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Brooklyn Senator Expected to Plead Guilty in Corruption CaseBy WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and BENJAMIN WEISER Published: December 19, 2011 State Senator Carl Kruger was expected to plead guilty on Tuesday to federal corruption charges that he accepted at least $1 million in bribes to finance a lavish lifestyle, including a large home in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, where he lived with two gynecologist brothers and their mother, according to several people briefed on the case. One of the brothers, Michael Turano, who was also charged in the corruption case unveiled in the spring, was expected to plead guilty along with Mr....

Members of the House and the Senate attempted to pack hundreds of special spending provisions into at least 10 bills in the summer and fall, less than a year after congressional leaders declared a moratorium on earmarks, congressional records show. The moratorium, announced last November in the House and in February in the Senate, is a verbal commitment by the Republican leadership to prohibit lawmakers from directing federal funds to handpicked projects and groups in their districts. Lawmakers have tried to get around the moratorium by promising to allow other groups to compete for the funds. But the legislative language...

A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.” Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.” Doug Ross spotted the relevant excerpt of Schweizer’s book (h/t Ben Domenech’s Transom): When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about...

WASHINGTON — A Republican Utah senator and Democratic senator from New York introduced an immigration reform bill Thursday aimed at encouraging foreign travel and housing investment in the U.S. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Charles Schumer, D-New York, say the legislation would reduce barriers for Canadian and Chinese visitors, expedite priority visa applications, use videoconferencing to screen foreign nationals and change visa procedures for U.S. allies fighting al Qaeda. It would also provide a three-year visa for foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in residential real estate, including half for a home in which they must live for six months...

COMPLETE TITLE: STEVE WYNN Goes On Big Rant About Occupy Wall Street, Obama, Deficits, And Anger At The Government ### Classic. On the conference call for Wynn Resorts, CEO Steve Wynn went on a big rant on Occupy Wall Street, Obama, and deficits. Here are our notes in raw form. It's all mostly paraphrased. In a nutshell, he says: Deficits are killing us, our dollars are worthless, and the Democrats are bankrupting the country and vilifying anyone who's successful. So naturally, people are protesting. *snip* You're seeing it taken to the next level in Greece. People are trying to break...

The son of a former Los Angeles fire chief was charged Monday with bribing a federal Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport to help him smuggle marijuana past security on nine separate trips. Millage Peaks IV admitted to FBI agents that he and his associates made the trips with the aid of a TSA officer, whom they paid $5,000 to $6,000 in bribes to avoid detection... Peaks and TSA Officer Dianne Perez were arrested on bribery charges Sunday following what the FBI said was his most recent attempt ... Perez, a TSA officer for seven and a...

Here's a novel idea: Have Congress create a "bank" that could borrow huge sums with only a small federal outlay and would be independent of any political interference. If you believe in this miracle, you probably thought Fannie Mae was a private company that wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime. We're referring to Washington's latest marketing tool to sell spending to a skeptical public, a new federal "infrastructure bank." For the low, low price of $30 billion or so, President Obama says Congress can conjure hundreds of billions in new "grants and loans" to rebuild "roads, bridges, and ports and broadband...

When congressional leaders earlier this month named six lawmakers from each party to a debt reduction “supercommittee,” investing unprecedented power in a tiny cadre to slash funding, they set off a wild scramble among special interest groups to gain access and protect their interests. Yet many groups with the most at stake didn’t have to change their plans. Some members of the supercommittee received more campaign contributions in July from political action committees controlled by corporations, unions and other lawmakers than anyone else in Congress, disclosures filed this weekend show. Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican who chairs the tax-writing House...

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.

FBI Video Shows Detroit City Council Aide Accepting Bribes Gus Lubin Jun. 9, 2011, 6:39 AM FBI survellance videos obtained by The Detroit News show city corruption in action. In one video, former aide John Clark is handed a wad of cash from James Rosendall Jr., vice president of sludge-hauling firm Synagro Technologies Inc., which was awarded a $1.2 billion sludge-hauling contract. Rosendall tells Clark: "I'm going to be gone for a few weeks and I wanted to swing by and give you a little advance on helping us with that tax stuff. Whatever you can do I'd appreciate. You...

