DEDICATED TO RIDDING POLITICAL BRIBERY FROM THE CENTER OF CALIFORNIA POLITICS |
||||
|
||||
HOME |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 24
Next Corruption Updates: Page 25 1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE LA TIMES, 12-3-06: GOP vote suit payout: $135,000From Times Wire Reports December 3, 2006 “State and
national Republicans will pay $135,000 to settle a suit involving a
scheme to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote calls on election day
2002.” THE COMMITTEE SAYS: REPUBS FINED 135K FOR DIRTY TRICKS IN 2002 ELECTION PRISON REQUIRED FOR THOSE WHO PLAY TRICKS WITH OUR MOST VALUABLE RIGHT Crimes against our democracy are serious offenses against our most fundamental right. Tolerance of these crimes must stop. Serious punishments, including lengthy prison terms, must be imposed on all of those who rob us of our democratic rights to select our own representatives. 2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE LA TIMES, 12-3-06: Fundraising beat goes on for Gov.Special accounts help Schwarzenegger add to his record cash totals. By Peter
Nicholas
“The governor's political team has approached Chevron Corp., PG&E, Blue Cross of California, AT&T and other businesses, asking for tens of thousands of dollars to pay for a two-day celebration surrounding his Jan. 5 inauguration.” “At the same time, Schwarzenegger is taking advantage of a new fundraising law he signed three months ago meant for politicians like himself who, for the time being, don't have another race to run. “His attorneys have set up a special "officeholder" account that allows him to collect up to $200,000 a year for assorted expenses (though not for a political campaign); donors can give $20,000 apiece per year.” “Campaign
watchdog groups said the officeholder account in particular, with
its $200,000 threshold, amounts to another vehicle for donors to
influence the governor.” “Campaign
watchdog groups said the officeholder account in particular, with
its $200,000 threshold, amounts to another vehicle for donors to
influence the governor.” “Schwarzenegger aides said that although they're not required by law to reveal the names of donors, they will do so voluntarily on the governor's campaign website: http://www.joinarnold.com.” “With money coming in from so many sources, and with no uniform method for disclosing donations, it is hard for people to keep track of who is supporting Schwarzenegger and whether they're profiting from the relationship, watchdog groups said.” THE COMMITTEE SAYS: ARNIE HAS HUGE SPECIAL INTEREST SLUSH FUND WITH NO MORE GOVERNOR'S ELECTIONS IN HIS FUTURE, ARNIE IS COLLECTING MONEY FOR FAVORS Our initiative will solve these problems. No contributions from any source except qualified voters, within the present contribution limits, will stop the flow of special interest money to politicians. Free speech will be protected by jailing those who use it as a tool of political bribery to corrupt the voters' candidates and elections. Not to mention payback time, when the bribes deliver corrupt legislation. Political bribery will no longer be such a huge problem when it is no longer tolerated in public. We cannot stop all the bribes, but we can stop bribery from dominating the centers of our polity. We must create the opportunity for the people to choose and elect their own representatives, rather than selecting from among a slate of special interest tainted hacks, to our state's political offices. The Governor and the Special Interests are Special Friends: Go To the Arnie Article Link List
3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NY TIMES, 12-3-06: Editorial Is the New Congress to Be Believed?12-3-06http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/opinion/03sun1.html?pagewanted=print“Well before Election Day, the smart-money lobbyists of K Street were already shifting campaign donations to safe Democratic incumbents, greasing access to the next Congressional majority.” “Creation of a public integrity office to do more than merely audit lobbyists’ filings.” “An enforceable ban, with penalties, on all meals, gifts and travel — not just from lobbyists, but also from the organizations that hire them.” “Restraints on the revolving-door horde of Congressional alumni turned backslapping lobbyists.” “Detailed disclosure of costly and undebated “earmarks” — amendments passed as pork-barrel favors to backdoor pleaders.” “The new Congress must realize the ethics issue will test its mettle in the opening hours, and signal if real change is possible. A field general of the incoming majority, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, is already warning that failure to deliver on ethics reform will be “devastating to our standing” in the very first moment of Democratic power.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS: EDITORIAL SUGGESTS EVERY REFORM BUT DEMOCRACY THE TIMES, LIKE EVERY CORPORATE MEDIA OUTLET, CAN SEE EVERYTHING BUT THE REAL PROBLEM: BRIBERY. AND WITHOUT SEEING THE REAL PROBLEM, THE REAL SOULTION, DEMOCRACY, IS UNOBTAINABLE. THE TIMES IS GOOD AT PRETENDING TO SEE THE PROBLEM, AND COMING UP WITH “REFORMS,” THAT ARE EQUAL TO PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG The NY Times puts forth valuable suggestions for reform, except the most important reform required: democracy. If we do not acknowledged, support, and enforce the voters right to be the sole source of political power for their political representatives, then the bribery and corruption are guaranteed to continue. Free speech is talk. Talking to the people, the politicians, and the press is fine. But when one red cent, one meal, or one round of golf is given to a politician, it is bribery, and political bribery must be regarded as a very serious crime, and be rewarded with a very long prison sentence. Without stopping corruption at its source, the bribery of our politicians and parties, these changes are no more than lipstick on a pig. And putting lipstick on pigs is the specialty of the New York Times.
