It has been reported today in The Wilmington News Journal, that Deputy Treasurer,   Erika Benner has resigned her position following the scandal over her “inappropriate personal use” of her state issued credit card.  First of all, is there any appropriate “personal use” of a state issued credit card? I don’t think so, since state policy prohibits such personal use of these cards.

Benner used the card to make around $2,300.00 in personal purchases, including buying tickets to a New England Patriots game amounting to one thousand dollars including a private car service.

So what can the citizens of Delaware expect to happen to Miss Benner?

Let’s start by looking at some of the quotes from the WNJ.

Ms. Benner said, “I take full responsibility and apologize for the decisions I made during a very difficult time in my life and am grateful for the support you and your team provided me”, this from a letter to her boss state Treasurer Chip Flowers. So are we supposed to feel sorry for Ms. Benner? Would we feel sorry for any other thief who stole our money? Which is exactly what she did, she stole the tax payer’s money.

Ms. Benner went on to say,  “I do not wish to serve as a distraction to the integral work of the Treasury and the accomplishments of your administration in fighting for the principles that inspired me to public service – excellence, honor and ideas that can improve the lives of people.”

So now I guess she is to be commended? For what? Stealing, being caught and running away?

Let me state here that Ms. Benner has paid back more than $2,000.00 of the money she stole, does that make it right? Does that settle it? Should the people of the state not expect an explanation of how such a thing could have happened, and have gone on for more than 16 moths?

Is there no body watching the statements of these credit cards? Is not the immediate supervisor checking the expenditures? In my job, I have a company credit card, and I have to turn in my receipts to my manager, who then checks them against a statement from the card company to make sure that he has all the receipts for all the purchases on the card. He then has to validate that all the purchases are legitimate company purchases.

So is this not happening in the treasury department? Are people allowed free rein with the people’s money with no checks or balances?

So you may be wondering where was the Treasurer while this was taking place? And what is his reaction to this latest announcement of Ms. Benner’s resignation?

Let us again look to quotes from state Treasurer Chip Flowers to the WNJ,   “While I certainly do not condone and strongly condemn the actions that resulted in Ms. Benner’s request, I am grateful that she has accepted full responsibility for her actions during this difficult period in her personal life, including full repayment of the amounts improperly charged to her state credit card (including interest).”

Well then! Calm down Mr. Flowers, there is no need to be so upset by this crime. No need to make Ms. Benner cry you brute!

But wait, Mr. Flowers isn’t done castigating Ms. Benner, he goes on to say, “We are appreciative of her work in this office, which includes increasing the market value of the state’s $2 billion investment portfolio by over $30 million during her tenure. Though the road will be difficult, I hope that she can one day redeem herself in the hearts of Delawareans. I wish her well,”

Will no one step in and pull this man off of this poor innocent woman? Are we going to let him simply keep abusing her this way?

Maybe we should throw her a going away party too?  Get her a nice gold watch, well maybe she already bought herself one, but we could get it engraved for her. Something touching like, ” thanks for those great Christmas presents last year Erika”.

If you are not upset yet, get a load of this, the state, that means you and me, has been paying this woman short-term medical leave since June for an undisclosed condition. The funny thing is this undisclosed condition set in right after the state Finance Department began questioning Ms. Benner about some of the “questionable” purchases on her state issued card. Like $86 at the Red Roof Inn in Dover. One wonders why she needed a room in Dover? And was it a day or night stay? Also on her card was gasoline and KFC and McDonald’s.

So here it is, we have a bureaucrat stealing money from the tax payers, we have her boss either complicit by ignoring the problem, or completely incompetent in not keeping track of these cards in a manner that would not allow such abuse.

The when caught we have a woman trying to make excuses for her theft by singing some sad song about a “difficult” time in her life. To compound the matter we have the state Treasurer making excuses for this woman and commending her for all of her hard work. Well let me tell you something, and I am sure many others would be in the same boat. I have worked for my company for over 32 years, and if I were caught stealing in this manner from the company, I would be gone in a minute and would be facing prosecution.

