Top Ten: Most Corrupt Politicians

Who are yours?

Judicial watch did their list for 2010...

Theirs are posted in white below.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

[COLOR="White"]Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2010 list of Washington's “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rahm Emanuel, Former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Senator John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).[/COLOR]

from here

ETA - this site is so partisan you'll wanna puke... but it got me to thinking about a list... maybe even a field of 64...

Ronald Reagan

GW Bush.

Neither of them were politicians in 2010...

C'mon people... list of TEN (10) from 2010

Where the heck is Dana when you need her?
DANA - Paging Dana!!!!!1

What>?

DAMN! The pager thingy really worked.

classicman;741032 wrote:

Neither of them were politicians in 2010...

C'mon people... list of TEN (10) from 2010

Where the heck is Dana when you need her?
DANA - Paging Dana!!!!!1

You didn't say they had to be from 2010.

That list was obviously created by rightists.

Edwards! Weiner! Edwards's weiner!

Speaker of the House John Boehner

cry me a river

Anyone crying that often in public is up to no good.

Tom DeLay, Charlie Rangel

Paul Ryan, the Republican in the House with the slash and burn budget, cutting $billions from programs that benefit working families and clean energy programs but saying NO to tax cuts for the rich, NO to cutting tax benefits and subsidies to oil companies.

Could this explain it, in part:

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP blueprint for cutting government spending, he asked Americans to make sacrifices on everything from Medicare to education, while preserving lucrative tax subsidies for the booming oil, mining and energy industries.

It turns out a constituency within his own personal investments stood to benefit from those tax breaks, Newsweek and The Daily Beast have learned.

The financial disclosure report Ryan filed with Congress last month and made public this week shows he and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan's budget plan.

Ryan's father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

Some of these firms would be eligible for portions of the $45 billion in energy tax breaks and subsidies over 10 years protected in the Wisconsin lawmaker’s proposed budget.

...the properties have been a lucrative investment for Ryan and his wife, earning them as much as $117,000 last year, and $60,000 the year before, his personal financial disclosure reports show. Overall, Ryan, 41, listed assets worth between $590,000 and $2.5 million, putting him in the top third of the richest members of the House.

Ryan's Shrewd Budget Payday

Interesting.... Still doesn't get him anywhere near the top ten - 7 of which are D's.
Nor does it compare to Gore hawking his bs all over while being invested in all that he was trying to sell. Actually, its about the same thing.

Add them both to the list.

Republican Darrell Issa, one of the richest members of Congress and new chair of the House Govt Oversight Committee, who recently conducted hearings on the SEC investigation of Goldman Sachs (the investigation that resulted in one of the largest fines in history - $550 million), claiming that the SEC was politically motivated. Not to mention numerous shady land deals that may have benefited from legislation.

Could this explain it, in part:

CREW would like Issa to explain some of his investments in Goldman Sachs; by the end of 2009, Issa had between $5.1 million and $15.5 million invested in the embattled financial giant’s High Yield Fund. After the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a fraud lawsuit against Goldman Sachs in April 2010, Issa launched an investigation, alleging that the SEC may have timed the lawsuit to bolster the Democrats’ push for financial reform.

Issa issues

Its one thing to take campaign funds from Goldman Sachs - both parties are guilty. Its something else when you own $millions in Goldman Sachs funds and chair the House Govt Affairs Oversight Committee.

Ohhhh Thats a good one - forgot about Issa

classicman;741065 wrote:

Interesting.... Still doesn't get him anywhere near the top ten - 7 of which are D's.

That's the top 10 according to Judicial Watch. I don't know that I agree with their assessment.

No Spexx - I was referring to the top 10 wealthiest.

infinite monkey;741046 wrote:

Edwards! Weiner! Edwards's weiner!

Boehner's Boner

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2010 list of Washington's “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rahm Emanuel, Former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Senator John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

I love it....

Hey merc - did you even read the original post in this thread?
lol

From the beginning. Why?

classicman;741027 wrote:

Who are yours?

Judicial watch did their list for 2010...

Theirs are posted in white below.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

[COLOR="White"]Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2010 list of Washington's “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rahm Emanuel, Former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Senator John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).[/COLOR]

from here

ETA - this site is so partisan you'll wanna puke... but it got me to thinking about a list... maybe even a field of 64...

Cuz you posted the link to the posted link that started the thread.

Because you basically had it hidden, and I posted it without it being hidden and thought it was quite entertaining.

lol - the idea was not to give away their answers...
instead to pick your own - like everyone else was.

I hate them all.... :)

Seriously, though, this is only about the top ten *US* politicians. By global standards, they're pretty lame.

