Wil there be a short trip to Gitmo in these guys future?

A senator from WV said that he wasn't in the public sector because of the salery.
Seems that this really applies here. This Foggo fella was in the public sector for what he could allow his buddy to steal from the taxpayers.

The Fed pulls over a few speeders, big deal. Steering? That's the norm, not the crime. The Fed's case: "..friend's lack of experience in the field" .This sounds like HR telling you you aren't going to get hired for the job.
The racket is enormous, people are steering, kicking back, bribing left and right, These two sad sacks didn't have enough teflon to avoid getting sucked into the Duke theater.
No, what is more scary, is that these guys were just doing business as usual, but somebody decided to open fire on them for whatever reason. So, the ultimate Don, the Fed, rounds up these guys and lays into them. The origin of this wrath is hard to specify, but we can guess.
Pressure to buy from this contractor? That's normal in the Fed too. Imagine a Public servant deciding to replace Windows on desktops, for example, with say, Linux. The public servant's career might be destroyed. What's that you say!? The Fed is going to go after MS for this "pressure?" Not that likely.

Many people tell me that they are dismayed at the corruption that seems to be exposed on a daily basis, and with little regard for the departments or the many branches of this administration.
There is a tremendous irony here. The voters actually "put" the politicians into office, but special interests actually pay for the "trip to Washington". Then whenever possible the politicians use tax dollars to "reimburse" often with "interest" the special interests who "paid for the trip"-------and then when the corruption is exposed, the voters are shocked and dismayed.
Using a rather simple analogy : the voters are the "employers", who direct the politicians to spend the tax dollars according to the "employer's" direction---that is if everything goes as planned. The problem with this equation is the "Special Interests". They have usurped the "Employers" and they use the politicians as puppets, so when (and they most often do get caught) they get caught they feed the politician to the wolves*.
* "Feeding them to the wolves" is a term that came out of a natural setting. In ancient times herd animals, like bovine and equine would push the old, or infirmed members of the herd to the outside of the herd so that the predators (wolves, etc) would attack them first allowing the others to "get away". It didn't always work but it was a viable alternative.
Why put forbidden fruit in the garden? Is it temptation, or oversight?

Why not make all levels of corruption acceptable, even enviable? Why not elect future politicians on their "C" Level, i.e. Corruption Level . Let's say from 1-10 and no one under an eight would be considered for higher office? Only "tens" for "president".

Or why not "cut down the tree that produces the forbidden fruit" ----then make it a severe penalty for planting new forbidden fruit trees.

Cull the garden of forbidden fruit trees.

Yellow Horse

"The two men now face 30 charges of fraud, bribery and money laundering,....."

And Foggo was "Executive Director of the CIA". Is there any question why it's so critical that Congress take back its oversight duties?

Do the intelligence agencies, after decades of wiretapping have too much information on our corrupt politicians that they refuse to insist on oversight?

This is why impeachment for Bush and co is stupid if its not with the rest of this governments scammers as well. The government right now is fundamentally in the wrong with no oversight( or hindsight either). Bribery pays for everything!

"Do the intelligence agencies, after decades of wiretapping have too much information on our corrupt politicians that they refuse to insist on oversight?"

Wiretapping the stock market and brokers! Who's got time?

Puke! As far as I'm concerned this is all the exhoneration Carol Lam needs. Just like Heather Wilson and Pete Domenici are all the exhoneration that David Inglesias needs.

I concur with Bane Richter - steering/cronyism is business as usual in our govt.

Richter offers no constructive suggestions for changing this situation, which seems to be accepted as the air we must breathe.

Neither B Franklin nor T Jefferson expected that the government they constructed would still be operative 200+ yrs later. Jefferson thought a little regular revolution was a necessary purgative for the fat cats that always manipulate themselves into power seats.

It's past time to look at our Latin American neighbors for real-time examples of how to turn the tables on corporate hegemony and disregard for working citizens.

Puke! I'm with the others. Puke!

STOP THE BUSINESS AS USUAL!!!!

A few things you can do.....

Call, write, or e-mail your Congressional representatives and get them to support/co-sponsor the U.S. House Bill 3099 "Clean Money, Clean Elections". In the Senate, get them to support/co-sponsor the Durbin/Spector bill "Fair Elections Now Act".

Vote in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll http://www.usalone.com/blogvoices.php?Cheney%20Impeachment%3F

National Initiative Site - Check out this link to take back our government by the PEOPLE: http://nationalinitiative.us/

This sort of corruption is endemic in our system: it underscores the total lack of responsibility, check & balance within agencies, the lack of oversight on the part of his higher-up's, and (clearly) a series of conditions by which his underlings were either totally unaware or else compelled not to whistle-blow.

How is it that people even have the opportunity to do this in the first place?

Has it always been this bad, or is it just a matter of magnitudes?

In this particular case, it seems to me that someone in this type of secretive business needs lifelong friends that they can trust working alongside them, even if it means a multi-million dollar contract.
I think the alternate is somebody the Agent has no real clue about in life, who may even be a spy. We want good tight intel, but when cronyism or the old boy network provides security or a tight ship, we don't like that either, and scream friends and family.
We really cannot have it both ways, especially in this area. People need rock solid tight relationships to function properly, as they are dealing with plenty of iffy characters in many instances pro and con otherwise.
Sure it has always been this bad Paul Bramscher. It's the standard operating procedure of the system, and indeed of ones own family life, of the job environment everyone works in, it's how the system generally functions.
The only thing going against it, is a forcing of costs down and accepting "the lowset bid" - which as we also know but often don't say concerning this area - "you get what you pay for".
The problem IMO starts when the crony hired doesn't DELIVER on the contract. I'm not sure secretly carting about CIA mibs is a sort of contract where one can just blow it and not show up - not provide the service contracted for.
Many see this as bad, and it certainly is totally endemic in congress across both aisles. So bad they all pretend it's a crime while only the very few most eggregious examples get taken down, and they all wail for what, decades now that "we need reform"... but every time they claim to try - the money ship gets bigger, wider, deeper, and more entrenched, secretive, and opulent.
In the area of national security and this specific carting around the mibs secretly, I wouldn't be complaining. A tight friend one can read like a book seems to me to be a neccessity.