Companies Pass Exorbitant BBB Membership Fees Along to Customers

Think You're Being Smart by Shopping an A+ Rated, BBB-Approved Comopany? Think Again!

BBB Membership Dues (the Only Criteria for Acceptance or Rating) Drive Up Prices Among Members of Extortion Club

By: Fat Lester (FREE Consumer Advocate)

You’re proud of the fact that you need a herd of other sheep surrounding you in order to make decisions? You’re proud that you’re a big enough sucker that you gave $400-$500 to a gang of wanna-be mobsters who aren’t cool enough to have guns and wouldn’t know what to do with them if they did just so they wouldn’t make fun of you?

Wow Jason! That’s pretty pathetic!

Is the feeling of acceptance you get hanging out with a bunch of parasitic dweebs who didn’t move out of their mom’s basement until they were in their 40′s and even still managed to avoid getting a real job worth the $500 you take away from your little girl’s education fund each year so that you can remain a member of the lamest club on earth?

What would you do if someone were to tell you that your buddies will in all likelihood be indicted before the end of 2014 on charges of fraud, racketeering

and extortion? Would you fear for your own safety or would you become psyched by the opportunity to be one of the “inner circle” of ‘mid-40′s-but-still-not-self-sufficient dweebs’ by default if the current group of super-sized maggots were to be sentenced to a federal prison term?

I got news for you Jasey… Your mom’s the only person who thinks you’re cool. Paying $500/year to be a member of a fake-club wherein the club’s upper-echelon agrees not to make fun of you of call you names if you pay them doesn’t make you cool. It’s still not the same thing as a fraternity (which aren’t cool either — just a less uncool group of conformist twits). The difference between someone like you and someone like me is that you’ll shell out big bucks for approval, whereas I go out an earn mine through my work and my character.

Then again, I don’t expect you to know anything about that… Character and the doofuses who make up the BBB are mutually exclusive. I’d rather be among the former (someone with character and principles) than a wanna-be tough-guy gangster only fat from drinking too much beer on mom’s sofa any day of the week.

Good luck in federal court… I hope you all get at least six months. What I’m really looking forward to though is the class-action civil suit that’s going to issue divine comeuppance to your oversized kindergarten class full of adult twerps.

You might as well let mom know what’s coming, as your snarky little badge means nothing to anyone aside from you, mommy and the other twerps who have convinced each other that you actually did something besides pay someone smarter than you (smart enough to get you to pay $500 for a $0.30 badge) three days salary so you could pretend to be important with the other manboys in the little clubhouse.

Better Business Bureau: Criminal Extortion Racket

Better Business Bureau: High-Ranking Members May Face Charges

The Better Business Bureau, often mistaken by ill-informed consumers for a "consumer protection" agency, is under fire in the latest chapter in a series of flare-ups involving irate small business owners who are becoming increasingly vocal in expressing their unanimous belief that the BBB and the individuals who grow rich charging businesses for "protection" are guilty of the felonious crimes of fraud, extortion and racketeering.



 Many of the small business owners whose companies have been the subjects of BBB bullying and fraud are joining together to present a united front against the criminal enterprise in hopes of amassing sufficient lobbying power to have federal prosecutor issue a blanket indictment against hundreds of individuals on whom the working class believes it has proof of criminal association based upon their Better Business Bureau ties.

"Essentially, the BBB is a criminal enterprise consisting of parasites of men who don't work for a living, opting instead to target those who do work and threaten to lie and besmirch their hard work, hopes and dreams if they refuse to hand over their wallets in a 'pay for protection', traditional Mafioso-style extortion scheme," ~ Fat Lester - GoDOTyourself Enterprises

Many with common sense and the ability to think independently of a herd are the most adamant that anyone and everyone with recent BBB affiliations go to prison racketeers and extortionists who don't care about honesty or credibility so long as there are suckers out there dumb enough to think they're anything but a criminal racket and cowardly enough to succumb to their threats/extortion.




