scandal

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.