Last week, on tax day, Florida postal worker Doug Hughes managed to land his small, slow-moving gyrocopter on the lawn of the US Capitol, in one of the most protected airspaces in the world. Many publications are focusing on the fact that he was able to evade our entire national defense system, but that should […]
A state-of-the-union curse? Hundreds of microwaves from Walmart used to make health supplements out of tobacco? Snake oil? Corruption? Influence peddling? Affairs? Nut bags? Indeed, in politics, truth is often stranger than any fiction.
At last, a completely honest politician. But you might be surprised by what he is saying: And he’s being funded by an IndieGoGo campaign.
Here’s an interesting twist on an old political argument, and it’s coming from the Harvard Business Review no less. Some politicians like to argue for less regulation — regulations are bad, and stifle the economy. Others like to argue for more regulation — regulations protect the middle class. But the problem isn’t regulation per se, […]
The State Integrity Investigation has released the results of its study of corruption in state governments. First, the bad news. No state received a grade of “A”, and eight states received an “F”: Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Georgia. Ironically, New Jersey received the highest grade (a “B+”) despite […]
© August J Pollak As Mitt Romney recently put it, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Indeed they are. Large organizations, whether they are corporations, government, religions, unions, etc. are all made up of people. And these individual people are all trying to get ahead — to make more money, or get more power or influence. […]
Insider trading is bad, illegal, and morally wrong. Unless of course if you are a member of Congress. Then it is just “honest graft”. Why go to all the trouble of bribing a Congressperson with campaign contributions, when you can just give them some insider information that can make them rich, legally?
© Ben Sargent Perry continues to give high-level government jobs to his big campaign donors, despite the fact that he just announced he is running for president, and despite the fact that the New York Times just published a front page article about how Perry hands out tax breaks, contracts, and appointments to his strongest […]
I get annoyed any time some pundit trots out the statistic that the corporate tax rate in the US is higher than most countries. The actual tax rate is not very meaningful when there are plenty of ways to shelter corporate income from taxes. Indeed, the US has one of the lowest effective tax rates […]
Republicans have been fighting against the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and especially hard to stop Elizabeth Warren from becoming its head. The new bureau is tasked with protecting consumers from predatory lenders and was primarily a response to massive abuses by mortgage lenders that contributed to the recent mortgage crisis. One of the most […]
© Jim Morin Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Blago didn’t do anything that most politicians do all the time, he was just a bit more blatant about it. It seems his real transgression was that he didn’t hide the fact that he was just a money grubber for reelection funds […]
A report released yesterday by a government watchdog group says that politicians in New York are more likely to leave office because of ethical or criminal misconduct than by losing an election. In fact, in the last six years, the number of government officials who left office due to scandal tripled over the previous six […]
I don’t know if this is ironic or just novel, but former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is using Twitter to tweet during his federal corruption trial. You too can follow along with governorrod! Too bad the prosecution isn’t also tweeting their case, so we can have a full micro-blogging court of public opinion. His first […]
Jon Stewart has the clearest (and most enjoyable) explanation of the Jane Harman influence scandal: Yes, that is an image of someone strangling a manatee.
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