Posts filed under “Corruption”
The Party Of Super-sized Sleaze
(1) The Republican Party is not only head-over-heels in bed with lobbyists that it is not legally married to, but it no longer even cares to draw a veil over who is doing what and to whom. They’ve long since figured out that there is no political downside to flaunting their unnatural relations with lobbyists. [...]
Did Someone Accuse Ensign Of Telling The Truth?
Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston gives Nevada Senator John Ensign the treatment he so richly deserves: he jumps all over him with hobnailed boots. In a column that appeared late Saturday night, Jon skewered John over the letter John sent out last week soliciting contributions to his legal defense fund. (In a move that [...]
Newt Gingrich’s Second Wife Tells All
Did you know that that a plausible case can be made that, as of last night, Newt Gingrich was the front-runner in the Republican 2012 presidential race? As 2012 approaches, he has raised as much money as all of his potential rivals combined and sits atop the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. If Gingrich, [...]
Environmental Disasters In The Time Of Bush (And Their Legacy)
Steve Benen relates a little story from Massey Energy’s murky past that could stand as the dictionary definition of the word “impunity”: Ten years ago, the Big Branch Refuse Impoundment, a giant coal-waste reservoir owned by Massey in Inez, Kentucky, sprung a leak that flooded nearby waterways with so much sludge that it was declared [...]
True Love (And Congress)
It’s okay. We’re still a family blog. The headline does not refer to sexual congress (even if the content of the post — about no-longer-Sir Allen Stanford, and his relationships with important people in Congress — does call for a nullus). True love is so touching, especially in Congress: Just hours after federal agents charged [...]
How To Steal $107 Million And Make A Clean Getaway
Over the weekend, we got to celebrate not just Labor Day but also the first anniversary of the taxpayer takeover of Fannie Mae. Which led the NYT‘s Gretchen Morgenson to reflect on an earlier capital crime at Fannie Mae. Franklin D. Raines used to be the chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae. Together with chief [...]
SEC Bash Makes SEC-Bashing Way Too Easy
Never underestimate the tone-deafness capacity of federal agencies, especially those that might have special reason not to be tone-deaf, because of recent widespread negative publicity. By all accounts, it was an excellent evening. For the 75th anniversary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC’s Historical Society — an independent, nonprofit organization — threw a [...]
Ensign Payoff Is Transparent Tax Dodge
The Republican Party’s ongoing Sex Scandal Duel between Erstwhile Presidential Candidates took an uncomfortable turn for John Ensign yesterday, making him the runaway star of the news cycle. Nevada Sen. John Ensign has acknowledged that his parents paid his mistress and her family $96,000 in April 2008, according to a statement made by his attorney [...]
Laughing All The Way To Jail
I find it comical to see Bernie Madoff‘s victims — and all the invincible champions of Truth and Justice — celebrating Madoff’s 150-year sentence. After laughing all the way to the banks for years (those would be the banks where the billions he stole still remain safely stashed away), I think Bernie is now laughing [...]
Tax-free No-bid Cost-plus Government Contracts
ABC News brings us a couple of juicy tidbits about “the two psychologists credited for being the architects of the CIA’s brutal interrogation program after 9/11″: Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen, who suggested and supervised waterboarding at secret prisons around the world … according to their associates, boasted of being paid $1,000 a [...]