Worst Government Agencies, Federal, State and Local– Report and evaluation by Robert A. Williams

Worst Five Federal Government agencies rated Worse, to now quite as bad.

Federal Agencies:

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led by director James Comey. With all the email controversy and obvious evidence that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton violated National Security laws, Director James Comey just can’t get his story straight. Yes, Hillary violated the law, but Comey recommends no prosecution. And to top it all Comey’s boys go through 650,000 State Department emails on pervert Andrew Weiner’s laptop in nine days and still won’t do anything to punish violators of Federal law. Although the FBI works for the corrupt Department of Justice, who are pulling the FBI’s strings, they are supposed to be professional. How can it be professional to keep on being a puppet, dancing on the strings of others? Especially for the Nation’s top law enforcement agency.

2. The Department of Justice (DOJ) led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The only reason the DOJ is not on the top of this list is because everybody at DOJ is politically appointed by President Obama and is expected to be just as corrupt as the President, where the FBI is supposed to be non-political. The previous AG, Eric Holder, was held in Contempt of Congress. The FBI has prostrated themselves to the top down corruption In Washington DC when they didn’t necessarily have to

3. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) led by John Koskinen. The IRS has been totally implicated in the illegal political attacks on TEA Party and other Patriotic Groups as shown by IRS official Louis Lerner taking the Fifth when questioned by Congress and then put on paid leave until she retired by Koskinen as a cover-up. Koskinen is presently up for Impeachment.

4. The State Department led by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Libya, Syria, Benghazi, Aleppo, the rise of ISIS, North Korea, selling American Uranium Company to Russia, giving Iran a path to nuclear bombs and paying them $150 Billion in the process, and paying $1.5 Billion to Iran as a ransom. What more needs to be said about the sorry State Department under President Obama and Secretaries Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.

5. The Veterans Administration (VA). Everybody knows the VA has been mismanaged for years. Long waits for appointments have seen many veterans die before they get to see a doctor. Last thing I heard is some Veterans have died in VA hospitals and kept in the hospital morgue until their bodies liquefy. In normal times the VA would be the top of this list, put the political shenanigans of the FBI, DOJ, IRS and the State Department beat them out of being the worst of the worst governmental agency.

State Agencies:

1. The North Carolina Crime Lab under Attorney General Roy Cooper. Roy Cooper is running for Governor and his campaign ads say AG Cooper inherited (from former AG and Former Gov. Mike Easley) a troubled crime lab but, according to Roy Cooper’s ads, Cooper fixed the crime lab problems. That is probably the biggest lie in North Carolina politics in the 2016 elections. Just about three weeks ago a mother of two is killed by a gunshot at a big party in Kingstown and Sheriff Alan Norman has to send evidence to a South Carolina Crime Lab because the NC Crime lab has a two year wait time. So, who is lying AG Roy Cooper or Cleveland County Sheriff Alan Norman? I say it is Roy Cooper and a murderer is running loose in Cleveland County at least partly because of Roy Cooper. How foolish can you be to vote for Roy Cooper. Even the office of dogcatcher is above Roy Cooper.

2. NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) led by Superintendent June Atkinson. One must ask, why is North Carolina bumping the bottom in the nation in education when NC spends $Billions? Bad leadership at the top is the answer to that. And another part of that answer is the educational bureaucracy in Raleigh that eats up about half the NC education budget right off the top.

3. NC Auditor led by Beth Wood. Remember the Credit Card scandal at Cleveland County Schools? Where about everybody in the Central Offices had a school P-Card (credit card) and were using the school credit cards for personal stuff. Massages at the Grove Park Inn resort in Asheville, lunches and dinners at the Country Club and other restaurants, stuff for their personal vehicles, IPods, expensive cameras, gas for their personal vehicles, cloths, tires, and other stuff too numerous to mention in this article. Where was the NC Auditor in all this? Only one audit report from the NC Auditor because the SBI took it to her. And then the Cleveland County District Attorney covered it up. (Where was the NC Attorney General Roy Cooper. See Item 1, above.) I look for a big change if Chuck Stuber wins the NC Auditor’s office. Stuber helped send NC Speaker of the House Jim Black to Prison and made former Governor Mike Easley lay up for his corruption. We will see tomorrow (Election Day)whether or not NC voters have wised up and there is a change in this office.

