Tag: corruption

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Accountability folly ideological culture insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Choice Corruption

Harvey Weinstein, donor, democrats, corruption, sex scandal, boycott,

What is corruption? said no jesting Pilate ever. 

But please, stay for an answer.

A week ago, Jimmie Moore pleaded guilty to filing a false campaign finance report in order to conceal a $90,000 payment to drop out of a congressional race. Moore is a former Philadelphia judge (heavens). The nearly one-​hundred-​grand came from the incumbent he was challenging: Congressman Bob Brady (D‑Pa.).

Moore, who implicated Rep. Brady in the scheme, now faces as many as five years in prison. Brady, for his part, has yet to be charged.

A pro-​life politician’s 15-​year tenure in Congress has ended. Tim Murphy (R‑Pa.) has resigned following revelations that he had urged the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to have an abortion. Additional bad behavior — “a culture of abuse and a culture of corruption” in his congressional office — was detailed in an in-​depth Politico exposé.

But for the biggest scandal story, go Hollywood. Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been ousted from The Weinstein Company upon allegations that he had committed criminal sexual assaults for decades. As a huge donor to the Democratic Party, questions abound. Which Democrats had knowledge of Weinstein’s behavior and yet remained silent?

That ‘look the other way’ rot has already spread to a media/​entertainment institution: Saturday Night Live. Last Saturday night, observers were surprised that SNL did not feature even one joke at liberal Weinstein’s expense. 

“It’s a New York thing,” quipped Producer Lorne Michaels when questioned about the omission.*

I’m not big on launching boycotts at every turn. But how could anyone who values evenhandedness turn on SNL next Saturday — or the following — as if nothing had happened?

Who needs these jesters covering for corruption?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* Audience members at a rehearsal said there had been a Weinstein joke, which garnered a big laugh, but it was apparently pulled from the live broadcast.

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics

Interfering With a Sweet Racket?

Seattle, City Light, corruption, security, police, scandal, cronyism

One way for governments and enterprises to save money is to contract out some or all of their services. Towns, cities, counties, states — even the federal government — engage in such practices all the time.

It is really just outsourcing, as business lingo dubs it.* But, like any system for shifting responsibility away from direct management, it can be corrupted.

As Seattle citizens now learn, courtesy of Seattle Times reporters Mike Carter and Steve Miletich. 

It appears that Seattle City Light, the public utility providing electricity to the city, has been contracting exclusively with Seattle’s Finest Security & Traffic Control. For a half a decade. Despite there being direct competition from another firm.

The utility paid “more than $7.8 million over the past five years to provide off-​duty police officers for traffic control or security work,” the Times tells us.

The whole story came to light (no pun intended) when a new outfit offering similar services, but based on “gig economy” principles, sought to enter the market. Seattle’s Finest challenged the firm’s licensing, and, allegedly, directed abuse at the firm’s chief executive officer. 

A Seattle detective off-​handedly described the dominance of Seattle’s Finest “in organized-​crime terms — using the word ‘mafia’ — and said nobody would be allowed to interfere with it.”

The FBI has now been called in. 

Usually, local government may seem rather humdrum. But a lot of money can go through powerful, privileged hands. Things can get exciting. Terms like “murky” and “intimidation” abound.

Is this a surprise?

Remember: power corrupts; local power corrupts locally. 

Right there where we live.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* An economist, R. H. Coase, got a Nobel Prize in no small part for explaining why this sort of contract can work better than establishing a complete firm-​employee wage system.

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Accountability general freedom incumbents term limits too much government

Keystone Correlation

keystone, term limits, FDR, Mugabe, Illinois, corruption

Ninety-​three-​year-​old Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with phony elections and brutal repression for the last 30 years. Conversely, only one president in U.S. history has served more than two four-​year terms, and after that single exception a constitutional amendment was enacted, limiting the terms of future presidents to the traditional two terms.* 

Americans are better for the limited tenures; Zimbabweans worse for the longevity. 

Recently, Illinois was declared the most dysfunctional state in the union. Illinois also boasts the nation’s longest-​serving — and by far the most powerful — Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan. What irony that incumbency should wreck the Land of Lincoln, when favorite son, Honest Abe, represented his Illinois district in Congress for only a single term and then stepped down as was the custom for the local party. 

In bankrupt Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, former Mayor Stephen Reed held power for 28 years (nearly as long as Mugabe and Madigan) during which time he managed to plunge the city into insolvency. 

After leaving office, Reed also pled guilty to 20 counts of theft from the city. But was mysteriously sentenced to merely two years of probation.

“There’s no question that the city of Harrisburg was traumatized by power being concentrated in one individual for an enormously long period of time,” current Mayor Eric Papenfuse acknowledged. “I don’t think anyone wants to see that again.”

The Harrisburg City Council hasn’t taken any action yet, but there appears to be ample support for term limits across the board, including from council members. 

Understanding the correlation between long-​serving politicians and long-​suffering constituents is the keystone to critical reform.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

*  Technically, a president could serve up to ten years, as the 22nd Amendment prohibits a person from being elected president more than twice or if the person has “held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President … more than once.”

