WASHINGTON, DC, February 25, 2015 –/WORLD-WIRE/– An explosive whistleblower hearing transcript paints a vivid picture of rampant scientific misconduct, callous reprisal and systemic mendacity within the upper echelons of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which posted the full texts today. The transcript also illustrates how a highly-touted agency Scientific Integrity Policy has become a tool for just the opposite.
This whistleblower case is striking because it involves a high-level manager rather than a field biologist; Gary Mowad is a 28-year FWS veteran and former Deputy Director for law enforcement. For the past few years, Mowad had been the FWS Texas Administrator for the Ecological Services Division, handling a parade of thorny endangered species and natural resource issues arising out of the Lone Star State.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez and Cory Booker have asked the New Jersey attorney general’s office to investigate whether insurers were purposely underestimating Hurricane Sandy damages suffered by homeowners.
The two senators, in a letter to Acting Attorney General John Hoffman, said they were concerned that insurance companies had been rewriting engineering reports to avoid payments by claiming that damage was caused by factors other than the hurricane.
The Clinton Foundation reportedly is seeing an increase in contributions from foreign governments after ending a self-imposed ban on such donations, raising new ethical questions as Hillary Clinton prepares for a possible 2016 presidential campaign. According to The Wall Street Journal, which cited the foundation’s online database, recent donors to the foundation include the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany, and a Canadian government agency promoting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
There will always be corruption in government — and Albany is no worse than anywhere else, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
“You’ve always had and you probably always will have some level of corruption,’’ said Cuomo in an interview with New York 1.
“Power corrupts, and government is a source of power, you have it in the City Council, you have it in the state Legislature, you have it in the Congress of the United States, so, that continues.”
The governor of Oregon appears to be on the brink of resigning, after four months of revelations about his fiancee’s roles as a state contractor and first lady.
Among other allegations, Governor John Kitzhaber is accused of steering contracts to his fiancee’s environmental consulting firm. His fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, is accused of using public office to further private interests.
“A number of Republicans, including most of their leaders, are bad enough, but over half theDemocrats, including almost all the City Irish, are vicious, stupid-looking scoundrels with apparently not a redeeming trait … a stupid, sodden vicious lot, most of them being equally deficient in brains and virtue.”
That was the assessment of the state Legislature by a freshman assemblyman.
The writer was 23-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, and he kept a private legislative diary when he first came to Albany in 1882.
As we recently discussed, there’s a bit of a tug of war going on inside New York’s state government, as Governor Andrew Cuomo dodges around to stay out of the corruption investigation net which has already swept up former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. While there is no word as to whether or not Silver will roll for the prosecutors and give up the governor, the media has gotten essentially nothing from the big guy. When asked to comment, he has repeatedly given one version or another of the same response.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho’s Attorney General Lawrence Wasden says his office has received nearly 60 complaints concerning county-level public corruption ever since lawmakers expanded the scope of his office last year.
Wasden told legislative budget writers of the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee Tuesday that 12 of the complaints are being investigated, 16 are pending and 30 didn’t meet the criteria to be prosecuted.
Prosecutors have detained a former Romanian tourism minister and presidential candidate on charges of money laundering and influence peddling.
A lawyer confirmed that center-right politician Elena Udrea, who finished fourth in November’s presidential election, was detained for 24 hours late Tuesday after she entered the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office to answer charges.