4. State Bureau of Investigation also led by Roy Cooper. What can you expect from an agency run by liar Roy Cooper and crooked Mike Easley before that? ‘Nuff said about that.

5. NC State Board of Elections. The NC BOE has pretty much been the pawn of the Democrat Party for 150 years. They never find problems with Democrat officials, until the FBI finds them first. The NC BOE has picked up a lot since Pat McCrory was elected Governor, Tim Moore became the Speaker of the House and the whole NC General Assembly went Republican. However, many election laws are toothless because the NC Board of Elections won’t do anything and the real items to prevent voter fraud, such as picture IDs are ruled unconstitutional by activist Federal judges, more of which will be appointed if Hillary Clinton wins the election for President.

Cleveland County Agencies:

1. The Cleveland County Department of Social Services (DSS) led by Director Karen Ellis. The DSS has been very bad for a long time, but so have the Cleveland County Commissioners as well as CCS. So we have to rate the Commissioners, DSS and CCS as tied for the worst of the worst government agencies at the local level. Read on and you decide if one is more bad (can’t help the grammar in this case) than the others.

The DSS has been linked with funding the drug trade in Cleveland County with Food Stamps. approximately $36 Million per year in Food Stamps are provided by DSS to about 25% of the county population. Many reports have been made to DSS regarding folks selling Food Stamps to buy drugs yet DSS has prosecuted ZERO cases of Food Stamp fraud. I have personally been informed by some of the folks who have made these reports and have followed up to find the truth of the matter. The truth is DSS does NOT turn over these reports to the DA for prosecution. They “say” they just try to get the money back. Which they don’t. They might remove the offender from the Food Stamp rolls for thirty days, but the offender just reapplies the next month and get approved all over again. Some Food Stamp recipients actually sell their Food Stamps for drugs, then sell the drugs to other Food Stamp recipients for their Food Stamps. A tight little criminal enterprise totally funded by the taxpayers who are the ones who pay for the Food Stamps DSS so easily supplies to the criminal. While many who actually need help are turned down by DSS.

Of course there are the adoption rackets, the Group Home rackets, the Foster Home rackets where DSS feeds children they illegally take away from families and place them, like commodities to be bought and sold, to the highest bidder. Just like the boy (Clay Wesley Green, 13) who ran away repeatedly from a home in Kings Mountain. School Board Member Danny Blanton has offered to take Clay Green into his own home to raise as his own child (as Blanton has previously done for another child) at no cost to DSS, yet DSS has refused to place the child with the Blanton family.

Then, the multiple failures of DSS to protect children in their system. The deaths of two year olds Jodice Peeler, Jeremiah Swafford and others in Cleveland County and Jordyn DuMont just across the line in Gaston County shows how ineffective DSS is in protecting children.

DSS never seems to learn from their mistakes. Actually DSS may not consider these deaths of children in their system as mistakes. They always use the deaths of children as an excuse to hire additional workers and no worker is disciplined for doing a bad job.

But, DSS Director Karen Ellis cannot be totally blamed for the mess at DSS. Ellis was hired from within and without any outside candidates being considered by the DSS Board. The DSS Board includes Susan Allen, Mary Accor and Betsy Wells as a total majority. With these “Mud Hens” running things it is a wonder things are only as bad as they are and not even worse. (Perhaps they are worse and the “confidentiality DSS claims is just a cover up.) A Federal Lawsuit against DSS has already been filed and my understanding is another Federal Lawsuit against DSS, including the Cleveland County Commissioners, is on the way. Perhaps justice will finally be done at DSS.

Single shot voting for Willie McIntosh for Commissioner may be the fastest way to breakup the Mud Hens at DSS. That is enough for me to cast my single shot vote for McIntosh.

1. Cleveland County Commissioners led by Chairman Jason Falls and Vice Chairman Eddie Holbrook. You have to be very bad to tie with the DSS and CCS as being the worst agency in Cleveland County. Chose for yourself which one is the worst, if that is possible???

