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.
» For comparison’s sake, Bernie Madoff got 150 years. Stanford, who was convicted of 13 of 14 fraud counts in March, lived a lavish life, and was at one point personally worth $2 billion. (His scheme, half the size of Madoff’s, was nonetheless massive.) But his assets were frozen and he was so broke that he had to rely on court-appointed lawyers. Said lawyers have no sense of gravity, apparently — they seriously thought he’d get jailed for less than four years? Perhaps, though, it was Stanford himself who screwed up his chances, telling the judge this on Thursday: “I’m not here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness or to throw myself at your mercy. I did not run a Ponzi scheme. I didn’t defraud anybody.” He spoke for 40 minutes. He claimed the U.S. used “gestapo tactics” on him. In return, he got a huge sentence.
Follow ShortFormBlog • Find us on Twitter & Facebook
Ethical lapses aplenty: Last week saw Kwame R. Brown, the second-ranking political official in the city, step down from his job in the wake of a campaign finance and bank fraud scandal. Before that, Harry Thomas Jr. dropped his city council seat in January and is about to head to jail on bank fraud charges. And two mayor Vincent Gray’s aides pleaded guilty on corruption charges of their own (though Gray denies wrongdoing). It’s another set of scandals in a city that has seen more than its fair share. “Politicians will say there’s a culture of corruption, and often people say it’s rhetoric,” notes Democratic activist Bryan Weaver “But when it comes to D.C., there’s a culture of corruption that really exists. What gets passed off as politics as usual are huge ethical lapses.” Read more here. (photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
» The biggest takedown of its kind: Today, raids took place in Miami, Tampa, Chicago, Baton Rouge, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles as part of a three-year ongoing crackdown on Medicare fraud, according to an announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Wednesday. The frauds included ”every kind of scheme you can think of,” according to one source on the matter.
Follow ShortFormBlog • Find us on Twitter & Facebook
Ever watch cable news? You’ve seen this guy. This redhead has been on all the major cable news networks and has filled up tons of ads with claims that his company will solve your tax problems. (It’s even in their logo!) Ironically, TaxMasters has had to file for bankruptcy protection as the result of a $200 million fraud settlement. The big three cable networks are on the hook for a loss, too — the company owes CNN $2.6 million, Fox News Channel over $938,000 and MSNBC nearly $260,000. What? You mean you can’t trust a guy with a beard?
» Which makes this the biggest campaign embezzlement ever. The perpetrator, Kinde Durkee, now faces up to 11 years in prison for this extremely brazen and ambitious fraud scheme. Durkee had been a longtime treasurer for numerous California state Democrats, Senator Diane Feinstein and Rep. Loretta Sanchez among them. Court prosecutors said Durkee used the money belonging to her clients to finance her mortgage, credit card payments, business firm, and trips to Disneyland, among other things. As to whether she’d be able to return the money, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner seemed doubtful she had the resources to do so: “You don’t have to live like Donald Trump to burn through that kind of money.”
The evidence is in. And it is devastating for Ceglia and his cohorts.Lawyers representing Facebook • In a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the company by wood-pellet salesman and erstwhile Facebook claimant Paul Ceglia. The lawyers claimed that Ceglia is trying to defraud the company in a motion to dismiss filed on Monday. “Ceglia and his co-conspirators have compounded their wrongdoing by destroying and tampering with evidence, obstructing discovery, and defying court orders,” the company said. The lawyers claimed that Ceglia’s case amounted to extortion.
» And the CEO won’t resign: Despite the black mark on his company’s record, Oswald Gruebel says he won’t resign due to the actions of rogue trader Kweku Adoboli. “I’m responsible for everything that happens at the bank,” Gruebel said. “if you ask me whether I feel guilty, then I would say no.” So how did Adoboli manage to hide his unauthorized trades? Well, before he became a trader, he worked in the back office, giving him knowledge of both sides of the coin. Authorities charged Adoboli in a London court on Friday.
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
We are very willing to entertain savings in Medicare. Medicare gives very good health care very inefficiently.New York Senator Chuck Schumer • Indicating he and his Democratic colleagues are open to “savings in Medicare,” which implies a desire to reduce Medicare spending. This has a lot of people nervous, with overlapping constituencies at play — hospitals get a ton of revenue through these programs, meaning there’s the big lobbyist angle, as well as the everyday citizen who’s getting older and is fearful about Medicare’s uncertainty. What Schumer says is absolutely correct; Medicare is a massively popular program that provides high-quality health care at a very high cost. The question people have when Medicare reform starts getting discussed, though, is whether actual progress on things like efficiency and fraud prevention will occur, or whether they’ll be hit with a benefit cut followed by more of the status-quo. With reports out that the White House is negotiating big Medicare cuts on the debt limit deal, such fears seem understandable. source (via • follow)
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