The cost of stealing from passengers...former supervisor with the Transportation Security Administration has been sentenced to more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to taking bribes from a TSA officer who was stealing from passengers. ... Raimi stole between $10,000 and $30,000 in cash from travelers going through a Terminal B checkpoint at Newark Liberty International Airport last Fall.

Days after two city inspectors were arrested by the FBI on suspicion of taking bribes, officials at the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety called Tuesday for the agency to electronically track the whereabouts of its employees. Building and Safety spokesman David Lara said his department sent a series of recommendations to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, including a move to activate the GPS tracking devices contained within each inspector’s cellphone and laptop computer. “For us, it’s mostly about making sure our inspectors are where they’re supposed to be,” Lara said. “With the latest turn of events, it’s too bad that...

The single-sentence email from a frustrated state worker hit our inbox this morning: "This is what SEIU does to attract attendees, and my fees go to this!" It came with a scan of this flier promoting a series of 30-minute Local 1000 meetings at CDCR headquarters this Wednesday promising, "$5 Subway Cards will be given to all who attend." All employees represented by the union are welcomed and, presumably, will get a Subway card. The flier reminded us of an SEIU protest at the Capitol a few years ago that offered free lunch to participants. At the time we thought...

President Obama is laughing off lingering doubts about his birth certificate. The commander-in-chief cracked wise at a fund-raiser in Boston, poking fun at the so-called "birther" movement, which insists he is not a natural-born citizen. "There's no weakness in us trying to reach out and seeing if we can find common ground," he said Tuesday. "Now, there are going to be times where we can't. I was born in Hawaii. What can I say? I mean, I just ... I can't change those facts."

President Barack Obama Tuesday ordered a government-wide review of regulations with the goal of eliminating those that hurt job creation and make the U.S. economy less competitive. Photo by : Pete Souza President Barack Obama -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obama took action after unveiling his plan in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he said some rules have placed "unreasonable burdens on business — burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs." The executive order marked Obama's latest move to repair relations with U.S. business, which were frayed amid bitter debate over...

There’s something curiously missing from this story on Chicago’s Mantu Dance Company. It may be the only time the company has made big news without a mention of Barack and Michelle Obama in years. One can only imagine the headlines were it so closely linked to a Republican President. Illinois officials are taking a closer look at a nonprofit dance company that was awarded a $4.5 million state grant in 2003 for a planned performing arts center on the South Side that has yet to begin construction.

When Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill recently went to war over the budget, press coverage suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous rhetoric about fiscal discipline, both parties remain equal-opportunity earmarkers. It's not true. A new analysis by a group of federal-spending watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republicans have made enormous strides in cleaning up their act. In the Senate, the GOP made only one-third as many earmark requests as Democrats for the still-unpassed 2011 budget, and...

A rare private bill recently approved by the United States Congress will allow an illegal immigrant living in southern California to remain in the country and become a permanent resident. The secret law on behalf of one individual appears to be a growing trend among some pro-amnesty Democrats who are quietly blocking the deportations of illegal aliens and sponsoring clandestine legislation to keep the violators in the country indefinitely. Just a few weeks ago three federal lawmakers from California and Ohio blocked the removal of a Guatemalan arrested for driving without a license and a Peruvian who benefits from taxpayer-financed...

Senator John Cornyn appeared on FOX News with anchor Bill Hemmer and hoped to discuss his strong opposition to the massive spending bill proposed by Democrats. Hemmer, however, would not let him escape without addressing Cornyn’s own contribution to the bill: $16 million worth of earmarks. Cornyn said he was in favor of an earmark moratorium yet considered his earmarks “individually defensible.” Hemmer rightly said “I’m confused.” First Cornyn described passing the spending bill at this time as “completely tone deaf . . . after coming off this election when the American people said very clearly that this runaway Washington...

