Russia's Real Estate Problems Imitate China's

The construction industry in China isn't delivering a lot of value to users, just to the people benefiting from the bribes it generates. A bridge that doesn't last a year isn't much value to the community. "Developers" who start projects to capture buyers' payments then abandon tens of millions of housing units uncompleted represent a net negative to the cities whose residents they fleece.

Russia seems to have learned to perform similarly. Inside Russia collected a number of 2024 building failures – not war casualties, just failures – that flow from Russian corner-cutting. Last year, observers who interviewed local Russians developed a picture of a nation in which construction had halted outside Moscow. Now we see that in Moscow, buyers' move-in dates haven't been met and politically connected developers have been protected from legal consequences by statutes preventing the award of delay damages. Reuters covers the situation here.

Like Buffett's 2006 description of its experience doing business in Russia suggests, you can't invest where there is no rule of law. Without rule of law, you're just hoping your side ends up better connected than its adversaries.

Russia's Ground Game Not Keeping Up With Its Propaganda

Those of you who've been following Russia in the last few years of its >11.5 year war to seize Ukraine will be interested that its neighboring dictatorship in North Korea, which has been providing the lion's share of Putin's artillery shells, may be running out of ammunition it can spare to sell. Despite shipping 6.5 million artillery shells to Russia since it began arming its former supplier,  North Korea's 2025 shipments appear to be approximately half its 2024 shipments, and observers in September of 2025 were unable to identify even a single shipment of artillery shells from North Korea. It hasn't helped that the quality of North Korea's ammunition products has been worse even than the quality of Russia's.

Russia's economy has been suffering, its population has been in decline since before it started stealing Ukrainian children, its casualties exceed 1.1 million (larger than its active military), and recruiting is so bad Russia has been sending its underperforming recruiting officers to frontline deployment in Ukraine to die. Soviet-era stockpiles of ammunition and armored vehicles have been exhausted. Funding Putin's war with oil exports has faced multiple headwinds, ranging from economic sanctions to deep-Russia attacks on petroleum infrastructure that reduces production, interferes with transport, eliminates significant elements of Russia's refining capacity (video: a petroleum distillation column struck), and destroys Russian export facilities (like this one on the Black Sea). Just keeping its facilities operating is a challenge, seriously draining margins and preventing altogether the export of refined petroleum products, with which Russia is struggling to adequately supply military units who increasingly are deployed in meat waves unsupported by armor. In prior years, "missing" soldiers' families were not paid death benefits that Russian law provided for soldiers' families, but it's gotten worse: live workers who can still complain, and who can be found alive in Russia, are increasingly not being paid for work done to keep Russia's economy alive. (Forty-four percent of construction wages are reportedly not being paid, for example, and other industries are suffering wage nonpayment not only in the private sector but for government employees.)

Russia's 11.5-year war appears to have stabilized as a grinding war of attrition, which Russia has always assumed works in its favor. Yet in this time Russia manages to control approximately 20% of Ukraine's surface, most of which was taken in its 2014 surprise offensive supported by corrupted officers in the Soviet-trained legacy military stationed in the affected areas of Ukraine. The last couple of years, Russia's gains amount to approximately 1% and it has exacted from Russia an enormous cost in blood, matériel, and treasure. Although Russia postures over the destruction of little towns that used to house 10,000 civilians before they fled, the fact on the ground is that what Russia has been touting as gains have come at an enormous cost.

St. Petersburg's crematorium has been expanded to handle 250 bodies per day, and that's a city from which Russia has deliberately avoided recruiting in order to keep unrest from the two urban centers that differentiate Russia, at least cosmetically, from third-world countries (the other being Moscow).

Wagner Felons Turn Out To Commit Felonies

 So, this happened. Was anyone surprised?

On the Supreme Court's Ruling in Dobbs

The headline today in legal matters will surely be that Roe v. Wade (1973) has been overruled, but the problem goes further. The reasoning employed by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) undermined the reasoning employed in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) under which Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) was overruled to end anti-sodomy statutes, which is the same line of reasoning ultimately used to prevent states from banning same-sex marriage (e.g., that the State had no legitimate interest to protect), and in fact the same line of reasoning used by the Supreme Court to strike down laws criminalizing birth control.

