Ryan And Trump Pick Winners And Losers With Their Very Flawed Tax Proposal

The nonpartisan ethics watchdogs, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was blunter than most when it came to defining the Trump/Ryan tax plan: it was designed lower Señor Trumpanzee's taxes. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which Ryan wants to eliminate entirely, cost Trump $31 million in 2005, the one year people got to examine part of Trump's returns. That tax was designed to get something out of crooked millionaires and billionaires who game the system to avoid taxes-- like Trump. But that's not all that's wrong with this corrupt tax plan for the rich.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who represents Seattle called it "nothing but a dream come true for the biggest corporations. It will further destroy the middle class by giving huge tax breaks to wealthy Americans on the backs of working people. Corporate profits currently sit at historic highs and the effective corporate tax rate in the U.S. is one of the lowest in the entire world. In spite of that, Republicans want to lower corporate taxes by 15 percent, add trillions to the deficit and reward big business by giving special perks to those who ship jobs overseas. On top of all this, the GOP is working to give a handout to the 5,400 wealthiest families across the country in the form of estate tax repeal. For a party that claims to be against so-called government handouts, they seem to have no problem giving everything we’ve got to big business and the super-rich. These giveaways come at the expense of programs that help American families get by, but this plan comes as no surprise. It is everything you’d expect from the party that is deep in the pocket of millionaires, billionaires and corporations. It’s up to all of us make tons of noise and defeat it, just as we defeated the GOP’s efforts to transfer wealth to the richest by stripping health care from the American people.”

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, from New Hampshire, saw it very similarly. She noted how Ryan and his conference are "trying to rush a gift to the wealthiest corporations and individuals through Congress by misleading Americans about how their plan would really affect low- and middle-income families-- just like they did with their failed health care repeal plan. This bill eliminates critical deductions that help working people, including the student loan interest and tuition deductions, and curtails the State and Local Tax deduction. It blows up the deficit, setting the stage for drastic cuts to federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure, and other crucial domestic programs. And I agree with Senator Marco Rubio that this bill’s failure to meaningfully expand refundable provisions that put money in working families’ pockets and that have strong bipartisan support, including the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, is a huge missed opportunity to grow and strengthen the middle class. Meanwhile, the plan is loaded with provisions to help the wealthiest. It eliminates the estate tax, which only applies to estates valued over $11 million for heirs who are joint filers and will only be paid by an estimated 5,500 Americans this year. And it slashes the corporate tax rate claimed by larger businesses while actually raising rates for many small businesses, earning it opposition from the right-leaning National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). House Republicans’ tax plan isn’t just regressive-- it’s enormously hypocritical. After subjecting our country to years of obstruction and brinkmanship over the debt ceiling and government funding levels as they claimed they cared about the deficit, House Republicans have now proposed a plan that would explode the deficit by $1.5 trillion or even more. They want to repeat the damage they did during the Bush era, when they drove up the national debt by $4.9 trillion. We’ve seen this rodeo before, and it was a disaster. In 2003, seeking a second round of tax cuts, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously said: ‘Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.’ This year, House Republicans are again acknowledging that they only care about deficits when it’s politically expedient. ‘It’s a great talking point when you have an administration that’s Democrat-led,’ said Representative Mark Walker (R-NC), chairman of the hyper-conservative Republican Study Committee."

So what's she going to do about it? She was very clear that she will "never support a plan that exacerbates income inequality by giving away even more to corporations and individuals that are already favored by our tax code, and then, in the name of deficit reduction, asks working Americans to bear the brunt of draconian budget cuts to essential federal programs. In contrast to the closed process that yielded this unacceptable proposal, I will continue to advocate for an honest, bipartisan discussion on revenue-neutral tax reform that prioritizes tax relief for working families and small businesses in order to address our nation’s income inequality crisis.”

Early polling indicates that 60% of Americans agree with Shea-Porter and Jayapal on the bill-- and that includes 60% of wealthy people who would benefit most from this unfair plan! Only 33% of voters polled are embracing the proposal, the same percentage of people who still back Trump.

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks for most progressive Democrats when he points out that "the GOP’s outrageous plutocrat tax plan is a civic emergency... According to the New York Times, the GOP’s plan would 'raise taxes on nearly 13 million tax filers who earn $100,000 a year or less.' It would wipe out the Alternative Minimum Tax, the only reason Donald Trump paid any taxes at all the one year we know he paid taxes in the last several decades, 2005. He paid $36 million that year; under his new plan, he would have paid $5 million. It would decimate the estate tax which affects only two out of 1,000 families in America, the richest people in the country. It will provide tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas and increase the deficit by an estimated $1.5 trillion-- which Republicans will surely use to call for massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. It’s a scandal, and we have to stop it the only way we have been able to stop all the nonsense-- through popular organizing and political action."

From his Esquire perch Charles Pierce pointed out Ryan's nonsense is all unicorns. "One good way to understand what’s going on with this latest exercise in financial misdirection," he wrote, "is to notice that this plan will tax the interest payment on one student’s loans, but that it may no longer tax another student’s multibillion-dollar inheritance. Of course, the estate tax will go away entirely in six years, probably when nobody’s watching. It also will cap the mortgage-interest deduction, probably in the interest of eliminating it entirely when nobody’s watching. So that’s what all that 'middle-class' bafflegab is really all about."

The elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes seems to be based in an entirely new riff that’s become popular among congresscritters who are tired of seeing their laissez-faire hellholes called moochers because the hellholes take in more money from the federal government than they send back to it in taxes. Now, believe it or not, and you will believe it because these people will say anything, the argument is being made that the high-tax states are somehow luxuriating on the backs of Good Country People in places like Alabama and, yes, Kansas. In any event, this provision of the bill has put Republicans from places like New York and New Jersey in a considerable bind, so much so that insisting upon it may be enough to sink the bill entirely.

The only way it will pass while these deductions are in place is if California Republicans-- namely Steve Knight, Mimi Walters, Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Jeff Denham, Duncan Hunter, Dave Valadao and Dana Rohrabacher-- continue to support it. So far all 9 are doing just that. They need more pressure, a lot more pressure-- and their opponents need some support (see the California 2018 thermometer on the right).

Yesterday, Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur looked at who Ryan has chosen to take winner and who he's chosen to make losers.

About 60 percent of the tax cuts will be from corporate tax reduction, another 20 percent through the business pass-through reductions, and the remaining 20 percent to individuals, according to an analysis of the initial plan by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

“The bulk of it is through corporate tax changes and changes to pass-through entities. This is really a cut to business,” Zandi said. “The preponderance-- the vast majority-- of tax cuts go to business.”

Trump’s economic advisers have said that cutting the corporate rate will increase wages, lifting average household income by at least $4,000. Other economists question that finding. But beyond that, the specifics in the new House bill would create winners and losers, especially among those who itemize their tax deductions.

“If you live in a high tax state, are an itemizer, buy a house with a big mortgage, have medical expenses or casualty losses, you will likely be a loser,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “If you take the standard deduction, are married without kids, and have a pass-through business, you will be a winner.”

...Private-equity managers, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers and certain real estate investors escaped unscathed. The House bill preserves the carried interest tax preference despite Trump’s promise to do away with it.

Every Democrat running for Congress should be running ads like this one

During his campaign, Trump highlighted carried-interest, labeling some hedge fund managers as “paper pushers” who are “getting away with murder.” As recently as September, Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn said the president was committed to ending the carried interest tax break.

