It is called corruption:
Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent.
“Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,” said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said there was no connection between Mr. McHale’s contributions and the grant to G-Con. He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs and that it was appropriate for Mr. Perry to appoint people who support his vision and policies to state oversight posts.
Corporate cronyism is alive and well.
Derf
Hey Cole, where are the big booming arm waving breathless headlines that we should get out of Libya now? Would you like me to provide a link for ya seeing as how you seem to have such a short term memory.
Villago Delenda Est
In Zaire, it’s called kleptocracy.
In Indonesia, it’s called crony capitalism.
In the United States, it’s called business as usual.
bkny
He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs
identify those G-con jobs.
Dr. Squid
But government spending can’t create jobs. Rick Perry said so.
bkny
@Villago Delenda Est: in all seriousness … with the stories about the ratings agencies finally getting some attention; the refusal to hold to account any of these thieving wall street assholes; the completely stacked against all but the hedge fund boyz investment culture; and you have to wonder at what point people flee this staggeringly corrupt market. but, then, i guess it’s a global problem.
Mino
The Supreme Court has realistically defined away the crime of white collar corruption.
Alex
“Bank of America. We’ll help you out.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/great-moments-in-pr-comedy-starring-rick-perry-and-the-b-of-a/243882/
Keith G
Of all of Perry’s several Achilles heels, I have thought that this was the most fatal.
Unfortunately I still hear MSM types characterize him as a successful governor with a good jobs record who speaks passionately for an important GOP faction instead of calling him out as an self-interested opportunist.
drkrick
I guess it’s no coincidence that Texans Tom Delay, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm and Karl Rove have worked so hard to normalize a similar culture in DC.
Ornery Curmudgeon
@Derf: Yeah, Cole, like Dork says! YOU claimed it was dangerous to close your eyes while driving 60 mph … but the car glanced off a tree and spun sideways into a fire hydrant, which brought it to a lazy stop 3 ENTIRE FEET from the children playing on the lawn.
No one hurt. HA!
So take it back, Cole. Take it All Back and Eat Crow.
JPL
Derf..You are on the wrong thread…The Libya thread is below..
Did Perry ever work in private industry? He has amassed quite a fortune for a government employer.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
Jewish Steel
Splendid! I’ll get on the horn to Haliburton. Get us some no bid bidness up in this mofo.
cathyx
The more this kind of thing goes on, the more we will all get used to it being business as usual and not even blink an eye. Just as was the case in the USSR under communist control.
Roger Moore
Wait a second! I thought the government was incapable of creating jobs; only private enterprise can do that.
drkrick
@cathyx: Well, that’s a refreshing change, at least. Most of the parallels seem to be with post-Soviet Russia.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Corporate cronyism is alive and well in America. It always has been and it always will be. It’s in every local government, every state government, and the federal government as well. It didn’t start with Republicans and it won’t end with Republicans. Democrats are equal opportunists. Hell, look at the enormous amount of favors and money that have flowed to Obama/Democratic contributors in the last three years.
They are all crooks, on both sides of the aisle, with a “me first” mentality. But your faux outrage is duly noted.
dmsilev
Hang on, let me run this through my handy wingnut talkingpoint-omatic.
Damn. Looks like my trusty Wingotronic 3000 is stuck. Let me give it a good whack.
That’s better. So to speak.
John PM
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
I thought the “both sides do it” argument would come much sooner than #17. The Obama haters must be sleeping late.
cathyx
One of my guilty pleasures is watching the “telenovelas” on spanish TV channels. Most take place in Mexico. One common element on them is bribable police, judges and doctors. With enough money everyone can be bought. And I doubt that it’s something that only happens on the TV shows.
Brachiator
As Molly Ivins might have said, this is how you do bidness in Texas. And clearly Perry knows how to do bidness
andrewsomething
I know others have already highlighted this, but seriously? Soshalusts are running Texas now?
Mike in NC
@dmsilev:
First I opened the local rag today and saw Bill O’Reilly going off about Obama’s “shrinking base”, with an obligatory mention of Tony Rezko (who?), then I turned on the TV and there was Ben Fucking Stein getting the vapors for a Texas governor who “may well be the next president”. I had to wonder if it wasn’t too early to start drinking. These morons are unavoidable.
jill
oh, yeah- he can do that, but somebody else tries to buy a football player a Corvette and all hell breaks loose….
Only the really rich and powerful get to play this game, seems to be the lesson…
Roger Moore
@cathyx:
It may not only happen in TV shows- the trope presumably comes from real-world experience- but that doesn’t mean its prevalence is being portrayed accurately. Think about how often people suffer from traumatic amnesia or discover previously unknown siblings on American soap operas; those things may happen in real life, but not with the consistency they do in fiction.
Citizen_X
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
And it’s people like you, with just that mentality, that allow it to happen.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC: as a political commentator, Ben Stein is a pretty good game show host.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: You know, one of the things that decent pay, good benefits, and job security for civil servants does it decrease the likelihood of corruption. Ever wonder why it is the countries and states that lack those things that seem to have the most problems? Hell, in Wisconsin, I believe it is one of the driving forces behind the urge to destroy public sector unions. If civil servants are treated well, they tend to do their jobs.