We have not seen the end of this.

California Police Show True Colors to Cameras

Police of Pomona, California arrested teenager Christian Aguilar for filming the brutal manner in which they arrested his family.  When they spotted him filming the crimes they committed against his family, they arrested him, too – for "resisting arrest" … which is in fact not an offense under California law if the person is not in fact charged with some other offense that would justify an arrest.

Police then noticed Robert Hansen, whom they spotted recording their beating of the teenager.  Naturally, they arrested him, too – alleging a slew of bogus offenses.

They had it all neatly wrapped up – they wrote reports that spun a bald-faced lie how the encounter went down, and they edited the video they seized so that their wrongdoing never appeared.  It was this video they presented to the District Attorney's office of Los Angeles.

While this was going on, they delivered Christian Aguilar – a minor – into the hands of actual criminals by locking him among a population of male offenders.  They kept him there despite his protestations he was a minor.  Pomona police told Christian Aguilar's mother that her son could not have a lawyer.

The terrible allegations made by police against their victims cost the job of one of Christian's relatives, a respected cardiac nurse. 

The story gets worse.  Read all about it here.

Also, some of the video is available.

Should Police-Flight Video Shock?

A video shot in Mexico depicts police officers fleeing, despite the pleas of onlookers, shortly before a murder.  The much-watched video has attracted comments, naturally.  But what does American law say?

According to the United States Supreme Court's majority decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago Co. Department of Social Services, law enforcement officials have no duty to rescue members of the public from the violent attacks of third parties, even if they know about it.  Maybe shame would induce police to thwart attackers, but if a citizen's bid to plead for protection fails there's no federal remedy against the government or its officers for electing to leave you to your own devices.  If you think police should have a duty to rescue people from harm, you'll need to agitate for local law to require it:  federal law doesn't.

Since the news is replete with stories about people killed directly by police with no consequence, there's no point in advising people to trade a fight with local murderers for a fight with the police, on the theory the government will be held to a better standard.  Expecting police to police the police leads to frustration (based on whistleblower-retaliation accounts from California, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, etc.;  Kansas legislators went so far as to threaten whistleblowers with special felony charges).  The West Coast is pretty good at offering pro-consumer law, but as of this writing California leads the nation in civilians killed by police during 2016.  It's not a pretty picture.

The police-flight video may be offensive, but it ought not be surprising.  The government message to citizens appears to be: if you want safety, take care of it yourself.

That's not to say police can't send a message of competence, loyalty to the community, and faithful service beyond the call of duty.  But the inconsistent message threatens public confidence and undermines faith in the rule of law and those sworn to uphold it.

Whistleblower Cop Fired, Of Course

Lest anyone mistake police for a body dedicated to upholding the law, or even referring criminal activity to a District Attorney for prosecution, we highlight Kentucky's New Albany Police Department.  An officer identified that its employees – other officers – were lying about their overtime and performing work for third parties while on the department's clock, all resulting in theft of public funds for "work" they were not in fact performing for the community.  Was she given a medal?  Did she get a promotion?

Of course not.  This is an American police department, dedicated above everything else to making sure its own members never faced the consequences of the law they swore to uphold.  Their first move was to fire the woman.

If you're thinking the District Attorney will prosecute the corrupt cops, leading to the vigilant public servant's reinstatement, don't hold your breath.  There's little hope for police who want clean departments in Missouri (demoted for truthfully answering questions about an in-custody death), New York (committed following crime-stat fudging report), Maryland (branded a snitch after "ratting" out police brutality, and harassed), Illinois (harassment and death threats after reporting corruption, and instructions not to provide backup to rat cops in danger), Washington (officer was abandoned and allowed to be shot, despite calling for backup, because he reported excessive force, then was disciplined on pretext; his shooter was allowed to plead to "attempted assault"), or pretty much anyplace else they might report wrongdoing.

It's corrupt, and we don't have enough democracy in this country to get departments that will reflect our hunger for real justice.  We need more democracy.

