Posted on 07/11/2008 5:35:04 AM PDT by grundle
HARRISBURG -- Grand jurors here and in Pittsburgh cataloged what they described as a culture of corruption that allowed former state Rep. Michael Veon, current Rep. Sean Ramaley and 10 current and former Democratic staffers to divert millions of dollars in state resources, including more than $1 million in illegal pay bonuses.
The jurors said Mr. Veon and the staff members conspired to arrange hefty year-end pay bonuses to House employees who worked on political campaigns over a three-year period, while Mr. Ramaley is accused of working full-time on his 2004 House campaign in Beaver County while drawing a taxpayer salary as a member of Mr. Veon's staff.
The findings ran from the political to the salacious.
It found that tax money was used to bump third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Carl Romanelli from the Pennsylvania ballot in 2004 and 2006. Grand jurors said state money was used to provide a no-work job to a high-ranking House aide's mistress.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I’ve been mad for a long time about pols and bureaucrats and their sense of entitlement to public funds.
Lately it’s been like a waterfall of corruption. Every day I seem to come across DOZENS of articles pols and bureaucrats stealing money, abusing credit cards, doing inside deals to enrich themselves, etc.
It’s to the point that I wish there were a place on FR where we could post each day’s stories from around the country about public corruption. Er...make that around the world...the U.N. deserves its share of attention.
Is it just me or do you think the populace at large is beginning to catch on?
The only thing more worthless than a Pennsylvania Republican state rep is a Pennsylvania Democrat state rep.
We sure have one hell of a lot of criminals running this state at all levels.
Well said. : )
It didn’t take me long after working in the Philadelphia government, to see them all exactly for what they are. It’s a culture of corruption, but none of them is going to expose it for what it is. They like the easy money too much.
When I moved down here I tried to get a valid answer to why Pennsylvania is called a Commonwealth instead of a State (along with Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Virginia). In every description that dictionaries give, commonweal, the public good, the public welfare are all considered archaic definitions. Not so, at least in this state -- our "Public Servants" are emboldened by the fact that our Common Wealth is there for their sole use and dispensation, after they've taken care of their own (and friends) needs and especially their wants.
I think I lost my respect for 'authority' in High School, and have seen nothing since to regain it, although there are many who valiantly try.
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