President Obama on Wednesday urged lawmakers to reach a compromise on tax extenders but a glitch in the bill caused some senators to scramble for a correction without endangering its outcome. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., came to the Senate floor Wednesday to announce a "mistake" in the legislation. She said a program to extend low income housing tax credits for people who lost homes during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was left out of the bill even though it was a deal that all sides approved. Landrieu said the money is needed for 2 more years to complete the projects and...

Republicans poring over a 1,924-page spending bill proposed by Democrats to cover the rest of the fiscal year are threatening to ground the legislation to a halt, citing hidden earmarks and massive spending that would be enacted into law without a review process.

For several years, I have assumed that my taxes, and those of many millions of Americans, would skyrocket in 2011. So when I first learned the terms of the compromise between the President and the Republican leadership--most of the Bush-era tax rates made permanent, tax rates for upper-income taxpayers extended for two years, a one-year two percent payroll tax holiday, long a favorite conservative policy--I thought, and wrote, that it was an excellent deal for conservatives. Since then, however, the deal has steadily worsened, to the point where even the Associated Press says that "Add-ons turn tax cut bill into...

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...

Do the congressional Republicans get the message of the 2010 election? The House Appropriations Committee will be a key test. Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) has been a thorn in the side of congressional appropriators — both Democratic and Republican — for years. That this “anti-earmark crusader” has been recommended for a seat on the House Appropriations Committee seems to be a clear indication that Republicans are listening to the American public’s concerns over wasteful spending by Washington. “I don’t see how you can view it any other way,” Flake tells National Review Online. “People expect us to go in...

SCRANTON - A federal grand jury has indicted longtime State Sen. Raphael J. Musto, the latest legislator to be caught up in an overlapping series of corruption investigations. The indictment announced Tuesday alleges that Musto (D., Luzerne), 81, accepted bribes, gifts, and construction work from an unnamed contractor in return for his help in obtaining state grants and loans. Known as "Ray," Musto, who is to retire next week after 38 years in the General Assembly, has been a political fixture in the state's northeastern region since 1972, when he succeeded his father to a seat in the state House.

TSA’s other body-scanner contractor is Rapiscan Systems Inc. In 2009, the company was awarded an agreement that could be worth up to $173 million. And like L-3, Rapiscan has a notable K Street presence. Holland & Knight, Rapiscan’s outside lobbying firm, has earned $480,000 in fees from the company since May 2008, according to lobbying disclosure records. David Whitestone, a former aide to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and John Buscher, once the chief lobbyist for United Airlines, are lobbying for the company. Overall, Rapiscan has spent close to $3.6 million on lobbying since 2007, according to records.

WhilWASHINGTON - Despite their claims, the Republicans' ban on earmarks won't stop lawmakers from steering taxpayers' dollars to pet projects. And it will have little if any effect on Washington's far graver problem — the gigantic budget deficit.

Despite a long and deep recession, the collective personal wealth of congressional members increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to a study released Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics.The steady also indicates that a significant number of members owned shares of major players in the health-care and financial-services sectors, which were the subject of major reform legislation during the period. The findings—based on federal financial disclosure data released earlier this year—paint a wealthy bunch in Congress, with more than half of all members—261—were millionaires. About one in five of those had average calculated wealth...

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.

Washington (CNN) -- A suburban Washington county official at the center of an FBI investigation into years of kickbacks says he is innocent and that the facts will prove it. Jack Johnson, who served as the executive of Prince George's County, Maryland, since 2002, spoke to reporters late Friday after the FBI released details of how he and his wife allegedly tried to hide checks and evidence of illegal payments, even going so far as to flush a $100,000 check down the toilet.

Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife were arrested at their home Friday and charged in federal court with trying to hide or destroy the proceeds from a bribe from a local developer, according to court papers and federal law enforcement authorities. Johnson and his wife, Leslie E. Johnson, were charged with evidence tampering and destruction, alteration and falsification of records. After brief hearings late Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Connolly ordered Jack Johnson to be released and placed under electronic monitoring. The judge released Leslie Johnson on her own recognizance. Both Johnsons were ordered to surrender...

