Friends of Ours

Watching The Detectives

In Los Angeles, CA the "LAPD is struggling to fill vacancies in gang units as a financial disclosure rule meant to fight corruption has been received by many rank-and-file cops as an insult -- and a deal-breaker when it comes to working the tough gangland assignments" as reported by Scott Gold and Joel Rubin for the Los Angeles Times:

Intended to help supervisors catch cops who are taking bribes or to identify officers in financial straits who might be tempted to stray, the policy has considerable reach: Officers must disclose outside income, real estate, stocks and other assets. They also have to report the size of bank accounts and debts, including mortgages and credit cards. And the disclosures apply to any financial holdings a cop shares with family members and business partners. When it went into effect, then-Chief William J. Bratton and other officials insisted that the policy would have little effect on recruiting and retaining gang cops and vowed to block efforts by officers to leave gang units en masse in protest. But erosion in the ranks is apparent. According to interviews with police officers and gang unit supervisors across the city, the number of officers dedicated to fighting gangs is beginning to drop. * * * The policy also includes officers serving on narcotics details, although the discontent seems focused among gang officers.

Crack Down On Mobsters In China

Sky Canaves reports for The Wall Street Journal on China's ongoing crackdown against organized crime and the corrupt politicians who enable it:

A series of criminal trials in Chongqing, one of China's biggest cities, is spotlighting a byproduct of the country's rapid social and economic change: the spread of organized crime. The court in Chongqing, a city of more than 30 million people, is expected to reach verdicts in coming weeks on the charges against two prominent defendants. Wen Qiang, the former head of Chongqing's municipal justice department, is charged with using his official position to provide protection to organized-crime gangs. Li Qiang, a billionaire businessman who was until recently a member of the local legislature, faces nine charges, including organizing and leading criminal gangs, bribery and tax evasion. Officials say the two men ran an underworld empire that included prostitution rings, illegal casinos, bribery and murder.

Since 2006 "police have broken up nearly 13,000 gangs and detained 870,000 suspects," and "some 89,000 of those had been formally arrested as of September."

Cleaning House

"incredibly bizarre performance by Max Baucus on the Senate floor"

Janet Napolitano:  system worked . . . system failed

More terrorists from Yemen on their way . . . 25 British-born Muslims in groups of five are training in Yemen to bomb airplanes . . . Obama wants to "send home more than 80 Yemeni prisoners currently at Guantanamo Bay" . . . Obama doesn't understand the terror threat against America . . . Obama just wants to have fun

Moderate Senate Dems urge Obama to drop cap-and-trade tax plan

MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty calls for constitutional amendment to control deficit spending

Sentencing for twelve corrupt Chicagoans delayed as they cooperate

Prosecutors detail charges against former MA House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi

2009:  A year of corruption in Luzerne County, PA

2009:  A year of corruption in South Florida

Drug Cartels Corrupting U.S. Law Enforcement

Increasingly "there are signs that one of the worst features of Mexico's war on drugs—law enforcement officials on the take from drug lords—is becoming an American problem as well" as reported by Judith Miller for City Journal:

Most press accounts focus on the drug-related violence that has migrated north into the United States. Far less widely reported is the infiltration and corruption of American law enforcement, according to Robert Killebrew, a retired U.S. Army colonel and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security. "This is a national security problem that does not yet have a name," he wrote last fall in The National Strategy Forum Review. The drug lords, he tells me, are seeking to "hollow out our institutions, just as they have in Mexico."

Deputy Sheriff Pleads Guilty

Sullivan County, NY Deputy Sheriff Phil Etkin pleaded guilty to theft of government funds following a federal extortion investigation "in which he was accused of shaking down people for money" as reported by Victor Whitman for the Times Herald-Record:

The 24-year veteran officer was arrested in September 2007. He was charged after an acquaintance came forward, saying he asked Etkin for advice when he became worried about his girlfriend's ex-husband. Etkin returned to tell him the ex-husband was a made man in the Genovese crime family, and that the ex had taken out a hit on him. The man said Etkin told him he'd negotiated a price to cancel the hit, and he needed $3,500.

"The Sheriff’s Internal Affairs Division and FBI investigated the case and determined that the threat was bogus and that Etkin was acting alone" as reported by Mid-Hudson News Network.

