Thomas Bauerschmidt "Scoops" $250,000.

June 17, 2010 at 5:05 P.M. "Errors" inserted in the essay posted earlier today, interference with my writing schedule, obstructions of access to the Internet -- all are about what I expected. I will do my best to correct all inserted "errors." I cannot say how many essays or writings have been altered or damaged today.

Giovanna Fabiano, "Retired Englewood Cliffs Chief to Get $250,000," in The Record, June 15, 2010, at p. L-3. (Not bad for a cop's pay.)
Mathew Van Deussen, "Judge's Ruling Paves the Way for a Recall Vote in Ridgefield," in The Record, June 15, 2010, at p. L-1. (Menendez flunkie, Anthony Suarez, Esq., may be on his way out -- before a likely prison stay, however, he may serve on N.J.'s legal ethics committee.)
Monsy Alvarado, "Sarlo, Weinberg Want Zisa Off Board of Election," in The Record, June 16, 2010, at p. L-1. ("A little favor for your godfather.")
Ashley Kindergan, "Dumont Pushes Stringent Pay-to-Play Law," in The Record, June 16, 2010, at p. L-3. (You must be joking.)
AP, "$2.5 MILLION Project to turn Landfill Into Ballfield is Set to Begin," in The Record, June 15, 2010, at p. L-3. (This is the same landfill that was "filled" several times before for similar expensive "invisible" projects.)
"No Price to Pay for Torture," (Editorial) in The New York Times, June 16, 2010, at p. A30.

This morning on a French television program the American novelist, Paul Auster, was discussing his impression after the 2000 presidential election of living within a "fiction of political life." It was clear to Auster that Mr. Gore had won the election, but through various political and legal manipulations, the election was stolen from the true winner. We were presented with a "new" president, George W. Bush. No, this is not analogous to Hillary Clinton's fate in the primaries of 2008, where Clinton's own staff undermined her necessary candidacy. Ms. Clinton, please refrain from hiring morons in future campaigns.

The result of this catastrophe in 2000 is obvious now -- an imploding economy, several stagnating, costly, and bloody military conflicts, along with a lingering sense of the irrelevance of our civil institutions to the real workings of power in America. The latter is evident at these blogs every day.

Like children, we are given stories in the night to ease us into gentle sleep. We are told myths concerning the rule of law and democracy in America. Also, perhaps even more dangerously, Mr. Bush's shameless disdain for learning and literacy, contempt for intellectual life, has legitimated and encouraged a plunge into a happy no-nothing attitude to life and rejection of critical thought on the part of too many officials or any Americans in positions of authority. We are told that "it is all about power" and our focus is "on the bottom line." Concern with moral niceties is deemed luxurious and pointless. Intelligence and scholarly interests are categories of guilt.

One of those stories or myths that we are taught has to do with our system of laws, especially the U.S. Constitution. As far as I can tell, no one disputes that the events described in these posts have occurred. There is no contention that the First Amendment and other relevant laws no longer exist. I am simply denied the records that I have requested and to which I am entitled by law. My factual accounts, while undisputed and based on numerous objective sources as well as hundreds of journalistic reports of blatant theft in New Jersey as well as atrocities (like torture), are greeted with a stony silence from government. Trenton says: "Business as usual."

My task is to live in the belly of the beast. I must know and yet not know that most of the public culture of American society is a cruel lie. I fear that this mass-manufactured cognitive dissonance is the fate prepared for new generations of Americans by "Big Brother" in the form of our military-intelligence networks in league with a coopted media.

Many sensitive and bright young people seem to intuit this grim prospect and unhappy destiny through reactions ranging from total alienation from politics to a disconnection from the human reality produced by their nation's irresponsible use of power in the world. The disgust expressed by many young people for politics is a form of self-loathing. We must march, my darlings, we must keep fighting. We must never give up. If you stop voting or caring about what is going on, the bad guys win.

We live in a time of invisible oppressions and visible thievery. We are asked to adjust and legitimate abominations. We are instructed to ask no questions, seek no answers, disturb no one. We are expected to "go along to get along." This is not a world nor an outlook on life that promises a blissful future for our children -- a future without strife or great suffering is not even a possible dream today. Our science fiction is dystopian and rarely optimistic. We expect things to go wrong. This was not always true in America.

Great wars are coming: wars for food, water, oil, a fight for the means of communication, to say nothing of religious and ideological struggles. These "issues," as they say at The New Yorker, will provide grounds for systematic and well-organized murder on a scale the world has never seen. It may be that, even the Holocaust, will fade into insignificance by comparison with the horrors that await us. As a father, I fervently hope that I am mistaken about what I see all around us, but I fear that the signs are much too obvious to miss: "Something evil this way comes."

"ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS -- The borough will pay out more than $250,000 in unused sick and vacation days over the next three years for retired Police Chief Thomas Bauerschmidt."

This may be Christie way of buying out the various "adherents" to previous power groups in New Jersey. 40 MILLION Americans experience hunger on a daily basis; 25,000 persons will starve to death in the world today.

