A Virginia oil trading company has pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal and will pay a $250,000 fine. Midway Trading, located in Reston, Virginia, is one of thousands of companies connected to the oil-for-food program created to supposedly help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 Kuwait

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The folks running the Federal Emergency Management Agency have apparently been stricken with common sense. After being criticized for awarding more than a billion dollars in no-bid federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, FEMA has vowed to re bid in an effort to prevent any waste or abuse. Why FEMA didn’t think of accepting

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San Diego’s Union-Tribune has a new piece up on the matter of lobbyists and the troubling amount of influence they have on City Hall. It is the most recent article in a series examining San Diego’s finances and decision making. The article first describes a real scenario where a living-wage ordinance is up for a

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Two days ago, Jeffrey Gettleman wrote in The New York Times about the current governor’s race in New Jersey. Jon Corzine, the Democrat who spent nearly $60 million of his own fortune to win his Senate seat in 2000, is now battling to win the open seat. One of his campaign promises is to clean

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A story about a thug-like, convicted private detective to the stars in today’s New York Times fails to mention his well-documented connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Could it have been an honest exclusion or one of many examples of the “mainstream” media’s enamor with the former president and his wife? Bottom line is that

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An Orlando Florida circuit judge was finally removed from the bench this week by the Florida Supreme Court. Judge James Henson was first suspended by the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission for misconduct eight months ago, yet he continued to collect his regular annual salary of $139,497 to stay home and go golfing. The Florida Supreme

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Could it be that corrupt and inept city officials contributed greatly to all the deaths and injuries caused by Hurricane Katrina? According to a former president of the New Orleans City Council and former Orleans Levee Board member that is exactly the case. Peggy Wilson, a New Orleans city councilwoman from 1986 through 1998 and

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The world’s largest wealth management firm, UBS, is being investigated by Congress for laundering money for two state sponsors of terrorism, in violation of U.S. Federal Reserve law. The Swiss bank, which operates a massive financial services business in the United States, has helped Cuba and Iran launder nearly $4 billion. The bank also had

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The United States leads the way in contributing funding to the United Nations according to statistics compiled by UN watchdog, Eye on the UN. The United States has the maximum assessed contribution to the UN regular budget – 22%. In 2005 the assessed amount is $439,611,612. The minimum assessed contribution is 0.001%. The scale of

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An update to Hillary Watch 2006 Longtime Clinton friend Harold Ickes is currently Treasurer of “Hillary Rodham Clinton for US Senate Committee Inc” (FEC data). Ickes previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Clinton White from 1994 to 1997. He earned the notorious title of ?Director of Sanitation? as he took care of

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