Mubarrak is said to have stolen something like $50 billion, and given lush jobs to his entire extended family. Assad has had thousands of his own citizens killed. Gaddafi has organised mass rapes of dissident populations.

That's corruption.

Your pollies are freakin boy scouts by comparison.

It's like the big furore over MPs expenses over here. Loads of MPs scotched the system, claiming for second homes that weren't really second homes, or for wages for assistants who turned out to be sons and daughters who had never worked for them etc. But much of it involved silly shit like claiming for repairs to houses that they shouldn't have claimed for, or cleaners that they should have paid for themselves. The actual amounts were mostly quite low. Only a handful were involved in large amounts and even those compared to most countries were pitiful.

There are a few who've been sent to gaol for fraud. But the amounts they've defrauded the tax-payer for are pretty low all things considered. LIke £20-30k across 5 years.

ZenGum;741324 wrote:

Seriously, though, this is only about the top ten *US* politicians. By global standards, they're pretty lame.

Mubarrak is said to have stolen something like $50 billion, and given lush jobs to his entire extended family. Assad has had thousands of his own citizens killed. Gaddafi has organised mass rapes of dissident populations.

That's corruption.

Your pollies are freakin boy scouts by comparison.

Good point.

I agree with you ZenGum and mercy. It's a problem, but a good one to have.

Still, in our own local political ecosystem, local standards apply. Our society, and yours and many others, are built, function at all, because we're a nation of laws. Ironically, it is this very adherence by most that makes the corruption effective.

I see what you mean, it is like Churchill's point that democracy is the worst form of government except for every other form that has been tried.

There are times, though, when we need a strong leader to say something like "screw your campaign contributions, screw your vested interest lobby groups, screw your poll results, screw your marginal electorates and swing states, I'm in charge here and were doing [insert necessary but unpopular move here]!"

Alas, for someone to be able to say that, they'd need to have roughly absolute power, and we have an adage about that, too.

Didn't Jimmy Carter try to do something like that?

ZenGum;741893 wrote:

There are times, though, when we need a strong leader to say something like "screw your poll results, screw your marginal electorates and swing states etc..., I'm in charge here and were doing [insert necessary but unpopular move here]!"

Alas, for someone to be able to say that, they'd need to have roughly absolute power, and we have an adage about that, too.

John Howard was the kind of leader that said and did that sort of thing. He was also completely deluded about how good his decisions were. I agree with your point Zen (and I know that you know this), but pigheadedness needs to be recognised for what it is-as does wisdom in the face of unpopularity.

Funny, I remember Howard more for his completely-unnecessary-but-popular-among-the-rednecks policies.

I was just reflecting, though, that my use of the phrase "necessary but unpopular" gives the game away. If the voting masses had sense, anything necessary would be popular. The mere existence of the Necessary Unpopular shows, yet again, that we get the government we deserve.

As usual, what you've said describes it so much better.

Re the second paragraph-so true, but I am praying in a figurative sense that Australia will never deserve Tony Abbott (or Christopher Pyne...WTF do they keep on inviting him to appear on the panel of Q & A).

ZenGum;742017 wrote:

Funny, I remember Howard more for his completely-unnecessary-but-popular-among-the-rednecks policies.

I was just reflecting, though, that my use of the phrase "necessary but unpopular" gives the game away. If the voting masses had sense, anything necessary would be popular. The mere existence of the Necessary Unpopular shows, yet again, that we get the government we deserve.

A quibble, if I may.

I don't believe that having sense means that necessaries cannot be unpopular.

I flatter myself that I have sense. And there are some necessaries about my own life that aren't popular (if I may substitute popular among many for enthusiastic about for myself). There are some chores that just stay chores no matter how necessary. There are some obligations that I fulfill grudgingly. They're not always the same, my attitudes aren't static and neither are the attitudes of the public.

Not popular as in "I like it"; popular as in "when polled about whether we should do it, I say yes".

One of the top ten has a new book out. I still suspect W could have been a decent President if Cheney hadn't been standing on his shoulder with his little pitchfork.

Griff;752762 wrote:

One of the top ten has a new book out. I still suspect W could have been a decent President if Cheney hadn't been standing on his shoulder with his little pitchfork.

Agreed, but I am not sure that he could have done it without someone guiding him. I just wish he never would have invited Cheney into the castle.

Corrupt Politician - isn't that redundant?

Cheney invited himself. He was in charge of vice presidential selection.

Happy Monkey;753960 wrote:

Cheney invited himself. He was in charge of vice presidential selection.

Really? Cheney selected himself for the job and Bush had no say in it? :lol: