ftf

You put the "sarcasm" thingie in there.

The difference is that while a Democratic politician may steal candy from a baby, a Republican politician would steal the baby.

whatever Apple's slave labor factory is over there.

this situation is nothing new in politics. Yet somehow over the arc of history things have generally improved.

The minute we start taking scum like that seriously is when they really do get to go hog wild.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Sometimes people slack off (e.g. Reagan dems) and things get worse, but over the course of history the trend seems clear enough to me, and that justifies my never giving up.

I know some Dems do. But I think he is more or less repeating what all the repubs he was working for told him that. "Oh, yeah, it's okay, everybody does it. Even the Dems." So I think he was conditioned to say that.


I'll bet almost all the corruption he was into was with repubs.

One Dem he did go into in some depth was Harry Reid.
Something to the words of "he was our go-to guy, on gambling".

he's in Nevada. Who else would they go to?

Helping to grease the skids, if you will. I like Harry and didn't like to see his name in this criminal's book.

capable of finding those things on your own?

Their numbers are legion.

The list would be nice. I'm lazy.

Some people don't really know how to find information, that's why I offer.

Jim Wright, former Speaker of the House resigned over receiving gifts in excess of the limits. He was also implicated in the Savings and Loan scandal for influence peddling.

Dan Rostenkowski plead guilty to mail fraud after a two-year investigation. That was a negotiated plea from charges that included having fake employees on his payroll.

Former AZ Gov. Bill Richardson was involved in a "pay-to-play" scandal. A grand jury was called, but the DOJ declined to prosecute.

Three Democratic governors of Illinois have been convicted of bribery and influence peddling.

William Jefferson, former representative from Louisiana, was convicted of racketeering and bribery after 90 grand was found in his freezer.

5 Democratic congressmen were convicted of bribery and conspiracy in the Abscam investigation in 1981.

4 of the "Keating 5" were Democrats.

I thought there were some more recent ones. I think the most recent one there is Jefferson and that seems like it is well over 4 years now. But from what I can see almost every repub in office now is dishonest in one way or another, mostly campaign financing scams. Illinois Governors just seem to end up in jail no matter which party.

It isn't as though a culture of corruption has an expiration date. It doesn't just dry up and blow away. The culture of corruption is pervasive.

However, if the newness of a conviction or allegation impresses you, let's add Charlie Rangel, who was censured in December of 2010 on a host of ethics violations. When the Democrats had control of the house, by the way.


CREW publishes a list of the most corrupt every year, and Republicans and Democrats consistently make the list.

Big money donors influence politicians. Big money donors give to Republicans and they give to Democrats.

The saddest part of those who share your delusion (really? "almost every repub"?) is that it prevents us from making real and meaningful progress in fixing the system that feeds the corruption.

I don't believe that Marcos owned ten years worth of the entire amount of gold mined and refined on this planet.

The entire world produces 50 million Troy Ounces a year, more or less, as a best estimate.

32,150 Troy Ounces in a Metric Ton (1000 Kilograms) X 16,000 is more Gold than is produced on this planet in ten years, in total, from all sources.

514,400,000 Troy Ounces was controlled by Marcos, in total?

Doubt it.

the whole point of my post was that the book was out there and Abramhoff says that we don't want to pay too close of attention to what our politicians are doing.

... or just choose to ignore your opening sentence, and will now commence nitpicking away at the edges while never addressing the actual issue the rest of the post raises.

meh

.. in collusion with the Federal Reserve and other central banks, have been systematically rigging the game to transfer wealth from the middle class to the rich for some time. It is still happening and likely will for the foreseeable future,since the mechanisms used are arcane and beyond the understanding of 99% of the populace.

Right now almost every developed country in the world (including us) has more debt than they can ever possibly repay, and in each of these countries a lot of that debt was created by banks betting like drunken sailors, transferred to sovereigns and left for the taxpayers to pay.

Eventually,people will get wise to this game and put an end to it,probably not in a pretty way.

But you are right....if they do figure it out and put an end to it, it will not be pretty...