As you may know, I’m a bit of a New York State jukie, but this story (via TAP) about the vast riches and waste of recently indicted “Uncle Joe” Bruno’s NY Republican Senate empire should appeal to a wide audience.
Just to put this in perspective — the New York State Senate had a budget of $100 million, spent almost entirely by and on about 35 Senate Republicans (who were the majority party until very recently). Bear in mind that the State Senate was viewed as the most corrupt and wasteful branch in what may be the most corrupt and wasteful state government in the country. Nevertheless, some of the stories of Uncle Joe’s largesse are stunning:
They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate’s own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up — all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.
Democrats also came across what they are calling the “Brunomobile,” a $50,000 specially outfitted GMC van, with six leather captain’s chairs (some swiveling), a navigation system, rearview camera and meeting table. Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader who was recently indicted on corruption charges, traveled in the van after his use of state helicopters sparked a feud with the Spitzer administration.
Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol. Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30 Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more than 800.
And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in quasi-political research for the Republicans.
“Every time we nail something down, we uncover another rock and there’s another 30 people there — it’s all over the state,” said Angelo J. Aponte, who as the new secretary of the Senate is the top aide to Malcolm A. Smith, the Queens Democrat who became majority leader last month.
In effect, NYS tax payers were putting 6 bucks a piece into Bruno’s slush fund for this kind of bullshit. Amazing.
Update: Per the comments, I should have included this:
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Senator Craig M. Johnson — who had been the lone Long Island Democrat until November’s election — said he had heard “vague rumors” about the existence of the facility. He guffawed when asked if Mr. Johnson had ever been invited by the Republicans to use it.
“No,” Mr. Azzopardi said, “I don’t believe they ever gave us the password that shut down the waterfall to enter the cave leading into the studio.”
El Cid
Clearly this story tells us all we need to know about the Pelosi-Frank-Reid-Dodd-Obama Depression.
Jon H
I liked this bit:
TheHatOnMyCat
I know that you will be fascinated by the reaction of somebody who grew up in Arizona, to this information, so here it is.
Out here, we have always believed that people from New York were just crazy.
We don’t trust people from east of the Rocky Mountains.
Neither should you.
Dave
Isn’t this par for the course with NY? Bruno’s just a modern-day Boss Tweed.
JGabriel
I knew that bastard was corrupt, but I had no idea it was on this scale.
Thank God he’s outta there.
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DougJ
Actually, I am curious to know what people in other states think of this. The story is surprising even to me, but not insanely so, having grown up here.
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, there ya go. The crazy people are always the last to think that they are crazy.
:)
Xenos
Wow. wow. I am from Massachusetts, and this even stuns me.
This is going to taint and ruin most, if not all, the GOP senators in New York, as they all must have known about this. A whole generation of Republican leaders, wiped out. Lets make sure to identify all the staffers, all the strategists, all the operatives and so on – none of the people associated with these senators should be allowed to hold public office again.
Dave
@DougJ:
I think corruption (obviously) isn’t endemic in just the NY system. I bet there’s rampant corruption in Sacramento. I’d be stunned if Carson City wasn’t rife with people pocketing cash. Springfield, IL anyone?
I think New York just gets more attention for being New York. Hell, I would wager that Rhode Island has bigger corruption issues. You just don’t see them in the press because it’s Rhode Island.
NonyNony
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Having lived both east and west of the Rockies in my lifetime, I’ve come to the conclusion that people east of the Rockies are, in fact, crazy.
But people living west of the Rockies are nuts.
And don’t get me started about people who actually live on the mountains…
DougJ
There are measures by which NYS is the worst. It has the lowest proportion of bills that are debated on and the most powerful chamber leaders.
Dave
Oh, and I live in Maine. We don’t make enough money here for corruption. : )
TheHatOnMyCat
We’re just eccentric.
burnspbesq
Political corruption in Albany ain’t what it used to be. In some ways it’s worse than ever, but it’s lost the raffish charm that it once had, and that William Kennedy captured so memorably in Roscoe.
