Updated: Two Ranking NYPD Officers Arrested For Conspiring To Close Lincoln Tunnel In Exchange For Prostitutes and Travel

Posted June 21, 2016 9:10 PM ET; Last updated June 25, 2016 5:32 PM ET


Grant (pictured leaving court on Monday) accepted a two-night stay at a hotel in Rome worth more than $1,000, contracting work in his home worth about $12,000 and jewelry, the court papers state.

[Updated June 25, 2016 5:32 PM ET]
[From article]
A high-end prostitute received $10,000 to accompany a high-ranking NYPD officer and one of his detective friends on a trip to Las Vegas, federal authorities said.
The woman, who was named Candi according to DNA Info, was hired to accompany Deputy Inspector James Grant, his friend, two businessmen and two other people during a Super Bowl weekend getaway in 2013, the indictment states.
One of the businessmen, according to the document, was Jeremy Reichberg, of Brooklyn, who now faces corruption charges along with Grant and NYPD Deputy Chief Michael Harrington.
Reichberg and another businessman spent more than $100,000 bribing NYPD officers in exchange for favors, US Attorney Preet Bharara said Monday.
Candi, a high-end prostitute, took off in the private jet with Grant, Reichberg and businessman Jona Rechnitz, who has pleaded guilty in the case and is now cooperating with authorities in the investigation, from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, DNA Info reported.
The group left on February 2, 2014 to and returned on February 4 on the private jet, which cost $57,000 according to the indictment.
Candi told investigators that Grant and others had 'taken advantage of her services during the trip' and slept in Grant's room, the document states.
Reichberg had offered to take Grant to Las Vegas for a Super Bowl weekend a month prior, authorities said.
Authorities arrested Grant, 43, Harrington, 50 and Reichberg, 42, on Monday. All three now face one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.


Meanwhile authorities said Harrington (pictured on Monday) accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of private security work, hotel rooms in Chicago worth more than $6,000, and dinners worth thousands of dollars.

Reichberg and Rechnitz 'engineered a scheme to provide lavish benefits to high-ranking members of the NYPD' between 2012 and 2015, the US Attorney’s Office said.
Other gifts included a two-night stay at a hotel in Rome for Grant worth more than $1,000, contracting work in his home worth about $12,000 and jewelry, the court papers state.
Meanwhile authorities said Harrington accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of private security work for a company he helped manage unofficially, hotel rooms in Chicago for him and his family worth more than $6,000, and dinners worth thousands of dollars.
In exchange, the indictment says, Grant and Harrington arranged police escorts for the two businessmen, diverted police resources to investigate their private matters and helped them get VIP access to parades and other events in New York City.
Grant helped the two men avoid tickets after being pulled over by officers by giving them cards, authorities said.
He also helped Reichberg to obtain a gun license from the NYPD and tried to do the same for Rechnitz, the US Attorney's Office said.
NYPD Sergeant David Villanueva was also arrested on Monday and charged with receiving cash bribes to expedite and approve gun licenses.
Authorities also unveiled the guilty plea of officer Richard Ochetal, who has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for the approval of gun license applications and is now cooperating with investigation.
Both Reichberg and Rechnitz have contributed heavily to Mayor de Blasio's campaign.
The mayor hasn't been implicated in any wrongdoing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3653678/High-end-prostitute-called-Candi-received-10-000-accompany-NYPD-officers-fundraisers-Bill-Blasio-private-jet-Super-Bowl-weekend-Las-Vegas.html

High-end prostitute called Candi 'received $10,000 to accompany NYPD officers and de Blasio donors on a private jet for a Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas'
The prostitute was hired to spend the trip with Deputy Inspector James Grant, a detective friend and two businessmen in 2013, authorities said
Grant and others 'took advantage of her services', according to indictment
The jet cost $59,000 and Candi slept in Grant's room, the document states
Grant, businessman Jeremy Reichberg and NYPD Deputy Chief Michael Harrington are now facing corruption charges
Reichberg and another businessman spent more than $100,000 bribing NYPD officers in exchange for favors, US Attorney Preet Bharara said

By CLEMENCE MICHALLON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 23:44 EST, 21 June 2016 | UPDATED: 02:10 EST, 22 June 2016


* * *

[Posted June 21, 2016 9:10 PM ET]


Jeremy Reichberg

Photo: Reuters

[From article]

Cops shut down a lane in the Lincoln Tunnel so a visiting businessman could be escorted through it at the behest of a major de Blasio fundraiser, federal prosecutors charged Monday.
The outrageous move was revealed as part of damning criminal indictments unveiled Monday against four NYPD officers and the shady “fixer’’who allegedly arranged it.
The stunning arrests marked the first time cops have been charged in the sweeping 3½-year corruption investigation rocking the department and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, which is being probed for its fundraising.

Jona Rechnitz
Photo: Baruch Ezagui/collive.com

Federal prosecutors allege that the civilian behind the closure, Borough Park businessman Jeremy Reichberg, and his pal, real estate investor Jona Rechnitz, spent more than $100,000 on police bribes between 2012 and 2015.
“They got, in effect, a private police force for themselves and their friends — effectively they got cops on call,” Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said.
The criminal indictments alleged that in one instance, “Reichberg, using his connections in local law enforcement agencies, was able to arrange for the closure of a lane in the Lincoln Tunnel and a police escort down that lane for a businessman visiting the United States.”
It was unclear when the shutdown occurred, but law enforcement sources said the request did not go through official channels and there was no documentation of it, suggesting it could have been orchestrated in the middle of the night.
Bharara said the busted NYPD officials accepted bribes that included costly trips and romps with a prostitute.
Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Inspector James Grant and Sgt. David Villanueva were all arrested at their homes at 6 a.m., prosecutors said.
A fourth cop, Officer Richard Ochetal, had already pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for expediting gun permit applications, according to court papers.
“It is a heartbreaking thing,’’ Bharara said at a press conference announcing the charges. “An officer who betrays his badge betrays every honorable officer.’’
The damning criminal indictments reveal just how influential Reichberg and Rechnitz became through their department connections.
With Rechnitz’s help, Reichberg arranged free “flights, hotel rooms, prostitutes, expensive meals, home improvements, and prime seats to sporting events, among other things,” for the cops, court documents say.
In exchange, Grant and Harrington arranged police escorts for the businessmen, handled their personal business disputes, gave them VIP access to events such as New Year’s Eve and the Marathon and provided them with NYPD cards that got them out of traffic tickets, prosecutors allege.
Reichberg was even caught on an early 2015 wiretap indicating that his NYPD connections were so tight that he “was dispensing advice on promotions to members of the NYPD and taking steps to facilitate promotions.’’

http://nypost.com/2016/06/20/shady-businessman-bribed-cops-to-close-lincoln-tunnel-lane-feds/

Shady businessman bribed cops to close Lincoln Tunnel lane: feds
By Jamie Schram, Shawn Cohen, Kaja Whitehouse and Danika Fears
New York Post
June 20, 2016 | 11:03pm

Another High Ranking NYPD Officer Tries To Retire

Deputy Chief David Colon, the commanding officer of Brooklyn Housing, has been put on desk duty.

