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A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted. The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials were bribed and otherwise compromised, but has not held anyone accountable. (title shortened due to FR posting rules) The bribed officials, an...

Attorney General Eric Holder pauses during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted. The sitting governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, his attorney general and an unspecified number of Virgin Islands legislators also accepted bribes, the source said, adding that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is aware prosecutors and elected officials...

Energy Policy: Canada's prime minister restates that if there's no Keystone XL pipeline in the works, not to worry. Our northern ally will still be our friend as it sends its tar sands oil to Asian markets. 'I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a Monday interview with Canada's CTV National News. It was the latest warning from our impatient northern neighbor that has used its energy resources to advance job creation and growth and...

Has anybody know anything as to why Cantor tabled the Inside Trading Bill. He said something about the bill needs more looking into? Hay, Cantor let me write the bill. Even a Elected Elite would understand. 1)All Federal elected personal and immediate family are subject to inside trading laws and bribing laws. 2)All Federal employees and immediate family are subject to inside trading laws and bribing laws. 3)All Non Paid Staff members and immediate family are subject to inside trading laws and bribing laws.

It would take an entire book to analyze every single grant and government-backed loan doled out since Barack Obama became president. But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies. The grants were earmarked for alternative-fuel and green-power projects, so it would not be a surprise to learn that those industries were led by liberals. Furthermore, these were highly competitive grant and loan...

WASHINGTON -- A group of Mexican senators announced Tuesday they are preparing to meet with state legislators in Georgia and four other states next month, hoping to head off more stringent immigration laws like the one Georgia enacted this year.The senators plan to share information with state lawmakers that shows illegal immigrants generally stay out of trouble and contribute to the economy while they are here. Sen. Carlos Jimenez Macias, a member of the Mexican Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed those plans Tuesday at a workshop on immigration reform in D.C. at the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy...

Continuing his recent tack of bypassing Congress and enacting reforms “without them,” President Obama on Wednesday announced a package of student loan reforms designed to lower college graduates’ monthly payments, arguing his plan will redirect some of that borrowed money into the economy to promote job growth. Speaking to a friendly audience of college students in Denver, Mr. Obama said the changes “won’t cost taxpayers a dime but will save you money and will save you time,” and tied the ever-rising cost of education to the nation’s lagging economy. “Living with that kind of debt means making some pretty tough...

When it rains, it pours. And there ain’t a big enough umbrella for all President Obama’s cronies and fixers to crowd under these days. While the Solyndra BGB (big green boondoggle) continues to blow up on Capitol Hill, the White House faces another pay-for-play backlash — this time from his own left flank. The liberal Daily Beast reports on a broadband project backed by a frequent Obama White House visitor and donor that has Pentagon officials concerned over potential military GPS interference. The Obama FCC took the lead in intervening on the donor, billionaire hedge fund manster Philip Falcone’s, behalf...

3M claims an investment company conspired with high-powered lobbyist Lanny Davis in a smear campaign to "coerce" it into paying "tens of millions of dollars ... to save them from the consequences of yet another unprofitable investment," a screening test for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. 3M sued defendants London-based Harvey Boulter, CEO of defendant Porton Capital and a director Porton Capital Technology Funds, both of the Cayman Islands; and Lanny Davis, a principal of co-defendants Davis & Associates, and Davis-Block, all of Washington. Davis, who worked as a special counsel for President Clinton from 1996 to 1998, has lobbied for a...

Wounded by the CalPERS bribery scandal and other problems, a New Jersey pharmaceutical-benefits company is being sold. Medco Health Solutions Inc., one of the giants of the drug-benefit industry, on Thursday agreed to a $29.1 billion takeover by rival Express Scripts Inc. Such a deal would have been unthinkable a few months ago, when Medco was flying high. But the New Jersey company ran into a series of problems that began with its entanglement in the CalPERS bribery case. "This year has been a head-spinner for this (Medco) management team, starting out with the CalPERS issues," said investment analyst Arthur...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leslie E. Johnson resigned Tuesday from the Prince George's County Council, five days after she pleaded guilty to destroying evidence in a federal corruption probe.

