Vote for Progressive Democrat Martha Coakley

On the merits of her record.

1. Opposes sending more troops to Afghanistan.

2. Supports a woman's right to choose.

3. Supports health care coverage for all.

4. Achieved record settlements in enforcement actions against Big Pharma.

5. Supports civil and reproductive rights: filed constitutional challenge to DOMA.

6. Supporting the environment; supporting consumers by litigating ratepayer protection to the tune of $100 million dollars

7. Strong record on domestic violence, survivors of abuse, crime victims, preventing human trafficking.


I don't have time to review everything, it's on on her website, in detail. This election is about electing a superb candidate from MA to the US Senate, MA Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Progressive Dem Coakley versus waterboarding enthusiast Brown

Pro-torture candidate for Senate in MA, Scott Brown, is rising in the polls against progressive Dem Martha Coakley. You'd think a Republican would be easy to beat in MA, but apparently the teabaggers are all riled up about beating Coakley.

Brown on waterboarding:

Brown . . .took a hard line against the coming terrorism trials in New York City, lambasting Attorney General Eric Holder by saying, "It's time we stopped acting like lawyers and started acting like patriots." He also defended the use of waterboarding, disagreeing with Sen. John McCain (who endorsed him recently): "I do not believe it is torture.

Here's a link John Cole of Balloon Juice put up at ActBlue, for fundraising.

If you can't donate, and you think it's important that MA's senator be anti-torture, write a letter, blog a blog, if you can.

RIP Teddy Kennedy -- Teddy Jr.'s Eulogy Part Two

RIP Teddy Kennedy -- Teddy Jr.'s Eulogy Part One

Ted Kennedy Dies at 77

Great senator, great sailor.

Hello Dalai

Nearly 16,000 people turn out for the Dalai Lama at Gillette Stadium.

Note to teabaggers: pay your taxes like a man

This is why:

Desperate veterans turn to suicide.

You break it, you buy it.

Several branches of the military are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an "epidemic."

Survivors of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing the VA of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans' groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The agency also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped.

I wrote long ago about the cons deliberately mis-diagnosing PTSD in an attempt to deny services. Click on PTSD; I can't elaborate because I'm off to a seminar. On treating PTSD, as it happens. More later.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Dept. of "As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap," or: Build Roads While Wearing Sad Faces of Regret re: the Decay of Our Puny Social Infrastructure

Hey. Turns out the Dems don't give a crap about the sick, poor, the insane, the elderly, the young, the vulnerable either. And here I was just blaming the Republicans. But there's enough blame to go around, really. Because, you know, these are hard times. Somebody has to suffer. If they're already suffering, what's the bad thing about piling on a little more, eh?

States Slashing Social Programs for the Vulnerable.

No reason to slash progams for the invulnerable, is there?

Saudis, Si! Cuba, No!

It's obvious that it's OK to trade with the Saudis, who treat their women like dirt, and it's OK to sell off our country to the genocidal Red Chinese, but Cuba?

Pfft.

Why would we trade with them? Why would we visit them? They've got a health care system that actually works! Can't expose our population to that, can we?

In the meantime, we're still dependent on and trading with a country that thinks marrying off 8-year-old girls is swell. Saudi Arabia. Marrying off an 8-year old girl to her Daddy's 47-year-old male "close friend."

"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks last January quoted in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

Saudi, si! Porque no?

Guess I Picked the Wrong Day to Quit Thinkin' We'd Already Hit "Peak Stupid"

Yeah, I think all that "reward good behavior" stuff is um like to-tally wrongheaded.

When you find people who really suck at their jobs, the proper response is to Throw More Of Taxpayers' Money At Them!! Because -- if at first you don't succeed, try to try not succeeding AGAIN!

Because otherwise, these ruinously incompetent greedy swine would turn out to be seen as LOSERS. And then they'd default on their MORTGAGES and lose their HOUSES. And then the loudmouth wankers on MSNBC would BLAME THEM. Like LIMBAUGH.

FOR BEING STUPID.

I on the other hand feel no need to wait for MSNBC. I can blame them for being STUPID right now.

Which I, you know, just did.

; )

U-S-A, U-S-A Denver: Leg Shackles, Pepper Spray, Gitmoesque Frigid Air, Sleep Deprivation. Constitution? Just a Piece O' Paper

From the Denver Post, Mobile edition.
YOUNG PROTESTER DESCRIBES DETENTION

Editor's note: The following is a firsthand account from Martin, a young Colorado protester arrested Monday evening when police in riot gear surrounded a group of 100-200 protesters as they marched on 15th Street between Court and Cleveland Place.

