Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

February 14, 2018 By Fausta

Yet another oil industry corruption scandal

This time in Nigeria,

Inside the Bribery Scandal Sweeping Through the Oil Industry. Shell and Eni paid $1.3 billion for oil rights in Nigeria. Whether the money was mostly a bribe is at the heart of one of the industry’s most dramatic criminal cases.

As you may recall, Petrobras to pay $2.95 billion to settle U.S. corruption lawsuit earlier this year.

The Pemex-Odebrecht cases are still in the headlines.

And who could forget the UN’s oil-for-food?

It’s enough to make one suspect that government-owned and UN-connected agencies are ripe for the picking.

Share

Filed Under: corruption, Fausta's blog, oil, Oil-For-Food Tagged With: Odebrecht, PEMEX, PETROBRAS

February 1, 2018 By Fausta

Menendez case dismissed, DoJ won’t retry

The Justice Department dismissed its case against New Jersey Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, and will not re-try:

Justice Department drops corruption case against Menendez. The decision comes a week after a federal judge acquitted Menendez and co-defendant Salomon Melgen on seven of the 18 counts.

The decision is a major victory for Menendez and the Democratic Party, which was facing the prospect of having the 12-year incumbent facing a corruption trial while running for what should be one of its safest Senate seats.

It also comes a week after Judge William Walls damaged the prosecution’s case by acquitting Menendez and [Solomon] Melgen on seven of the 18 corruption counts they had faced during a two-and-a-half-month trial last fall. The trial ended in a hung jury, with one juror telling reporters that 10 of the 12 members of the panel favored acquittal on most counts.
. . .
Menendez was charged in 2015 with doing official favors for Melgen in exchange for private jet flights, lavish vacations — including luxury hotel stays — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Federal prosecutors also charged Menendez with willfully leaving Melgen’s gifts off his Senate financial disclosure forms.

Menendez had gone against the Obama administration’s key foreign policy regarding the Iran deal and Cuba, Russia, and also in his

support of dissidents from countries other than Cuba: He vigorously supports the State of Israel against Iran-sponsored Hamas in Gaza, which also figures in his support of international sanctions against the Iranian nuclear program – sanctions that Ecuador and Venezuela attempt to help Iran avoid. And, by the way, last year the story was that Menendez was allegedly helping a pair of Ecuadorian fugitive bankers.

The “Ecuadorian fugitive bankers” are brothers William and Roberto Isaías, who fled Ecuador ten years ago after the government allegedly confiscated media outlets they owned which were critical of the government. They are here legally.

Last November a judge declared a mistrial over a deadlocked jury.

For now, Menendez is off the hook.

He’s expected to run for reelection in November.

I’ve been following the Menendez-Melgen story from the start here and here.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

Share

Filed Under: corruption, Fausta's blog, New Jersey Tagged With: Bob Menendez, Robert Menendez, Solomon Melgen

January 15, 2018 By Fausta

Puerto Rico: Hoarding electric equipment

Corruption: ARMED FEDERAL AGENTS ENTER WAREHOUSE IN PUERTO RICO TO SEIZE HOARDED ELECTRIC EQUIPMENT

ON SATURDAY, A day after becoming aware of a massive store of rebuilding materials being held by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the U.S. federal government — the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with their security detail — entered a Palo Seco warehouse owned by the public utility to claim and distribute the equipment, according to a spokesperson for the Corps.
. . .
“Due to the size of the warehouse,” Vera said, accounting for everything contained therein is still underway days later. Among the materials recovered so far are “2,875 pieces of critical material to contractors” along with the sleeves of full-tension steel, a component of Puerto Rican electrical infrastructure required to erect new power lines. PREPA did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment, though in a statement to the Associated Press, it rejected allegations that it had failed to distribute the warehouse’s contents. The AP only reported that “officials over the weekend also discovered some needed materials in a previously overlooked warehouse owned by Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.” How they discovered them and how they were obtained is a story that has not been fully told.

