new jersey lawmakers get tough:
Believe it or not, this may be one of the first legislative efforts to make corruption itself a punishable offense. Most officials get nailed on tax evasion, or lying to a grand jury. if they are considering a bill, it would have to have a definition of corruption. stay tuned.
APP.COM - N.J. lawmakers to get tough on corruption | Asbury Park Press Online: "TRENTON � New Jersey legislators are trying to demonstrate that they are serious about combating corruption among public officials and employees, in a state with a reputation stained by numerous high-profile scandals over the years.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on six bills that would raise the penalties for public officials and employees guilty of corruption.
The committee was also expected to vote on three bills today that would impose a minimum mandatory prison term and require the forfeiture of pensions and other retirement benefits for any public official or employee convicted of public corruption.
The committee is also slated to consider bills that would establish the crime, 'corruption of public resources,' would increase the statute of limitations from five to seven years for certain crimes involving political corruption, and would establish a 'Public Corruption Profiteering Penalty Act' to increase fines by as much as three times the value of any property involved.
The state that has had some high-profile corruption cases in recent years:"

What? Modern Day Vote Fraud? And in Stodgy old England?
I'm shocked, shocked!!!
Telegraph | News | Electoral fraud 'on a massive scale': "Corruption and vote rigging ahead of next week's local elections are taking place on a 'massive' scale, the Respect MP George Galloway has claimed.

Postal voting forms
He says his party has uncovered evidence proving that hundreds of postal votes have gone astray in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.
Special Branch are investigating the claims and police are looking into similar allegations in six other parts of London including Harrow, Kensington and Chelsea, Merton, Southwark, Hounslow and Barnet.
Their inquiries come after a 50-year-old woman was bailed in Birmingham a day after her arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. The arrest came after a raid allegedly recovered a 'large quantity' of postal voting forms.
Allegations of postal vote fraud surrounded local elections in Birmingham in June 2004. A subsequent inquiry found that ballot-rigging in two of the city's wards 'would have disgraced a banana republic'."

Kaavya Viswanathan. Oh my god! I just can't stop reading about this sordid tale. do I feel sorry for the poor little rich girl, angry that she did something so wrong?
Stop me before I google again, but meanwhile, read this from Slate.
My failed fling with a book packager. By John�Barlow: "Half a million! I read it. I said the words out loud. Then I glanced at the sales figures for my own novel, which had just made its spectacular debut on the Lower East Side of the midlist. I felt sick. A 17-year-old high-school student, Kaavya Viswanathan, gets a half-million-dollar advance through a book packager that I also wrote for, doing the self-same thing. Only I didn't get the half mil. Nor the acres of publicity. Then again, neither did I get accused of plagiarism. This is how it happened."

Kaavya Viswanathan learns a lesson. Maybe not the one she intended.
The issue with chick lit author wannabe Kaavya Viswanathan has opened a window into the world of book packagers: finally an explanation of how this business works, packaging plot and characters into something like a TV serial drama between book covers.
And they have been very successful.
But here, as I said in an earlier post, we have the worst of all worlds, commodification of a young and naive writer, for her background and race, not her talent, an obscene advance, and a formulaic product which gets pay to play coverage from the NYT.
so, with the agent, the connections, the NY address, the book moves on up the NYT list, along with its sister creations from Alloy, the company that also owns Delias, a clothing and lifestyle retailer in the pre-teen girls market. "This Sunday, books created by Alloy will be ranked at Nos. 1, 5 and 9 on The New York Times's children's paperback best-seller list."

First, Plot and Character. Then, Find an Author. - New York Times: "Nobody associated with the plagiarism accusations is pointing fingers at Alloy, a behind-the-scenes creator of some of the hottest books in young-adult publishing. Ms. Viswanathan says that she alone is responsible for borrowing portions of two novels by Megan McCafferty, 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings.' But at the very least, the incident opens a window onto a powerful company with lucrative, if tangled, relationships within the publishing industry that might take fans of series like 'The It Girl' by surprise.
In many cases, editors at Alloy � known as a 'book packager' � craft proposals for publishers and create plotlines and characters before handing them over to a writer (or a string of writers)."

Commodification
I am posting agin on this, inspired by another blogger, Tish. "They saw a very marketable commodity--young, Asian-Indian, Harvard, pretty."
in other words, its not about the writing, its about commodification of this youg person for her attributes, as away to crack a market, as many another blogger also suggests. and as they also hint, what's next? did she actually write the book?

Snarkaholic: A Case of Immaturity and Irresponsibility: "The problem, then, is not with her, but with a publshing house--Little Brown-- assumed a young person to be someone that she is not--mature enough to pen a spotless novel. The publisher rushed someone to press who should possibly have knocked around a bit, publishing in small presses, going to college, reading her stuff to peers.

That rush, perhaps, comes from a need for money--not a concern for quality work nor for the reputation or life of a young person. They saw a very marketable commodity--young, Asian-Indian, Harvard, pretty. The didn't see a young person who may have needed time to learn."

At the top of the issues list for auhors is the chick lit scandal involving the Harvard Undergraduate who was given a $$$500,000 advance by Little Brown, and then turned out to have "internalized" 30 or 40 paragraphs from another chick-lit paragon.
Too lazy to put my own thoughts together on this, I found another blogger who hits all of the high points, namely, why would any publisher give a 17 year old a 6 figure advance? and is anyone really that good a writer? does publishng these days really have anything to do with good writing? or is it all about who you know?
The unfortunate author of the blog shares the same last name as the perpetrator, but I think she is right on the mark that this is really not about the author, it is about the cultural bankruptcy and corruption in the world of big New York publishers.
the lawyer writer: A Viswanathan By Any Other Name: "So this is How Kaavya Got Published, and Got Caught. But who cares? The only child of two doctors, with access to private Ivy League consultants and a Harvard business degree awaiting, she can put the money in the bank and toddle off. Because she's underage when she wrote the book, it'll be pretty hard to sue her for libel or slander. Only the truly vengeful--or, alternatively, Ms. McCafferty--should care enough to do so. As for the editors/agents/adults? Indian journalist Nilanja (yes, that sounds like my name too) S. Roy notes in The Business Standard that 'Kaavya�s editors were comfortable admitting that Opal Mehta needed more work and more �inputs� than most manuscripts, though they gave her credit for an �original� idea' and that the public 'did have a fair idea of the many processes that went into the manufacture of this book, complete with the advance, the hype, the deal.'

The truth is, this is solely at the feet of the publishing industry, thinking that writing is some sort of game that anyone can play, if they get enough high-powered advance press on their side. Writing, even in this age of publishing, should be for writers--trained, experienced, accomplished writers who understand the business of publishing. (I hope to be one). Throwing a half million dollars at a kid with only her own judgement to guide her is irresponsible, offensive to those who work at our craft, and just plain dumb in terms of business. Kaavya's agent agrees with me 100% arguing--in her defense no less, that 'teenagers tend to adopt each other's language' and 'as a former teenager myself, I recall that spongelike ability to take popular culture and incorporate it into your own lexicon.' Great. I applaud your emphathy, baby, but why are you"

Systemic Corruption
Is systemic corruption bred by political machines? what is a political machine anyway? Is it a function of one party rule? or is it fostered by tolerance of corrupt practices? Attorneys general seem to isagree.
Illinois called 'petri dish' for corruption: "News Archive
Illinois called 'petri dish' for corruption
April 25, 2006
BY DEANNA BELLANDI ASSOCIATED PRESS


A convicted former governor and scandals at Chicago City Hall earned Illinois the dubious distinction of 'petri dish for corruption' at a national meeting of state prosecutors Tuesday.
The conviction last week of former Gov. George Ryan on federal racketeering and fraud charges was a backdrop for the National Association of Attorneys General's one-day summit in Chicago to talk about ways to stamp out public corruption.
'Illinois is apparently a petri dish for corruption. It is a real breeding ground,' Illinois Campaign for Political Reform director Cynthia Canary told the group.

But Illinois is not alone when it comes to public corruption.
'Louisiana is famous, if not infamous, for its corruption,' said Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Louisiana and a native of New Orleans.
He said Louisiana's reputation for being tolerant of corruption has kept some people from seeking public office and kept businesses away.
But Letten said"But Letten said that climate has started to change, beginning with the corruption conviction six years ago of former Gov. Edwin Edwards.

Edwards was convicted in a case that stemmed from the licensing of riverboat casinos during his final term as governor in the 1990s. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, his earliest release date is in 2011.

In Illinois, Canary said, some reasons for corruption are a lack of political competition due to the dominance one political party in some areas, such as the Democrats in Chicago, and because there are no state limits on campaign contributions.

"It is very hard for the public to tell the difference between a campaign donation and a bribery," she said.

University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson warned the attorneys general that they won't end corruption if they don't rid their states of political machines.

"You cannot have political machines and end corruption," Simpson said. "Political machines breed corruption just like garbage breeds flies."

