CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: “According to an indictment handed down Wednesday, former New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron fabricated a letter — postdating it Aug 26, 2004 — to help cover up a vast money laundering and embezzlement scheme. The scheme involved Vigil-Giron, a nationally respected Hispanic media consultant and a husband-and-wife team who now lobby for the city of Albuquerque, according to the indictment.” Plus, another chance to play name that party!

TOM MAGUIRE: Name That Party – Special CYA With The CIA Edition.

RAY NAGIN, MISERABLE FAILURE. And another chance to play Name That Party!

NAME THAT PARTY: Chris Dodd edition!

NOT THE JUDICIARY’S FINEST HOUR:

The setting is Pennsylvania coal country, but it’s a story right out of Dickens’ grim 19th-century landscape: Two of Luzerne County’s most senior judges on Monday were accused of sending children to jail in return for kickbacks.

The judges, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, and his predecessor, Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, will serve seven years in jail under a plea agreement.

They’re alleged to have pocketed $2.6 million in payments from juvenile detention center operators. . . .In asking the court to intervene in April, the law center cited hundreds of examples where teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center.

One teen was given a 90-day sentence for having parodied a school administrator online. Such unwarranted detentions left “both children and parents feeling bewildered, violated and traumatized,” center lawyers said.

“Very few people would stand up” to the Luzerne judges, according to the law center’s executive director, Robert G. Schwartz.

Obviously, we need more people willing to insist on their rights. These guys should be tarred and feathered.

UPDATE: Various readers point out that this is another case of Name That Party! Reader Paul Risenhoover adds: “Since they didn’t name it, I knew they were Democrats.” Ouch.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “I wonder why the Inquirer didn’t tell us this?”

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY NAME THAT PARTY! “Puerto Rico’s governor, indicted on corruption charges, posted a video on the popular social networking site Facebook admitting to making mistakes.”

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY Name That Party!

NAME THAT PARTY! Report says Ohio’s former AG raided campaign cash. “Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann used his campaign account to bankroll home repairs and family vacations, according to a newspaper review of state investigative reports.” They don’t mention his party affiliation anywhere, but it turns out he’s a Democrat. A.P. should try using Google next time . . . .

THE CHICAGO WAY: Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, chief of staff, arrested. “In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himself as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.”

UPDATE: Another chance to play Name That Party!

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Simply put, it is the most breathtaking corruption scandal in the history of Illinois politics.” Now that’s saying something!

A copy of the criminal complaint is here. (PDF).

MORE: Related? A complaint on the Rezko/Obama land deal.

HMM: Aide to Boxer Fired After Being Charged in Child Pornography Sting. “A senior aide to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was fired from his post last week after he was charged with distributing and receiving child pornography.” No Name That Party here, as they put that in the very first sentence. Meanwhile, JWF notes a similar case from Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office last month.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY NAME THAT PARTY! “A Jersey City councilman has reportedly been arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington D.C. nightclub.”

Did he tell them it was raining?

“I LIED UNDER OATH:” Kwame Kilpatrick resigns. And the story provides another chance to play Name That Party!

UPDATE: Thoughts on the guilty plea from Prof. Ellen Podgor at the White Collar Crime blog.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY Name That Party!

ANOTHER CASE OF Name That Party!

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY name that party! It’s racist and antisemitic attacks on Democrat Steve Cohen from black Democrat Nikki Tinker, but the Times leaves out the affiliation.

Meanwhile, A.C. Kleinheider observes:

While putting a progressive Congressman’s beside an image of Klansman with a burning cross would appear to be all in good fun, suggesting that same Congressman, a Jew, is an interloper in the Black community is not.

As of this posting, Democratic insurgent Congressional candidate Nikki Tinker’s infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest ad remains featured on her YouTube channel. An ad suggesting that Congressman Steve Cohen was preventing black children from practicing their faith, however, has been removed.

Charming.

UPDATE: TalkingPointsMemo is more honest than the NYT:

This brutal new attack ad from House candidate Nikki Tinker, who is challenging liberal Tennessee Rep. Steven Cohen in tomorrow’s Democratic primary, just might be the nastiest, most race-baiting (and Jew-baiting) ad of the entire cycle.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Tinker from Sharon Cobb, who doesn’t like her much.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY Name That Party! “If only the AP had been similarly reticent about Mark Foley!” Fat chance.

UPDATE: Reuters does better: “Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and official misconduct on Monday stemming from a sex scandal and the prominent Democrat’s handling of an $8.4 million settlement of a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city.”

FIRST SPITZER, THEN MCGREEVEY, NOW THIS

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state’s new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

We’re approaching a national Too Much Information crisis. It’s almost enough to make you long for the reticence and hypocrisy of the Victorian era. But it’s not too much information in every respect, since the story offers another chance to play Name That Party! — though a close reading of the sidebar sort of answers the question. But only sort of . . .

THOUGHTS ON THREE-WAYS, from Little Miss Attila. “How much time did I spend, in my twenties, trying to get it out of my boyfriend why it wasn’t gay for us both to hop into bed with another woman, but it would be if we got into bed with another guy?” This produces insight on the McGreevey affair . . . .

