Campaign Donation Equals Construction Contract – Sounds Like Barbados!
Our Very Own Road To Perdition – Miami Herald
What happens when a sleazy congressman from Alaska comes sniffing around Florida for campaign donations?
He gets the dough, and $10 million magically materializes to build a road through sensitive wetlands for a friendly developer.
First exposed by The Fort Myers News-Press and Naples Daily News, the saga of Coconut Road is a classic illustration of how taxpayer dollars are used to rape Florida and pay off political favors.
This time the culprit is Rep. Don Young, a Republican from Alaska and a notorious shill for oil companies, developers and industry lobbyists.
Until January, Young chaired the House Transportation Committee, where he proudly larded U.S. transportation bills with wasteful pork, including the now-scuttled ”bridge to nowhere” — a $223 million span to an Alaskan island occupied by only 80 souls…
… Read the rest at the Miami Herald (link here)
According to many online stories like this one, and this one, Alaska politician Don Young is (or was) tight with VECO and it’s founder Bill Allen, while Young’s former aide Mark Zachares has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges.
The Government of Barbados, VECO and it’s new owners would like everyone to believe that the guilty plea by VECO founder Bill Allen gives closure to the whole issue of VECO political corruption.
Says new VECO owner CH2M Hill “the issue is an isolated one”.
Says Barbados Attorney General Dale Marshall “…I am satisfied that the company’s relationship with Barbados and the work they are doing for the Government of Barbados has at all times been entirely above board, and at no time is there any hint of a scandal in relation to the contracting of that company for the work on the prison or other work that they have previously done for the Barbados Government,”
As new corruption stories about VECO and VECO-tainted politicians keep coming – with something new surfacing almost every week – taxpayers in both the United States and Barbados know that the issue is NOT closed, no matter what our fearful politicians say.
3 Comments
June 17, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Well maybe we can take slim comfort from the fact that VECO is a small fry compared to BAE and Prince Bandar. On the other hand as BFP notes, much still remains to come out on VECO’s bribery shenanigans.
Dove becomes albatross for Great Britain, U.S.
by Eric Margolis
The Saudis could barely operate modern military equipment; most remained in storage. Their arms deal were really about buying military protection from the western powers.
Thatcher ordered mandatory kickbacks that form part of all arms deals with Arab states be hidden from public gaze. They remained so until recent years when British and American government investigators began questioning secret, multi-million dollar payments routed from the U.K. to the Riggs Bank in Washington, and then to the pockets of Saudi’s Prince Charming.
When Britain’s Serious Fraud Office began probing BAE’s secret payoffs to Bandar, Tony Blair sanctimoniously ordered the investigation shut down for “national security” reasons. Blair was trying to sell the Saudis BAE’s new, high-tech Eurofighter. He blocked similar investigations by OECD, the international anti-bribery watchdog agency.
SNIP
The most significant effect of this revolting scandal is being felt in the Muslim World. One of the major reasons for the fast-spreading popularity of anti-western, militant Islamic groups is their success in uprooting the Muslim world’s endemic corruption and nepotism. We are so used to Islamists being demonized as “terrorists” that their highly effective and popular social accomplishments are rarely noted.
Islamic militants insist the west exploits their nations by keeping deeply corrupt regimes in power. In exchange for protection from their own people and neighbours, and fabulous wealth, these authoritarian Arab regimes — always termed “moderates” by western media — sell oil on the cheap to the west and do its bidding.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8164
June 17, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Green Monkey welcome to the real world that has been like this before we were born but with the advent of communication, Globalization et al. most of us are now realizing the truth of what goes on in the hallowed Parliaments of the Worlds Nations.
We the people are merely puppets and are “used” every 3 to 5 years to vote which of the corrupt band of political pundits do we put in.
One set of crooks reign for a while until the people get pissed off and then they give the other crooks their chance and the cycle goes on!
I understand they are thinking of making it mandatory that future polling booths are equipted with a tubes of KY jelly to relieve the anal discomfort that the procedure gives to voters like you, me and thousands of others!
June 18, 2007 at 12:29 am
“We are so used to Islamists being demonized as “terrorists” that their highly effective and popular social accomplishments are rarely noted.”
“Highly effective… social accomplishments” ?
Like what..? Chopping off hands of shoplifters? Whipping women for showing their hair or learning to drive?
Pray tell… please explain!