Steering Contracts-
yet another corrupiton scandal related to steering contracts-
details sadly similar..what is it about the glitz and the luxury vacations anyway?
Connecticut News from The Hartford Courant ::: State, National, & World News On courant.com: "In a legal document expected to become public Monday, federal authorities lay out details of the cash-filled envelopes, luxury vacations, limousine trips, fancy dinners with girlfriends and visits to high-priced strip clubs that allegedly fueled a conspiracy to steer millions of dollars in state contracts."

does "privatizing" really mean, open for graft and fraud? Confirming all of our worst suspicions, seems like this is the case. In fact historically, states and municipalites have been open to corruption especially at the points where contracts and franchises are let, bid, opened, etc.
if one made a database of all of the politicians convicted for fraud or corruption, and exactly what they were convicted of, it seems to me that the vast majority would fall under graft, related to contracts.
Throughout the Republican Revolution, we have been subject to the mantra that "privatizing government functions will save money,"
Anyone who contracts out the governments business knows that this is only the case to the extent that there is adaquate oversight.
In the case of Iraq and many others, not only was no money saved, but the money which was spent failed to even complete the jobs which it was expended for.

'A free-fraud zone': "Tuesday's guilty plea by an American businessman to being part of a massive bribery and bid-rigging scheme run by members of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq confirmed the worst fears about that privatized dud of a program.
'There was no oversight anywhere near them,' said the inspector general who broke the case, which involved $8.6 million in contracts, $2 million in bribes and several phony companies. 'They considered it a free-fraud zone.' "

The worst example is to contrast the health clinics and electrical plants being built for the Iraqui citizens, with the un-holy expenditures and special security measures being taken to construct the new American Embassy in Iraq. Chalmers Johnson's Sorrows of Empire coming to fruition before our eyes.
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog: Guess which Iraq reconstruction project is on time and on budget?
The $592 million facility is being built inside the heavily fortified Green Zone by 900 non-Iraqi foreign workers who are housed nearby and under the supervision of a Kuwaiti contractor, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. Construction materials have been stockpiled to avoid the dangers and delays on Iraq's roads.

"We are confident the embassy will be completed according to schedule (by June 2007) and on budget," said Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman

And Guess which newspaper this notice appeared in?
NYT? Nope, WaPO? Nope, it was USA Today. Only.

The george Ryan Case is classic example of racketeering
Amazingly, this type of racketeering has characeterized the practice of corruption since the late 19th century.
This is almost the classic definition of corruption-
George Ryan Case is Classic example of Racketeering
Amazingly, this type of racketeering had characterized the practice of corruption since the late 19th century.
However, we need to keep in mind that, as Robin Theobold writes, the concept of corruption is predicated on the western ideal of a public sphere which is separate from private sphere, and furthermore, the existence of a disassociated secular, professionalized bureaucracy.
As articulated by German sociologist Max Weber, the perfect state embodies “the ideal of rational legal bureaucracy run by hierarchically ordered corps of officials who are recruited and promoted according to objective critera, paid a regular salary, with clear jurisdictional areas governed by clear rules and procedures.”
Has the American system really ever lived up to this ideal? Are some systems inherently corruptible?

Ex-Governor of Illinois Is Convicted on All Charges - New York Times: "After more than five months of sometimes complicated testimony in his federal case, and after five weeks of still more tangled deliberations, a jury convicted Mr. Ryan, a Republican, of granting state business to associates in exchange for cash and presents for himself, his family and his friends. "

March for Immigrant Rights: Rallys take place across the country,
I joined the march in Tucson. We did not do the whole five miles, but watched the main mass of marchers pass for nearly 20 minutes, then joined in. I estimate about 10,000, nearly all Mexican/Hispanic. what a turnout! it was very impressive, people of all ages, grandmothers and grandfathers, babies in strollers, families, veterans, and more and more and more.
This is really very historic, the first time that these workers have really stood up to claim their rights. We are the workers, they are saying, and they are.
Si Se Pueda: Yes We Can
AquiEstamos: No Nos Vamos!
We are Here, we are not Leaving
"All we want is to work and to have a better future for our children,''

I am trying to accumulate the numbers from all of the demonstrations around the country:

Atlanta 50,000
Boston 8,000
Dallas 500,000
Houston 10,000
Los Angeles 4,000
New York 125,000
Oakland 2,000
Phoenix 00,000
Providence 5,000
Sacramento 1,000
San Diego 50,000
San Francisco 5,000
San Jose 10,000
Seattle 15,000
St. Paul 30,000
Tucson 12,000
Washington 500,000
1,527,000

Daily Kos: 200,000+ March for Immigrant Rights in Phoenix

Political Crack-up Imminent?
one can only hope so. I veer between determination to get the word out by participating in blogging, letter writing, etc, and merely standing safely on the shore, watching the wreckage go by in the flood-tide.
meanwhile, I am heading off to the big immigrant rights march downtown tucson, this is going to be a big one.
the xenophobia and white rights undercurrents of those opposed to the immigrants is getting all too obvious. And those pandering to the haters are exposed for what they are.

Political Crackups: "The spectacle in Congress is no prettier. One cannot regret the fall of Tom DeLay, who combined a mastery of politics with a complete indifference to its purpose. Really, what did this man seek public office for? It's said that he was inspired by his conviction that the Environmental Protection Agency is like the Gestapo, but I suspect this theory is too kind. Unlike Newt Gingrich, who bristled with policy ideas, DeLay never seemed to care about anything beyond counting votes and cultivating links to the moneybags on K Street"

The Po'Boys Myth-
its true that lately those on the right hav been trying to portray boys as victims. Makes you wonder doesn't it. I have been meaning to craft a pity response, thank goodness Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Chait Barnett did such a good job first. and with a great history lead, too.
read the whole thing, really.

The Myth of 'The Boy Crisis': "It was the early 1900s, and boys were supposedly in crisis. In monthly magazines, ladies' journals and books, urgent polemics appeared, warning that young men were spending too much time in school with female teachers and that the constant interaction with women was robbing them of their manhood. In Congress, Sen. Albert Beveridge of Indiana railed against overeducation. He urged young men to 'avoid books and in fact avoid all artificial learning, for the forefathers put America on the right path by learning completely from natural experience.'
What boys needed, the experts said, was time outdoors, rubbing elbows with one another and learning from male role models. That's what led -- at least in part -- to the founding of the Boy Scouts in 1910."
N"ow the cry has been raised again: We're losing our boys. The media have been hyping America's new "boy crisis" in magazine cover stories, a PBS documentary and countless newspaper articles."
But are American boys in academic free fall? Not really, if we look closely. Nor do they need special boys-only classrooms to teach them in ways tailored for their unique brains.

The boy crisis we're hearing about is largely a manufactured one, the product of both a backlash against the women's movement and the media's penchant for continuously churning out news about the latest dire threat to the nation.
The alarming statistics on which the notion of a crisis is based are rarely broken out by race or class. When they are, the whole picture changes. It becomes clear that if there is a crisis, it's among inner-city and rural boys. White suburban boys aren't significantly touched by it. On average, they are not dropping out of school, avoiding college or lacking in verbal skills. Although we have been hearing that boys are virtually disappearing from college classrooms, the truth is that among whites, the gender composition of colleges is pretty balanced: 51 percent female and 49 percent male, according to the National Education Association. In Ivy League colleges, men still outnumber women.

Republican Family Values in Action:Lobbying Cases Shine Spotlight on Family Ties - New York Times: "The company's records show that the $2.3 million was received from another consulting firm, GrassRoots Interactive of Silver Spring, Md., which was established by Jack Abramoff and where he directed some of his huge lobbying fees. Billing statements prepared by Aeneas do not show what service Robert Abramoff provided to warrant millions of dollars in payments from his brother's company.
Robert Abramoff did not return phone calls for comment. His apparent entanglement in his brother's business is an example of what investigators say is something remarkable about the criminal inquiry centered on Jack Abramoff and his Washington lobbying network.
To a surprising degree, the spouses and other family members of the investigation's central targets are being caught up in the inquiry, dealing with subpoenas and interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with at least the possibility that some of them could face civil or criminal charges themselves."

Blackmail??? or just extortion?
federal investigation into whether a longtime contributor for the Page Six gossip column — the avidly read daily log of wrongdoing, double-dealing and sexual indiscretions by celebrities both minor and major — tried to extort money from a California billionaire, according to a spokesman for The New York Post.
In Page Six Inquiry, Gossip Swirls Around Gossips - New York Times: "Several people involved in the investigation said the reporter, Jared Paul Stern, had been captured on a video recording demanding a $100,000 payment and a monthly stipend of $10,000 from Ronald W. Burkle in return for keeping negative information about him out of the paper. "
"Those who say they know what is on the tape said Mr. Stern named Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax films, and Ronald O. Perelman, the chairman of Revlon, as being among those who have had their coverage on the page finessed."

Earmarks back in the target zone-
Earmarks again lead to kickbacks and cronyism. Another congressman, on the house apropriations committee, more "non-profits" funneling money to cronies and relatives.