Full disclosure: one side of my family is from Albany, and a distant relative was a player in the real-life event that inspired Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game.
Evinfuilt
I know politics corrupts people, but this is just a level I find hard to imagine in this country. I thought I was immune to being shocked with how bad things can be, but holy cow… This is a whole new level.
And to think corruption in Alaska could be a new room added to a house or a lawnmower. This is something on a whole new level.
Dave
@DougJ:
Now, we did have a problem a while back with chamber leaders. There was this guy, John L. Martin, who was a state rep from this little town called Eagle Lake. He was the Speaker of the House for almost 20 years and ran it with an iron fist. The entire reason we have term limits on state officials now is because of Martin.
JGabriel
To all you self-righteous idjits calling New Yorkers crazy:
Just remember that all us Manhattanites voted against George Bush, both times by more than 80%. Same with McCain.
All you hicks coming from places where they voted Republican in the presidential election by 50-70% (or more)? You got no leg to stand on callin’ us crazy.
So there.
.
Brick Oven Bill
This is why it is better to give $80 billion to the states instead of electrifying the railroads. You see, giving this money to the states is not earmarks, giving the money to the states is smart. Because now that Patterson is in charge, things are on the level.
$80 billion could electrify 53 transcontinental routes.
SGEW
@TheHatOnMyCat:
As a native New Yorker, I admit it. Historically speaking, we are pretty crazy. It’s true. But this has nothing to do with Bruno, or any other upstate hick. I disavow them.
(begin upstate v. metro flame war now)
whinger
I was out in Arizona at the beginning of December. One of the big news stories was the 8-year-old who had shot his father…and the cops and prosecutors who wanted him tried as an adult.
I’ll stick with the back east kind of crazy, thanks.
Jackmormon
Why doesn’t anyone want to give ME these corrupt patronage jobs?
[Sigh.]
DougJ
I saw that they pay some of their staffers close to 200K — more than the governor makes.
burnspbesq
@Jackmormon:
You need better cousins and brothers-in-law.
Xenos
Boston-style corruption is mainly in the form of patronage rackets. Used to be that cushy jobs cost a year’s wages, if you had the connections to get them for you. Now it is all indirect – a friend gives a job to your brother, and couple years later you give a job to his sister. Most of the employees in the court system are related to legislators, many of the legislative staff are related to or married to people in the judicial or executive branch, and so on. The whole culture is incestuous, but there is very little quid pro quo going on anymore. A string of really good, smart, and clean AGs can have kept the lid on things.
And there are plenty of scandals to keep the Boston Herald busy, so we still manage to be a two-newspaper town.
burnspbesq
@Brick Oven Bill:
Billy, please go back to the basement and play with your model trains. The grownups are trying to have a serious conversation.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Wow, it sure pays better to be on the right. I wish I could work up the requisite dishonesty…
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SGEW
We are?
TheHatOnMyCat
The family was from New York.
But the real chuckle here is that things like this never happen out East, do they? I mean, really?
Actually, prosecutorial abuse is ubiquitous in this country. I doubt that there is a state in the union that doesn’t have a serious prosecutorial abuse problem. Mandatory sentencing, insane drug laws, abusive prosecution …. it’s a national disgrace and scandal that nobody talks about.
Yeah, I was kidding about the family being from New York. I don’t know where they were from. But I doubt they were from here. Nobody grows up in St. Johns, AZ and stays there. God-forsaken doesn’t begin to describe the place AFAIC.
Llelldorin
Actually, it would shock me if Sacramento had this sort of corruption these days. Sacramento’s problems are different—draconian term limits have created state legislators who at best have zero interest in anything but showboating enough to start their campaign for their next office, and at worst are fully-funded corporate mouthpieces.
DougJ
@BOB
I’m all for spending on railroads as well. But I wouldn’t judge every state in the country by what goes on in the NYS Senate either.
TheHatOnMyCat
What blog are they on?