...Among the biggest losers would be big families with higher incomes who live in states with high income and property taxes. They would lose the state and local deduction (with the exception of a $10,000 cap on deducting property taxes) as well as personal and dependent exemptions worth $4,000 per family member. For many, the doubling of the standard deduction won’t make up their losses.

“Upper middle income households in high tax states will be dinged the most,” Zandi said. “For very high income households, it is probably a wash, though they would benefit from the estate tax” elimination.

There are changes in store for charities and other non-profits. By increasing the standard deduction, advocates for those groups say it could erode the deduction for charitable giving, which remains in the tax code.

"A lot of charities are having a problem with this," Joseph said. "Before, you might’ve written a check for $200 to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; now you’re not going to get a deduction for it, so maybe you’re only gonna write it for $150."

And the eventual repeal of the estate tax means people would be less likely to give their fortunes away to charity to avoid paying the 40 percent levy, as many wealthy people currently do in their estate planning. Joseph said that for this reason, charitable groups will have "a problem with the estate tax disappearing."

The deduction for out-of-pocket medical costs -- including such items as prescriptions, drug-addiction treatment and services for special needs children -- would disappear. Almost 9 million taxpayers deducted about $87 billion in medical expenses for the 2015 tax year, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

That will negatively “impact people with relatively low income and a lot of medical expenses,” Joseph said.

The House GOP tax bill is likely to raise the deficit substantially, thereby putting pressure to cut federal safety net programs used by poor people, said Leonard Burman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

"Low-income people might end being worse off because they’re really not getting anything from the bill and they might end up bearing the cost of cutting big safety net programs," Burman said.

The House tax plan would eliminate a $7,500 per vehicle tax credit that has helped stoke early demand for electric vehicles. That likely will hit carmakers offering those vehicles such as Tesla Inc., General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.

“That will stop any electric vehicle market in the U.S., apart from sales of the highly expensive Tesla Model S,” said Xavier Mosquet, senior partner at consultant Boston Consulting Group, who authored a study on the growth of battery powered vehicles. “There’s no Tesla 3, no Bolt, no Leaf in a market without incentives.”

David Rivera (R-FL) Unmasked... Officially This Time

Miami residents are already asking about tickets to the trial

If New Yorkers are under the impression that congressional corruption begins and ends with Gambino Crime Family affiliate/congressman Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm from Staten Island, they were disabused of that notion when they opened their hometown paper of record yesterday. Yes, CREW picked Grimm as one of their posterboys of congressional corruption this year, but they also put Miami crime figure David Rivera (R-FL) in the same sordid category. But Lizette Alvarez's New York Times story on Florida houses races certainly must have made New Yorkers realize that Grimm has some serious competition for America's Most Corrupt! (And wait 'til they find out that California's Buck McKeon makes both these guys look like rank amateurs! But that's a story the Times hasn't uncovered yet.) Back to Rivera:

“It’s a true swing state, and a close state ignites people’s passions,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Republican consultant who lives in Miami Beach. Add to that the state’s mix of immigrants, many from countries well practiced in tainted politics, and New Yorkers, who are accustomed to delighting in political rumbles, and the result is not altogether unpredictable.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in South Florida.

Since he was elected to Congress in 2010, Mr. Rivera, one of three Republican Cuban-American House members from Miami, has been dogged by allegations of wrongdoing while he was a state legislator. On Wednesday he was charged by the Florida Commission on Ethics with 11 counts of filing fraudulent financial disclosure forms, misusing campaign funds and concealing a $1 million consulting contract with a Miami gambling business while he served in the State House.

Mr. Rivera, who was Senator Marco Rubio’s roommate when both were state representatives, called the charges false in a statement, but he is also confronting another series of damaging accusations.

The Miami Herald has reported that Mr. Rivera ran a puppet candidate in the Democratic primary against his Democratic challenger, Joe Garcia, who lost to Mr. Rivera in 2010. The candidate, Justin Lamar Sternad, a part-time hotel worker with no political experience, has told the F.B.I. that Mr. Rivera was secretly behind his race, The Herald reported. The newspaper said Mr. Rivera funneled as much as $43,000 to Mr. Sternad, who paid cash this summer for expensive campaign fliers attacking Mr. Garcia. A federal grand jury is investigating.

One witness in the case-- a political operative who describes herself on Twitter as a “Republican Political Guru and Conservative Bad Girl!”-- vanished hours before she was scheduled to talk to prosecutors. Mr. Rivera, who declined through his lawyer to comment, has said he has done nothing wrong and knows of no investigation.

“We are not going to respond to unfounded rumors and innuendo,” said his lawyer, Michael R. Band. But, he added, “it’s like a Carl Hiaasen novel.”

Analysts say Mr. Garcia stands a good chance of winning next month. And if so, he would be a new breed of Cuban-American in the House: a Democrat who supports travel by Americans to Cuba.

Meanwhile, his party has stepped back from Mr. Rivera.

“I know the Republicans are putting enormous pressure on him to drop out,” Mr. Stone said, adding that Mr. Rubio has been asked to intervene.

But Mr. Rivera, who was named the most corrupt member of Congress this year by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a nonpartisan group in Washington, has refused to back down. Recently, he ran a television advertisement saying, inaccurately, that Mr. Garcia was “under investigation for breaking the law.”

Last week, Mr. Garcia counterpunched, starting a Web site, davidriverafacts.com, delineating the accusations. An accompanying video warns: “The more we know, the worse it gets.”

"Mr. Rubio has been asked to intervene." That's a joke, since Rivera was Rubio's henchman when Rubio was Speaker and Rivera and he shared a party house in Tallahassee, where money, women and drugs flowed freely. The press release from Florida's Ethics Commission Wednesday is something Marco Rubio isn't going to want to get anywhere near-- not now, not ever. "The Commission found probable cause to believe that U.S. Congressman DAVID RIVERA, former member of the Florida House of Representatives, may have violated Florida ethics laws in 11 instances while serving in the Florida House of Representatives. Probable cause was found to believe that he received income from Southwest Florida Enterprises, Inc. (SFEI) while he was a member of the Florida House, when he knew, or with the exercise of reasonable care should have known it was given to influence his vote or official action. Probable cause also was found to believe that his contract with SFEI through Millennium Marketing, Inc. (Millennium) would create a frequently recurring conflict between his private interests and his public duties as a Florida House member or would impede the full and faithful discharge of his public duties. The Commission also found probable cause to believe that Mr. Rivera misused his public position by using campaign funds for non-campaign related expenditures..." It goes on-- and so do ace reporters Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei of the Miami Herald, which Rivera is reduced to claiming is part of a conspiracy against him.

Already facing FBI probes and a daunting reelection, U.S. Rep. David Rivera was charged Wednesday by state authorities with 11 counts of violating ethics laws for filing bogus financial disclosure forms, misusing campaign funds and concealing a $1 million consulting contract with a Miami gambling business while serving in the state Legislature.

Investigators with the Florida Commission on Ethics found that Rivera’s secret deal to work as a political consultant for the Magic City Casino [for $510,000]-- formerly the Flagler Dog Track-- created a conflict of interest for the lawmaker. The ethics panel also found that the Republican broke state ethics laws by failing to fully disclose his finances from 2005 to 2009.

...The FBI and IRS are also investigating whether Rivera should have paid taxes on the Magic City money.

