Poster Boy for Pelosi's "most ethical congress in history"?
Imagine making a campaign contribution to a candidate, only to find that he was using that money not to buy signs, buttons or office space, but rather to pay parking or traffic tickets. Well there's no need to imagine it.
Embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D - New York), who is fighting off a House ethics committee investigation of his taxes, campaign contributions and four rent-stabilized apartments in New York, including using one of them as his campaign headquarters was cited for multiple parking violations in his Chrysler P.T. Cruiser in and around the District of Columbia since March 2007 it was reported. $1,450 in payments for the tickets were made from Rangel's campaign committee and his PAC.
A Rangel spokesman told the Daily News that there was "nothing unethical" about using donated money to pay the tickets. The spokesman noted that Congress members routinely use campaign money to pay for parking and traffic violations.
It was not immediately clear whether Rangel's Cadillac, which is paid for using taxpayer dollars has been summonsed for any parking or traffic infractions here in New York where Rangel uses that vehicle.
How would you feel if you gave money to a candidate for political office and found out that it was being used to pay his/her parking and traffic violations? Please send me your thoughts! Iused to think Chollie was just a jovial jerk, but after proposing the draft in 2003, and all the revealed corruption, tax evasion, villas in the Carib, low-rent apartments(!), I've come to realize he's a perfect example of the disgusting parasites we need to violently shed from the body politic, and very publically so. Drive him from all means of power, fame, ill-gotten funds.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2009 16:27 ||
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If I gave Charlie a donation, I would expect that it would go directly into his pocket. Does he even have to campaign. I'm surprised that he even has to pay parking tickets. What kind of NY political operation is he running? I'm sure that the majority of his doners are expecting some kind of consideration in return.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/02/2009 16:59 Comments ||
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What "man" drives a PT Cruiser? I bet it's a woodie
When it comes to governing this violent, fractious land, everything, it seems, has its price. Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000. Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban. Need to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on the judge.
Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.
A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzais own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the countrys opium trade, now the worlds largest. In the streets and government offices, hardly a public transaction seems to unfold here that does not carry with it the requirement of a bribe, a gift, or, in case you are a beggar, harchee whatever you have in your pocket.
The corruption, publicly acknowledged by President Karzai, is contributing to the collapse of public confidence in his government and to the resurgence of the Taliban, whose fighters have moved to the outskirts of Kabul, the capital. All the politicians in this country have acquired everything money, lots of money, President Karzai said in a speech at a rural development conference here in November. God knows, it is beyond the limit. The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen.
On the streets here, tales of corruption are as easy to find as kebab stands. Everything seems to be for sale: public offices, access to government services, even a persons freedom. The examples mentioned above $25,000 to settle a lawsuit, $6,000 to bribe the police, $100,000 to secure a job as a provincial police chief were offered by people who experienced them directly or witnessed the transaction. People pay bribes for large things, and for small things, too: to get electricity for their homes, to get out of jail, even to enter the airport.
Governments in developing countries are often riddled with corruption. But Afghans say the corruption they see now has no precedent, in either its brazenness or in its scale. Transparency International, a German organization that gauges honesty in government, ranked Afghanistan 117 out of 180 countries in 2005. This year, it fell to 176.
Nowhere is the scent of corruption so strong as in the Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur. Before 2001, it was a vacant patch of hillside that overlooked the stately neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Today it is the wealthiest enclave in the country, with gaudy, grandiose mansions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Afghans refer to them as poppy houses. Sherpur itself is often jokingly referred to as Char-pur, which literally means City of Loot.
Yet what is perhaps most remarkable about Sherpur is that many of the homeowners are government officials, whose annual salaries would not otherwise enable them to live here for more than a few days. One of the mansions three stories, several bedrooms, sweeping balconies is owned by Abdul Jabbar Sabit, a former attorney general who made a name for himself by declaring a jihad against corruption. After he was fired earlier this year by President Karzai, a video began circulating around town showing Mr. Sabit dancing giddily around a room and slurring his words, apparently drunk. Mr. Sabit now lives in Canada, but his house is available to rent for $5,000 a month.
An even grander mansion ornate faux Greek columns, a towering fountain is owned by Kabuls police chief, Mohammed Ayob Salangi. It can be had for $11,000 a month. Mr. Salangis salary is unknown; that of Mr. Karzai, the president, is about $600 a month.