" ... At the time of his retirement, [June 1,] Bauerschmidt's annual salary was $205,149."

This is the official salary for a cop in a small town. The administrative tasks for a small police force seem slight. I wonder whether there were "off the books" earnings? In New Jersey, I would not be surprised if this were so.

"The following is included in his $215,513.00 compensation package:"

" -- Five months' terminal leave [a going-away present?] for 30 years of service, totalling $85,479."

No gold watch?

" -- 93 unusued vacation days at the rate of $789 per day, totaling $79,380."

" -- 150 unused sick days from 2006 to 2010, totalling $92,653."

" -- Bauerschmidt will be paid $45,000 within 30 days of his retirement; $110,000 by January 1, 2011; $47,500 by January 1, 2012 and $49,013 by January 1, 2013."

Much more "compensation" is planned for this "gentleman." The state pension funds are expected to fall short about $46 BILLION or more within the year. Teachers, cops, firefighters may not get their small or modest pensions, but this guy is gonna get his. By December, 2010 New Jersey's tax revenues may fall "short" about $500 MILLION. No problem. Property taxes will go up again in the most heavily taxed jurisdiction in the nation. How long will you people take this shit? Are you all idiots? Or just intimidated?

No one is quite sure, after several years of looking at the accounts, as to how much was actually deposited in state pension fund accounts. Three different numbers were listed by the McGreevey administration in the documents filed pursuant to federal law prompting a federal inquiry into these accounts which is ongoing. Thus far, it appears that none of the numbers listed by New Jersey is entirely accurate. The response from former officials in New Jersey is that "we should all move on."

"The Supreme Court's refusal to consider the claims of Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian who was sent to Syria to be tortured in 2002, was a bitterly disappointing abdication of its duty to hold officials accountable for illegal acts. The Bush administration sent Mr. Arar to outsourced torment, but it was the Obama administration that urged this course of inaction."

"In the ignoble history of President George W. Bush's policies of torture and extraordinary rendition, few cases were as egregious as that of Mr. Arar, a software engineer. He was picked up at Kennedy International Airport by officials acting on incorrect information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was sent to Syria, to which the United States had assigned some of its violent interrogation [not Miami?] and was held for almost a year until everyone agreed that he was not a terrorist and he was released." ("U.S. Courts Must Not Condone Torture.")

"The Bush White House never expressed regret about this horrific case. There was only then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's bland acknowledgement to a House Committee in 2007 that it was not 'handled as it should have been.' Since he took office, President Obama has refused to fully examine the excesses of his predecessor, [fear?] but surely this case was a chance to show that those who torture must pay a price."

Mr. Obama, this is about SLAVERY and torture. The symbolic importance of an African-American president of the U.S. condoning -- through his silence and inaction -- such evils will not be missed in the world. The potential loss of credibility for American institutions will be deeply harmful for America's necessary moral force and example in the world. This will produce more terrorist incidents against us and endanger the welfare of dissidents in many places. Please do the right thing and acknowledge your responsibility for these atrocities committed by the government.

"In Canada, the government conducted an investigation and found that Mr. Arar had been tortured because of its false information. The commissioner of the police resigned. Canada cleared Mr. Arar of all terror connections, formally apologized and paid him nearly $9.8 million. [Any funds paid to me in compensation will go to others, including some individuals who need help in New Jersey.] Mr. Arar had hoped to get a similar apology and damages from the United States government but was rebuffed by the court system."

Israel's response to criticisms in the Gaza matter and now in connection with the embargo of Gaza has been to call for inquiries and attempt to deal with the issues. That is what democracies do when there is an obvious mistake or error made. No response to my requests for information has been received from New Jersey.

"Amazingly, Mr. Obama's acting solicitor general, Neal Kaytal, urged the Supreme Court not to take the case, arguing in part that the court should not investigate the communications between the United States and other countries because it might damage diplomatic relations and affect national security. It might even raise questions, Mr. Kaytal wrote, 'about the motives and sincerity of the United States officials who concluded that petitioner could be removed to Syria.' ..."

Well, this sort of questioning is what should happen in a democracy. I am saddened to conclude that Mr. Bush's departures from the rule of law have been legitimated and endorsed by the Obama administration in a failure of imagination as well as ethical awareness that will be judged very harshly by history. I voted for Obama. I would vote for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain today. I say this as a supporter of the Obama administration.

This is not who we are as a people, torturers, nor is Mr. Obama a "friend" of departures from the rule of the law. Has the American military-intelligence community -- our true government -- become so powerful that, even the White House, is afraid of a confrontation with such people? I hope not. I do not want America controlled by a junta of military-intelligence agencies acting secretly on our lives.

Without the protections of the presidency, with a divided and bought Congress, an apathetic Supreme Court -- who will protect the rights of ordinary citizens and the endangered humanity of all persons before the awesome power of the U.S. government? No one at all.