Cui bono? (Who benefits?)

President John F. Kennedy said, "here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own."

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are the envy of the world and deserve strong defenders today.

Since 1787, all military service members, federal, state and local judges, appointed and elected officials, and civil servants, have sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend our U.S. Constitution. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights survived and expanded
to end chattel slavery and indentured servitude, end Nazism, end Communism, end Jim Crow segregation, and protect the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities and GLBT people, including our constitutional right to Gay marriage.

At a Memorial Day ceremony at our St. Augustine National Cemetery, more than 100 heroes, recently deceased departed local veterans, were honored May 27, including my mentor, Dr. Abraham Cohen, Ph.D., a retired psychology professor who studied under Abraham Maslow. Named after Abraham Lincoln, Abe Cohen bombed Munich as a member of U.S Army Air Corps at age nineteen. Abe was present at Nuremberg during trials of Nazi war criminals. Abe witnessed the evil of both Nazism and Jim Crow segregation.

Abe Cohen encouraged me to ask questions, to demand answers and to expect democracy. Like my father and mother, Abe supported human rights and spoke out against oppression. So did my mentor, longtime U.S. Department of Labor Chief Judge Nahum Litt, who taught me to ask often, "Cui bono?" (Who benefits?). So did my mentor, Senior Special Agent Robert E. Tyndall, retired EPA,, HUD and FBI criminal investigator of white collar crime and corruption.

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, my father arrived early, around 1 AM. Dad jumped out of what Abe Cohen later called "a perfectly good airplane," a C-47, into Nazi-occupied France, with the 82nd Airborne Division, F Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, helping capture Sainte-Mère-Église before dawn. Sole surviving son of a widow, my dad volunteered for military service the day after Pearl Harbor. The Navy rejected him because he was color-blind. Dad, a Polish-American, went to work machine-gunning Nazis after combat jumps in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy. He later spoke out against the coverup of President Kennedy's assassination after reading the Warren Commission report, discussing it with the eight top non-commissioned officers in the 82nd, all expert marksmen; all said they could not have made the shot that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly made with an antique Italian mail-order rifle. Dad asked, "Cui bono?"

On January 31, 2019, Eli/Ellie Washtock was murdered at World Golf Village. Last year, Eli/Ellie watched PBS Frontline video about the September 2, 2010 Michelle O'Connell death, pronounced a "suicide" before dawn. Eli/Ellie spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money hiring investigators to seek justice for Michelle O'Connell. Eli/Ellie's murder is being investigated by Putnam County Sheriff, NOT either FDLE or FBI. Cui bono?

Sheriff David Shoar, f/k/a "Hoar," spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of your money attacking FDLE Special Agent Rusty Ray Rodgers and the Michelle O'Connell family and defending Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Banks, trying to get Special Agent Rodgers criminally prosecuted and fired, hit in 2013 with a meritless, harassing, retaliatory, costly "civil rights" lawsuit, which was finally dismissed after five years. Cui bono?

From 2013-2018, St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar's Finance Director allegedly embezzled some $700,000. That case is being investigated by Polk County Sheriff, NOT either FDLE or FBI. Cui bono?

St. Johns County Administrator MICHAEL DAVID WANCHIK has squandered more than $500,000 on the same conflicted lawyer-lobbyist (THOMAS MARTIN FIORENTINO) who also lobbies for Nocatee, PARC group, Davis family, other developers, St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar, the City of Jacksonville, JEA, JTA. Cui bono?

For $800,000,County deleted 40 acres of workforce affordable housing from Nocateee. Cui bono?

Dodgy developers contribute to Sheriff Shoar and other campaigns and get secret "ex parte" meetings with elected officials and virtually unlimited Commission meeting time to plump for their projects, without equal time for residents opposed to or questioning those projects. Too often, residents can't obtain answers and developer "testimony" is unreliable, unsworn and unquestioned. Cui bono?

No one ever answers citizen questions about who actually owns and invests in local projects that are destroying our wildlife, clearcutting our forests, devouring our agricultural land and destroying our wetlands. Cui bono?

Lobbyists are not required to register by local governments and are allowed to charge percentage contingency fees, which are illegal in our state and federal governments, and elsewhere in Florida. County Commission rejected a draft ordinance last year after lobbying by "stakeholders" a/k/a "snakeholders," like disgraced ex-Commissioner Priscilla "Rachael" Bennett, who argued in favor of continued contingency fees. Cui bono?

One incurious accounting firm (MASTERS, SMITH &; WHISBY) has audited the City of St. Augustine's books for some 33 years, and mainly works for Jacksonville automobile dealers. Cui bono?

One conflicted corporate law firm (UPCHURCH, BAILEY AND UPCHURCH) has represented and advised the St. Johns County School Board for decades, for decades, for longer than anyone cares to remember, billing millions of dollars, instead of hiring in-house lawyers, like Flagler County School Board, the City of St. Augustine and St. Johns County. Cui bono?

Despite growing evidence of maladministration, 30+year St. Augustine Beach City Manager BRUCE MAX ROYLE remains on the job. Despite the too-tall EMBASSY SUITES debacle, despite the Passport Labs, Inc. paid parking smartphone app debacle, despite covering up and failing to investigate sexual harassment and hostile working environment allegations, despite attacking activists, and despite admitting and joking in his monthly newspaper column about falling asleep in meetings, ROYLE's Reign of Error continues. Cui bono?

The City of St. Augustine has long resisted calls for national or statewide searches for jobs like City Manager and City Attorney, preferring to promote current employees like John Patrick Regan, P.E., and Isabelle Christine Lopez, of whom Commissioners Leanna Freeman and Nancy Sikes-Kline BOTH said, "She protects us." From whom, for whom? Cui bono?

There are no Ombuds or independent Inspectors General (Its) for local governments in St. Johns County, with powers to advocate for employees or citizens or to investigate potential wrongdoing. Other Florida counties have IGs and Ombuds. No response or discussion when I raise the issue, 2008-date. Cui bono?

On May 23, 1983, Oak Ridge, Tennessee City Council heard a presentation about what possessed our federal government to dump millions of pounds of mercury into creeks and groundwater and into workers' lungs and brains. I cross-examined Energy Department and Union Carbide officials for 20 minutes as Appalachian Observer Editor.

Here in Northeast Florida (God's country), government meeting public comment is limited and questions are left unanswered: Joe Boles and Andrea Samuels, former mayors of twin itty-bitty cities, candidly stated, "There's no dialogue here." Cui bono?

Work tirelessly to "defeat the wickedness and oppression of [freedom's] enemies," as General George S. Patton, Jr. prayed in 1944.

Decisions are made by people who show up early. Like my dad did in Normandy on June 6, 1944.