UPDATE: Still more, plus another round of Name That Party! “For the record- neither NewJersey.com or the AP reveal that former Governor McGreevey is a Democrat.”

SILDA SPITZER JOINS PISSED-OFF POLITICAL WIVES CLUB, plans Senate bid.

Meanwhile, it looks as if Spitzer’s real crimes were financial, not sexual. “Spitzer, who made his name by bringing high-profile cases against many of New York’s financial giants, is likely to be prosecuted under a relatively obscure statute called ’structuring,’ according to a Justice Department official. Structuring involves creating a series of financial movements designed to obscure the true purpose of the payments.”

Meanwhile thoughts on the hypocrisy.

UPDATE: Stephen Green: “Cleaning up New York one prostitute at a time. Sometimes maybe even two at a time.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh:

Discovering that the exclusive international ring of prostitutes known as the “Emperor’s Club” charged up to $5,500 an hour for their services, New York governor Eliot Spitzer vowed to put an end to this price gouging practice. . . . “That kind of excessive compensation is simply outrageous. Prostitution is allegedly a victimless crime,” Spitzer said in a press conference that took place only in our imaginations. “But now we see that its customers can become its victims.”

Spitzer added it was especially shameful that one of the most trusted names in prostitution had engaged in this shocking betrayal and rank greed.

Read the whole thing.

MORE: Big roundup from Professor Bainbridge.

STILL MORE: Heh: “Prostitute Admits Link to Elliott Spitzer; Resigns From Escort Service in Disgrace.”

Also: Clinton Declines Comment on Spitzer.

MORE STILL: “Maybe Vitter should have made things right – and changed his political affiliation before getting caught.”

FINALLY: A Wall Street reader doesn’t want Spitzer to resign: “He’s already dead as a politician. The longer he lingers, the longer the tax-raising Democrats in Albany are held up to ridicule. and the longer the national Democratic party is distracted by a scandal in the statehouse of one of its national candidates.”

And another game of Name That Party! at ABC.

Plus, a funny: “I guess I have disagreements with my own cobloggers. But on something like this, I really think that Glenn Greenwald, Rick Ellensberg, and Thomas Ellers should synthesize their positions so their joint blog isn’t so hopelessly schizophrenic.”

And, Governor Giuliani?

NEW YORK TIMES: “Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.” So much for Mr. Clean.

UPDATE: Reader Chuck Pelto emails: “Why should YOU ‘care’? You support prostitution.”

Well, I support legalizing prostitution. Spitzer’s support was, ahem, more direct. I understand that some people are suggesting he may try to brazen things out, but being the Democratic governor of Hillary’s home state, I think the Clintons will be encouraging him to get out as soon as possible lest this bring up memories. And yes, that’s ironic.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Best headline: From Troopergate to Shtupergate. And various readers are saying it’s a name that party story at the NYT. But when I linked to it they mentioned that Spitzer was a Democrat prominently in the third paragraph. That’s disappeared sometime in the past hour or two and there’s now a much less prominent mention, much further down, but it is there.

MORE: Lots of further links at Hot Air, including a report that Hillary has scrubbed her website of Spitzer references.

Complaint is here. And, from the NYT story:

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

The hypocrisy. And Michael Gebert emails:

Even if you’re all for legalizing prostitution, and consequently think that Spitzer didn’t really do anything wrong sex-wise, the issue remains that he delivered himself as the highest elected official in New York state into the power of an international crime ring with, it seems safe to assume, connections to other crime organizations which New York prosecutors have been battling for decades. I realize the truth of the Clinton-era line “whenever they say it’s not about the sex, it’s about the sex,” but really, the biggest betrayal of public trust in this is who the governor of New York got into bed with, not what he did there.

Yes, he certainly made himself blackmailable, at the very least.

NAME THAT PARTY: Special DWI Edition!

BERKELEY EAST? Toledo to Marines: Get Out.

UPDATE: Reader Ryan Kelley thinks this is unfair:

There’s a huge difference between Berkley giving Code Pink a parking spot in front of a recruiting center and the mayor of a city which has been hosting Marine training since 2004 getting miffed because -he- wasn’t informed that they were going to train. The rest of the City was perfectly fine with it.

This is Ohio – not California. That kind of behavior towards our armed forces isn’t tolerated. Unfortunately the ignorance by Ohio city leaders on display in Toledo is tolerated.

True, this seems to be more about petty personal pique on the Mayor’s part. Several readers also noted that this is a Name That Party scenario, and that, unsurprisingly, the Mayor turns out to be a Democrat.

FROM NAME THAT PARTY to Name That Hijacker!

NO NEED TO PLAY NAME THAT PARTY HERE!

A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.

The former Republican congressman from Michigan, Mark Deli Siljander, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying—money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I suspect that there’s a good deal more corruption of this type, actually.

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY name that party!

