Nevermind the fact that the city is under two different lawsuits from police employees from actions committed by the current lunatic in command of our local police department.

Nevermind the fact that in June of 2009, Chief Williams and Captain Thomas McNulty came and dragged me (not literally) from my home at 7:00 AM in the morning to try to get me to reveal my sources and to find out what cops were posting messages on this site's message board (at that time, several cops were accusing Williams of using departmental resources to walk her dogs while she was away on vacation).

Nevermind that a criminal investigation white board was being used to track postings made on this web site as part of an apparent criminal investigation into this site.

Nevermind all that. All of that pales in the face of the knowledge that Police Chief Julie Williams is

(wait for it...)

more powerful than Obama!!!!!

No shit.

These clips were leaked to this site from secret recordings made within the department, but apparently not too secret as Williams is heard bragging about her in-house bugging system and claiming that nobody in the department has any expectation of privacy. I have very limited info as to the creation of these recordings and how they were leaked out, none of which I am at any liberty to share. The audio clips were apparently created in the weeks surrounding Williams' grandstand show before council, this having taken place in May of this year, so that would place these clips in April, May, June, sometime in there.

Audio clip 1 -- short clip -- Williams is "more powerful than the President of the United States!!!" The context of this stand-alone statement is unknown, but in what context would this not be an over-the-top megalomaniacal absolutely insane comment? I can only think of two: if Williams is the leader of China or if she was playing the board game "Risk" and she had just massed all her armies in readiness to attack North America. Since both of those scenarios are highly unlikely, one is left with the obvious: she's got a badge on her shirt, a gun on her belt, and a whole lotta crazy-assed screamin' voices in her head, and that's one hell of a dangerous combination.

"I actually have more..., more power than the President of the United States right now."

Audio clip 2 -- Williams resents her officers airing the department's laundry to city council members, folks at city hall, and the media, thus admitting in the process that the stories about her are true; Williams is omniscient and sophisticated, unlike the media, her own police force, and city council, all of whom Williams claims are stupid because all they do is run their mouths; myself and the Herald-Tribune's Kim Hackett are singled out by Williams as Williams claims we tell her everything (how that would be possible when she refuses to return our calls is a mystery that she doesn't explain); the entire police department, including squad cars, the squad room, offices, and locker rooms are subject to electronic monitoring, so Williams knows where everyone is and what they are saying -- if true, how is it that she claims that she never knew that Lieutenant Mike Rose was working at his bait shop on police department time on a near daily basis?

"If individuals who have been putting the information out there in that public airing of our laundry and running to city hall and bad-mouthing things, don't, er, think that we know who they are, they're wrong. I know exactly what's been going on, because what people don't realize is that they think they're talking to people in confidence, no different than talking to someone on a street corner and they talk to the next person they see and tell the story, and as much as individuals like to think that we don't know and they can hide behind anonymous blogging and telephone calls and cell phone calls and slide by this place and we'll sit and meet -- we know.

"I know a lot of what's been going on and ya know in the past... I mean, I've only been here about four and a half years and there were a number of people that needed to go and they left of their own accord, fortunately before I fired them, so whether you're in a locker room or you're in the the squad room or whether you're in a car or whatever, it's open for monitoring, it's open for tracking, it's open for knowing movement of cars, there's no expectation of that's not happening.

"So our people are very naive and they're very... ummm... they lack sophistication. And they sit out there and they run their mouths and they talk to [Venice Florida! dot com's John] Patten and they talk to [Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter] Kim Hackett and they talk to council people and they talk to other people at city hall and they think it doesn't go anywhere and unfortunately it goes a lot of places, they just put their trust in the wrong people because just like our guys, they're stupid, they start running their mouths in their own backyard here and it all gets back to us."

Audio clip 3 -- short clip -- Herald-Tribune reporter Kim Hackett prints invented "made-up garbage;" the context here is, I am told, concerning the Herald-Trib's coverage of the failures and falsities that the newspaper discovered contained in both the Ritcey and Rosenberg studies.

"...and Kim Hackett's all done writing her garbage, made-up garbage, in the end, what have they got?"

Yo, Williams: just resign. You are not more powerful than Obama, just way more arrogant and egotistical.

Oh, and a final note to city council and the city manager: If you folks don't fire her after this, then Williams is absolutely right -- you really are stupid and incapable of doing anything but running your mouths.

John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.