Free Republic

We can thank the Drudge Report for directing us to ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl’s brief but extremely important piece whose title “The $100 Million Health Care Vote?” calls to mind the truth that since antiquity, politicians have never had a single scruple against whoring themselves — for the right price, of course. That’s not to equate politicians with ordinary prostitutes; for as the greatest writers have told us throughout the ages, politicians make saints of them. After all, never in human history has a single honest practitioner of the “oldest profession” displayed the disgusting arrogance required to charge millions,...

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform? Here’s a case study. On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.” I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get...

Selling candy didn't raise much money last year, so a Goldsboro middle school is selling grades. A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School will get a student 20 test points - 10 extra points on two tests of the student's choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D. Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money.

Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.

President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and we are having a difficult time figuring out why. The prize committee cited its decision on this: “For his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Really? We missed this. Obama seemed surprised by this announcement and said winning the prize was a “call to action.” The nominations for the prize took place in February, which was only a couple months after Obama’s inspirational and change-promising “Yes We Can” campaign. In fact, he is the first U.S. president to be awarded the prize in his first term. Obama...

A Decadent Nobel A prize for soft moralism. By DANIEL HENNINGER So Donald Rumsfeld was right about Old Europe. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has taken it in the neck for awarding this year's Peace Prize to a nine-month old American presidency. There's been much mockery of pencil-necked Norwegian academics in faraway Oslo. This is unfair. The committee said it chose Barack Obama for his "vision of . . . a world without nuclear weapons" and for "meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting." I'd say that completes the argument over old and new Europe. This is a Nobel...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year.

MY FIRST three thoughts upon hearing that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize were: ■ For what!?!? ■ So this is how low our image sunk under President Bush? ■ This is our Nobel! Even the most fervent Obama supporters have to scratch their heads. The Nobel Committee praised Obama’s “extraordinary efforts’’ on international diplomacy and cooperation, citing his nascent efforts to reduce nuclear weapons and America’s “more constructive role’’ on climate change. The committee said Obama had become “the world’s leading spokesman’’ for international policies the committee has sought to “stimulate’’ for 108 years. Talk about giving...

....In other words, the prize was conferred by experienced politicians who seem to know exactly what they were doing. Expressing its particular approval of Obama's "vision ... of a world without nuclear weapons," the committee wrote: "Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. ... Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. ... For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading...

Analysis: Did Obama win Nobel for not being Bush? Posted: October 10th, 2009 12:15 PM ET From CNN Political Contributor Robin Oakley LONDON (CNN) — Did President Obama land a Nobel peace prize at such an early stage of his presidency simply because he's not George W. Bush? Diplomatic circles are certainly not dismissing such a notion and a "surprised and humbled" Obama has himself agreed that the award (for which nominations had to be submitted only two weeks after his inauguration) can hardly have been a recognition of anything he has yet accomplished. It is a prize for aspiration...

Note: The following text is a quote: Thirty-Nine Individuals Charged with Conspiring to Bribe Chair of D.C. Taxicab Commission WASHINGTON—Yitbarek Syume, 51, of Silver Spring, Maryland, Berhane Leghese, 47, of Arlington, Virginia, and Amanuel Ghirmazion, 53, of Hyattsville, Maryland, were indicted on bribery charges on October 1, 2009, by a grand jury sitting in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, announced Acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Persichini, Jr. The indictments, unsealed today, allege that Syume, Leghese, and Ghirmazion, conspired to bribe the Chairperson of the District of...

The cavalry is here -- and they're in white coats and scrubs: More than a half a million doctors and millions of nurses are joining forces to help pass real health reform. Americans listen to their nurses and doctors when it comes to health reform -- and for good reason. If we can help them amplify their voices, it'll be a huge boost to our campaign for change. So we're working on a new television ad featuring their voices explaining why doctors and nurses so strongly support President Obama's plan -- and asking Congress to pass it. We'll run the...

Bronx hospital employees, lawyer charged in insurance fraud scam Employees of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) received bribes to deliver confidential patient information to personal injury lawyers, city and state officials allege. Six HHC employees and a former HHC employee who worked at Lincoln Hospital, Bronx, and a private attorney, were arrested today on bribery charges in connection with the insurance scheme. According to the office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo -- who filed the charges -- the information was allegedly used to lure patients into receiving unnecessary treatment and then submitting over a million dollars in phony...