The ethics commission’s charges come as Rivera is facing a separate FBI probe into his suspected role in secretly financing the campaign of neophyte congressional candidate Justin Lamar Sternad, who ran in the Aug. 14 Democratic primary against Rivera’s current challenger, Joe Garcia. Rivera has denied any role in Sternad’s campaign.

...In a flurry of television interviews Wednesday afternoon, Rivera claimed the case was rammed forward by the ethics commission’s chairwoman, Fort Lauderdale attorney Susan Horovitz Maurer, a Democrat. The commission is comprised of five Republican members and four Democrats.

The commission also accused Rivera of using campaign funds for personal use, relying on the FDLE’s finding that Rivera used campaign donations to pay off expenses on his personal credit cards. Rivera’s lawyers argue that the credit-card payments were intended to cover past campaign expenses that Rivera paid personally. Rivera has said that he’s still owed $75,000 for campaign costs he paid out of his own pocket.

Rivera also filed false or incomplete financial disclosure forms between 2005 and 2009, the commission found. Investigators said Rivera should have reported the Magic City payments through Millennium as income, and he also failed to report some real estate and a small number of stock holdings.

In addition, Rivera claimed he received income from phantom sources. For several years, Rivera said he worked as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. But USAID told The Herald and FDLE investigators that the agency never hired Rivera or his company.

Unless they botch the investigation or cover it up for a quickie resignation or plea deal, those "phantom sources" will prove to be international cocaine cash and will end not just Rivera's career but Rubio's as well. Who remembers when Boehner and Cantor solemnly pledged to teh American people they would take responsibility for keeping the Republican caucus on the straight and narrow and having "zero tolerance" for this kind of corrupt behavior? Has Boehner removed Grimm or Rivera from their committees? Not a chance. Even when another Republican from the House Armed Services Committee marched into Boehner's office and told him how McKeon's large and mounting gambling debts to Las Vegas/Macau crime figure Sheldon Adelson was endangering national security and that McKeon would sink the entire Republican Party, Boehner refused to take any substantial action. The tip of the iceberg has been uncovered but will the rest be exposed? Grimm and Rivera face real and independent media. McKeon's district media is a sad, pathetic joke-- not to mention the laughing stock that was once the L.A. Times-- and his problems are assiduously hidden from his constituents.

DCCC Can't Very Well Count Corruption Against Republicans-- Not With Their Own Records!

When the DCCC decides which candidates to help and which to ignore, there are many factors that go into the calculus, the most important one being the career trajectory of Steve Israel and his cronies. They want to make sure the people the DCCC helps elect are going to be loyal-- not loyal to Democratic principles and values but loyal to Israel's, Crowley's, Hoyer's and Wasserman Schultz's own career aspirations. But they can't really make that big a deal when GOP congressmen get caught up in corruption and ethics scandals. That's because Israel's own closest associates in Congress-- Crowley himself for example-- are every bit as corrupt as any Republican.

Yesterday CREW put out another of their nonpartisan "Most Corrupt" lists. This was the coverage from a local Los Angeles newspaper, the Daily News: Laura Richardson, Buck McKeon on 'corrupt' list.

Laura Richardson and Buck McKeon, members of Congress from Southern California, have gone from the A list to the C list.

C for corrupt -- as measured by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Richardson, D-Long Beach, is one of 12 representatives and senators on CREW's annual list of "Most Corrupt" members of Congress. McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, is one of eight earning "Dishonorable Mention."

Read what CREW says about Richardson here, and about McKeon here.

Richardson is running against Rep. Janice Hahn in an all-Democratic race in the 44th District, and McKeon is facing Democrat Lee Rogers in the 25th District.

So what's the DCCC to do? Nothing, of course. There are 7 Democrats on the two lists. So both parties prefer to not push the CREW narrative to hard. McKeon, as all regular DWT readers know, is the last Member of Congress found to be taking bribers from Countrywide still in Congress. All the rest-- every one of them-- was either defeated or nudged into retirement. But McKeon has so little respect for his constituents in Santa Clarita, Antelope Valley and Simi Valley that he's demanding yet another term. And the DCCC? Crickets. This was the CREW press release on McKeon yesterday:

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) as a Dishonorable Mention in its Most Corrupt Members of Congress report, an annual, bipartisan look at Washington’s worst. Rep. McKeon claimed not to have known he received a favorable home loan under the Countrywide VIP program, despite undeniable evidence. Furthermore, his taxpayer-funded congressional staff appears to have worked to support his wife’s political campaign, earning him a spot in CREW’s latest report..

“Rep. McKeon wants us to believe-- even with the word ‘VIP’ stamped multiple times on his mortgage application-- he had no idea he was getting a sweetheart deal,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “He may plead ignorance, but it’s obvious he accepted a gift he shouldn’t have.”

Internal documents show executives at Countrywide Financial referred Rep. McKeon to the company’s now-infamous VIP program and provided him with favorable terms, including an order from CEO Angelo Mozilo to deduct a point from his loan and eliminate so-called “garbage fees.” Even though Rep. McKeon’s income had declined at the time he applied for the loan, due to the bankruptcy of his family business, he received an interest-rate reduction. When Rep. McKeon’s participation in the VIP program was made public in January 2012, he claimed he had not known beforehand, even though the cover letter for the loan package was addressed from the “COUNTRYWIDE VIP TEAM.”

Additionally, Rep. McKeon’s staff appears to have improperly assisted his wife in her campaign for a seat in the California State Assembly. The congressman’s taxpayer-funded communications director prepared a strategy memo recommending that staff members conduct a background check of Scott Wilk and his political connections. At the time, Mr. Wilk was running in a heated primary race against the congressman’s wife, Patricia McKeon. 

“Congressional staff cannot conduct campaign work on official time-- not for the boss, and not for the boss’s wife,” continued Ms. Sloan.

Front page of today's Antelope Valley Press

CREW only has found the tip of the iceberg in McKeon's case. There's soooooo much more, from the bribes from arms manufacturers, military contractors and for-profit education businesses and lending institutions, to the nepotism and his shady relationship with Sheldon Adelson, which may be putting national security in jeopardy. But the DCCC attitude is that they do not, under any circumstances target senior Republicans or committee chairmen and they are extremely reluctant to help progressives like Rogers take these galoots on. Rogers gets as much help from Steve Israel and the DCCC as he does from Pete Sessions and the NRCC-- which is fitting, since he's another candidate who has zero interest in fitting in with the corrupt business-as-usual Inside the Beltway crooks and wants to go to Washington to solve real problems for people in his community, problems McKeon routinely ignores while he wheels and deals. See that billboard mock-up up top? Would you like to help Blue America make sure everyone in Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Porter Ranch, Saugus, Canyon Country, Valencia and Acton sees that billboard. We have plans. Can you help?

With All The Scandals Raining Down On His Head, Will Mikey Suits Grimm's Porno Involvement Make Any Difference?

First I ever knew of now-Congressman Michael Grimm (AKA, "Mikey Suits") was when he was still a two-bit hoodlum playing both sides of the fence between the FBI and Organized Crime. We only discovered him because of his sleazy relationship with the now imprisoned Tommy Kontogiannis, one of the guys bribing the also now-imprisoned ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA). Before Grimm ran for Congress in Staten Island, he had been kicked out of the FBI, mostly for taking payoffs from Kontogiannis. Kontogiannis' story would be the biggest political blockbuster made in our lifetimes. He's been told he'd be found dead in his cell if he ever tries to tell it though-- and it involves Saudis, Greeks, a $400,000 cash bribe to George W. Bush and... the freshman crook who represents Staten Island in Congress today.