"The first thing I really noticed was at Civic Center Park when I was in the 'Food Not Bombs' area. The police seemed to be ready for conflict. They walked through the 'Food Not Bombs' crowd, which was a peaceful group, holding their weapons out and looking at people, really intensely, trying to intimidate everyone. It made us all a little worried.

"I was planning to march with the group that night. We all had different reasons for being there. I was marching to make people aware that they should be worried about our civil rights being stripped systematically right now, and show people that habeas corpus is six feet under. I just think the time we live in has so many deep-rooted problems that I don't understand how people can NOT protest. I'd never been arrested before, and I have no criminal record or significant run-ins with the law.

"The group first gathered outside the City-County building, getting ready to march, but the police blockaded us. I didn't see the pepper spray there, but the whole group decided to retreat because we didn't want to be encircled by the police. So we went to the promenade and crossed onto 15th Street, linking arms, trying to stay as tight as we could and stay together.

"Everything happened really fast. We knew there were police behind us, and that presence was growing larger, with more police, but then suddenly there were police in front of us at the other end of the block. Shortly after that, the police encircled us. A lot of people were able to escape before they closed the circle, but the rest of us were inside, along with a journalist from Brooklyn, and a woman who started writing on her laptop about what was happening, and some photographers. There were many people who weren't protesters, just citizens, who were in the encircled group.

"We moved to the sidewalk - a few people stayed in the street - because we didn't want a confrontation, but it didn't matter.

"People started pleading: 'Let me go,' 'I want to go home.' The police started using the pepper spray. Some of the police on horses were whacking people with their batons. I was told later that the police were telling us to disperse, but I didn't hear them say that. And where would we go? The police were all around us, not letting us leave.

"We asked why we were being detained, but they wouldn't talk to us. They told us to sit down, and we sat down.

"Then they said that anyone with a photo I.D. could show it and be let out of the circle, and anyone without I.D. would be arrested. I saw a handful of people hold up their I.D., and police walked up to them, grabbed them and took them out. I don't know if they were arrested.

"They set up an arrest squad - two police per protester, and talked about who to pick - 'Get this one with the bandana' or 'Get that one in the black.' They were targeting individuals.

"The arrest process was: The two officers picked you up, searched you, took your bag and everything except your money. They put you in blue plastic handcuffs and walked you to a line where you stood in front of a camera, holding a placard with the charges against you, and then there was footage of the officer who'd arrested you. All I can remember is the officer claimed I'd done some things I had not done - said I'd thrown rocks, which I didn't do; I didn't see anyone with rocks. I asked him why he said that when I hadn't done it. His answers were vague, ambiguous.

"Then I was taken to another area, loaded onto a bus that took us to a warehouse in a Denver industrial park. There were Special Operations Response Team police there, who took our pictures again, printed both hands - not just the fingers, but our whole hand rolled onto the ink - and did a medical check. Then they assigned us to different chain-link cages, maybe 15 feet by 15 feet, all chain link, with a padlock. Between 10 and 20 of us were in one of those cages. Females and males were separated.

"They pumped in cold air, in these big white tubes, all night and all day the next day. It was freezing in there. I was lucky; I had a jacket, but other people were in shorts and T-shirts. We asked them to turn off the cold air, but they didn't.

"Eventually they put all of us in metal leg shackles, and re-handcuffed us in pairs, with our right hands together — right hand to right hand - so it was difficult to move. . .

"We were utterly confused. We did not understand why we were being detained. We hadn't been read our Miranda rights. We didn't know what we'd done to merit such a violent response, or why the Special Operations police were needed.

"After they shackled us, they put us in a van with no windows, and took us to the courthouse, where we were supposed to speak with a judge to hear the charges against us. We were still handcuffed, right hand to right hand. They took us in an elevator that went up to a jail cell, and we were told to watch a video of a judge telling us our rights, through the bars. It was surreal, like being in a futuristic movie, like "1984" or "A Clockwork Orange."

"Eventually, at about 2 a.m., we got to see a real judge, who explained our rights to us, and explained the charges. There was a lawyer, an angel, who explained everything in plain language. There were five charges against me: Blocking a public thoroughfare, not abiding an order to disperse, throwing rocks and missiles, loitering, and begging. At times, I had begged them for water, when we were sitting down on 15th Street before going through the arrest process.

"The attorney explained we had three choices: Plead guilty and post a $300 bond ($500 if you were from out of state), or accept a plea bargain that dropped all the charges but one that you had to pay $141 for, or plead not guilty and either post your own bail or wait in jail till your court date. But nobody had given us a court date. So I took the plea bargain, because I didn't have the money for bail.