That brings me to my final point on this, will Ms. Benner be facing any charges for this crime? Can we expect any real investigation from outside the Treasury Department? Will Mr. Chip Flowers be made to answer for his mismanagement of his department?

I am calling on state Auditor Tom Wagner to launch an immediate investigation and audit of the  state’s credit card accounts, starting with obviously those within the Treasury, because if this woman was doing this, you can bet there are others buying lunch and gas and who knows what on the tax payer’s dime.

Let us not forget that the state Auditor once had even more powers to investigate such abuse and fraud, maybe it is time we reinstate that office with those powers.

I just love these old movies and their trailers, don’t you?

I think Gov. Markell may be high on something, maybe he has been testing the product he has been “PUSHING” so hard to have the state of Delaware sell to its citizens.

Gov. Markell announced Thursday that he would be asking legislators to open a single  “compassion center” as he likes to call them, to dispense the medical marijuana that he and others “PUSHED” so hard to legalize here in the First State.

While one “compassion center” is better than the three originally planned for Delaware, one in each county, it is still a bad idea in my humble opinion. And would anyone like to take a bet that the single “compassion center” will be located in Wilmington? Of course the one thing Wilmington needs is another source of any kind of drugs. Not to mention, what are the people who supposedly would benefit from medical marijuana, but live in Sussex County, to do? Will they have to travel to Wilmington? Or send a surrogate? Of course they would not be allowed to receive it in the mail, since that would violate even another federal law.

Look I could go into all of my concerns about the legalization of medical marijuana, how I believe that this will only create another black market source of drugs. How long will it take drug dealers to find a way to obtain this product and then sell it on the street to our children. And of course history shows that medical marijuana is almost always followed by complete legalization.

I have made these arguments in the past, and many find them to be of no consequence. But let me ask this question, should the Governor be spending so much time and effort on this “SOCIAL” issue when there is so much else to deal with in Delaware?

Of course Delaware is dealing with all of the usual economic issues that the rest of the nation has been dealing with,  housing, education, unemployment and any number of other issues that affect the broader percentage of  citizens of the state. But no, the governor chooses to spend time and effort and money on turning the state of Delaware into a glorified drug dealer.

Now add onto all of these other pressing issues the fact that the state of Delaware is about to go on the hook for over twenty million dollars when Fisker Automotive goes officially into bankruptcy, something this humble blogger predicted back in August 2012 in my post titled “Markell’s Fisker Folly, Fraud? Or Failure?”, originally posted on my own blog “Politically Frank”, and reposted here at “Delaware Right”,  http://www.delawareright.com/markells-fisker-folly-fraud-or-failure/ please read this post and see how the Fisker failure was a foregone conclusion based on the history of the people involved.

So is “Gov. Nero” fiddling while the state is burning? Is Gov. Markell  using this marquee announcement to deflect attention away from the impending announcement of Fisker’s bankruptcy?

I believe that we can expect more of this type of “wag the dog” from the governor, I think that this governor has been the weakest governor that Delaware has seen in quite some time. While he has not been the embarrassment that Gov. Minner was, Gov. Markell has done nothing but overseen the unraveling  of Delaware’s social fabric, while allowing the economic well-being of the state and its citizens to slide further and further into the abyss of failure. Fisker is the shining jewel in the crown of failure that Gov. Markell has created for himself.

Has anyone else noticed that every time there is a story of a police officer being forced to defend themselves with any kind of force, that the blogs and local talk radio fills-up with people making wild accusations of police state tactics, and cries of excessive force on the part of the officers?

It never fails that when an officer uses any level of force to either make an arrest, or to defend their own lives or those of others, the constitutional crazies come out of the woodwork, shouting about the violation of someone’s rights.

Most of the time the people making these claims have no direct connection with the incident or the people involved, they simply hear rumors and second-hand accounts of what may or may not have happened, and then twist and spin it to fit their personal needs.

So why are so many people, so willing to give every benefit of the doubt, to a person that may have been involved in a crime, or who, when contacted by the police, become aggressive and or violent, yet are equally unwilling to give that same benefit of doubt to a trained professional law enforcement officer?

