Conflicts of Interest

A front-page article in Monday's New York Times quotes Prayuth Chan-ocha, the general who currently rules Thailand, and who declared a net worth of $4 million (nearly half in cash) on an annual army salary of $40,000, as saying in a televised speech, "Do not judge people based on your perceptions."…

One of the news media's biggest problems is failing to look at the big picture and, instead, focusing on specific events and issues. This is especially true when it comes to government ethics, where the news media generally considers, and calls for, ethics reforms on a piecemeal basis. An article o…

When gifts from lobbyists to government officials are discussed, what they consist of is usually money (including campaign contributions), meals, trips, and services. A pending Missouri House bill  (2059; attached, see below) seeks to extend the definition of reportable "gift" from lobbyists in thi…

Local governments that lack a lobbying oversight program do not have to merely throw up their hands when a huge procurement matter arises. They have the choice to set rules for that matter which, if it works, may later be applied more generally. This is the lesson that comes from the York, Ontario …

Rarely do agencies' own lobbyists get caught by their agency breaking agency rules on communications. This is what just happened in Houston. According to an article last night on Houston's Channel 13 website, an individual who, under a contract, lobbies state and federal officials for the Metropoli…

A former head of Chicago's public school system has said she will plead guilty to a scheme to take hundreds of thousands of dollars, airfare, meals, and baseball tickets in exchange for steering more than $23 million in no-bid contracts to her former employer, an educational consulting and training…

Conflicts of interest are generally not seen to apply to local party committees. There are almost never limitations on membership or voting on such committees by local government employees, contractors, developers, grantees, or others seeking financial benefits from the government. An article in to…

Long ago, experts in philosophy, physics, and psychology recognized that reality and perception are not as different as people used to think. And yet people continue to think it. One area where they continue to think it is government ethics. According to an article in the Stamford (CT) Advocate las…

In an article on the deportation of Haitians from the Dominican Republic in yesterday's New York Times, a police officer agonizes over the prospect of having to deport his best friend, a Haitian immigrant. “I have no choice,” he is quoted as saying. “It saddens me to think about being ordered to de…

Anyone who follows my blog knows that my favorite city to write about is Vernon, CA, the "Dream Machine," a city with lots of industry and no one other than city employees who might complain about what's in their backyard, or call for oversight. But Vernon is not the only city of its kind, not even…