Nick West's Anti-Corrupion Blog: May 2014

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Ex-Madison-Rankin DA Clark fought corruption

10:59 p.m. CDT May 30, 2014

Former Madison-Rankin District Attorney David Clark is remembered as a prosecutor who aggressively went after public corruption. Clark died Thursday of natural causes. His funeral is Sunday.

Former Madison-Rankin District Attorney David Clark is remembered as a prosecutor who aggressively tried to stamp out public corruption.

Clark of Florence died Thursday of natural causes at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center.

He was 69.

Clark served two separate terms as district attorney for Madison and Rankin counties, from 1988-92 and again from 2004-08.

In his first term as district attorney, Clark was known as an aggressive prosecutor of corruption.

Brandon attorney Jim Kelly, a former assistant district attorney, said Clark was a fine gentleman and excellent prosecutor.

“He made it a personal and professional mission to fight public corruption,” Kelly said of Clark.

In 1988, all five of Rankin County’s supervisors resigned from office on the same day, under threat of criminal prosecution by Clark.

“I promised to clean up Rankin County, and I did,” Clark once said.

Clark ran unsuccessfully for state attorney general in the early ’90s, passing up an opportunity to seek re-election to the DA’s position.

It was 2003 when Clark decided to seek the DA’s position again. He said then that he decided to run for a second term on an impulse.

Clark defeated incumbent Rick Mitchell, which came as a surprise to a lot of people.

There were concerns raised about Clark’s health because of medical issues. A petition was filed trying to get Clark’s name off of the November 2003 general election ballot, but the petition was dismissed .

Clark was defeated when he ran for re-election in 2007 by current District Attorney Michael Guest, who once worked under Clark.

“I had an opportunity to work for David Clark as an assistant district attorney for almost three years. I know that David worked hard to see that the people of Madison and Rankin County were kept safe and that he preformed a great service to our communities,” Guest said Friday.

Clark was fond of saying he believed it was his responsibility to stand up for the weak over the rich and powerful.

His funeral is Sunday at 2 p.m. at United Methodist Church in Florence. Visitation is 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at Chancellor Funeral Home in Florence.

To contact Jimmie E. Gates, call (601) 961-7212 or jgates@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @jgatesnews on Twitter.

Experts: Corruption Exposing Kenya to Terrorism

By Tom Odula Associated, abcnews.go.com
View Original
May 29th, 2014

Corrupt police and other government employees willing to break rules for bribes are weakening Kenya's ability to prevent a new rash of terror carried out by attackers with links to Somali militants, officials and analysts say.

Kenya has seen a long string of deadly attacks this year, including grenade blasts and homemade bombs deployed against buses, in markets and at a beachside hotel. Security officials fear another Westgate Mall-style attack — an assault by four gunmen in September that killed at least 67 people — could be coming.

"Corruption — systemic graft — is at the heart of the state's inability to respond to insecurity in general," said John Githongo, a former Kenyan government adviser who exposed millions of dollars in government corruption.

Grand theft by the country's ruling elite has allowed an attitude of "if he can do it so can I" to permeate the country's lower ranking security apparatus, he said.

"We are paying the price in blood," Githongo said.

Two senior Kenyan police officials who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals said police officers, customs officials and immigration officials are easily compromised because of low pay and bad working conditions. One of the officers said there have been multiple instances of police arresting a suspect and setting him free for a bribe and it later turned the suspect is a terrorist.

Corruption has a long history in Kenya. A decade ago a series of security contracts dubbed Anglo-Leasing that were supposed to improve the country's security infrastructure with the purchase of police helicopters, communication systems and a forensic laboratory instead saw money by senior government officials plundered, Githongo said. No one has served any prison time for what is believed to have been a loss of tens of millions of dollars of government money.

"National security has always been the last refuge of the corrupt in Kenya. Security sector contracts were always subject to unconstrained predatory treatment. The chickens are coming home to roost and it hurts," Githongo said.

Government funds were also squandered in the 1990s, when the police force was supplied with vehicles "of a caliber lower than any you would get on the road," said Samuel Kimeu, who heads the Kenyan chapter of the of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. "It was an unmitigated disaster," he said.

Kimeu noted that after the Westgate attack, which saw a huge section of the mall catch fire and collapse, FBI forensic experts helped to identify the remains of the attackers. Had the Ango-Leasing scandal not happened, Kenya could have done that work itself, he said.

"We had to seek foreign forensic expertise that we should have were it not for the corruption riddled procurement over 10 years ago," he said.

Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants have vowed to carry out revenge attacks in Kenya because the East African country sent troops to Somalia to fight the extremists in 2011.

Kimeu said there are too many illegal aliens in the country who have authentic Kenyan identification documents, an easy way for a terrorist from Somalia to get into the country. After Westgate, the government fired 15 customs agents for issuing government documents for bribes.

Kenyan authorities have reacted to the wave of terror attacks by carrying out sweeps on illegal aliens in Somali enclaves in Nairobi. At least 3,000 people have been arrested and nearly 400 deported. The operation has drawn heavy criticism from rights groups who accuse police of extortion and bribe-taking.

The Kenyan activist group InformAction, in a YouTube video titled "All in a Good Days Work," posted a video of a police officer with someone in custody letting the woman go after handing money to the officer.

The man in charge of the force is Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku. During a recent graduation ceremony for new recruits Ole Lenku called the accusation that police were demanding $60 bribes during the security sweep a "distraction."

Brazil's corruption-fighting Supreme Court chief abruptly resigns

Brazil's first black Supreme Court president, who earned a reputation for prosecuting political corruption, has abruptly announced that he will resign and withdraw from active public life.