ANOTHER BLAGOJEVICH SCANDAL, in the Chicago Tribune: “Federal agents are investigating real estate deals involving Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s wife as part of a three-year corruption probe into allegations of favoritism and fraud within his administration.” (Via NewsAlert).

UPDATE: Name that party! Will Collier emails: “The Chicago Tribune story on Blagojevich you linked to does not contain the word ‘Democrat.’” Yeah. Chicagoans know, of course, but the Trib is supposed to be a national paper. And I had to stop and think myself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Harmon Ward emails: “Won’t leaving ‘Democrat’ or ‘Democratic’ out of the articles that also contain the word “Corruption” reduce the instances of finding those articles when they are Googled?” Good point. I doubt that’s their goal, but it is still significant.

“BUCKWHEAT!” Another chance to play Name That Party!

NAME THAT PARTY! was actually invented by Don Surber, not me.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Is there a connection between earmarks and corruption?

This Roll Call story might make you wonder:

Since hiring Richard Kaelin, Visclosky’s former chief of staff, at the beginning of 2004, PMA and its clients have roughly doubled their fundraising support for the Congressman. That help includes contributing 50 percent of the total funds raised through June 30, 2007, by Calumet PAC, Visclosky’s four-year-old leadership political action committee, according to an analysis of federal election records.

It is a classic Washington, D.C., triangle of interlocking self-interests: in this case, a powerful Congressman, an influential lobby shop and the lobby firm’s numerous clients. And while it is impossible to know the exact reasons that some firms get earmarks and others do not, in Visclosky’s case, there are certain irrefutable facts: PMA and its clients are the Congressman’s top fundraisers — and PMA clients his top earmarking recipients.

Coincidence? I’m sure they’d argue that there’s nothing shady going on here. But why should we believe them? More coincidence here:

Clients of the PMA Group have fared particularly well by Visclosky this year. They won 14 of 28 earmarks he inserted into the Defense spending bill alone — a total of $28 million in projects, or some 52 percent of the funds Visclosky earmarked in the bill, according to an analysis by Roll Call and Taxpayers for Common Sense. (A Roll Call analysis of Visclosky’s earmarks last month undercounted his support for PMA clients, since the firm failed to file a mid-year report with the Senate detailing its work for ProLogic, a West Virginia-based company and a tenant in the technology center.)

The Indiana lawmaker’s help steering millions of federal dollars to PMA clients this year comes against the backdrop of what appears to be the firm’s most aggressive fundraising for him to date. In the first six months of this year, PMA and its clients contributed $248,400 to Visclosky’s leadership PAC and personal campaign coffers, 29 percent of his total haul.

It’s as if there’s a culture of corruption, or something.

UPDATE: People are accusing me of playing Name That Party! Well, I try not to make a big deal of party affiliation in these Porkbusters posts, because pork is — quite clearly — a bipartisan problem. But lest I be accused of hiding the ball, well, here you go.

AN OIL-FOR-FOOD CONVICTION.

And another chance to play Name That Party! Don Surber mentions what some news accounts don’t.

NOT PLAYING “NAME THAT PARTY” AT The New York Times: “Among the 11 public officials arrested in an F.B.I. corruption sting in New Jersey today was a leading Democratic supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in that state, Mayor Samuel Rivera of Passaic. It was the latest legal embarrassment involving an ally of the Clinton campaign, coming only one day after a wealthy Clinton donor, Norman Hsu, missed his court date in a California fraud case and apparently disappeared.”

CORRUPTION ARRESTS IN NEW JERSEY: Another chance to play Name That Party!

GUNS DON’T CAUSE CRIME, GUN CONTROL CAUSES CRIME: Or at least, anti-gun law enforcement officers seem to have legal problems a lot.

Meanwhile, another chance to play name that party!

ANOTHER ROUND OF NAME THAT PARTY!

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION FROM GREG HLATKY: “If Senator Craig purchased sex offsets to live a sex-neutral lifestyle, would this immunize him from charges of hypocrisy?”

Indubitably. But who would sell them?

UPDATE: Reader Chris O’Brien emails: “‘The Sex Offsets’ would actually be a cool name for a band.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: No need to play Name That Party! with Larry Craig!

MORE: Ed Holston emails: “What, exactly, did Craig do that was illegal?” That would be an interesting question, if Craig hadn’t pled guilty.

MORE PEOPLE ARE PLAYING name that party!

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAY name that party! “ABC 7 has learned the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority have charged Representative Robert Filner of California with assault and battery following an incident at Dulles International Airport Sunday night.”

UPDATE: Reader Hastings Walton visited Filner’s website, which informs us that “Bob is a fearless fighter.” I guess so.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Shelby Clark emails: “The lead-in sentence to the ABC 7 report now reads ‘…Democratic Representative Robert Filner…’” The mystery has been solved!

MORE: Another alert reader emails that Filner’s party affiliation has moved down to the second paragraph. The news is a living thing!

IT’S TIME TO PLAY ANOTHER ROUND OF name that party!

PLAYING NAME THAT PARTY! And again!

PLAYING “NAME THAT PARTY” at the Associated Press.