"Then they walked us out of the courthouse, and we saw another group from the protest walking in. We were the first group to meet with a judge and a lawyer.

"Then they took us back to the warehouse. The only place to sleep was on a chair, if you got one, or on the concrete floor.

"I was really worried because I could not get any responses from the police. We kept asking how long we'd be there, when the bus was coming, and they'd keep saying, 'It's coming.' It felt inhumane, utterly terrifying. If they'd answered some of our questions, I think people would've been less terrified, less frightened, but I think the police were intentionally fatiguing us. They'd keep us for long periods of time in one cage, and then re-handcuff us and move us to another cell, as if something was about to change, but it didn't. It was all psychological.

"In the cells, we talked to each other about where we were from, the places we'd been, and if we'd been in situations before. We reassured each other of our rights, made sure everyone knew the People's Law Project hotline number, and that it was really important to get names and badge numbers. . . .

"I got out on Tuesday around noon. We learned we were the first wave of protesters to make it all the way through the process — 7 p.m. last night to noon today. . . .

Update here at Democracy Now.
More here.
Hat tip to anon for update links, top pic.

Send Arthur Silber Money Or I'll Rip The Spangles Off Of Unity Pony and Paste Them On Cindy McCain

Why?

Because -- he's waaay leftier than thou.

Because he writes stuff like PSSST--WHILE YOU WERE GIBBERING, THE RULING CLASS RIGGED THE GAME AND WON EVERYTHING:

And this: DEATH MATCH; IF THE WORDS DON'T KILL YOU, THE BOMBS WILL


And: HOW DEEPLY STUPID CAN PROGRESSIVES MAKE THEMSELVES

And this: OH ARTHUR YOU'RE JUST CRAZY

Just for starters.

And -- because he needs it. And because we needs to support one of our own.

Help for the People of Burma

Link through to Normblog for live links, and full article.

"Both the Burmese government restrictions and US economic sanctions make it very difficult to give money to local NGOs directly, but it is possible to support their work by donating to the international groups that have longstanding partnerships with local NGOs and community-based organizations (including churches and monasteries).

The following international organizations are already in the Delta and have launched fundraising campaigns to support broader efforts. All of them have proven track records in Burma, and especially in the Delta."

ADRA International
Myanmar Cyclone Fund
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904
(800) 424-ADRA ext. 2372
http://www.adra.org


http://www.worldvision.org (More via Normblog)

Bitchy Nappy-headed Ho Karl "Miss Piggy" Rove Calls Calling Senator Clinton "a bitch" Key Secret Sexist Tactic

Well, some of us, at least, are not surprised.

Why is Newsweak paying this nasty sexist propagandist to spread his propaganda?

Maybe "Miss Piggy" Karl and Newsweek, and all their pussy propaganda minions are all on the rag.

Otherwise, it's inexplicable, is it not?

GOD SMITES DOWN FALWELL

Well, some people just aren't surprised that a just God finally struck down Falwell.

Falwell just kept on perverting the teachings of Christ.

What's a wrathful God to do?

Apparently, all those tornados and hurricanes and disasters God sent to the Heartland and to the South to get these un-Christian Talibangelicals to finally toe the line weren't heeded, but were misinterpreted -- they certainly weren't enough to bring Falwell back from the Dark Side.

Eventually, God just had no choice but to cull him from the herd.

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America," Falwell said after 9/11. "I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Falwell once also referred to AIDS as "the wrath of a just God against homosexuals."

Farewell, Jerry Falwell -- meet the REAL eternal hellfire and damnation!

Not to worry, though. You'll fit right in in hell.

(But you knew that . . . did you not?)


Jerry Falwell
Talibangelicals




read more | digg story

Father Wants To Divorce his Little Daughter

From the Sydney Morning Herald, here:

Father wants to divorce his seven-month-old daughter

SEVEN-MONTH-OLD Elizabeth Wells has never been held in her father's arms, and if he has his way she never will be.

In what could be a landmark case in the US, Matt Dubay, a computer programmer, is asking the courts to absolve him of all the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Mr Dubay's lawsuit has the backing of the National Centre for Men, activists who say that equal opportunities have swung too far in favour of women.

For Mr Dubay, 25, news that he was about to become a father was an unwelcome shock. It followed a night spent with a student, Lauren Wells, who he claims told him that she was infertile and using contraception. The apparent contradiction of those remarks did not fully hit Mr Dubay until several weeks later, when Ms Wells, 20, told him she was pregnant.

While the relationship soon foundered, his former girlfriend said she was keeping the child and, when the baby was born last August, she began legal proceedings to ensure that her former boyfriend paid his way in bringing up their daughter.