A prominent Maryland councilwoman who made international headlines for flushing a bribe down the toilet and stuffing another in her underwear has pleaded guilty to a felony but won’t leave her $96,417-a-year public job. The unbelievably pompous move has led the area’s largest newspaper to blast the lawmaker, Prince George’s County Councilwoman Leslie Johnson, as a “case study in arrogance.” Every day she serves in public office and every act she commits in her official capacity is a disgrace to the county and her constituents, the editorial says. In November Johnson and her equally corrupt husband (Jack Johnson) got arrested...

AT&T is lining up support for its acquisition of T-Mobile from a slew of liberal groups with no obvious interest in telecom deals — except that they’ve received big piles of AT&T’s cash. In recent weeks, the NAACP, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance, and the National Education Association have each issued public statements in support of the deal. The groups all say their public positions have nothing to do with the money they received from AT&T.

Bribery charges upset Qatar's soccer field of dreams - News Britain's Sunday Times newspaper earlier this month alleged that two members of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) took bribes of $1.5 million to back Qatar's 2022 bid.

........The nine-page memo offers fresh details on the federal and city investigations and a rare insight into a city agency trying to manage a fast-growing scandal. The report was supposed to be confidential but was sent accidentally by Ovrom to hundreds of Building and Safety employees, The Times learned. The department declined to comment on the investigation. The inspectors who pleaded guilty, Raoul Germain and Hugo Gonzalez, were assigned to territory in South Los Angeles. Two others were placed on administrative leave as a result of the city's investigation, according to Ovrom's memo: Frank Rojas, a plan check engineer in...

NM judge booked, fingerprinted in political bribery scandal tied to Democrats, RichardsonArticle by: Associated Press Updated: May 20, 2011 - 3:35 PM LAS CRUCES, N.M. - A New Mexico judge charged with bribery in a scandal tied to former Gov. Bill Richardson pleaded not guilty Friday, then was booked, fingerprinted and ordered to hand over his passport. State District Judge Michael Murphy is accused of telling a potential judicial candidate that if she wanted a seat on the bench she needed to donate to the Democratic Party through a political activist linked to Richardson. Allegations in a special prosecutor's report...

Former Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson on Tuesday pleaded guilty to two felony charges involving thousands of dollars in bribes he solicited as part of a “pay-to-play” culture federal authorities say he fostered throughout his two terms in office. Johnson, who led Prince George’s from 2002 to December and was the county’s top prosecutor for eight years before that, entered his guilty plea in federal court in Greenbelt on charges of extortion and witness and evidence tampering. As part of the plea, he admitted accepting a $100,000 check from a county developer in exchange for securing federal funding...

An FBI SWAT team is attempting to arrest an individual in connection...

As we consider the Federal FY 2011 Budget Compromise, I would like to put some Taxpayer dollars in some perspective. First of all let’s understand that there is no FY 2011 Budget. Thanks to Obama and the Congress, we are operating under a, don’t you just love political lingo, “Continuing Resolution(CR.)” Now let’s consider the $ 38,500,000,000 in spending cuts that may be made by April 15th. $ 38.5 Billion is an almost unimaginable amount to most Americans. However, we are told to believe that these are "draconian" cuts to the Federal FY 2011 CR. In perspective, the $ 38.5...

This was somehow missed in all the uproar about the Japan tsunami that also happened on 11 March. It seems that Monica Conyers, the very classy wife of Congressman John Conyers, has unburdened herself of some thoughts concerning her ongoing experiences in federal custody. Among the heartwrenching trevails she must endure at Alderson Federal Prison (apparantly also known as "Camp Cupcake") are these: small portions in the mess hall, you can't get seconds of the things you like, and she has to keep company with a lot of female drug dealers. Recall that Ms. Conyers was convicted for taking bribes...