Ash Can
Even with the Chicago Democratic Machine, I can’t envision one party riding this much roughshod over the other in Illinois. There are too many downstate Republicans for the Dems to get away with it, and too many Chicago Dems in state government for the Republicans to get away with it. Chicago of course is the focal point for political corruption in Illinois, with Dems dominating Republicans, but the city-wide abuses aren’t on the same scale as the state-wide abuses in New York detailed by DougJ above. Moreover, not all Chicago Dems are alike, so rivalries flourish and individuals are much more willing to rat each other out if they and/or their respective fiefdoms benefit. Add into the mix a few local broadcast and print media journalists who are both willing and eager to uncover instances of corruption in city and state government, and things like running a partisan TV station on the IL taxpayers’ dime become all the less likely.
Of course, people in New York State probably thought pretty much the same thing before this story broke.
jenniebee
I’m in VA. If anybody here has shit like that set up, there’s sure to be a twitter about it.
Warren Terra
To be persnickety, the things described seem more like Undemocratic Abuse Of Power than Corruption (though with all that money flying around and all those secret jobs I’m sure a lot of moolah ended up in peoples’ pockets corruptly). I have no objection in principle to a nearby studio for State Senators to handle press interviews, or even a ludicrous rolling boardroom, to me the big problem is the way it was all kept secret and reserved for one party’s exclusive use.
Take for example the Congressional Research Service, which is in its present form a great thing, but which would become an obstacle to Democracy if it were changed so it only responded to requests from the majority party, and left otherwise completely unaltered.
Gus
I don’t think any Minnesota politicians would have the stones to attempt to pull something like this off. Of course we did elect Jesse Ventura and Michelle Bachman, so we have our own problems.
Xenos
It was just released that Gov. Deval Patrick’s salary is the 1,075th highest state salary in Massachusetts. So these patronage jobs, so generously funded by the General Court, are a serious problem. But the cynicism and open criminality of the NY Senate is pretty amazing.
Persia
@JGabriel:
Go look and see who my fellow Vermonters voted for. I can call New Yorkers batshit with a clear conscience. And I too had no idea how deep the corruption went, though I never followed NY politics that closely.
Vicki Meagher
What do people from other states think?
I’m from New Hampshire. I’m shocked. I live next door to Massachusetts, so I should be immune to being shocked.
Why is this in the Regional section of the New York Times? This should be on the front page. Why is it buried?
Dave
@Xenos:
One word: UMass. Biggest patronage scam there is in the Bay State.
JGabriel
Persia:
Yes, by this metric, Vermonters and Rhode Islanders get a free pass.
I can live with that.
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Legalize
Somehow this must be A-Rod’s fault.
adolphus
There was a time Maryland had ridiculously corrupt politicians but we were eclipsed long ago by other states. Now it is incompetence encouraged by single party control. The current troubles of Mayor Dixon makes me nostalgic for the days of Spiro Agnew and Marvin Mandel. One of these days they’ll bring slots to the race tracks and I am sure the corruption will begin anew. The old line state will sink again!
whinger
Sorry, I don’t disagree, but this is just on another level.
adolphus
And my theory about New York is that it must have something to do with how crappy bagels and pizza are in the rest of our quaint little provinces. Maybe there is causality here, though I am not sure what direction.
Brick Oven Bill
You know, I do have an electric train set in the basement. It is not set up though.
Regardless, I still believe that the government is corrupt. I have lived this on a local level in a small town. It makes sense to me that the higher the politician goes, the more removed from the voter the politician is, and I suspect that corruption probably gets worse at high levels of government.
This is why we should reduce the size of government, and limit voting rights to performers, in my opinion. This is what they did, back in the day.
Svensker
Yawn. But I live in NJ.
Brick Oven Bill
Hold on. The President just said that ‘some jobs’ ‘could be saved’ if we give him a trillion dollars. I take back what I just said.
comrade rawshark
I love that this article about the largess of the inner party is bordered by an ad for for JTPs book telling the proles to look the other way.
Left Coast Tom
Look at who Californians voted for…we’re west of the Rockies, and we deserve a free pass to call New Yorkers batshit insane. Also, too.
I don’t actually want to call New Yorkers names, I just want the free pass. Just in case.
