The Culture Of Corruption Claims Another Democrat
By California Yankee Posted in 2006 — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Associated Press reports that Matt Brown, Rhode Island's Democratic secretary of state, abandoned his bid to replace Rhode Island's Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee. Brown ended his campaign after questions surfaced over his fund-raising practices.
In a statement on the Matt Brown for US Senate website, Brown cited money problems and said he does not intend to run for re-election as secretary of state. It was the money that torpedoed Brown's campaign.
Brown has acknowledged asking his most generous donors to contribute money to state Democratic parties in Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts after those parties gave his campaign $25,000. The donors had already contributed the maximum amount allowed by law to Brown's campaign.
That undercut Brown's platform of clean government and campaign finance reform.
Read the rest.
I first read about this scandal a month ago in an Associated Press article in The Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The story was interesting because it concerned Hawaii Democrats contributing to a U.S. Senate candidate in Rhode Island who was still competing for the party's nomination:
The Hawaii Democratic Party contributed $5,000 to Brown despite the fact the local party has carefully avoided giving any support to either of the primary election candidates in their own U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Daniel Akaka and Rep. Ed Case.
In December, the Hawaii Democrats were asked to donate to the Brown campaign and sent Brown $5,000. In early January, the Hawaii Democratic Party received a $6,000 from a Rhode Island man. The contributor, a member of Brown's campaign committee, had already given Brown the $4,200 maximum allowed contribution. The Brown campaign gained $5,000 it couldn't have received otherwise, and the Hawaii party made $1,000 profit.
Similar contributions were also made to state Democratic parties in Massachusetts and Maine. Those parties also contributed to Brown.
If these donations may have violated federal election law:
It's illegal for an organization to pass on contributions in someone else's name, said an official for the Federal Elections Commission.
The Star-Bulletin reported the Hawaii Republican Party Chairman Sam Aiona wanted the Federal Elections Commission to investigate the matter, But the FEC would investigate only if someone filed a complaint.
So the Hawaii Republican Party filed a complaint accusing Democrats in Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts of illegally laundering campaign money:
"There is reason to believe that the Brown campaign provided an alleged contribution laundering scheme, whereby it steers donors to the Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts state parties, with the explicit or implicit agreement that the state parties would in turn contribute to the Brown campaign," according to the complaint, read to the Associated Press by Nakano, that was to be filed with the Federal Elections Commission.
Brown isn't the first Democrat to quit over this campaign finance scandal. The Boston Globe reported that the chairman of the Maine Democratic Party acknowledged that he resigned in part because the scheme to help bankroll Brown's U.S. Senate campaign, which he called "a mistake in judgment."
This contribution laundering scheme reminds me of the scheme that has Tom Delay fighting criminal charges.
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The Culture Of Corruption Claims Another Democrat 15 Comments (0 topical, 15 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I hope this is not considered a thread-jack, but at the same time the Dems bray about the culture of corruption, what culture do they promote?
How about the culture of lawlessness?
http://www.courttv.com/trials/omokunde/011006_ctv.html
Oh these fine gentlemen plead guilty in a "deal" offered by the prosecution.
To add Bobby Rush to our cast of characters.
that blogs on both sides can continue to point the finger at each other for ethical lapses while failing to aknowledge their own political parties misdeeds. It seems that there are more Republicans currently in office that seriously toe the line on ethical and moral behavior, but that doesn't exclude democrats because clearly they do it too.
A poll came out today from NBC/Wall Street Journal that said only 22% of the country approve of the job that congress is doing right now. Gee why would people think that? Because politicians in both parties are shady and are by no means moral and ethical standard bearers and role models for the public.
I have found that conservative bloggers do not condone corrupt practices by ANY politicians. I did not see a whole lot of support from the right for Duke Cunningham. However, when some Democratic politician engages in some impropriety, the left is either silent or rabidly defends the corrupt politician (see Bill Clinton).
You may be confusing the right's defense against unsubstantiated allegations made about effective politicians.
(For the record, I do not mean to generalize that this behavior is wholesale on either side, just that it is the norm for behavior. Surely there are exceptions to every rule.)
is charged with? In his case Ronnie Earle is trying to put him in jail for allegedly laundering some campaign contributions in a similar fashion? This Brown one seems like a bigger scandal to me, since a bunch of state Democratic committees are involved as opposed to a couple of individuals or businesses.