Entire national organization should be under indictment with plans to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any member past or present who (obviously won't be testifying against them in either criminal or civil court) and who has ever taken part, either directly or indirectly in an extortion scheme involving the deliberate spreading of lies, distortions and/or falsehoods with respect to a privately-held company in order to coerce the owner of said company to grease the pockets of those spreading said lies as a means of offering incentive for them to cease harassment of a given victim-organization.

When criminals band together and claim to be acting in the best interests of the consumer, those are some of the instances in which the consumer had better either run fast or bend over, grab the ankles tight and brace himself because what comes next is neither pleasant nor believable, but it is real.

Gun Ban News: Tulane Students Cite "Widespread Rape" in Calls for Security

Tulane's Campus Gun Ban Leads to "Widespread Rape" of Female Students

Tulane University's female students have been among if not the most commonly raped demographic of people in the entire world for at least a decade now. When I was a student at the institution, I took note of this, and being a women's rights advocate did the only rational thing I could think to do: request the school eliminate its campus-wide gun ban in an editorial which was featured I the campus newspaper.
Thinking I'd done a good deed in helping protect the poor women being victimized while leaving campus, you can imagine my surprise the next week when I saw this: http://www.thehullabaloo.com/views/article_5021235c-7d42-56b3-9425-f25942f0800a.html.

The paper received a record 450 responses by the print deadline and countless more afterwards. They dedicated the entire op/ed page to the least vulgar of the hate mail that poured in for weeks afterwards. I received one email from a fellow student who commended me for standing up to the liberal institution and fighting for what is right.

For what it's worth (for those who read the hate mail linked to above), Kira McAllister refused to accompany me on my walk home from campus. I did email her and request that she do so.

The fact that this has gone on for a decade because the criminal waiting two blocks away have guns and the students do not is heinous and I hope that eventually one of those rape victims has the courage to sue the school for the physical and psychological harm she had to endure because Tulane threatened to expel her if she dared protect herself.

For anyone interested, I wrote a more in-depth and more general dissertation of the problem in which I posed the question of whether or not universities are actually encouraging such violence by placing the students at a disadvantage. Anyone wishing to read it can find it here: Do Colleges, Universities Encourage Violence Towards Women?

I think the answer to that question is patently obvious. Please share your thoughts on the matter should you feel strongly enough about the issue to do so.

Please don't take my word for it though. If anyone thinks this is even remotely exaggerated, please see the following, which I had no part of: http://jezebel.com/5877160/tulane-university-students-invoke-widespread-rape-in-calling-for-increased-off+campus-security 


"I'm pretty paranoid in general.  I carry around pepper spray with me everywhere I go,” said Tulane University student Angie Baroffio." http://www.projectnola.com/the-news/news/42-fox-8/177260-off-campus-crimes-have-loyola-tulane-students-on-edge

New Orleans Home Health Care Nurse's Assailants Caught

About a week ago, there was a horribly tragic story in the New Orleans Times Picayune about a home health care nurse who was brutally gang raped while on her way to see a patient. The news shook the community, and the healthcare community in particular.
While there is really no positive way of looking at the crime that took place when that poor woman was victimized, there is one small bit of good news to the story.

The NOPD (New Orleans Police Department) has made an arrest in conjunction with the case, and appears to be hot on the trail of the others suspected to have been involved in the crime. All I can say is that I sincerely hope they catch every single one of them, and that they (if found guilty) never see the light of day again.

Home health care nurses routinely make visits directly to the homes of patients, where they do things like change wound dressings, bathe immobile patients, clean wounds and so forth. They are different from home health aids, which are more like babysitters for the elderly than an actual skilled RN.

Growing up in a household with two healthcare professionals as my parents, I can definitely relate to this poor woman's agony in a way not everyone can.

I hope the DA assigns his best prosecutors to the case, and I hope the defense lawyers aren't any better than they have to be, as if these guys actually did what they are accused of, they need not be allowed to interact with normal society again - every again.
For more on the arrest that was made, there's a pretty good article at the Nursing Ethics Network: http://www.nursingethicsnetwork.org/arrest-made-in-gang-rape-of-home-health-care-nurse.html.