Citizen_X
This is a feature of your modern American “conservatism.” They just don’t get the whole concept of disinterest. To the founders, it was simple: you try to keep people away from positions were they could advance their own interests, because people are generally fallible. Now, however, potential conflicts of interest are just waved away. Usually with high dudgeon: “What? How dare you accuse us of corruption! We’re Christians!”
Chad N Freude
FTFY.
Citizen_X
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve heard that in Mexico before: that the cops and other civil servants aren’t inherently corrupt, they just can’t possibly live and support a family on their salary.
gex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If he gets assistance from the likes of Jimmy Kimmel. In the game show world, Ben Stein is another “self-made” success that did it without anyone’s help. The massive support he got from those around him notwithstanding.
Chad N Freude
@Dr. Squid: Government money can’t create jobs. Giving government money to industrialist political donors, on the other hand, makes it private sector money, which automatically creates jobs. QED.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@The Spy Who Loved Me: So when are you starting the revolution, Che?
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: Exactly. It is almost like wait staff in restaurants; they can’t survive without tips, but, because they are expected to get tips, there employers are able to pay them virtually nothing. While it may be a functional way to run a bar or restaurant, it sure as hell does not make for honest public servants.
burnspbesq
@Mino:
I think Raj Rajaratnam, Bob Moffatt, and a number of others would be surprised to learn that “[t]he Supreme Court has realistically defined away the crime of white collar corruption.”
If you want to argue that honest services fraud should be a crime, argue away. I might agree with you. But it was always a stretch to prosecute it under the wire fraud statute as it currently exists.
Your beef is with Congress, not the Supreme Court.
buermann
@John PM: ‘I thought the “both sides do it” argument would come much sooner than #17’
It would be worthwhile to draw a comparison between the Bush and Obama administrations in this regard. Enron and Arthur Andersen were huge Bush campaign supporters, and in return his DoJ put more than a few of their executives in prison. By all appearances the Obama administration has been far more cowed to the hands that feed him: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-23/prosecutors-faulted-on-failing-to-catch-credit-crunch-bandits-.html
eemom
ahem.
I do think Cole needs to man up and do his OWN Libya thread.
You can run. You can even condense your entire corporeal existence into a pair of hairy flip-flop wearing legs facing a teevee screen, and an elbow on a car window.
But you cannot hide, Cole. Not from us. : )
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: In WA there are no exceptions to the minimum wage law except child farm labor. If you are gonna be a waitstaff person this is the place to do it. You can actually afford to, y’know, LIVE.
cathyx
@Yutsano: Same in Oregon.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano:
@cathyx: Interesting, I wonder if affects the tips that people give.
MikeBoyScout
I don’t know.
Seems we need to stop looking back, and start looking forward. Let bygones be bygones. Let’s work together for the Murkin people.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: From my observation no. As with all things YMMV.
@cathyx: WA also has the highest minimum wage in the nation, indexed to inflation. Idaho kept theirs at bare minimum. There used to be a huge labor disparity between border towns. I don’t know for sure if that’s still the case.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
Back in the day that was one of my reasons for arguing for unions in the Homeland Security department (if you remember that fight), particularly people dealing with intelligence. If we want someone to tell their bosses things the bosses don’t want to hear (like no wmd’s in Iraq), we had better make sure they can keep their job.
cathyx
@Omnes Omnibus: No it doesn’t. We still tip the same as before. Why would someone tip less because they are making minimum wage with it? I think more power to the servers to make a decent wage to live on. Maybe the price of the meal has gone up a bit, but if it has, it’s not noticeable.
LongHairedWeirdo
I recall Molly Ivins asked Tom DeLay’s office about how a contribution seemed to tie to a vote he’d made in Congress.
The spokesperson’s response was something like how DeLay didn’t think it was proper to try to tie contributions to political actions.
The wording on this was really, really good. I mean, on the face of it, it could be a denial (“I don’t cast my vote based upon contributions”) but it could also be a scold to the reporter (“How *dare* you try to tie my vote to my contributions!”) and it has the added bonus of only sounding mildly evasive.
They teach politics well in Texas. Molly also reported on a legislator who, upon having it pointed out that he’d make money based upon his vote, said that, sure, but just a little bit, not a whole lot. (Apparently, it’s more moral to sell one’s vote cheaply?)
Yutsano
@cathyx: There was a HUGE stink about how prices were going to spike to unaffordable levels for everyone after we passed our minimum wage hike. We passed it anyway. The difference? Ten cents on average. Paying people more does little to the corporate bottom line because PEOPLE HAVE MORE MONEY THEN TO BUY SHIT. But I’m just a sociallist for pointing that out.
gene108
Corporations are people, too.
If we don’t take care of the people, especially corporations, what will America stand for?