The DeLay case involves countless national page 1 headlines; the Brown case is almost invisible.
The DeLay case involves countless national page 1 headlines; the Brown case is almost invisible.
I'm gonna take a wild guess as to why that is, and suggest that perhaps it's because Tom Delay was the most powerful Congressman in the land and Matt or Mike Brown, or whatever his name is, is a Secretary of State that no one, outside of a handful of people in Rhode Island, have ever heard of or care about.
It's like complaining about the disparity in coverage of steroid abuse by Barry Bonds versus steroid abuse by a few guys in the minor leagues who got suspended.
But that's just a wild guess as to the difference in coverage.
on the RI Democrat Party primary ticket, just Chaffee? Oh, I almost forgot he is a Republican, isn't he?
why jail time is being pursued in one case and apparently nothing much is happening in the other. Perhaps they are different from an interest viewpoint, but from a legal viewpoint they seem very similar. Different state laws could be a factor of course, but there sure seems more to it than that.
But above I very clearly stated there is no way the current magnitude of corruption can fall solely to one party. I even gave a specific piece of legislation that is pending which we should all focus on because the amount of abuse is going to be staggering....
They should just turn this guy upside down and shake him....see what else falls out
You can't make this stuff up..
http://www.harpers.org/sb-red-lights-on-capitol-hill.html
Think you're probably comparing apples and oranges here, but I don't know enough about either case to really comment on the legal piece of it.
That's why I was commenting solely on the media component of this.
Note that I was referring specifically to the previous poster who attempted to draw a false comparison between the media coverage of Tom DeLay versus some state-level politician that no one's ever heard of.
A truly silly comparison.
And as for the legal viewpoint, again, it just seems like that's an apples to oranges comparison. You're talking about two different states, two different stages of an investigation, and two entirely different magnitudes of politicians.
in all its glory in the next week or so when the "emergency" supplemental appropriation hits the Senate floor.
This bill will have funding for both the war and Katrina rebuilding.
Now, I could understand the first emergency supplemental appropriation right after we invaded Iraq. That was allegedly for rebuilding the country and restoring stability, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, the money wound up going to security... or so they say. You see, no has accounted for that money. Actually the last four "emergency" appropriations have been riddled with a lack of accountability.
Which brings us to the next one coming down the pike. Last week it was heralded as the largest in American history, weighing in at $106 Bn. Of course, that was before Congress came back into town from break. Earlier this week it had swollen to $117 Bn. Now I think it just passed $121 Bn. And here is the wild part.... that's all in the SENATE. That is supposed to be the deliberative body. The body that cools the passions of the House.
The numbers we are talking here are so astronomical there is no way all that money can be going to just one party. When I say astronomical I'm not using poetic license. Do you know what 100 Billion looks like? Can you think of something that represents 100 Billion?
Here's something. Our Milky Way galaxy. If every silver dollar in that appropriations bill was a star, you would have enough to create the Milky Way galaxy with spares left over for a few minor systems for your friends.
Do you know how long it takes to get from one side of the Milky Way to the other at the speed of light? 100,000 years.
Those are big numbers. But I want to put them in perspective because I know that people tune them out. That's how they screw us. We stop paying attention.
I'd like to propose something. They say it is possible to swallow an elephant... if you do it one bite at a time. So let's all look at what "our" representatives are doing and report on it.
Let me give you the example I have seen so far that really smacks of arrogance. After Katrina, Mississippi got 250 Million dollars to repair damage to railroads hit by the storm. The money was used as it was supposed to be used and the railroad was rebuilt. Now Trent Lott has inserted into this behemoth "emergency" bill ANOTHER 750 Million to move and rebuild the same railroad!
I expect that if anyone points that out, he will likely defend it as saying "it's less than 1% of the bill"....but you know things are out of hand when 3/4 of a billion of anything is considered chump change. Even if you are talking yen or lira, that's real money.
If we don't start focusing on the money pit, our grandchildren will wonder why the hell we bothered fighting in Iraq...