Author's Note: The nurse who was victimized was not employed nor affiliated with my family's respective businesses in any way, although our hearts do go out to her and she is nonetheless in our prayers. Nobody should ever have to endure that. Ever.

Regarding Senator Vitter's Proposal to Drug Test Welfare Recipients

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06, 2011

My favorite U.S. Senator, David Vitter, R-LA, recently published an editorial at USNews.com arguing in favor of random drug testing of federal welfare recipients. While I do not necessarily disagree with the Senator's premise or logic, I do believe that the proposal outlined in the column does not do enough to sufficiently address the monumental waste of taxpayer funds as it pertains to drug addiction.

I most definitely believe that Senator Vitter's heart and mind are in the right place with this proposal. I certainly do not want my tax dollars being used by welfare recipients to purchase illegal drugs.

However, I would like to know what the relative cost would be to put welfare-recipients who are addicted to drugs through treatment versus simply continuing to support their lifestyle? I would be willing to be that the latter actually costs less to the taxpayers.

I believe that any such program should include a provision mandating that anyone arrested for possession of illegal narcotics be sentenced to drug treatment rehabilitation instead of serving time in jail/prison.

The cost of incarcerating non-violent drug offenders far outweighs the cost of their monthly welfare check. If we're serious about reducing wasteful expenditures of tax dollars, let's invest the money currently being used to incarcerate drug addicts into inpatient detox and rehabilitation. This will (by my estimation) more than quadruple the savings as individuals currently incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses could become taxpaying citizens themselves rather than having their entire lives destroyed permanently on the taxpayers' dime.

I'm all for the testing of welfare recipients, but I will reiterate that if the proposal's real intent is to reduce wasteful government spending at both the state and federal level, any such legislation should also seek to reform the criminal justice system in such a way that nonviolent drug offenders receive treatment instead of jail time.

How Evil is George Soros?

Is George Soros the world's most evil man? The question relates to and includes women too, for whatever it's worth. I have my reasons for phrasing it in an exclusively male context (If you must know... In all seriousness, does anyone really believe that any woman who is not an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend --- your ex-wife or girlfriend to be specific, not just anyone's --- could be more evil than the world's most evil man? . . . I didn't think so).

Is he (Soros) even evil to begin with? Or, is it possible for a person to be as genuinely confused about right-and-wrong as Uncle Soros would have us all believe is the case with himself?

The question unfortunately begs numerous other questions best left to a theologian to answer. Some of these include:

• What is evil?
• Is evil defined by actions, behaviors, words, beliefs and/or some combination thereof?
• Who is to say what is evil?
• Is morality relative? What about ethics?
• Is it possible that some people who are born with fully functioning brains and organs lack what most of us would refer to as a conscience?
• Who am I to judge ("Judge not, lest thee be judged")?
• Can evil exist without the existence of God (a question for athiests and agnostics, obviously)?
• Does evil exist period?

Is there a certain threshold as to what constitutes evil in any sense (actions, thoughts, behaviors, etc.), or is whether or not something "is evil" determined on a case-by-case basis? If so, by whom (another question for non-believers, who for the record I am not judging in any way, shape, manner or form, and against whom I have not one iota of angst)?

I'm not going to attempt to answer any of those questions, but for those who wish to delve into them further, I will provide to the resources I utilize to help wrap my mind around these concepts:

• Regarding Moral Conscience
• Regarding Good and Evil
• Regarding the Nature and Sources of Morality
• Regarding Sin

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other person that is alive at present that I'd consider to be "more" evil than George Soros, at least according to my understanding of evil*. And yes, that includes serial killers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro (whom I'm still 98% certain died in 2007 or 2008, but is still "officially" alive, so he's included here for the purposes of conversation).
In the case of Ahmadinejad, while he may aspire to kill more Jews than Hitler himself was responsible for murdering, he lacks the capacity to single-handedly orchestrate such a massacre, and could only succeed in doing so with significant help from George Soros --- which he has gotten. That said, Soros has the ability to put a stop to the nutjob in Iran if he wished to do so. Unfortunately, he does not, and in fact has been an integral part of Iran's obtaining nuclear weapons, not to mention the fact that for at least the past three years, Iran's nuclear program has proceeded without a hitch, but with the blessing of the U.S. Commander in Chief, who as we all know was hand-picked by Soros, who propagandized America for long enough to get him elected. Not that he really needed to, Soros' SOS Project (SOS is an acronym for Secratary of State, which makes the complete name of this sinister undertaking by George Soros the Secretary of State Project) has been such an unprecedented success that Obama would only have needed to win about 35% of the popular vote in any of the states he won in order to "win" those states.