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NY TIMES, 12-3-06: Blowing the Whistle on Big OilBy EDMUND L. ANDREWS Published: December 3, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/business/yourmoney/ “DURING a 22-year career, Bobby L. Maxwell routinely won accolades and awards as one of the Interior Department’s best auditors in the nation’s oil patch, snaring promotions that eventually had him supervising a staff of 120 people.” “He and his team scrutinized the books of major oil producers that collectively pumped billions of dollars worth of oil and gas every year from land and coastal waters owned by the public. Along the way, the auditors recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from companies that shortchanged the government on royalties.” “ “Mr. Maxwell’s career has been characterized by exceptional performance and significant contributions,” wrote Gale A. Norton, then the secretary of the interior, in a 2003 citation. Ms. Norton praised Mr. Maxwell’s “perseverance and leadership” while cataloguing his “many outstanding achievements.” ” “Less than two years later, the Interior Department eliminated his job in what it called a “reorganization.” That came exactly one week after a federal judge in Denver unsealed a lawsuit in which Mr. Maxwell contended that a major oil company had spent years cheating on royalty payments.” “Invoking a law that rewards private citizens who expose fraud against the government, Mr. Maxwell has filed a suit in federal court in Denver against the Kerr-McGee Corporation. The suit accuses the company, which was recently acquired by Anadarko Petroleum, of bilking the government out of royalty payments. It also contends that the Interior Department ignored audits indicating that Kerr-McGee was cheating. Three other federal auditors, who once worked for Mr. Maxwell and still work at the Interior Department, have since filed similar suits of their own against other energy companies.” “The actions of Mr. Maxwell and the other auditors have coincided with broader investigations by Congress and the Interior Department’s own inspector general into whether the agency properly collects the money for oil and gas pumped from public land.” “Investigators say they have found evidence of myriad problems at the department: cronyism and cover-ups of management blunders; capitulation to oil companies in disputes about payments; plunging morale among auditors; and unreliable data-gathering that often makes it impossible to determine how much money companies actually owe.” “Congressional investigators are worried about other problems, as well. The Interior Department’s inspector general told a House subcommittee in September that senior officials at the agency had repeatedly glossed over ethical lapses and bungling. “Short of crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,” declared Earl E. Devaney, the inspector general. “I like the oil and gas industry,” he said, as he reminisced about his years as a federal auditor. “We are neither for nor against the profits they make. Our job is to make sure the American public gets a fair return on its assets.” “Mr. Maxwell says his frustrations with the Interior Department escalated after the Bush administration took office in 2001. The Interior Department’s top priorities became increasing domestic oil and gas production, offering more incentives to drillers in the Gulf of Mexico and pushing to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other wilderness areas to drilling. The department trimmed spending on enforcement and cut back on auditors, and sped up approvals for drilling applications.” “The agency’s senior ranks also became more heavily populated with officials friendly to the energy industry. For example, its new deputy secretary, J. Steven Griles, worked as an oil industry lobbyist before joining the department, and Chevron and Shell had paid him as an expert witness on their behalf in the Benji Johnson case.” “Auditing and compliance review had generated an average of about $176 million annually in the 1990s, with an extraordinary peak of $331 million in 2000, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Interior Department. But from 2001 through 2005, a period when energy prices soared to new highs, enforcement revenue averaged about $46 million a year.” “If Mr. Maxwell had not acted, of course, the government would have had no chance of recovering any money at all. James W. Moorman, president of Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit organization that specializes in the False Claims Act, acknowledged that it was less than ideal for federal investigators to have a financial stake in rebelling against their bosses. But he said the alternatives might be worse.”