Cleaning House

Chairman Mao ornament on White House Christmas Tree

U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith:  goodbye Democrats, hello Republicans

Democrats lose top recruit for Texas congressional race

SC Att'y General will investigate ObamaCare inside deals

ObamaCare will face constitutional challenges in court

U of MI Study:  banks with political ties got TARP bailouts

Spending on lobbying could break record in 2009

Joseph Gallucci indicted for conspiring to fix Cuyahoga County, OH auditor election

Former Hockley County, TX Deputy Sheriff pleads guilty to drug trafficking

Cleaning House

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod:  Howard Dean is not insane

The left is left out under Obama

White House defies court order to provide same-sex benefits

Corruption wrecked career of Page County, VA Sheriff Daniel W. Presgraves

Businessman Sheldon Divers pleads guilty to bribing Ecorse, MI Mayor Herbert Worthy

Corruption cases threaten San Jacinto Valley, CA reputation

The Company Controls The North Texas Border

Los Zetas, a paramilitary group which once existed principally as the enforcement arm for the Gulf cartel but since has become a full-fledged organized crime group known as The Company, has firmly established itself as an economic force along the Mexico-Texas border where it's buying legitimate businesses in order to launder dirty cash as reported by Alfredo Corchado for The Dallas Morning News:

"They own used-car lots on both sides of the border, restaurants, discotheques, liquor stores," said Robert García, a detective with the Laredo Police Department and an expert on the Zetas. "Basically, anything anywhere that moves to and from the border, or anything and anywhere they can launder large amounts of money, the Zetas have a hand in. They even own a dog-racing track." * * * Investigators and civic leaders say the Zetas are trying to position themselves to become movers and shakers, even political players, in communities where they have a major presence. Authorities say their strongholds include Ciudad Acuña, Piedras Negras, Reynosa, Matamoros – where they were created – and Nuevo Laredo, their biggest base of operation. All five cities border Texas. * * * Also worrisome for U.S. law enforcement officials are ongoing efforts by the Zetas to corrupt U.S. authorities. In Laredo, federal authorities have launched an investigation into two Laredo police officers to determine whether they were on the payroll of the Zetas.

Cleaning House

Just 34% say passing ObamaCare is better than passing nothing

Sen. Ben Nelson:  every whore politician has its price

Exploiting the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy for ObamaCare

China:  "the world does not have . . . money to buy more US Treasuries"

Organized crime behind massive fraud in Europe's cap-and-trade system

China snubs Obama in Copenhagen

Copenhagen summit ends in failure and confusion

Book:  prosecutors were prepared to indict President Bill Clinton

Convicted racketeer James Traficant Jr. wants to return to Congress

Rep. Alan Grayson wants his critic imprisoned

Federal prosecutors allege NY Senate rules enable corruption

Former NY Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno likely will face jail time

Former Page County, VA Sheriff Daniel Presgraves gets 19 months for racketeering

Florence, CO prison guard John K. Brownfield Jr. gets probation in bribery case

D.C. gov't manager Yusuf Acar pleads guilty to bribery charge

Hired By Customs; Working For The Cartels

The Mexican drug cartels not only are corrupting U.S. border agents but actually placing their own operatives into positions with the Customs and Border Protection as reported by Randal C. Archibold for the New York Times:

[L]aw enforcement officials [are] worried that Mexican traffickers — facing beefed-up security on the border that now includes miles of new fencing, floodlights, drones, motion sensors and cameras — have stepped up their efforts to corrupt the border police. They research potential targets, anticorruption investigators said, exploiting the cross-border clans and relationships that define the region, offering money, sex, whatever it takes. But, with the border police in the midst of a hiring boom, law enforcement officers believe that traffickers are pulling out the stops, even soliciting some of their own operatives to apply for jobs. * * * James Tomsheck, the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at Customs and Border Protection, and other investigators said they had seen many signs that the drug organizations were making a concerted effort to infiltrate the ranks. * * * Along the border, many residents have family members on both sides. Generations of residents have been accustomed to passing back and forth relatively freely, often daily, and exchanging goods, legal or not. Federal officials believe that drug traffickers are seeking to exploit those ties more than ever, urging family and friends on the American side to take advantage of the hiring rush for customs agents.

Organized crime cannot exist without public corruption, and each year the Mexican drug cartels bring $50 billion in drugs and cash back and forth across the border.

Cleaning House

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ObamaCare Bill is "completely reckless, completely irresponsible"

Obama the Drama Queen:  gov't "will go bankrupt" unless ObamaCare passes

Obama signs $1.1 trillion spending bill

House approves $290B increase in debt limit . . . passes $155B so-called jobs bill

Hillary pledges $100 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to save the world

Voters turn on the Democrats . . . rats jump the sinking ship . . . and the band played on

Blago will call Obama at corruption trial

Pay-to-Play:  a class action connection?

FBI continues its corruption probe in Schuylkill County, PA

Cleaning House

Sen. Chuck Schumer calls flight attendant a "bitch" when asked to turn off cell phone

More top politicians indicted in PA State House corruption probe

Luzerne County, PA official Gerald Bonner will plead guilty to bribery scheme

Three Shenandoah, PA cops accused of covering up deadly attack on Mexican immigrant

Former madam Kristen Davis may run against Eliot Spitzer in NYS comptroller bid

Feds taking a look in Liberty County, TX