For anyone unfamiliar with the SOS Project, Soros funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into statewide elections for the position of Secretary of State. He did this across the entire United States. The mission behind Project SOS is to ensure that in any election between a democrat and a Republican in which the statewide demographics are such that a democrat victory would be anything less than proposerous to even conceive of --- meaning that a vast majority of the voting population would be less than 100% certain of a fraudulent outcome should the democrat emerge on top --- that the democrat wins each and every one of those elections regardless of what it takes to meet those ends.

The responsibilities of the Secretary of State on a statewide level are far different than the position at the federal level. For states, the SoS's job is typically to oversee business and corporate filings, and to manage and coordinate elections for each given state. Relative to any other position in a typical U.S. state government, the SoS has the most power to illegally influence the outcome of an election in a variety of ways, and Soros' minions have figured out all of them, mastering most in the process.

Take the 2010 Nevada election for U.S. Senate between Harry Reid (who has been termed the "Second-Most Evil Man in America") and Tea Party favorite Sharon Angle. All of the polls leading up to and even on election day (exit polls in the case of election day itself) showed Angle with a comfortable lead ranging from 3.5 - 5.5 percentage points. Not a blowout by any stretch of the imagination, but outside the margin of error for all but a few of the more obscure polls that were released. Nevada's Secretary of State, who was effectively appointed by Soros via the SOS Project, contracted with --- of all people --- the SEIU (an uber-liberal, proactive democrat PAC. The name is an acronym for the Service Employees International Union) to manage, maintain and perform "maintenance" on Nevada's electronic voting machines.

This directly resulted in two (2) different types of election fraud. Not surprisingly, both just "happened" to work to Harry Reid's advantage. The two different forms of mass election fraud from Nevada's 2010 race are:

1. Thousands and perhaps even tens of thousands of the machines were pre-programmed to cast votes for Harry Reid. Upon each vote being registered and the voting form cleared for the next voter, the device was set to vote for Harry Reid by default!! Wait, it gets worse. When intelligent and informed voters with stable minds went in to cast their ballots, hundreds of voters observed their vote for Sharon Angle switched at the last second by the machine. The switch occurred after the voter had pressed the "cast ballot" button, but was apparently visible for just long enough for several hundred voters to take notice. We can only guess at how many hundreds or thousands just pressed the button and left the polling place, never even stopping to consider that a United States Senator would resort to such scandalous and illegal tactics for the purpose of subverting the democratic process and the will of the people.
2. In heavily democratic precincts (those most predictable and most likely to favor Reid over Angle by a wide margin based on demographics and past voter behavior alone), numerous precincts submitted more votes than there were registered voters residing within and/or registered to vote within the precinct. For anyone wondering how that happens, there are two scenarios that in all likelihood both occurred. The first involved the same people voting more than once. It's no secret that this goes on in every election involving a democrat without exception, and has ever since the days when the democrat party was heavily aligned with the Klan (sadly, not much has changed on that front), with both organizations' (the democrats and the KKK) primary objective being the subversion of the rights of black U.S. citizens. The second scenario us unfortunately also fairly common in elections involving democrats. This latter scenario involves union thugs simply pulling the lever over-and-over again for Reid after the polls had closed.

When all was said and done, Harry Reid was "reelected" by a slim margin. TRANSLATION: Sharon Angle won the election by 6-10 percentage points, but Reid was reelected anyway due to the rampant fraud that occurred, which was on display for all to see, and of which little attempt was made by the guilty parties to conceal the sinister actions and intents. With a so-called Department of Justice that is in cahoots with Reid, Obama and the democrats, it came as little surprise that there was no federal investigation into these widely documented reports and claims, for which the evidence is so readily available one could fill the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans with all the witnesses and documents supportive of the allegations.

