Excessive Deference to Leaders Corrupts Them -- Who wouldn't lose their humility if constantly surrounded by sycophants eager to invest them with unchecked power?
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What cannot be squared ... is the insight that leader worship makes it harder for people in power to behave honorably, and the simultaneous argument that we need to be more admiring of our leaders. I do not mean that we should be disrespectful or them, nor of any other human being.

But we ought to be skeptical of their intentions, knowing that power corrupts; and we ought to challenge them, for if having worshipful sycophants inflates one's self-importance, what better corrective than dissenters confident enough to convey that the leader has erred in his or her judgment?
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the best leaders are at once willing to act decisively and prone to humility and introspection. They are attuned to the possibility that they too are fallible. Sycophants destroy that perspective.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/excessive-deference-to-leaders-corrupts-them/259164/?google_editors_picks=true#

Fire gutted the ground floor of the blue four-storey HQ of the U.S. software giant, blackening its walls with flames, on the eve of yet another European summit seeking a solution to a regional debt crisis first unleashed by Greece.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-greecebre85q0ze-20120627,0,5686655.story

Mayer handcuffed Lucas and undid his belt buckle, causing Lucas' pants to fall to his ankles... Then the officer asked Lucas if he had any drugs in his buttocks, pulled his boxer shorts halfway down and shook them against his genitals as a crowd gathered to watch ...
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-to-pay-cop-s-40K-strip-search-judgment-3649123.php

Verber wrote in a memo to the city that his client had been cleared of wrongdoing by police internal affairs. 'The punitive damage award issued by the court is particularly upsetting for Mr. Mayer because he knows he did nothing wrong.'

"There is something incongruent about a nonviolent person, who is not a felon but who is convicted of a misdemeanor offense of simple possession of a firearm, being forever barred from exercising his constitutional right to defend himself in his own home in Chicago against felons or violent criminals," Der-Yeghiayan wrote.

"The same Constitution that protects people's right to bear arms prohibits this type of indiscriminate and arbitrary governmental regulation," he continued. "It is the opinion of this court that any attempt to dilute or restrict a core constitutional right with justifications that do not have a basis in history and tradition is inherently suspect."
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"The only thing Mr. Gowder did was to own a firearm. As a result, he was treated like a criminal by the city of Chicago when all he did was exercise his fundamental Second Amendment right," said Stephen Kolodziej, a Chicago attorney representing the plaintiff. "We think the city of Chicago's actions in denying Mr. Gowder a firearm permit were punitive and draconian as well as violative of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-chicago-gun-law-20120620,0,3472302.story

BDO, the U.S. arm of BDO International, the world's fifth-largest accounting firm, entered a deferred-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in New York in connection with a criminal charge of tax-fraud conspiracy. The firm admitted responsibility for criminal conduct. The charge will be dismissed if the firm complies with the conditions of the agreement, including permanent restrictions on its tax practice, implementation of a compliance and ethics program and continued cooperation with the government's investigation.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said BDO developed and sold illegal tax shelters, known as "Short Sale" and "SOS," to wealthy clients that generated at least $6.5 billion in phony tax losses from 1997 to 2003. BDO said it received about $200 million in fees from those transactions.

The firm falsely characterized the shelters as investments, used false and fraudulent correspondence and other documents to mask the products and associated fees, filed false tax returns and provided false information and documents to the Internal Revenue Service, prosecutors said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120613-716301.html

Looking for a job with a little adventure to it? Florida conservation officials are recruiting "crocodile response agents" to help corral the wayward reptiles. No experience required.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is planning to hire two to four more part-time agents — there is currently just one — to respond to calls when crocodiles stray onto human turf in the Florida Keys, the string of wetland islands at the southern tip of the state.