Ignore the people, especially the corporate people, and America will have fallen from its promise in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
A disturbing thought.
Firebert
@Yutsano: Just to bring this full circle, minimum wage laws in Texas have a lot of exceptions, including for disabled people.
Mino
@burnspbesq: I just read an article saying that the SEC’s criminal convictions were much more difficult than civil convictions because the burden of proof had become the “intentions” of the defendant. Blowback from Skilling, I guess.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@LongHairedWeirdo:
— Baltimore Sun, December 1993
ETF Blockquote Fail
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
That whirring sound?
The Founders (who were deeply suspicious of joint stock companies and corporations in general) spinning rapidly in their graves.
cathyx
@Yutsano: Oregon’s minimum wage is only 17cents behind Washington’s.
Yutsano
@Firebert: A lot of other states except minimum wage for a lot of sneaky but technically legal reasons. I wonder how they are actually doing economically. A Wal-Mart economy is no way to run a state son.
@cathyx: AACK!! They’re catching up! :)
(Tell me it wouldn’t be awesome if WA and OR set up a cross-state single payer system. There has to be some momentum for it at least here. The state tried back in the 90’s and Clinton killed it.)
Martin
@eemom: Well, to Cole’s credit, his main concern voiced is that post-regime change, the west has no way of knowing or controlling what will happen, that the new Libya could well be worse than the old Libya, and that having the west involved in this operation is more likely to fuck up the outcome than improve it – and that having the west ‘invested’ in the new Libya will result in the west expecting a return on that investment – oil, military bases, a say in who takes over as leader, whatever.
That’s a valid concern, and it’s hard to provide any pattern of counterexamples to fall back on. Sometimes we do okay, and sometimes we completely jack it up. I actually think that the coalition approach minimizes bad outcomes, though. If nothing else, they get to squabbling over who gets what, and decide to all back off rather than giving someone else too much. That’s why we can’t build anything in America – unless you can divide it into 50 components and spend more money on shipping and logistics than on labor – then 98 members of Congress don’t fucking care and they’re perfectly happy to see those jobs for your state reappear in China.
But his other concerns that we’d be forced to get more involved in this conflict militarily, that we’d be investing increasing amounts in this – yeah, he was just wrong on that. But eventually he’ll have to give in and put up his own thread. I’m not declaring victory for the rebels yet – 1/3 of Libya’s population is in Tunisia. The hard stuff just started. And in urban settings like that, the west’s air support is pretty fucking useless – everyone looks the same on the ground.
PurpleGirl
When I found out that NYS’ minimum wage for wait staff was something like $3.52, because it was presumed that tips would bring the worker up to the standard minimum, I began tipping more.
Samara Morgan
Perry is a cowboy cat with a sixgun. Just like Bush.
its an avatar for sociopaths.
Samara Morgan
@Martin:
bulshytt. that is the same fuckery we have been trying to pull off in 8 years of Iraq occupation.
Epic Fail, dude.
Pax Americana is dust and ashes.
it should have been called Faux Pax Israel anyways.
Kralizec is coming.
Derf
@JPL: Rules? What rules! Don’t need no stinkin rules! Are we in the Military here. Do we need to say “YES SIR” and salute before every post?
Rules are for the real world. Not baboon juice fap land.
Villago Delenda Est
@Derf:
In your case, yes.
Is that a pledge pin? On your uniform?
Yutsano
@Samara Morgan: Link fail. What happened to your so L33t skillz?
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: /sigh
you looked so good on the outside.
licensed to kill time
DerffreD is so bummed that Cole spurned his advances and HE WILL NOT BE IGNORED!
Mike G
Of all of Perry’s several Achilles heels, I have thought that this was the most fatal.
Bush as Texas gov was up to his neck in crony corruption, and you never heard a peep about it in the MSM. It’s Texas for pete’s sake, finding cronyism is like finding an ugly, flat landscape — it’s eveywhere. You can’t throw a rock without hitting some corrupt “bidness-friendly” sleaze.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano:
entropy dude.
it rules the metaverse.
link.
Derf
@Villago Delenda Est: Cut the horseshit, son. I’ve got their disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.
D-Chance.
For those hearty few who’ve remained in the stock market… GET OUT!
gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
LOL!
You mean the people, who wrote the Constitution, weren’t thinking like 21st century Republicans?
What a crazy accusation to make.
moe99
Speaking of corporate cronyism, Pachacutec Chunga, former FDL member made the following comments on FB:
Pachacutec Chunga
if @janehamsher is a principled person then I’m straight. sad how ppl are being conned by the doyenne of cynical shakedown$
stop pretending this is a legitimate human being with a conscience, and stop funding her wardrobe
Tokyokie
@JPL: No. Air Force straight out of college, then elective office ever since.
Shlemizel - was Alwhite
and this is the ONLY reason the current Republican party has candidates running for office. The all hate government and want it to fail but until it does they will milk it for every dime they can steal to feather their own nests now and into the future.
It is a giant criminal enterprise based on graft, greed and corruption. And they are kicking our asses.