Congressman's Special Projects Bring Complaints - New York Times: "The most ambitious effort by the congressman, Alan B. Mollohan, is a glistening glass-and-steel structure with a swimming pool, sauna and spa rising in a former cow pasture in Fairmont, W.Va., thanks to $103 million of taxpayer money he garnered through special spending allocations known as earmarks.
The headquarters building is likely to sit largely empty upon completion this summer, because the Mollohan-created organization that it was built for, the Institute for Scientific Research, is in disarray, its chief executive having resigned under a cloud of criticism over his $500,000 annual compensation, also paid by earmarked federal money.
The five organizations have diverse missions but form a cozy, cross-pollinated network in the forlorn former coal capitals of north-central West Virginia. Mr. Mollohan has recruited many of their top employees and board members, including longtime friends or former aides, who in turn provide him with steady campaign contributions and positive publicity in their newsletters.
The conservative National Legal and Policy Center in Falls Church, Va., filed a 500-page complaint with the United States attorney for the District of Columbia on Feb. 28 challenging the accuracy of Mr. Mollohan's financial disclosure forms. The forms show a sharp spike in assets and income from rental properties from 2000 to 2004.
Federal authorities said yesterday that they were reviewing the complaint, which was reported in The Wall Street Journal.
The case has led several Republican leaders to call for Mr. Mollohan's removal from the House ethics committee, where he is the senior Democrat."

With and obliging God on your Side, anything is possible,
just happened upon this piece, and its a winner, read the whole thing why not?

Our Pious Babylon: "DeLay's apparently is the most obliging of Lords. He stuck with the embattled incumbent long enough for DeLay to give a 'Texas whuppin' ' to those infidels who ran against him in the Republican primary, only to counsel withdrawal when the polling made clear that a Democrat could still beat The Hammer in the fall."
The broader question is whether such a deity still rules in Washington. As gods go, He was surely more ethically flexible than most. Lesser gods might frown upon bribery, fraud, greed and the abrogation of the democratic process, but this one was willing to overlook such trifles if they strengthened the Republicans' hold on the House and were performed in a spirit of piety.

The latest in the litany of outrageous acts by pious men was revealed in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, where reporters Tom Hamburger and Ken Silverstein documented the efforts of lobbyist Jack Abramoff to sell his services to the Sudanese government in 2001. Quoting both the Sudanese ambassador and an unidentified former Abramoff associate, they recount how Abramoff offered to improve the image of the quasi-genocidal regime among Christian evangelicals in return for a retainer of $16 million to $18 million. An Abramoff spokesman rebutted the account, insisting that Abramoff merely told the ambassador of his objections to the Sudanese government's war on its Christian population. But the very setting of this encounter -- Abramoff's skybox at FedEx Field during a Redskins game -- casts some doubt on the spokesman's account.

"This persecution has got to stop and -- say, check out that second cheerleader from the right!"

The Delay Delay- a delay in recognizing the total corruption of the Delay K-street protections racket- and still, a reluctance by MSM to call it for what it really is- Pay to Play.
I am tired tonight, so I am just going to copy n all of this excellent editorial from Palm Beach
DeLay legacy: Corruption: "Rep. Tom DeLay is leaving Congress. He blames 'liberal Democrats,' but if he wants to blame someone other than himself - and, of course, he does - Rep. DeLay should blame Republican enablers who were content to let him misuse power so long as they benefited.
Republicans were thrilled with contributions that flowed after Rep. DeLay followed up on the GOP takeover of 1994 with the K Street Project, which coerced lobbying firms to hire Republicans and fire Democrats. That sealed the connection with Jack Abramoff, described by Rep. DeLay as 'one of my closest and dearest friends,' whose dirty contributions now taint so many Republican lawmakers."
Rep. Delay's GOP enablers include Reps. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, and Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale. Rep. Foley served under Rep. DeLay in the leadership and received $5,000 in donations from Abramoff and his clients. Rep. Shaw, like Rep. Foley, supported the unsuccessful candidacy of DeLay protégé Roy Blunt, R-Mo., to replace Rep. DeLay as majority leader.

Consider the favors House Republicans did for Rep. DeLay as he slid into scandal. When three of his associates were indicted on campaign finance charges in Texas in September 2004, they changed the rule that would have required Rep. DeLay to give up his leadership post if indicted. They later changed the rules to prevent the Ethics Committee from investigating Rep. DeLay. Bad publicity forced them to backtrack. But even after Rep. DeLay was indicted in Texas on money-laundering charges, GOP leaders gave Rep. DeLay a plum seat on the Appropriations Committee.

The scandal now has come so close to Rep. DeLay that his colleagues no longer can play dumb. DeLay lackeys who have pleaded guilty to various federal charges include former press secretary Michael Scanlon, Abramoff and, just last week, former deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy, who admitted taking bribes from Abramoff to influence legislation while he worked for Rep. DeLay, R-Texas.

Meanwhile, the FBI has subpoenaed records from the U.S. Family Network created by Edwin Buckham while he still was Rep. DeLay's chief of staff. Turns out Abramoff provided a big chunk of the organization's money, and Mr. Buckham and his wife paid themselves more than $1 million from the pot.

So Rep. Delay, who piously claimed the moral, Christian high ground even as he ruthlessly sought and abused power, is resigning as the immorality of his actions becomes increasingly clear. He is leaving a legacy of corruption that is likely to last until his enablers have left, too, or at least repented.

What were they thinking?
Ever read a historical account of a political compromise and wonder, What were they thinking?
well, here we have a textbook case of embracing a wedge issue for short term political gain, knowing that it is inciting the worst implusles of the mass audience, the racist, hateful, anti-immigrant scapegoating that american politicians embrace eery time they are in trouble. Think anti-chinese riots in the 1880s, see-no-evil ignoring of lynching in the twentieth, and of course the anti-immigration laws of 1924.
Here we go again.

The GOP Walks A Border Tightrope: "The difficulty for Republicans, though, is that their short-term political interests -- winning in November -- are arguably at odds with their long-term viability as a majority party. Their base is demoralized about the party's performance and riled up about immigration. Pushing for tough restrictions and resisting anything that has the whiff of leniency toward those who entered the country illegally may be the best way for Republicans to get their voters to the polls in November. And the recent protests, as unnerving as they are for Rove's dream of a GOP-inclined Hispanic electorate, also have the perverse effect of further enraging those already inflamed about immigration.
'White suburban voters who voted for George Bush are disaffected now,' says Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. 'Would I rather be talking about immigration reform with these voters or the war? Immigration reform or gasoline prices? Sometimes, in order to avoid or avert the tidal wave, you have to do things that short-term make a little more sense than they do in the long term.'"

Culture vs Social
after months of contemplating the nature of cultural history and social history: what is culture? Where does culture end and society begin? Here is an essay by Orlando Patterson, asserting that social scientists are allergic to cultural explanations of poverty, in this case, poverty in black america.
First of all, we should note his definition of culture: a group's cultural attributes comprise "its distinctive attitudes, values and predispositions, and the resulting behavior of its members." Ok that's succinct.
Patterson accuses academics of willfully ignoring cultural explanations, and instead exhibiting a "relentless preference for relying on structural factors like low incomes, joblessness, poor schools and bad housing."
The problem as he sees it, is that if these structural issues adaquately explained the problem, than they would suggest an effective strategy to deal with it.
Or is the larger political nation instead ignoring the solutions? willfully ignoring anything that might cost money, of the shift of power?
And anyway, it is not just poor blacks, in any large metropolitan area, and in most rural counties, there is also an underclass of whites, honest to goodness non imigrant, home grown white trash to use the technical term. People who seem to see themselves as outside the system or working to get ahead and get a nice house in the suburbs.
Patterson identifies "Three gross misconceptions about culture explain the neglect."
"First is the pervasive idea that cultural explanations inherently blame the victim; that they focus on internal behavioral factors and, as such, hold people responsible for their poverty, rather than putting the onus on their deprived environment. (It hasn't helped that many conservatives do actually put forth this view.)"

"Second, it is often assumed that cultural explanations are wholly deterministic, leaving no room for human agency."

"Third, it is often assumed that cultural patterns cannot change."

"This too is nonsense." says Patterson, "Indeed, cultural patterns are often easier to change than the economic factors favored by policy analysts."

In fact Patterson sees young black men ensnared in a "Dionysian trap": a hip-hop sub-culture that provides powerful incentives and is tightly connected to mainstream pop culture: "Hip-hop, professional basketball and homeboy fashions are as American as cherry pie."



A Poverty of the Mind - New York Times

We can't afford to lose sight of the Abramoff/Delay scandal connections. Here is more:
Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit: "A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.
DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show."