LOS ANGELES—A senior attorney with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was sentenced this morning to 212 months in federal prison for taking nearly one-half million dollars in bribes from immigrants who were promised immigration benefits that would allow them to remain in the United States. ICE Assistant Chief Counsel Constantine Peter Kallas, 40, of Alta Loma, received the 17⅔-year sentence from United States District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. In addition to the prison term, Judge Hatter ordered Kallas to pay $296,865 in restitution after fraudulently receiving worker’s compensation benefits. “Mr. Kallas has received one of the longest sentences...

White House sources say that they are pleased with the initial rollout of President Obama's "Startup America" program, which they say will focus on encouraging American businesses to speed up investments in manufacturing, information technology, green technology, bio-sciences. A stated goal of the program is to encourage those companies that are startups to do so in economically distressed areas of the country. U.S. business coalitions, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, which have roundly criticized the Obama Administration's handling of the economy and its anti-business rhetoric and policies, are supportive of the program, and a number...

President Barack Obama’s pledge to veto legislation containing so-called “earmarks” has so rankled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) that he has vowed “to fight to my last breath against this power grab.” “The President isn’t the only one who gets to say who will be on the receiving end of government spending,” Reid said. “All of us who must face the voters need campaign donations if we’re to be reelected. Channeling federal dollars to the businesses and interest groups who fill our campaign coffers is the payback that’s expected from these donors. Without it their incentive to give will...

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To see Cal Grondahl’s Currents cartoon that goes with this post, click hereThe diaries of the late LDS Church Apostle, Abraham H. Cannon, stretching from 1889 to the end of 1895, is interesting church history reading. Signature Book’s “Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle,” edited by scholar Edward Leo Lyman, provides readers glimpses into the wary, sometimes turbulent LDS history between the Manifesto against polygamy, the church’s desperate efforts to avoid financial destruction due to polygamy, the dedication of the Salt Lake temple, the financial panic of 1893, and efforts toward statehood for Utah. Cannon, who had several wives, died...

The Senate released its bill Thursday to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, but the bill also renews a host of more minor tax provisions aimed at winning over recalcitrant Democrats in the House and Senate. The bill, which faces its first key test vote Monday in the Senate, mirrors the deal that President Barack Obama struck earlier this week with Republicans. It extends the tax cuts for all Americans regardless of income, renews jobless benefits for one year and reinstates the estate tax at a level pushed by Republicans. But in the face of loud resistance from...

The arrests of a Prince George's County liquor store magnate and his wife by federal authorities last week as part of a broad corruption probe involving County Executive Jack B. Johnson has pulled back the curtain on the complex and often incestuous world of liquor and politics in the county. The county's chief liquor inspector is also the head of the local Democratic Party. One of the five members on the Board of Liquor License Commissioners - responsible for granting and revoking liquor licenses - is also on the party's central committee, which helps choose the board members. The liquor...

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) spent a lengthy period of time on the Senate floor this afternoon defending earmarks. Inhofe argues it is the constitutional duty (citing Article 1, Section 9) of the Congress to appropriate earmarks.

Lib Blogger: Obama Should Give $1,000 Checks Instead Of Tax Cuts"Hi, I'm Barack Obama and I have a check for you," Jane Hamsher said (holding up a Treasury check) in explaining her plan to redistribute money among lower wage earners. "A check for a thousand dollars is populism," Hamsher later said in the interview. She calls this idea, "direct money rebates" and it is "good politics."

U.S. offers Israel warplanes in return for new settlement freeze Netanyahu presents security cabinet with Clinton's incentive of 20 F-35 fighter planes and security guarantees in exchange for 90-day West Bank building moratorium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's seven-member inner cabinet discussed Saturday an offer by the United States to reinstate a freeze on West Bank Settlement construction in return for a package of incentives. Netanyahu presented Saturday the U.S. offer, which was discussed by Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, to the forum of seven. According to the offer Israel would stop construction in the West...