Crocodile response agents "assist in handling human-American Crocodile conflicts," wrote Carli Segelson, spokesperson for the Florida commission’s south region, in an email response to msnbc.com questions. "Their duties include, site visits, captures, translocations, carcass recoveries, other duties as needed."
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/12/12170703-wanted-crocodile-handlers-no-experience-required

A disturbing lawsuit has been filed against the Baltimore County Police Department by Linda Johnson over the death of her husband, Architect Carl D. Johnson on May 27, 2010. Johnson was pepper sprayed, tasered, and beaten before his death on the way home from Bible study class.

Linda Johnson is suing the Maryland State Police, Baltimore County Police, individual commanders and six officers. Her lawsuit claims that her husband suffered a diabetic attack after calling a friend and crashing on I-795. First to the scene was State Trooper Davon Parker who pepper sprayed Johnson after he lowered his window of his car, which had crashed into the median. When Johnson got out of the car, Parker clubbed him on the knee and then allegedly another officer (Loss) clubbed him. When Baltimore County Police Officer Nicholas Wolferman arrived, he also allegedly beat Johnson. Three more officers arrived and one, Baltimore County Officer Andrew O’Neill tasered Johnson twice. Officer Loss then allegedly punched him in the face. Eight more officers then arrived — leaving one wondering if there were any officers left at headquarters. The complaint states that “there were approximately 52 individuals that responded to the scene.”

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/07/lawsuit-architect-in-diabetic-shock-beaten-by-multiple-officers-pepper-sprayed-and-repeatedly-tasered-before-dying/

are our regulators attempting to rein in the excesses of those they regulate, or are they auditioning for a lucrative future job? Are economists who publish papers praising financial deregulation giving us an honest assessment of the facts and trends, or courting extremely lucrative consulting fees from banks?

In her book Shadow Elite, about the new global ruling class, Janine Wedel recalls visiting Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and finding the elites she met there—those at the center of building the new capitalist societies—toting an array of business cards that represented their various roles: one for their job as a member of parliament, another for the start-up business they were running (which was making its money off government contracts), and yet another for the NGO on the board of which they sat. Wedel writes that those “who adapted to the new environment with the most agility and creativity, who tried out novel ways of operating and got away with them, and sometimes were the most ethically challenged, were most rewarded with influence.”

This has an eerie resonance with our predicament. We can never be sure just which other business cards are in the pocket of the pundit, politician or professor. We can’t be sure, in short, just who our elites are working for.
-- Christopher Hayes

http://www.thenation.com/article/168265/why-elites-fail

The political revolution we're witnessing now in America, which has been growing since the 1970s and 80s, is built on a new and even more dangerous form of corporate collusion. Just as robber barons figured out that they could form a trust to pursue their common interests, today's wealthiest corporations and individuals invented new ways to pursue their interests collectively. Essentially, the corporations and their wealthiest owners have found out that they could form a national union to represent their interests and entrench their power.

The representatives of this union are the lobbyists on K-Street and the members of the Republican Party. Its organizational structure is ever evolving and gaining strength: the American Legislative Exchange Council and Grover Norquist controlling Congress with Frank Luntz and Fox News spreading propaganda on the ground. In 2010, the Supreme Court unleashed the full power of the union thugs for the first time. The results have been catastrophic: the 2010 Republican takeover, the Wisconsin recall, and soon the loss of the presidency and Senate in 2012. After the fingers formed into a clenched fist, Anthony Kennedy provided them with brass knuckles and spikes.

Their new brand of collusion is every bit as damaging as price fixing, and it should be every bit as illegal. The Republican corporate unionization undermines capitalism at every step. There is no need to make higher profits by increasing your revenues. Simply pay your way to a regulatory code that will reduce your costs by putting your employees and customers at risk. Buy subsidies and loopholes that help you only stamp out your competitors. Write yourself a tax code that will increase the percentage of your investment returns. Own a few judges whose role is to limit your liability for damages you cause. The reality is that these so-called capitalists aren't skilled enough to rely on free market forces to increase their profits. But they do have enough wealth that they can buy the whole market and rewrite the rules in their own favor.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/10/1098843/-Why-we-re-losing-The-corporations-have-unionized