SGEW
This is absolutely precious.
comrade rawshark
Have you noticed our DA looks and acts a lot like Ned Flanders?
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
‘Tis true. I miss the days when only actors, musicians, comedians, and travelling bards could vote. Oh, and jugglers. You never what policy positions those wacky Juggler’s Unions would take. And the Geishas.
Sigh. The Geishas…
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opium4themasses
@Brick Oven Bill: Limiting voting to performers? I thought the Right was anti-Hollywood.
If the Dems close this down, give it two seconds for the Repubs to talk about how the Dems are putting people out of work.
SGEW
@JGabriel: Until Vetinari crushed the Street Performers Guild with his iron fist, and brought about our modern age.
Punchy
OT (cuz there’s no open thread):
Judges just ruled that MMR vaccy dudnt cause no austim. No way, no how. I cannot be more excited to have a government entity actually look at the good science and rule accordingly, after 8 years of FuckstainMcChimpy and his Rule By Leviticus.
Brick Oven Bill
I had a friend in the service, whose brother was a no kidding alligator wrestler along I-90 in South Dakota. If you have driven this route, you know what I am talking about.
My friend’s brother should vote too, as he has a job and pays taxes, or at least he used to.
Mr. Poppinfresh
@Doug:
As someone who went to Bard College, and therefore had to listen to the terrible WAMC version of NPR, this whole fiasco tells me one thing: Alan Chartock needs to eat a bag of ten thousand cocks and die.
Seriously, what the fuck was Mr. Albany Politics Expert doing for all these years? Good fucking Christ that man is a pretentious, self-important gasbag. Biggest political scandal of New York state history, and the fucker was farting in his chair.
JGabriel
Left Coast Tom:
2008 Election Returns:
Vermont
67% Obama
30% McCain
Rhode Island
63% Obama
35% McCain
New York
63% Obama
36% McCain
Illinois
62% Obama
37% McCain
California
61% Obama
37% McCain
Sorry, Tom. Close, but no cigar.
.
KoC
DougJ, what part of western NY are you from? I’m from the small village of Holley, which is about 45 minutes west of Rochester.
As for this story, we really didn’t need much more proof that Albany is a mass of suck. I’m 25, and I don’t think they’ve passed a state budget on time at any point in my life.
Warren Terra
BOB, the problem with government exemplified here is not principally size, it’s secrecy. And if you think businesses are less secretive than government, I’d like to know what planet that small town you referred to was on.
The government exists to provide services. Sure, there’s waste, too, but society has to spend a lot of money somehow to provide those necessary services, and for many of them (police, fire, I’d argue education, certainly long-term and low-profile highly-distributed services like environmental protection) the only way to get them is through taxation. You could argue for the taxes to be spent by contractors rather than by government employees, to "reduce the size of government", but after seeing Iraq isn’t it obvious that doing so would only increase the opportunities for corruption? And other roles (regulation of the credit market, for example, where we’ve recently seen compelling arguments for MORE government, as exemplified by Canada’s banks, which were under more stringent regulation, remaining solvent) can only be done by exercising government authority (although this too could be done by contractor – I understand the highly touted financier Bernie Madoff, who held a seat on the board of the stock exchange, is available).
The answer is not "less government", it’s "better government" – and the critical requirement is openness, so crusading press of every ideological persuasion can expose and exploit the corruption that does exist.
JGabriel
SGEW:
Exactly. Fucking Vetinarians, those bastards.
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NonyNony
@Brick Oven Bill:
What do you call a government that is "rule by performers"? Actocracy? Entertainer-ocracy? Juggler-ocracy? Mime-ocracy? (I for one welcome our new silent overlords, and I look forward to producing invisible rope and invisible boxes in their vast invisible factory-fortresses.)
How do you set the voting rights up for performers anyway? Do street performers get full voting rights, or is it a 3/5 sort of deal? Do you need to make a certain dollar threshold via entertainment to get a vote, or can I just work weekends as a magician at kids’ parties to keep my voting franchise? Would Madonna or George Clooney’s vote count more than my own?