Mr. Ghani, the former finance minister, said the plots of land on which the mansions of Sherpur stand were doled out early in the Karzai administration for prices that were a tiny fraction of what they were worth. (Mr. Ghani said he was offered a plot, too, and refused to accept it.)
Amin Farhang, the minister of commerce, was voted out of Mr. Karzais cabinet by Parliament earlier last month for failing to bring down the price of oil in Afghanistan as the price declined in international markets. In a long talk in the sitting room of his home, Mr. Farhang recounted a two-year struggle to fire the man in charge of giving out licenses for new businesses.
The man, Mr. Farhang said, would grant a license only in exchange for a hefty bribe. But Mr. Farhang found that he was unable to fire the man, who, he said, simply bribed other members of the government to reinstate him. In a job like this, a man can make 10 or 12 times his salary, Mr. Farhang said. People do anything to hang on to them.
Many Afghans, including Mr. Ghani, the former finance minister, place responsibility for the collapse of the state on Mr. Karzai, who, they say, has failed repeatedly to confront the powerful figures who are behind much of the corruption. In his stint as finance minister, Mr. Ghani said, two moments crystallized his disgust and finally prompted him to quit.
The first, Mr. Ghani said, was his attempt to impose order on Kabuls chaotic system of private property rights. The Afghan government had accumulated vast amounts of land during the period of Communist rule in the 1970s and 1980s. And since 2001, the government has given much of it away often, Mr. Ghani said, to shady developers at extremely low prices. Much of that land has been sold and developed, rendering much of Kabuls property in the hands of unknown owners. Many of the developers who were given free land, Mr. Ghani said, were also involved in drug trafficking.
When he proposed drawing up a set of regulations to govern private property, Mr. Ghani said, he was told by President Karzai to stop. Just back off, he told me, Mr. Ghani said. He said that politically it wasnt feasible.
A similar effort to impose regulations at the Ministry of Aviation, which Mr. Ghani described as rife with corruption, was met with a similar response by President Karzai, he said. Morally the question was, am I becoming the fig leaf to legitimate a system that was deeply corrupt? Or was I there to serve the people? Mr. Ghani said. I resigned.
Mr. Ghani, who then became chancellor of Kabul University, is today contemplating a run for the presidency. Asked about Mr. Ghanis account on Thursday, Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Mr. Karzai, said he could not immediately comment.
#2
Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft
Why it sounds just like.....Washington. Dodd, Franks, Stevens, et al. It's just a more civilized game to get the money and perks into 're-election funds coffers' and put family and friends on the payroll, so you're open to bailing out your good old buddies over at the UAW et al who've kept it up for so many years. Captain Renault would be just as good a pic for this article as Tammany Hall.
Sen. Bill Clinton? Sen. Mario M. Cuomo? Don't rule it out.
The former president and the former New York governor are among several boldface names being touted as possible "caretakers" for New York's Senate seat -- people who would serve until the 2010 election but wouldn't be interested in running to keep the job. As the process of picking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's replacement gets messier, the option may become increasingly attractive to Gov. David Paterson, who has sole authority to name a successor.
A spokesman for Bill Clinton said Wednesday that the former chief executive isn't interested in the job. Cuomo declined through a spokesman to discuss the seat.
A big name could have an immediate impact for New York in the Senate and let the large field of hopefuls duke it out in 2010, according to three Democratic Party advisors in New York and Washington who are close to the discussion with Paterson's inner circle.
Paterson has made it clear that he's getting annoyed by the jockeying by supporters of high-powered hopefuls including Caroline Kennedy and state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo, son of the former governor.
Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist and dean at State University of New York at New Paltz, said that if Paterson appointed a caretaker, he could "say to Caroline Kennedy, 'You know, you'd make a good senator. Run for it.' And you can tell everyone else that it's a level playing field."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Place holders? LOL. It would take a Nucklear Getting-Out Machine to remove either one of the guys once emplaced.
#2
It would be a comedown for Clinton, despite the temptation to take it just for the subtle payback opportunities (i.e. give Reid and Pelosi fits as a payback for how they treated Hillary's campaign).
I don't agree with Cuomo's politics but he's a much better person than his son, who WOULD run again.
Three weeks ago I, um, gushed, you know, over Caroline Kennedy becoming, you know, the next U.S. senator from, um, New York.