Now, I'm sure CREW had no idea yesterday when they launched their latest Scoundrel of the Month poll featuring Grimm, that it would come out the same day as another exposé on the congressman who makes it into the newspapers every month with another scandal-- from associates being arrested to wild frat parties at the Sea of Galilee. This one, courtesy of the A.P., involves one of the old ones uncovered earlier in the year by the NY Times... but with a twist, a really twisted twist. Grimm's illegal campaign donation and blackmail scandal around Israeli-Brooklyn Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto has veered off into the pornography business.

In mid-August, FBI agents arrested an Israeli businessman who had helped Grimm raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pinto’s wealthy, zealous followers in New York. The entrepreneur and rabbinical aide, Ofer Biton, was charged with lying about his financial dealings in 2010 when he applied for a U.S. visa.

The arrest came as the FBI has been investigating claims made by other Pinto followers, who say they made tens of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Grimm during his 2010 run, including gifts that were passed through straw donors to hide the true source of the donations. FBI agents have recently been requesting records and interviewing people who were on the campaign staff.

Grimm, himself a former FBI agent, has repeatedly declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press about the matter. He has acknowledged raising $250,000 to $300,000 from Pinto’s supporters-- about a third of all money contributed in the first 12 months of his campaign-- but denied any knowledge of improprieties.

...“My campaign and I followed the fundraising rules, and took reasonable measures to vet the contributions received by my campaign,” he said in a statement to the AP. “Indeed, I relied on Rabbi Pinto’s status as a clergyman and holy man when agreeing to meet with individuals associated with his congregation.”

Campaign records and other public documents make it clear, however, that after tapping the rabbi’s followers for money, Grimm wound up getting help from people who candidates normally keep at arm’s length.

One of the rabbi’s closest aides, Benzion Suky, owned a company that distributed porn videos and has settled lawsuits by adult film studios who accused him of selling bootlegged DVDs, according to court records. Suky and his wife gave a combined $9,600 to Grimm’s 2010 campaign and a real estate partnership that lists Suky as its managing member gave $4,800, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Another big donor was Rafi Maman, proprietor of companies in North Bergen, N.J., that distribute adult films and sex toys. He also has settled lawsuits accusing him of bootlegging, including two which also named Suky as a defendant. Maman, his wife and a real estate partnership that he listed as his employer gave $19,200 to Grimm’s campaign. That total includes $7,200 in individual contributions from Maman, or $2,400 more than is allowed by law.

A third Grimm contributor, Eli Halali, is listed in business records as the agent of another company that distributed pornographic movies. His name also appears on at least one such video, “Blonde & Beautiful Vol. 1,” as the keeper of records verifying that the film’s performers were over age 18. He gave $4,800. Two apparent relatives, Bluria Halali and Jaclyn Halali, each contributed $4,800.

Biton, formerly one of Pinto’s top aides, also had a hand in adult entertainment. Florida business records list him as being the president of AMOB Inc. The company is registered at the same address as the Miami Playground, a shop once named by an alternative newspaper as the city’s the best adult video store.

Election records do not list any donations from Biton, who, as an Israeli citizen without permanent residency in the U.S, is barred from giving money to political candidates.

But the Israeli helped Grimm in other ways that are allowed, including accompanying him on fundraising visits to congregation members, several of whom were heavy hitters in New York’s real estate and jewelry businesses.

...At age 38, Pinto has achieved a fervent following in Israel, and has become famous there for his connections to political figures and business tycoons, some of whom credit him with mystical powers to bless their deals.

His success as an adviser to the rich and famous has made his organization wealthy; the Israeli edition of Forbes magazine recently ranked Pinto as Israel’s 7th richest rabbi, based on organizational holdings. Long based in the Mediterranean port city of Ashdod, Pinto opened a second headquarters in 2002 in New York, where he resides in a $6.5 million town house and delivers sermons in a building purchased in 2009 for $28.5 million.

When Grimm’s campaign began, Pinto’s U.S. followers had also begun to establish themselves as a source of campaign cash for pro-Israel candidates. A handful had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to political committees controlled by U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat.

Grimm, a Catholic ex-Marine and a ferocious supporter of Israel, received his first bundle of checks from the rabbi’s supporters in December of 2009, just two months after entering the race.

One donor, New York deli owner Josef Ben Moha, said he and his wife gave a combined $4,800.

“It’s not something that I had to have my arm twisted. I was asked nicely. I decided he was a nice guy,” said Ben Moha, who has been one of Suky’s partners in a real estate venture. “The people who seemed to be helping him, they saw good qualities in him. I guess I did too.”

In the two years since the election, Pinto’s religious organization, Mosdot Shuva Israel, has been a frequent target of media scrutiny. News articles in the Jewish press accused it of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury travel and raised questions about its handling of millions of dollars in donations.

Pinto’s own father-in-law, an influential rabbi in Argentina, complained in a court filing that Pinto-- who professes to have no worldly possessions-- had enlisted him in a scheme to conceal his ownership of luxury apartments in Jerusalem.

More recently, a Pinto aide, rabbi Abraham Israel, was detained by Israeli police in April as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected money laundering and theft at an anti-poverty charity, Hazon Yeshaya. A spokesman for Pinto said he had no involvement in that charity.

Large amounts of Shuva Israel’s money have also disappeared, according to the organization’s lawyers. In December, Pinto and his supporters publicly blamed Biton, claiming he had embezzled large sums. They also made allegations, first reported last year in the New York Times, that Biton had conspired with another member of the congregation to extort money from the rabbi by threatening to plant damaging stories about him in the media.

Biton has called the extortion and embezzlement allegations lies.

In the waning days of the 2010 election, Pinto also began telling associates, including then-Congressman Anthony Weiner, that his support of Grimm had been coerced.

Weiner wound up reporting that murky allegation to the FBI. He told the AP he didn’t say anything publicly at the time and won’t discuss the details of the rabbi’s allegations now, because, “I didn’t know whether it was true or not.” A law enforcement official confirmed that the FBI had received the report.

Grimm has called any suggestion that he was tied up in some sort of plot with Biton, “profoundly absurd.”

So far Grimm has spent $320,000 in campaign contributions for lawyers fees to keep him out of prison on the "profoundly absurd" charges. And, yes, I voted for Grimm... in the CREW poll.

Poor Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-Staten Island)-- His Hometown Paper Is The NY Times... The Cyprus Connection

Two crooks who know their way around a tanning salon

If you're a typical crooked congressman from Anywhere, USA-- or even a one-man organized crime machine like Buck McKeon up in Santa Clarita-- chances are local reporters are indisposed to "go after" you and your criminal activities (since the publisher is his best friend and your boss) and you don't have the resources to do a real investigation anyway. Take New Hampshire. Both incumbent congressmen, Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta, are counted among the nonpartisan watchdog group CREW's "Most Corrupt." The biggest paper in the state, the Manchester Union-Leader is a right-wing propaganda sheet backing their candidacies and the rest of the local media doesn't have the ability to conduct the kind of thoroughgoing investigations that could land Guinta and Bass on he unemployment line-- if not behind bars.

