Name that party--New Orleans corruption
USA Today:
South Dakota also has a mystery defendant. Hat tip to Don Surber.
The number of public corruption cases here has more than quintupled, sparked by a federal crackdown on post-Katrina wrongdoings and a billboard campaign urging residents to expose crooked politics and payoffs, the FBI said.You can read the entire story and not find the party identification of those who have been charged. However, most public official in New Orleans have historically been Democrats. The embedded corruption of cities like New Orleans, Baltimore and Newark is almost always a Democrat enterprise. The Democrats have this embedded culture of corruption at the grass roots that they have never taken responsibility for or attempted to root out.
Federal statistics show that 171 people in the metropolitan area have been indicted on public corruption charges from 2003 through mid-September of this year, said Howard Schwartz, supervisory special agent for public corruption in the FBI's New Orleans' office. More than 80% were convicted or pleaded guilty to charges including bribery and fraud.
The upsurge in indictments is partly the result of corruption fueled by the enticement of billions of federal and state dollars flooding the region after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Schwartz said. Nationally, the number of pending public corruption cases has increased 49% since 2001.
Schwartz said the increased New Orleans numbers are mostly due to a bolstered federal crackdown, an aggressive public awareness campaign and more people offering tips on offenders.
The majority of those indicted were elected or appointed officials, ranging from police officers to a former school board president to city councilmen, Schwartz said.
Over the previous five years, 31 people were indicted in New Orleans corruption cases — meaning the figures have spiked 452%, Schwartz said.
The FBI crackdown is unprecedented in a region long plagued by corruption in public office and which for more than 50 years has had a citizens crime commission aimed at ferreting out political payoffs and shakedowns. Each year, local and federal prosecutors indict public officials, including police officers, teachers, judges and highway officials — but nothing compares to the past five years, said Ed Renwick, head of the Institute of Politics at Loyola University.
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South Dakota also has a mystery defendant. Hat tip to Don Surber.
It's simple. When Republicans are corrupt or grope pages that's hypocrisy, since they are supposed to be against such things. When Democrats are corrupt or grope pages that's just normal and accepted Democratic behavior, thus no hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteI think it's probably more of a when Democrats do it, it is representative of the individual, but when Republicans do it, it is clearly representative of the party as a whole. Or something like that. Or reporters are idiots. Either/Or.
ReplyDeleteClearly, these indictments are politically motivated because Bush is trying to distract everyone from Iraq, his Katrina failures, the fired attorneys scandal, and to protect his boy Rush Limbaugh.
ReplyDelete(I'll bet the liberals who read that nodded their heads in agreement, until they read this sentence)
Corruption in New Orleans? This isn't news. Not even Katrina can blow this stuff away. Another hurricane or two oughta do it!
ReplyDeleteThe corrupt (bribes and pork explicitly for contributions) and semi-corrupt (pork for friends) goings on in Congress -- which I think were at least as responsible as Iraq in allowing the Democrats back in in 2006 -- should keep members of either party from gloating about their superior virtue.
ReplyDeleteAnd to be fair, it is certainly possible that Republican local governments are just as corrupt. However, with a few, usually short-term exceptions, they don't run big or even medium-sized cities. Corruption in towns might be comparable on a percentage basis, but is hard to ferret out by police because everyone knows everyone, and the gross amounts involved tend to be smaller.
I am a native New Orleanian and I am thrilled the corruption is being weeded out. (By the way, these arrests are all for pre-Katrina offenses.) Don't fool yourself though. We saw so much federal government ineptitude and cronyism in the months after the storm that I have lost faith in all levels of government. They are only in it for themselves, not to help the citizens, even when those citizens are in desparate circumstances.
ReplyDelete