Nothing’s changed. It’s the same old crap — kill the messenger.Legendary NYPD whistle-blower Frank Serpico • Discussing the current plights that police officers who speak up face within the department—for example, the plight of Officer Pedro Serrano, who has spoken up about the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk program. Serrano’s suffered the indignity of having a rat sticker pasted on his locker, but that’s far from the worst of the problems he faced. In case Seripco’s name sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a reason for that: His whistle-blowing case was the subject of a legendary Al Pacino film bearing his last name.
[America is] most corrupt in the world. …Where does this Great Breakdown [financial crisis] come from? It started exactly from the world, the United States. When I was interviewed in the U.S., people asked me, I said the same thing. I said now that China has become strong, everyone is making an issue of China. If our own countrymen don’t support our country, who will support our country? We know our country has many problems. We [can] talk about it when the door is closed. To outsiders, [we should say] ‘our country is the best.’Chinese film star Jackie Chan • Condemning America as the world’s most corrupt country in an interview on Chinese television. This isn’t a perspective that’s so out of character for him – Chan is a noted supporter of China’s ruling Communist party (to the extent of suggesting he’s come to believe “we Chinese people need to be controlled”), which has been criticized through the years as shot through with corruption, censorship and disrespect for human rights. Which is not to say he’s wrong in citing the 2008 financial crisis as an example of a corrupted relationship between American government and business, and one that had disastrous implications for the entire global financial system. But his final takeaway, that Chinese people should deny any discord within their system when speaking to an outsider, seems itself a strike against the sort of transparency that might loosen corruption’s hold. source
Academi LLC, the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide and later Xe Services, settled a case with the U.S. alleging an array of crimes, from illegally exporting items to countries under U.S. sanctions to giving weapons to the king of Jordan.
A bill of information and a deferred-prosecution agreement in the case were unsealed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New Bern, N.C. Under the agreement, Academi admitted to certain facts in the case and agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine on top of the $42 million it paid in an earlier settlement with the State Department.
With the agreement, the Justice Department said the U.S. government acknowledges the company’s efforts to reform its conduct and to mitigate the damage caused by its conduct. Despite its scandal-plagued past, Academi was recognized last month for its recent anti-corruption efforts by the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative.
This company changes its name so often that we missed that they had changed it from Xe to Academi. How bad must your company’s reputation be that you have to change your name twice to shake off bad press?
This is not the campaign that we intended to run. I got into this for the right reasons.Washington D.C. mayor Vincent Gray • Regarding the controversy around his 2010 election, which has been shrouded in scandal in recent months. On Tuesday, one of his campaign aides pleaded guilty to accepting payment from a businessman in the city to run a “shadow” campaign — spending $650,000 in illicit funds, kept off the books, to help promote Gray’s campaign. The news comes on top of other scandals the city’s government has faced — and led to three city council members asking for Gray’s resignation.
Did Ms. Tymoshenko sign a bad deal for corrupt reasons in 2009? I’ve no idea. If she were given a genuine trial by an independent court we might find out, but from the charade that convicted her we found out only that there’s nothing worse than politics dressing twitchy officials in robes to masquerade as justice.National Post columnist George Jonas • Writing about the situation Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s former Prime Minister, has been facing in jail of late. Tymoshenko went to jail over an energy deal with Russia that went sour for Ukraine, and has been shown in not the best shape of late, currently on a hunger strike, injured from a recent attack by prison guards. Jonas suggests that, with this tale, Ukraine is starting to look like one of the world’s more corrupt nations: ”A country holding its own ex-prime minister for ransom is either a lingering effect of 70 years of communism or a breakthrough in the quest for rock bottom. Perhaps Ukraine is about to open a new chapter in the history of piracy and blackmail.”