Little did I, you know, know.
She's turned out to be a no-pulse flat-liner with the vim, vigor, enthusiasm and passion of, um, you know, a wet noodle. Worse, and here's the campaign killer, she inserts "um" and "you know" between every no-pulse, flat-lining, is-she-awake or sleep-talking word she utters.
Oh - it's an auditory terror ordeal. A wince-a-thon, really, in one long monotone.
Poor Jackie, the literary agent, the lover of art and language and the Palmer method and Pablo Casals and his cello and all things graceful and refined.
Who'd have dreamed her daughter - raised in the White House, in Greece and on Park Avenue, a graduate of hoity-toity Concord Academy and hoitier-toitier Radcliffe, for God's sake - sounds, you know, like, um, whatever, as if "some Valley Girl!"
The facts here: Battered about for failing to answer reporters' questions, the lone survivor of magical Camelot did interviews with various New York media outlets this week - and proceeded to say "um" and "you know" nonstop.
She said "you know" more than 200 times in a half-hour interview with The New York Daily News; at least 130 times with The New York Times [NYT] and more than 80 times in a TV interview with New York 1. Dozens of "ums" were sprinkled in generously, too.
About tax cuts: "Well, you know, that's something, obviously, that, you know, in principle and in the campaign, you know, I think that, um, the tax cuts, you know . . ."
About being a good senator: "In many ways, you know, we want to have all kinds of different voices, you know, representing us, and I think what I bring to it is, you know, my experience as a mother, as a woman, as a lawyer, you know."
On why she wants the job: "Um, this is a fairly unique moment both in our, you know, in our country's history, and, and in, in, you know, my own life, and um, you know, we are facing, you know, unbelievable challenges, our economy, you know."
Now you could, um, argue, you know, that "um-ing" and "you-knowing" your way through life has nothing to do, um, with what you know, you know, or don't know, you know. But I, um, don't, you know, buy it.
Sayonara, Caroline.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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ZOMG - its like, you know, they're going to, like, just totally redo VALLEY GIRL into an awesome remake also - ZOMG, just ZOMG!
#3
Jeesh. I'm not sure who gets the Most Silly Blather award. Should it be Caroline Kennedy because um, you know? Or should it be the woman who wrote this column? Could she be any more lame?
She was gaga over Caroline and gushed over what a great senator she would make until she actually found out something about her. Well actually she still doesn't know anything about her other than her name and that she isn't a good public speaker.
Caroline is indeed dead if the party faithful such as this one are willing to admit that she is an embarrassment. ALL of the living Kennedy's are an embarrassment no less so than, you know, Caroline.
When the slavishly faithful party hacks feel inspired to attack like this one has done, you KNOW that Caroline has been dumped by the party powerful for someone else.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 8:25 Comments ||
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Me, I am enjoying watching all those pundits who were already breaking out the knee-pads and palm branches and singing "Hosannah"! Another Kennedy is among us!" pretzel themselves into knots, trying to explain why Princess Caroline is qualified to take a place in the Senate... but that Sarah Palin was unqualified for the VP's slot.
Guess we're not quite as ready to institute a hereditary nobility/ruling class as I was afraid we would be.
#7
Jeesh. I'm not sure who gets the Most Silly Blather award. Should it be Caroline Kennedy because um, you know? Or should it be the woman who wrote this column? Could she be any more lame?
#10
Just your typical CYA piece from a writer who is scrambling to save whatever credibility they might have left after CK herself revealed how painfully vapid she really is.
#13
She NEEDS a freakin' telepromter. (and Bill Ayers writing the prose) The Bamberino sounds just like this off the prompter. No wonder they took to each other with so much rapture and wonder !
#15
The Dude! LOL. My son got me a book for Christmas: "I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski - Life, The Big Leboski, and What Have You"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2009 13:47 Comments ||
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Having a pilot license didn't save her brother from his self-induced stupidity, now did it?(a neophyte vfr pilot in ifr conditions WITH his family aboard, no less)
And even the exhaulted name of Kennedy is no match for Mother Nature ( or a bridge).
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2009 14:02 Comments ||
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Dead? Don't be so sure. Link on Drudge to two sources close to Gov Patterson claim she'll be chosen. But the Gov, bless his heart, says, "the next junior senator will have to earn re-election on his/her own." And I'm sure you saw the recent poll where 52% approve of her. Never overestimate the voters.