First of all, consider that the Commissioners, by new laws, could take over eliminating the Mud Hen rule at DSS and do what is necessary to bring about much needed changes there. But they don’t. And probably for good reason as the Commissioners share a Mud Hen with DSS in the person of Susan Allen who never sees a problem in the Commissioners doings as well as DSS doings, so the bad changing places with the bad still leaves the agency in a bad place.

The Commissioners are well known for throwing taxpayer money out the window on projects that will never pay for themselves. The Earl Scruggs Center, the LeGrand Center as well as the Foothills Shooting Range are the best example of projects that will forever require taxpayer dollars to keep the doors open. The hiring of commissioner family and friends at the examples noted above also pose ethical questions that the commissioners refuse to answer.

The commissioners also kept the property tax evaluation high for years after the economic downturn by refusing to re-evaluate property values until required by state law. Keeping the property values artificially high kept property taxes artificially high to the tune of $1.6 Million per year for at least six years. On top of that the commissioners were dipping into taxpayer reserves to keep up with their overspending ways.

Just about everybody coming before the commissioners with their hands out walked out with money. Folks asking for no interest loans got the loans, even though the county is not in the loan business. Carolina Medical tops that list with a $100 million loan to secretly purchase the Hospital and all the rest of County owned healthcare facilities. Even the Fair, with lots of money changing hands, got a no interest loan of $250,000 taxpayer dollars.

Besides the no interest $100 million loan the Carolina Medical folks got, selling the hospital was totally done in secret. The commissioners, who were already getting $1.4 million per year rent on the healthcare facilities basically gave away the taxpayer owned healthcare facilities in a long term no interest loan and what money the commissioners did get, they spent it instead of returning the money to the actual owners-citizens of Cleveland County. Apparently the commissioners never read Donald Trump’s boom, “The Art of the Deal.”

Now that a whistleblower has tipped me off about alleged commissioner boondoggles and I asked for public records, the Commissioners have refused to provide those public records in defiance of North Carolina Public Record laws. So, not only have the commissioners been liars about county finances, they are crooks too. If not crooks about alleged boondoggles, the commissioners are certainly crooks by not abiding by NC Open Meeting and NC Public Records laws.

1. Cleveland County Schools (CCS) led by Chairman Phillip Glover and Vice Chairman Shearra Miller. Folks, CCS probably should be in a three way tie for the worst government agency in Cleveland County-along with the Commissioners and the DSS. So much so that I just had to put CCS into the same category as being the Worst Government agency in Cleveland County.

So Williams you ask, why would the Cleveland County Schools be so bad as to rate as tied for the worst government agency in Cleveland County???

Several reasons:

One, they are the biggest governmental agency in Cleveland County with about 2,500 employees and an annual budget of over $155 MILLION of which much is wasted by accident, by malfeasance as well as by criminal actions, i.e. the widespread credit card scandal, inappropriate bidding processes, and stealing school equipment and selling on Ebay with little to no oversight by CCS administration.

Two, the entire reason CCS exists is to properly educate over 15,000 students in Cleveland County to the point that the students graduate with an education that enables them to proficiently read, write, comprehend and have sufficient math skills to enable and prepare these students to be a good and productive citizen. Only thing is, over 40% of these students (6,000+) will graduate less than proficient in the skills noted above and 100 % will graduate without being taught how to sign their paychecks when they get their first low paying job.

Three, eight of the nine school board members are not fiscally responsible as clearly shown in the botched from the start new North Shelby School Project, which is already $2 Million over budget and the first shovel full of dirt has yet to be moved.

Four, the new North Shelby School Project and associated partnerships has exposed the fact that this school is basically a place to warehouse handicapped students until they age out of the system.

Five, eight of the nine school board members don’t give a rip about any of the problems noted above as well as the many other problems that are too numerous to mention in this article.

Six, eight of the nine school board members refuse to oversee CCS such that state laws are followed. A good example, like the Commissioners, is the CCS Board refuses to provide public records to the public as required by North Carolina law.

