New York political bloggers/reporters have all the fun:
The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on federal corruption charges on Thursday and accused of using the power of his office for more than a decade to secure millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks and then covering up his schemes, according to court documents.
Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, is accused of a range of corrupt dealings that capitalized on his official position. They include using his position to obtain corrupt payments misrepresented as referral fees from a law firm, funneling state research funds and other benefits to a doctor who in return referred asbestos claims to the law firm where the speaker worked, and secretly helping real estate developers win tax breaks.
Say what you want about Washington State House speaker Frank Chopp, but he’s not corrupt. Hell, as loathsome as they are, not even our Republicans are corrupt (at least not in any legally actionable sense of the word). I suppose our relatively scandal-free politics is a good thing, but it sure does make it boring to cover.
Too bad WA pols weren’t caught deflating footballs at the Seahawks game last Sunday. Maybe that would have made the state’s politics more exciting.
Now, now. Be fair.
Not long ago one of Maria Cantwell’s flunkies was caught trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a 13 year-old and ended up pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
According to court papers presented by prosecutors and signed by McHaney, McHaney was at his Senate job on Nov. 30 when an unidentified witness, who was working with police, contacted him online. The witness asked whether McHaney, known as Mike, was interested in sex with a 13-year-old boy.
“I’ll be there,” McHaney replied, the document said.
McHaney said he could “take a long lunch” and agreed to bring “visual aids” to a meeting with the witness. Police later discovered a portable flash drive with more than 1,000 pornographic images.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/15646477.html
That wasn’t boring.
And then there was Cantwell, again, embroiled in an affair with a married lobbyist that ended up as divorce fodder.
http://soundpolitics.com/archives/007001.html
Again, not boring.
Boring would be something like the unearthing of a Sawant sex tape.
This isn’t current. So maybe WA politics is more boring now than it used to be.
What used to be wasn’t boring at all:
Citing allegations of sexual harassment leveled against Gov. Mike Lowry, a leading women’s group is urging the first-term Democrat not to run for re-election in 1996.
In a statement issued Friday, the Washington State Women’s Political Caucus said Lowry “has disqualified himself from representing the women of the state of Washington.”
The announcement came after a two-hour meeting between Lowry and four members of the group’s leadership in the Burien home of a board member.
Caucus leaders sent a letter that had previously been approved by all 16 board members to the group’s 8,000 members and 4,000 others.
The board said it based its decision on Lowry’s “unacceptable” behavior…
http://m.spokesman.com/stories.....run-again/
It really can’t be blamed solely on Lowry. After all, Bill “Kiss it.” Clinton was in office at the time.
7 and 9 and 20 years ago. I’m sure if you keep digging you can find someone next to a liberal who did something scandalous in 1910 too.
@ 4
Well, there’s the Heidi, Judy, Ken, and strip club thing. But that was a few years ago as well.
Something tells me that several years ago will be plenty fresh for liberals when it’s time to dredge up GOP misdeeds.
Oh Bob! The people you mention were all voted out of office and the mob-connected strip club operators were thrown in jail.
So long ago. If you had reached any further you might have throw out your back.
Strippers were involved. Must have really made it memorable for you.
Oh here’s an update on “junior”.. Guess you’re going to have check out his latest “work” Bob.
We don’t have any Mafia around here, either, with Frank Colacurcio Sr. dead and his son an honest businessman now (see link @6 above).
@2 Jesus Christ, are you an asshole. I write a post in which I say not even our Republicans are corrupt, and you attempt prove Democratic corruption by what… dredging up some sexual scandals? FYI, sexual scandals aren’t corruption. Which is why I didn’t dredge up shit like this.
(And so-called Strippergate wasn’t corruption either. It was stupidity, and tremendously overblown.)
Could be our 4th Estate isn’t doing it’s job.
Maybe there is nothing to steal and the cupboards are bare.
Maybe our Republicans and Democrats are a little too chummy.
Maybe Washingtonians are really really nice people,
Maybe we have achieved nirvana.
Maybe if our legislature was full time like New York’s.
Then again it’s early in the current session.
Or maybe the railroad companies really did and still do control our state legislature.
Or maybe there is a corruption event about to erupt. Or politics or both. Hark Captain Justice has gotten his magnifying glass and pipe out!!
Mark Adams
Well Goldy there is more to the NYS story… Cuomo brought down Silver by his own actions… Covering his own ASS when the heat got too close. Puddy wrote about this last year. You don’t need to ask the crazed databaze arschloch as you have your own copy of all the threads. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07......html?_r=0
Maybe if local news reporters looked at malfeasance without those biased colored glasses they’d find it!
@ 8
I addressed boredom, or lack thereof, in politics in Washington state. See your thread title.
I’m getting on in years, and can’t remember the details, but 20 or 30 years ago, two big honchos in the state legislature went to jail for some sort of political corruption. Aside from that, Washington is pretty clean.