Cop Killers

A "Black Lives Matter" activist named Sandra Bland died recently in the jail of Waller County, Texas.  Sandra Bland, 28, was about to begin a new job at Texas A&M University before she was killed in custody.  Pulled over ostensibly for failure to signal a lane change, she was arrested rather than cited.  To defend itself from criticism of the arrest, the department released a video showing her arrest by an officer who later asserted the unarmed woman had "assaulted" him.  Although the video contains obvious signs of editing, the department denies that the video was ever edited.

Speaking with her mother about her new job, Bland had said, "My purpose is to go back to Texas and stop all social injustice in the South."

Well, Waller County had an answer for that, didn't it?

Instead of protecting the citizens, police in the United States have a developed a reputation for using force to coerce citizens into complying with a variety of ridiculous demands (why did Sandra need to exit her vehicle to receive a citation for failure to signal a lane change?), or skipping the demands and moving straight to the killing.  The police killing of Caroline Small emphasizes the ability of police to kill unarmed civilians with impunity even if they aren't men trying to purchase an unloaded air rifle at Walmart, or for allegedly shoplifting.  Maybe – at least in New York, when the officer is a rookie – there's at least an apology for killing a civilian for deciding to take the stairs.  The culture of killing American civilians is an epidemic among U.S. law enforcement.  Suicide by cop just doesn't work in places like the United Kingdom:  they don't kill people.  While acknowledging that the United States has a greater population (~319 million) than the United Kingdom (~64 million), the rate of police killings of civilians is vastly different than the population difference:  despite that U.S. data on police killings is incomplete because reporting to the F.B.I. is purely voluntary, the U.S. death toll from "justifiable" killings by police was more than 400 individuals, while British police discharged their weapons in the line of duty a grand total of three (3) times, with zero fatalities.  British shootings of civilians by police is extremely controversial even in the case of a known gangster.  In the U.S., the hypermilitarized "police" now occupying our cities seem virtually expected to kill.  For some real perspective:  U.S. police killed more people this March than U.K. police have killed since 1900.  Last year, the death toll was 1,100 killed in the U.S. compared to twenty-six (26) in the U.S.  This isn't some multiple based on population difference, it's a cultural problem in U.S. "police" forces.

FIFA Bans Whistleblower (who's 70 and has cancer)

FIFA previously halted ethics proceedings against one of its officials who'd been caught using his FIFA office to benefit from corruption;  the 70-year-old had been diagnosed with colon cancer and guaranteed FIFA he'd never officiate again.  However, the ex-official turned state's evidence, resulting in prosecutions that included multiple extradition requests from Switzerland, so FIFA retaliated with the gratuitous step of imposing a lifelong ban against his officiating in national or international soccer events.

Priorities.

If She's Arrested There Must Be Something To It, Right?

A woman found in possession of a spoon with SpaghettiOs sauce on it spent a month in jail after officers wrote a report that described the spoon as bearing "a residue" they alleged showed she'd used the spoon to prepare meth.  While incarcerated she was so worn down she considered taking a plea deal to be freed, despite that it would falsely have branded her for life as a felon drug user.

When the overloaded lab's test results came back it became evident the state had no case.  At least the prosecutors didn't bury the exculpatory evidence as occurred elsewhere, and the error was discovered while its victim was still alive to free.

Has our zeal to make it easy to arrest bad guys reached a point that nobody is safe from losing valuable rights – like the freedom to sleep at home – on a mere accusation?

Statue Raised to Innocent Man Who Died Imprisoned

In Lubbock, Texas, a statue has been raised honoring Timothy Cole, a nonsmoker who was convicted of an aggravated sexual assault committed by a smoker.  Cole died in prison years after the real perpetrator, Jerry Wayne Johnson, wrote prosecutors to confess he'd committed the assault.  Johnson had heard Cole weeping in a nearby holding cell, but didn't risk confessing until the statute of limitations had run.  The Lubbock County prosecutor who procured the erroneous conviction sent no response to Johnson's letters, and Cole died in prison without ever learning the guilty man had confessed.  Cole died in prison of a severe asthma his family believed would have been better treated in the free world, – treatment that would have extended his life.  Cole's asthma was one reason he never smoked.