In short, I’m intrigued by this idea of rule by performers and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. I want to know more details about this exciting brave new world that you are proposing.
Cat Lady
@Legalize:
They’re Republicans. It’s Clinton’s fault.
Scott de B.
In fact, it’s precisely the reverse. Local government is more corrupt than state government, and state government is more corrupt than national government.
The more players involved, and the more eyes that are on you, the harder it is to amass sole power, and the harder it is to get away with stuff.
Warren Terra
Oh, and the "performers" line? Where did you get that from?
.
I mean, leaving aside the obvious Strolling Players jokes people have already picked up on, this sounds like yet another example of a right-winger reading Starship Troopers and feeling compelled to pay a visit to Madam Palm and her five lovely daughters … except that Heinlein never used this weird terminology of "performers". Is there some movement among the fever swamps of the Right where this term is common, or is it of your own coinage?
.
.
And even so, are you completely ignorant of the history of the Poll Tax, especially as applied to Black sharecroppers?
Xenos
WAMC is pretty charming, really. Chartock lives and votes in Massachusetts, so WAMC is more like an establishmentarian southern-Berkshires lefty practical joke on the Capital Region than the autochthonous Albany media outlet it pretends to be.
I doubt there are any Republicans left in Chartock’s rolodex. I am sure he is not in any of theirs.
Brick Oven Bill
I would call it an honor-based Timocracy. This is what the Constitution was based upon.
You know, never stray far from Jesus or Aristotle, and stuff like that. This worked pretty good for a while.
NonyNony
@Brick Oven Bill:
Ah of course. "We can have a democracy, but only if the aristocrats are the only ones allowed to vote." A lovely sentiment for a 21st century society.
Xenos
Actually, it sucked. Unless you were a slave-holder, in which case it was great, I suppose.
Jesus + Aristotle /= anything acceptable or considered good since the enlightenment.
SGEW
You’re just full of gold, man. Gold.
I am really hoping that you are completely sincere, Bill, because I think I might use you as source material for a novel.
JGabriel
SGEW:
You know, on further reflection, I’m not so sure all of our modern problems can be blamed upon Veterinari.
In retrospect, the turning point was when the Geishas and the Jugglers joined together to advocate voting rights for White Male Property Owners. Those fuckers ruined everything, with all their demands for special rights, and screams that they were being discriminated against and punished for success. Hell, whatever happened to success being its own reward?
You can’t really blame the Geishas, that was their client base. I don’t know what the Jugglers were thinking, but who ever does?
They were warned by the Rappers but hardly anyone else. The Mimes were against it, but they never spoke up – like always. And all the Magicians were interested in was tricking people into looking under their hat, those pervs.
It’s easy to go along with the "great man" perspective of history, especially with an asshole like Vetinari, but I suspect a "forces of history" type explanation is more heuristically satisfying in this instance.
.
NonyNony
@Warren Terra:
I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s a sentiment I’ve heard before. It’s a scramble to find a term that creates an exclusive group that they’re a part of but that excludes the "wrong" people from voting.
It was easier back at the turn of the 20th century when you could be openly racist. Then you could just say things like "you have to be able to read and write and pay a tax, unless your grandfather was allowed to vote then it’s okay and the tax is waived" which made it sound like you had a high-minded education principle going on but everyone actually knew that you had gamed the system to exclude blacks.
These days you have to contort yourself into a pretzel to come up with ways to exclude everyone from voting you don’t like but still be allowed to keep your own vote. Just another example of "the rules should apply to everyone except for me."
The Moar You Know
I’m from California, from San Diego specifically, and I’m not impressed. Our county Board of Supervisors could give the NY state GOP a run for their money as far as corruption goes – I’m sure what happens at the state level here in California is far worse than you describe, with one major difference. I’m sure here it is bipartisan.
SGEW
First they came for the jugglers, but I did not speak, for I was not a juggler.
Next they came for the bouzouki players, but I did not speak, for I was not a bouzouki player.
Then they came for the Geishas, but I did not speak, for I was not a Geisha.
FInally they came for the mimes, but I cannot speak, for I am a mime.