There have been several cases in recent times here in Delaware, and Sussex County specifically, in which Delaware State police officers made a decision to use their weapons. And one where a Rehoboth Beach officer has been accused of kicking a man, who some say was already in custody.

One case involving the DSP was the result of a high-speed chase where a man attempted to elude the police by driving through the yards of homes, and after crashing his vehicle, breaking into a shed where he then used a shovel as a weapon against officers. The man was shot. He lived, though he may be paralyzed.

Then there was the case off the Rehoboth Beach police officer who was attempting to interview a man who seemed to be publicly intoxicated, allegedly the man became belligerent with the officer and a struggle ensued.  The man’s wife video taped the arrest, and some believe the video shows the officer kicking or stomping the man’s head after he was under control of the officer.

The third is the most recent, again involving the DSP. Following a report of a hit and run accident in Millsboro, Delaware, a DSP officer was dispatched to a home near Georgetown. This was due to a license number given to the police, from witnesses at the scene of the accident.

When the Trooper arrived he was invited into the home by the mother of the suspected driver of the car that had been reported.

According to press releases and hear-say witness accounts, some sort of altercation ensued, leading the officer to deploy a Taser, which for whatever reason did not stop the man. The officer then decided that the use of his gun was necessary, and shot nine times striking the man five times. The man is now being held in hospital under arrest, not for hit and run, but for allegedly attacking a police officer.

My point for writing this post is not to defend any, or all of these officers, it would be wild speculation on my part to do so. The same as it is wild speculation on the part of many people in the public who are so willing to out of hand condemn the officers as being, “out of control”,  or for “using excessive force”. I have heard the phrase, “police state” tossed around.

As I have watched and listened to these people so ready to attack those who have sworn to “protect and serve” us, those who put their live between us and the criminal element of society, I have asked myself, why are so many people anti-law enforcement all of a sudden?

Well since I live in Sussex County, and since I listen to the talk radio stations serving Sussex, and since I write and read blogs from people in Sussex, I have to admit it may be a Sussex state of mind. But I have come to one conclusion about this, and that being, that a lot of people in Sussex are anti-law enforcement due to the County Sheriff issue and the law suit brought by Sussex Sheriff, Jeff Christopher.

This is not to say that Sheriff Christopher is anti-law enforcement, anything but. However, many of his supporters I believe, are ramped up by the rhetoric coming from his campaign to empower the office of county sheriff with full arrest powers. From the very start, one of the main arguments has been, “what will you do when the state police come to take your guns, or violate your rights, if you do not have an elected law enforcement officer to protect you from the corrupt state police?”

The public has been fed this now for nearly ten years in one form or another since the time of former sheriff Bob Reed who first brought the issue to the attention of the public.

It has been so pervasive during elections involving the office of sheriff, that it has over shadowed many of the more pressing issues facing the people of the state and county. Talk radio and the blogs and newspapers have used it to generate interest and ratings. It has become the clarion cry for those who see themselves as protectors of the constitution, or as some sort of modern-day patriots.

So is it such a long stretch to think that this has transformed into a total distrust of any form of law enforcement other than an elected law enforcement? I think not.

Don’t get me wrong, a total trust of all law enforcement is not healthy either. We as citizens must be ever vigilant, but let us not forget either, that the word vigilant, is the root word for vigilante. We are seeing a progression from giving the benefit of doubt to our trained professional law enforcement officers, to a total distrust of them. How long before these same people feel empowered to not only disregard law enforcement, but actually start taking the law into their own hands?

As much as I hate to do this I am going to link to another blog-site, to a blogger whom I have often had disagreements with, someone who I feel is a glaring example of exactly what I have written about here. In his piece on the incident in Georgetown, he convicts the officer out of hand based on no known fact, simply because it involved a DSP officer. I have also put up a video of an interview this person gave on the shooting as well. I encourage my readers to read the post first them watch the video. If these two examples do not demonstrate what I have written here, then I apologize for wasting your time.

