scandal

First the Bush family Pastor slams McCain's character and endorses Obama. So McCain sure needs a pick me up when it comes to the character issue. I think that was what the Palin nomination was SUPPOSED to give him. Now the Palin decision is already backfiring on McCain, simlpy adding to his problems.

Two conservative "pundits" slam McCain's Palin decision:

Meanwhile, seems Palin attends a church that embraces anti-Semitism. Certainly this deserves as much coverage as Bush's pastor endorsing Obama, and McCain's "spiritual guide" (McCain's words)Hagee's anti-Semitism. Seems McCain/Palin has far more pastor problems than Obama.

Also from CNN :

Sources said a federal money-laundering investigation led agents to Spitzer. According to two sources, Spitzer hit the federal radar when a bank reported to the Internal Revenue Service that a significant amount of money had been suspiciously transferred from one account to another.

After receiving the IRS report last year, the FBI corruption squad linked the account transfers to a prostitution ring, according to various sources.

The FBI criminal division joined the inquiry to look into the prostitution ring, while the federal corruption team continued its investigation into Spitzer. Investigators are focusing on how Spitzer paid for the sexual encounters, what he may have done to conceal the movement and source of the money, and whether he broke any laws doing it, sources said.

It's a sad day in New York.
CNN has confirmed that Eliot Spitzer will be announcing his resignation at 11:30am.

But contrary to what the New York Times is saying, there is nothing in the law to suggest that the Republican tool that goes by the name of Joe Bruno has to take the post of Lt. Governor. That sounds to me more of his mafioso tactics than the state legislature following the letter of the law.

More soon on this little glitch in the NY 'succession' laws.

I recently I wrote a piece on the very, very nasty corruption among Republicans in Alaska. Specifically, I wrote about a scandal involving an oil services company, VECO, that involves bribery and buying of favors involving four Alaskan Republican State Legislators, one US Senator from Alaska (Ted Stevens) and the lone House Representative from Alaska (Don Young). The single Democrat, a state legislator, initially investigated was never subsequently accused of wrongdoing. In other words, the VECO scandal is exclusively a Republican scandal.

But when I wrote that piece, I hadn't realized I had only scratched the surface. Turns out, one recipient of VECO's alleged bribes, Rep. Don Young, may well be the poster boy for just about every kind of Republican corruption this nation has been seeing.

Here is a rundown of Don Young's sleaze from The Muckraker:

It's hard to keep track of all of Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) scandals. But we're here to help. Here's a snapshot of what we know about all the ways Young has managed to get into trouble.

Coconut Road
McClatchy reported last week that investigators have begun scrutinizing Young's now famous $10 million earmark for a Florida interchange. Whether the earmark was a quid pro quo for a big time contributor is only half the story. Young also appears to have changed the bill's language after it passed Congress in order to make sure that the money went where (or to who) he wished.

I have reported many times about how the Republican Parties in Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky were about the most corrupt political establishments in America. One that I have been missing is the Alaska Republican Party. I think it is time I turn northward to discuss what is going on in Alaska.

At the epicenter of Alaska corruption seems to be the Alaska oil services company Veco Corp. Veco, until its recent buyout, was an oil pipeline service and construction company. Perhaps Veco would like to be best known for the fact that it carried out a great deal of the clean up efforts after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. But this is not the only thing they were known for. They were known for illegal influence on Republican politicians.

In 2006 the FBI served some 20 search warrants on the offices of six Alaska state legislators: Sen. John Cowdery (R-Anchorage), Senate President Ben Stevens (R-Anchorage) (son of US Senator Ted Stevens), Rep. Vic Kohring (R-Wasilla), Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch (R-Juneau), Sen Don Olson (D-Nome), and Rep. Pete Kott (R-Eagle River). Also named in the search warrants were VECO officers Bill Allen, Rick Smith and Pete Leathard.

Sometimes it seems the vast majority of Republicans are corrupt. From run of the mill political scandals right down to pedophilia, the vast majority of political scandals are Republican scandals. The layers of hypocricy and corruption always amaze me.

The latest of course is Rudy Giuliani, using the NYPD to shuttle around his mistriss on taxpayer money. In many ways this is small potatoes next to the far more massive corruption of people like Missouri's Blunt family, Tom Foley's pedophilia and Bush's own scandals. But it could be the kind of scandal that Republicans hate most. Cheating on your wife at taxpayer expense probably isn't going to sit well with conservatives. And let's face it, although the Republican-biased media would probably downplay this scandal, during a Republican primary Rudy's Republican rivals are not going to let the scandal die. In fact one could argue that Huckabee's only chance of winning is to make sure this scandal sticks on Rudy.

