world….”
- “So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well-over $10 billion.”
- “But here, a total net worth of–net worth, not assets, not–a net worth, after all debt, after all expenses, the greatest assets–Trump Tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America building in San Francisco, 40 Wall Street, sometimes referred to as the Trump building right opposite the New York–many other places all over the world. So the total is $8,737,540,000.”
Those who give their lives for others are rightly loved and remembered as heroes. Those who dedicate their lives solely to their wallets and egos are rightly soon forgotten.
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PAY MORE TAXES, GET LESS FOR THEM
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2016 at 6:20 amThe budget for the City and County of San Francisco for 2016-17 is $9.6 billion. Its proposed budget for 2017-18 is $9.7 billion.
San Francisco occupies 46.87 miles and has a population of 837,442.
Roughly half of the budget goes toward city-related business operations–such as the Port, the bus line, the Airport and the Public Utilities Commission.
The other half of the budget goes toward such public services as Public Health, Police and Fire Services, Recreation and Parks.
As the November 8 election quickly approaches, the most controversial issue on the city ballot is Proposition V.
Specifically, this calls for a tax of one cent per ounce from the distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Currently, San Francisco does not impose a tax on the distribution of sugar-sweetened beverage.
The initiative defines “a sugar-sweetened beverage” as “a beverage that contains added sugar and 25 or more calories per 12 ounces.
“These include some soft drinks, sports drinks, iced tea, juice drinks and energy drinks. The tax would also apply to syrups and powders that can be made into sugar-sweetened beverages, for example, fountain drinks from beverage-dispensing machines.”
Supporters of the initiative are trying to sell it via the “save our kids” argument. The Vote Yes on V campaign states:
“On November 8th, the health of children in San Francisco relies on us.
“Proposition V will tax distributors of soda and other sugary drinks that have direct links to obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart and liver disease.”
Left unsaid is how putting more money into city coffers would lead children to show more restraint in buying “sugar-sweetened beverages.”
Perhaps the real reason why many city officials enthusiastically back this measure can be found in a statement by the San Francisco Controller:
“Should this ordinance be approved, in my opinion, it would result in an annual tax revenue increase to the City of approximately $7.5 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017–2018 and $15 million in FY 2018–19. The tax is a general tax and proceeds would be deposited into the General Fund.”
San Francisco Controller’s Office
San Francisco takes in more than $9 billion in taxes every year. But for many San Francisco officials this just isn’t enough.
Yet for many San Francisco residents, it is. In 2014, they defeated a similar soda tax.
Opponents of the tax have attacked it as a “grocery tax.” They argue that grocers–especially those running the mom-and-pop stores popular in San Francisco–will pass on the costs to their customers by raising prices on groceries altogether.
Proposition V supporters claim this is a lie. Rebecca Kaplan, a member of the Oakland Council, told the Huffington Post: “People worry about having to pay for their groceries. To threaten that their groceries are going to be taxed when it’s not true is a totally despicable tactic from the soda industry.”
Actually, there is nothing in the measure to prevent grocers from passing the tax on to consumers.
Meanwhile, what are San Franciscans getting for the $9 billion in taxes City Hall collects?
Call even 9-1-1 and the odds are great that you’ll get the same message. And if you complain to a city official about it, you’ll likely be told: “Well, we have only so many operators.”
The last thing someone calling police or the fire department in a crisis wants to hear is: “We’ll get back to you when we feel like it.”
You’ll find its red-brick blocks filled with stinking, disease-ridden, drug- or alcohol-addicted, often psychotic men and women whom city officials politely call “the homeless.”
In 2016, the city spent $241 million on “homeless” services. But the population surges between 7,000 and 10,000. Of these, 3,000 to 5,000 refuse shelter.
City officials admit that San Francisco ranks second to New York in homelessness. What they won’t admit is that they are largely responsible for it.
The city’s mild climate and social programs that dole out cash payments to virtually anyone with no residency requirement draw rootless, unstable persons like a magnet.
In 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle found that the city’s violent criminals had a better chance of escaping punishment than predators in any other large American city.
The SFPD had the lowest violent crime “clearance rate” among the nation’s 20 largest cities. Among Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, the SFPD is considered a joke.
From 2004 to 2011, Kamala Harris served as the city’s District Attorney. In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.
Kamala Harris
Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold. This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law. It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.
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