But look at another Republican incumbent on CREW's list of the most corrupt members of Congress, Michael Grimm (R-NY) and it's a whole different story. The local paper, filled with the most talented journalists in the country and not worried about offending some two-bit freshman congressman, is the New York Times. William Rashbaum is one of the most respected (and feared) national investigative journalists in America and Alison Cowan, although "just" on the City desk, is in the exact right position to make Grimm's shady life a living hell. Yesterday Cowan and Rashbaum filed another Grimm exposé and as I was scanning it I came across a familiar name: Panicos Papanicolaou, who they refer to as "Peter." At the link under his name you'll see a story about an ongoing federal corruption investigation into the awarding of construction contracts by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and how one of the key culprits was Papanicolaou. A few days later a newspaper in Cyprus reported on the same story:

US authorities have charged a prominent member of the Cypriot community in America with bribing a New York housing agency official, reports said.

Contractor Panayiotis “Peter” Papanicolaou, 50, has been charged with bribing a Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) official by paying for his $12,000 (€9,600) honeymoon.

Papanicolaou is the chairman of the Cyprus Federation of America (CFA), whose mission is to “promote the rights, and freedoms of the Cypriot people, and work towards the termination of the illegal occupation of Cyprus from Turkey.”

Papanicolaou, who is free on bail, was arrested along with four other individuals in connection with kickback and bribery schemes involving the HPD, reports said.

...The New York Times said a criminal complaint charged Brooklyn-based Papanicolaou, who had received contracts for several Department of HPD projects, with paying $12,390 to send Wendell Walters, the organisation’s top official, on a honeymoon trip to Greece.

And Walters wasn't the only one he sent to Cyprus. He also paid for New York's most corrupt Republican, Michael Grimm. Grimm broke House rules to try to hide it but once he realized Cowan and Rashbaum were onto him, he amended his filing with the House... a month late-- and "one day after his host on the trip, Peter Papanicolaou, the president of the Cyprus Federation of America, which paid for the $6,890 visit, was arrested in Brooklyn on federal corruption charges."

In July 2011, about a month before Mr. Grimm’s trip, his office issued a news release saying he would co-sponsor a bill to help give Americans who own property in what the release called “Turkish-Occupied Cyprus” recourse to seek restitution for the “illegal use and occupation of their property.”

Cyprus is divided between a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish-occupied north, which is not recognized internationally.

The news release noted that Mr. Grimm planned to travel to Cyprus in August 2011 with representatives of the Greek-Cypriot community from his district.

But Mr. Grimm’s office subsequently made little effort to publicize the trip.

Mr. Papanicolaou accompanied him on the trip, as did Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican who issued a news release about it. They met with the president of the Republic of Cyprus, the foreign minister, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus, and other dignitaries.

According to an itinerary that was belatedly filed with the House of Representatives on July 23, the first full day of the weeklong trip featured lunch with Mr. Papanicolau at his home.

While the same prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Capozzolo, is handling both the investigation of Mr. Grimm and the case against Mr. Papanicolaou, it is not clear whether the investigation into Mr. Grimm has examined his ties to Mr. Papanicolaou.

Mr. Papanicolaou was arrested on a criminal complaint June 5, and court papers in his case indicate that he has been discussing a plea deal with prosecutors, though they provide no details.

Mr. Papanicolaou’s lawyer, Paul Schoeman, declined to comment.

According to an F.B.I. affidavit, Mr. Papanicolaou came to the attention of authorities as part of a pay-to-play scheme that has engulfed the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development since Wendell B. Walters, a former assistant commissioner, pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption charges.

The government claimed that Mr. Papanicolaou persuaded a travel agency to rebate $12,390 in charges that the assistant commissioner put on his American Express card for a Greek honeymoon in September 2007, so that Mr. Papanicolaou could pick up the tab.

Grimm's Democratic opponent in Mark Murphy, a fourth generation Staten Islander whose dad was the congressman from the district when I was a kid. Mark was added to the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program and his race is rated as a must win for the Democrats if they're going to win back the House. Murphy blasted Grimm once the reports hit the New York media yesterday:

“Day after day, we read about yet another criminal indictment from someone with whom Congressman Grimm has a close financial relationship. This time, it’s Peter Papanicolau, who paid thousands of dollars to cover some of Congressman Grimm’s overseas travels. Congressman Grimm's pattern of corruption and abuse is shocking even by Washington's standards. Given his history of hiding from the truth, it is not surprising that Congressman Grimm refuses to discuss the nature of his relationship with Mr. Papanicolau, or that he conveniently forgot to disclose the travel until his friend and ally was arrested for an extensive pattern of bribery.

“With the Congressman on an extended vacation, he has plenty of time to be honest with voters and put an end to the lies and deceit. If he refuses to address the latest revelations about his shady relationships and unethical behavior, he will continue to give voters reasons to think he is fundamentally unfit to serve in Congress, where no one will take him seriously. The people Staten Island and Brooklyn demand honest and representation."

Buck McKeon For Congress Website-- It’s a Web Of Family Payments

Is Buck McKeon’s new website worth $108,000? That’s the question we’re asking after we read the pre-primary FEC filing for Buck McKeon for Congress. First we see 2 expenditures to Savanna Communications, PO Box 53224, Washington, DC on 4/19/2012 for $30,000 and $18,000 for website design, microsite development and hosting. This is suspicious not only because of the ridiculous amount, but a look at McKeon’s history of payments for web development and hosting have all been to his family members. McKeon paid his son-in-law David Logan $4,000 for webhosting in the 2008 cycle. Subsequently, payments were made to his son David O. McKeon who is listed as president of 2 shell corporations from Las Vegas, Ameramedia and DO Consulting. David McKeon received the bulk of his father’s campaign web services payments from 2009-2011, totaling just over $50,000. In October 2011, the payments to DO Consulting stopped and the same amount was paid to TLS CO, 10120 W. Flamingo Road #4135, Las Vegas, NV. In 4 months, TLS CO received $10,500. There is no TLS CO listed as a corporation in Nevada and the address on Flamingo Road is a Postnet store where one can rent a mailbox. TLS has a non-descript website here.

What’s interesting is that the new web development company, Savanna Communications, is not listed when a corporation search is done for the District of Columbia, despite at PO Box address in DC. There is a similar non-descript website here. One would think, a company specializing in political communications and websites would have a better representation of their work.

Apparently, charging exorbitant fees for web design is not Savanna Communications only expertise. The only other congressman who has utilized “them” is... Eric Cantor who paid their standard fee of $30,000 on 3-16-2012 for “Photo/Video Shoot.”

Those of you familiar with our previous reporting know Congressman Buck McKeon’s predilection for paying his family members with campaign cash. His wife acts as his treasurer and has been paid over $547,584 since 2001, but about $240,000 of that is in the past few years.

While the ethics of paying family members to do campaign work could be questioned, it is not illegal. But both the House Ethics Manual and 2 U.S.C. 439 prohibit payment to family members unless a “bona fide campaign need” exists and “payments are not in excess of the fair market value.”

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) recently published their nepotism report call Family Affair. According to the report, McKeon made the top 5 representatives paying the most money in salaries to family members. Mrs. McKeon, whose failed Assembly race is hopelessly tangled in ethical breaches of co-mingled campaign fundraising with her husband's, is the highest paid employee for the campaign.

Buck McKeon is no stranger to financial scandals, as he is currently under investigation for his role in Countrywide Mortgage scandal when he sought out a lobbyist to help him get CEO Angelo Mozilo’s intervention for a sweetheart deal on his home mortgage.