The point of this story is that none of this (Harry Reid's fraudulent reelection) would have been possible if it weren't for a Hungarian-born devil of a man by the name of George Soros.

VIDEO: George Soros Discussing China's
Role in the New World Order





* NOTE: For the purposes of discussion and debate, I am obviously taking a leave of absence from my usual approach of deferring judgment to someone I deem more qualified than myself to judge other human beings (that would be God, for those of you in Eugene, Oregon).

One Thing San Francisco Got Right

As I was reading the news on my computer yesterday morning, I came across a headline in a San Francisco newspaper that would never appear in a Louisiana newspaper about a Louisiana industry or company: "Medical Marijuana Hydroponics Cultivation Company Announces Summer Products," it read.

The first line of the story was even better:

GrowOp Technology, the nation’s first medical marijuana-friendly hydroponics distribution company, announced today the launch of its 2011 summer product line up.

It has always baffled me how a state like California that is so backwards in so many ways could get this one particular issue right-on, while states in the southeastern U.S. that typically play the role of the calm, rational adult in a room full of crying children (New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc.) could get this one so hopelessly wrong.

(Neo-Nazi legislator Ricky Templet thinks he knows better than
God which of God's creations should exist and which should not.)

 So while California is allowing its citizens to enjoy their First Amendment rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (huh huh... I said penis, huh huh huh), and allowing their businesses to function free government intervention in a free market, generating revenue for themselves and the state, Neo-Nazi politicians in bankrupt Louisiana were busy turning back the clock all the way to the 1920's in enacting new prohibitions against recreational mood-altering substances.

Synthetic THC-like compounds have been an extremely popular (and until last week legal) product in Louisiana, as hard-working, tax-paying professionals and laborers would unwind with a little bit of the smokable potpourri, which they could enjoy and still keep their jobs since it wasn't illegal and didn't show up in a drug test.

Apparently, the taxpaying citizens having just a little bit of fun is more than Nazis like Louisiana State Representative Ricky Templet, who sponsored the abomination of legislation that has since become (a very bad) law.

Shame on you Ricky Templet of the National Socialist Party of Louisiana for once again seeing to it that Louisiana remains the laughing stock of the nation. Big Law Enforcement and their crooked lobbyists may increase their annual bribes to your campaign war chest, but you've done a horrible, horrible thing to the state of Louisiana and its citizens. It's a crying shame when California can honestly say that on at least this one issue, the voters and politicians of that state are more levelheaded and not nearly as irrational as a majority of members of Louisiana's state government.

Northshore Gas Station Hit with Lawsuit

A woman who slipped and fell in the parking lot of a Northshore convenience store has filed suit, alleging that the store was negligent is failing to clean up "oil or other slippery substance" that was present in the parking lot of a Kangaroo Express in St. Tammany Parish.

Julia L. Moore, also of St. Tammany Parish, claims she broke her wrist while attempting to break her fall after she slipped and fell in the parking lot after apparently walking over the allegedly slippery substance. Naturally, she is seeking damages to compensate her for her pain and suffering resulting from her injury, as well as for medical expenses. Ms. Moore claims her injury required surgery, and it's safe to assume she's either sporting a wrist brace or a heavy-duty wrist splint these days.

According to Michelle Keahey of LouisianaRecord.com, the plaintiff is accusing the Kangaroo Express (officially known as The Pantry Inc.) of negligence for "failing to maintain safe premises, failing to remove oil or other slippery substance from the parking lot area of the gas station and convenience store, failing to clean up or remove a spill after being provided constructive or actual knowledge of the spill."

The defendant had the case relocated to Federal District Court in New Orleans, Louisiana.

