Thomas Barr Jr.'s Blog, page 5
April 8, 2016
Bay: Awkward revelations in Panama Papers out corrupt politicians
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By Austin Bay - Special to the American-Statesman
A sophisticated global sewer system of law firms and banks located in accommodating locales serves the dirty financial
demands of corrupt political leaders and their cronies.
The so-called Panama Papers, obtained via leak by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, provide an astonishingly detailed
look at this mucky system. The ICIJ is Washington-based non-profit organization that links some 200 investigative journalists world-wide. The scandal’s instant name deliberately echoes the Vietnam-era’s Pentagon Papers. That leaked trove provided
shocking revelations, to include war-related lies peddled by the Johnson Administration.
The Panama Papers are actually 2.6 terabytes of digitized information containing more than 11.5 million client records belonging to a Panamanian law firm, Mossack
Fonseca.
The ICIJ says the firm’s financial and legal records expose “a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies.” Clients include companies and individuals sanctioned and blacklisted
by the US government for doing business with drug cartels, terrorist organizations and rogue nations. Some files address “the offshore holdings of drug dealers, Mafia members, corrupt politicians and tax evaders…”
Such awkward revelations.
Yes, crooked politicians world-wide — many of them staunch socialists, government interventionists and populists — filch millions of dollars, billions in some cases, via graft, extortion, bribery or outright theft. Then they stash their dirty money
in hidden bank accounts and trusts.
The offshore holdings of 12 current and former leaders receive premier billing in ICIJ’s analysis. These cads earned it, since they either rule or ruled their respective nations. Though it appears Russian
President Vladimir Putin was not a client, the ICIJ believes the law firm helped Putin’s his cronies “shuffle” $2 billion “through banks and shadow companies.”
Putin’s childhood friend, the cellist and conductor
Sergey Roldugin, is a key shuffler in what could be a classical case of money laundering. In that dark business Panama is regarded an accommodating locale. Files suggest Roldugin helped snag “a big slice of Russia’s TV advertising industry.”
Exposing the corruption is worth it. Corruption undermines genuine economic progress. Cronyism destroys free markets.
While it’s doubtful that Putin and Roldulgin will ever face indictment (Putin runs Russia), they and other bad actors do confront
the stigmatization of awkward revelation. In the 21st century, thanks to the Internet, awkward facts can penetrate closed borders.
Authoritarians will still attempt to limit access. China has tried to curb Internet dissemination of the revelations.
The ICIJ reports family members of several “current or former members” Communist China’s Politburo Standing Committee used Mossack Fonseca to create offshore companies. “They include (current) President Xi’s brother-in-law…”
Ouch.
It is likely that many people who utilized the talents of Mossack Fonseca didn’t use its tentacles — meaning they committed no crime. There are legitimate reasons to have offshore accounts, but in a mass data dump the crimes of the
crooked mar the reputations of the legitimate. The hard lesson here is to work with firms that don’t have sewer clients.
Iceland’s prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson surely wishes he had been fully transparent. As I write this column
it isn’t quite clear if Gunnlaugsson has resigned or taken a leave of absence. He has suffered severe political damage. Evidence suggests what he did was technically legal. On the last day of 2009, while a member of Iceland’s parliament, he sold
his interest in a company he co-owned with his wife to her for a dollar. A new law coming into effect in January 2010 required him to declare his ownership as a conflict of interest. That company now claims over $4 million from three failed Icelandic banks.
In 2013 Gunnlaugsson helped craft deal to aid the banks’ claimants.
Self-serving? Oh yes. And Icelanders are outraged.
March 30, 2016
5 Blatantly Corrupt Politicians America Reelected Anyways
Story by Andrew Del Torro
#5. Wilbur Mills
As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills, 65, savored his reputation as the most powerful man in Congress. He also savored a nice cold drink and some pipin' hot stripper-crotch:
On October 7, 1974,
Washington D.C. police stopped a car for driving with no headlights. Mills emerged from the vehicle, bleeding and intoxicated--standard fare for a politician these days. Hell, we'd be concerned if there was a politician who didn't periodically emerge
from vehicles drunk and wounded. It's the same reason why Disneyland is creepy: if the facade is that squeaky clean, they must be really good at hiding the seriously dark shit.
But things jumped to Andy Dick-levels when a local stripper booted open
the passenger side door, sprinted out of the car and leapt into the nearby waters of the Tidal Basin and began fucking swimming away in an attempt to escape.
The woman, who performed under the stage name "Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker"
was arrested and taken to the hospital for the two black eyes that she had received from Mills in a prior escape attempt. That's right, the epically panicked suicide-fleeing wasn't from the cops, it was from the politician!
