I've
talked about legal defense funds in the past as a way to accept
large gifts from those doing business with a local government, but I
referred, tangentially, to only one local government legal
defense fund, that of
former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. So I did some research and
came up with a few other examples, which are worth knowing about if the...
An
article on the Texas Watchdog website focuses on a serious loophole
in the Texas gift disclosure policy, which applies to local government
officials. Section
176.003(a-1) of the Local Government Code (Title 5, Subchapter C)
states:
It's always nice to see politicians provide evidence for the argument
that ethics self-regulation doesn't work, but it's rare for it to
happen in so public a way as occurred yesterday. According to an
article in Roll Call, Rep. John Carter (R-TX), "the point man for
Republicans seeking to strip Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel
(D-N.Y.) of his gavel," did not disclose large profits from a sale of
Exxon stock, even after...
A few days ago, I wrote a blog
post about how several government officials in Wausau mishandled a
conflict situation involving the purchase of property fixed up with an
interest-free loan from HUD. Yesterday's The State of South Carolina
covers two
other HUD loan conflict situations in Columbia, which are...
David
Brooks' column in the New York Times today is about two views of
character, the philosophers' and psychologists' views. He too simply portrays
the philosophers' view as involving ingrained character traits, which is sadly
how most people seem to view character. I would call this the
mythological view of character.
The psychologists' view of character involves a "multiplicity of
tendencies .....
Update: October 21, 2009 (see below)
Two interesting issues come out of a long, detailed Kansas City
Star
article yesterday about Missouri political consultant, and recent
house speaker,
Ron Jetton.