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CORRUPTION UPDATES 7 August 24 to September 4, 2006 The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
CORRUPTION UPDATE 7
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Labor Group Takes $40-Million Aim at Midterm Elections
The AFL-CIO will try to help Democrats win. A GOP official says the party isn't worried.
By Maura
Reynolds,LA Times Staff Writer
August 31, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-labor31aug31,1,5583294.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
“WASHINGTON — Leaders of the nation's largest labor federation announced Wednesday that they would spend more money this year than ever before to get voters to the polls in a midterm election they hoped would return Democrats to power in Congress.”
"This Labor Day, it appears
that a 'perfect storm' is gathering that may well sweep away
Republican control of the Congress this fall," said AFL-CIO
President John J. Sweeney.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
DEMOCRATS-UNIONS MOVE LIKE LEMMINGS TO NEXT DEFEAT
What is union president Sweeney smoking? Whatever it is, it's rolled in hundred-dollar bills! The Democrats and Republicans have more in common than separates them. Both parties support the war. Both parties are embroiled in corruption and scandal. Both parties have gerrymandered and cut out “protected districts.”Both parties oppose campaign finance reform. Both parties are funded by special interests. Both parties are repellent to most citizens, and are being repudiated by their own members. Both parties have anti-union policies.
President Sweeney is looking for a changing of the guard that will not occur, even if the Democrats manage to pull off a victory.
This article reveals that the union is just a get out the vote machine for the Democrats.
The irony is that their own members don't vote for the Democrats anymore.
Rather than representing their membership honestly, the unions have become a 40 million dollar slush fund for the Democrats.
Would it be too much to ask that any special interest group be limited to organizing its membership to contribute effectively in their own elections? Another tasty irony is that the Democratic party is a force for “globalism,” (as are the Republicans) advocating NAFTA, encouraging industry to move overseas, while encouraging the cheapening of labor here. That's good for labor!
Or at least the small minority of labor in the elite unions that Mr. Sweeney represents. Everyone else gets poverty. Vote Democratic!
Apparently the unions have not noticed that the conditions of labor, their wages, conditions, benefits have been plummeting for more than 30 years, through Democratic and Republican administrations and majorities.
The unions leaders are playing in a corrupt game that cannot possibly win, or improve the conditions of labor. But the unions continue to play the political corruption game for the purposes, and power, of the union leadership, and a few well connected unions.. And this maintains the monopoly of politicla power within the hands of the special interests and the political parties.
The unions, like the parties, and the other special interests, are sacrificing our democracy, and our general welfare, for their own narrow gains, while our society declines around them.
A delicious irony is that the weaker players in the special interest game are playing a doomed game. It's almost funny to see the small special interests, the environmental, civil rights, and various civic-minded public policy groups, vie to buy influence in a game where they are going to be smashed like bugs by the big national special interests.
I'm talking Oil I'm talking telecom. I'm talking real estate. Developers and Manufacturers. The list is too long to recount here, but they all make the small special interests redundant. And we just watched Big Pharm whoop the hell out of the AARP on the perscription drug Scam. In a polity dominated by wealth and power, the people who value labor, who value the environment, who value good schools and hospitals are being constantly betrayed and misled by their special interest “representatives,” who fail to mention that in a polity run by wealth and power, wealth and power will win every time.
We would be better off if neither party could collect bribes, from any source that cannot vote in the specific election they contribute to.
We must force the special interests to educate and organize their political supporters, and use their free speech and assembly rights properly, and stop them from buying politicians. Bribery is bribery, whether the hand that holds the money is your friend or enemy.
Our first duty is to our democracy, our second loyalty is to party, and then self-interest. Special interests that represent people rather than wealth will benefit from democracy.
Núñez's wife has air-district pact
The agency is pushing a bill to cut emissions from train engines.
By Andy Furillo -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:01 am
PDT Saturday, August 26, 2006
Story appeared on Page A3 of
The Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/14308703p-15198962c.html
“The wife of Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez won a $125,000 consulting contract earlier this year with the South Coast Air Quality Management District at the same time the smog-fighting agency was pushing legislation to cut emissions on train engines.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF CORRUPTION:
What better way to pass legislation sitting before the Assembly, that to hire the wife of the Speaker?
“Núñez plans to abstain from voting on the bill if and when it reaches the Assembly floor”, according to a Nunez spokesman.
I wonder what value his abstention has. If the Speaker's wife is advocating a cause in government, especially a bill before the Assembly, his abstention does little to mitigate the power of his influence within his political mafia. It goes even deeper than that. The article quotes “Robert Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies and the author of the state's Political Reform Act” saying that “the Robles deal is entirely legal but that it "clearly" creates "an appearance question." The way it looks to Stern is that "she's making a lot of money and he's sharing it. There's nothing illegal, but the perception is that's an awful lot of money for doing what she's doing."
The Job? Setting up two conferences. I wonder how many days of work will be required to fulfill this contract. Most people I know take years to make 125,000 dollars.
For D.A. Cooley, a Rare Indictment of a High-Profile Political Player
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-cooley24aug24,1,7580476.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
Since pledging to clean up public corruption in 2000, the prosecutor has hit mainly officeholders in poor cities. The case against ex-L.A. commissioner Leland Wong is his first involving a major politican.