[From article]

Yet another high-ranking NYPD officer has put in his retirement papers amid the FBI’s gift-for-favors probe into the department, The Post has learned.
NYPD Deputy Chief of Housing David Colon filed for retirement at One Police Plaza on Tuesday – the day after Deputy Inspector James Grant put in his papers, police sources said.
Colon allegedly had close ties to a former Harlem restaurant owner, Hamlet Peralta, who was recently indicted by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office on charges related to running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Colon has been transferred to desk duty.
The head of Colon’s union said the deputy chief retired for “personal reasons.
“He has a newborn child he would like to devote all of his attention to,” Roy Richter, president of the NYPD Captains Endowment Association, said in a statement.
Five other NYPD honchos caught up in the scandal are expected to file their retirement papers in the coming days, including Deputy Housing Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Chief Eric Rodriguez and Deputy Chief Andrew Capul, sources said.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/25/another-cop-tries-to-retire-amid-nypd-corruption-probe/

Another cop tries to retire amid NYPD corruption probe
By Larry Celona, Shawn Cohen, Jamie Schram and Tina Moore
New York Post
May 25, 2016 | 12:22pm | Updated

New York State Senator, Majority Leader, Sentenced To Five Years in Prison

New York State Senate Majority Leader Dean (left), and son Adam, Skelos

[From article]
Ex-state Senate majority leader Dean Skelos was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for using his political power to line the pockets of his do-nothing son Adam.
Adam Skelos — who once threatened to “smash” in the head of a supervisor at a job his dad got for him — landed six and a half years behind bars.
Along with the prison sentences, Manhattan federal Judge Kimba Wood imposed a $500,000 fine on Dean Skelos.
The father-son duo were convicted in December of bribery, corruption and conspiracy after prosecutors with Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office played tapes showing that the Long Island Republican strong-armed companies into paying his 33-year-old son more than $330,000.
“You sent a message that you, one of the three most powerful politicians in New York State, were in some measure corrupt,” Judge Wood said of Dean Skelos.
“Your crimes were more egregious than most, with the exception of Sheldon Silver,” she said referring to the corrupt former state assembly speaker, who landed a 12-year prison term just last week in a separate case.
[. . .]



“These cases show — and history teaches — that the most effective corruption investigations are those that are truly independent and not in danger of either interference or premature shutdown.”
The comment was a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at Gov. Cuomo’s Moreland Commissioner.
The governor set up the commission in 2013, saying it was needed to “root out corruption in politics and government.” He then abruptly pulled the plug on it less than a year later after strong opposition from lawmakers.
A smiling Dean Skelos strolled into the courtroom before his sentencing and waved to his wife, Gail. His brother, retired Nassau County state appellate-court Judge Peter Skelos, also was in court for the proceeding.
“You can’t argue that you robbed a bank repeatedly over a course of years and you did it for your family,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Masimore said of Dean Skelos in court. “I think the evidence was very clear that Dean Skelos was strong-arming these victims and forcing them to pay.
[. . .]
Shortly after his conviction, the Long Island Republican began receiving taxpayer-funded pension payments of $95,000 per year.
At trial prosecutors argued that the elder Skelos used his influence to help Adam get jobs he either wasn’t qualified for or that he barely showed up for, including AbTech, an environmental tech company seeking state-funded contracts.
At one point AbTech agreed to increase Adam’s monthly paycheck from $4,000 to $10,000 after Adam threatened to use his father’s influence to block a $12 million contract that would help the company, it emerged at trial.
In another cushy gig his dad got him, the younger Skelos ​threatened his supervisor for criticizing him about his repeated absences.
“Guys like you couldn’t shine my shoes. You’ll never amount to anything. If you talk to me like that again, I’ll smash your f—–g head in,” Adam told his former supervisor, Chris Curcio, at medical ​malpractice ​insurance firm PRI, Curcio testified.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/12/ex-ny-senator-dean-skelos-gets-five-years-in-prison-for-corruption/

Ex-NY senator Dean Skelos gets five years in prison for corruption
By Kaja Whitehouse, Jennifer Bain and Danika Fears
New York Post
May 12, 2016 | 12:07pm

NYPD Officer Under Investigation Kills Himself

[From article]

An NYPD commander who was grilled by the FBI and had boxes of records seized by Internal Affairs cops amid a widening corruption probe put a gun to his head and killed himself on Friday, sources said.
Inspector Michael Ameri, 44, head of the Highway District, “felt his career was in jeopardy” as the feds and IAB eyed unauthorized escorts for members of the Orthodox Jewish community, the sources said.
“They went to his stationhouse [Thursday] to get the escort logs. After that, someone called him,” a law enforcement said, referring to the unit’s facility on Grand Central Parkway in Queens.
IAB cops took two years worth of police escort files in the surprise raid.
“He was very distraught about the visit. He felt his career was in jeopardy and he couldn’t deal with the stress and the not knowing when everything was going to come to a head,” said another source.
Ameri — the divorced father of a teenaged son — was found dead in his department-issued black Ford Taurus at 12:42 p.m. by Suffolk County homicide cops alongside Bergen Point Golf Course in West Babylon, about four miles from his house, sources said.
Witnesses told police Ameri’s car had been parked on the southbound shoulder of the road for more than 5 hours before his body was found inside.
Investigators are examining whether cops provided police escorts for funerals and other events in exchange for cash and gifts — including from businessman Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg.
[. . .]



One of Ameri’s closest friends in the Highway District put in his retirement papers on Wednesday, the same day the escort records were removed, sources said.
A source said Ameri was so spooked by the probe that he distanced himself from the Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.

[. . .]
Lichtenstein, a Borough Park Shomrim patrol leader, was arrested by the feds on April 17 on charges he paid off cops for the gun permits.
[. . .]
Ameri was named commanding officer of the patrol unit, which investigates serious accidents, in May 2014.
Previously, he was commanding officer of the 78th Precinct in Park Slope, where he was friendly with Mayor de Blasio, who lived in the neighborhood.
He was considered a key player in implementing de Blasio’s Vision Zero program to reduce traffic deaths.
[. . .]
Investigators are looking at the escort allegations along with other potential corruption, including cops taking cash for expediting gun permits and getting luxe perks such as a flight so Las Vegas — with a hooker on board — from the Rechnitz and Reichberg.
Two NYPD cops suddenly retired from the gun-licensing division to start a business helping people get pistol permits — at the same time Lichtenstein was allegedly bribing officers in that Brooklyn unit.
Another cop was stripped of his gun and badge after he tried to retire last month — prompting his suspension because he was still a target of the federal corruption probe.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/13/cop-questioned-in-nypd-corruption-probe-kills-himself/

Cop questioned in NYPD corruption probe kills himself at golf course
By Jamie Schram, Danika Fears and Bob Fredericks
New York Post

May 13, 2016 | 3:04pm | Updated

US Attorney, District Attorney Investigate Suspicious Brooklyn Library Deal By Mayor Of New York

[From article]
The $52 million deal to redevelop the Brooklyn Heights library into a luxury condo tower, which City Hall awarded to a de Blasio pal who offered less money for the city-owned land than two other bidders, has attracted the attention of federal and city prosecutors, The Post has learned.
The joint probe comes three months after The Post revealed the sweetheart scheme and marks the seventh pay-to-play scandal engulfing the de Blasio administration.
Mayor de Blasio’s latest imbroglio has investigators questioning why the city chose Hudson Cos. to buy the Brooklyn Public Library branch on Clinton Street and build a 36-story condo on top of it despite submitting a bid that was $6 million less than a competitor’s.
The offices of US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance sent subpoenas to several of the 14 developers that bid on the project, sources familiar with the investigation said.
One of the subpoenas went to Toll Brothers President David Von Spreckelsen, a source said. Toll Brothers offered $1 million more than Hudson, the sources said.
Hudson President David Kramer is “one of many people being looked at” but has not been subpoenaed, the sources said.
[. . .]