San Francisco Judge Gives Smokers One More Reason to Vote

A radical left-wing activist judge in San Francisco has upheld a discriminatory and unfair 20-cent per-pack tax on cigarettes, providing one more reason to smokers in the City by the Bay to start voting. Specifically, the judge provided San Francisco smokers with an extremely good reason to band together and vote out the thieves and swindlers who enact this sort of discriminatory legislation.

What would voters say if the judge had upheld a $3500 tax on gay marriage that didn't apply to heterosexual marriage? In San Francisco, if that were to happen there would be riots.

Why then does the public turn a blind eye and pretend it's okay to issue taxes on specific people according to their lifestyle? If it's not okay to tax homosexuals for activities that heterosexual people are not taxed for, then it is absolutely and unequivocally unacceptable for governments to tax smokers for cigarettes without taxing non-smokers an equal amount for not smoking.


The launch date for SmokersVote.org draws nigh. I am still planning to have the site fully operational by the time the 2012 Presidential election really starts to heat up. Hopefully, some of the Nazis in the United States government and local and statewide governments across the country will fall victim to an electoral backlash against politicians who tax smokers.

What Happened to Silly Poetry?

I came upon something extremely disturbing today, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

While making a routine visit to SillyPoetry.net, John Flower's website and blog about --- you guessed it --- silly poetry, I arrived to find that the site had been taken offline, and a bizarre message that appears to have been translated into eight different languages had taken its place.

The message stated that Silly Poetry had been discontinued due to John Flower's arrest on tax evasion charges. However, the somewhat humorous nature of the rest of the message raised doubt about the validity of the initial claim.

The full text of the English translation of the message now appearing at SillyPoetry.net is as follows:

"Silly Poetry has been discontinued due to the owner, John Flower, being jailed on tax-evasion charges. He'd like to apologise for misleading you into thinking that he is a nice guy, and that he made you sign up for something as stupid as silly poems.
If you can bake, and your husband is into metal work, please consider sending him a cake."

If anyone knows what the deal with this is please let met know ASAP. John is a friend of mine, and needless to say I am concerned for his wellbeing in light of my discovery of the above message having been posted to his website.

If the above is true, if anyone knows where he is located or how I can contact his family please let met know as soon as you can. If there is any truth to the matter, I'd like to do whatever I can to help my friend.

Hopefully, this was all a big joke and will blow over soon. As for the possibility that it was not a joke, I ask that those of you pray please say a prayer for John.

I will post an update as soon as I've made contact with John and/or his family.

War on Drugs May Work to Ron Paul's Advantage in 2012

The U.S. government's insane bipartisan position on the "need" for the War on Drugs may well be the issue that converts me into a Ron Paul supporter before all is said and done.

I've already stated my support for Government outsider Herman Cain in the 2012 Republican Primaries. However, with so many good candidates in the race, my vote will factor in performance of the respective candidates in the primary elections leading up to the Louisiana GOP Primary. Specifically, I am not going to vote for a candidate who hasn't won a primary by the time Louisiana's nominating contest rolls around, and I reserve the right to vote for a candidate who may not necessarily be my first choice based on among other things, a candidates respective standings in the race to be the party's 2012 Presidential nominee.

So while Herman Cain may be my first choice, and while I would ideally like to see him win the party nomination (and ask Ron Paul to be his running mate), should Cain fail to make a splash in the states leading up to Louisiana's primary, I may well cast my vote for someone whose campaign is in play for the nomination. My first choice among the other candidates Cain excluded is Ron Paul, who is almost neck-and-neck with Cain in the race to win over my vote. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are in a virtual tie for third, and I could feasibly see myself voting for any of these candidates should the others fall out of contention early on.

Of the four names mentioned, the one who has gained the most traction with me as a voter and Tea Party activist in the time since the 2008 elections is Ron Paul. Many of my readers may remember my cold reception to Ron Paul's candidacy in 2008, even as he took the digital world by storm with his staunch libertarian beliefs and apparent disdain for the government.

I did not consider Congressman Paul to be a serious candidate in 2008. My how things have changed. I not only would consider voting for Paul in the GOP Primary this go-round, I have an unprecedented level of optimism for both he and Cain --- two candidates who in other election cycles would have been quickly relegated to the realm of "fringe candidates" who are quickly dismissed by the media and voters alike. Typically, these candidates might get a few percentage points in each of their party's primary elections, but never come close to actually winning one.