Faced with a court order for $US500 ($690) a month in child support, Mr Dubay said not paying was his constitutional right.

"I don't believe men have any say … [they are] simply ignored," he said from his home in Saginaw, Michigan. After learning that Ms Wells was pregnant, Mr Dubay said he talked to her about an abortion or having the baby adopted, but she ruled out both. "I painted a very clear picture at that point that I was not ready to be a father," he said. "I was not ready to be a part of the child's life."

His lawsuit, filed in a federal court, says that men who face fatherhood without their consent should be able to opt out of their responsibilities. While it does not seek to force women to have an abortion or give up their babies for adoption, it claims that women have the right to pursue either option if they do not want to bring up a child on their own.

The founder of the National Centre for Men, Mel Feit, said: "Men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.

"A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother," Mr Feit said.

Ms Wells said in a statement through her lawyer on Saturday that "my focus is on providing a nurturing home for our baby".

Saying that she was disappointed in Mr Dubay's decision, she added: "I believe that life begins at conception and blossoms. I take responsibility for my acts and will do my best as an adult and mother to protect and provide for our daughter."

Mr Dubay has met his daughter just once, when both attended a clinic for blood tests that proved he was her father. He admitted it was "difficult to look away" when the baby was in the room, but he believes it would disrupt her life if he assumed any other duties of parenthood. "I still, to this point, believe that it isn't right to be part of the child's life. An unwilling parent is not good for a child."

I agree that an unwilling parent is not good for a child, so he may as well just stay out of the little girl's life. I see no reason why he shouldn't foot his part of the bill, however, for this unintended pregnancy. He didn't have to carry the child to term, placing his own life at risk, nor, apparently, will he be doing any of the rest of the work of child-rearing. His initial participation was certainly equal.

Presumably Mr. Dubay understands in general the law of cause and effect?


unwantedness
parenting

Pass the Cherry Kijafa, I'll Drink to That

No, on second thought, keep the cherry stuff, but you can pass the Havarti.

From a recent pro-free speech rally in Washington, DC, outside the Danish Embassy, via Corsair.

SERFIN' U-S-A!! . . . (an appreciation of Corporation Appreciation Week, for the CorruptCo Blogfest)

How do we love thee, Bushist fascist corporate corporations of America?

Let us count the ways:

We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of pensions.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of job security.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of health benefits.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of a single job being enough to support anyone, much less a family.

We love thee for destroying unions and making us love you for it lest we lose our jobs.

We love thee for disabusing us of the notion that "factory workers at successful companies can achieve a secure, relatively prosperous middle-class life for themselves."

We love thee for creatively creating useless products like Coke and Pepsi which have no nutritional value and yet make beeg money.

We love thee for creatively creating and selling useless products like Camels, Marlboros, etc. etc., totally unecessary & addictive items which actually ruin health and/or kill and yet make beeg money.

We love thee for creatively creating and hypnotically selling products like McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's junk food made out of junk which contribute to obesity and illness and yet make beeg money (see Left of Center's Corruptco post here on high fructose corn syrup and bring your barf bag).

We love thee for successfully poisoning the natural environment and getting away with it, so far.

We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who has never actually held an actual job, like both his daughters and I think his mother, and who therefore is able to slap an innocent lady citizen on the back as congratulations to her for her good luck to be living in a country like America where she can hold three jobs--three!--at once.

We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who exploded toads in his youth.
We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who thinks that invading Iraq and thus making money for Halliburton, the Carlisle Group, and KBR and the rest of the military-industrial complex is way more important than the actual lives of actual troops or the actual lives of actual citizens.

We love thee for always putting profits before people and therefore providing us a sense of security in this impermanent world.

We love thee for your iron grip on corporate media, and your continuing hypnotic hold on the American populace.

We love thee for Enron's happiness at successfully stealing money from little old ladies in California.

We love thee for replacing the notion of American labor with the notion of American serfdom; for replacing noblesse oblige with pure greed and ego; for replacing three classes with the classic two: haves and have -nots--and for blaming the have-nots for not having.

We love thee for not giving a shit about anyone but yourselves.
We love thee for thinking that giving a shit about anyone but yourselves is somehow "quaint," not unlike the Geneva Conventions.

Not only do we love thee, but we worship thee and we bow down.

Ha.




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This post is part of the CorruptCo Blogfest, created by LosetheNoose.

A Rose of Mohammed By Any Other Name Would Be -- A Danish

Tehran, Iran (AP) -- Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Mohammed."

Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper.

"Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to 'Rose of Mohammed' pastries," the union said in its order. . .