Reverend Dennis
"The Aristocrats"
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
I confess, I was unaware of the booming alligator population in South Dakota. Who knew?
I dunno, but I guess if my prairies and badland mesas were overrun with alligators, I’d be pissed at environmentalists too.
BOB, what planet do you live on? Cuz it sure as hell ain’t Earth.
.
Comrade Kevin
@burnspbesq:
For some reason, this classic bit of dialog popped into my mind:
Reggie Dunlop: Oh you cheap son of a bitch. Are you crazy? Those guys are retards!
McGrath: I got a good deal on those boys. The scouts said they showed a lot of promise.
Reggie Dunlop: They brought their fuckin’ TOYS with ’em!
McGrath: Well, I’d rather have em playin with their toys than playin with themselves.
Reggie Dunlop: They’re too dumb to play with themselves.
The Moar You Know
@SGEW: Then they came for the banjo players, and everyone cheered.
pseudonymous in nc
Of course, in practice, the opposite seems to be the case: nobody gives a shit who their state legislators are, and so state graft goes on unnoticed, in plain view. One of the slight advantages of having congresscritters represent half a million people, on average, is that means plenty of people paying attention to what you can do.
You get petty, everyday graft on the municipal level. Federal graft is larger in scale but harder to pull off. Executive graft is hard, too, because there’s one mayor or governor with a target on his/her back. State-level legislative graft is the sweet spot.
Emma Anne
In Colorado, people lose their seats for things like taking a perdiem on a day they didn’t go to work, or letting the spouse use the govt car.
But CO has a whole other kind of crazy in politics. It’s the initiative process, shudder. We have so many tax limits and funding requirements written into our state constitution that we can’t function in a recession.
JGabriel
The Moar You Know:
Which, of course, never would have happened if the Banjo Players hadn’t demanded the right to marry. Who do they think they are? You know, one can choose not to be a Banjo Player.
.
Brick Oven Bill
Swish swish swish snap.
Cyrus
@Left Coast Tom:
For president, California has nothing to be ashamed of. For governor, on the other hand…
But anyways, California, Illinois, and now New York? I sense a pattern: Democrats ARE the more corrupt party. (Actually, the pattern is that corruption tends to go with population centers and wealth, but I’m sure some right-winger has already been pointing out the Democrat thing.)
Ack, Sysadmin of Evil
What the hell is up with Body Oven Bill today? Has he been inhaling the fumes again?
I’m an escapee from WNY (Lyndonville), and let me tell you, I ain’t never goin back to Buttholeville. That place is a world of suck.
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, they are very picky people, for starters.
.
.
.
Oh yeah, you got a BETTER joke?
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
Oh. My. God. BOB, that was fucking brilliant.
Touche.
.
Conservatively Liberal
I liked the "shut down the waterfall" quip, brilliant retort. New Boss Tweed meet the old Boss Tweed.
I’ll say this for the Rushublicans, they sure got this corruption thing down pat. We had the same thing at the federal level, and will have again if we don’t find a way to impose term limits on these princes and princesses. Too many sates are too damned lazy or able to vote the bilgewater out of office and bring in fresh blood. If legislators could quit worring about fundraising and getting reelected from the moment they enter office, and if they know that they will not be able to stay and make a home until they die, maybe they just might focus on doing things right instead of doing things to fill their pockets.
It makes it a lot harder for lobbyists to buy a pol when the one who is heading the area of government they are interested in influencing keeps changing. It is the ‘good old boys’ who grow moss in these committees who seem to be the most corruptible. Mix things up a bit, limit influence by limiting terms and see if that don’t change the tone in D.C.
Ash Can
I think Brick Shithouse Bill has given himself away as a performance artist once and for all in this thread. And by golly, he’s darned good at it too.
jake 4 that 1
We’ll know the fRighties are worried when Faux runs a picture of Bruno with a D beside his name.
Man. I was reading about Marion Barry the other day and wondering why he wasn’t in jail, but this steals the cake and replaces it with a pile of frosted crap. Wow.
