Moe Lane

John Podheretz* is infuriated about the recent state-level corruption scandals in New York, and I don’t blame him one bit:

In rich countries and poor countries, dictatorships and democracies, politicians who wet their beaks usually do so in ways that at least seek to close the financial gap between them and the people from whom they’re taking the bribes.

But among the many distressingly low-rent qualities our politicians possess, none is more contemptible than just how cheaply they are willing to sell themselves. People who get caught in what appear to be open-and-shut corruption scandals are doing so for pennies on the dollar — pennies on the dollar, I tell you!

Read the whole thing: it’s depressingly hysterical.  Incidentally, the word is coming down (H/T: Instapundit) that the second wave of corruption revelations that happened Thursday is not really related to the first; the only real similarity between the two is that in both cases apparently New York state legislators are downright eager to drop dimes on their compatriots in exchange for leniency.  With any luck, this will end up scorching the earth of both parties (because God knows the NY GOP can’t really get worse)…

Moe Lane

*H/T…  John Podheretz.

(Via @davidhauptmann) Ah, marvel at our squeaky-clean, Marvelous New Day, ever-so-ethical executive branch:

Treasury Department officials have been cited for soliciting prostitutes, breaking conflict-of-interest rules and accepting gifts from corporate executives, according to the findings of official government investigations.

The revelations of unethical behavior at Treasury are detailed in little-noticed documents posted this month on governmentattic.org, which publishes agency responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

(more…)

OK, here’s the background: back in 2011 it came out that in 2008 Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) intervened to prevent the shutdown of a Nevadan kidney transplant program that was killing patients.  It’s important at this point to distinguish between proper and improper responses: for example, it is proper to be concerned about what was reported as being “the only transplant center in Nevada” at the time, which is why a number of Nevadan Members of Congress (including Rep. Dean Heller – this will be important later) joined Rep. Berkley in intervening with the program. Is this clear?  Good.  Because the problem here – the possibly improper problem – is that the method of intervention involved just happened to involve hiring more medical personnel from a company that just happens to be owned by Berkely’s physician husband (kidney specialist) who also just happens to be a co-owner of one of Berkley’s major corporate campaign contributors.

Funny how it always seems to work out that way, huh? (more…)

So, let me tell you of the wickedness of the world… or, more accurately, of the abject stupidity of the anti-Scott Walker forces in Wisconsin.  Which is really not the same thing, but it at least sounds good.  Or at least jovial.

Anyway, here’s the background: the Wisconsin Left, having managed to allegedly get enough signatures to force a recall election against a governor enjoying a 51% approval rating (and this, after several years of nigh-relentless demonization) is now trying to figure out how to actually win a recall election with the schlubs, has-beens, never-weres and other political detritus that would make up their, and I use the term loosely, ‘talent pool.’  In this particular case, it doesn’t help that there’s an important fault line within the Left being revealed by events.  One the one hand, you’ve got the public sector union leadership, who are even now starting to feel the first signs of withdrawal from not being able to directly mainline mandatory union dues into their veins; on the other, there’s the actual Democratic party leadership, who are still hooked in with their source of ‘free’ money, and so are able to think more clearly. (more…)

Background: several weeks ago the LA Times reported that the Obama administration had steered nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of a no-bid contract on a secondary smallpox vaccine – one not actually tested on human beings – to Siga Technology, a company controlled by longtime Democratic party contributor Ronald Perelman.  Needless to say, the drug’s much more expensive than the primary drug, the government interfered with the bidding process, and people pretended afterward that no correspondence between the company and the government took place.

Well, it seems that questions are being asked by an exceptionally unlikely source: (more…)

I am almost relieved by this:

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

More accurately, I am relieved that I can still get angry about this.  You never know when you’re going to get suddenly numb about the latest batch of incompetent corruption that this Keystone Krooks of an administration seems to almost delight in.

(more…)

It was an argument made last week as part of the Democrats’ ongoing Well, It Could Be Worse initiative.  The goal?  To get out there the idea that, hey, sure, the Obama administration was maybe incompetent – but at least it was clean!  That counts for something, am I right?

Well, let’s review:

• Solyndra: More Solyndra: DoE Let Taxpayers Take Backseat to Obama’s Buddy Investors in Bankruptcy
• Operation Fast & Furious: Veteran Cops Recognize ‘Fast and Furious’ as a Foolhardy Idea
• LightSquared: Air Force general: The WH pressured me to change my testimony to help a Democratic donor (Via Hot Air Headlines)
• CLASS Act: More Lies: WH Emails Reveal Major Obamacare Accounting Fraud

(pause)

Yeah, karma has no sense of humor, huh?