Iran's Danish renaming wasn't the first time a food name has become a symbol of protest.











A Republican congressman from North Carolina helped lead an effort to make sure Capitol Hill cafeterias changed their menus to advertise "freedom fries" instead of french fries after France opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

On a related note, a story here about a fatwa against those Danes who published cartoons depicting Mohammed. (Picture below from a medieval Muslim manuscript).













Cleric Offers $1 Million to Kill Muhammad Cartoonist

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) A Pakistani cleric announced Friday a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, as thousands joined street protests and Denmark temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Police confined the former leader of an Islamic militant group to his home to prevent him from addressing supporters over the cartoons, amid fears he could incite violence, after riots this week killed five people. . .In the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, prayer leader Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi announced the bounty for killing a cartoonist to about 1,000 people outside the Mohabat Khan mosque.

Qureshi said the mosque and his religious school would give $25,000 and a car, while a local jewelers' association would give another $1 million. . . "This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said. . .

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the prophet pictures by 12 cartoonists in September. . . Denmark has already temporarily closed its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia after anti-Danish protests and threats against staff. . .

Unrest over the cartoons has spiraled in Pakistan, even as it has ebbed in the rest of Asia and in the Middle East. Big riots in Lahore and Peshawar this week caused millions of dollars in damage, as hundreds of vehicles were burned and protesters targeted numerous U.S. and other foreign-brand businesses, including KFC, McDonald's, Citibank, Holiday Inn, and Norwegian cell phone company Telenor.

Intelligence officials have said scores of members of radical and militant Islamic groups, such as Jamaat al-Dawat, joined the unruly protests in Lahore on Tuesday and had incited violence in a bid to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government. . .

Renaming pastries and junk food is a reasonable (if silly) and peaceful response to events not going in one's own way.

Killing others and/or advocating killing others who do not subscribe to one's religious beliefs is heinous, whether it be Ayatollah Khomeini or Ann Coulter who's egging the misguided zealots on.














--------------------------
Second image from the bottom is from demonstrations in Beiruit; third from last is from an on-line archive here. Final picture is of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, now demonstrating the truth of the impermanence of all things, thanks to the Taliban.

Danish cartoons
freedom of speech
Ann Coulter

In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities: The Tao of Bubble Boy

"Poor people are poor because they are lazy."

The Tao of Bubble Boy.

Dear Bubble Boy:

Despite what your insensitive, racist, college dropout mom taught you, poor people are poor because they don't earn enough money to be rich, or because they have not inherited sufficient funds to live on (interest from inherited) bread alone.

Poor people are poor--oh, and sick--because even when they work, they don't earn enough money to pay for rent, or clothes, or health care. Oh, and they get sick because they eat cheap junk food because--it's cheap.

Recently, the cost of health care rose to equal earnings from minimum wage jobs. The latimes reported that "average annual premiums for family coverage grew more than 9% since last year to $10,880. A minimum wage worker earns $10,712 before taxes. "

You, Bubble Boy, recently reduced the hourly wages for reconstruction workers in the aftermath of Katrina. Isn't that nice?

As for Katrina evacuees, here's the picture from the Washington Post:

Six in 10 evacuees had family incomes of less than $20,000 last year. Half have children younger than 18. One in eight was unemployed when the storm hit. Seven in 10 said they have no insurance to cover their losses. Fully half have no health insurance. Four in 10 suffer from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or are physically disabled.

That's pretty seriously poor--and ill. All their fault, of course.

And what about that unemployment thing? Wow. Must be so lazy.

On the other hand, neither one of your college graduate daughters works. That makes them both unemployed. Is that why neither one, much less you you, cares about the minimum wage? But why aren't they starving, if they're not working? "Daddy's friends"? "Daddy'?

You, Bubble Boy, a noted dunce, got into Yale and Harvard because of your "Daddy's friends." This, according to you.

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Yale? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into Harvard? Do poor people have disproportionate incidence of diabetes and obesity because they have less access to vegetables, protein, and dinners at the Fairfield Country Club with Muffies and Binkies?

Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to get them into the National Guard as a a way to avoid going to Vietnam, even though they, like you, might support the fighting of that war, but just not want themselves to be exploded? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" to cover-up one's illegal drug use, and one's derelictions of duty, so that one suffers no consequences pretty much however deeply one screws up?

Do poor people have trust funds? Do poor people have financial advisers? Do poor people get tax breaks? Do poor people know how to scam like Halliburton, Bechtel, and CACI? Do poor people have "Daddy's friends" who can help them get into the oil business, and into the Texas Rangers business?

Why don't they?

Are they too lazy?