Fascinating and Important interview with the author of Sorrows of Empire, and Blowback. very long, but as a retired scholar, he can be totally up front, honest, and he is.
Interview with Chalmers Johnson: Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: "Chalmers Johnson:What I don't understand is that the current defense budget and the recent Quadrennial Defense Review (which has no strategy in it at all) are just continuations of everything we did before. Make sure that the couple of hundred military golf courses around the world are well groomed, that the Lear jets are ready to fly the admirals and generals to the Armed Forces ski resort in Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or the military's two luxury hotels in downtown Seoul and Tokyo.
What I can't explain is what has happened to Congress. Is it just that they're corrupt? That's certainly part of it. I'm sitting here in California's 50th district. This past December, our congressman Randy Cunningham confessed to the largest single bribery case in the history of the U.S. Congress: $2.4 million in trinkets -- a Rolls Royce, some French antiques -- went to him, thanks to his ability as a member of the military subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to add things secretly to the budget. He was doing this for pals of his running small companies. He was adding things even the Department of Defense said it didn't want. "

comment from Kos writer about the 3 day wonder boy journalist, if you can call him that.
Daily Kos: State of the Nation: "Ben Domenech did not get his position at the Washington Post based on merit. He got his position because of connections. He was home-schooled in part because his family--unlike most American families--could maintain a comfortable living with only one parent working outside the home. He got in to William and Mary, but he did not come close to graduating. (And given his penchant for plagiarism, one would have to wonder if intellectual thievery prompted a forced departure from William and Mary.) Nevertheless, despite no degree or significant life accomplishments, he got some patronage jobs in the Bush administration, no doubt because his father is an upper level GOP apparatchik. He has gotten bylines over at that bastion of heartless blue bloods, the National Review Online. He was a founder of Redstate.com. (And can you believe those clowns have shut down comments from new members, banned anyone who criticizes Domenech, and are actively defending this thief?) And he parlayed all those connections in to getting the Washington Post gig while still in his mid-20's.
Would anyone recognize a similar career trajectory of some schmoe from a working class community outside the DC/NYC/Boston/LA/Bay Area metro areas, who went to a state university, got great grades, but whose blue collar parents didn't have the connections of a Ben Domenech? Especially within the context of the current GOP, somebody with that background (and whose family wasn't tightly connected with politically powerful religious leaders) might as well be a feral child. Even with a college degree, intelligence, industry, drive and maybe some experience, somebody without the connections of a Ben Domenech almost certainly would not get the opportunity to work in a presidential administration, write for a major opinion magazine, and be awarded an opinion gig at one of "

Well this is the latest hot story,
the red state blogger at the post, quits after discovery of plagerism,
but the blogoshere is aquiver with outrage at why the post hired him in the first place- see more from Daily Kos

Post.com Blogger Quits Amid Furor: "A 24-year-old conservative blogger hired by The Washington Post Co.'s Web site resigned yesterday, three days after his debut, amid a flurry of allegations of plagiarism.
Ben Domenech, an editor with Regnery Publishing, relinquished the part-time position hours after a liberal Web site posted evidence that he had plagiarized part of a movie review he wrote for National Review Online. Previous allegations of plagiarism in Domenech's writing for the College of William & Mary student newspaper surfaced Wednesday, but the 2001 review was the first instance found since he attended the college"

Family Squabbles
I think this is an important opinion piece, which looks at the far left, and its eat your family attitude- frequenly turning on those who support the environnment and safeguard civil liberties, as Connelly says, for not being radical enough. I have seen similar scenarios play out as individuals are judged not perfect enough to run for office as a democrat. as If all those republican high school drop-outs are perfect.
Cantwell's vilification by left is bizarre: "With President Bush sinking in the polls, and chances of an independent Congress on the rise, the left fringe in Seattle politics is noisily sniping at Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.
It's bizarre, but not all that unusual: Our 'Hey Hey, Ho Ho' crew is notorious for giving conservatives a free pass.
Instead, the loudest leather-lunged protests get reserved for those in public life who -- awkwardly, sometimes imperfectly -- try to preserve the environment, protect the consumer and safeguard civil liberties."

San Francisco shows that it is possible to build housing for low income and homeless families- putting to rest what seems to be the conventional wisdom these days that nothing can be done.
so, where is the rest of the country- get with it. and check out the photos, nice building, not your parents projects.

SAN FRANCISCO / A new oasis in Tenderloin / Curran House is home for families with lower incomes: "Fidel and Sylvia Cazares have moved five times in 10 years, but from the looks of their new apartment in the heart of San Francisco's gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, they are finally home.
The spacious three-bedroom unit is filled with polished furniture, paintings on the wall and floral arrangements in vases. Compared to the one-bedroom the couple -- and their four young children -- previously lived in, it's a major upgrade. "

ok- i guess I am in official blog mode again,
but this appealed to me, not just your ordinary - things could be worse, or we should appreciate freedom, but the essential fact that people just want to live their lives, raise and educate their kids- what is it that keeps getting in the way?
and where does Bush's vaunted "freedom" kick into this?

Washington Stories: "It's an odd place, Washington. This is a city rife with real outrages: corrupt congressmen, incompetent officials, dangerous or stupid ideas. As a result, it's also a city of quarrels and arguments, a place where people endlessly discuss 'our broken health-care system' and 'our disastrous foreign policy.' Here, the phrase 'this town' -- as in 'I've had it with this town's hypocrisy' or 'I'm sick of this town's attitude' -- refers not to streets and buildings but to this metaphorical Washington, with its bitter politics and its angry debates.
And yet Washington is also a very real home, both permanent and temporary, to many people whose sole desire is to live an ordinary life -- to study, to work, to talk about what they please -- but who cannot do so, whether in Mali, in Russia, in Iran or somewhere else. Every once in a while, and for no particular reason, I try to remember how lucky I am to have been born here, where the possibility of living such an ordinary life is so easily taken for granted."

Manliness- it was only a matter of time before the inevitable fusion of the new academic fascination with masculinity and the pop zeitgeist turned up as manliness- so here is a book, and few comments on it by Ruth Marcus in the WP:

Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere.

Though manliness is "the quality mostly of one sex," Mansfield allows that women can be manly, too, though the sole example he can seem to come up with, and deploys time and again, is Margaret Thatcher. "Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive?" he wonders, but not really. "Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?" Me-ow!
so whats wrong with this picture-
besides the obvious? let us count the ways, dear friends.

Man Overboard: "'Manliness' is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as 'confidence in the face of risk,' is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute."

BOOKS
on the subject of mixed race experience- a side interest of mine-

'A Million Nightingales,' by Susan Straight - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "'A Million Nightingales' joins a growing literature on the mixed-race experience in America, from Danzy Senna's picaresque 'Caucasia' to Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty.' Straight has given this body of work a historical foundation, a point of reference in the past. But her novel is, besides, a powerful and moving story, written in language so beautiful you can almost believe the words themselves are capable of salving history's wounds. "

Well, I have been neglecting the BLOG but antoher fraud story... I wrote a bit on Cendant for the Encyclopedia of white collar crime, so here is an update:
Prosecutors plan to try former Cendant Corp. chairman Walter Forbes for a third time on charges he participated in a massive fraud that cost the company and investors more than $3 billion.
Forbes' first two trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not reach a verdict. His second trial ended in February after a U.S. District Court jury in Hartford deliberated for 27 days

Another trial planned in Cendant fraud case - Boston.com: "Jurors last year convicted Forbes' co-defendant, former Cendant Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton, of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud and making false statements to the SEC.
Shelton was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $3.27 billion restitution to Cendant, including a balloon payment of $15 million and monthly installments of $2,000 after he is released from prison.
Prosecutors said Shelton inflated revenue by $500 million at Cendant's predecessor, CUC International, to drive up the stock price. The fraud was reported in 1998, causing Cendant's market value to drop by $14 billion in one day.
CUC, which ran a membership marketing operation, merged with HFS Inc., a travel and real-estate services company, to form Cendant. Cendant's brands include Ramada, Howard Johnson, Avis, Coldwell Banker and Century 21."

Corruption- interenational
Is Wolfowitz capable of a counter offensive against corrupiton at the IMF? That was the claim a few weeks ago, although it seems unlikely on the face of it.
Patrick Bond: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank: "With these diverse examples, what can we conclude about the dire state of international financial governance? Wolfowitz cannot be trusted, and although his minor anti-corruption sweep is causing staff anxiety, there is no indication that deeper-rooted problems at the Bank will surface, through, for example, whistleblower protection that is now being widely called for by watchdog groups.
As Charles Abugre of Christian Aid wrote in Pambazuka recently, 'To monitor compliance often requires even greater involvement and power of donors in domestic governance. It is like saying that new forms of colonisation are acceptable on human rights grounds. This is dangerous. Yet, there are cases where human rights abuses, dictatorship and corruption are at such a level that the impact of debt relief and aid will be to strengthen repression and enrich a few than promote development.'"
Dennis Brutus from Jubilee South Africa is in town to launch his fantastic new book, Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Books and UKZN Press). As I talk this dilemma over with him, he offers a very simple proposition: 'It seems to me that both the IMF and Bank are inherently corrupt institutions, because they systematically transfer the wealth of poor countries to the North. While they are asking their clients--dictators and other ruling elites--to clean up their act, our job is still is to demand the abolition of this much more broadly corrupt system.'

Expectation of Corruption
OK- this is from Opednews.com: they did a poll in penna. but it is their interpretation that is very interesting:

"If you add up the percentage of Republicans who say that Republicans are corrupt and both parties are corrupt you get a total of 77% of Republicans saying that Republicans are corrupt, compared to 15% of Democrats saying Democrats are corrupt. What does this mean? Republicans assume their representatives are corrupt because they think everyone is corrupt. That's the mindset of a culture of corruption. They see they world as corrupt and they accept it."
Trickle Down Republican Corruption; Poll Results show right wing corruption exists at all levels

"America for Sale: The Cost of Republican Corruption"
dem. party releases report detiling the culture of corruption, so, I'll just go ahead and download it, and report back. Meanwhile, of course
"House GOP calls corruption report corrupt"
of course.....