But any good scandal needs a name. Otherwise people just won't notice it. Over at Daily Kos they have held a contest and come up with "Sex on the City" for the name of the scandal. They are pretty gleeful about that name and I admit it's pretty good. It really sums it all up nicely. Problem is it isn't going to really appeal to the average blue collar American. It's a cultural reference many conservatives won't really resonate with.

Empire Zone does a nice job of summarizing Glenn Beck's musings on drowning New York City.

According to a CNN transcript of the program “Glenn Beck on Headline News,” when it was suggested that a hurricane could cause a 20- to 25-foot storm surge in New York City, Mr. Beck said, “Actually, that would clean the streets out. It might not be bad.” Liberal blogs have cried foul, noting that studies show such a storm would cause “heavy loss of life.” One local blog’s summary: “Glenn Beck wants to kill you.” (It should be noted his show is based here.)

So you have to wonder: why aren't people talking about this? And why does the man still have a job?

As the Zone notes, it's the liberal blogs, pretty much alone, that are talking about this; certainly not the rightwing blogs (who are more interested in hysterically yapping about war with Mexico and muttering darkly about their crypto-terrorist luggage). You might think that those folks would occasionally wonder if their allies aren't bigger threats than whatever it is that they exercise themselves over so loudly and often. But that would require a bit of critical distance from the rightwing Kool-Aid, and that's a step none of these folks seem ready or able to take.

As Fox News is piddling over itself ecstatically about Saddam Hussein's execution, I just want to ONCE AGAIN remind America that THIS MAN (shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld):

Had NOTHING to do with THIS EVENT (which I experienced first hand):

So all Americans need to ask THIS MAN:

when we will catch THIS MAN:

Write the media to express your opinion on Bush's failure to fight terrorism.

The night isn't over, but the outcome looks grim for common sense and reform in the LA-2 Congressional race. William Jefferson, who was caught red handed with wads of bribe money in his freezer, looks to be sailing to re-election.

With 264 precincts reporting out of 492, Jefferson is leading with 58% of the vote. It ain't over yet, but Karen Carter will have a hard time overcoming that lead.

I have railed over and over again about how disgusting Republican corruption is. And I still maintain that Republican corruption is far wider spread and far worse than Democratic corruption, and has worse consequences such as the death toll in New Orleans after Katrina because Bush appointed an incompetent crony, "good job Brownie," a failed race horse inspector, as head of FEMA. Or in the case of 3000 dead American soldiers in Iraq for a war that basically does no good to anyone except the war profiteers, Exxon/Mobil, Bechtel and Dick Cheney's favorite company, Halliburton.

Democrats aren't sacrificing American lives for profit the way Republicans do. But that doesn't mean we are completely innocent of corruption. Anyone who has read my pieces on Brooklyn politics knows I also fight against Democratic corruption. But William Jefferson is one of those very rare cases where a Democrat reaches a Republican-scale of corruption.

And the voters in LA-2 are poised to re-elect a man who was caught red handed taking bribes.

This didn't even get it's own article in the NY Times but rather was buried at the bottom of an article on 4 marines dying in a helicopter crash. Really, you have to scroll down almost to the end to find it. It turns out that Halliburton has been awarding subcontracts based on bribes:

In Rock Island, Ill., the director of operations for a Saudi company that operates dining facilities for American troops in Iraq and Kuwait was sentenced Friday in the Federal District Court for the Central District of Illinois to 51 months in prison for his involvement in a kickback scheme, according to a news release issued by a federal prosecutor’s office there.

In the scheme, Mohammad Shabbir Khan, operations director of the Tamimi Global Company, paid kickbacks to an employee of Kellogg Brown & Root Services to secure two dining subcontracts valued at $21.8 million, the statement said.

A United States district judge also ordered Mr. Khan to pay a fine of $10,000 and restitution to the United States government of $133,860, the amount he paid the Kellogg Brown & Root employee, the statement said.

The judge also sentenced the former Kellogg Brown & Root employee, Stephen Lowell Seamans, to 12 months in prison for his role in the scheme, the statement said.

Mr. Seamans was also ordered to pay restitution of $380,130 for that and another kickback scheme, according to the statement.

Republican corruption is becoming so blatant that even Congressional Republicans are deciding not to block an investigation of it. Jack Abramoff may be in jail, but the Republican scandals surrounding his empire of sleaze continue to grow.