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Accountability insider corruption moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics too much government

Cronyism Pays

CATO, FEE, crony, cronyism, Washington, corruption, elites, lobbyist, politicians, privilege, power

Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow in fiscal policy at the Cato Institute, is a nice guy. But he’s sort of depressing, too.

Weeks ago, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Mitchell offered that “The Washington, DC Gilded Class Is Thriving.” He even provided a “depressing chart” graphing “median inflation-​adjusted household income for the entire nation and for the District of Columbia.”

There is a graphic divide: while “the nation’s capital used to be somewhat similar to the rest of the nation … over the past 10 years, DC residents have become an economic elite, with a representative household ‘earning’ almost $14,000 more than the national average.”

Dan Mitchell highlights that “the entire region is prospering at the expense of the rest of the nation.” Among the nation’s counties, the top four wealthiest are in suburban Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital region boasts nine of the country’s top 20 richest counties. 

Now Mitchell’s back with another FEE column exclaiming more bad news: “The ROI for Cronyism is Huge.” (ROI is “return on investment.”)

Mitchell cites a study entitled, “All the President’s Friends: Political Access and Firm Value,” conducted by University of Illinois professors Jeffrey R. Brown and Jiekun Huang. “Using novel data on White House visitors from 2009 through 2015,” they explain, “we find that corporate executives’ meetings with key policymakers are associated with positive abnormal stock returns.…”

The authors find a lot evidence showing that “political access is of significant value to corporations.”

None of this should surprise. Cronyism pays, and it sticks close to power, even geographically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment incumbents local leaders national politics & policies term limits

One Incumbent Falls

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, corruption, term limits

When former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D‑Fla.) was indicted last July on 24 felony counts of fraud and obstruction, she suggested that if the FBI hadn’t wasted time investigating her for milking a charity for personal gain, they might have prevented the Orlando massacre. 

“These are the same agents that was not able to do a thorough investigation of [Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen],” Brown screeched at reporters, “and we ended up with 50 people dead.”

Last week, the former congresswoman* was convicted of 18 felonies related to fraudulently raising $800,000 for the One Door for Education Foundation, which only spent $1,200 on two small college scholarships — 0.0015 of what was raised … for college scholarships. 

As the Feds put it, Congresswoman Brown and her congressional chief of staff “used the vast majority of One Door donations for their personal and professional benefit, including tens of thousands of dollars in cash deposits that [her chief of staff] made to Brown’s personal bank accounts.”

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on “events hosted by Brown or held in her honor, including a golf tournament in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida; lavish receptions during an annual conference in Washington, D.C.; the use of a luxury box during a concert in Washington, D.C.; and the use of a luxury box during an NFL game in the Washington, D.C., area.”

The 70-​year-​old Brown spent nearly a quarter of a century in Congress. Now she awaits sentencing to as many as 277 years in prison — a quarter of a millennia. 

It’s yet another good argument for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* As I explained in greater detail at Townhall, out of 435 congressional seats up for election in 2016, Congresswoman Brown was one of only five incumbents defeated in the 2016 primary elections. Two of the five defeated — Brown and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D‑Penn.) — faced multiple-​count felony indictments. Two others were victims of redistricting that pushed them into new districts. Only one incumbent who was un-​indicted and running in an incumbent district was defeated.

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Accountability government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders moral hazard term limits too much government

Regnat Tyrannis

Regnat Populus, The People Rule, Arkansas, corruption, petition, initiative, House Joint Resolution 1003, SB 689, Governor Asa Hutchinson

Arkansas’s motto is Regnat Populus — “The People Rule.” Unfortunately, the people’s so-​called representatives are demanding that this motto be made more fitting: Regnat Tyrannis.

I jest. The Natural State’s legislators aren’t nearly so honest. Just devious.

A few years back, the fine people of Arkansas (where I grew up) had arguably the nation’s most accessible-​to-​the-​people petition process. With it, they enacted issues that legislators despise: term limits, for instance.

But in 2013, legislators passed several bills upping the difficulty and cost of the citizen initiative process. 

They’re back.

Yesterday, Senate Bill 698 was passed and now goes to the governor. 

Today, the Senate votes on House Joint Resolution 1003, a constitutional amendment for the 2018 ballot. It increases the petition requirement and raises the vote threshold to 60 percent to pass an initiative amendment.*

SB 698 is straightforwardly sinister. When groups gather the voter signatures to place a measure on the ballot, the Secretary of State is required to publish the wording in the legal notice section of newspapers throughout the state. Despite low readership. This bill would make the petitioners pay.

According to a report in the Arkansas Democrat-​Gazette, the state spent nearly $2 million publishing the language of these measures in 2016. The old requirement should be repealed, but the new one would be disastrous: Only citizens with deep, deep pockets could pursue ballot initiatives.

A veto is needed from Governor Asa Hutchinson — call him at (501) 682‑2345.

As for HJR 1003, Arkansans can find their state senator here. Call early.

My adopted state’s motto is also Latin: Sic Semper Tyrannis.** The good people of Arkansas are welcome to it, until theirs is once again operative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* At least, voters can defeat this measure at the ballot box.

** The precise English translation of Virginia’s motto is “Thus always with tyrants.” The common translation is “Death to all tyrants.” 

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