The Democratic Party: "Congresswoman Louise Slaughter released a 103 page (.pdf) report detailing the Republican culture of corruption and it's impact on the American people. "

Pump and Dump: Financial Fraud Theory
This is a very interesting discussion of corporate fraud- on the subject of tying fraud directly into the "values" of capitalism.
"Leading figures in fraud often surrounded themselves with people who were willing to collaborate in dubious activities. They often selected people who were drawn to risk-taking and the prospects of high rewards. Importantly, the ringleaders also created organizational routines and cultures that socialized people into going along with suspect activities. They used a mix of bribery and bullying to normalize corruption."
Pump and Dump: "In their new book, 'Pump and Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New Economy,' sociology professors Robert H. Tillman and Michael L. Indergaard say that recent corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom are symptoms of corporate governance problems that began in the 1990s.
Using a financial fraud theory called 'pump and dump,' corporate elite artificially inflated stocks and securities in order to sell their shares at higher prices, leaving any fall-out and responsibility on naive investors."

Alaska tie to prisoner transport???
this series of very strange reports on the seizure of planes, and ariad on "security Aviation in Anchorage suggests all sorts of erie things-
adn.com | alaska : Armory on jet sent tipster to feds: "'Come see what we have,' one of them told her, she recalled.
'They had it set up under the guise of a medevac, with a full bar in it, by the way,' she said. The cabin was comfortable, but they were also eager to show off what was under the cabin floor.
When they lifted the carpet and undid the hatch, she saw a compartment filled with weapons: guns on hangers, devices that looked like grenades or smoke bombs, flak jackets -- enough for a half-dozen men to hold off a sizable attacking force.
'They had enough handguns in there to stick in every single pocket they could ever think of,' she said. There were two heavy machine guns, the kind that usually mount on a tripod, and at least two belts of large-caliber ammunition for them. She saw assault rifles and ammo clips and silencers, she said.
She said she asked why they needed the weapons. 'They said that they were for whenever they transported dignitaries and they took prisoners,' she said. 'They said they worked for the government, and they took prisoners to interrogate them.'"
FAA flight records show the Gulfstreams have made flights to Asia, Europe and the Bahamas.

Yet another all to common case of business-turns-to ponzi-scheme. Nice guy gone bad; more than 200 former customers who together lost millions when the company went bankrupt in 2003
DesMoinesRegister.com: "Once the broker of millions of dollars worth of real estate in Iowa and Nebraska, Wolford Sr. faces up to 165 years in prison after being found guilty of every count of felony fraud and theft filed against him � a total of 17. The former owner of the Wolford Group Inc. will be sentenced April 21 in Polk County District Court.

His son, Rod Wolford II, also faces possible prison time for his part in misleading scores of home buyers, sellers and investors as the now-defunct, family-owned business struggled from 2000 to 2003.

Wolford and his son once bought and sold hundreds of houses using high-risk land contracts that did not carry the same protections as traditional mortgages. Often, they sought to buy properties at low prices from people in distressed situations, and then sell them at much higher prices and interest rates to people with poor credit.

As the Wolfords' business floundered, witnesseses in the trial said, they began to "rob Peter to pay Paul," stealing mortgage settlement money to cover their payroll and growing debt. In the end, more than 200 people lost thousands of dollars, had their credit ruined, were sued by banks or kicked out of their homes.

"It's amazing to me that this could even happen with a buyer's money," said Polk County prosecutor George Karnas, who handled the case with two attorneys from the Iowa attorney general's office. "The Legislature needs to figure this out to make sure that the money gets to the right people."

With Wolford Sr.'s criminal trial over, the attorney general's office is now free to proceed with a consumer fraud lawsuit it brought against the Wolfords in the summer of 2003. Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the office, said attorneys will evaluate how best to move forward, given that the two men could wind up behind bars and that their company is bankrupt.

U.S. church alliance denounces Iraq war: "The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a 'culture of consumption' and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.
'We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights,' said the statement from representatives of the 34 U.S. members of World Council of Churches. 'We mourn all who have died or been injured in this war. We acknowledge with shame abuses carried out in our name.'
The World Council of Churches includes more than 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches; the Roman Catholic Church is not a member. The U.S. groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox churches and Baptist denominations, among others"

Where there's a system, there's a way to defraud it
unfortunately this is a terrible article, which seems to xoom in on the work "illegal immigrants" without exactly describing how this particular scheme worked- (see rest of article) did the immigrants actually want to buy houses? -instead of focusing on the incidents of actual blatent fraud- below, that feature selling of property the seller does not even own- the oldest scheme in the book.

Real estate fraud grows in Colorado - Denver - MSNBC.com: "In a major crackdown on mortgage fraud in Colorado, federal and state officials are aggressively prosecuting real estate agents, mortgage brokers and homeowners engaged in a wide range of real estate schemes. "
In November, Suthers began wrapping up a case that's indicative of the increasingly serious and costly threat to the lending and real estate industries. He obtained a statewide grand jury indictment against Raymond P. Morris that brought 141 felony counts in a scheme to allegedly defraud investors. Morris, according to Douglas County District Court records, allegedly promised lots on a parcel of land he didn't own in a residential area he called "Cherry Valley Land Development." Morris allegedly didn't develop the land and investors never received title to the properties for which they paid, with some 36 Coloradans losing about $2.5 million, investigators said.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office and Division of Securitiews assisted with the investigation. Morris remained in jail on $250,000 bail and is set for arraignment on March 8.

Another alleged scheme Morris used to defraud investors was convincing them to lend money to third parties and offering promissory notes secured with forged deeds of trust to the third parties' homes. Those third parties, however, were never involved in the transaction and never received any of the money, Suthers said. Last summer, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office filed a series of indictments against real estate agents who sold 41 homes allegedly using false documentation. The government-backed loans totaled $7.7 million and an indictment was filed against Lakewood real estate agent Patricia Soehnge, who allegedly received $197,000 in commissions.

In November, Suthers began wrapping up a case that's indicative of the increasingly serious and costly threat to the lending and real estate industries. He obtained a statewide grand jury indictment against Raymond P. Morris that brought 141 felony counts in a scheme to allegedly defraud investors. Morris, according to Douglas County District Court records, allegedly promised lots on a parcel of land he didn't own in a residential area he called "Cherry Valley Land Development." Morris allegedly didn't develop the land and investors never received title to the properties for which they paid, with some 36 Coloradans losing about $2.5 million, investigators said.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office and Division of Securitiews assisted with the investigation. Morris remained in jail on $250,000 bail and is set for arraignment on March 8.

Another alleged scheme Morris used to defraud investors was convincing them to lend money to third parties and offering promissory notes secured with forged deeds of trust to the third parties' homes. Those third parties, however, were never involved in the transaction and never received any of the money, Suthers said. Last summer, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office filed a series of indictments against real estate agents who sold 41 homes allegedly using false documentation. The government-backed loans totaled $7.7 million and an indictment was filed against Lakewood real estate agent Patricia Soehnge, who allegedly received $197,000 in commissions.

In November, Suthers began wrapping up a case that's indicative of the increasingly serious and costly threat to the lending and real estate industries. He obtained a statewide grand jury indictment against Raymond P. Morris that brought 141 felony counts in a scheme to allegedly defraud investors. Morris, according to Douglas County District Court records, allegedly promised lots on a parcel of land he didn't own in a residential area he called "Cherry Valley Land Development." Morris allegedly didn't develop the land and investors never received title to the properties for which they paid, with some 36 Coloradans losing about $2.5 million, investigators said.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office and Division of Securitiews assisted with the investigation. Morris remained in jail on $250,000 bail and is set for arraignment on March 8.

Another alleged scheme Morris used to defraud investors was convincing them to lend money to third parties and offering promissory notes secured with forged deeds of trust to the third parties' homes. Those third parties, however, were never involved in the transaction and never received any of the money, Suthers said. Last summer, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office filed a series of indictments against real estate agents who sold 41 homes allegedly using false documentation. The government-backed loans totaled $7.7 million and an indictment was filed against Lakewood real estate agent Patricia Soehnge, who allegedly received $197,000 in commissions.

Corruption affects the most basic human rights:

World water crisis worsened by corruption, repression: UN report - Irna: "Corruption, restricted political rights and limited civil liberties are all factors that lie behind the planet's growing water crisis, says a new UN report that focuses on the precious resource of fresh water.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said Monday that the second edition of the UN World Water Development Report shows the global water crisis is largely a crisis of governing systems that 'determine who gets what water, when and how, and decides who has the right to water and related services.'
The report will be released on March 9 in Mexico City by Gordon Young, Coordinator of the UN World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), and Cristobal Jaime Jazquez, Director-General of the National Water Commission of Mexico, a press release issued by the UN Information Center (UNIC) said here Tuesday. "

Twenty-First Century face of Bobber Baron entrepreneurial capitalism- These guys use the tooks and techniques of todays technologies in ways that the big companies only dream about, and then sometimes pay for, so what if there is a little cheating? that's business, eh?
this s a great article, very long, somehwere around page 4 he gets to the kicker-
"In 2004, venture capitalists invested $40 million in 180solutions, fueling rapid growth. That year, 180 says, it raked in more than $50 million delivering online ads for some of America's best-known corporations, including JP Morgan Chase, Cingular, T-Mobile, Monster.com and Expedia.com. (Among the hundreds of companies that have placed ads through 180solutions is Kaplan University Online, which is owned by The Washington Post Co.)"