Read it and weep.

Share

Filed Under: corruption, Fausta's blog, Puerto Rico Tagged With: Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa)

November 10, 2017 By Fausta

Venezuela: Nicolas and the forty thieves UPDATED

The US has imposed sanctions on 10 Venezuelan officials it accuses of undermining democracy, corruption and censoring the press, for a total of forty, including Nicolás Maduro.

The ten have had their US assets frozen and are also banned from travelling to the country, while American businesses are forbidden to work with them.

The treasury department also issued bans against several members of Venezuela’s all-powerful Constituent Assembly, including a vice-president.

In other news,

Ambassadors of European Union member states agreed on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Venezuela.

They also said there would be a ban on any equipment which could be used to repress opponents within Venezuela.

The sanctions come after a UN report released in August accused Venezuela of human rights violations and using excessive force against the opposition.

Caracas Chronicles calls it A Bad Day for the Dictatorship.

Not bad enough. They’re still in charge.

UPDATE

Russia rushes to #Venezuela's rescue for the 3rd time this year! Getting in bed with incompetent #Maduro in order to pursue their own foreign policy objectives. https://t.co/P46WwGrzLn

— Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) November 9, 2017

Share

Filed Under: Communism, corruption, EU, Fausta's blog, Venezuela Tagged With: Nicolas Maduro

October 30, 2017 By Fausta

Today’s headline: Manafort indicted

At Drudge Report:


EX-TRUMP CAMPAIGN CHAIR, BUSINESS PARTNER CHARGED...
12-COUNT INDICTMENT...
CONSPIRACY AGAINST USA...
MONEY LAUNDERING...

TAX FRAUD...
MUELLER GETS MOVING...

MANAFORT SURRENDERS TO FEDS

J.J. Sefton says it best:

The news dropped over the weekend that Robert “Torque-your-mudder” Mueller is going to lay off the first charges in this phony PDT/Russia Collusion witch hunt. After 10 months where it has now been confirmed that that so-called “dossier” was a fabricated piece of fiction cooked up by a left-wing smear agency disguised as opposition researchers, and that said fiction was bought and paid for by a combination of a never-Trumper media outlet and Clinton & Obama, then disseminated by Hillary’s campaign and the Obama-corrupted intelligence/law enforcement apparatus, we now have a crooked cop who is up to his long neck in real corruption and collusion with the Russians to goniff 20% of our strategic uranium and payoff the Clinton Crime Family while covering it up about to railroad an innocent party and perpetuate the lie that Trump is illegitimate and attempt to overthrow the 2016 election.

I apologize for my William Faulkner imitation with that sentence, but a run-on seems the only way I could get that all out. Robert Mueller should have been fired months ago. Actually Snoozy McSnoozerson should never have recused himself and then allow Deep State insurrectionists like Mueller, Rosenstein, McCabe and all the rest to have metastasized to where we are today. Water over the bridge. Mueller must be fired immediately, no matter what the political fallout may be. In any case the media, Democrats and their RINO confederates have been so thoroughly exposed that I expect a majority of real Americans would cheer the firing and amp up the cries for real justice to be visited upon Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Loretta Lynch, James Comey, Mueller himself and anyone connected with Uranium 1 and the Clinton/DNC e-mail cover-up. We are rotting from within and if justice is not done, as I fear it will not be, it will be a cancer on our society with extremely dangerous repercussions.

Blogging on LatAm shall continue later.

UPDATE
Scott Johnson:

Whoever leaked news of the indictment to CNN [last Friday] is guilty of serious wrongdoing. That’s a big story too, but CNN isn’t going to help us out on that angle.
. . .
the charges, while “not immediately clear,” do not appear to have anything to do with “collusion.”