Joaquim Barbosa, who garnered widespread fame for convicting top politicians in the so-called Mensalao corruption case, had appeared as a contender for the presidency in voter polls, despite eschewing political ambitions and being ineligible for a presidential run until 2018.

The judge announced his resignation Wednesday and told President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday that he would not be in the country during elections this year, local media reported. The announcement weakened speculation that Barbosa would play some role in the campaigns.

“I am honored indeed to have been a part of this college,” Barbosa said. Of his plans, he said: “Politics, not in any way!... I'll be like [former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva]; I'll give speeches.”

Barbosa, 59, was raised in a poor family from the heartland state of Minas Gerais and was appointed to the Supreme Court by Lula in 2003. But Barbosa drew the enimity of Lula's party after sending 12 participants in the Mensalao case to jail.

At the same time, Barbosa became a national hero, inspiring Carnival masks and garnering support in election polls, including one in February that put him ahead of the main opposition presidential candidates.

Despite a dip in popularity, Rousseff is favored to win reelection later this year against center-right candidates Aecio Neves and Eduardo Campos. If no clear winner emerges on Oct. 5, a runoff will be held.

An editorial in Rio's O Globo newspaper lauded Barbosa's tenure but said that at times he overstepped his mandate.

“In the case of Joaquim Barbosa, you have to go much further than the adjective 'polemical,' often used to describe people like him,” the editorial said. “But his biography features the tenacity and competence that he applied to the PT Mensalao case ... and gave hope that independence between powers could do away with impunity for the powerful at times.”

Brown sentencing latest chapter in spate of D.C. corruption cases

WASHINGTON (AP/WJLA) - Former District of Columbia Councilmember Michael Brown’s sentencing Thursday for taking more than $50,000 in bribes is just the latest bruise for a local government that some say is plagued by corruption and pay-to-play politics.

Brown is one of three former members of the D.C. Council (the others are Harry Thomas Jr. and Kwame Brown) who pleaded guilty to felonies, including bribery and embezzlement, over the past few years. And then there’s embattled Mayor Vincent Gray, who lost his re-election bid when he was upset in the Democratic mayoral primary last month. He remains under federal investigation for a $668,000 campaign slush fund that prosecutors say he knew about; five people involved with his winning 2010 campaign have already been convicted in that case.

While the district is far from unique among U.S. cities that have suffered through a spate of criminal activity, some believe corruption has been enabled in part because many residents maintain political loyalties elsewhere or pay closer attention to the federal government, the district’s largest employer.

"We suffer the serious handicap of a citizen base that is only marginally invested in our success," said Johnny Allem, a 40-year veteran of city politics who worked as a spokesman for former Mayor Marion Barry, who was elected to a fourth term in the mid-1990s despite a drug conviction after being videotaped smoking crack cocaine in an FBI sting operation.

"Too many of our residents and citizens consider themselves travelers passing through," Allem observed.

Ron Faucheux, a veteran Washington-based pollster and the president of Clarus Research Group, said: "You have some people who make a living off of politics who live in Washington, D.C., and can't name their own member of the city council."

For those paying attention, there's plenty to gawk at. But Georgetown University political scientist Mark Rom contends "there's no evidence that Washington, D.C., is more corrupt than other major American cities.”
Corruption, he said, is often "invisible, so we don't really know how much is going on in different places before it gets exposed."

Earlier this year, former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin was convicted on 20 corruption charges, and late last year, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption.

But those cities aren't under the thumb of Congress, which has the final say over Washington's budget and laws. District residents only gained the right to elect their mayor and council in 1973, and some say the district’s fight for greater local autonomy and voting representation in Congress has been hurt by the failures of local leaders.

Last year, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., compared the district's requests for greater autonomy to teenagers seeking more spending money from parents. Mica chairs a House subcommittee that oversees district government.

Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from northern Virginia and an advocate for district voting rights, said corruption certainly doesn't help the city's case for autonomy and emphasized that citizens must hold elected officials accountable.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Memorial Day in United States

Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May. It was formerly known as Decoration Day and commemorates all men and women, who have died in military service for the United States. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day and it is traditionally seen as the start of the summer season.

What do people do?

It is traditional to fly the flag of the United States at half mast from dawn until noon. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries. Memorial Day is combined with Jefferson Davis' Birthday in Mississippi.

Memorial Day has become less of an occasion of remembrance. Many people choose to hold picnics, sports events and family gatherings on this weekend. This day is traditionally seen as the start of the summer season for cultural events. For the fashion conscious, it is seen as acceptable to wear white clothing, particularly shoes from Memorial Day until Labor Day. However, fewer and fewer people follow this rule and many wear white clothing throughout the year.

Public life

Memorial Day is a federal holiday. All non-essential Government offices are closed, as are schools, businesses and other organizations. Most public transit systems do not run on their regular schedule. Many people see Memorial Day weekend as an opportunity to go on a short vacation or visit family or friends. This can cause some congestion on highways and at airports.

Background

Memorial Day started as an event to honor Union soldiers, who had died during the American Civil War. It was inspired by the way people in the Southern states honored their dead. After World War I, it was extended to include all men and women, who died in any war or military action.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. The current name for this day did not come into use until after World War II. Decoration Day and then Memorial Day used to be held on May 30, regardless of the day of the week, on which it fell. In 1968, the Uniform Holidays Bill was passed as part of a move to use federal holidays to create three-day weekends. This meant that that, from 1971, Memorial Day holiday has been officially observed on the last Monday in May. However, it took a longer period for all American states to recognize the new date.