Invasion of the Computer Snatchers: "Company executives acknowledge they didn't begin addressing the fraud problems wrought by what 180 co-founder Dan Todd calls 'a few bad actors' until mid-2004. Dressed in worn-out jeans and an untucked dress shirt, 34-year-old Todd puts one foot up on the coffee table in his glass office and tries to explain how things spiraled so far out of control. 'At some point between dealing with legitimate distributors and these botnet guys who try real hard to look like good guys, we realized that something had gone terribly wrong and that our plan of outsourcing our relationship to the consumer had backfired,' Todd says."

World Bank Changes Direction:
after years of ordering cuts to state spending which translated into cutting education and health care, does Bank finally admit their policies never worked?
Breaking Ranks at the World Bank: "The authors of the World Bank report, 'Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circle,' recognize that a country can't necessarily grow its way out of poverty, and that poverty can be a huge drag on economies and on growth. Poor regions lacking in infrastructure fail to attract investment. Poor families, faced with substandard schools and high costs, are less likely to invest in the education of their children. And, as has been particularly clear in recent years, countries unable to moderate income disparities face social tensions that jeopardize business. As the authors quantify it, when poverty levels increase by 10 percent, growth decreases by 1 percent and investment is reduced by up to 8 percent of a country's GDP.
Two of their main conclusions are a breakthrough for the Bank: that private sector growth is not a panacea for the poor and that inequality must be targeted directly. A third conclusion is almost heretical for the Bank: that the state needs to take on more economic responsibility than less. 'Converting the state into an agent that promotes equality of opportunities and practices efficient redistribution is, perhaps, the most critical challenge Latin America faces in implementing better policies that simultaneously stimulate growth and reduce inequality and poverty,' the report says."

Shrinking Bubble?
sometime last summer I posted a few items wondering if the real estate frenzy was an actual bubble- so I feel obligated to update. It seems that the rush on yet to be built condos was indeed a bubble, fueled by speulators. Now that some are wanting their profit, of course the market is falling.
will this same scenario apply to a the rest of the housing market? stay tuned.
Farewell, Condo Cash-Outs - New York Times: "Of 23 investors who sold since Clarendon 1021 opened last summer, the three most recent sellers actually lost money, after paying all fees, and average profits in the building have declined since August, said Frank Borges LLosa, owner of FranklyRealty.com.
The Great Condo Gold Rush is fading from memory and the Great Sell-Off has begun. 'Money Down! Motivated Seller, Want More? Just Ask!' screamed an investor's online advertisement last week for a one-bedroom apartment in Clarendon 1021 that had never been lived in."

Payola, radio pay-to-play, is back, with support of large radio conglomerates.
ABC News: Payola Focus Turns To Major Radio Conglomerates: "Feb. 7, 2006 -- ABC News has learned the focus of a two-year long payola investigation by the New York attorney general is turning to the nation's nine largest radio conglomerates.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says evidence he has gathered clearly shows some of the radio conglomerates have participated in the illegal practice of accepting payments from record companies and middlemen for guaranteed air play for certain songs.
'The behavior has been unethical, improper, illegal and a sanction of some severity clearly should be imposed,' Spitzer told ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.
Spitzer and music industry officials told 'Primetime' that millions of dollars in payments, gifts and trips are exchanged each year to get music stations to add songs to their weekly play lists.
Spitzer says record company documents obtained in the investigation of Sony Music and Warner, both who have settled with the attorney general, reveal payments for songs that became major hits, including Jennifer Lopez's 'I'm Real' and John Mayer's 'Daughters.'
Other artists whose songs are named in the documents Spitzer has obtained include Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Maroon 5, Good Charlotte, Franz Ferdinand, Switchfoot, Michelle Branch, and R.E.M."

Insider Gambling Ring Coyotes' assistant served with complaint in gambling bust | www.azstarnet.com �: "Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet financed a nationwide sports gambling ring in which about a dozen current NHL players placed bets, authorities said Tuesday.
Tocchet, a former NHL star, was served with a criminal complaint Monday and was expected to travel from his Arizona home to answer charges of promoting gambling, money laundering and conspiracy, state police Col. Rick Fuentes said.
Fuentes said an investigation into the New Jersey-based ring discovered the processing of more than 1,000 wagers, exceeding $1.7 million, on professional and college sports, mostly football and baseball. He declined to identify the NHL players who made wagers.
Authorities said Tocchet and state police Trooper James J. Harney were partners in the operation, with the ex-NHL forward providing the financing."

put this in the racketeering, fraud, and payoff files:
Pellicano and 6 Others Are Indicted - Los Angeles Times: "In a sweeping indictment that reads like an unfinished Hollywood screenplay, onetime private investigator Anthony Pellicano and six others were accused Monday of conspiring to wiretap, blackmail and intimidate dozens of celebrities and business executives, including actor Sylvester Stallone, comic Garry Shandling and real estate developer Robert McGuire.

The 110-count federal indictment outlines a complicated web of payoffs to police, high-tech eavesdropping and other skulduggery. Prosecutors allege that Pellicano scoured confidential communications and law enforcement databases for scandalous details that would scare off lawsuits or provide his clients with the upper hand in courtroom battles."

Infiltrating Quaker Peace Activities
i had heard these rumors, apparantly this is true- the Bush Cheney administration has authroized infiltration of Quaker sponsored Truth Project- shades of the 60s, No?
Where is the outrage?
People's Weekly World - Hearings, lawsuit slam Bush spying defense: "The warrantless spying secretly ordered by Bush in 2001 includes wiretapping by the National Security Agency and a separate Defense Department project, Operation Talon.

Richard Hersh, an activist with the Truth Project in Palm Beach, Fla., which distributes counter-recruitment literature at local high schools, called surveillance directed at him and his group �absolutely ridiculous.�

�We are exercising our constitutional rights,� he told the World. �Our purpose is to educate teenagers, to give them enough information so that they can make an informed choice about whether to enlist in the military, to help them balance the misinformation they are getting from the recruiters.�

NBC News obtained a secret 400-page Pentagon document that listed the Truth Project as a �credible threat� to national security. The Pentagon sent an agent to spy on the group�s first meeting at the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth in 2004, one of almost four dozen similar meetings nationwide infiltrated on Bush-Cheney orders.

The report revealed that the Defense Department spy operation kept tabs on 1,500 �suspicious incidents� such as distribution of antiwar leaflets at high schools, peace vigils and town hall meetings.

Eight people are active in the Truth Project, Hersh said, including Quakers, a 79-year-old grandmother and Hersh himself, partially disabled by a nerve disease that often confines him to a wheelchair.

Hersh added with a chuckle, �Yes, I guess we are a �credible threat.� The truth is always a threat to those who are lying. We are always a threat to illegitimate and unjust powers.� "

Earmarks are the currency of corruption.
While Republicans claim that they are “fixing” the ethics problem with lobbying limitations, earmarks are the currency in which the quid pro quo of this latest round
of corruption are transacted. Current proposals in the House of Representatives which aim to limit lobbying are attacking only half of the problem. While some in the blogosphere and the mainstream press are saying that Hassert has been at arms
length, it is the very substance of the way legislation in the house has been managed,
particularly the odious transportation bill that has fostered the climate of corruption.

Republican House members couldn’t be collecting as salesmen if there was nothing to sell. Thus, the House leadership has been integrally involved in this culture of corruption. Assuming that The K Street Project operates only on K Street is looking at only one half of the transaction. While many have focused on the gifts, trips and fundraisers, they have mostly ignored the fact that the congressmen must have something to hand out: not just the promise of a vote on a particular bill one way or another. What congressmen have to give out is earmarks.
Ken Silverstein, explained earmarks as far back as July, in Harpers: "The Great American Pork Barrel: Washington Streamlines the Means of Corruption."
"Earmarks are added anonymously, frequently during last-minute, closed-door sessions of the appropriations committees. An especially attractive feature for those private interests seeking earmarks is that they are awarded on a noncompetitive basis and recipients need not meet any performance standards."
"In the past two decades, the pastime has become breathtaking in its profligacy. ... Last year, 15,584 separate earmarks worth a combined $32.7 billion were attached to the appropriations bills ¬ more than twice the dollar amount in 2001 ... and more than
three times the dollar amount in 1998, when roughly 2,000 earmarks totaled $10.6 billion. The process is so willfully murky that abuse has become not the exception, but the rule.”

Of course it is the House Republican hierarchy which controls and thus allows, or perhaps even encourages this budget process. And it is the house hierarchy which passed “the DeLay rule” allowing DeLay to continue as majority leader even after he was indicted.

In the last session, it was Alaska’s buffoon Don Young who was the stooge invited to be chairman of a process which passed the most bloated transportation bill in history, including the famous “Bridge to Nowhere.” (which Stevens, Young, and Alaska’s governor are still
defending.)