Hoping to raise money to refurbish its system, the Brooklyn Public Library approached the city to draw up a request for proposals for the development of the site.
The city and library jointly released the RFP in June 2013.
The city Economic Development Corp. vetted the bids on behalf of the library.
Kramer proposed a 30-story residential skyscraper — with 114 units of affordable housing sited two miles away. The plan included space for the library on the ground floor and $40 million of the $52 million bid to spruce up other branches. He also planned to relocate the library to a space on Remsen Street in July 2016 for the four-year construction period.
At least two competing developers not only offered to pay the library more money, but several proposed to build affordable units on the site.
Brooklyn-based Second Development Services offered the library $6 million more than did Hudson and 117 affordable units.
One competing bidder described the process as rigged to benefit de Blasio’s friends.
[. . .]
A friend of the mayor for more than a decade, Kramer and his wife have given $9,125 to de Blasio’s political campaigns since 2007. De Blasio has refunded $6,325 of that money without giving an explanation on city campaign filings.
De Blasio kept another $4,850 that came from Hudson employees, records show.
Kramer and his project architect, Jonathan Marvel, also hosted fund-raisers for de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, including an October 2013 soirée for which Marvel invited the city’s biggest developers.
Six weeks after de Blasio was sworn in, Hudson coughed up $5,000 to the Campaign for One New York, a charity promoting the mayor’s agenda. Marvel Architects added $2,000 in June 2015.
Toll Brothers also has given CONY two $25,000 donations.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/22/feds-da-probe-de-blasios-52m-deal-to-turn-library-into-condo/

Feds, DA probe de Blasio’s $52M deal to turn library into condo
By Aaron Short
New York Post
May 22, 2016 | 12:26am

New Book Exposes Depravity of Elected Officials In Washington DC

GUESSING GAME: 'The Confessions of Congressman X' is due on bookshelves May 24 and Washington is abuzz with speculation about who wrote it.

[From article]
A new book threatens to blow the lid off of Congress as a federal legislator's tell-all book lays out the worst parts of serving in the House of Representatives – saying that his main job is to raise money for re-election and that leaves little time for reading the bills he votes on.
Mill City Press, a small Minnesota-based 'vanity press' publisher describes 'The Confessions of Congressman X' as 'a devastating inside look at the dark side of Congress as revealed by one of its own.'
'No wonder Congressman X wants to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. His admissions are deeply disturbing.'
[. . .]

the congressman is a Democrat.

[. . .]
'Voters claim they want substance and detailed position papers, but what they really crave are cutesy cat videos, celebrity gossip, top 10 lists, reality TV shows, tabloid tripe, and the next f***ing Twitter message,' the congressman gripes in the book.
'I worry about our country's future when critical issues take a backseat to the inane utterings of illiterate athletes and celebrity twits.'
Much of what's in the book will come as little surprise to Americans who are cynical about the political process.
'Fundraising is so time-consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on,' the anonymous legislator admits. 'I don't even know how they'll be implemented or what they'll cost.'
'My staff gives me a last-minute briefing before I go to the floor and tells me whether to vote yea or nay. How bad is that?'
And on controversial bills, he says, 'I sometimes vote "yes" on a motion and "no" on an amendment so I can claim I'm on either side of an issue.'
'It's the old shell game: if you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.'
The congressman laments that politics has become a matter of picking a team by the jerseys they wear rather than looking at the players underneath.
'Things are so partisan today most folks vote the straight party line, even though they don't know s*** about who they're voting for. They just don't want the other guys to win,' he explains.
And he seemingly takes a shot at the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation, noting how family philanthropies can be the beneficiaries of what amounts to bribes in exchange for legislative favors.
'Some contributions are subtle,' he explains. 'Donations to a member's nonprofit foundation. Funding a member's charitable pet project. Offsetting the costs of a member's portrait to adorn the committee room he or she has so faithfully served.'
'It's all a bunch of bulls*** to get around gift bans and limits on campaign contributions. Where there's a will, there's a way.'
The mystery man reserves special scorn for Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who serves as Senate Minority Leader.
One chapter is titled 'Harry Reid's a Pompous A**' and says the senator is 'sometimes a bit too clever for his own good. The same goes for [Republican Sen. Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell and his pathetic lieutenants. Ditto for most of the House leadership bullies on both sides of the aisle. They wield too much dictatorial power, manipulating legislative procedures and denying members due process.'

The larger picture that emerges is one of disenchantment with the political process and the professional office-holders behind it.

Especially those in the Democratic Party.
'Our party used to be a strong advocate for the working class,' he says. 'We still pretend to be, but we aren't. Large corporations and public unions grease the palms of those who have the power to determine legislative winners and losers.'
'Most of my colleagues want to help the poor and disadvantaged. To a point,' he adds. 'We certainly don't want to live among them. Or mingle with them, unless it's for a soup kitchen photo op. ... Poverty's a great concern as long as it's kept at a safe distance.'

POVERTY POSEURS: 'Congressman X' says lawmakers don't want to 'mingle' with the poor 'unless it's for a soup kitchen photo op.' House Speaker Paul Ryan and his wife Janna washed pots at Youngstown, Ohio's St. Vincent DePaul dining hall in 2012.

Much of Washington's problems are created on the fringes of America's dominant political parties, he says.
'The GOP have their crazy wingnuts, and we have our loony leftists. Screw them both. What we need are more common-sense lawmakers. Folks who see both sides of an issue. Who are open to accommodating each other's priorities. Today, both sides assume their views are the only logical ones.'
'I'm concerned my party has an activist far-left wing intolerant of center-leftists. Like the Republican Tea Party, these ideologues are much too rigid and extreme in their beliefs. And they're equally unappealing to mainstream Americans.'
He cites education policy as an example: 'I'm a strong advocate of improving our public schools. I also see the near-term value of vouchers and charter schools committed to lending a helping hand to disadvantaged kids. Especially inner-city kids.'
'Hell, most of us send our children to private schools and wouldn't be caught dead sending them to public schools in places like DC. How hypocritical's that? It's time to set aside petty politics. Are both parties so f***ing stubborn they can't work out a reasonable compromise on this common-sense issue? Our educational system's in the toilet, and all we do is snipe at each other.'
The publisher released a few short samples to the public on Amazon.
'Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and special-interest money that's lavished upon them,' Atkinson recorded his mystery collaborator saying.
'My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything.'
'Fundraising is so time consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on. Like many of my colleagues, I don't know how the legislation will be implemented, or what it'll cost.'
The book also takes shots at voters as disconnected idiots who let Congress abuse its power through sheer incompetence.
'Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works,' the anonymous writer claims.
'It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.'
And the take-away message is one of resigned depression about how Congress sacrifices America's future on the altar of its collective ego.
'We spend money we don't have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation,' the author writes.
'Nobody here gives a rat's a** about the future and who's going to pay for all this stuff we vote for. That's the next generation's problem. It's all about immediate publicity, getting credit now, lookin' good for the upcoming election.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3586858/Screw-generation-Anonymous-congressman-writes-tell-slams-nation-naive-self-absorbed-sheep-admits-never-reads-bills-votes-on.html

'Screw the next generation' and 'Harry Reid's a pompous a**': Democratic congressman writes Anonymous tell-all book slamming 'nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep' as he admits he never reads bills he votes on
'My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything,' an anonymous member of Congress writes in a new book
'Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works,' he writes
'It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification'
The author is a Democrat in Congress who laid out his complaints to a long-time friend and former Capitol Hill staffer who edited them into a book
'The Confessions of Congressman X' will be released May 24 by a small Minnesota-based 'vanity press' publisher
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 07:36 EST, 12 May 2016 | UPDATED: 17:42 EST, 12 May 2016