Obama in his three complete years in the Senate was the second largest recipient of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae campaign contributions, behind only Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., the powerful chairman of the Senate banking committee.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Democrat senators were cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on Friday from year-long investigations about whether mortgages they obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The bipartisan committee, which supported the decision unanimously, did scold the senior lawmakers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for not being more careful in their dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised...

n the middle of a difficult re-election campaign, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on Friday was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee from a year-long investigation about whether mortgages he obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The committee, however, did scold the senior lawmaker for not being more careful in his dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid...

Like we haven't been saying this for years: ALEXANDRIA, VA. - Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury. The jury of eight women and four men returned a guilty verdict following five days of deliberation. In the 16-count indictment, Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five...

Florida businesswoman says she sought to bribe former Rep. William Jeffersonby Jonathan Tilove and Bruce Alpert, The Times-Picayune Tuesday July 21, 2009, 2:24 PM ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- A Florida businesswoman who had lined up a deal to exploit untapped oil reserves off the coast of the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe testified today in the corruption trial of former Rep. William Jefferson that she had agreed to give his brother Mose an oil lot potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for the congressman's help in untangling the knots that had tied up the deal....

RALEIGH - The prosecution of former state House Speaker Jim Black wound to a close Thursday, when he received the minimum 11- to 14- month state sentence for bribery after having paid a $1 million fine. But Black, who is already serving a 63-month sentence in federal prison, will serve his state sentence concurrently and will therefore likely not spend any additional time in a prison cell. "He is an old man who is sick and who will stay in prison, perhaps the rest of his life," said Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens, in explaining his leniency. "I...

Ex-congressman filmed accepting $100,000Published: 07/08/2009 By Matthew Barakat Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. - From four different angles, jurors saw a former Louisiana congressman accept a suitcase filled with $100,000 on videos played in court Tuesday. **SNIP** The recordings played in U.S. District Court show Lori Mody, a northern Virginia businesswoman who cooperated with an FBI investigation, leading Jefferson to the trunk of a car parked outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Pentagon City. Jefferson reaches in, grabs the suitcase and puts it in a small duffel bag. The FBI recorded the handoff from five different angles, and four of those were...

Breaking on Michigan Radio and the unpostable here on FR Detroit Newspapers, that wife of Rep John Conyers will plead Guilty to Bribery charges.

(Select Local Story #4 - video only) All the media is carrying Roland Burris' prepared remarks, denying any "pay to play" allegations. But what this story shows is a frustrated and angry Burris yelling at WLS-TV reporter Jason Knowles when ambushed early in the day outside his home. That segment begins about 1 minute into the video.

It's not just what you know, it's who you know. And it's not just who you know, it's who you pay off. As the Center for Public Integrity reports (as cited in last week's Financial Times), the largest US originators of subprime mortgages spent roughly $370 million on lobbying and campaign donations in Washington during the past decade in attempts to stave off tighter regulation of their industry. The study “shows that most of the top 25 originators, most of which are now bankrupt, were either owned or heavily financed by the nation's largest banks, including Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs...

>Harman Vehemently Denies Bribery Allegations Allegedly Caught on NSA Tapes [California Democratic Congresswoman] Jane Harman says she never offered to help a "suspected Israeli agent" in exchange for the agent lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a key chairmanship for Harman. [California Democratic Congresswoman] Jane Harman vehemently denied on Monday allegations published in a congressional magazine that she had offered to help a "suspected Israeli agent" seek reduced charges for two men accused of espionage in exchange for the agent lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a key chairmanship for Harman. ,,, Harman, a California Democrat, was overlooked by Pelosi...

Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. went to see the Illinois governor in December to press for an appointment to the United States Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama.

President Obama continued collecting money for his 2010 Senate re-election campaign even after he resigned his seat from Illinois, including a maximum $2,300 donation the day after Christmas from a top executive of a Wall Street firm that had received a government bailout. Four contributions - $4,800 in all - were donated to the Obama 2010 fund on Dec. 26, according to Federal Election Commission reports. The money came from some of Mr. Obama's top presidential fundraisers: Bruce A. Heyman, managing director at Goldman Sachs, which received a $10 billion bailout last year; Steven Koch, vice chairman at Credit Suisse...

As China's Communists gather, luxury sales soar By David Barboza Saturday, March 14, 2009 BEIJING: A week ago, a finely dressed Chinese man walked into Louis Vuitton's flagship store here trailed by a bodyguard and said he wanted to purchase a gift for a government official. "This is for a very senior official," the man told a clerk. "I tell you, he is at the top. So what kind of handbag do you think is suitable for him?" Sales clerks at Louis Vuitton and other luxury stores in Beijing offer an intriguing explanation for the appearance of such customers: every...