Cole had been offered parole if he confessed to the assault, but refused to lie to be set free.  He encouraged his sister to stick with her law school plans, saying he believed in the justice system even if it didn't believe in him.

There are no words.

JAMA: Legal Weed Reduces Painkiller ODs?

And now, for something completely different.

New research in JAMA Internal Medicine (formerly Archives of Internal Medicine) finds a 24.8% reduction in annual opiate overdose mortality in states that allow physicians to prescribe cannabis for pain.  The nontrivial improvement in so concrete a metric as mortality represents an interesting fact in the discussion of cannabis regulation.  The association of prescription availability of cannabis with the mortality reduction strengthened over time.

Noriega to 'Black Ops II' Game Develpers: "Show Me The Money"

Deposed Panamanian strongman "General" Manuel Noriega, who ran death squads and torture operations for years in support of his dictatorship and the drug operations from which he profited, became an international headline when he holed up in the Vatican embassy while it stood besieged by American forces bent on his capture.  His villainy has been so well documented that he's been immortalized as an adversary in Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Black Ops II.  Naturally Noriega, who has languished in a Panamanian prison since his 2011 extradition, has filed suit to share the proceeds.

On the one hand, what a system: everyone gets a crack at justice, even proven murderers.

On the other hand, what a farce: he's internationally reknowned as a corrupt dictator who clung to power through a program of murder and intimidation, and whose downfall followed not his murder spree at home but his soured relations with back-room kingmakers at the CIA. The craziest part of the story is that Noriega says Activision Blizzard somehow had the power to damage his reputation.  Really? Can a reputation possibly be worse?

On the bright side, the defamation case is a sure loser.  As a public figure being lampooned for entertainment in the subject area in which he's famous – in a game – it's doubtful that it's possible to maintain a defamation case under U.S. law.  Even straight-up news sources could plausibly defend such a suit.  The more interesting question is whether using the likeness of a living person for profit might entitle him to damages under the kinds of legal principles that allow the heirs of Elvis Presley both to make fortune in photo licensing and restrict republication of Elvis' image during the fat years.  The Jaded Consumer will report back.

After all, who doesn't like a good train wreck?

Another Bogus Conviction Based on Prosecutorial Concealment of Evidence

Gloria Killian was freed after years behind bars for a robbery-murder plot in which she was utterly innocent.  Unfortunately, this isn't a story about justice being served. It's a story about yet another  prosecutor intentionally concealing evidence to dupe a jury into conviction.

In Killian's case, the conceal evidence showed the state's star witness traded leniency in his own case for testimony spreading blame to Killian.  The hired witness agreed, and happily claimed under oath (to save his own skin) that Killian – whom he'd never actually met – masterminded the whole thing.  Sigh.  Normally, when a witness is paid for testimony – in money, or in freedom – the jury gets to consider how the fact and extent of payment impacts the jury's decision what it will believe.  By hiding the fact the "star witness" was a paid rat, the State bolstered his credibility and prevented the jury from understanding his real motive to testify.  Under our system, when a witness informs the prosecutor "I even lied my ass off on the stand for you people", the wrongly convicted don't automatically go free. Instead, the reports I've seen suggest the letter ends up in a drawer.

In the U.K., I understand the government doesn't have barristers on salary. The government's solicitors engage barristers to try cases from a pool of available barristers who try criminal matters, and the barristers who work on a particular case may have worked for the defense the prior week and may work for the government the next month.  They have no career need to get convictions, and their perspective on their cases has the breadth of seeing both sides.  Their objective isn't to advance the office of the prosecutor.  Ideally, the United States would not have prosecutors bent on getting convictions of innocents in order to improve their scorecards, but our system is broken.  The convict-at-all-costs culture of many prosecutors' offices has been noted before.

The American Bar Association's rules applicable to prosecutors – widely adopted by state bar organizations – explicitly state in Standard 3-1.2(c) that "The duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict."  But have you ever heard of anyone being promoted in a district attorney's office for seeking justice?  It's the conviction rate you see measured.  And you get what you pay for.  So if you measure nothing but convictions, what do you expect?