* * *



[From article]
An anonymous congressman has dropped a bombshell election-year book that confirms why Americans hate their national government and have rallied to anti-establishment presidential candidates like Donald Trump.
The veteran politician lays bare a rotten and corrupt Congress enslaved by lobbyists and interested only in re-election in an anonymous, 65-page manifesto called “The Confessions of Congressman X.”
“Like most of my colleagues, I promise my constituents a lot of stuff I can never deliver,” he admits. “But what the hell? It makes them happy hearing it . . . My main job is to keep my job.”
The House member — a Democrat who is either still in Congress or served sometime over the past two decades — says more time is spent fundraising than reading bills and calls Washington a “sinkhole of leeches.”
The title of one chapter sums up his view of congressional leaders: “Harry Reid’s a Pompous Ass,” he says of the Senate Democratic leader.
The book, published by the small Mill City Press, is based on years of transcribed private discussions, which the congressman last November gave editor Robert Atkinson.
Atkinson declined to say whether Congressman X is a current or former House member.
X says the cloak of anonymity gave him the freedom to expose ­secrets, including how the public’s money is wasted.
“We spend money we don’t have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation. It’s about getting credit now, lookin’ good for the upcoming election,” he says.
He said he and his colleagues often lie to try to be all things to all people instead of tackling the nation’s problems.
“I contradict myself all the time, but few people notice,” X says. “One minute I rail against excessive spending and ballooning debt. The next minute I’m demanding more spending on education, health care, unemployment benefits, conservation projects, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
Voters are described as gullible, know-nothing jerks, while the only people who count are the big donors who pour billions of dollars into lobbying.
“Voters are incredibly ignorant. It’s far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification . . .,” vents Congressman X.
He says money “corrupts” and House members are “puppets” to lobbyists who bankroll their campaigns.
“Business organizations and unions fork over more than $3 billion a year to those who lobby the federal government. Does that tell you something? We’re operating a f–king casino,” he says.
He describes himself as a “closet moderate” who supports charter schools and tax vouchers to allow poor kids to go to private schools.
But students take a back seat to partisan politics..
“Our education’s in the toilet, and all we do is snipe at each other,” he says.
Congress is too polarized and partisan to get anything done, by the congressman’s account.
“There seems to be a complete disintegration of confidence in government. A fear that government is its own special interest,” he says.
“America’s on an irreversible decline and no one in Washington seems to care . . . God help us.”
The controversial book set off a guessing game in the political world about the author’s identity.
New York sources speculated it’s Rep. Steve Israel (D-LI), a moderate who announced he’s retiring and who has complained about the constant need to fundraise to finance re-election campaigns.
But Israel, a novelist, denied that he took pen to paper this time.
“Absolutely not true, never heard of it before. And frankly, now that I’m leaving Congress, if I were to write a book like that, I would put my name on it,” ­Israel said in a statement.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/13/were-running-a-f-ing-casino-politician-tells-all-in-manifesto/

‘We’re running a f—ing casino:’ Politician tells all in manifesto
By Carl Campanile
New York Post
May 13, 2016 | 12:12am

New York City Mayor Investigated By Four Agencies For Corruption

Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney SDNY

[From article]
At least five investigations are underway concerning corruption in or around New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. So far, the investigations have revealed that two members of the mayor’s inaugural committee gave lavish gifts to top NYPD brass in exchange for favors, including the opportunity to hang around in police circles and get speedy access to gun permits. A lobbyist with close ties to de Blasio was involved in a shady real estate deal that leveraged city approval to make millions for inside investors. Next, it emerged that the mayor’s closest advisors had asked major donors to funnel money through county political committees to Democratic candidates for state senate in 2014. This kind of fundraising is against the law if the donations are coordinated. Investigators are also looking into coordination between the mayor’s 2013 campaign, his political nonprofit organization the Campaign for One New York, and the operations of anti-horse-carriage group NYCLASS, which was organized as an independent campaign group. Finally, authorities are examining allegations that “straw donors” contributed large sums to de Blasio’s mayoral campaign.
A range of entities are investigating these overlapping charges, including the office of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance; the New York State Board of Elections; New York State’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE); and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, among others. In sum, every law enforcement agency with oversight over New York City government is asserting shared jurisdiction and examining some piece of what is shaping up to be one of the largest municipal political scandals in history.



In response, Mayor de Blasio has taken a page from his former boss Hillary Clinton’s playbook and claimed that the whole thing is a frame-up orchestrated by his political enemies. [. . .] The implication is that Governor Andrew Cuomo—a fellow Democrat but otherwise no friend of de Blasio’s—is directing JCOPE’s probe. JCOPE is a legally constituted state commission empowered to investigate matters pertaining to ethics and lobbying; no provision exists by which officials can opt out of its investigations. And the idea that Bharara is taking his marching orders from Albany is ludicrous: there is every reason to assume that Cuomo himself may be in Bharara’s sights.
De Blasio suggests that he has been targeted on ideological grounds, because he has spoken so much truth to power. [. . .] Going further to burnish his revolutionary credentials and solidify his support among African-American voters, de Blasio praised the election of Sadiq Khan (“this ray of light”) as mayor of London. “A lot of people in this room have studied history and know something about colonialism and imperialism,” he said. “How wonderful—yes, a bit ironic—but more important a statement of progress that the place that used to be the capital of colonialism has elected a Muslim man as its mayor.”
In radio interviews, de Blasio has complained about unfair double standards. [. . .] a lot of people are doing a lot worse and not getting much examination.”
[. . .]



Perhaps trying to rally progressives and divert attention from his proliferating scandals, de Blasio renewed calls for a boycott of fast-food restaurant Chick-Fil-A, whose owner reportedly opposes same-sex marriage. [. . .] Several Chick-Fil-A franchises operate in Manhattan, and more are scheduled to open; protests were originally organized against the restaurant in New York City in 2012, prior to its expansion here.
[. . .]



As investigations and allegations of the mayor’s corruption continue to mount, expect him to continue blaming others, making vainglorious noises about his commitment to righteousness, and practicing clumsy legerdemain to divert attention from his problems. It has always been clear that de Blasio is not an effective manager of the city; what’s also becoming apparent is that he is not even good at managing his own image.

http://city-journal.org/html/deflecting-de-blasio-14438.html

Deflecting with De Blasio
The progressive New York City mayor tries to draw attention away from his administration’s mounting scandals.
Seth Barron
May 9, 2016

* * *



[From article]
This was how the mayor welcomed them on Monday: “I’m certainly not going to patronize them and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them.”
Chick-Fil-A will survive. But as long as de Blasio’s trashing eateries in order to stroke special interests — common sense be damned — why won’t he take on other restaurants which might offend certain ethnic and gender sensitivities?
Italian-American joints often hang photos of Italian mobster-playing actors such as Marlon Brando and James Gandolfini, and even of real-life murderer John Gotti. The stereotype-promoting pictures at Capri on Mulberry Street left this Italian-American mortally wounded. The attitude of the mayor, my fellow paisano? Omerta.
You’d at least think a restaurant which posed a clear and present danger to public safety might draw his ire. But when the Carnegie Deli reopened recently after a 10-month shutdown, he cheerily tweeted a celebratory photo of a pastrami sandwich.
Never mind that Carnegie Deli was closed by city officials for illegally siphoning gas — the same kind of stunt which blew up an East Village building last year, killing two people and injuring 19.
But de Blasio prefers to pick and choose only those eatery beefs that satisfy his appetite for sucking up.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/de-blasios-chick-fil-a-boycott-is-a-clucking-travesty/

De Blasio’s Chick-Fil-A boycott is a clucking travesty
By Steve Cuozzo
May 8, 2016 | 11:21am

New York Post

* * *

http://nypost.com/2016/05/06/de-blasio-blames-cuomo-for-state-ethics-probe/

De Blasio says ethics probe is a witch hunt led by Cuomo
By Yoav Gonen, Kirstan Conley and Danika Fears
New York Post
May 6, 2016 | 7:32pm

Ex-New York Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison For Corruption

[From article]

Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sentenced to 12 years in a federal penitentiary Tuesday by a Manhattan judge who called him “a scheming corrupt politician.”
The Manhattan Democrat — one of the most powerful politicians in the state before his arrest last year — also was ordered to fork over $5.3 in ill-gotten gains and another $1.75 million in fines.
The disgraced ex-pol was handed two prison terms by federal Judge Valerie Caproni: 12 years for the six criminal counts against him, including mail and wire fraud and extortion, and another 10 years on a seventh count involving money-laundering. The terms will run concurrently.
Silver must surrender to begin serving his sentence July 1.