Obviously, she later admitted
to a sexual relationship with the married, 65-year-old congressman. That's par for the course for a politician, but the beatings and implied whore-napping
are what really set Mills apart from the pack.
Voters' (Ill-Advised) Response:
Mills was reelected to Congress with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Less than a month after reelection, Mills rewarded the voters' trust
by drunkenly joining Foxe (yes, they got back together; you just can't keep star-crossed lovers apart, even if those stars are from the repeated punches to the face she gets for trying to exit his Corvette) onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, a burlesque house where Foxe was performing. He then held a press conference from Foxe's dressing room.
Ha ha! Seriously?! That's so ballsy we can't even condemn it. You've got our vote, you shameless
bastard.
Buddy Cianci, Jr. is a prominent Rhode Island political figure. As a young, charismatic ex-soldier running on an anti-corruption stance, Cianci was first elected mayor of Providence in 1974. Over the next decade, he would become so popular that he
was considered as a candidate for national-level political positions as prestigious and high-ranking as the role of Vice President. All the more impressive when you realize that this could have had absolutely nothing to do with physical charisma:
In
1984, Cianci was forced by law to resign after pleading guilty to kidnapping and assaulting a contractor. His motive? He thought his wife was cheating on him... so he beat the man with an ashtray, burnt him with cigarettes and pummeled him relentlessly with
a fireplace log. Vote Buddy Cianci! Because he totally wanted to burn that guy to death, but managed to restrain himself!
Voters' (Ill-Advised)
Response:
In 1990, Cianci was elected back to his position as mayor. Deciding to stick with the theme, Buddy would again disgrace the office roughly 10 years later. In 2001, he was indicted and convicted of racketeering conspiracy (running
a corrupt criminal enterprise) and sentenced to five years in jail. He was released in 2007; earlier this year he indicated that he intends to run for a seat in the House. That's right; he's setting his sights higher now that he's been imprisoned twice.
Buddy Cianci apparently thinks political ambition works like gangland status; you've gotta spend significant time in the joint before anybody takes you seriously enough to promote, and on your first day in office
you either become somebody's bitch, or beat a man half to death with a Duraflame.
Originally appointed to the lifetime position of U.S. District Judge by Jimmy Carter in 1979, Alcee Hastings soon faced allegations that he was accepting bribes in exchange
for favorable decisions in the court room.
Here's what went down: Two brothers, Frank and Thomas Romano, were accused of stealing a million dollars from a union pension fund (because it's always a good idea to steal from the unions; no way they
have backup). The brothers were to be convicted in Hastings's court, when a friend of Hastings, serving as the go-between for the parties, approached an associate of the brothers and asked for a $150,000 bribe. An undercover FBI agent posing as Romano paid
Hastings's representative a $25,000 down payment, because apparently bribing the US Justice system has the same payment plan as buying a used Kia.
When it became clear the agent was not Romano, Hastings quickly threw out the judgment and made a big
show of making the brothers give the stolen million dollars back. Regardless, the FBI moved in and arrested his associate. Hastings, after hearing of the arrest, fled to Florida--which every good criminal knows is a lawless wasteland where life itself struggles
to exist.
Even still, the FBI managed to arrest him shortly after.
However, Hastings subscribed to the Barry Bonds school of avoiding justice: His friend and associate
chose to go to prison himself rather than testify against Hastings. After a jury found him not guilty, the Senate decided to take another look,
and ultimately convict him and remove him from office.
Voters' (Ill-Advised) Response:
In 1992, just three damn years after Alcee Hastings ran from the cops to Florida, he ran and was elected to the Florida
House of Representatives. Because shit, it's Florida: Voters were just happy to finally be voting for something that wasn't a serial rapist or an alligator.
As a young man, Robert Byrd impressed a venerable elder official so much he felt compelled to comment: "The country needs young men like you
in the leadership of the nation." Byrd took the message to heart and today, he's the senior senator from West Virginia.
Of course, the inspiration becomes less Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-esque when you find out the man doling out the compliment
was Joel Baskin: Mid-Atlantic Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. So what did Byrd do to impress him so much? Something unrelated, right? We understand you can't control the nature of your admirers, just look at the comments: Most of our fans are borderline-sociopaths.
Wrong! He organized 150 people to form their own chapter of the KKK, even instituting the brilliant idea to charge them $3 for the robe and
hood.
For his ability to coordinate the uniforms, something that's pretty run of the mill when it comes to volunteer Little League coaches, but apparently unheard of in the Klan, his newly founded chapter elected him "Exalted Cyclops." Which is like,
the Klan's second coolest rank next to "Sacred Wolverine."
