Sorry Illinois-Bashers--North Dakota Wins the Title of Most Corrupt

Wow ... Chicago is Chicago - but what's in North Dakota to attract greed ???

I would have thought that Illinois would have been the hands down winner.

Where's Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly when you really need them? lol

Anyway I just find it hard to believe that this much corruption going on in the political world.

i would have thought north dakota would have been lower in ranking!

I loved the movie "Fargo"....

Seems the figures are calculated on a per capita basis meaning with suh a low population rate any corruption affects more people on the average.

It's because North Dakota only have 5 people in the entire state. One was put up on corruption charges, putting them at a whole 20%.

That's why.

Don Morrison, executive director of the non-partisan North Dakota Center for the Public Good, said it may be that North Dakotans are better at rooting out corruption when it occurs.

"Being a sparsely populated state, people know each other," he said. "We know our elected officials and so certainly to do what the governor of Illinois did is much more difficult here."

So if we quit having the good old boy network in Illinois and Chicago we would probably be higher up on that corruption list.

Huh, I would have never guessed...

Flawed logic. These were convictions, and in a truly corrupt administration, the lawbreakers would never be arrested, much less convicted. A high rate of convictions may mean the state actually goes after corruption more than the ones with the lower percentages of convictions. Also, since the numbers are based on convictions as a percentage of population, huge states like California and New York would have to have wall-to-wall corrupt office-holders to merit a 2 percent conviction rate per capita. I think Illinois is probably in the running with Washington, D.C. for the title of Most Corrupt.

I thought Alaska held the honors.

Sandy, your family sounds pretty spunky.

Thinking Ada has an interesting point. Can you base on convictions? How do you measure who is not getting caught? Guess you can't.


Think it would be hard to be low profile in N Dakota.

Elmo, I like your comment: "Think it would be hard to be low profile in N Dakota."

Must have learned it from Chicago

Thanks for sharing, I thought North Dakota would be near the bottom of the list.

I still feel that Barack Obama did as well as he did nationally partly because of the egos, hardball politics and media in Chicago. Dealing with Mayor Daley, John Stroger, Emil Jones, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times is no cake walk if you can deal with those folks you can deal with most things politics will throw your way.

Brian, having lived there for 25 years, I know that it is, as you put it a "hardball politics" town. It kept us entertained, that's for sure.

My state came in before Illinois.

At least they convict some of their criminal politicians. Wish we could say the same about our last Governor, who pardoned himself and all of his cronies.

He pardoned himself?

I think New Jersey wins it. Illinois is second.

""""Wow ... Chicago is Chicago - but what's in North Dakota to attract greed ??? """""

Republicans, conspiracy theories, snow, grass, and desperate demorats looking for a story to change a subject.

Sandy, I want to know what he did that he pardoned himself for?

Meet Ernie Fletcher. According to this, he did NOT pardon himself. I was certain he did, but it looks like I was certainly wrong.

Ernie was quite the character it sounds like. Thanks for enlightening me.

Actually LA is number one and Illinois is #9....

I grew up in Chicago during the Daley years...it is a tough city and one where families really look out for each other especially in the blue collar job market. One time Daley was criticized for giving a construction bid to one of his sons companies...when asked about it he basically said "So what - he's my son, I trust him to do a good job - whats wrong with that"...So if you take a min and really thing about it...if you can't trust your friends and family to do a good job if you give it to them - who can you trust??? In some area's it might even be called building the family business....
How is Blagojevich any different than Bush or Cheney?

Or - What is the difference between what Blagojevich did and Congress and the Senate members taking donations from the banks to pass the bank bailout against 90% of the taxpayer's wishes?

Anyway...

I found an interesting article about our boy Bush.....written in 1999......and it only confirms Politics is a form of networking and one hand helps the other...when is it corrupt? Good question..guess it depends on which side of the fence you are on....

By John Aloysius Farrell, Globe Staff, 10/03/99
George W. Bush calls them ''my best friends.'' They are Texans, men of pride and substance, and considerable generosity. They stand out as his fund-raising ''pioneers,'' business partners, and financial angels.

In the last six years, Bush's Texas friends raised most of the $40 million that he used in two gubernatorial races and became the single-biggest group of donors to the $56 million war chest of his presidential campaign.

With the help of his deep-pocketed allies, Bush rose from being the son of a famous man to being a two-term governor of the nation's second-biggest state; a multimillionaire and a formidable contender for the presidency. It was Texas money that, flowing into the Bush campaign early this year, primed his phenomenal money pump and made him a front-runner.

In return, Governor Bush has shown his gratitude and loyalty.

He has appointed his ''best friends'' to the state boards and commissions that regulate business and the environment in Texas. He has invited polluters to craft air pollution standards in a state that is facing federal sanctions for its dirty air. He has given contributors the power to make investment decisions for the huge state employee pension funds and university endowments.

He has championed his friends' cause to make the courts more protective of corporate interests, at the expense of plaintiffs.

''What did some of the smartest CEOs in the country get from Governor Bush for $50 million worth of contributions? The answer is: proven performance,'' said Thomas Smith of the Austin-based consumer group Public Citizen.

Though limited by federal law to giving only $1,000 to a candidate for president, most of Bush's financial angels compounded their clout by the common practice of collecting bundles of tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from family members, friends, and business associates. Some have also given five-figure gifts of unregulated ''soft money'' to the Republican Party. Many are serving as ''pioneers'' - members of a select group of wealthy men who have each vowed to raise $100,000 or more for the governor's presidential campaign.

Campaign donors in American politics are motivated by varied impulses. Some give money from a sense of public service. Some seek political celebrity. Some donate out of fraternal or ideological kinship. Some want access, favors, and receptivity...

.............the article goes on and on and on...

..............but get the point?

The thought crossed my mind...many articles have been written by folks who felt, Bush bought the Presidency....hmmm where was the FBI........

Donna, unfortunately it's a lot more than just networking. Blagojevich put the squeeze on Childrens Memorial Hospital in Chicago, withholding funds.

According to the complaint, the governor wanted to raise $2.5 million before the end of the year. One way was to extract campaign contributions in exchange for providing state funding to pay for medical care for needy children.

Pediatric specialists at hospitals like Children's Memorial are paid 33 cents on every dollar it costs to provide care to kids on Medicaid. Like other hospitals it wanted to get $8 million in state funding to adequately reimburse the doctors.

But the federal government charged Tuesday that to sign off on that, the governor wanted something for himself.

"He also indicated privately that what he wanted to get was a $50,000 private contribution from the chief executive of that hospital," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

But the Children's Memorial executive did not return phone calls from a Blagojevich fundraiser, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the case. The governor had the following tape-recorded conversation with one of his deputies on November 12:

Blagojevich: "The pediatric doctors, the reimbursement. Has that gone out yet or is that still on hold?

Deputy Governor A: The rate increase?

Blagojevich: Yeah

Deputy Governor A: It's January 1

Blagojevich: And we have total discretion over it?

Deputy Governor A: Yep.

Blagojevich: We could pull it back if we needed to- budgetary concerns- right?

Deputy Governor A: We sure could. Yep

Blagojevich: OK. That's good to know."

The governor had apparently not released that money as of his arrest Tuesday.

"There is a hospital, Children's Memorial believing its getting 8 million but its CEO has not coughed up a campaign contribution. And the thought that money may get pulled back from Children's Memorial is something you cannot abide," Fitzgerald said.