An official in the D.C. government's office of the chief technology officer has been arrested in a federal bribery sting, according to law enforcement sources. http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/12/breaking-news-fbi-raiding-obamas-chief-technology-officers-office/

Morgan Stanley’s Chinese Land Scandal By DAVID BARBOZA SHANGHAI — Since the height of China’s property boom, Morgan Stanley’s huge real estate deals here have been the envy of the industry. Then, scandal hit. Last month, with property prices here and elsewhere in free fall, the bank dropped a bombshell: in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, it said it had fired an executive in its China real estate division after uncovering evidence that he might have violated the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American business people from bribing foreign officials. That executive, Garth Peterson, was a...

Systematic Consumer Fraud by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline)in conspiracy with researchers who were bribed to suppress or obscure suicide risk data during clinical trials of one of the highest selling medicines-Paroxetine.

Halliburton Co. said it has agreed to pay $559 million to the U.S. to settle charges that one of its former units bribed Nigerian officials during the construction of a gas plant. The deal needs to be finalized by the U.S. Justice Department. Halliburton declined to say whether the company admitted to or denied the charges as part of the proposed settlement, saying that it would wait to provide specifics until the deal was finalized with the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case. The proposed settlement appears to mark a turning point in the...

Chi-Town: The Big, Bad AppleRoland Burris, who was appointed by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Illin') to the Senate, said yesterday he deserves a refund for the bribe after he was turned away by fellow Senate Democrats earlier this week."I paid good money to get in that Senate," said Burris. "I think I should get some type of compensation for these missed days."Burris said that with each day he's missing out on opportunities for graft, corruption and illegal influence that grease the wheels of his fellow federal administrators.

It was a recipe for a typical New Mexico political stew: Start with two lucrative contracts worth $1.4 million, stir in at least $100,000 in political contributions, add a dash of questionable bid procedures and top it off with a heaping tablespoon of suspicious timing. This is the concoction that boiled over into the federal investigation that has derailed, at least for now, Gov. Bill Richardson's ambitions for a seat in President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet. ~~snip~~The big picture is fairly simple. CDR Financial Products LLC of Beverly Hills was paid $1.4 million from work it did on behalf of the...

A key witness in O.J. Simpson's Las Vegas trial acknowledged to a Nevada investigator that the former NFL star paid him off, the investigator told a judge in Santa Monica this morning. The investigator from the Clark County district attorney's office said Alfred Beardsley admitted that Simpson gave him his Hall of Fame ring in exchange for altering his testimony to help the defenseI asked what did you get to change your testimony," said Bill Falkner, who worked with prosecutors building the armed robbery and kidnapping case against Simpson. The answer, he said, was the Hall of Fame ring. The...

Crisis Could Take a Bite Out of Corruption 01 November 2008 By Francesca Mereu / Staff Writer Editor's note: This is the third in a series of reports about the effect of the global financial crisis on Russia. Punctuality in making payments had always been Dmitry's pride, but in April he was forced to delay employee salaries by more than a month. The sanitary inspector, who he usually bribed, had demanded an extra $15,000 to buy a new car for his wife. Dmitry had little choice but to hand over the money or see his shop closed for "sanitary reasons."...

NOTE: The article below is from last year. It’s a story that was never picked up by the media (since when have they ever picked up anything about Obama?) and the Clinton campaign did not know what to do with this — people we’ve spoken to said that, in retrospect, they realize what a mistake this was because what Obama did here is actually a prosecutable crime. We were told, specifically, that the bribe Obama took as a state senator is the thing David Axelrod has lived in terror of this whole campaign — he has been praying this does...

(FBI surveillance photograph) State Senator Diane Wilkerson allegedly stuffed a $1,000 cash payoff into her bra during a meeting with an informant at No. 9 Park restaurant on June 18, 2007. State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was arrested this morning after an 18-month undercover investigation by Boston Police and the FBI in which she allegedly accepted eight bribes worth $23,500. The 15-year Democratic lawmaker allegedly accepted cash payoffs that ranged from $500 to $10,000 to help a nightclub secure a liquor license and to assist a private developer who wanted to build on state land. Wilkerson allegedly tried to influence legislation...