As Josh Marshall has said, “The aim has been to harness the resources of the state to undergird Republican control -- in this case, by making more and more federal money available as patronage funds that leadership-compliant members of Congress can use to reward donors and key constituencies.”

Unassailable Republican Control was the ultimate goal, the K Street Project was the vehicle, but it would not have functioned without handouts, the earmarks inserted into every conceivable bill which functioned as the currency of the culture of corruption.
Unsurprisingly I suppose, here is Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens, known in his home state “Uncle Sugar” defending earmarks, which after all have been the currency he has used to continue his long reign in the Senate.

adn.com | alaska : Stevens: Earmarks don't need reforming

35,000 % can anyone out there grasp a gain of 35,000%? its like........what?
MSN Money - CNBC News - Jobs' gain on Pixar: 35,000: "Jobs' return so far on Pixar is an astonishing 35,000% since he bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, Ltd. for $10 million in 1986. That translates into an average annual return of 1,750% or a 34% compounded annual return. The gain on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index since the beginning of 1986 is just 500%. (Lucasfilm is the production company of Star Wars creator George Lucas.)"

Golf is Bad: Lesson from the laybramoff scandal
Golf - Political Scandals - Jack Abramoff - New York Times: "But now, as the Abramoff ordeal in Washington unfolds, golf is acquiring the whiff of scandal, its exclusive fairways and cozy clubhouses redolent of an improper commerce between money and influence. "
Golf is bad. The ominous warning can almost be heard echoing across the greens of the political establishment, where the game is not only a cherished pastime but has increasingly become a critical cog in the wheels of campaign financing and lobbying. Lavish political fund-raisers are built around golf tournaments. Fact-finding Congressional trips are tailored to cross paths with golf resorts. Candidates and their supporters spend tens of thousands of dollars on golfing costs each campaign cycle - more and more each year, it turns out - as part of the cost of doing political business.

Trust and Truth...according to Rove:
"we have to continue to show we deserve the trust of our fellow Americans." only Rove could so completely ignore a major corruption scandal in his own party.

The Fix - Chris Cillizza's Politics Blog - (washingtonpost.com): "'As the governing party in America, Republicans cannot grow tired or timid. We have been the opportunity to govern; we have to continue to show we deserve the trust of our fellow Americans.'"

Reality, realism, truth-
my so far favorite quote on the issue of author James Frey 'embellishing' his 'memoir.
this is a quote by "Porterhouse" from a column by Jabari Asim in the Wa. Post- do go and read the whole piece- it sets thing in perspective
The True Fictions in Frey's Memoirs: "'They don't bother me,' he replied. 'Ours is a culture of deception. The Pilgrims deceived the Indians and it just went from there. Politicians lie on a daily basis. Corporations doctor their books to boost profits. And writers? What else can you expect? I always think of Janet Malcolm's definition of a journalist: 'He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.' Readers get victimized all the time.'"

The great thing about the Abramoff DeLay Scandal is the way it is bringing liberals and conservatives together in condemnation of corruption, and in excavating the history of washington corruption. Here is David Broder in the Post on Lyndon Johnson: Its a Texas thing.
DeLay's Texas Model: "If Tom DeLay was blind to the perils of mixing money and politics, business and government, he was true to the tradition of his state, where the long-dominant Democratic Party plumbed all possible permutations of that intimate connection.
To take but one example, consider the phone conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and George Brown, chairman of the board of Brown & Root, the construction giant, on Jan. 2, 1964, soon after Johnson became president, as quoted in 'Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.'
As Michael Beschloss, the editor of the volume, summarized the conversation, 'Brown, one of Johnson's earliest financial backers, . . . has asked him on behalf of another old supporter, Gus Wortham, a Houston insurance tycoon, and John Jones, president of the Houston Chronicle, to ask Robert Kennedy's antitrust officials to suspend antitrust restrictions against a merger they are seeking between two Houston banks. As a master horse-trader, Johnson . . . wants a written promise from Jones that the Chronicle will support him as long as he is president.'
Brown tells Johnson that Albert Thomas, the Houston congressman who is also working on the merger, thinks that the deal the president wants is 'too much of a cash-and-carry thing . . . too much of a trade. . . . It'd hurt you as well as them.'
But Johnson won't be deterred. 'If they don't want to tell me that they're my friends in writing. . . . I'm not going to do it as long as their attitude's that way. You get me that letter,' Johnson orders, ' . . . and I'll have them sit down with the Controller of the Currency and we'll override the whole goddamned outfit. And they'll do it, to hold their own jobs.'
That is how business was done. Johnson himself inh"

Corruption Capers Continue
from the rolling Stone, via think progress via ....
Rolling Stone : Culture of Corruption, Indeed: "What does a disgraced former House majority leader do when forced to abandon all hopes of reclaiming his post? If you're Tom DeLay you take the House Appropriations Committee slot vacated by criminally corrupt congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham.
As the folks at ThinkProgress remind us, Cunningham's top 'co-conspirator' -- military contractor Brent Wilkes -- is also tight with DeLay. Very tight.
From the San Diego Tribune:
Wilkes... kept his donations flowing, targeting people with clout over the Pentagon budget [including] $30,000 to Tom DeLay, who flew on Wilkes' jet several times and has been a frequent golfing buddy.
Over the past three years, Wilkes' lobbying group in Washington -- Group W Advisors -- also paid about $630,000 in lobbying fees to Alexander Strategy Group, a firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham and staffed with former DeLay employees. The firm has a well-publicized reputation in Washington as a conduit to DeLay's office.
'The Alexander lobbyist's sales pitch was, 'Either you hire me or DeLay is going to screw you,''an anonymous source identified as a top Republican lobbyist told the Congressional Quarterly weekly last month. 'It was not really a soft sell.' "

Conservative double dealing? Tucker Carlson ought to be an un-biased authority:
What really smells about Abramoff scandal - The Situation with Tucker Carlson - MSNBC.com: "So it was with not all that much surprise that I read Lou Sheldon's name again recently, in a story about disgraced lobbyist and admitted felon Jack Abramoff. According to the Washington Post, Sheldon allegedly took money from an Abramoff client called eLottery and in return pressured members of Congress to defeat an anti-gambling bill. Sheldon was joined in this by former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, another longtime Abramoff friend.
The usual good government types will point to the Abramoff scandal as yet another reason we need tougher campaign finance laws and more stringent ethics rules in Washington. Maybe they're right. But there's a deeper kind of corruption here.
Why were supposedly honest ideological conservatives like Sheldon and Reed and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist involved with Jack Abramoff in the first place? Keep in mind that Abramoff's business wasn't just gambling, which by itself should have been enough to scare off professional moralizers like Sheldon. Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist for Indian gambling. Over the years Abramoff and his now-indicted partner took more than $80 million from a half a dozen tribes in return for their efforts to keep Indian gambling revenues tax free.
Step back and think about this for a second. Indian tribes get a special pass from the federal government to run a high-margin monopoly simply because they are Indian tribes, which is to say, simply because of their ethnicity. This is the worst, least fair form of affirmative action, and it should be anathema to conservatives. Conservatives are supposed to support the idea of a meritocracy, a country where hard work not heredity is the key to success and everyone is equal before the law. Conservatives should despise Indian gambling on principal.
And some still do. But others "

from Political Cortex, an interesting site which has just come to my attention-
on one of my favorite subjects, gambling.
Political Cortex: "Lucky Louie" Sheldon implicated in Gambling Scandal [Updated]: "Reading through the profiles of the various players, one gets a picture of the way that Reed and Sheldon were part of the comlicated scheme in which gambling and anti-gambling interests were played off each other -- while GOP consultants with close ties to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) made lots of money.
[Update]: Here is the original Washington Post report, with more details of Abramoff's relationship with Sheldon. "

Corruption to follow Corruption?
here is a new blog that showed up on google with the low-down on blunt and Boehner, vying to suceed DeLay.

Cortex quoted CBS from 2003

GOP Whip Tried To Aid Tobacco Pals
(CBS) House Majority Whip Roy Blunt is coming under fire for trying to help tobacco giant Philip Morris USA in last November's homeland security bill.

Blunt's ties to the company include large campaign donations from the company - $150,000 since 2001 to committees affiliated with Blunt. His son, Andrew, also works as a lobbyist for Philip Morris back in his home state of Missouri.

The Washington Post reports that just days after he was named to the House's third-highest leadership post, Blunt - who has close personal and political ties to Phillip Morris - tried to slip a pro-tobacco provision into the bill creating the new Department of Homeland Security.

