Mugro wrote: 
Googlr shows 10 MILLION+ hits for political corruption! Lovely.

 phineas wrote: 

And just so you don't think that I am biased against the Massachusetts House of Representatives, here is one of our famous State Senators, Diane Wilkerson, who was caught on tape stuffing bribes of cash into her bra.... Nope, we couldn't make stuff like this up!


And now, today, a story breaks about another State Senator getting away with another type of corruption: being above the law.

Senator Anthony Galluccio:



Cops: By the way, we gave Galluccio a lift
Police finally admit to driving Galluccio home
By Dave Wedge and Edward Mason  |   Tuesday, November 17, 2009  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Politics
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald

Cambridge cops kept secret for a month the fact that they had driven home a state senator after responding to a report of an intoxicated man just hours before the lawmaker slammed his SUV into a minivan and fled, raising questions of a cover-up.

It was 25 days after an Oct. 4 hit-and-run wreck allegedly involving Sen. Anthony D. Galluccio when cops finally wrote up a report on the free ride.

And it was not until yesterday that the report surfaced revealing that the Cambridge Democrat, a two-time drunken driver, got a lift home by police at 4:40 a.m. that morning - about 13 hours before the hit-and-run accident that left a teenager injured.

"They gave him a free pass they would not give the average person," said prominent Boston defense attorney John Swomley.

Swomley believes Cambridge police higher-ups ordered the report because they realized there may have been witnesses to the earlier incident. "The only reason the report was even written is at some point the Cambridge police decided to cover their own (behind) and not his," Swomley said.

Cambridge police Superintendent Steven Williams said because the call that resulted in Galluccio's ride home did not "involve a crime," officers would not normally be required to write up a report.

Williams told the Herald the report was ordered after new information came to light as police were preparing evidence for prosecutors in the hit-and-run case.

As for the senator's ride home, Williams said: "The Cambridge Police Department does not have a written policy on transporting citizens, but it is not unusual for an officer to give someone a ride. In this case, the officers did not violate any department policy."

"I'm surprised that the Cambridge police wouldn't have disclosed that," said Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei (R-Wakefield). "It's a glaring omission.

According to the newly disclosed report, which was filed Oct. 29, a gas station attendant called police to report an "intoxicated" man trying to drive away.

When police arrived, they found Galluccio, 42, and an unidentified friend who told cops he tried to drive the lawmaker home but was "unable to locate his residence."

The man was holding Galluccio's keys and turned them over to cops, who first took him to his former Sunset Road address then eventually to his current Trowbridge Street home, where one of the cops "helped" Galluccio inside, the report states.

Galluccio's car was parked around the corner from the gas station at New Street bar/cafe Basha, but police said there was no evidence he had tried to drive. About 13 hours later, police said he crashed his car into a minivan not far from his home. He's due back in court Friday to face charges from the hit-and-run.

Galluccio has said he "panicked" and fled the scene because of his past driving record, which includes two drunken-driving charges and a suspicious 2005 late-night crash in Boston. Yesterday, he would say only, "There's a legal process going on."

A "disappointed" Senate President Therese Murray said, "The Senate will be prepared to act when there is a final disposition of his court case."

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1212516

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Leaving them all in charge of the the system...

 Mugro wrote: 
And people wonder why I don't bother to participate in a system rife with such fine, upstanding citizens.

 Mugro wrote:

They all look so...disgusting.

You want corruption? We here in Massachusetts have plenty.



Sal DiMasi, former Speaker of the Massachusetts House:
Soon to be convicted of extortion, bribery, etc.



Tom Finneran, former Speaker of the Massachusetts House (immediate predecessor to Mr. DiMasi):
Convicted of perjury and gerrymandering of legislative districts in order to disadvantage minority voters.



Charles Flaherty (third from left), former Speaker of the Massachusetts House (immediate predecessor to Mr. Finneran):
Convicted of federal tax evasion.

Concentration of power held by speaker blamed as a key factor

By Brian C. Mooney, Boston Globe Staff  |  June 3, 2009

Criminal charges were filed yesterday against the third consecutive speaker of the Massachusetts House, a dubious distinction that propels the Bay State into a class of crooked politics that rivals Illinois and its corrupt governors.

Legislators past and present attributed the trend to the concentration in recent years of increased power in the hands of the leader of a lawmaking body of 160 members, 90 percent of whom are Democrats.

With his indictment yesterday by a federal grand jury on fraud and conspiracy charges, Salvatore F. DiMasi, who resigned as speaker in January, follows fellow Democrats Thomas M. Finneran, and Charles F. Flaherty, both of whom pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges. Prior to that, it had been 32 years between indictments of a Massachusetts speaker of the house.

"Too much power has accumulated over the years in that position," said Frank Hynes, a Marshfield Democrat, who gave up his seat in the House last year after 26 years in office. "Even in little things, little votes that have no relationship to either the Democratic Party's values or ideals, the speaker demands 100 percent lockstep followership."