Moe Lane

…Hey, don’t blame me (or Ed Driscoll); I’m just quoting the San Francisco Chronicle. And, let me tell you: the scam that the Chronicle is… chronicling… is stellar, for its kind.

This is how it works: say you’re a company that wants to do business with the city of San Francisco.  But there’s a small problem; San Francisco is full of not only liberals, but very, very earnest liberals who want to be engaged in the political process.  This leads to a certain mindset* that thinks that it is just dandy to make government conform to the wishes of its populace in things like procurement and acceptable vendors – whether or not the wishes of the populace have any bearing on modern economic realities.  To give just one example: San Francisco insists that corporations doing business with it disclose if they were ever involved with slavery… which would be an impressive moral stance to take if it weren’t for the minor detail that they never seem to require that sort of thing from, say, the Democratic party.

But I digress.

(more…)

A pleasant beginning to the week, no?

First it was President Barack Obama, then White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, now U.S. Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias is joining the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial subpoena list.

Giannoulias is in the middle of a hard fought campaign against Congressman Mark Kirk for the right to fill the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Obama.

So there’s no doubt that being dragged into the Blagojevich trial is not welcome news for the Democratic candidate’s campaign.

(more…)

If this was happening in some other country, I would be laughing hysterically right now.

Taking a new position, Axelrod said the White House only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the “Cornhusker Kickback.” That’s being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are OK, Axelrod said.

That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine — even though Gibbs last week singled them out as items Obama wanted removed. There was resistance, however, from two committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down.

Since it’s happening in mine, I’ll merely note that there is no reason that anybody should be surprised by this (Hot Air certainly isn’t). The President does not have a name for keeping his promises. Also: if you gave money to the Democrats in the last decade because you wanted less corruption and favor-trading in Congress… well, let’s just say that all sales are final. And you aren’t getting any of that money back any time soon.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Full disclosure: I regret Eric Massa’s resignation solely because I was looking forward to seeing his concession speech on Election Night, seeing as he’s an opportunistic progressive sycophant who last year spouted off bizarre nonsense about ‘treason’ to other progressives equally ignorant of the Constitution. Michelle Malkin has two posts nicely summarizing precisely why embracing this guy is a poor life choice for conservatives; my only change is that I prefer the term ‘suckweasel.’  Less likely to get caught by web-blocker software.

All that being said, this sounds like an allegation:

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa’s office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

“Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once,” Massa said. “Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”

Somebody is lying, here.  Either Massa, or Hoyer: and if it’s Hoyer, it doesn’t matter whether Massa was or was not sexually harassing his staff.  The House Majority Leader does not get to abuse the public trust by lying about what he did in a particular investigation.  It’s not so much this specific case as it is what happens in less public ones.  There’s a word for having two standards of behavior, based on how much media coverage one is expecting: it’s called ‘hypocrisy.’

Fortunately, this is easy to check: all Steny Hoyer has to do is release the documentation showing that he followed House procedures with regard to ethics investigations.  Presumably, that includes the kind of notification that he claims and Massa denies, and will stop this potentially disquieting development cold.  In fact, I’m kind of surprised that it’s not available yet; which is something that can be fixed, later…

By the way: did you know that Hoyer has a GOP challenger this year?  Charles Lollar.  We’ve talked: good guy, solid fiscal conservative, and if I lived just a little bit east of where I live now I’d be voting for him in both the primary and the general election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s amazing what they don’t mention in the news these days:

Wind Capital Group, led by President Tom Carnahan, said Monday it has closed on financing for Missouri’s largest wind energy development.

The lenders, led by Nord/LB, Bayern LB, Rabobank, Santander and Union Bank, are providing $240 million in debt facilities to support the construction and operation of the proposed Lost Creek Wind Project in DeKalb County, Mo. The debt facilities consist of a construction loan, term loan and letter of credit.

The project also is seeking $90 million in aid through the federal stimulus package.

Like, for example, that ‘seeking’ in this context effectively means ‘calling up your brother the Congressman’ (as Dana Loesch helpfully points out). Or that this project needs both stimulus money and a cap-and-trade bill to pass in order to survive (as 24thstate.com helpfully points out).

I’d ask why Russ Carnahan felt comfortable voting for legislation that would directly benefit his brother, except that I already know that Democratic legacy politicians typically don’t believe that they have to obey the rules that they expect the rest of us to follow.  Given the incredible amounts of deference that the rest of their party gives them, they may unfortunately have a bit of a point.

Moe Lane

PS: Ed Martin’s running in that district.

Crossposted to RedState.