When the Nov. 2 general election is over and the lame duck session of Congress begins, Inhofe said he plans to take up the cause of earmarks again. Inhofe said he is listed as the most conservative member of the U.S. Senate by a number of conservative journals and will try to reinstitute the practice of earmarks. He said earmarks should be germane to the legislation they are attached to. “It would be nothing short of criminal to go to all the trouble of electing great new anti-establishment senators, only to have them cede to the executive branch their constitutional...

Ah, how sweet. Now they’re buying votes with pork rinds , booze , crack cocaine , free food ice cream. High school officials in Cincinnati are accused of taking van loads of students to vote last week for democrats and then out for ice cream. Cincinnati.com reported: Three van loads of Hughes High students were taken last week – during school hours – to vote and given sample ballots only for Democratic candidates and then taken for ice cream, a Monday lawsuit alleges. The complaint was made by Thomas Brinkman Jr., a Republican candidate for Hamilton County auditor, and the...

A law enforcement scandal is unfolding on Long Island. A Suffolk County District Attorney investigator and a police officer are now charged with tipping off members of organized crime about police investigations.

Wife of Rep. Conyers begins federal prison sentence By Michael O'Brien - 09/10/10 04:28 PM ET The wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) reported to a federal prison in West Virginia on Friday to begin a 37-month sentence on corruption charges. Monica Conyers, a former Detroit city councilwoman, reported to the Alderson Federal Prison Camp this afternoon 20 minutes before deadline, the Detroit Free Press reported. Conyers pleaded guilty last year for taking bribes to influence a vote on a sludge disposal contract in Detroit. She has since attempted to withdraw her plea. Her husband, the chairman of the House...

General Motors Co. has begun to once again contribute to political campaigns, lifting a self-imposed ban on political spending put in place during the auto maker's U.S.-financed bankruptcy restructuring last year. The Detroit company gave $90,500 to candidates running in the current election cycle, Federal Election Commission records show. GM Resumes Campaign Contributions The beneficiaries include Midwestern lawmakers, mostly Democrats, who have traditionally supported the industry's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.). The list also includes Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Whip,...

Don Williams, the campaign manager for Harry Reid from 1965 to 1974 will reveal on Steve Wark's AM 670 radio show (tomorrow, August 24th at 7:00am pst) how he picked up illegal cash from Joe Conforte at the Mustang Ranch Brothel on two campaigns. The reason this is important is because there are a number of other leads now working through the system regarding a history of Reid taking money - Williams provides a polygraphed verifiable anchor point to the other stories. Once on the take, always on the take.

WASHINGTON – In February 2009, the United States had fallen into the deepest economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The housing bubble had burst, unemployment was nearing its highest level in almost three decades and the once-freewheeling banking sector had turned tightfisted. At the urging of President Barack Obama, Congress passed an $862 billion economic stimulus bill on Feb. 10, 2009, to get federal dollars flowing into the U.S. economy. Eighteen months later, the administration estimates that about 85 percent of the jobs it expected to create or save in the first two years have indeed been created or saved....

NOTE The following text is a quote: Innospec Agent Pleads Guilty to Bribing Iraqi Officials and Paying Kickbacks Under the Oil for Food Program WASHINGTON—Canadian/Lebanese dual national Ousama M. Naaman pleaded guilty today to participating in an eight-year conspiracy to defraud the United Nations Oil for Food Program (OFFP) and to bribe Iraqi government officials in connection with the sale of a chemical additive used in the refining of leaded fuel, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. Naaman, 61, of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, was originally indicted on Aug. 7, 2008, in U.S. District...

rivate security contractors protecting the convoys that supply U.S. military bases in Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars a week in “passage bribes” to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to travel along Afghan roads, a congressional investigation released Monday has found. The alleged payments, which are reimbursed by the U.S. government, help fund the very enemy the U.S. is attempting to defeat and renew questions about the U.S. dependence on private contractors, who outnumber American troops in Afghanistan, 130,000 to 93,000. The report's author called the findings of the six-month investigation “sobering and shocking.” “This arrangement has fueled a...

