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Corruption in government! (also, celery being a wanker)
The Green Eyed Monster
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
But it turns out government officials in the energy department are corrupt:
Question: why can't I even muster a decent amount of righteous indignation any more? Like, okay -- government officials are corrupt. I'm mainly just surprised the Times actually bothered reporting on it. And what else? Get out! Upper class businessmen use cocaine? I blame Oliver Stone and his movie Wall Street.
WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.
In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.
“A culture of ethical failure†pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.
The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.
<...>
The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.
<...>
But two of the highest-ranking officials who were subjects of the investigations will apparently escape penalty. Both retired during the investigation, rendering them safe from any administrative punishment, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute them on the charges suggested by the inspector general.
Question: why can't I even muster a decent amount of righteous indignation any more? Like, okay -- government officials are corrupt. I'm mainly just surprised the Times actually bothered reporting on it. And what else? Get out! Upper class businessmen use cocaine? I blame Oliver Stone and his movie Wall Street.
The Green Eyed Monster on
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"The government's second largest source of government revenue is what's that now?"
My next response was then:
"The government takes product from these companies and then markets it and sells it themselves, instead of just taxing them more? Why?"
Only after that did I care that the people involved are all snorting coke off each others' genitals while simultaneously (but more figuratively) scratching each others' backs.
No one will ever guess what this thread is about given the current thread title.
Which is why you should change it so it advertises the content of the thread instead of saying nothing.
The dedicated to what, exactly? People dedicated to clicking into threads that don't actually advertise what the thread is about? This is like titling your book "Book" and saying "my book is only for people who read books" and thinking that's some kind of lofty, valid position for you to take. Well it isn't. So how about you change your thread title, you insufferable cocknob.
"You'll never guess, I mean you'll simply never, ever guess" is not an appropriate thread title, period. It's basically trolling for attention.
Seriously we're going to keep these people in power for four more years? Yeeesh.
I was intrigued by the post.
Which is exactly why it's trolling. Imagine if every thread were titled this same way, because every thread author wanted to trick people into reading the thread without actually explaining what the thread is about.
In an on-topic forum, the thread topic should actually at least partially suggest the topic of the thread.
But it's okay, I reported it, the mods can sort it out.
How is this "Republicans"?
That's what I was wondering myself. I can imagine making a connection between McCain's support for continued drilling, big oil, and the energy department but, despite what you may think, political corruption wasn't invented by Neoconservatives.
So yea the Government is corrupt, now its out in the open with a formal story written about it (even though it was general knowledge to the public), so is anything going to happen to the offenders not mentioned by names in the story? I don't even know if I want an answer to this question...because it will probably be a transfer/promotion/slap on the wrist. I would still like to maintain some kind of faith in my Government.
P.S. From the title I thought this was going to be some kind of stupid "I found this really cool thing on my website [insert stupid url here] and it helped me a great deal in my life and I thought I should share it." type thread. I generally enjoy looking at those because of the quips the mods make when they close them. Who knew I would be participating in a conversation?
Well I hear thats how they close deals in some countries. They were just following the custom.
Seriously. And what sickens me the most is that nothing will probably get done about it.
I think I'll just change it for you instead.
If you think this is somehow limited to, or more prevalent in the Republican party, you are fucking retarded.
The fact of the matter is that people don't care. My guess is it's probably because they think that either it doesn't affect them at all, or the guy that they voted in isn't corrupt, but everybody else is, so you can still vote him in.
This is the kind of shit that happens when you let the same two parties run a government for this long.
My take on this is to take one step of abstraction back... why is our government in this business to begin with? Why do we have a psuedo oil company that gets its product by taking it as a tax from businesses but then markets it and sells it for profit? Why not fire this whole agency and just tax the oil companies more and let them handle marketing and selling energy?
Whoa that's news to me. I wasn't aware that we participated in marketing a product not land. Huh.
And I'm guessing a few of them were Republicans, due to
But I thought Toby Keith was a Democrat? So confused.
no gift of value over 20 dollars.
no more than 50 dollars a year.
there are exceptions which normally revolve around whether or not the gift was given to you because of your position instead of who you are.