#27
Link on Drudge to two sources close to Gov Patterson claim she'll be chosen. But the Gov, bless his heart, says, "the next junior senator will have to earn re-election on his/her own." And I'm sure you saw the recent poll where 52% approve of her. Never overestimate the voters.
New shit has come to light, man.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/02/2009 19:21 Comments ||
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New shit has come to light, man.
now you're teasing me
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2009 19:39 Comments ||
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A 50 percent increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes is being urged by a federal commission to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.
The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for higher fuel taxes.
With motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge and transit programs.
In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel fuel tax by 12 to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation.
The commission will also recommend that states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.
A tax increase on this order would be politically treacherous for Democratic leaders in Congress - a gas tax hike was one of the reasons they lost control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections. President-elect Barack Obama has expressed concern about raising gas taxes in the current economic climate. But commission members said the government must find the money somewhere.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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But commission members said the government must find the money somewhere.
Like maybe from all the existing tax money on fuel that is redirected to other special interest programs, bookkeeping games, and multiple pork earmarks.
#5
Well one can disagree with the panel but its probably not strictly correct to call them "seedy politicians".
There were a few panel members who were elected officials but most were from think tanks (including Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation), consulting, industry, banking, etc.
#8
More taxes? What the heck are they doing with the taxes we already pay?
In particular, how much in Federal highway funds have gone to Illinois for road repair lately? And where did it go? Driving up 39 and 90 recently was like cruising a moonscape. I'm going to have my alignment checked Monday.
Soon as we crossed the Wisconsin state line, the road got smooth again.
If you expect you'll be getting a refund from California when you file your 2008 state income tax return, be prepared: you may instead receive a "registered warrant." Translation: an IOU.
California is rapidly running out of money. Blame it on the state budget deficit that continues to bleed billions of dollars from California's reserves. Facing inadequate credit to make up the difference, California's Controller John Chiang warns that by the end of February, the nation's most populous state may not be able to pay some of its debts, and instead be reduced to issuing those creditors IOUs.
"My office has projected that, in approximately 60 days, there will be insufficient cash available to meet all expenditures reflected in the 2008-09 Budget Act," stated a Tuesday letter from Controller Chiang to the directors of all state agencies. "To ensure that the State can meet its obligations to schools, debt service, and others entitled to payment under the State Constitution, federal law, or court order. California may begin, as early as February 1, 2009, issuing registered warrants...commonly referred to as IOUs...to individuals and entities in lieu of regular payments."
California has not resorted to IOUs since the 1992 budget crisis when Pete Wilson was governor. Back then, some 100,000 state employees got IOUs instead of paychecks for two months until the state approved a budget. The 1992 crisis came during summer, well past the tax season, but at least 12,000 tax refunds were also issued as IOUs, according to a contemporaneous report in the Los Angeles Times.
State workers filed a lawsuit, arguing the IOUs violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. They were awarded damages. In this current cash crisis, The Controller's office expects that hourly state employees would continue to receive paychecks. But IOUs could be issued to elected state officials, including legislators and judges, and their appointed staff, some 1700 in all, "as well as tax refunds owed to individuals and businesses," according to Chaing aide Hallye Jordan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2009 00:00 ||
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But IOUs could be issued to elected state officials, including legislators and judges, and their appointed staff, some 1700 in all
Shoulda started that years ago. If the budget isn't balanced, pay them in IOU script. Wonder how many judges would issue directions on spending for non-appropriated activities if they had to take IOUs when the crunch hit.
#2
It's been said elsewhere but Laficornia residents might perhaps should consider paying their state taxes this April 15th with an IOU. If it's good enough for the gummint ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2009 0:25 Comments ||
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Pass these out to the boys in leau of pay
--- Governor William J. Le Petomane - Blazing Saddles
Also: We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!
#5
Debt is coming full circle in the land of the golden glow. Can I borrow some lunch money on the glow? I just want to get latted at Krock's golden arches. Please!
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/02/2009 4:25 Comments ||
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If the budget isn't balanced, pay them in IOU script.
A simple way to do this might be to apply any "refund" coming to you to next years' taxes :).
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
When it comes to governing this violent, fractious land, everything, it seems, has its price. Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000. Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban. Need to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on the judge.
You know, I was wrong.