Well, this is out of left field: According to the Palmetto Public Record, the Governor of South Carolina will soon be indicted by the Department of Justice for tax fraud. While Haley generally keeps a low profile, she’s without question one of the GOP’s rising stars, and has been mentioned both by Republican strategists and Mitt Romney himself as a possible running mate. Details of the tax fraud allegations are still being put together, but they supposedly involve a Sikh temple run by Haley’s father, unpaid contractors hired to build said temple, and the possibility that the unpaid money made its way into Haley’s campaign coffers. But all that’s unconfirmed at this point. Stay tuned on this one. source
Quantifying Nepotism: Everyone knows (or at least assumes) that politicians use their power to benefit people close to them; that’s old news. However, scientific studies on the matter are hard to come by. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wanted to change that, and carried out an exhaustive study of the extent to which nepotism manifests itself in US Congress. Their report is 347 pages long; in case you have better things to do with your time (impossible!), here are some takeaways. Note: This study only covered the 2008 and 2010 election cycles.
» Miscellaneous: Out of the aforementioned 248 members who warranted inclusion in the report, 105 were Democrats, and 143 were Republicans. Speaker of the House John Boehner is nowhere to be found in the report—but Nancy Pelosi is. Oh, and which member of Congress paid fees or salaries to more of his family members than anyone else? Why, none other than anti-government crusader Ron Paul.
![Jack Abramoff suggests Blago will have tough time in prison
Abramoff, an ex-lobbyist who spent time in jail himself, says that disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, currently flying to a Colorado prison to serve a 14-year prison sentence on corruption charges, is not going to have fun at prison. “Most of [the inmates] are frankly friendly and not hostile, but it’s a completely disorienting environment. He’s a celebrity. So he will be the celebrity of the prison,” Abramoff said. “I think that [former Enron executive] Jeff Skilling who is there, is probably happy that he is arriving because being the celebrity in prison, take it from me, is not fun.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0xn7xgilh1qas8z9o1_500.jpg)
Abramoff, an ex-lobbyist who spent time in jail himself, says that disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, currently flying to a Colorado prison to serve a 14-year prison sentence on corruption charges, is not going to have fun at prison. “Most of [the inmates] are frankly friendly and not hostile, but it’s a completely disorienting environment. He’s a celebrity. So he will be the celebrity of the prison,” Abramoff said. “I think that [former Enron executive] Jeff Skilling who is there, is probably happy that he is arriving because being the celebrity in prison, take it from me, is not fun.”
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Where does haiti stand after the deadly 2010 quake? While about $15 billion of aid money is still missing in Haiti, progress is still being made. “Recovery is here. It is painfully slow, it is agonizing to watch, but it is recovery,” said Harvard professor Paul Farmer. He has spent three decades in Haiti and is opening a new hospital. Big factories could also stimulate the country’s economy, creating 20,000 jobs at just one plant. Progress can also be measured somewhat superficially; HuffPo “Good News” writer Cameron Sinclair finds the silver lining in other ways. He noted the lesser-but-still-positive positives of Haiti, such as its fast WiFi and rich history. (Perhaps that’s looking too hard in the forest to see trees, but y’know.) So, while recovery is still being sought after, it is still coming. And in some ways, it is already here. (Photo by Ken Cedeno / The Washington Post) source
Ex-French president Jacques Chirac found guilty of corruption: In a victory for French anti-corruption activists, the ex-president was convicted Thursday. He won’t go to jail, but will receive a two-year suspended sentence which will show up on his criminal record. source
Well, it seems that Depressing Headlines sure lives up to its depressing name.
thenoobyorker says: I would love to see this not end with Rajaratnam, they may use him as an example but there are others that could/ should go to jail as well.
» SFB says: Assuming that’s how a lot of people feel about the situation. There were a lot of people who did bad things during this era. How it seems to us that financial industry crimes tend to happen is that someone takes the fall for something that goes way beyond that person. In a lot of ways, that’s what the Occupy movement seems to be about — not letting that simply happen. — Ernie @ SFB
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