Langford was charged along with investment banker William Blount and lobbyist Al LaPierre for a total of 101 counts. The government said it was also seeking $7.6 million in forfeiture from the three men.
"He sold out his public office to his friends Blount and LaPierre for about $235,000 in expensive clothes, watches and cash to pay his growing personal debt. All the while, Blount was paid fees topping $7 million," said Martin.
If I were a politician, the worst thing that could ever happen to me and my party, whichever party I was in, would be if the most motivated supporters of both parties were to ever get together and talk, to hash out their differences and reach some sort of agreement. The worst thing that could happen to me, Democrat or Republican, would be if the voters settled on some sort of compromise on abortion and gay marriage and other volatile issues like these, and then used their combined power to force these compromises into law, thus settling the issues and bringing peace to our nation. That would really screw me and all the other politicians like me.
If I were a politician, I would be very happy that judges have developed a habit of dramatically overstepping their authority and making decisions on cases over which they have no legitimate authority and actually belong with me and the voters. It would make my life easier. Whenever my constituents complained that I need to begin proceedings to impeach those judges I could throw up my hands and say "you need to elect more members of my party before we'll have enough votes to do that."
Whenever the voters cried out, on the left and on the right, "where do you stand on abortion? Which side do you think is right?" I would look to my party leaders and say whatever they told me to say.
"I'm all for it. I'm against it. I wish it didn't have to be this way." And then I'd do not one damn thing, as the voters fought it out in the streets, even though their votes mean nothing as a result of activist judges, unelected and unaccountable, making decisions that are actually my responsibility, and not theirs at all.
Machiavelli would love this country of ours, this Divided States of America, where we talk about our government of the people, for the people and by the people, and then proceed to rule over the people with mandates from on high while ignoring the votes the people cast.
If I were a politician I'd have friends in the funeral business and a long list of names of recently deceased registered voters in order to stuff those ballot boxes fat and full with votes that go all for me and none for anyone else. If no one called me on it, next time I'd stuff the ballot boxes of my opponent's party in their own primary, choosing the weakest candidate to run against me and then defeating him with still more fraudulent votes. I mean, why not, if no one is going to have the balls to do anything about it? What possible incentive could there be not to?
If I were a politician I'd love, love, love divisive issues like abortion and gay marriage, where the lack of action by parties on both sides results in 2 neatly divided groups of highly motivated voters. Where would this country be without highly motivated voters, I ask you? Saul Alinsky wrote quite eloquently about the importance of making sure your people are wound up tighter than Beyonce's ass while your opponent's people are feeling defeated and hopeless, or simply lazy and complacent. Either one is equally beneficial to you, the political radical, or me, the entrenched politician.
If I were a Democrat, whenever I had a strong Republican opponent, I'd shout to the rooftops, "If you don't get out the vote for me, my opponent will outlaw abortion! Spread the word to women everywhere to vote for me or women will die!"
If I were a Republican, whenever I was campaigning, I'd shout "vote for me or more babies will die!" And once elected, even when my party controlled the entire Congress, both the House and the Senate, and the White House, too, I'd do absolutely nothing to stop abortions. Why should I? The fighting in the streets is what got my people to the polls in the first place. It's what got me into this nice comfy position of power and wealth. Why would I or anyone else in my position want to change a damn thing? What am I going to campaign for next time if I outlaw abortion now?
If I were a Democrat, I'd campaign with the promise that if elected I'd create a bill redefining marriage and allowing anyone to marry anyone else, without regard to sex. I'd do this because the gay voters are organized and highly motivated and have a great deal of money and media influence. Plus, this is what they desperately want to hear and I know that the best way to win an election is to tell people what they want to hear. I'd scream out that not redefining marriage for my gay voting block is 'discrimination' and then I'd equate the fight with the civil rights movement of my other massive voting block, the black people, whom I also need to keep motivated in order to get out and vote for me. Of course, once elected, even if we controlled the House and the Senate and the White House, in fact, even if we had a SUPER MAJORITY in the Senate, I wouldn't do a damn thing about passing gay marriage because if I did, what will I campaign on next time? What is going to motivate my voters as much as this?