We’re hoping the voters of CA-25-- Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, the Antelope Valley and Porter Ranch-- decide it’s time to end the double-dealing and financial scandals of Buck McKeon. The prospects are looking better for his retirement in November, and by default his campaign employee wife. You can help by donating to his opponent Blue America-endorsed candidate Dr. Lee Rogers here. The DCCC seems afraid to take McKeon on because of his powerful position as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee-- same way they're shying away from taking on Paul Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee. But McKeon and Ryan are both vulnerable and grassroots support will help guarantee that Lee Rogers and Rob Zerban are in Congress in January, instead of two of Congress' most toxic incumbents. That's the kind of battle that animates and motivates Blue America. You?

What Is Corruption?

Now what could these 2 gonifs have in common?

I think when most people think about corruption they think about predatory crooks and lone wolves like Bernie Madoff or, to stay current, Rajat Gupta, another Goldman Sachs financial services manipulator who, unlike 99% of them, got caught with his fat fingers in the cookie jar. In wrapping up the prosecution's case Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Tarlowe told jurors in Manhattan federal court that there is “overwhelming evidence” Gupta passed secret information to Galleon Group LLC co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge-fund manager now serving an 11-year prison sentence for insider trading. “Gupta abused his position as a corporate insider by providing secret company information to his longtime business partner and friend, Raj Rajaratnam,” Tarlowe said. These leaks allowed “Rajaratnam and his criminal associates at Galleon” to make millions of dollars through illicit trades, he said.

But the most pernicious corruption is the systemic kind that's built into the fabric of society. Corrupt politicians-- both parties, of course-- have redefined "bribery," for example, to exclude the basic way they finance their political careers and, in many cases-- perhaps most-- their lifestyles. We've talked a lot recently about how Buck McKeon has traded on his position as House Armed Services Committee chair to wring "contributions" for himself and his family members from armaments makers and war contractors. McKeon's behavior, unfortunately, while extreme, isn't out-of-the-ordinary. It's what makes DC go round and round-- and unspeakably corrupt.

International organized crime magnate Sheldon Adelson has invested in $10 million stake in the Romney takeover of the U.S. government and says he'll give as much as is needed. Currently he's trying to fight off 5 prosecutions involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act-- and he's trying to get permission to build a casino in New York City.

Wednesday we heard one of the only Members of the Senate who refuses to take any bribes from Wall Street, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), assert that Wall Street regulates Congress, rather than Congress regulating Wall Street. And earlier today we looked at a video clip of Bill Moyers and Thomas Frank yucking it up about how blatant the corruption is between Congress and Wall Street banksters. Frank closed with a "how it really works" anecdote about revolving doors in DC:

“Staffers know they could drop what they’re doing and go work for a lobby firm and make fantastic money. They want to please these companies-- even when they don’t work for those companies--  because that’s their future employer and everybody knows it.”

Going back to our friend Buck McKeon, this week investigative journalist Lee Fang reported that as soon as McKeon took over the House Armed Services Committee, he hired a Northrop Grumman lobbyist and vice president, Thomas MacKenzie, as a staffer. Since he would have to take a paycut, Northrop Grumman "generously" handed him a half million dollar good-bye check. Is it even illegal? We'll probably never find out and it'll be up to voters in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley, though, to hold McKeon accountable. But McKeon is far from the only Member of Congress up these kinds of tricks with lobbyists. WrongFor California just happened to take up the case of another blatantly corrupt California Member, this one Brian Bilbray.

In a town like Washington, D.C., lobbyists jockey for position to turn the ear of elected representatives who can be instrumental in advancing their client’s interests. Access for a lobbyist is power. Representative Brian Bilbray would know, he’s a former lobbyist.

A little known fact about Bilbray is that he was a registered lobbyist before being elected to represent his current district in the San Diego area.

As a lobbyist for the far-right anti-immigration group the Federation for American Immigration (FAIR), Bilbray no doubt partook in closed door wheeling and dealing with little to no transparency.  He was also tied to notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff who pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe members of Congress.

In 2006, when the time came for Bilbray to run for office again, he worked hard to prevent being listed as a lobbyist on the ballot. He succeeded. After much negotiation he was able to list himself as an "immigration reform consultant," shedding the lobbyist title that would have made running for disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham’s seat an uphill climb.

But one of the facets of congressional corruption that has always most intrigued me is how they're able to take federally regulated campaign contributions and skirt the rules that insist the money not be used as personal piggy banks. The most corrupt members-- like McKeon, again, but members of both parties-- have figured out all sorts of ways (like paying and overpaying wives, sons, brothers, etc as consultants.

This week CREW did a wonderful report about how are lawmakers who go on to become lobbyists-- as so many of them do-- use leftover campaign funds differently from other ex-congressmen.

[M]embers of Congress-turned-lobbyists spend more of their excess campaign funds on political contributions than their non-lobbying counterparts after leaving office. In all, CREW examined the campaign and political action committee (PAC) spending of 57 members of the 110th Congress who did not return for the following Congress.

Highlights of the report include:

• Former members spent nearly $3 million in leftover funds on campaign contributions, more than any other expense;

• House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) received $110,000 from former members who became lobbyists;

• Even dead members continue to spend money. 

“At the end of their congressional careers, many members have no qualms about using leftover campaign and PAC money for access and influence,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan. “A slush fund helps smooth the transition from public service to lobbying.”

CREW also found that remaining campaign money frequently benefitted former members, their families, and staff, often for years after the member left office. For example, the campaign treasurer for now-deceased Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) directed his campaign committee to pay nearly $150,000 over the past four years to a company that shares an address with her house. After retiring in 2008, Rep. Dave Weldon’s (R-FL) campaign committee paid his wife and daughter over $9,000, while also picking up a $525 hotel bill at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, DC on Valentine’s Day in 2011. Additionally, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA) maintains an essentially endowed campaign committee that collects thousands of dollars in interest to replenish any spending. Nine former members also contributed more than $150,000 to family members’ political campaigns.

“The Federal Election Commission should step up and make sure former members aren’t misusing leftover contributions,” continued Sloan. “Perhaps Congress should add ‘wind down your campaign committee’ to the list of tasks exiting members must complete in addition to cleaning out their desks.”

My personal favorite definition of bribery, by the way, comes from the master of DC bribery, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff who wrote a book while he was in prison, Capitol Punishment: "[C]ontributions from parties with an interest in legislation are really nothing but bribes. Sure, it's legal for the most part. Sure, everyone in Washington does it. Sure it's the way the system works. It's one of Washington's dirty little secrets-- but it's bribery just the same..."

Anyone think Buck McKeon has read Abramoff's book?

Pope Pius Baloney XIII

Newt and other Republicans, frustrated with Romney's impenetrably slick Teflon® exterior, have called him a liar before, but this weekend [see video above] Newt let loose on the GOP front-runner and aloof, condescending Mormon bishop at an official Republican Party debate on national TV. Previously, Newt was just looked at as a misfit grousing because Romney was getting the best of him.

“He’s not telling the American people the truth. It’s just like his pretense that he’s a conservative,” Mr. Gingrich said on CBS’s The Early Show. “I just think he ought to be honest to the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points.”

The volume of Mr Gingrich’s complaining has gotten louder and louder each day.

At a stop in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Monday, Mr. Gingrich complained that he has been “Romney-boated,” a reference to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads that helped derail Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

Appearing on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight on Monday, Mr. Gingrich repeated his complaints about Mr. Romney’s refusal to disown the negative ads being run by a “super PAC” supporting his campaign.

“If he would be willing to just be man enough to say, ‘You know, this is my negative campaign and I admit it,’ I’d be a lot happier,” Mr. Gingrich said. “What I find very frustrating, and frankly irritating,” he said, is someone who “wants to run for president of the United States who can’t be honest with the American people.”