Let's stop paying for empty convictions, and start motivating people to get the right people behind bars. Or – and here's an idea – keeping people from ending up offenders.

Snowden: Because Our National Intelligence Director Lied under Oath About It

For those of you interested in the traitor/hero debate on Snowden, the DC Clothesline has an article and interview that's been curiously absent from mainstream channels.

If the rule of law isn't respected by government even when citizens' lives are involved,
it's no surprise that it's ignored utterly when the issue is personal freedom and autonomy. The right to be informed about government is a fundamental assumption of democratic process: if you don't know what your government is really doing, how will you know whether you must vote differently?  In that regard, Snowden is plainly doing something good for democracy irrespective of whether his conduct would be prosecuted by our current administration. 

And why shouldn't the current administration use judicial process to miscarry justice? It's already lied to its own judicial overseer.  Why would it stop there?

To do what Snowden did for America, knowing what it would cost him, is a sacrifice worthy of respect.

Criminal (in)Justice System At Work

Perhaps you've heard that Michael Morton was freed after almost twenty-five years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Good news, that.

But the other side of the story is ugly.  After intentionally withholding physical evidence and witness statements that would have shown the prosecutor's alligator tears (yes, he cried while imploring the jury to convict) begged for the conviction of the totally wrong man – one the suppressed eyewitness confirmed wasn't present – it appears the state's attorney was apparently so busy doing similar work with so many other cases in order to keep his prosecution rate up that he was unable to recall any details of the Morton case. Because, you know, they were like every other case in which he needed a conviction.  The state's lawyer, Ken Anderson, went on to become a judge.  Because the purpose of the machine is to get convictions, and success is rewarded with advancement.

Never mind that the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct expressly bar the behavior brought to light by attorneys working for free or with charitable funding to undo the evil committed by the state with the public's tax revenue. Never mind that prosecutorial irregularities are, in fact, regular.  I suppose it's nice that Ken Anderson lost his law license over this, but how many lives did he wreck before he was caught? Certainly the next murdered woman – whose killer wasn't being sought because Ken claimed he had the right man when it was obvious from the witness testimony and concealed physical evidence that he didn't – would claim her life was affected.  But what about all the other bogus convictions, the plea deals forced on people too terrified to risk their fates to a system bent on consuming their freedoms, the fortunes in defense costs required by bogus prosecutions?

And what about real crimes the district attorney's can't be bothered to prosecute – embezzlements by business partners, white-collar crimes that affect whole communities, and other less-than-first-degree crimes – what happens when they go unattended because all available resources are expended shooting fish in a barrel using tainted prosecutions to destroy lives that aren't protected by unlimited defense budgets?

The system needs serious work.

NSA Dishonest With Its Secret-Court Overseer

Those interested in the ethics surrounding Snowden's disclosures regarding the NSA's surveillance program to the American public may be interested in another data point.  Recently-declassified judicial opinions show the NSA was repeatedly caught by federal judges misrepresenting what it was doing with its surveillance authority in its communications with the secret court charged with overseeing its actions.

Next Advance: Child Molester Rights?

So here are the facts for today's problem:

An 18-year old dates a 14-year girl.  The child's parents confront the adult about the relationship with the minor, but the adult – who can not only drive lethal motor vehicles and serve in the armed forces, but also vote and sit on a jury competent to decide whether people should be put to death – ignores the parents.  One day, the minor's mother enters her little girl's bedroom only to find her missing.  She panics: where could she be? Who has her?

Of course, it's her adult lover who has her.

Do you have any doubt what happens to the person who is having sex with the child?

Normal Consequences Are Harsh:
Not if you've been awake any time in the last century. If you have, you've noticed that 13-year-old and 14-year-old children's "consent" is of no consequence at all as a defense against sexual offenses that require legal consent to make non-offensive.  You recall that when adults have sex with teens in school, they end up in the news.  While it sometimes involves an unwilling child, but as often it involves repeated contact with a willing victim.  Even victims aged 17 years create fact situations supporting felony prosecutions, sex offender registrations, and so forth.  Even if the two later marry.  We are totally unsurprised at the prosecutions:  we don't expect adults to be using our children for sexual gratification

This isn't a new policy, and it's directed against male adults and female adults – both of which make the news and both of which appear in the links above. It seems a fairly gender-indiscriminate law, and it seems to be applied to either gender when sex-crime prosecutors discover a case.