Mickey Kaus is undoubtedly my favorite Democrat in California. That alone means that he is probably pretty well hated by the ruling far-left, establishment of the state party. The California Democrat Party, as well as the state itself is run almost entirely by the public employee unions. Hence the wonderful shape we find ourselves in today… People always say “well Arnold is a Republican.” Yes he is, but he’s a poor excuse for one and he was never any match against the unions and their bidders in the legislature. This brings me to the one democrat I have seen in...

The White House and Rep. Joe Sestak agree: Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, is a buffoon. For months, the White House stonewalled inquiries about whether Mr. Sestak had been offered a federal job in exchange for dropping his challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary. Mr. Sestak won the Pennsylvania primary in part because his reputation for candor (apparently undeserved) contrasted favorably with Mr. Specter's blatant careerism. But if Mr. Sestak wasn't lying in February, he is lying now, or so the evidence suggests. If the facts were as the White House now claims,...

Bloody cheek. It's not every day a com moner is graced with the personage of a card-carry ing, blue-blooded, bone headed duchess. But Sarah Ferguson irritably dragged her hips into the Javits Center yesterday at the crack of 8:30, and proceeded to whine, kvetch and play the victim in a British accent as impenetrable as Scotland Yard. And, judging from the crowd she attracted, which coated the convention center like a lover's saliva on Fergie's well-traveled toes, the world's greediest, tackiest and brokest royal is quickly accomplishing a feat that has eluded her back home in England, where the weary...

When word circulated that former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff was planning a primary campaign against Sen. Michael Bennet, Democrats were worried — so much so that Romanoff reportedly got a call from the White House exploring whether he wanted a job in the administration instead.

Allegations that the White House offered Joe Sestak a job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate race echo an earlier report of a job offer to candidate Andrew Romanoff in Colorado. On September 27, 2009 the Denver Post reported that the Obama administration offered Senate candidate Romanoff a position if he canceled plans to run for the Democratic nomination against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. The paper said the job offer, which specified particular jobs, was reportedly delivered by Jim Messina, Obama’s deputy chief of staff. One position cited by the Post was a job at USAID, the...

The Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson told a New York crowd today of her 'pride' in her life as she fights to save her reputation over the 'cash-for-access' scandal. Sarah Ferguson brushed off her personal crisis as she spoke as she hosted a breakfast for booksellers and librarians at the Book Expo America event in Manhattan. 'I think it is a real treat for me to be here today and I can't thank you enough for listening,' the tired-looking duchess told the supportive crowd. The former wife of Prince Andrew was exposed at the weekend after being filmed accepting a...

Rod Blagojevich apparently asked the Obama Administration for a job in lieu of letting Obama have his pick of candidates to replace him as Illinois Senator. Joe Sestak was asked by someone in the White House (Rahm Emanuel?) to take the Secretary of the Navy job in lieu of allowing Obama have his pick of candidates for the Pennsylvania Senate see...i.e. Arlen Specter. One man is up for criminal conviction...the other is working in the White House.

UPDATE: See video clip after the break of an earlier interview in which Scarborough unequivocally puts it to Sestak that he had been offered the Secretary of the Navy position, and Sestak seems to confirm it. so much so that after playing the clip, today's guest Jeffrey Sachs, an ardent Obama fan, has to laughingly admit that, yes, Sestak had been offered the Navy job. ---------------- Does Chuck Todd understand the difference between offering, in return for a candidate's agreement to drop out of a race, a big federal job with its salary and perks, versus offering to support someone's...

Here is video of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refusing to answer a question as to whether Rep. Joe Sestak was offered a job by the Obama Administration in order to get him to drop his run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania against Sen. Arlen Specter. Gibbs hemed and hawed, but would not really give an answer.

Given Russia's reputation for excessive bureaucracy, it's only right that a company would exist to help businesspeople to set up, find the right translators, and also provide the right legal guidance to navigate the Byzantine direction of Russia's business bureaucracy. Center of Economic Planning consists of a professional team of skilled translators, auditors and IT specialists who will also not just help foreign businesses, but also help native Russians build their businesses.