When the Philadelphia Democratic Party's faithful gathered for their pre-election fundraiser last night, conversation among many anxious ward leaders kept coming back to the same question: Would Barack Obama come up with street money? Street money, typically between $100 and $300 per voting division, is used to pay expenses such as meals and transportation and sometimes pay election workers for their day's work. Many thought Obama had changed his mind and would provide street money for the general election, but ward leaders said last night that they still hadn't heard of a commitment from the campaign. "Honestly, they'd be crazy...

FEDERAL COURT – A peripheral figure in the bribery scandal that ensnared former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to five years' probation by a San Diego federal judge yesterday, bringing the three-year-old case closer to finality. Advertisement John Thomas Michael, a mortgage broker from Long Island, sighed deeply and closed his eyes when U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns said he would not be going to prison. As part of his probation, Michael will have to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay a fine of $100,000. Michael pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to...

Biden's son was paid by MBNA just in time to get the bankruptcy bill passed.

It seemed an ideal marriage, a scientific partnership that would attack mental illness from all sides. Psychiatrists would bring to the union their expertise and clinical experience, drug makers would provide their products and the money to run rigorous studies, and patients would get better medications, faster... --snip-- An analysis of Minnesota data by The New York Times last year found that on average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs appear to have written three times as many prescriptions to children for the drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none. The drugs...

A senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney and his wife were charged with bribery Wednesday and accused of accepting thousands of dollars from undocumented immigrants seeking falsified residency papers.

Our reporting partners at the Detroit News are reporting that the FBI has electronic surveillance that links Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers to the Synagro scandal. The evidence reportedly proves that Conyers received either a payment or payments in connection with the city-approved sludge contract.

Judge Neal Biggers handed down Dickie Scruggs fate calling his conduct reprehensible. Dickie Scruggs will serve five years in federal prison and pay a $250K fine. Before sentencing, Scruggs told the judge, "I could not be more ashamed to be where I am today. I realized I was getting mixed up in it and I will go to my grave wondering why. I have disappointed everyone in my life - my wife, family and friends here to support me today. I deeply regret my conduct. It is a scar and a stain on my soul."

Fourteen months into a campaign that has the feel of a movement, Sen. Barack Obama has collided with the gritty political traditions of Philadelphia, where ward bosses love their candidates, but also expect them to pay up. The dispute centers on the dispensing of "street money," a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote. Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot...

The stucco subdivisions of Las Vegas are caught up in the nation's foreclosure crisis. These days, bankers and mortgage companies often find that by the time they get the keys back, embittered homeowners have stripped out appliances, punched holes in walls, dumped paint on carpets and, as a parting gift, locked their pets inside to wreak further havoc. Real-estate agents estimate that about half of foreclosed properties to be sold by mortgage companies nationwide have "substantial" damage, according to a new survey by Campbell Communications, a marketing and research firm based in Washington, D.C. The most practical way to ensure...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary. In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and...

Star Rezko witness says he paid Vrdolyak bribesMarch 18, 2008 BY NATASHA KORECKI AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters Stuart Levine (left), the government's star witness in the Tony Rezko trial, testified he paid former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak (right) bribes to win government contracts for clients. (AP/Jean Lachat, Sun-Times) It didn’t take long for the prosecution’s star witness, Stuart Levine, to drop bombshells in Tony Rezko’s corruption trial. Within minutes of the start of Levine’s testimony late this afternoon, the Highland Park businessman disclosed he paid former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak bribes dating back to the 1980s to...

Guilty plea filed in bribe caseDaughter follows mother to court Wednesday, March 12, 2008 By Gordon Russell Stacy Simms, a City Hall appointee under two New Orleans mayors and the daughter of former Orleans Parish School Board President Ellenese Brooks-Simms, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to helping her mother access a series of bribes that totaled $140,000 over several years. Court documents have identified the source of the bribes as Mose Jefferson, the elder brother and chief political strategist of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who is awaiting trial himself in Virginia on 16 unrelated bribery-related counts. Mose Jefferson...

February 15, 2008 Bribes inquiry was warned of ‘another 7/7’, court told Christine Buckley, Industrial Correspondent, and Fiona Hamilton Fraud investigators were told they faced the possibility of “another 7/7” and the likely loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with inquiries into Saudi Arabia’s arms deals, it was revealed yesterday. High Court documents showed that the Saudis threatened to cut off intelligence, potentially making it easier for terrorists to attack London, if the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) did not drop its investigation into alleged corruption in deals with BAE systems. After threats by the Saudis...