Which all goes to show that even though these episodes were all reported, everyone knew, no-one seemed to care, until the Abramoff scandal broke, and more important, until the big A pled guilty- then DeLay's defenders suddenly had to stop hiding behind the "vendetta" excuse. Interesntingly, conservative blogs are still touting the idea that its not about Republicans, its all politicians.
Political Cortex: Perpetuating Corruption: Tom DeLay's Replacements: "And yet, one of the top contenders is Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, one of the most corrupt members of Congress. The other is at best only soft on corruption and at worst, based on the REPUBLICAN view of the Abramoff scandal (not our own), the other, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, is among the most corrupt Congressmen around. In their blind quest for power, Republicans just don't get it. Americans don't like corruption. "

Casey in the Chron Considers Pols Corruption of Charities
politicians set up charitable foundations, and encourage donars to give generously. One of the advantages of making charitable contributions to a politician's charity is that disclosure is not required, at least in political databases. Another is that the size of the contribution is not limited, enabling donors to stand apart from the crowd.
Chron.com | Charitable corruption: "Even when a charity is legitimate, we ordinary taxpayers have to wonder whether donors are buying tax breaks and other favors unavailable to us. Now that DeLay has lost his leadership post, we may acquire some evidence. If corporate and lobby donations remain at their extraordinary level, we'll know donors were motivated by charitable instincts, not political calculations.
Consider some of the major donors to DeLay's personal charities, according to the New York Times: ExxonMobil and AT&T at $50,000 each; Corrections Corp., which runs federal prisons, $100,000; the Bill & Melinda Gates (as in Microsoft) Foundation, $100,000; and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, $250,000.
These are only a few. One of the advantages of making charitable contributions to a politician's charity is that disclosure is not required, at least in political databases. Another is that the size of the contribution is not limited, enabling donors to stand apart from the crowd.
Funding charities by selling political clout is unseemly enough, but recent revelations from Abramoff and related investigations offer darker plots."

Brief Peek Back to Bubble World:
while we have all been absorbed in courrpution and fraud, real estate bubbles around the world have been .....what?
well, here is one bubble that burst-
A Home Boom Busts - Los Angeles Times:By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer " American homeowners wondering what follows a housing bubble can look to China's largest city.
For the first time, homeowners here are learning what it means to have an upside-down mortgage — when the value of a home falls below the amount of debt on the property. Recent home buyers are suing to get their money back. Banks are fretting about a wave of default loans.
About 1 million homes in Shanghai alone — about half the number of housing starts for the entire United States in 2004 — are under construction.

"They'll remain empty for years," Xie said, adding that a jolting comedown also was in store for other Chinese cities with building booms — including Beijing, Chongqing and Chengdu — though other analysts say the problem is largely confined to Shanghai.

"Shanghai's housing bust comes after a doubling of prices in the previous three years, a run-up fueled by massive speculation. Investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere were buying as fast as buildings were going up. At least 30% to 40% of homes sold were bought by speculators, says Zhang Zhijie, a real estate analyst at Soufun.com Academy, a research group in Shanghai."
"Ordinary people had no option but to follow the trend," Zhang said. "Worrying that prices would be even more unaffordable tomorrow, many of them borrowed from relatives and banks to buy as soon as possible."

For Wang Suxian, the tale of two lines illustrates how the bubble has burst.

When home prices were at the tail end of the boom in March, Wang hired two migrant workers to stand in line for a chance to buy units in what the developer said was modeled after an apartment community on New York's Park Avenue.

The workers waited 72 hours, including cold nights, but the 35-year-old was thrilled to come away with two apartments, one for $110,000, about the average price for a new home in Shanghai, and another for $170,000. They were among Wang's four investment properties.

And for a short period, Wang believed she was raking in hundreds of dollars a day for doing nothing, as property prices in the city kept soaring.

But today, prices at the complex have fallen by a third, and the lines of frenzied buyers are gone. Wang is among dozens who are fighting the developer to take the apartments back.

A Donor Who Had Big Allies - Los Angeles Times: By Richard A. Serrano and Stephen Braun, Times Staff Writers
"two Northern California Republican congressmen used their official positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a wealthy Texas businessman who provided them with political contributions."

Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion."
The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees." When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo — both considered proteges of DeLay — used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency's confidential records on the case, including details of the evidence FDIC investigators had compiled on Hurwitz.

Then, in 2001, the two congressmen inserted many of the sensitive documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz's lawyers, a move that FDIC officials said damaged the government's ability to pursue the banker.
The FDIC's chief spokesman characterized what Doolittle and Pombo did as "a seamy abuse of the legislative process." But soon afterward, in 2002, the FDIC dropped its case against Hurwitz, who had owned a controlling interest in the United Savings Assn. of Texas. United Savings' failure was one of the worst of the S&L debacles in the 1980s.
In key aspects, the Hurwitz case follows the pattern of the Abramoff scandal: members of Congress using their offices to do favors for a politically well-connected individual who, in turn, supplies them with campaign funds. Although Washington politicians frequently try to help important constituents and contributors, it is unusual for members of Congress to take direct steps to stymie an ongoing investigation by an agency such as the FDIC.

And the actions of the two Californians reflect DeLay's broad strategy of cementing relationships with individuals, business interests and lobbyists whose financial support enabled Republicans to extend their grip on Congress and on government agencies as well. The system DeLay developed and Abramoff took part in went beyond simple quid pro quo; it mobilized whatever GOP resources were available to help those who could help the party.

In the Hurwitz case, Doolittle and Pombo were in a position to pressure the FDIC and did so. Pombo received a modest campaign contribution. In another case, Pombo helped one of Abramoff's clients, the Mashpee Indians in Massachusetts, gain official recognition as a tribe; the congressman received contributions from the lobbyist and the tribe in that instance.

Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan electoral reform group based in Austin, put it this way: "DeLay and Hurwitz seem like natural allies in that they have geographic and ideological proximity. Mr. Hurwitz is a guy who has a reputation of being willing to pay to play. And DeLay likes to play that game too, so there's a natural affinity."

"Is corruption just a part of Washington's DNA?" asks NYT....Now this is interesting,
"What else explains the grim resignation of Washington veterans who wonder when, not whether, some scandal will arise?"
"The history of civilization, for starters," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, an ethics group. "This kind of problem is faced by all societies throughout all of history. It comes and goes in cycles, and becomes most prevalent when the activities are viewed as O.K. by the society where it's taking place."
"For watchdogs like Mr. Wertheimer, and for many Democrats, such tolerance dates to the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-1990's, when new leaders like Representative Tom DeLay of Texas began a campaign to fill the capital's K Street corridor with Republican lobbyists, and made it plain that those seeking to influence legislation would have to "pay to play," in the form of political contributions and other largesse."
Lobbying - Week in Review - New York Times: "Is corruption just a part of Washington's DNA? What else explains the grim resignation of Washington veterans who wonder when, not whether, some scandal will arise?"

ARMPIT of Republican Corruption Scandal:
I know this is confusing, the whole thing is confusing, I de-constructed most of this from the NYT article, but they seem to have done the same to the Post. Here are some new snipits emerging:
Armpac, Americans for a Republican Majority, the leadership committee that raised money for Mr. DeLay, operated out of the offices of Alexander Strategy, the second firm under investigation- founded by Edwin A. Buckham, a close friend of Mr. DeLay's and his former chief of staff, and "a lucrative landing spot for several former members of the DeLay staff, people who are directly involved in the case have said." [NYT]
Mr. Buckham also ran the U.S. Family Network, pseudo-grassroots organization tied to Mr. DeLay that, according to The Washington Post, was financed almost entirely by clients and associates of Mr. Abramoff. People involved in the case said they expected investigators to examine whether Mr. DeLay cast a vote in Congress in exchange for donations to the networkalso connected with Dirty Dukie Cunningham: Cunningham resigned after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from a defense contractor that did business with Alexander Strategy.
Clients included included Microsoft, United Parcel Service, Time Warner, Freddie Mac and Eli Lilly & Company
"DeLay Inc.," designated his extensive network of allies and former aides scattered throughout the lobbying firms in Washington; but word on the street [former aides of his said]is that DeLay responded more quickly to calls from Alexander Strategy than he did for any other firm,
Alexander Strategy's name has also surfaced in the course of a corruption investigation that implicates the defense lobbyist Brent Wilkes, who is an unnamed co-conspirator in the criminal case against former Representative Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham pleaded guilty in December to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from Mr. Wilkes and others. Mr. Wilkes's firm, Group W, also hired Alexander Strategy to do lobbying work, and Mr. DeLay used a plane partly owned by Mr. Wilkes.

The scandals swirling around the Alexander franchise, composed of roughly two dozen lobbyists at its offices on the waterfront in Georgetown, have delighted its former rivals while triggering concerns in the lobbying community that the entire business may be tarred.



Officials Focus on a 2nd Firm Tied to DeLay - New York Times: "For years, Alexander Strategy was one of the crown jewels of the so-called K Street project, an effort Republicans began after taking control of Congress in 1994 to dominate the lobbying industry. The hope, exemplified by Mr. Buckham's company, was for Republican lobbyists to harness the power of their corporate clients to help keep the party in power for years to come.
The successful history of Alexander Strategy since its founding in the late 1990's offers a window into the nexus of Mr. Abramoff, Mr. DeLay and the lobbying world over the last decade or so of Republican control of Congress.
As Mr. DeLay grew more powerful in Congress, the lobbying firm rose in prominence on K Street, building an impressive roster of clients for such a young company and earning, according to records, about $8.8 million lobbying in 2004. That ranked it in the middle of the pack among Washington's largest lobbying firms, but its client list - including Microsoft, United Parcel Service, Time Warner, Freddie Mac and Eli Lilly & Company - suggests what was, at least at one time, a powerful and well-connected operation."