‘Non-profit’ spent $330,000 in DC taxpayer money to open strip joint

By David McElroy · September 2, 2011

If you’re planning to open a nudie strip club, what’s the best place to get your investment cash? If you thought of finding investors or borrowing from a bank, you’re not blessed with the business genius of Washington, D.C., con artist Cornell Jones — who’s known as a “reformed gangster.”

In a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia, it’s alleged that Jones and a non-profit organization he controlled bamboozled the city into giving $330,000 to open a job training center for people with AIDS. I’m not sure what kind of jobs the Stadium Club trains people for, but it’s safe to say it’s like no other job training center around.

You can read the whole convoluted story for yourself, but it’s clear that the city was asleep at the switch in handing out the money and continuing to make payments. Did no one bother checking what was being done with the money? It might very well be something even more cozy, because both local newspapers in the city have done stories questioning the relationship between Jones and the contract officer who administered the grants.

I got the information for the story from a friend who also used to work in politics, so he knows how this game is played. He said, ” Just when you think it can’t get any more absurd, they pull through and renew your faith.” That’s the cynical and realistic way to look at it. The people who spend our money have no incentive to be careful with it, so what they do is absurd.

The D.C. government is allegedly the victim in this case, but the real victims are taxpayers. How many more projects such as this have been funded and we’ll never know about? How many projects have been funded that aren’t even bogus, but that fail and leave taxpayers holding the bag? I could talk to you for the next hour or so about the various multi-million dollar projects that taxpayers have funded just in the Birmingham metro area, ranging from a horse track to an amusement park.

Governments need to quit playing venture capitalist with our money — because it’s our money, not theirs. I know that some politicians actually have sincere motives when they do these things, but even when their hearts are pure gold, they’re still using the coercive power of the state to steal money from one group of people and give it to favored friends and associates. That’s wrong, even when it’s not funding strip clubs.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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