From the Empire State

From an AP report via Fox News:

New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested Thursday on public corruption charges and accused of using his position as one of the most powerful men in Albany to obtain millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks masked as legitimate income. 

Of course, the fact of interest to me is that it isn't until the TENTH paragraph til you read:

As speaker of the Democrat-controlled Assembly, Silver is one of the most influential people in New York state government.

And, you notice, they never say that he himself is a Democrat.  Just that the assembly is controlled by the Ds and you're left to figure out the rest.

Nice that there's some work against corruption by the US prosecutor.  Bad that there's still journalistic bias from the AP.

But what else would you expect.

The Chicago Way

In these days of tough economic conditions, it's nice to know that some folks have work.  Take this fine upstanding fellow from Illinois:

Xadrian McCracken may be the poster child of the dysfunction of Illinois government. Fired last year from a state job, McCracken took a senior position in July with the Illinois Department of Corrections, earning $110,000 a year. He secured the position advising on parole policy in spite of a criminal history with "at least" 24 criminal arrests.  

McCracken's criminal history includes arrests for arson, illegal gun possession, attempted robbery, drug possession and aggravated assault. He plead guilty to a weapons charge in 1989 and was found guilty in 1999 for a charge related to domestic battery assault.

He has worked for IL state government since 2000. Prior to that, McCracken had sought to become a Chicago police officer. His application was rejected after a criminal background check. McCracken sued the department, arguing that the background check was racial discrimination.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys threw out McCracken's suit, noting in his ruling that the police background investigation found McCracken to be a known “drug dealer, gang member and supplier of guns to other gang members."

Keys' ruling was in August 2000, the same year McCracken went to work as a child protection worker with the state's Department of Children and Family Services. He has been in and out of state government since then.

Just remember....that's YOUR tax money funding his employment.  And given the lousy state of Illinois finances, you can be sure that federal funds will be there to prop up the corrupt Democratic government.  Word to the wise -- whenever you hear the words "federal funds", that means it's coming from your taxes.  Not some mystical pot of money found in the forest.  And there's no Rumpelstiltskin to spin gold from straw.

But hey...you gotta admit McCracken's got a nice gig at the taxpayer's expense.  After all, that's the Chicago Way.

H/T to Big Government at Breitbart.

ACORN is back

Judicial Watch has news of how nearly a half billion dollars of your money is funneling through an ACORN alumnus.

The Obama Administration has given a former director at the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) nearly half a billion dollars to offer “struggling” Illinois homeowners mortgage assistance, a Judicial Watch investigation has found.

It means the ACORN official (Joe McGavin) will go from operating a corrupt leftist community group that’s banned by Congress from receiving federal funding to controlling over $445 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.  The money is part of a $7.6 billion Treasury Department program to help the “unemployed or substantially underemployed” make their mortgage payments.

In this case, JW found that a subcomponent of the state-run Illinois Housing Development Authority, known as the Illinois Hardest Hit Program, received a generous $445,603,557 Treasury infusion. The Obama Administration established Hardest Hit in 2010 to provide targeted aid to families in states hit hardest by the economic and housing market downturn, according to its website.

In early 2011 McGavin was appointed as director of Hardest Hit. Before that he was director of counseling for ACORN Housing in Chicago and operations manager for a Chicago ACORN offshoot called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). His strong ties to ACORN make him a suspect candidate to handle such a huge amount of taxpayer dollars.

You see...all the ACORN ban did was force them to change names.  But the money still flows.  Your money.

Now, some may say that the real story is the $7.6 billion being given to bail out two groups....the Democrat voters who borrowed money they could never repay, and the Wall Street bundlers who made those bad loans in the first place.  Both of which give their support and votes to The One.

Rather than ban ACORN from receiving money, stop giving the money in the first place.  If there's no federal funding, there's nothing to steal.

Hat tip to Moonbattery for the heads up.

Payback

From the New York Post comes this story:

Six Long Island cops claim their commissioner is putting politics before the badge.

The Long Beach crime fighters say they’ve been targeted by the seaside town’s Democratic machine for supporting GOP candidates in local elections last year.

Long Beach Police Commissioner Michael Tangney, a longtime Democrat, demoted the cops, cut their overtime, switched them to midnight tours and even filed false internal charges against them for “political payback,” the veteran officers claim in a $39 million lawsuit.

“It’s just the way politics work in this town,” Tangney allegedly told one of the officers while demoting him.

Culture of corruption....it starts locally.

It's all for show

The scandal at the GSA isn't over.  Once they get a taste for the public trough, it never stops.  From the Washington Times comes this news:

More than a month after he was put on leave when a video surfaced showing him joking about the lavish spending — $823,000 — at a taxpayer-funded General Services Administration conference in Las Vegas, a top official at the agency has quietly returned to his job.

David Foley, deputy commissioner of the GSA's Public Buildings Service, was one of the speakers at the convention who has come under sharp congressional scrutiny after an audit uncovered massive waste at the gathering, including a talent show, open bar and red-carpet party.

Introduced before his speech at the conference as a “platinum big leaguer,” Mr. Foley joked at one point with a colleague: “The hotel would like to talk to you about paying for the party that was held in the commissioner’s suite last night.”

Agency sources confirmed Tuesday that Mr. Foley had returned to the GSA after being out on administrative leave. Officials made no public announcement about Mr. Foley’s return. He was placed on leave in April, the same month he apologized in an appearance before Congress for remarks he made in Las Vegas.

First he gets paid leave, which is akin to a paid vacation, then he quietly resumes his work with no consequences.  Is there no shame left in government?

But Foley isn't the only GSA official who's still taking our money.  From Bloomberg:

Taxpayers may get the multimillionaire-dollar “retirement tab” for a former U.S. General Services Administration official who oversaw an $823,000 Las Vegas conference, a U.S. lawmaker said.

The GSA announced without elaboration yesterday that Jeff Neely no longer worked at the agency. He will probably retire with government payments of more than $100,000 a year, Representative John Mica, a Republican from Florida, said today in a statement.

Mica, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, planned to investigate the terms of Neely’s departure, according to the statement.

The public shouldn’t have to fund multimillion-dollar deals for “government administrators who abuse their positions and snub their noses at Congress and the American people,” it said.

But what the hell, it's less than the government paid out to the Green Energy gang.

Thanks to The Lonely Conservative for the story pointers.

Not just GSA

It's time for more tales of OPM.  Now it's ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that's busy scamming your money.  From Fox News:

In a brazen criminal scheme to defraud taxpayers, one of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to helping embezzle more than $500,000 from the federal government.

Over three years, James Woosley and at least five other ICE employees scammed the agency by fabricating expenses for trips that were never taken and for hotel, rental car and restaurant expenses that did not exist, according to court records.

At least the guy is going to the big house.  Or we can hope.  Maybe he'll get lucky and have a bleeding heart that lets him slide with probation and community service.  Or some halfway house.  Personally, I'd create a new category - Crimes against the Citizens - with penalties in the draconian range.  Hell, they do it for "hate crimes".  Why not for a crime against the entire USA citizenry?

Remember, the mindset in government is that it's all theirs to use as they see fit.  It's not the taxpayers money - it's a pot waiting to be abused.

Is bribery a resume enhancement in Chicago?

I guess that corruption doesn't matter in one party:

Last week state Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) was indicted for bribery. He's accused of accepting $7,000 to arrange a state grant for a day care center. But I'm sure it was "for the kids." In yesterday's Democratic primary race against Tom Swiss, Smith collected three-quarters of the vote.

Of course, this is the same party that has an impeached former federal judge, Alcee Hastings, in a Congressional leadership position.