This Appears To Be Worthy of JAIL - RIGHT NOW You have to be kidding me... Shortly after Labor Day, as polls continued to sink, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) realized it needed a cash infusion for the upcoming midterm elections. Its chairman, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, turned to the Bank of America to secure a $15 million revolving credit line. Then, in the middle of this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) got another loan from BofA for an additional $17 million. Problem: Was the loan adequately collateralized - that is, truly "arms length"? Worse: Two days...

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC: "What is the secret here to turn out? In the old days, the old machine days, what we called 'walking around money,' handing out money to get people to vote. Is it still the case? What do you do, what is the magic in Philadelphia? REP. ROBERT BRADY (D-PA): "We still have the street money and we're very knowledgeable." Rep. Brady is also the chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic party.

Where Reid's Money Came From By Daxton Brown daxtonbrown@yahoo.com In the Sharron Angle vs Reid debate on October 14th, Angle asked Senator reid how he was able to accumulate so much wealth on a politicians salary. One would suppose that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a fairly important person and many in the media would already have answers to this question. However, other than his self-serving autobiography, the only biography of Reid is the one I have written, titled HARRY, Money Mob & Influence In Harry Reid’s Nevada. The absence of reporting on Reid’s background is the usual...

Political Aide Gets 37 Months For BriberyPublished on October 08, 2010 by NewsDesk - iWireNews ™ (iWireNews ™ and OfficialWire) DETROIT, MI Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle, sentenced to 37 months in prison for bribery and extortion, vowed to return to politics when he is released. "You can shackle my arms, you can shackle my feet, but you can't shackle my soul," Riddle, 64, said in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He vowed to teach the next generation of politicians and aides to avoid his mistakes. "I learned this the hard way: If you sniff it...

EL PASO - It's been almost a year but the drought in the F.B.I. public corruption probe is over. Eleven people have been indicted for dirty politics. The indictment, just unsealed, lists all of the charges that center around a pay-to-play investigation involving a Health Insurance Company. The indictment alleges Access Health Source kept contracts by committing fraud and bribing high ranking leaders in El Paso. Here's a look at who was indicted: Access Health Source business executive Frank Apodaca Jr. and Public Relations Consultant Marc Schwartz. They are both charged with racketeering, mail fraud and deprivation of honest services....

It's official. TPMmuckraker's favorite ex-convict ex-Congressman Jim Traficant will appear on the ballot for his old House seat in Ohio. A county board of elections ruled today, in a meeting that lasted less than a minute, that Traficant has enough signatures to make it on the ballot. Traficant, who was a Democrat while serving in the House, is running in the 17th District as an independent against Rep. Tim Ryan (D). Ryan replaced Traficant in 2002 when he was kicked out of Congress over 10 felony convictions for bribery, racketeering, tax evasion and other charges. Traficant was released from prison...

May 29, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press) Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right)[1]. All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2] “A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi,...

WASHINGTON -- After a year of being pilloried and persecuted in Congress, many of Wall Street's donors have ended their rocky, odd-couple relationship with the Democrats and closed their checkbooks. The news that a growing number of Wall Street fat cats are no longer giving money to the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees is the latest in a lengthening saga of bad news for the Democrats who face what could be catastrophic losses in the midterm elections. Since the 2008 election, Wall Street tycoons who helped elect Barack Obama and bankrolled the Democrats' gains in Congress have become the...

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that union leader Thomas Balanoff of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was contacted by President Obama to act as a go-between to help Obama friend Valerie Jarrett secure his vacated Illinois Senate Seat when now former Governor Rod Blagojevich was trying to sell the seat to the highest bidder. Balanoff appeared as a witness at the Blago corruption trial today. He said that Obama called him the day before he was elected president... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

The president is starting to look snakebit. He's starting to look unlucky, like Jimmy Carter. It wasn't Mr. Carter's fault that the American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, but he handled it badly, and suffered. He defied the rule of the King in "Pippin," the Broadway show of Carter's era, who spoke of "the rule that every general knows by heart, that it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart." Mr. Carter's opposite was Bill Clinton, on whom fortune smiled with eight years of relative peace and a worldwide economic boom. What misfortune Mr. Clinton experienced...