The conviction and hefty sentence — the second highest for a state politician convicted of corruption in the past decade — has capped a stellar run of Albany and New York City corruption cases brought by Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara and federal authorities in Brooklyn.
Bharara stood in the back of the courtroom to watch Silver’s justice meted out.
“Today’s stiff sentence is a just and fitting end to Sheldon Silver’s long career of corruption,’’ Bharara later said in a statement.


Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara

In court, a humbled Silver told Judge Caproni, “I believe that my letter to the court probably captured it best — without question, I let down my family, let down my colleagues, let down my constituents, and I’m truly, truly sorry for that.”
The 72-year-old kept his head lowered as his sentence was rendered and then briefly closed his eyes.
Silver’s long-suffering wife, Rosa, remained stoic, even as Caproni lit into her husband for his politically-charged extramarital affairs which Bharara’s prosecutors detailed in filings — one with a lobbyist who had extensive business before the state and another with a former beauty-queen turned assemblywoman who landed two cushy public-service jobs.
“Did a lobbyist have preferred access because she was a better lobbyist than her competitors, or was it payback for a personal relationship?’’ Caproni said before sentencing the shamed ex-pol.
“Did Silver do things just to be nice — or did he do things because somewhere there was something in it for him?” she added.



Caproni also ordered Silver to fork over more than $7 million, including all of his ill-gotten gains and another $1.75 million in fines.
One of Silver’s lawyer’s asked the judge to recommend that he be sent to the Otisville minimum-security “camp’’ in upstate Orange County. Caproni said she would do so, although the final decision is up to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
[. . .]
A Manhattan federal jury found Silver guilty in November of abusing his power for more than a decade in exchange for bribes and kickbacks.
Silver faced as much as 27 years in prison for his crimes, but federal prosecutors told the judge they simply wanted Silver to serve out a longer sentence than any other New York legislator.
Ex-Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. has held that title since 2015, when he was sentenced to 14 years.
When it came to Silver, there were “no excuses, just pure greed — and then he tried to hide his crime proceeds by investing them,’’ Assistant US Attorney Carrie Cohen told Caproni before sentencing.
[. . .]
Silver’s son and three daughters told the judge about their modest upbringing, and his wife, a former schoolteacher, talked about her fear that he will be sick and alone in jail.
[. . .]


U.S. Judge Valerie E. Caproni

After three days of deliberation, the Manhattan federal jury found that Silver accepted $3 million in payments from the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, despite doing no legal work.
Instead, Silver was paid based off his cozy relationship with a Columbia University doctor, who received $500, 000 in state funds to finance his research into mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos. In exchange, the doctor referred asbestos patients to Weitz & Luxenberg, which then paid Silver.
The jury also found that the Lower East Side resident earned $700,000 from a separate law firm after hooking them up with a pair of lucrative real-estate-developer clients. While receiving money from the developers, Silver took state actions that benefited them.
The government has already blocked Silver from access to $3.8 million in assets spread across eight different bank and investment accounts.
The ex-Assemblyman also has another $2 million, including “readily liquid assets of more than $1 million,” the government said in a recent filing.
The judge said Silver’s $70,000 a year pension is currently worth $850,000.
Minutes before his sentencing, the judge issued a ruling denying Silver’s motion for a new trial.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/03/sheldon-silver-gets-12-years-in-prison-for-corruption/

Sheldon Silver gets 12 years in prison for corruption
By Kaja Whitehouse, Lia Eustachewich and Kate Sheehy
New York Post
May 3, 2016 | 3:38pm | Updated

New York City Mayor Going Down Under Threats of Impeachment, Prosecution

[From article]

Less than a week ago, Mayor de Blasio was offering aid to Ecuadorians after the earthquake there. Now a political earthquake is rocking City Hall and the mayor is the one who needs help.
The report from the state Board of Elections that accuses him and his team of “willful and flagrant” violations of campaign-finance laws immediately changes everything.
The veneer of business as usual is shredded. Never again can de Blasio wave off questions about the mushrooming investigations of his administration. As revelations pile up day after day, allies will desert him and the Putz will find himself a very lonely man.
There is no way to sugarcoat the facts: de Blasio is in trouble. Maybe very big trouble.
His City Hall is being depicted as the seat of a criminal enterprise. And so far, he offers nothing resembling a convincing ­denial.
[. . .]

election report were all there is, it would still be a problem. It calls one of the campaign violations a possible felony and refers its findings to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. for prosecution. That explains why Vance recently partnered up with US Attorney Preet Bharara in the multipronged probe, effectively doubling the number of prosecutors and investigators.
And that gets to the heart of de Blasio’s vulnerability. His 2014 Senate effort wasn’t unique. It is just one example of how he has done business since the day he won the election in 2013.
Think of it as de Blasio’s Big Idea. While denouncing income inequality, he was determined to harvest big bucks from unions and private firms that had business before the city, and then to use that money to carry out his “progressive agenda.”
He raised as much as $40 million and deposited it in various slush funds he formed, including the Campaign for One New York, which he started before he even took the oath of office.
The money would be managed by a small team of insiders. Some were on the city payroll, but most were in favored law firms, public relations and consultant shops. In effect, de Blasio outsourced a permanent political operation to be the vanguard of his administration.
The money would come from real-estate developers, yellow-taxi medallion owners, teachers unions and anybody else willing to play ball in hopes the mayor would ­return the favors.
Oh, and one more thing: de Blasio would do much of the fund-raising himself, meeting with donors in large groups or ­one-on-one.

http://nypost.com/2016/04/24/the-mayor-is-going-down/

The mayor is going down!
By Michael Goodwin
New York Post
April 24, 2016 | 2:10am

* * *

[From article]

“If he cares about this city the way he says he does, he needs to step down immediately and save us the continued national embarrassment,” said Tony Herbert, a former member of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “There are a lot of levels to this corruption”
Herbert and John Rodriguez, who heads a community-police relations group in Brooklyn, stood outside City Hall Park on Sunday to slam de Blasio for presiding over several scandals that have rocked the city’s political firmament.
Both conceded they don’t expect Hizzoner to drop the reins of city government without a fight so they’re exploring how to jump-start the impeachment process.
“The mayor is compromised. He has also compromised the integrity of the City of New York,” Herbert said. “You can not honestly represent this city, having these criminal investigations on your back.”
City, state and federal investigators are probing de Blasio and his top aides in several areas, including their fundraising efforts for the 2014 state Senate races, donors whoallegedly traded gifts for police favors, and a Lower East Side land deal that resulting in an assisted care facility being sold to build luxury apartments.

Herbert and Rodriguez said they’re unsure how impeaching a sitting mayor in New York City would work, but they aren’t the first to suggest de Blasio’s ouster. One change.org petitioner who attracted 250 supporters called for his impeachment a year ago for not being supportive of cops. Another moveon.org petition calling on his resignation received over 50,000 signatures in 2014 — before he had completed his first year in office.
Herbert suggested even more New Yorkers would back such an impeachment push now, citing three anti-de Blasio websites with thousands of supporters.
A de Blasio spokeswoman declined to comment on the nascent impeachment effort, but defended his efforts.

http://nypost.com/2016/04/24/activists-call-for-de-blasio-to-step-down/

Activists call for de Blasio to step down
By Michael Gartland
New York Post
April 24, 2016 | 2:01pm

Brief History of NYPD Corruption

In New York City they used to empanel a commission every twenty years. Mollen was over twenty three years ago. In Massachusetts they never investigate the police or the FBI.