“ “You’re talking about a situation where there seems to be complete breakdown in the system,” Mr. Moorman said. “If they’ve got evidence of fraud, why shouldn’t a court hear it?” ” THE COMMITTEE SAYS: BIG OIL OWNS INTERIOR DEPARTMENT FEDS FIRE SHARP OIL AUDITOR WHO IRRITATED BIG OIL The Committee can sum up our political policy and enforcement mechanisms easily: completely corrupted. This corruption will continue unabated at all levels of government until we end bribery as the main force behind political victory. Until we dig out the root of the problem, it will continue to infect our government in all of its branches. 5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NY TIMES, 12-3-06: As Trucking Rules Are Eased, a Debate on Safety IntensifiesNY Times December 3, 2006 By STEPHEN LABATON http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/washington/03trucks.html? “After intense lobbying by the politically powerful trucking industry, regulators a year earlier had rejected proposals to tighten drivers’ hours and instead did the opposite, relaxing the rules on how long truckers could be on the road. That allowed the driver who hit Ms. Edwards to work in the cab nearly 12 hours, 8 of them driving nonstop, which he later acknowledged had tired him.” “Government officials had also turned down repeated requests from insurers and safety groups for more rigorous training for new drivers. The driver in the fatal accident was a rookie on his first cross-country trip; his instructor, a 22-year-old with just a year of trucking experience, had been sleeping in a berth behind the cab much of the way.” “In loosening the standards, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration was fulfilling President Bush’s broader pledge to free industry of what it considered cumbersome rules. In the last six years, the White House has embarked on the boldest strategy of deregulation in more than a generation.” “Largely unchecked by the Republican-led Congress, federal agencies, often led by former industry officials, have methodically reduced what they see as inefficient, outdated regulations and have delayed enforcement of others. The Bush administration says those efforts have produced huge savings for businesses and consumers.” “It is a frustrating disappointment that has led to a tragic era,” said David F. Snyder, an assistant general counsel at the American Insurance Association who follows the trucking industry closely. “The losses continue to pile up at a high rate. There has been a huge missed opportunity.” “In decisions that had the support of the White House, the motor carrier agency has eased the rules on truckers’ work hours, rejected proposals for electronic monitoring to combat widespread cheating on drivers’ logs and resisted calls for more rigorous driver training.” “While applauded by the industry, those decisions have been subject to withering criticism by federal appeals court panels in Washington who say they ignore government safety studies and put the industry’s economic interests ahead of public safety. To advance its agenda, the Bush administration has installed industry officials in influential posts.” “Before Mr. Bush entered the White House, he selected Duane W. Acklie, a leading political fund-raiser and chairman of the American Trucking Associations, and Walter B. McCormick Jr., the group’s president, to serve on the Bush-Cheney transition team on transportation matters.” “Mr. Bush then appointed Michael P. Jackson, a former top official at the trucking associations, as deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation.” “To lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the president picked Joseph M. Clapp, the former chairman of Roadway, a trucking company, and the leader of an industry foundation that sponsored research claiming fatigue was not a factor in truck accidents, a conclusion at odds with government and academic studies.” “And David S. Addington, a former trucking industry official who led an earlier fight against tougher driving limits, became legal counsel and later chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, an advocate of easing government regulations.” “In addition to supplying prominent administration officials, the trucking industry has provided some of the Republican party’s most important fund-raisers. From 2000 to 2006, the industry directed more than $14 million in campaign contributions to Republicans. Its donations and lobbying fees — about $37 million from 2000 to 2005 — led to rules that have saved what industry officials estimate are billions of dollars in expenses linked to tougher regulations. “Congress has provided little scrutiny of the