Seven, the CCS Board refuses to investigate the numerous sex scandals involving CCS staff and students, financial crimes, etc. Although NC law enables the CCS Board significant power to investigate, even subpoena witnesses, the CCS Board refuses to investigate anything. At the October 24, 2016 School Board workshop, they plan to delete the investigative power of the board from their official policy, even though that power is provided by state law. Is that crooked or what?

4. The District Attorney’s Office led by DA Mike Miller. Some might say this office also deserves to be first place on the worst governmental agency in Cleveland County. I would not argue much about that.

Several of the biggest problems in the DA’s Office that directly affect people is the lack of administrative control of the Court Calendar. If you are a victim of a crime you will end up coming to court at least four times that are totally unnecessary. But, if you don’t show up the case will probably be dismissed because you are not in attendance. When the case finally comes up, the person charged with the crime is probably a repeat offender many times over who knows how to game the system-and how to game you too. Court appointed lawyers help the alleged criminal with the gaming of the system. The assigned DA helps too as they do not speak to the victim to get the actual details of the alleged crime. They just wing it. All the repeat offenders know this and lie through their teeth and end up getting found not guilty by a judge that doesn’t care. When a defendant is found guilty, they most likely get probation, a small fine and maybe an order to pay restitution. Occasionally the convicted criminal will take a small amount of jail time to get out of paying the fine and restitution. Serial thieves like Jeremy Grayson and Wesley Austin know how to take advantage of that. But, don’t believe me, look it up.

Political wheeling and dealing by DA Mike Miller and previous DA Rick Shaffer are also indicative of potential corruption in the DA’s office. Shaffer declined to run for the DA Office last time and Assistant DA Mike Miller ran for the DA’s Office. Six months or so after Miller is sworn in, Miller hires Shaffer as Assistant DA. My prediction is once Shaffer’s daughter gets a few years experience in the DA’s office in Brevard, Miller will hire Shaffer’s daughter into the DA’s Office in Cleveland or Lincoln County. After a few more years, Miller retires and Shaffer’s Daughter runs for the High DA Office. That’s my prediction and I am sticking to it. In the meantime political intrigue and political shenanigans permeate the DA’s Office in Cleveland County while protecting the public by putting crooks in jail falls way down the priority list.

And, I haven’t even mentioned all the plea bargains the DA dishes out so they don’t have to try cases and the lawyers make a ton of money for just wheeling and dealing. Well, we will talk more about that in 2018 when the DA is up for election.

5. The Court System in Cleveland County. This includes the District Court and the Magistrate Court. Superior Court is where they have jury trial. Juries are members of the public so the DA usually tries to avoid jury trials.

Both District Court and Magistrate Courts are run by the Chief District Court Judge, Judge Larry “Pud’nhead” Wilson. I once gave Judge Wilson a “NitWit” award for a stupid ruling that totally defied comprehension. But, I found out there was a knitting club who called themselves the “Knitwits.” Nitwit and Knitwit sounds exactly the same so I withdrew my Nitwit Award from Judge Wilson, apologized to the Knitwits for using their name and decided to nickname Judge Wilson “Pud’nhead” after a character in a Mark Twain novel, Pud’nhead Wilson, who like Judge Wilson in his crazy ruling just didn’t have much sense. So, with Judge Pud’nhead Wilson in charge of both the District Court and Magistrate Courts in Cleveland County, what can you expect???

Judge Wilson is running unopposed in tomorrow’s elections so he will still be mucking up the court system until his mandatory retirement in a few more years. That is too bad for justice in Cleveland County for a few more years. It is too bad also from the prospective of a judicial system that is run by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers and the people can’t do much about it. But the people messed up twenty or more years ago by voting to exclude non-lawyers from the office of District Court judges. That referendum was pushed as a way to improve the judicial system with the unintended consequence of setting up judicial dynasties of unqualified judges.

Oh well, Cleveland County has been good at electing unqualified judges and voting themselves tax increases. Part of that can be remedied by voting for Justin Brackett for Judge and voting against the sales tax increase.

See you at the polls tomorrow. Print off a copy of CGG recommended candidates and help save the US, NC and Cleveland County from the liberal pinkos.