“Two assemblymen, three mayors, and several rabbis…”
It sounds like the set up to an old joke, but rather than walking into a bar, the perps mentioned above are behind bars today as part of a money laundering and political corruption investigation that swept up 44 suspects across New Jersey, Republicans and Democrats alike, and implicated many more.
Prosecutors said the investigation, reaching through layer upon layer of government, revealed a “pervasive” culture of corruption.
“New Jersey’s corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation,” said Ed Kahrer, who heads the FBI’s white-collar and public-corruption investigation division. “Corruption is a cancer that is destroying the core values of this state.”
See, that’s why I laugh whenever I hear folks accusing Gov. Gregoire of being corrupt for (gasp) taking legal campaign contributions from tribes and unions, or comparing Mayor Nickels’ style to that of some East Coast political boss. Coming from Philadelphia, I know from corrupt political machines, and folks, this ain’t it.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy abusing our elected officials as much as the next guy, but as spineless, rudderless and ineffective as they can sometimes be, you gotta give them credit for at least being clean when it comes to the public till. Hell, we don’t even seem to get our fair share of sex scandals around here. Even when it comes to organized crime, the best Seattle can muster are two-bit hoodlums like the Colacurcios, whereas if this were Hoboken or Jersey City, rather than running strip clubs, Frank Jr. would be preparing to succeed his father as mayor.
I’m just sayin’….
..and the local strip clubs are pretty lame, tame affairs.
It’s far to easy to swindle the taxpayers with pet projects legally here–why would anyone take the risk of a shady underground empire?
Daddy Love @ #1: In my opinion, you can thank the liquor control laws for that. Strip clubs can’t serve alchohol here. In other places, where alchohol is served, you get reports of guys waking up the next morning in hotel rooms with all their credit cards maxed out, and the clubs insisting that all the charges were approved and legitimate.
The most corrupt politicians in this state wear robes. The Supreme Court justices are corrupt pigs – they lie about claims the little guy raises in order to give wins to their rich friends who can fill PAC’s to the rim and keep them in office.
Here’s an example of how the dirty judiciary in this state operates:
http://www.seattlepi.com/sound.....eID=407248
THAT is corruption.
Here’s another example: the party that controls it all in Washington is going to try ripping off Puget Sound area taxpayers. The scam involves the state demanding, and Sound Transit agreeing to pay, hundreds of millions for a right of way over the I-90 corridor that ST shouldn’t have to pay a nickle for. If the party in control of Olympia cared about ST, or those burdened by its excessive taxes, it would grant a transitway agreement at nominal cost to ST. But with a wink and a nudge, ST is going to funnel huge amounts of public money to its friends in Olympia.
Would you consider that corruption, David?
So far as I’m concerned, the real corruption is that the road-builders seem to be running the state legislature, and the developers running the city government. Hey, in NJ, pre-RICO, the mafia used to run both. So…maybe they’ve just eliminated the middleman?
ivan @4,
I’m with you in being outraged by efforts to charge ST to cross I-90, but no, it’s not corruption, and certainly not by New Jersey standards. What we don’t see here are politicians breaking the law for personal financial gain.
Honestly… we just don’t appreciate how clean our elected officials are here compared to much of the rest of the nation.
I’m with you in being outraged by efforts to charge ST to cross I-90
You can blame Foster Pepper and Stoel Rives, the two law firms the state hired to provide that opinion.
Other lawyers opine ST has no obligation to pay, especially as ST didn’t pay Seattle, Federal Way, Tukwila, or Tacoma more than “costs incurred” for the transitways it obtained from those jurisdictions.
What do you think – should ST sue to have a court determine whether or not the State is within its rights to demand huge amounts for the right to use the corridor?
This is a red letter day! Well, maybe a blue letter day? I agree with David Goldstein.
I suppose everyone has to be correct sometime. I would imagine Republicans have enough to do in Washington fighting left wing policies on the merits without resorting to made up controversies. There is plenty of meat in the diet, no need for candy.
Still, I suspect that this is similar to that solar eclipse in being rare and insigfificant. Oh well. Maybe Mr. Goldstein will educate himself into being a conservative sometime.
Goldy writes: “we just don’t appreciate how clean our elected officials are”
Apparently you need to put an asterisk there, and note that the judges are an exception. You do understand they’re “elected officials” as well, right Goldy?
taint @9,
Show me an example of a corrupt judge. Show me an indictment, let alone a conviction.
re 8: Why should he? So he can live under the illusion that the president isn’t a natural born citizen?