[From article]
[Very long first sentence]
With crazy homeless people randomly smashing, slashing, and stabbing passersby, graffiti spreading across the city with no one bothering to clean it, racial tensions stoked by race hustlers in Gracie Mansion, welfare rolls mushrooming, a reborn pay-to-play political culture, school discipline so dead that public education fails more than ever, police demoralized by a mayor who not only doesn’t have their back but publicly slanders them, while the city council weakens the quality-of-life policing tools that brought New York back to life under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, you have to wonder if any element that created the urban dystopia of Mayors John Lindsay, Abe Beame, and David Dinkins is still missing. And sure enough, now even police corruption is back. With five top cops recently demoted, and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton telling the New York Post that investigations by his Internal Affairs Bureau and the FBI are turning up evidence that stinks as foully as that uncovered by the 1970s Knapp Commission investigation into corrupt cops, but that he can’t talk about it while the probe continues, you can only imagine what’s about to hit the fan. All we need now is a brush with municipal bankruptcy and a president who responds by telling New York to drop dead, as the Daily News’s famous 1975 headline put it, and the recurring nightmare will be complete.
[. . .]
let’s recall what the commission headed by Whitman Knapp, a lawyer, ex-prosecutor, and later a federal judge, turned up, in hearings so riveting in 1971 and ’72
[. . .]



There were “grass-eating” corrupt cops, small fry who took a monthly $5 or $10, adding up to $6.2 million a year citywide, from bodega owners to overlook Sunday beer sales or $2,000 annually from individual liquor store owners to let customers double park while they ran in for a bottle; and “meat eaters,” who stole drugs from dope dealers or took big bribes to suppress evidence of felonies, including a $50,000 payoff to destroy wiretap tapes nailing a heroin kingpin. We heard of two dope-addict police informers who would steal goods to order for cops in exchange for drugs that the officers purloined from the NYPD evidence room. We heard from a detective who took fat payoffs from East Side brothel boss Xaviera Hollander, the Happy Hooker, in exchange for warning her when a police raid was imminent, that corruption was systemic—with entire precincts, from the captain on down, sharing a monthly “pad” of payments from numbers racketeers, totaling up to $15 million a year, to look the other way while they publicly took bets. At least one cop thought that the deal included arresting competing gamblers, so that the NYPD’s function wasn’t so much to prevent crime as to license it, as the New York Times put it when the scandal first broke. And we learned that two police whistleblowers, Frank Serpico and David Durks, couldn’t stir Mayor Lindsay’s Investigation Department chief or one of his deputy mayors to take action to clean up the mess. When Serpico complained about corruption he had seen to his captain, the commander replied that he could go to the commissioner, and “by the time this thing is through, you’ll be found floating in the East River, face down. Or you can just forget about the whole thing.” But Serpico didn’t forget it and got shot in the head, non-fatally, in a drug bust some thought a set-up by his fellow cops.
[. . .]
It wasn’t just that minority communities knew, in those pre-Compstat days, that the NYPD didn’t care about crime in their neighborhoods. They saw that not only were the police not part of the solution, but they were also a key part of the problem.
[. . .]



in hearings chaired by ex-judge Milton Mollen in 1992 and 1993. “Today’s corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days,” the Mollen Commission’s report noted. “Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. . . . Today’s corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality.” Unlike the old corruption, which was systemic and infected the entire NYPD, the new corruption festered in only a few precincts and involved only a limited number of cops. Nevertheless, declared the commission, “From the top brass down to local precinct commanders and supervisors, there was a pervasive belief that uncovering serious corruption would harm careers and the reputation of the department.”
[. . .]

 

Michael Dowd—whom the New York Post later headlined as THE DIRTIEST COP EVER—tells of being sent in 1984 to protect a woman from her abusive husband while she got her clothes from her apartment. After the woman left, Dowd and his partner, Chickie, found that the husband had a huge bag of marijuana, two guns, and perhaps $20,000 in stacks of bills. So they helped themselves to $8,000, telling the dreadlock-coifed husband that it was his lucky day that nothing worse was happening. And so began Dowd’s criminal career, two years after graduation from the Police Academy, where the chief lessons he learned were “cover your ass” and that a good cop is one “who would never give up another cop.”
[. . .]



In November 1986, a scandal in the 77th Precinct in north Brooklyn—where 12 cops, including a sergeant, had been arrested and a 13th had killed himself—scared Chickie straight. The Seven-Seven cops had made a practice of calling in fake 911 reports of robberies in progress at a specific address, so that they could smash into the premises with axes and sledgehammers borrowed from the neighboring firehouse and steal whatever valuables they could find, including drugs and loaded guns, which they sold to pushers. So Dowd inducted his new partner, Kenny Eurell, into his criminal enterprise, mainly providing protection for a Dominican drug lord for $8,000 a week. When the kingpin underpaid him, Dowd raided his business with extra zeal, until the drug boss put out a contract on his life—called off after Dowd confronted him and offered to duel at 20 paces, then and there. A yet bigger drug lord, who sold Colombian cocaine out of a string of bodegas, then hired the pair for $24,000 down and $8,000 a week to warn him of impending raids, harass his competitors, and guard his shipments. “We were like their Brinks,” said Dowd. “They had a police escort.”
[. . .]

 

A Mollen Commission member asked Dowd if he considered himself an NYPD cop or a drug trafficker. “Both,” Dowd replied, explaining in a later interview, “It wasn’t like you were hurting people. You were hurting fucking drug dealers.”
[. . .]

 

Nevertheless, the squalid scandal he revealed at the 30th Precinct in West Harlem—the Dirty Thirty—was emphatically real. The corrupt cops—called Nannery’s Raiders for the sergeant who supervised them and ultimately became their crime boss—adopted the Seven-Seven’s tactic of making fake 911 calls about robberies in progress at dope dealers’ apartments, which they would batter open to steal cash and drugs to sell at half-price out of the police station itself. Like Dowd, they took protection money from drug kingpins, anywhere from $600 to $1,000 a week.
http://city-journal.org/html/nypd-blues-14400.html

NYPD Blues How big is the impending scandal?
Myron Magnet
April 17, 2016

Second Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Resigns In Porn Email Scandal

FILE - In this Dec. 21, 2015, file photo, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Eakin arrives at the Northampton County courthouse in Easton, Pa. for a hearing about whether he should be suspended while a judicial ethics court decides if his email practices warrant discipline. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

[From article]
A second Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice quit the bench Tuesday in a widening scandal over raunchy and otherwise offensive emails that he and others exchanged with friends and lawyers.
Justice Michael Eakin's decision to retire marks the latest fallout since embattled state Attorney General Kathleen Kane began releasing hundreds of emails in 2014 to the media and ethics agencies. Kane has since been indicted on perjury and other charges that she claims were trumped up because she took on the old boys' club of Pennsylvania's judiciary and law enforcement.
Eakin's lawyer, Bill Costopoulos, said at a news conference that an ethics trial on charges related to the emails, which had been scheduled to start in two weeks, would not proceed. He said Eakin would agree to the allegations, leaving "nothing left to try."
"This is the only process I know of in America where you can be charged with sending emails to friends that were inappropriate and face the death penalty," Costopoulos said. "I just don't think that's right."
Justice Seamus McCaffery, a Democrat, abruptly retired in 2014 after being suspended by the court for his role in swapping the emails.
The board that investigates accusations of judicial misconduct has said that Eakin sent or responded to emails that included a satirical video about a busload of "sluts" crashing, a joke about a woman told to keep "her mouth shut," and a joke about Tiger Woods that referred to his African-American and Asian background.
The email scandal, centered on the attorney general's office, has already led to dozens of people being disciplined or losing their jobs.
Eakin, 67, a Republican, has been on the state Supreme Court since 2002.
During tearful testimony in December, Eakin apologized for what he said he "allowed to happen," but he accused the news media of sensationalism and argued his job performance hadn't been affected.
"Perhaps my demeanor is one of the boys," Eakin said. "But what I sent was to people who were also one of the boys. It was in the locker room. I allowed, I created something that could be released."
The state constitution says judges lose their pensions if they act in a way that "brings the judicial office into disrepute," one of the allegations against Eakin. Costopoulos said he hoped that would not occur but it was not certain.
[. . .]
When Kane, a Democrat, turned over the new trove of emails in September, it was barely a week after Eakin voted with four other justices to suspend her law license.
[. . .]
Kane's license was suspended after prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia charged her with perjury and other offenses for allegedly leaking secret grand jury material and lying about it.
[. . .]
The exchange of explicit and pornographic emails by state prosecutors was uncovered as part of Kane's internal review of how the office handled the investigation into Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach now serving a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of child sexual abuse.
[. . .]
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf issued a statement calling the case "another reminder of why we must all work with urgency to restore the public's trust in their government as well as the integrity of the judicial system."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/03/16/second-pennsylvania-supreme-court-justice-resigns-over-pornographic-email-scandal.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obinsite

