Tag: corruption

Feds say DC Mayor Vincent Gray (D) knew of illegal campaign contributions.

Well, well, well.

A major Democratic donor pleaded guilty on Monday to funneling millions of dollars in illegal campaign donations to federal and local politicians, including an unnamed 2008 presidential candidate believed to be Hillary Clinton.

District of Columbia businessman Jeffrey Thompson, who federal prosecutors say financed a “shadow campaign” for D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray in 2010, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.

Thompson claimed some of the candidates, including Gray, were aware of the illegal fundraising.

…”Some?” Continue reading Feds say DC Mayor Vincent Gray (D) knew of illegal campaign contributions.

American public: IRS guilty as sin, but protected by @barackobama.

A fish rots from the head down.

If I was a Democratic operative, I’d be worrying like the blazes about these numbers:

A new Rasmussen Reports poll found 53 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the IRS broke the law when it targeted tea party and other conservative groups, while only 24 percent disagree.

But only 17 percent believe it is even somewhat likely that criminal charges will be brought against any government employees for IRS’s targeting of these groups. Seventy-four percent consider criminal charges unlikely. This number includes 27 percent who say charges are not at all likely.

Continue reading American public: IRS guilty as sin, but protected by @barackobama.

Sen Bob Menendez (D, NJ) caught up in yet ANOTHER sex-related set of allegations.

Oh, dear.

Sen. Robert Menendez wooed a married newspaper publisher, taking the attractive brunette on a romantic getaway to the Caribbean, a tipster alleges.

The New Jersey Dem and Cecilia Reynolds jetted to Puerto Rico, where they stayed at the isolated beach retreat of the island’s then-governor, Anibal Acevedo Vila.

In a photo provided by the anonymous informant, Reynolds is sitting naked on a beach and suggestively smiling at the camera. In another set of pictures, they take turns posing against the same sunset backdrop.

Wrinkles to the story? Well, let’s see: the governor was undergoing corruption allegations, and the Senator was trying to squash the appointment of a US Attorney who was going after said governor.  And the publisher, of course, has a cozy professional patronage relationship with Menendez, and… come, I will conceal nothing from you.  I almost feel sorry for Menendez at this point.  He must sit in his office and think, God.  None of the other Senators get hassled when they go to tropical islands and schtupp* everything that moves.  Why the hell don’t I get to do this in piece and quiet? …You do have to admit; it beggars belief that Bob Menendez is the only serial adulterer in the Senate right now. Continue reading Sen Bob Menendez (D, NJ) caught up in yet ANOTHER sex-related set of allegations.

New York corrupt politicians are PIKERS. Pikers!

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.

Hookers and bribes over at the Treasury Department!

(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.

Continue reading Hookers and bribes over at the Treasury Department!

Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) under ethics investigation for medical crony capitalism.

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? Continue reading Shelley Berkley (D, NV-01) under ethics investigation for medical crony capitalism.

Update on the Scott Walker recall shenanigans.

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. Continue reading Update on the Scott Walker recall shenanigans.

Claire McCaskill (desperately) weighs in on Siga scandal.

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: Continue reading Claire McCaskill (desperately) weighs in on Siga scandal.

White House scheduled Solyndra layoffs for after ’10 elections?

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.

Continue reading White House scheduled Solyndra layoffs for after ’10 elections?

#rsrh Hey, remember that ‘scandal-free Obama administration’ thing?

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:

(pause)

Yeah, karma has no sense of humor, huh?

Moe Lane