trucking standards.” “There has not been the kind of in-depth examination of these issues that should have occurred,” said Representative James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.” “Mr. Oberstar and others blamed the failure on the political muscle of the industry. From 2000 to 2004, the American Trucking Associations donated $2 million to lawmakers, mostly to Republicans who served on committees with jurisdiction over trucking issues.” THE COMMITTEE SAYS: LOBBYING BY TRUCKING INDUSTRY BRINGS DEATH TO NATION'S HIGHWAYS As an American you should know this truth: Your government will kill you in the service of their special interest masters. The concept of “deregulation,” is in theory, a good idea. But this theory is being used irresponsibly and out of its proper context. Economic efficiency, deregulation, and “free” market theories are all economic tools which are well and good when used in the economic sphere. But when economic theory is applied to politics, it is misapplied. In the political sphere, we are only legitimate when we act as a democracy. Misapplying economic theory to politics has created two big problems. First, the political arena has been transformed into a market, where political power is for sale. Market politics have replaced democracy as the source of political power. Second, market politics have damaged our government's ability to perform the regulation necessary for well ordered business. Market politics, corruption, has infected our government to the point where government is unable to perform the basic tasks and services required to conduct our affairs in war and peace. Or provide for our most basic safety and well-being. Market government has already killed the “truth,” by allowing consolidation of media by a handful of huge corporations, effectively killing our free press. Market politics has killed our democracy, drowning it in a flood of bribery. Our government has abdicated its most basic responsibility to provide decent schools, medical care, social benefits for the weak and disabled. The most basic instruments of our general welfare are all being sacrificed to subsidize private profit, at the publics expense. And the latest product of “market politics,” better known as bribery, is the “deregulation” of highway safety. These market politicians are willing to kill us on our highways, in the pursuit of the bribes of the trucking industry. The foxes are managing the hen house, and they are killing, and eating, all the hens. Right in front of us. DEATH, BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR SPECIAL INTEREST CORRUPTED POLITICIANS: See, “Big Oil Owns our Politicians,” Corruption Updates 1, 2nd to last article on the page. See, “Contribute to Win, Big Contribs try to Trump State Safety Laws,” Corruption Updates 2, 6th article down. See, “Lobbyists' Donate when Legislation Pending,” Corruption Updates 2, last article on page. See, “Big Business Spends Lawmakers into Compliance,” Corruption Updates 3, 2nd article on page. See, “Checks in, Laws Out, It's that Simple,” Corruption Updates 4, 1st article on page. See, “Do Bribed Politicians Provide Safe Regulation of Pipelines, or Anything else?,” Corruption Updates 10, 5th article down. See, “ EPA STANDARDS WILL KILL YOU; SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBERY BRINGS AMERICA DEATH,” Corruption Updates 16, 4th article on page. See, “ BIG OIL OWNS INTERIOR DEPARTMENT,” Corruption Updates 24, 4th article on page. See, “LOBBYING BY TRUCKING INDUSTRY BRINGS DEATH TO NATION'S HIGHWAYS,” Corruption Updates 24, 5th article on page. Corruption
Updates 32, 2nd article on page, “Scientists
Reject Chemical Rules” 6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE SF CHRON, 12-4-06: Perks
of fundraising?
|
|||
WHY | ||||
HOW TO HELP | ||||
IMPORTANT DATES | ||||
CORRUPTION UPDATES | ||||
ALL ARCHIVES | ||||
Corruption Database | ||||
ARCHIVE I: | ||||
Page 1 | ||||
Page 2 | ||||
Page 3 | ||||
Page 4 | ||||
ARCHIVE II: | ||||
Page 5 | ||||
Page 6 | ||||
Page 7 | ||||
Page 8 | ||||
ARCHIVE III: | ||||
Page 9 | ||||
Page 10 | ||||
Page 11 | ||||
Page 12 | ||||
Page 13 | ||||
ARCHIVE IV: | ||||
Page 14 | ||||
vPage 15 | ||||
Page 16 | ||||
Page 17 | ||||
Page 18 | ||||
ARCHIVE V: | ||||
Page 19 | ||||
Page 20 | ||||
Page 21 | ||||
Page 22 | ||||
Page 23 | ||||
Page 24 | ||||
ARCHIVE VI: | ||||
Page 25 | ||||
Page 26 | ||||
Page 27 | ||||
Page 28 | ||||
Page 29 | ||||
Page 30 | ||||
Page 31 | ||||
Page 32 | ||||
Page 33 | ||||
Page 34 | ||||
ARCHIVE 8 | ||||
Page 35 | ||||
Page 36 | ||||
Page 37 | ||||
Page 38 | ||||
Page 39 | ||||
Page 40 | ||||
Page 41 | ||||
Page 42 | ||||
Page 43 | ||||
Page 44 | ||||
Page 45 | ||||
|