Posted on 03/17/2017 6:15:09 AM PDT by milton23
We hear it all the time from politicians: They are finally going to stop the “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government.
In states with more corruption, like Pennsylvania, New York, or Illinois, calls to clean up government are frequent as well.
The problem is that these promises rarely come to fruition.
This week—Sunshine Week—is a perfect time to stop waiting for someone else to fix these problems. Let’s look to citizens, and a push for more open government, to get the job done. As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant of all.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
The lawyer politicians at every level are there to hide and protect the graft and corruption. Their allies in the old media will simply distort, hide, or outright lie to cover for the Rat party. Until we kill the old media, little will change.
That will help, but reducing the money used/taken by government will help immensely more.
===============================================
BACKSTORY The 1980 Georgia General Assembly was concerned about the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements on the public payroll (and those in elective and appointive office). The Georgia General Assembly then adopted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), patterned after a similar federal law.
(RICO is routinely used to try to prove that a legal business was being used for illegal means, and, in at its inception, RICO was used to prosecute drug traffickers or organized crime members).
In recent years prosecutors have applied RICO to crooked government officials: (1) those accused of using their public offices for personal gain, and, (2) tax-paid officials of govt agencies using public monies to flout the law.
To bring a case under Georgias RICO law, there must be at least two underlying felonies such as fraud, bribery, witness tampering (among other felonies).
RICO allows prosecutors to include multiple defendants charged with various crimes in the blanket indictment, and to charge that govt employees, publicy-funded and publicly-sanctioned entities were allegedly part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
EXAMPLE A govt official commits two felonies by (1) accepting, and, (2) filing falsified documents.
UPDATE Georgia tried convicted and jailed 27 corrupt teachers under this law.....for falsely taking public money, falsifying official school records, and so on.
==============================================
==============================================
ITEM---Any public official using tax dollars to flout that law is a lawbreaker.
ITEM-- in cases where govt officials on the public payroll not giving public notice is a violation at the federal level of the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act, which requires notice in the Federal Register. Laws demand that taxpayers have the opportunity to submit views in writing.
===============================================
ITEM-- If proof is established that RICOed criminal public officials impaired the commercial and economic activity of the region, that could also be prosecutable under the Hobbs Act.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.