Just know that this person, while I think is part of a growing minority group  of anti-law enforcement, he is not alone in this, and that is what causes me concern. This can only lead to more of these incident when people are told they cannot trust any law enforcement, they will feel empowered to disregard all law enforcement.

http://www.delawarepolitics.net/the-police-state-of-delaware-is-no-longer-theory/#comments

The following video demonstrates what is wrong with our government, the people elected to run it have no idea how our system was intended to be run.

Our U.S. Constitution does not empower the government with rights, a government cannot have rights, the people are guaranteed our rights as spelled out in the Constitution.

After hearing this, if you still believe that there are not people in government that want to take all that you have and share it out to others who have not worked for it, think again.

And by the way, the people he names as being in favor of that tax, they are just hoping to be the last bite the alligator takes.

So has the TEA “party” become just another bunch of liberals or not?

I know that many will of course think that Frank Knotts has once again gone off his rocker, but is it really just me? Or has anyone else noticed how much the current incarnation of the so-called TEA “party” resembles the Hippies and the leftist movements of the sixties?

Let us compare the TEA “party” with the Hippies of the sixties. In the sixties the Hippie movement was the face of the anti-establishment movement that was spreading across the nation. The Hippies, like the TEA people, were made up of many diverse sub groups. In the sixties some Hippies were out-and-out communist, some were simply free love adherents, some wanted only for the government to leave them alone and others wanted no government at all.

Starting to see the resemblance yet?

Okay, so I am not saying that the TEA people are communist, but they do share a similar mentality of requiring one hundred percent adherence to their views, or else you find yourself targeted for ridicule, or maybe worse. The TEA people are clearly the face of the current anti-establishment movement spreading across the nation.

In the sixties the Hippies were vehemently opposed to anything even resembling what they defined as being the “ESTABLISHMENT”, or “THE MAN”, much in the same way as the current TEA movement is. Of course like the TEA people, the Hippies definition of establishment was wide-ranging and ever-changing.

In the sixties the Hippies called the police, “pigs”, the TEA people are not so crude, they call them “tyrants” and the tools of tyrants. Simply allow a police officer to pull his weapon and defend himself and watch the TEA people come out of the shadows yelling police abuse, and shouting that the officer has somehow robbed you of your constitutional rights. It would seem that the only law enforcement that is acceptable to the TEA people are retired law enforcement, as long as they sign a loyalty oath to one of the TEA people sub groups.

Of course like Hippies, the TEA people reserve their greatest loathing for all things government. That is except for the Armed Forces, which they see as being a possible way to overthrow the hated government. But given time I believe that even the military will at some point become a target for the TEA people.

In the sixties the Hippies wanted to return to nature, to commune with nature. they would go west and set up places where they would have no need for electricity, they would grow their own food, they would have no need for the government’s money. The TEA people call this, “OFF THE GRID”, they want to move out west were they will have no need for electricity, well except for what they generate with their stockpile of gasoline and generators. They will grow their own food, mostly beans it would seem from some of the TEA group seminars. And they will have no need for the government’s money, since they cashed it all in, in exchange for the government’s gold!

Of course just like the Hippies of the sixties, there are members of the TEA movement who want nothing but to be left alone, to be allowed to smoke pot, to have no taxes what so ever. To love their brothers and sisters, as long as they speak English, and not as a second language. They want to be allowed to ride the roads without paying for those roads.

However, also like the Hippies of the sixties, there are more radical members within the sub groups. I see the potential, the possibility, I say there is a real chance, that some of the militia and patriot groups could, I repeat, “COULD”, become militant. Let’s face it we are already hearing rhetoric about overthrowing the government by force if need be. Is it such a far stretch to imagine the more radical of the TEA movement setting bombs in police stations like the Weather Underground?

I have always said, if the movement continued to move farther and farther to the right, it would eventually come back around on the left, and that is exactly what has happened. The once conservative movement known as TEA, has now become just another bunch of oppressive, judgmental, intolerant leftist, liberals!