Right now they're out in the streets spitting on Christians and Republicans everywhere they find them, breaking into churches and terrorizing the faithful. You don't get any more motivated than that, and that is how I like my voters to be as much as possible. I like my voters to be angry and in tears. I like my voters to be irrational and upset. I don't want to do anything that would stop this deluge of violence and rage and hate. I benefit from it. Just because I could pass gay marriage now, what with no opposition party being able to stop me and my party from doing whatever the hell we please for the next few years, I wouldn't do it. If I did then I'd stand to lose all of this fanatical support the moment the issue was settled and the fighting stopped.
Everyone knows that the moment a political party solves the problems they were elected to solve, that party then has to either find a whole new set of crises, or else they get booted out and replaced with the 'other' party. Only fools solve the problems they were elected to solve.
If I were a politician, I'd study Machiavelli and Saul Alinsky more than a monk studies the Bible. I'd practice my speech making skills until I was more skilled at stirring irrational emotions than a televangelist, but I'd look and sound just like one. Those fuckers are masters at kicking up a lot of emotion and that is precisely what I'd be, too. People don't think clearly when their emotions are stirred. They just react. You can get women to murder their loving husbands with emotion. You can get 12 women on a jury to then let that husband-murdering woman go, even though they know she's guilty as hell, all with nothing more than raw emotion. You can get a God-fearing, Bible-thumping, redneck Methodist to bomb an abortion clinic with emotion. You can get gay people to burn churches and punch old ladies holding crosses with emotion. You can get the faithful to strap on bombs and drive a truck into a Marine base, killing themselves in the process with emotion. You can get fools to do any damn thing you want if you can just stir their emotions enough.
If I were a politician, even when I had the power to resolve an issue that my supporters desperately want resolved so that they can have peace of mind and sleep at night, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do any more than I had to to resolve that issue, because I don't want my supporters to sleep at night. People make oddly rational decisions in their sleep sometimes. Rational decisions don't get professional politicians re-elected. Rational decisions lead to people demanding actual leadership from their elected leaders.
What I would do, though, if I were a politician, is to seize upon issues that my opponents had been using to wind up and motivate their own voters. If my opponent's supporters believe in some magical, mythical "war on women" and an "epidemic of violence against women", even though my own voters didn't like it and the Justice Department's own crime statistics showed it to be a big fat lie, I'd sponsor the bill that my opponent's man-hating supporters wanted. Even though it totally screwed my most loyal voter base, I'd slap my own name on the bill that created an entire branch of the U.S. Government whose only reason for existing was to attack and destroy those who vote most consistently for me. I'd do this because it would rob my opponent of an issue that keeps his supporters angry and emotional, while at the same time empowering a great enemy of my own supporters, who would then need me more than ever to help them in their battle for survival against the newly empowered and taxpayer-financed army of enemies seeking their destruction. They would be afraid, and there I'd be, offering to protect them, to save them.
Oh sure, a few of my supporters would know that I had betrayed them, but most of them don't pay that much attention and would just assume I had voted the other way, the rational way, the right way. No one except the NRA and NOW ever checks up on who votes which way on anything. Not ever. Anyway, it isn't as if my supporters can afford to vote against me. Voting against me means crossing over to the other side, the side that scapegoats and demonizes them at every turn in order to stir up their own loyal supporters and keep them angry and afraid. It keeps them voting, too. Crossing over isn't an option.
I'd vote in favor of bills my opponent's supporters wanted as often as I could get away with it, because it screws my opponent and steals his thunder. It also screws my own supporters, but I'd rely on their stupidity, complacency, and ignorance to keep them loyal to me. I'd say one thing and do another. No one ever checks up on this stuff.
And this would be my theme song ...
* For anyone who does not quite understand what I am actually saying here, I am using sarcasm, to convey my disgust with our so-called political leaders in America. I do not actually ever intend to run for political office, or to behave in the manner which I have previously described. Also, I do not worship the devil. Thank you.
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