Speakers have vast power and discretion to control not only the agenda and flow of legislation in the House but also the creature comforts and perquisites of the membership. "The speaker controls, basically, everything - where you sit, where you stand, how many aides you get, whether you get a good parking space," Hynes said.

With an acquiescent membership, there is less open debate, and more decisions made behind closed doors, Hynes said.

Bradley H. Jones Jr. of North Reading, leader of the House Republicans, who are outnumbered 9-to-1, said the lopsided numbers create "an arrogance of power."

"It's power that is made only that much more dramatic and that much more potentially corrupting because of one-party government," Jones said. "A speaker only has as much power as the membership is willing to give, and the Democratic Party is willing to give tremendous power to the speaker."

Bradley said the GOP must do a better job of recruiting candidates but ultimately "it's going to take the public to do something about it."

DiMasi resigned the speakership and his House seat in late January in the face of a widening investigation by the US attorney's office into reports by the Globe that his friends and associates had received large unreported sums of money from businesses seeking favorable action on contracts or legislation.

His predecessor, Finneran, also stepped down before he was indicted in June 2005 for obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with a civil suit filed in federal court challenging a legislative redistricting plan. In a plea deal with federal prosecutors in January, 2007, he admitted he obstructed justice, received 18 months of unsupervised probation, and a $25,000 fine, and the perjury counts were dismissed. Finneran now hosts a talk radio program.

The Flaherty speakership collapsed in 1996 after he agreed to plead guilty to federal income tax evasion and pay a combined $50,000 in state and federal fines following a 2 1/2-year investigation into his relationship with lobbyists, also precipitated by a series of stories in the Globe. Flaherty is now a registered lobbyist on Beacon Hill.

Prior to Flaherty, the last speaker to face criminal charges was John F. (Iron Duke) Thompson, charged in 1964 with bribery in the wide-ranging crime commission investigation. He died before the case was resolved.

The other legislative chamber has also seen its fair share of legal turmoil recently, with the arrest of Boston Senator Dianne Wilkerson last fall after FBI photos showed her allegedly accepting cash bribes. Wilkerson later resigned.

In November, Senator James Marzilli resigned his Somerville seat, four months after he was indicted on charges of accosting four women in downtown Lowell.

Other states such as Louisiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York have rich histories of political corruption, but recently, Illinois has attracted much attention with the impeachment in January of Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich who is facing bribery and other corruption charges. 

 phineas wrote: 

And you smell like it, too! 

 Inamorato wrote: 
In Chicago, it used to be, if you left a $10 note on the passenger side when you took your driving test, you were sure to pass.

And a friend of mine, who worked for the Forest Preserve as a camp counselor when she was a teen, said they were expected to used their meager salary to buy tix to a golf outing for some pol.

 Inamorato wrote: 
As a teenager, I lived in Manila, back when there was still a curfew. A 50 peso note slipped into the ticket book of whichever officer pulled you over after 1:00 am ensured that you'd get home safe and sound. Fact of life, I guess.

 dionysius wrote: 
As we say north of the 49th:  "We're Number 9!"

 phineas wrote: 

I was about (aboot) to say something about (aboot) Canada, but you trumped me there.

 steeler wrote: 
This logic fails completely when you remember that cookinlover lives in New Zealand.

 Inamorato wrote: 

I believe (suspect) many of these would also be within the top 10 of countries in which the highest percentage of the populace identifies itself as being "happy" with their lives. 

I know the Netherlands often ranks near the top of that list.  Have not looked it up lately.   

 oldslabsides wrote: 
I'm surprised that no Latin American countries made the list. In my experience with some of them, palm-greasing is necessary to get anything done or even to avoid detention by the policía.

I'm actually a little surprised the US isn't in the top ten - or Russia, from what we've been hearing.

 Inamorato wrote: 
And some were either part of the USSR, invaded by it or friendly with it, too. Stalinism is a negative historical factor, as well.

 dionysius wrote: 
The countries listed as corrupt have corruption as an historical part of their cultures and made worse by US billions. 

Wow. The most corrupt countries are by and large the ones the US has intervened in (or in the cases of Myanmar and Iran, would perhaps like to), while the least corrupt are, relative to the US anyway, more or less socialist. Makes you think.

Watchdog group lists world's most, least corrupt countries

The Associated Press

A look at the world's 10 most corrupt and 10 least corrupt countries according to the Corruption Perceptions Index report published Tuesday by watchdog Transparency International.

The world's ten most corrupt countries:

1. Somalia

2. Afghanistan

3. Myanmar

4. Sudan

5. Iraq

6. Chad

7. Uzbekistan

8. Turkmenistan

9. Iran

10. Haiti

The world's ten least corrupt countries:

1. New Zealand

2. Denmark

3. Singapore

4. Sweden

5. Switzerland

6. Finland

7. Netherlands

8. Australia

9. Canada

10. Iceland