From Salon.com:

Senate Questions Nonprofits' Tax Status

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By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press Writer

October 12,2006 | WASHINGTON -- Five nonprofit groups, including one of President Bush's biggest supporters, may have broken tax laws and put their tax-exempt status at risk by helping convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a Senate Finance Committee report concludes.

The 600-page report issued Thursday was prepared by the committee's Democratic staff. Majority Republicans, however, had agreed to its release and joined with Democrats in issuing subpoenas for documents and e-mails cited in the report.

It has become HIGHLY unusual for the Republicans to allow this kind of honest investigation of corruption. They have generally used their domination of both houses of Congress to block all Congressional investigation of Republicans. And, more often than not, they have covered up for their cronies like they did for six years after finding out about Foley's solicitation of sex from minors. So this is a real change for Republicans and shows that even they can't stop the public from knowning what is going on within their own ranks.

Mark Foley, Republican Congressman, solicits sex from a minor. And the Republican leadership did nothing. And now we find they are lying through their teeth about it.

Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert and Tom Reynolds all claimed they had known nothing about Foley's sleaze. They were innocent as could be. Then we learn from one of Reynold's aides that Reynolds had known months before they had admitted they had known, months before the news broke. They knew for months and did nothing to report Foley's illegal and immoral behavior.

Now we learn the lies and cover-ups are even worse than we thought. We now learn that Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., confronted Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000. That means Foley has been a sitting Republican Congressman for SIX YEARS after the Republican party KNEW he was soliciting sex from minors. From Salon.com:

October 09,2006 | WASHINGTON -- A Republican member of Congress confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000, according to a newspaper report.

The report in the Washington Post pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress acknowledges learning of the Florida Republican's questionable behavior toward pages.

It came as the Republican leadership attempted to present a united front on the congressional page scandal that has rocked the GOP a month before midterm elections and put House Speaker Dennis Hastert on shaky ground.

The Republicans are spinning things so fast about the Foely sleaze scandal that it's a wonder they don't fall down from dizziness. Republican Congressman Foley solicited sex from a minor...period. And the Republican leadership knew about it well before the story broke and they did nothing except try to cover it up. THAT is the scandal.

All the Republican posturing about gays and liberals is all just a smoke screen to try and hide the clear fact that the Republicans ALLOWED A SEXUAL PREDATOR TO REMAIN IN CONGRESS.

But the Republicans want to blame the gays. This is the response from the Human Rights Campaign:

Congressman Mark Foley’s sexually-charged communications with young congressional pages was reprehensible and we have strongly condemned it. We have also been equally quick to condemn some in the GOP for their attempts to blame this scandal on the GLBT community.

Just hours ago, following Speaker Hastert's press conference, I sent a letter to him expressing outrage at the efforts of some in his party to scapegoat gay people for this unfortunate situation. You can read the full letter here.

At the beginning of the week, I issued the following statement to the press:

“Gay or straight, Democrat or Republican, it is completely inexcusable for an adult to have this kind of communication with a minor. Congressman Foley brought shame on himself and this Congress by his horrible behavior and complete lack of judgment. We strongly condemn his behavior.”

Well, the latest nasty Republican scandal is Rep. Mark Foley who engaged in a sexual email exchange with an underage teen on his staff...on taxpayer money. The Republican leadership, right up to Hastert, Reynolds and DeLay, KNEW about this months ago and did nothing, allowing a sexual predator to remain a Republican Conrgessman in good standing. The layers of sleaze are deep and disgusting in this scandal. The transcripts of the email exchange are now public and pretty graphic.

Now let's remember that the Republican Party went after Clinton for having consensual sex with a consenting adult on his staff. But they TOLERATE and PROTECT Foley, a man who breaks the lawe by soliciting sex with an UNDERAGE staff member. Where is the moral outrage, Tom Reynolds (NY Republican)? Why did you wait so long, Tom DeLay (TX Republican) while a sexual predator was on the loose? Why did you wait until it became public, Dennis Hastert (Republican Speaker of the House), before you acted? These three men KNEW ABOUT FOLEY'S illegal and immoral acts but DID NOTHING for months. Only once the scandal hit the papers did they scramble to act all shocked. But they weren't shocked. They knew and they did nothing to stop a sexual predator. Their actions are not worthy of Congressmen so much of members of the sleazy NABMLA. Is this what Repubublicans are all about? Displaying the morality of NABMLA? Hell, at least NAMBLA is HONEST about their immorality.