...“Here is my simple tag line: Somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president."

Not exactly the most trustworthy of organizations when it comes to calling out Republicans on their lies, even FactCheck.org was stunned by the stream of bullshit flowing off the ABC stage Saturday night and the NBC stage Sunday morning. "Less than 12 hours after the ABC News/Yahoo! debate in Manchester ended, the Republican presidential candidates were at it again-- debating on NBC’s Meet the Press. As they did the night before, the candidates at times distorted the truth on a variety of topics, including Medicare, job creation, gasoline prices and environmental regulations."

And of course it isn't only Romney who lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. ABC News fact-checked its own debate with this pack of liars, and the report was... well, just what one should expect from a gaggle of Republican stooges. From the Romney Big Lie about creating jobs at Bain instead of killing them to Santorum's eye-popping ethics violations and Perry's inchoate, barely decipherable nonsense, not one of these guys, other than perhaps Ron Paul, allows truth to get in the way of what how he wants to present his talking points.

The Romney lies about being a job creator, instead of the more accurate description as a jobs cremator, have a special place in my heart, since Bain used the Romney model to destroy my old company, Warner Bros Records. Matt Negrin reports for ABC that he continued to advance false claims on Saturday night.

Newt Gingrich raced out of the gate in tonight’s debate by being skeptical of Mitt Romney’s claim that Bain was responsible for creating 100,000 jobs, and he pointed to scrutiny of the firm in a recent New York Times article and a documentary.

In response, Romney repeated a familiar talking point-- that Bain, under his leadership, was responsible for creating 100,000 jobs at companies in which it invested. Romney was asked tonight if the 100,000 jobs are discounting the number of jobs that were lost at companies backed by Bain. He said the figure includes “both” and that it’s a “net” tally. He rattled off some talking points on companies that added jobs, like Sports Authority and Staples.

Bain was not the sole investor in Staples (which Romney said added 90,000 jobs) nor Sports Authority (which he said added 15,000). In 2002, for example, Staples founder Tom Stemberg wrote on CNN Money that Bain “gave us a boost.” Though the company also had help from two other firms. Sports Authority, too, was started with financial help from a few other investors.

Democrats were quick to respond to Romney’s claim tonight. In an email to reporters, the party pointed to a number of quotes the candidate has made years ago about that figure-- including this part from a 1994 Boston Globe article: ”In a telephone interview late yesterday, Romney dismissed the characterization of Staples and his other investments as streamlining, saying that what he has done is ‘build and grow businesses,’ not shrink them. He asserted that there is no way to calculate whether jobs have been lost or gained economy-wide as a result of his ventures, and noted his 10,000-job figure simply measures what happened to employment at companies in which Bain invested.”

FactCheck.org checked Romney’s 100,000 jobs claim earlier this week and found it to be “unproven and questionable.”

Rick Santorum, standing to Romney’s left on the stage, was asked early in the debate whether his comment that the United States doesn’t need a CEO (it needs a leader) was directed at Romney; he confirmed that, yes, it was.

And speaking of Santorum, the dust-up over his character as one of Washington's sleaziest operators was interesting. His behavior as a bribe-taker in office and a corrupt lobbyist as soon as he was defeated by Pennsylvania voters is pretty standard fare among Republicans, and it can be expected that he would be pounded a lot more heavily if he were debating a Democrat. But he still managed to lie his ass off and come out looking as bad as Romney.

During the debate, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum sparred over Santorum’s ethics record. Who characterized it more accurately?

Moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Ron Paul about this ad, which the Texas congressman’s campaign will begin airing in South Carolina on Monday:



The ad accuses Santorum of corruption and states that he took the most money from lobbyists of any member of Congress, during his time in Washington.

Paul stood by the ad tonight, noting that the “corruption” allegation originally came from an independent group. Santorum protested that the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), had leveled “ridiculous” charges against him and that CREW disproportionately makes such charges against conservatives.

Both are (mostly) right.

On the topic of lobbyist cash: Santorum did receive the most contributions from lobbyists and lobbying groups in the 2006 election cycle, when he lost to Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Santorum’s objection-- that the total was based on PAC donations-- is partly true. Center for Responsive Politics counts both PAC and individual (over $200) donations, according to its listed methodology.

On the topic of corruption, CREW did file a complaint against Santorum, and it did list Santorum on its “most corrupt” members of Congress list in 2006. But the complaint was never taken up by the Senate Ethics Committee and Santorum lost his reelection campaign, as noted in this ABC News story. CREW’s complaint alleged that a loan violated the Senate gift rule and that Santorum appeared to have traded legislative action for donations. Santorum did write a letter to Pennsylvania newspaper protesting the allegations.

As for CREW’s partisanship: Santorum is probably right about CREW’s reputation among Republicans, but the group focuses its criticism on both parties. Its current “most corrupt” list includes 10 Republicans and four Democrats.

When Santorum made the list, in an election cycle marked by GOP ethics scandals, the list included 21 Republicans and four Democrats.

One more great big Romney lie everyone noticed early in the debate: his claim that no states want to ban contraceptives. Technically, no state does, but hundreds of Republican Party officials do all over the states-- including, oddly enough, Romney himself!

Romney backed Mississippi’s ultimately failed (it was voted down in a referendum) Personhood Amendment, which if passed would have defined life as having begun at the point of conception.

Such language “could potentially ban common forms of contraception like the birth control pill, as well as prevent a pregnant woman experiencing complications that threaten her life or health to obtain safe abortion care,” Molly A.K. Connors wrote in New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor.

In 2005, Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts, vetoed a bill meant to expand emergency access to the “morning after pill.” The law would have required hospitals to offer the pill to rape survivors and allowed for certain state-sanctioned pharmacists to sell it without asking for a prescription.

“The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception,” Romney wrote, defending the veto in this op-ed piece.

For his part, Santorum has often spoken out against the Supreme Court’s ruling in Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965). That decision, which stated that the constitution protected “the right to privacy,” was inspired by an ultimately overturned state ban on contraception.

Santorum and many anti-Abortionists feel that the ruling paved the way for Roe v. Wade.

The Griswold case, he said yesterday, “created a new Constitutional right, which in my opinion is judicial activism.”

So while it would be unfair to say Santorum wants to ban contraception, he has been and remains a vocal opponent of the most prominent court ruling in its favor.

Meanwhile right-wing bloggers are on suicide watch over the incompetence of their preferred lunatic fringe candidates to take on the craven Willard and today's tweets from rightist Dan Riehl portend a seriously disillusioned base.

A Pervasive Culture Of Corruption Determines The GOP Agenda

This week Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released it's list of the 10 worst corrupt Members of Congress for 2011. New Hampshire only has two congressmen, corporate shills Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass... and they're both on the list! Ann McLane Kuster, who's running for the seat Bass managed to worm his way back into last year, threaded the needle, pointing out last night that it's "bad enough that Congressman Bass is under the thumb of Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor and the Far Right wing of this Republican Congress. But today CREW confirmed that he is using his position as a Member of Congress to financially benefit his family. Corruption of our politics is what drives Republicans like Congressman Bass to focus on tax loopholes for big-money donors instead of investment in jobs here at home. This is not acceptable."