I believe the political dynamics this go-round are markedly different from any other election cycle in my lifetime, and I think the very same positions on the very same issues and dynamics that in years past would all but disqualify men like Ron Paul and Herman Cain may not only work to their advantage this time around, but may even be significant enough to put both men into real contention.

There are just so many things wrong with the so-called war on drugs. First and foremost, the very premise of such prohibitions are un-American and unconstitutional. America's war on drugs has created a real war in Mexico pitting the nation, its government and its law enforcement agencies against drug-gang militias that have killed tens of thousands of people in the last few years alone.

How many lives must be lost before the U.S. government decides to start behaving like adults with regard to the issue? How many non-violent Americans whose only crime was pursuing happiness in a manner the U.S. government deems illegitimate must be locked up, taken away from their families, losing their jobs and any prospect of a normal remainder of their lives in the process before Americans say "enough is enough".

For all the Democrats' nefarious behavior in terms of their rewarding campaign contributors with big government contracts, bailouts and other corporate welfare, the Republicans are on-par in their support of the "Big Law Enforcement" industry, whose lobby is hell-bent on seeing to it that drugs remain illegal for the foreseeable future.

Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race who I am confident would do everything within his capability to end this expensive and ultimately counter-productive war. In the end, that may go an awfully long way to securing my vote in Louisiana.

Author's Note:  For the record, my position regarding the war on drugs is in no way an endorsement of use and/or abuse of illicit substances. I do believe addiction in America is a serious problem, but one that is not solved by incarcerating Americans who develop addictions to mood-altering chemicals. A propensity to abuse alcohol and drugs is passed down genetically from addicts to their children. Technically, addictive disorders are a medical illness, and putting people in jail for suffering from a genetic illness seems as un-American to me as anything with which I am familiar.

John Edwards Indictment Not Without Peculiarities

While scanning the news headlines this morning, I came across a story about the fiasco involving former Democrat U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards' ongoing federal indictment/prosecution. There was nothing in particular about the headline or story that raised my eyebrows. However, there is one key detail about the matter that is very peculiar to say the least.

Specifically, I am referring to the Democrats' history of defending their own against media scrutiny, and propensity to circle the wagons in defense of their own whenever one of them runs afoul of the law, voters, media, etc. To take it a step further, that the mainstream media (which we all know is effectively an extension of the Democrat Party) actively tried to cover up the story for so long indicates to me that there was most likely a request made by one or more high-ranking Democrats that the lurid details of Edwards' affair be kept secret - at least until after the 2008 elections.

Based on the history of similar events in years past, I am hesitant to believe that the Justice Department decided to go after Edwards on its own and without any prompting from someone within the current administration. Assuming that this is correct, it is likewise reasonable to assume that the person who ultimately gave the order was none other than President Obama himself, given that such a brazen request would not have been made by his cabinet without either a direct order from the President himself, or at the very least him signing off on the indictment and prosecution.

I can't help but wonder what Edwards did to piss off Obama, who by all accounts appears to be much more involved in micromanaging the Justice Department than any other President in recent memory. Could Edwards' prosecution be the result of unflattering comments made during the '08 Democrat primaries? Or was it something else potentially involving someone else?

If there's one thing we do know, it's that Democrats don't go after their own unless its personal or in some way related to the advancement of an agenda (such as the Democrat calls for Weiner to resign only came after his scandal kept the attention off of the Ryan Medicare plan for almost two weeks). In this case, there doesn't appear to be any legislative goal, which leads me to believe it is personal retaliation by Obama for some unknown slight.

Every mainstream media organization in America worked tirelessly to cover up the story of Edwards' infidelity for more than a year. They never did release the story. As I'm sure most of you recall, the National Enquirer broke the story after the NYT, LAT, USAT, WP, AP and all the others passed on the opportunity. That very fact alone suggests that somewhere along the way Edwards said or did something that angered Obama enough for him to seek retribution by way of a federal indictment.