How can you be lost in a sea of blue when your head is so far up your puckered little brown anus?
You locals have no idea of what Goldy is talking about.
Don’t corrupt the word, “corrupt,” capisce?
“Show me an example of a corrupt judge. Show me an indictment, let alone a conviction.”
This indictment would have been made in what court, exactly?
I have a journalist friend who lives and works in New Mexico, and one of his favorite lines is, “A poor politician is a poor politician.” Down there, so many get into trouble that it’s “Now indicting number 23…”
BTW…@4…Ivan…Your link is no good.
The Piper
14 – ??
http://www.seattlepi.com/sound.....eID=407248
link works for me . . .
i wonder how many rabbis have gotten away with money laundering
@15…TS…
Yours worked – his didn’t.
But the point? Aside from not liking the way judges are selected or that citizens can exercize their free speech rights by supporting the candidates for judicial office of their choice, what’s the big deal?
The Piper
@16…DorkofUntruth…
I wonder how many Nazi’s escaped being brought to the bar of justice after WW II?
Where were you, BTW, between 1939 and 1945?
Just to let you know that as long as you continue to spew hateful, anti-semitic bile, I will be on you like a hammer on a nail.
The Piper
A priest and a Rabbi walk into a bar.
That’s the joke.
Y’know, I read the article about the Strippers and the ‘rent’ fees, and the honest-to-God first thing that came to mind:
“Huh. Strippers need a Union.”
Not sure if that’s a healthy reaction or not. I’m gonna have to think about this one…
If you don’t mind a suggestion…
Something a little bigger than a hammer is needed to get through to him.
@20…S…
Strippers do have a union.
The Piper
@21…MS…
Figure of speech…
But I think he gets the message, don’t you?
The Piper
Unfortunately, no.
@24…MS…
Not the BIG, cosmic message that what he says is pre-flush sewage, but the more personally-painful-for-him message that I will tear into him without remorse and with unrelenting fierceness. His ass will be grass, and I’m the lawnmower.
The Piper
Piper and Marvin: Your fake dunning of your cohorts who continue to spew hatred both racial and otherwise is a thin blanket for you to wear — as thin as Muslims who profess to hate violent militants, yet don’t lift a finger to stop it.
Where do you two clowns stand on the issue of the president’s birthright as an American citizen?
That’s the test. Where do you stand on that issue?
Got no problem with the Pipes swipe at MOT
re 27: It’s self-righteous posing. If they were really against racism, they would not belong to a party that endorses the ‘southern strategy’ and knowingly manipulates the large cotillion of ugly-minded morons that comprise the Republican ‘base’ — a moniker so apropos, it’s almost as if it were as brazenly denigrating as Rush and his ‘dittoheads’.
you know whats funny. the statistics show that catholic priets molest kids at the same rate as society as a whole, but the media jumped on them going back 50 years. did you call the media anticatholic? so i wonder, do rabbbis use the tax exempt status of their temples to launder money at the same rate as the society at large? of course, if it was catholic priests that did it, you’d all be whining, you fucking antichrsitian scumbags!!!
EVL- I’ve called out Piper before, but anyone who opposes the hateful evil spew from MOT gets a prop from me.
And nothing from MOT is funny.
I’m a member of a Jewish temple in Seattle and its financial situation is such that there isn’t any money coming in to launder, should our rabbis wish to do so, which they wouldn’t. And I’m not sure for what purpose the money would be laundered — buying up a huge supply of matzos? Candles for Hanukkah?
Leave off the religiously-racist comments.
re 29: I never use my tax free temple for money laundering.
How ’bout you?
Slight correction to Goldy’s statement that the case “swept up 44 suspects across New Jersey, Republicans and Democrats alike….” According to the story on PI.com (from the AP) all but one of the arrested public officials were Democrats. The phrase ought to have been “swept up Republican and Democrats alike.”
tpn @2 makes the most salient point. Here in the great state of WA the scams are done above board, by the book. What about the Tacoma principal who was collecting his principal’s salary (‘paid admin leave’)after being convicted of rape. Or the trooper who collected a trooper’s salary for over a year while he sat in jail for fondling female motorists he had stopped. The David Brame assistant who bowed out with a $65K per year tax-pension. The former King County cop (Bachmeir) who was convicted of murder and collects a police disability pension in his prison cell, due to his depression over his conviction. I believe there is not one but two former KC deputies convicted of murder collecting disability pensions.
Or the legislators who triple their pensions by taking a $100K post with the liquor control board for a couple years, knowing that their pension is based on the two highest-paid years of their careers.
All legal, all by the book.