The Manafort Indictment: Not Much There, and a Boon for Trump

Text of the indictment below:

[Read more…]

Share

Filed Under: corruption, Fausta's blog Tagged With: Paul Manafort

October 6, 2017 By Fausta

Brazil: Olympic corruption and the sixteen bars of gold

Remember last year’s Rio Olympics? Allegedly the Committee chief was the bag man:


Read my post Olympic-sized corruption: Sixteen bars of gold

Share

Filed Under: Brazil, corruption, Fausta's blog Tagged With: Carlos Nuzman, Da Tech Guy Blog

September 6, 2017 By Fausta

Brazil: Dilma & Lula’s $500 million

Attorney general says the two former presidents and allies in their leftist party embezzled around $500 million.

You read it right: half a billion $US, out of $9 billion (emphasis added),

Brazil’s attorney general on Tuesday accused former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff and some of their political allies of embezzling around $500 million between 2002 and 2016, a period encompassing all of the leftist party’s 13 years in power.

Attorney General Rodrigo Janot said that during Mr. da Silva’s and Ms. Rousseff’s terms, the suspects, all members of the Workers’ Party, or PT, used state-run companies to pocket taxpayer money.

Mr. Janot’s office said in a press release that the alleged scheme cost at least $9 billion to public coffers. Mr. Janot sent the charges to the Supreme Court, which has an undefined amount of time to either accept or dismiss them before any trial is launched.

Brazilian ex-presidents accused of forming criminal group.

At the BBC,

Mr Janot said that Lula was the head of the alleged organization, and that the Workers’ Party received some $480m (£370m) in bribes in several public entities, including Petrobras and the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES).

The scheme allegedly started with Lula’s victorious election campaign in 2002 and ended when Ms Rousseff was impeached last year, Mr Janot added in a 230-page document.

Dilma says there’s no evidence.

Lula’s running for president next year, if his appeal against a corruption conviction is successful.

Share

Filed Under: Brazil, corruption, Lula Tagged With: Dilma Rousseff, Rodrigo Janot

August 11, 2017 By Fausta

Gimme shelter, says Cristina in Argentina

Over in Argentina, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who came to power when her husband Néstor Kirchner died suddenly of a heart condition, sees a storm is threat’ning.

Read my post, Gimme shelter, says Cristina in Argentina.

Share

Filed Under: Argentina, corruption, Fausta's blog Tagged With: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 26
  • Next Page »
Tweets by @Fausta
retirees_raise-2015_300x250

Pages

  • About
  • Email

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Previous Posts

  • Mrs. Maisel goes full Alinsky on Mrs. Schlafly
  • Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • You need to unfriend me
  • Go ahead and Kiss the Girl, if you dare
  • Ashamed

Recent Comments

  • John on Mrs. Maisel goes full Alinsky on Mrs. Schlafly
  • Today’s hot topics: Democrats’ collusion shift, tax-return rift, Venezuela drift, and more! – PoliticalWitchDoctor.com on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Today’s hot topics: Democrats’ collusion shift, tax-return rift, Venezuela drift, and more! - AmericanTruthToday on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Did Venezuela’s Minister of Defense Back Out At The Last Minute? on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?
  • Roseanne Not Back, Khan not Invited, Operaman’s back, Jobs back, Fausta’s back (but not here yet) Thoughts under the fedora – Da Tech Guy Blog on Venezuela: Did the Minister of Defense back out at the last minute?

Archives

  • 2019
    • December 2019
    • May 2019
    • January 2019
  • 2018
    • December 2018
    • October 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
  • 2017
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
  • 2016
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
  • 2015
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
  • 2014
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
  • 2013
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
  • 2012
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
  • 2011
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
  • 2010
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
  • 2009
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
  • 2008
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
  • 2007
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • July 2007
    • June 2007
    • May 2007
    • April 2007
    • March 2007
    • February 2007
    • January 2007
  • 2006
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • October 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • May 2006
    • April 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
  • 2005
    • December 2005
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
  • 2004
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • August 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • April 2004
    • March 2004
Content Copyright Fausta's Blog

Site Developed and Managed by 300m.com