Americans have been anxiously waiting for President Obama to take full charge of the gulf oil catastrophe. On Tuesday, in his first address from the Oval Office, he vowed to “fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes” and declared that “we will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused.” Mr. Obama and his team will have to follow through — with more energy and dedication than they have shown so far. We know that the country is eager for reassurance. We’re not sure the American people got it from a speech...

Somewhere between Pensacola and the Oval Office, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico went from an “assault” to an “epidemic”—and President Obama went from commander-in-chief to surgeon general. In Florida, he had referred to the disaster as an "assault" and spoke, at an Army post, in military terms, but by the time he got home he had changed the analogy to a medical matter. * * * As for BP, Obama was acting as if he would scare them off and back to their eagle’s nest in Westminster if he spoke too harshly. The fact is that the...

A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the oil company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways. The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs. Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and...

New limits on free gifts to doctors have hit the ubiquitous free lattes and coffee seen at major medical meetings like the one here of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The conference exhibit floor still features massive information booths from cancer drugmakers like Roche Holding AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Amgen Inc -- though the days of shopping bags laden with pricey goodies are long gone. Many drugmakers still offer coffee or candy with no strings attached, but Pfizer Inc requires doctors to swipe their registration cards and warns that physicians from Minnesota and Vermont are prohibited from imbibing....

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Following confirmation that the White House discussed alternative jobs with at least two Democratic Senate candidates to “clear the field” for President Obama’s chosen prospects, a top House Republican wants a full accounting of what other primaries the White House may have involved itself in. “The American people should not have to rely on candidates and party leaders who have been on the wrong end of inappropriate and unlawful job offers to disclose those offers months after the fact,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote in a letter to White House Counsel Robert F. Bauer. The White House...

(CNSNews.com) – The White House initially denied to Pennsylvania media Rep. Joe Sestak's (D-Pa.) claim that the administration had offered him a job in exchange for not running in that state's U.S. Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter (D.-Pa.)--an action that the White House admitted to on Friday with the release of a memorandum by White House Counsel Robert F. Bauer. Bauer's May 28 memo, which concedes that the White House did offer Sestak a position to “avoid a decisive Senate primary” against Specter, contradicts comments that an unnamed White House official or officials made to the Philadelphia Inquirer and...

Andrew Romanoff is no Joe Sestak. Unlike US Senate Candidate Sestak (D-Pennsylvania), US Senate Candidate Romanoff (D-Colorado) is not waiting to be told what to say about job offers from the Obama White House meant to entice him out of his campaign. Mr. Romanoff said in a statement Wednesday night that he was contacted by President Barack Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina last fall and told that the White House would support his opponent in the primary. When Mr. Romanoff said he would seek the nomination anyway, Mr. Messina "suggested three positions that might be available to me...

(CNSNews.com) - Three top House Republicans sent a letter to the White House counsel Wednesday saying they believe that a memorandum the counsel released Friday purporting to explain the administration’s actions in offering to appoint Rep. Joe Sestak (D.-Pa.) to a federal position in exchange for Sestak declining to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Arlen Specter (D.-Pa.) presents a set of facts that appear to violate the law. White House Counsel Robert F. Bauer released a memorandum on Friday afternoon about the Sestak incident. It says the White House made “efforts” in June and July of last year...

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announce that Beverly Gallagher, 51, of Pembroke Pines, was sentenced today on one count of bribery in programs receiving federal funds. At today’s hearing, U.S. District Court Judge James I. Cohn sentenced Gallagher to 37 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. In addition, Judge Cohn ordered that the defendant participate in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program while in prison. Today’s sentence follows Gallagher’s March 17...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday would not say if there were multiple conversations with Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) about serving on a presidential advisory board in exchange for Sestak dropping out of the Democratic Senate primary race in Pennsylvania. Gibbs also declined to say exactly which advisory board the White House had in mind for Sestak. On Friday, Sestak said he believed he was being offered a spot on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.  In his conversation with former President Bill Clinton, “I heard presidential board and I think it was intel,” Sestak was quoted...