Second Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice resigns over pornographic email scandal
Published March 16, 2016

Associated Press

Four Dozen Georgia Prison Guards Indicted

[From article]

Arrests were being made across the state Thursday morning as about four dozen current and former state prison guards were told they face drug and bribery charges.
The charges are outlined in eight federal indictments, which have recently been unsealed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta plans an afternoon press conference to announce the charges.
The indictments are part of a continuing crackdown to rid the state prison system of
The new indictments allege corruption by guards from Phillips, Macon, Dooly, Hancock, Pulaski and Baldwin state prisons. Five of the guards being charged were members of the Department of Corrections’ tactical team, which works to rid prisons of contraband and control riots.drugs, corruption and contraband cell phones which are being used by inmates to commit crimes outside the prison walls.
According to one indictment, guards allegedly believed they were providing protection to a Locust Grove-area drug dealing who was transporting multiple kilograms of methamphetamine and cocaine. In exchange, the guards received thousands of dollars in bribes, the indictment said.

http://legal.blog.ajc.com/2016/02/11/dozens-of-georgia-prison-guards-arrested-on-federal-charges/

Dozens of Georgia prison guards arrested on federal charges
February 11, 2016 |
Bill Rankin

Documentary Film About Voter Fraud In the United States

[From article]
Sharron “Braveheart” Angle suffered the devastation of election corruption when she almost defeated Harry Reid in 2010. Illegals voted for Harry Reid. There is evidence that Reid possibly stole the election from Sharron Angle using dead voters, people in prison, and illegals.
[. . .]
I suspect Sharron's painful loss has made her a passionate crusader, committed to cleaning up the electoral process.
Remember the Black Panther Party thugs who stood outside the polls armed with clubs? Though they were charged with voter intimidation, Obama's DOJ arrogantly and without apology outrageously dropped the charges because the perpetrators were black. Can you believe that, folks? Meanwhile, Obama looks down his morally superior nose at us, proclaiming himself a defender of equal justice.
South Carolina's attorney general found evidence that at least 900 dead people voted in an election. Philadelphia flagged 50,000 duplicate registrations. Voting machines are changing peoples' votes. A voter was caught registering six times. Meanwhile, Democrats act outraged and seek to shackle and flog Republicans in the public square for suggesting that all Americans must show a photo ID to vote, claiming it is an evil racist Republican plot to disenfranchise black voters. Fearlessly, along with fighting voter fraud, Sharron has a Voter ID initiative. www.sharronangle.com
As an American who happens to be black, I am highly insulted. In essence, Democrats are saying it is too challenging for us poor inferior simpleminded blacks to find our way to the DMV or other places to acquire a photo ID.
[. . .]
Sharron Angle is leading the charge to stop voter fraud, producing “Not On My Watch”, a 90-minute documentary scheduled for nationwide release in theaters June 2016. The documentary will show undeniable evidence of voter fraud and smart ways to stop it. I'm excited, folks.
Angle believes her documentary will be an integral part of a win for Constitutional Conservatism in 2016. She believes it will inspire voters to go to the polls and vote and volunteer to be eyes on the process.
[. . .]
Sharron's documentary is a grassroots, We the People project folks. She needs your help to git-r-done. Please go to the website and do whatever you can.
Sharron has an LLC to take big donations that will fund the completion of the documentary with returns on those investments of $20,000 or more.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/voter_fraud_we_see_dead_people.html

February 2, 2016
Voter Fraud: We See Dead People
By Lloyd Marcus

Harvard Law School Ethical Candidate For President Continues to Fight Teeny, Tiny Part of Corruption

Great to see Prof. Lessing keeps up his concern about corruption. There is plenty in nearby (to the Harvard University bubble) Cambridge, MA and at the state house. “'To have the appetite to join the political fray as a citizen is laudable, [. . .]' Harvard Law Professor Jonathan L. Zittrain said." Suggesting Prof. Lessing is an ordinary citizen shows how insular the university faculty and staff are. They are private citizens when it suits them but public officials when that brings exemption from laws. Lessig could look at research on Harvard University property using human subjects. That needs attention of ethicists. The reform candidate will always have the remains of $1 million for any future political activity.

[From article]
“To have the appetite to join the political fray as a citizen is laudable, whatever the result,” Harvard Law Professor Jonathan L. Zittrain said of his colleague’s run.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/1/26/lessig-reflects-upon-return/

Back at the Law School, Lessig Reflects on Failed Campaign
Lessig said he sees businessman Donald J. Trump as the candidate with the best chance of enacting the campaign finance reforms he ran on
By CLAIRE E. PARKER and DANIEL P. WOOD,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
January 25, 2016

Truman Over The Clintons With His Hands Tied and Blindfolded

This blog post recognizes what I did a few months ago. How pathetic both Clintons are compared to Truman, who came with extensive common sense and extraordinary integrity.

[From article]
‘[Former President] Truman had numerous offers from large corporations for work, but turned them all down, stating:
“I knew that they were not interested in hiring Harry Truman, the person, but what they wanted to hire was the former President of the United States. I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and the dignity of the office of the Presidency.”’
When reading this passage, one cannot help but think of the stark contrast set by Bill Clinton and his wife as Secretary of State. Clinton has coarsened grievously both the American Presidency and Post-Presidency. Truman was truly from another era of honor and respectability. Today, half the country wants to return Bill and Hillary to the White House despite their overt faults and derelictions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/clinton_fails_the_truman_test.html

January 17, 2016
Clinton fails the Truman Test
By Jerome J. Schmitt

Clinton Lawyers Provided Access to Classified Emails, No Oversight From Government Investigators

This is what happens when lawyers with relaxed rectitude run the government. The same thing happened in 2009, when Harvard University black studies professor Henry Gates, Jr. was arrested by city police. A private attorney met with the city solicitor, not a state prosecutor, without arraignment, and dismissed the charge without having jurisdiction to do so. It is how lawyers abuse their privileges and when confronted they assert they are officers of the court. Ahem! It raises the question of how thoroughly the White House and its acolyte, Eric "White people are cowards" Holder corrupted the Department of Justice. J. Christian Adams revealed what was done in the civil rights division in his book, Injustice. Also see John Fund and Hans van Spakovsky's book, Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk. Hope that a less corrupt president is elected in  2016 and makes an attempt to clean up the mess. 