Do you remember something that I may have forgotten regarding the relationship between the two men (Edwards and Obama)? If you have a theory about what former Senator John Edwards may have done to invite the wrath of Obama, please be sure to share it in the comments.

If you simply disagree with my theory regarding Edwards' indictment, please feel free to voice that (and/or any other sentiments you may have about the case) in the comments as well.

Louisiana DWI Law Double-Standard

In the State of Louisiana, a driver has the legal right to refuse a breathalyzer test should he or she get pulled over by an officer of the law, and should that law enforcement officer attempt to issue the test.  HOWEVER, upon the enactment of HB-445 into law, the penalty for refusing such a test (which is technically legal to do) is the loss of driving privileges for a year for a first-time offense, and two years for any subsequent incidents.

As I found out recently, the standard of openness and transparency so embraced by the state so long as it involves a driver refusing to take the test, is not uniformly applied to situations in which the administration of a breathalyzer test would work to the driver's benefit.

While returning home from a night out with friends in New Orleans, I was pulled over by a St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's deputy near Claiborne Hill in Covington.  I was speeding, and I was caught.  I had not been drinking that evening, a fact the officer called into question.

The officer asked where I was coming from, where I was going, and what I had been doing.  I answered him as straightforward and honestly as I could.  I told him where I had been, what I'd been doing and where I was heading.  Unfortunately for me, while true, my story didn't seem believable.  While it was evident that I was not intoxicated (I hadn't even been drinking --- not even a little), the officer nonetheless put me through an extensive field sobriety test, which I passed with flying colors.

Clearly, something about this situation wasn't registering.  How could it be that a single, 29-year old-man could be driving home alone at 1:00 in the morning from a night out in New Orleans, LA, and NOT be drunk?  This at least was how the deputy decided to view the situation.

Eventually, he decided to let me go home on the condition I leave my car in the Walgreens parking lot at Claiborne Hill.  I had to call a taxi, as both of my brothers and all of my friends within an hour's drive whom I was able to reach by phone were in fact intoxicated, and none of them was anywhere close to being in better shape to drive the car home by myself.

Sure, the cop could have been an even bigger dick.  He could have arrested me anyway, brought me to jail and booked me, only to release me shortly thereafter when results from breath and/or blood tests confirmed that I was in fact sober and free of any and all mood-altering chemicals.

The real irony in Louisiana's zero-tolerance DWI policies mandating twelve months of driver's license suspension for refusing to take a breathalyzer test is that police are under no such obligation to administer the test when doing so would confirm a driver's sobriety.

Throughout the course of the ordeal, I requested not less than three times that the officer administer a breathalyzer test.  All three times, he refused.  The third time I asked, he said that he was "doing me a favor" and that he "(did not) want to hear another word about it."  I interpreted this as his way of telling me that despite the fact that I was (and still am) 100% sober, he could arrest me anyway, and that if I wished to avoid such fate I should stop asking for a means of proving to him that I had not been drinking.

It seems to me that if Louisiana is going to have a law mandating the loss of driving privileges for an entire year for anyone who refuses a breathalyzer test, it would only be fair to grant the citizens the right to take a breathalyzer exam upon the citizen's request if the officer administering the traffic stop suspects the driver of driving while intoxicated.

Field sobriety tests are subjective, often convoluted and frequently require gymnastics that simply cannot be performed while wearing certain types of shoes.  Some are extremely difficult to perform regardless of whether or not a person is sober.  A citizens' right to a breathalyzer exam solves this problem by requiring the officer to administer a test which would quantifiably confirm or remove all suspicions as to a driver's prospective sobriety should the driver request the exam.  If citizens cannot refuse the test without consequences, than law-abiding drivers who have not been drinking should have the right to a test if an officer suspects he or she has been drinking.

What is good for the goose is good for the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.  While I fully support tough laws aimed at getting drunk drivers off the road, such laws must be a two-way street.  If the test can be required of the driver when it could potentially lead to self-incrimination, it should be required of the officer in circumstances when the driver is indeed sober and willing and able to prove it.