During his 1952 bid for the House of Representatives, his opponents revealed the former ties to the KKK, which Byrd reluctantly acknowledged, explaining that he only belonged to the Klan from
"mid-1942 to early 1943" and he only joined in the first place "because it offered excitement and was strongly opposed to communism." In other words, Byrd didn't think it was that big of a deal, because he only wanted to hang black people for like, eight months
tops. And really, the Klan is less like a sinister hate group and more like a white trash G.I. Joe, anyway.
When Byrd's opponent uncovered a letter Byrd had handwritten to the KKK Imperial Wizard (the Klan's corporate infrastructure was designed
by a team of 13 year old fantasy fiction geeks for whatever reason) recommending a friend and urging promotion of the Klan throughout the country, dated 1946--well after when Byrd claimed he had left the Klan behind for good--Byrd's fellow Democrats pressured
him to drop out of the race.
Voters' (Ill-Advised) Response:
Byrd won the election and went on to serve six years in the House before winning his Senate seat in 1958. Today he's the longest serving Senator in U.S.
History.
Heading into the 90s, Marion Barry, the three-term mayor of Washington, D.C., was looking towards a new decade of progress and success, riding high on a wave of political popularity.
Also, crack cocaine. Just... just a whole entire wave of
crack cocaine.
Barry and his ex-girlfriend were arrested in a joint operation by the FBI and DC Police while smoking crack in a local hotel room. Displaying
the quick-wit that helped him charm voters, Barry found the only way to make getting caught smoking crack in a run-down hotel worse, when he muttered "bitch
set me up" in response. Footage of the arrest (and quote) was widely shown on television, and Berry was convicted and sentenced to a six-month prison term.
Voters' (Ill-Advised) Response:
After being released from
prison, Barry ran for a seat on the city council under the laughably inappropriate slogan "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C."
Either voters' long-term memory was so shoddy that they completely missed the implied dig at their hometown
("Ladies and Gentlemen, I may be a crackhead, but what better man to lead Crackville?!") or the earnest slogan simple mobilized the notoriously active tweeker demographic, because he won easily.
Barry would again run into problems with the law when
it was revealed that he failed to file tax returns... for nine of the last 10 years. And failed the mandatory drug testing during the hearing. And was arrested and charged with stalking Donna Watts-Brighthaupt in 2009.
Jesus, Barry! You know, this raises
an interesting conundrum: Maybe D.C.'s reputation as a drug-plagued criminal wonderland is undeserved; at this point, it is not unreasonable to assume that all that crack and every single crime committed in the name of it is Marion Berry out there in the back-alleys
somewhere, just being an overachiever.
February 12, 2016
Same Sex Marriage
HARVARD FINDS FLORIDA AMONG MOST POLITICALLY CORRUPT STATES IN U.S.
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By Melissa Ross
Harvard Law School’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics is out with a fascinating new report measuring legal and illegal corruption in American states, and
Florida does not fare particularly well.
The deep dive is here, but here’s the short take:
Illegalcorruption is “moderately common” in Florida’s executive branch. Illegal corruption is “very common” in the state’s legislative branch. No state has a high ranking for illegal corruption in its judiciary.
When it comes to “legal” corruption, Florida falls into the “very common” category in both the executive and legislative branches.
Florida is also listed as one of America’s most corrupt states, along with Arizona,
California, Kentucky, Alabama, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Rhode Island, and Texas.
The Safra Center compiled its corruption rankings in part by surveying news reporters covering state politics across
the country, in addition to the investigative reporters covering issues related to corruption during the first half of 2014.
January 28, 2016
Illinois State Lawmaker LaShawn Ford Pleads Guilty To Tax Fraud
Story by AP
Illinois state Rep. LaShawn Ford pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax fraud Monday at a federal court hearing in Chicago.
The Chicago Democrat
pleaded guilty to one count of delivering a false federal income tax return for 2007 as part of a plea deal. The misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Ford had earlier pleaded not guilty to far more serious
charges - eight felony counts of bank fraud and nine counts of submitting false information to the bank. But prosecutors said Monday that they would dismiss all the felony counts at Ford's sentencing on Nov. 11.
Each of the original counts carried a
maximum prison sentence of 30 years and up to $1 million in fines.
A felony conviction would have resulted in Ford losing his seat in Springfield. His future in the Illinois Legislature was not immediately clear.
Prosecutors alleged that Ford
made false statements to a bank to get a $500,000 increase on a line of credit starting as early as 2005.
According to prosecutors, Ford told the now-failed ShoreBank he would use the money to rehabilitate investment properties, but that he actually
used the funds for expenses such as car loans, credit cards, casino payments and his 2006 election campaign.