So, what should we do with the facts of today's little lesson?

Weird Discrimination Claims
If you're Change.org, you apparently host a petition in support of the defendant, claiming that felony prosecutions of the type that are absolutely routine in the criminal justice system are somehow a private beef against the perpetrator because of the perpetrator's gender or gender-preferences.

Say what?

Oh, and "the online global hacker collective" Anonymous will demand law enforcement officials' resignations.

Prosecutors offered the offender an opportunity to plead to felony less severe than the sexual assault charges ordinarily supported by repeated sex with a child of 14.  The defendant rejected the offer of a 2-year in-home "incarceration" that left open a possibility of avoiding sex-offender registration. Where I come from, hetero perpetrators would kill for a plea deal like that.  This case is supposed to somehow represent anti-gay discrimination?

CNN's reporter says, "This may have been a consensual relationship in high school ..."
But that description completely misses the fundamental issue underpinning the criminal case: a 14-year-old cannot legally consent to sex with an 18-year-old.  And after the parental communication with the defendant that the conduct must stop, it's pretty clear that the defendant acted with complete knowledge that the child's guardians believed the adult was behaving improperly toward their daughter.  (And guess what? There's a statute making the conduct a felony – so the parents were on to something.)  When the minor disappeared, what was her mother supposed to do, if not seek aid from law enforcement?

Now, imagine the opposite occurred. "No, ma'am, we won't prosecute the adult's seduction of your minor daughter, because we think lesbian relationships are not as serious as heterosexual relationships, or we think pairs of girls are cute and that only sex involving males can be a punishable offense. If your minor daughter goes missing, but we think she's smooching a girl, we won't try to return her, either."  We'd be howling, no?

Some reporters, learning the facts, are backing off of initial support for the perpetrator.  Apparently, the perpetrator's family lied about things that mattered – like whether the perpetrator was a minor or not at the time of the charged conduct.

If you want an example of idiots discriminating against women for being women, look at school dress code enforcement (even regarding hair; video here, gives a better view of the hair).  Now, that's discrimination.

Property Rights in China

A few years ago, China amended its constitution to provide an express right to private property. Presumably, this was intended to reassure foreigners that their investments would be safe from seizure by government officials.

But what does it mean for individual Chinese? Apparently, very little. When police showed up at the home of Shen Jianzhong after it was beset by a mob of 50 thugs bent on running him off the property to facilitate a developer's plans, the police told him to sign their contract.

The Jaded Consumer has covered China's official oppression over supposedly-protected property before.

Japanese Politician: Sex Slavery "Necessary" to War Effort

He may not actually represent the official position of the Japanese diplomatic corps, but the sitting Mayor of Osaka (Japan's third-largest city after Tokyo and Yokohama) says sex-slaves captured and systematically raped across the Pacific theater during the Second World War were a "necessary" result of the needs of Japanese soldiers who risked their lives for their country.

During the War, hundreds of thousand females were enslaved as "comfort women", a Japanese euphemism referring to military-governed sex slaves.  Japan's official support and funding for the maintenance of "comfort women" battalions was in direct opposition to the nation's purported position on slavery taken when it ratified the International Labor Organization Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labor in 1932. Unlike consumer protection statutes in Texas, which have teeth because they provide individuals with a civil remedy for damages upon proven violation, the Convention Concerning Forced Labor asked all signatories to enact criminal statutes – so that the government would protect rights enshrined in the Convention. Since Japan enacted no criminal statutes to punish violations of the Convention, the nation's officials were free not only to violate it with impunity, but to profit in human trafficking designed to fill the ranks of the "comfort women" battalions.

National leaders continue to take absurd positions on the records of their own countries.  The gulf between law and justice is vast.