Not acceptable? Not acceptable to whom? To Republicans it's part of the weird way they define "freedom" and liberty and it's the alter so many of them worship at. Rarely does a day pass by when some preachy Republican asshat doesn't get caught with his greasy fingers in something it shouldn't be in. This week we all found out about a different kind of Dong scandal haunting right-wing hypocrite Lindsey Graham, for example. Lindsay got all the initial blame for the scandal, but, as it turns out, the Dongs have been funneling large amounts of their stolen money into the South Carolina Republican Party and to other Republicans warchests as well, including Joe "You Lie" Wilson and hypocritical campaign finance "reformer" John McCain, long one of the Senate's most corrupt members and, of course, one of Graham's closest conspirators in all things (except, presumably dongs, small "d"). This Dong, in fine GOP "freedom" style, defrauded at least $3.6 million in taxpayer money giving Graham regular hefty cuts-- and quite illegally, to boot. He managed to load up Lindsay Graham's campaign treasury with tens of thousands of dollars in illegal foreign bribes.

Jian-Yun "John" Dong, the president of the South Carolina-based biotechnology firm GenPhar, and his estranged wife are accused of making at least $31,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Graham and his political action committee. GenPhar was Graham's sixth largest contributor between 2005 and 2010, with $46,269 in donations coming from GenPhar employees.

The indictments came down in April, but federal authorities didn't unseal the charges until Monday. Federal prosecutors allege Dong took $30,000 from a German national and funneled that money to support Graham's reelection. Graham's treasurer said that they were cooperating with federal authorities.

...The indictment alleges that Dong and an unnamed co-defendant falsified grant applications, progress reports, time sheets and other documents sent to federal agencies. They then used federal money for construction costs, lobbying fees, and travel and personal expenses not allowed under the grant program, the indictment states.

Dong reportedly created another company, Vaxima Inc., to help him divert federal cash for his own use, authorities said.

The newspaper reports that Dong allegedly had a German shareholder in his company transfer $36,000 from an overseas bank account to him, his wife and a worker at the company. They allegedly routed their donations to Graham through their minor daughter, family members and GenPhar employees.
"This is your money at work," Dong allegedly wrote in a Sept. 2007 email to his German investor, referring to obtaining government funds for a GenPhar project.

Graham was quoted in a press release touting one GenPhar grant.

"Once again, South Carolina is demonstrating that we are on the forefront of military technology," Graham said in a statement related on the GenPhar website.

"Military facilities in South Carolina are the tip of the spear for our nation's armed forces. I am proud to be from a state that is invaluable to America's fighting force. We provide the human assets and support systems that make the U.S. military the world's premier fighting force," Graham said.

The lobbyist who sought the money for GenPhar was American Defense International, Inc. The former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, Van Hipp, Jr., now chairs ADI.

Look at all those threads. Woven together, they help define a Republican systemic culture of corruption. And the mentality of self-entitlement and greed that pervades the political system in general and the Republican hierarchal elites in particular is now a defining characteristic of U.S. governance. Millionaires, many of whom-- like Rick Perry, the likely GOP presidential nominee-- have made vast fortunes based solely on accepting bribes while in public office. Millionaires-- Fred Upton in western Michigan is a perfect example-- buy their offices and then relentlessly rig the system against their own constituents. Now a pack of selfish millionaires in Congress are sitting in judgement over Obama's proposal that millionaires' tax rates go up to that of ordinary working families' rates. It isn't asking half what should be asked, but these self-serving crooks and, in some cases-- California Congressman Darrell Issa comes right to mind-- career criminals, are screaming like stuck pigs. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) is hysterically opposed to making the tax rate fairer for millionaires. He's among the three richest Members of the House-- and, according to the new report from CREW, the most corrupt member of Congress.

Witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and bribery are all in a day’s work for the ethically challenged Rep. Vern Buchanan. 

The Sarasota congressman orchestrated an elaborate scheme that forced his employees to contribute to his campaign, ensuring they would be illegally reimbursed with corporate money. 

Doubling down on the criminal behavior, he attempted to bribe a former business partner with almost $3 million in hush money in a clumsy attempt to cover up the conspiracy.

In fact of the 20 richest Members of Congress, 10 are Republicans and, lo and behold, all ten are adamantly opposed to making the tax rate on millionaires fairer. That would be the aforementioned Issa (R-CA) and Buchanan (R-FL) plus Mike McCaul (R-TX), James Risch (R-ID), Gary Miller (R-CA), Bob Corker (R-TN), Diane Black (R-TN), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Richard Berg (R-ND) and Kenny Marchant (R-TX), each "worth" somewhere between $13 million and $451 million, though it is likely that even the most impoverished of this group is worth well over $50 million. And they uniformly-- and adamantly-- oppose a fair tax rate. Is it a form of corruption? You're damn straight it is! And a creeping moral rot that pervades our entire political class.

This week, investigative journalist Lee Fang reported on another grotesque political scandal at the heart of the Republican Party power structure.

Late last week, FBI agents raided Jim Brulte’s home and lobbying office in connection to a corruption probe regarding the $102 million legal settlement between Rancho Cucamonga developer Colonies Partners LP and San Bernardino County in 2006. Prosecutors have been investigating the settlement, which they say was obtained through a conspiracy of bribery and extortion. Brulte, one of the most influential Republicans in Southern California and currently a lobbyist with the firm California Strategies, is also a former assemblyman and state senator who led both GOP caucuses while in office.

Already, former Board of Supervisors chairman Bill Postmus [long touted as the political heir to San Berdoo GOP capo Jerry Lewis] admitted accepting a $100,000 bribe from Colonies executive Jeff Burum. Prosecutors allege that the Colonies Partners’ lobbying strategy manipulated the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association, the San Bernardino Young Republicans, and other bribes were made in connection to the settlement.

...Notably, FBI agents only raided Brulte’s California Strategies office in Fontana, California. ThinkProgress has discovered that during the time of the allegedly corrupt Colonies Partners settlement, Brulte conducted his lobbying business out of a suite owned by a sitting member of the legislature. In 2004, Brulte founded the Inland Empire office of California Strategies. Until last year, that lobbying shop operated out of an office space owned by current Republican Senate Leader, state Sen. Bob Dutton.

According to documents obtained by ThinkProgress, Brulte’s lobbying business shared the same office owned by Dutton’s consulting businesses at 10681 Foothill Blvd. Suite 340 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. In December 2004, shortly after Brulte finished his last term in the legislature, he began work for California Strategies at Dutton’s business address. A representative from California Strategies told ThinkProgress that the firm moved its Inland Empire office from Dutton’s office to the current location in Fontana last year “in April or May.”

Dutton, who now occupies Brulte’s seat in the legislature, has an ownership stake in a number of companies operating out of the same office suite in Rancho Cucamonga

...According to disclosures, Dutton’s “West End Investments” and his other firms have generated over a million dollars in income for the senator, although it is not clear what the firms actually provide in terms of business other than “real estate.”

Since he left elected office for work at California Strategies, Brulte has been rated almost every year by Capitol Weekly as one of the top “influence peddlers” and “power brokers” in the state. With Postmus accepting a plea bargain and speaking openly with prosecutors about what he knows, and the FBI raid on Brulte’s office, Brulte’s lobbying connections may soon open a new front in the case.

Dutton, presently the most powerful elected Republican in California, has avoided taint from the scandal so far. Although he has accepted $25,000 from the allegedly crooked developers in the Colonies Partners deal, Dutton hasn’t been directly associated with the scandal. However, this new information that Brulte lobbied out of Dutton’s personal office may change all of that.

Dutton sounds like he's been taking wealth building lessons from Rick Perry.