[Insert Diaper Pron joke here]
@Mr. Poppinfresh: Ya’ll had radios in A-o-H ? Heh.
Conservatively Liberal
Any of you other geeks out there hear about this small problem?
The security implications are pretty huge, especially for internet commerce. Ouch.
Edit: I know they are resolving it, but it is interesting that this did not garner greater attention.
The Moar You Know
@Conservatively Liberal: Uh, thanks. That’s not a small problem.
headpan
So, apparently, they not only don’t know how to twitter properly, they’re too stupid to know how to work the Tivo.
Smedley
As a Western NY resident I would note that the 100 Million slush fund is also given to the Assembly Leader, good ol’ Shelley Silverman and the governor. These are used to fund "member items" for those legislative members who toe the line and do what they’re told. This is common knowledge.
Remember, the State Budget, et al is always determined by ‘three men in a room’.
Another thought, I have no doubt the Spitzer investigation was set up by Bruno as pay back for the Governors assault on his fiefdom. Hell, no corruption here, Spitzer used his own money…
BTW I’m a transplant from AZ and remember our own Governors… Symington, and the Car Salesman good ol’ whats his name
Cheers,
S
TheHatOnMyCat
He did it a couple weeks ago too, but it was late at night and nobody noticed.
Like BTK killer, he was desperate to get caught …..
Karmakin
How the fuck do you "just learn" that there are 800 other parking spots?
Rome Again
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Uhhh… does that include me? Just checking.
robertdsc
This is good news for John McCain!
Rome Again
Doug, I think this title was taken from a Bob Seger song? You may want to rethink doing that, he’s very strict about copyright infringement. He refuses to even have any of his songs played on any internet connection, you can’t even get a 15 second taste, none at all.
Faux News
HatOnCat:
The answer is Princess Sparkle Pony
Corner Stone
Actually I’m fairly convinced that BoB is in reality – Keyser Soze! But just hanging out in Verbal Kent mode.
C’mon BoB, tell us again about that time you were in the barbershop quartet in Skokie, or how one time you were picking beans in Guatemala.
tavella
If you want to see nasty local corruption, attend the tale of Lucern County (Pennsylvania) judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. They arranged for the local government juvenile center to be closed, then arranged a vastly overcharged contract with their buddies in a private juvenile center, with the judges getting millions in kickbacks.
That’s bad. What came after was even worse. Since the amount the center could charge was based on occupancy, they proceeded to sentence kids to long sentences for any and all offences, down to stealing loose change from cars and prank notes.
One kid was sentenced to three months for a MySpace page lampooning their assistant principal.
tavella
If you want to see nasty local corruption, attend the tale of Lucern County (Pennsylvania) judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. They arranged for the local government juvenile center to be closed, then arranged a vastly overcharged contract with their buddies in a private juvenile center, with the judges getting millions in kickbacks.
That’s bad. What came after was even worse. Since the amount the center could charge was based on occupancy, they proceeded to sentence kids to long sentences for any and all offences, down to stealing loose change from cars and prank notes.
One kid was sentenced to three months for a MySpace page lampooning their assistant principal.
tavella
The comments box is hating on me tonight, let’s see if this one goes through…
If you want to see nasty local corruption, attend the tale of Lucern County (Pennsylvania) judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. They arranged for the local government juvenile center to be closed, then arranged a vastly overcharged contract with their buddies in a private juvenile center, with the judges getting millions in kickbacks.
That’s bad. What came after was even worse. Since the amount the center could charge was based on occupancy, they proceeded to sentence kids to long sentences for any and all offences, down to stealing loose change from cars and prank notes.
One kid was sentenced to three months for a MySpace page lampooning their assistant principal.
burnspbesq
@Karmakin:
No one who cares about their safety walks around downtown Albany without a platoon of Marines in tow.
MNPundit
Phoenix AZ is the kidnapping capital of the United States, did you know that?
Anyhow, the more this comes out, the longer it will be before republicans win in that state.
Brian J
But Spitzer used a prostitute a few times. Shouldn’t we still be focusing on that?