bribery

Today I am joined by the founder of Inner City Press, Matthew Russell Lee, to discuss his investigative work inside the United Nations. Matthew and I begin by discussing his recent expulsion from the UN after his persistent work on the John Ashe UN corruption scandal. Matthew explains how Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, in conjunction with former UN ambassador Frank Lorenzo, was involved in one of the largest ongoing corruption scandals at the UN. We also discuss the symbiotic relationship between corruption, media censorship and UN atrocities around the world.

Don't ask me why Trump doesn't ever find anyone who isn't part of Team Putin to run his campaignTrumpist Sean Duffy (R-WI) and anti-Trumpist Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) have both said they are uncomfortable with the way the Trump campaign now appears to be, on some levels at least, an arm of Russia's foreign policy agenda and, worse yet, the political agenda of Vladimir Putin,

As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline Debbie Wasserman Schultz had already spent $1,300,451 to retain her south Florida congressional seat. Ensconced in a deep blue district whose original very gerrymandered boundaries she drew herself when she was in the state Senate, she's never had an electoral challenge and doesn't know how to run a modern campaign.

Progressives were sickened to learn that #DebtTrapDebbie Wasserman Schultz had not just invited the lobbyists that Obama had banned back into the inner sanctums of the Democratic Party but that she was even putting some on the platform committee of the National Convention. That's another reason she just has to go.

Who was Trump talking about when he talked openly about bribing politicians? The two most corrupt Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, have always gotten Trump to write sizable checks to the DSCC-- $60,000 in 1998, $25,000 in 2002, $25,000 in 2004, $30,000 in 2008... What happened in 2006? Rahm Emanuel got him to give $20,000 to the DCCC-- and then-- literally, another $15,000 on the same day (June 19, 2006). And he gave the Schumer and Reid $7,500 for the DSCC 3 months later, up from the $5,000 checks he had given them in 2000 and 2005.

Congressmen Alan Grayson (D) and David Jolly (R) are running against each other for the open Florida Senate seat but are also co-sponsoring a bill that would prohibit federal elected officials from soliciting campaign donations-- which everyone in DC knows are bribes. Yes, bribes, but bribes redefined in such a way as to keep those who write the laws and those who underwrite their careers out of prison.

Over the weekend Zephyr Teachout, the Blue America backed congressional candidate for the open blue-leaning seat in the Hudson Valley and Catskills (NY-19), made news twice. First came the announcement that, with no cooperation from a hostile DCCC she raised $418,000 in April, primarily from small grassroots donors who find her values-based, issues-oriented campaign appealing.

Tuesday, in covering Sheldon Silver's guilty (on all counts) verdict, we mentioned that his attorneys had argued that in charging him, "Bharara had sought to criminalize the kinds of activity in which state legislators routinely engaged" (i.e., taking bribery and kickbacks).

The gang's all here: Silver, Rangel, Clinton, Paterson, SchumerIf you read any of the pre-trial coverage of Sheldon Silver's corruption case, it will come as no surprise to you that spontaneous festivities broke out up and down the halls at DWT when he was f

I don't know how many years we've been asking about Fred Upton taking bribes from the special interests he champions. Two years ago we asked directly How Does Fred Upton Define Bribery? and two years before that there was another one, and a real doozy in 2011. But Upton and quid pro quos go back long before DWT even started.