With two private jets on call and a Hollywood wife, the Turks and Caicos prime minister lived like the rich and famous who have made the Caribbean island chain one of the hottest stops for celebrities.
Michael Misick says his lifestyle allowed him to court high-end developers and helped put the British territory southeast of the Bahamas on the map.
But his financial dealings are now the focus of a British investigative commission that is wrapping up hearings this week on the main island of Providenciales.
The Turks and Caicos still answers to a London-appointed governor, who formed the commission last summer after a British Parliament report found complaints of rampant corruption on the islands. The commission could call for a criminal investigation based on what it finds.
The hearings that began Jan. 13 at the Regent Palms Hotel have included sworn testimony from Misick's estranged wife, actress LisaRaye McCoy, that she used a government-leased jet to vacation in Africa, visit her daughter in Switzerland and commute from Los Angeles. The couple also leased a Rolls-Royce and spent more than $1 million on the interior design of their home. Misick has denied abusing public funds.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I see another prime demographic for a Federal bailout.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 12:47 Comments ||
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Voters won't have to worry about Senator Richard Burr pulling a Tom Daschle. The gentleman from North Carolina pulled away from the Capitol yesterday in a 1974 VW Thing he's owned for 18 years. And here's the thing -- he drove with the top down in the middle of a snowstorm.
#3
VW came out with this clone of the WWII German 2WD military equivalent of the jeep in the early 70's. Looked like fun but was a bit impractical and expensive for me at the time.
The judges in Minnesota's Senate election trial threw Republican Norm Coleman a lifeline on Tuesday, opening the door to adding nearly 5,000 rejected absentee ballots to a race that Democrat Al Franken leads by just 225 votes.
It wasn't a total victory for Coleman, who had wanted the judges to look at about 11,000 such ballots. He also has to prove the absentees were unfairly rejected, and it's likely that Franken would gain votes from the pile too.
But his attorneys had said the absentees were the centerpiece of his court challenge, and they cheered the ruling. "This is a victory for thousands of Minnesotans whose rejected absentee ballots will now be properly reviewed in this election," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said in a prepared statement.
While the judges limited Coleman's field of potential new votes, they allowed many more ballots than Franken had wanted. His attorneys had argued Coleman should be limited to about 650 the specific figure given in his initial Jan. 6 lawsuit.
The judges, however, ruled that the Jan. 6 filing laid out additional categories of ballots that should be examined. The judges said they would look at two categories of rejected absentees: those where it appeared the voter had met the legal requirements, and those where voters might have run afoul of the law through no fault of their own.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 14:16 ||
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#1
I don't see why we don't end this kabuki theater and just seat Senator Franken. After all, he stole the election fair and square.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/04/2009 17:39 Comments ||
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#7
It was just an honest mistake.. I question any number that ever gets spieled by anyone. It depends where the number comes from and what their agenda is..
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/04/2009 12:07 Comments ||
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#8
So...did anyone there call her on it?
Why do I doubt it?
#10
Silly R'burgers!
Nancy was including the work force in Obama's 57 states:
51) China
52) India
53) Brazil
54) Indonesia
55) Kenya
56) Somalia
57) Pakistan
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 12:12 Comments ||
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#11
NaTzi Pelosi is in Congress, where thousands are paltry numbers. Think billions for a while and millions become paltry. Lawyers are't noted for being good at math or economics either.
Honest mistake? Sheeit. 500 million is close to twice the population of the United States which is a tad over 300 million - and that includes everybody, not just the employed. And every month?
#16
I'm sure she just mis-spoke, and she doesn't really think that--and I say that as someone who can't stand the woman and would crawl over landmines to vote against her.
...but if Sarah Palin had said something similar, it would have been irrefutable proof of her unsuitability for elective office, right?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009 13:41 Comments ||
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This is probably a good time to remind ourselves that as Speaker of the House Ms. Pelosi is two heartbeats from the Presidency.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/04/2009 14:02 Comments ||
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#19
Third option. She's not lying. She didn't misspeak. She just doesn't have any idea. She probably doesn't know the population of the US or the world for that matter. She probably doesn't know what a gallon of gas costs or how many liters are in a gallon. She doesn't know the difference between a fixed and variable rate mortgage. She doesn't know jack shit about the world, which is why she has the perfect job for her qualifications.
#2
Why? Washington corrupts people. The Republicans came to change Washington, but Washington changed them. The founders knew this, even 250 years ago. That is why they did not set up a democracy. We have spent the last 100 years dismantling the finely balanced machinery they designed. We should not be surprised to see that it has become corroded. Perhaps some new Josiah will find a copy of the Constitution behind a desk in the Old EOB. We've certainly no shortage of Jeremiahs.
That was actually a snark related to Daschle's trademark expression whenever Democratic legislation failed to make it through the Senate, back when Daschle was Senate Majority leader.
#4
The reason why Washington corrupts is that it is too powerful.
Lots of govt.
Lots of govt. spending
Lots of regulations.
Anyone with inside information on these things who is willing to sell their access to people who are affected by the spending, regulations, etc. is worth a lot of money. But if there were less spending and regulation, these people would be worth less.
#6
Aw come on! Washington corrupts people in the same way that guns kill people. That is, not at all. People are the only natural corrupters( I'll probably get clobbered for making that overly broad statement, but I couldn't resist the tempttaion). Corruption flourishes where there is opportunity. Careful scrutiny, and only careful scrutiny can reduce the corruption to manageable levels. Our central government has been set up to be the checks against a wide variety of excesses. But balances are necessary to adjust for changes. We are the balances and we haven't been doing our jobs. That's why Washington is careening out of control. we've fallen asleep at the wheel.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 10:50 Comments ||
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#7
Heh. Maybe the Alzheimer's is more advanced that I remembered.
#9
That old Pontiac looks like a gross polluter to me. The way it burned all that oil they certainly wouldn't allow it to be registered in Kaliphornia, at least not without an expensive ring and valve job. Hope by now he's traded it in on a nice, sensible Prius.
A seemingly innocuous letter sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives last Thursday by President Obama's Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis raises serious and troubling legal questions about her nomination and apparent violation of House ethics rules. Not only was she involved with a private organization that was lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she has cosponsored, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest. I see BHO's nominees are consistently loose with ethics.
Solis was a co-sponsor in 2007 of the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act," the card check legislation that would effectively eliminate the secret ballot and destroy the ability of employees to make an anonymous decision (without fear of retribution) on whether they want to join a union. She was also a co-sponsor of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, legislation that would force states to allow public safety officers to form unions. At the same time, however, Solis was a board member of a pro-union organization, American Rights at Work, that has been lobbying Congress on both of these bills.
According to a letter filed by Solis with the House Clerk on January 29, 2009, she was not just a director of the ARW, along with fellow travelers like David Bonior, Julian Bond, and John Sweeney, she was actually the treasurer. In other words, she is the official legally charged with the fiduciary duty of approving and signing off on all spending by the organization. And to make matters worse, she did not reveal to her colleagues in the House of Representatives that membership on her financial disclosure forms, which may constitute a separate ethical violation.
#3
This is a bit like an unpaid member of the board for the Sierra Club pushing a bill on Wilderness without mentioning the conflict of interest.
Or a senior member of ACORN legislating on voting regulations with no notice of conflict... It is the secrecy and no declaration of recusal that is the problem, not the membership in the organization.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