[From article]

Clinton’s private lawyer got his way when he pushed back after being asked to delete all copies of a classified email—a level of deference an expert calls ‘far from the norm.’
The State Department put up virtually no resistance when Hillary Clinton’s private lawyer requested to keep copies of her emails—even though those emails contained classified information, and even though it was unclear whether the attorney was cleared to see such secrets.Experts on the handling of classified information tell The Daily Beast that the seemingly chummy arrangement between Clinton’s lawyer and her former State Department aides was “quite unusual.”
[. . .]
Patrick F. Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, who had worked under Clinton, asked Kendall to delete all electronic copies of the message in his possession. (Copies were sent to the State Department.)
But Kendall resisted, saying he needed a full record of his own of the 55,000 pages of emails Clinton had sent, in order to respond to information requests from a House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya, and from the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies.
“I therefore do not believe it would be prudent to delete” the email from the “master copies” that Kendall’s firm was maintaining, he wrote.
There is no indication that Kennedy, who oversees physical and information security for the State Department, protested the private lawyer’s position or tried further to persuade Kendall to delete the classified email.
[. . .]



“There are a number of attorneys around who handle clients and cases involving classified information. They are almost never allowed to retain classified material in their office, whether they have a safe or not. Sometimes they are not even allowed to review the classified information, even if they are cleared for it, because an agency will say they don’t have a ‘need to know.’ In any event, the deference shown to Mr. Kendall by the State Department was quite unusual.”
[. . .]
The arrangement with Kendall has been previously reported. But the documents reveal new details about what was happening inside the State Department as officials moved ahead with the unorthodox setup.
At one point, a State Department lawyer questioned whether Kendall or one of his associates, Katherine Turner, was qualified to receive and maintain classified information.
[. . .]



The question of whether Kendall should be allowed to keep classified email received new scrutiny in July 2015, after investigators found additional Clinton emails that they thought contained classified information.
At the time, Grassley said that at least two emails contained “top secret, sensitive compartmented information.” Investigators found that Clinton’s emails contained information from at least five intelligence agencies.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/15/how-the-state-department-caved-to-hillary-clinton-s-lawyer-on-classified-emails.html

01.15.16 12:01 AM ET
Updated 12:00 p.m. Jan. 15, 2016

How the State Department Caved to Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer on Classified Emails
WRITTEN BYShane Harris, Tim Mak

Dinesh D'Souza's New Book On Criminal Justice Corruption, Book Review

Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party, by Dinesh D’Souza, Broadside Books, HarperCollins Publishers, November, 2015 (336 pages, $29.99, Hardback)


Dinesh D'Souza

[From book review]
But what does a conservative become when he’s mugged by a corrupt, politically driven justice system? Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party answers that question. D’Souza now views the Progressive movement as a criminal enterprise designed to pull off the biggest heist in world history -- effective control of the enormous wealth created by America’s entrepreneurs. This bounty, the author argues, was made possible by the country’s embrace of a capitalist system that rewards industry and customer-centered innovation and discourages the hitherto ubiquitous ethic of theft. Democrats, however, through a reversal of traditional American values, seek to acquire power by vilifying wealth-creators and rewarding “victims” with trickle-down shares of the national loot -- all while portraying themselves as righteous advocates of social justice.
D’Souza’s book begins by discussing aspects of his prosecution for illegally contributing $20,000 to a friend running for a Senate seat in New York State. Of his case Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz commented, “What you did is very commonly done in politics, and on a much bigger scale. Have no doubt about it, they are targeting you for your views.” Dershowitz’s opinion coincided with D’Souza’s own -- namely, that his politics and especially the negative portrait of Obama in his 2016 documentary had ticked off the protagonist-in-chief himself. Clinton-appointed judge Richard Berman, however, denied D’Souza access to papers that could prove selective prosecution, arguing in Alice in Wonderland fashion that only evidence of selective prosecution could justify access to papers that would provide such evidence.
[. . .]
D’Souza was able to avoid the prosecution’s desired prison stint of ten to sixteen months -- an outrageous punishment since, in the defendant’s words, “no person who had done what I did had even been prosecuted, let alone sentenced.” Instead, D’Souza’s sentence consisted of 8 months of overnight confinement in a halfway house, community service, psychological counseling, a $30,000 fine, and five years probation. By contrast, consider Democrat fundraiser Sant Singh Chatwal, who clearly tried to buy influence, instructed a government witness to lie under oath, and made “more than $180,000 in straw donations to several Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton.” For these far more egregious offenses “Chatwal received a fine, community service, and three years probation. No prison time, no confinement.”
[. . .]
D’Souza began to see prisoners and a flawed justice system in a different light. He also began to understand “the psychology of crookedness” -- a “system of larceny, corruption, and terror” that’s “been adopted and perfected by modern progressivism and the Democratic Party.”
[. . .]
D’Souza explores the connection between mafia-friendly con-man, Saul Alinsky, who died living the Goodfellas dream life in Carmel, California, and his two most famous pupils, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The author also investigates the emotional tie between the President and his father -- a consummate con-artist and polygamist. Instead of focusing on “anti-colonialism,” as in prior paternal analyses, D’Souza now emphasizes outright criminality and skillful lying, traits that connect the failed elder Obama to his wildly successful offspring who, in true Chicago style, perpetrates his cons inside the system.
[. . .]
To carry out their grand political heist, Democrats must marshal the emotions and votes of an army of envious underlings -- stoking resentment among minorities, women, the poor, immigrants, gays, and other potential victim groups.
[. . .]
These professional propagandists promulgate their ideas out of envy, seeing themselves as members of the rightful ruling class based on their superior intellects and abilities. This same exalted self-image applies to educators who chafe over not being recognized and rewarded by their society any better than the average plumber.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/stealing_america_what_my_experience_with_criminal_gangs_taught_me_about_obama_hillary_and_the_democratic_party.html

January 13, 2016
Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party
By Richard Kirk

Powerful People Are As Easily Corrupted As Weak Men and Women

Another element described by Roger Morris in his book, Partners in Power, is the preferred candidate. He says leaders, e.g., governors, police chiefs, CEOs whatever, are preferred to be weak, with relaxed rectitude. They are easier to manipulate. Especially if they are unaware of their human tendencies to abuse power. Do both paradigms apply to the current White House?



[From article]
Plato considered that the measure of a man is what he does with power; Charles Caleb Colton noted that “power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads.”
An in a letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), John Acton famously wrote:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely./…/There’s no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
[. . .]
If modern scientists often compare the sensation of omnipotence to effects caused by drugs, it’s because power, amphetamines and cocaine do have similar effect on human brain: they increase the levels of dopamine…and are equally addictive.
Dopamine leads to euphoria through higher levels of energy, self-confidence and alertness, but its build-up is linked to anxiety, psychosis and pervasive distrust and suspiciousness.
[. . .]



Delusions of grandeur turn relationships into transactions, and fellow human beings become viewed as a faceless crowd of disposable pawns.
Power junkies will inhale ovations, sniff flattery and shoot themselves up with compliments in order to maintain the illusion of the timelessness and limitlessness of their reign.
[. . .]
Serving the interests of their own citizens has become so unthinkable and out of the question that importing voters seems somehow a simpler solution.
[. . .]
While affected by pre-election fever, demagogues reaching for power act like busy bees. But once authority cravings satiated, they transform into lazy drones basking in the same treacherous sun of hubris which cost Icarus his wings.
[. . .]



The mainstream media lullaby aimed to sedate the commoners lulls also politicians into “eternal power” state of mind. Journalistic stenographers have no problem writing about “Oppositional Defiance Disorder,” apparently detected in unruly citizens or “dysfunctional” homeless Veterans who lost their limbs for our freedom. Quite ironically, journalists turned compliance professionals, and advisers turned sycophants follow politicians’ own rule: taking care of own business only; they will never risk their 30 pieces of silver
[. . .]
As envisioned by Thomas Paine: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/power_and_its_side_effects_.html

January 9, 2016
Power and its Side Effects
By Joanna Rosamond