The worst possible outcome of the IRS scandal would see it growing large enough to call the legitimacy of the 2012 election into question. Some people reading this might think it’s already reached that point. Others would say it could never reach that point. There is a case to be made that the American system would resist such an outcome, in a much broader sense than merely | Read More »
(H/T: Jammie Wearing Fools) Geez Louise. State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes. The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said. | Read More »
You can always trust the government. They practice morality on a much higher plane than the money-mongers grubbing for the filthy lucre down in the private sector. It’s a good thing they exist to be morally pure and impartial to all sides. Oh, Wait! They don’t. They are just as likely to be corrupt, duplicitous, and falsely self-seeking in the name of the commonweal. In Iowa they have mechanized corruption so that it happens efficiently as a manageable risk of governance.
Read More »The Des Moines Register reports that for five years ending in February 2011, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission shook down landlords for “voluntary contributions” in exchange for dropping discrimination complaints. The Register obtained copies of 27 settlement agreements involving about $20,000 in contributions.
Senator McCaskill should be proud of Craig Woods. She said the following about whistleblowers back in 2009. “[w]histleblowers are our first line of defense against waste, fraud, and abuse. We’ve got to do everything possible to protect them,” McCaskill said then. “Whistle-blowers who raise the alarm about waste, fraud, and abuse should be commended — not punished,” McCaskill said in an April 26, 2012 press | Read More »
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is you can’t change Washington from the inside,” Obama said.
Seven out of ten is bad. Really bad. Outstandingly bad. When seven out of the ten richest counties in America are proximate to Washington, DC, this is a statistical harbinger of national decline. Our current president not only didn’t change Washington from the inside, he quickly concluded he had no particular reason to want to.
Read More »I’ve never quite reached the level of alienation in my contrarian ideology where I turn into an individual like Heath Ledger’s Joker character. I’m not quite able to just want it all to burn. Thus it makes me stop and take a breath when someone I like and respect blogs that “I didn’t become a conservative to defend our glorious social order. In fact, I | Read More »
(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 | Read 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” | Read More »
More broadly, ….those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party ….were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the | Read More »
This morning, I’m proud of a member of The Republican Party in the US Senate. And no, I haven’t flipped my lid or smoked from a hookah. Senator Scott Brown took to the well of the Senate and heaped condign excoriation on one of the most utterly corrupt, venal and disingenuous US Government agencies that afflicts the American Taxpayer. The Agency is NOAA and Senator | Read 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 | Read More »
It is “unacceptable that HHS fails to maintain accurate financial records and fails to adhere to federal law designed to protect taxpayer dollars from mismanagement and waste,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., wrote in a Monday letter to the department’s secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. (HT:Federal Times) The USG may not appear to have a very tight wrap on how and where it’s | Read More »
There’s an interesting scandal right now in New Mexico right now. You see, the New Mexico constitution tries to stop corruption, a real problem in the state as the Economist recently noted, by requiring that state legislators cannot draw a salary from other sources during the legislative session. But Channel KRQE has reported that there is a set of legislators who do not abide by | Read 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 | Read 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 | Read More »
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