By Peter
Y. Hong, LATimes Staff Writer
August 24, 2006
Cooley's handling of allegations
involving Wong had come under scrutiny before. In October 2003,
The Times reported that he had failed to pursue a lead that Wong
had illegally pressured a vendor at Los Angeles International
Airport to steer business to relatives of lobbyist Art M.
Gastelum. Wong said he had done nothing illegal.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
LA DISTRICT ATTORNEY FORCED TO FINALLY INDITE SOMEONE IMPORTANT:
The Times is acting as a force for reform, again. As with the reports on Judicial Corruption in Nevada, the times revealed a lack of honesty in prosecuting corruption in the L.A. D.A. Office.
One attorney had quit the office, “partly” over the DA's failure to act against big-name corruption, while the office was pursuing small-time offenders. Again, the Times quoted Robert Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies on the inaction of the DA. Stern “said Cooley "has done much more than [previous] Los Angeles district attorneys and most D.A.s in the state" in prosecuting public corruption. These are very tough cases for an elected D.A.," he said. "You're going against potential allies, sometimes fellow elected officials and those with deep pockets to hire attorneys."
The facts of life in politics are that the D.A's Office is a gateway to higher office, if properly used. D.A.'s have to walk a fine line: prosecuting corruption while not burning their political bridges. An Impossible Task, if the DA is honest. Thus we get a series of unimportant prosecutions, until the Times reported on it. So, Mr. Wong, is to be sacrificed for the image of the DA. Whoops!
Governor's Charges Dismissed
The case against Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, accused of breaking hiring laws, is over.
From the Associated Press
August 25, 2006
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A judge on Thursday
dismissed accusations that Gov. Ernie Fletcher violated state
hiring laws, allowing him to get out of a longrunning legal jam
without personal punishment.
The judge signed an agreement
dropping misdemeanor charges and ending a case that alleged
Fletcher, a first-term Republican, broke the law by basing
personnel decisions on political considerations...
By
settling, Fletcher can seek reelection without the shadow of
criminal charges. Atty. Gen. Greg Stumbo, who prosecuted the
case and has been considered a potential Democratic candidate,
could run without breaking his promise not to challenge Fletcher
for governor while the case was pending... The grand jury
returned 29 indictments, but Fletcher last year pardoned anyone
who was charged or could be charged, excluding himself.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
IS IT A PLEA DEAL? OR JUST MORE CORRUPTION?
Wow. This article, and the people it reports on, both stink. This article says so little, it screams out! Apparently, “the judge signed an agreement[?],” and the Governor “settled[?]” Excuse me, but that's a plea bargain to us common folk. And the Attorney General apparently “settled,” plead out this case, not on its merits, but so he could run for Governor.
What bothers me is the pardons.
It's not just that the Governor used his pardon power to end prosecutions against potential wrongdoers in his administration, but he lost the ability to clear himself in open proceedings. But that was the point. What the governor did was to eliminate any potential damaging testimony by co-conspirators against him, by pardoning them. And the next election pits the governor against the AG, who let him off the hook so he could fulfill a campaign promise. I guess it worked out for both sides. Oh, except for the citizen voters, who are left with two pathetically damaged candidates. It's a plea deal steeped in corruption.
Scandals Emerging in Shanghai as Political Season Nears
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: September 5, 2006 NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/world/asia/05china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
SHANGHAI, Sept. 4
“Jiang Zemin, the country’s former leader, who rose to national prominence as mayor of the city and cultivated it as a power base.”
“Mr. Jiang having relinquished the last of his important titles in 2004, many here say, the way has been opened for a new investigation that many see as an attack on Mr. Jiang’s old power base by allies of a younger generation of leaders.”
“in the end prove to be a modest piece of a much larger web of corruption linking city officials, banks and developers.”
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
STRUGGLE FOR THE CORRUPT FRUIT OF POLITICAL VICTORY IN CHINA:
Newt threw out the Democrats, in '94, I think it was, because the corruption and idiocy of the Democratic party gave Republicans the chance, and they went for it. Newt, and his Republicans have since surpassed the corruption and idiocy of the Democrats. And the spending of the Democrats. And the National debt of the Democrats. The corruption situation in China is different, but parallel, to our own struggles with corrupt government. In China, there is one corrupt party, and it fights among itself for control of the fruits of corruption. The above article describes how changes in power affect the fortunes of a huge city's power structure. Here, in the U.S. Of A, we are different. We have two parties fighting it out for control of the fruits of corruption, not just one, like China. We are quite advanced, and an example for the world.
Well, we have the potential to be an example for the world. But we have a bit of cleaning up to do.
PS: The Democrats are so stupid that they may not be able to create victory out of the open corruption and exceeding ignorance of the Republicans. The Dems would have had a perfect opportunity for victory, except they have the same policies as the Republicans. Not just the same policies, but are mastered by the same system of special interest control as are the Republicans. The selling point of the Democrats is, “ We would do it better” The winning strategy is, “We will do it differently/” We can force them all to do it democratically.
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