Tuesday, October 28, 2008

LARKIN: FOLLOW THE MONEY


Oh yeah, just what the Larkin campaign needs now is a finance scandal swirling around Federal Campaign finance laws.
You would think, with all we learned about handling campaign contributions after that now famous Tom Delay fiasco that “Good Ol Boy” Bill would know better.

For those who don’t know about campaign financing, there are limitations as to the amount of money a single person can give to a PAC, or Political Action Committee.

In this case, the Larkin Campaign has been accepting donations from corporate interests such as AIG [yes the one that WE just bailed out] and other banking and Insurance companies and then funneling the contributions to Congressional Candidate Kieran Lalor and Judge Robert Onofry as well as Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt presumably for the purpose of funneling even more to Lalor.

The limit for donating funds from a campaign like Larkin's to all federal races, even for a sitting Senator is $1,000.
This past October 22nd, Larkin cut a check for $2,300 for Lalor’s federal congressional campaign through a corporate fund.
This is a double negative. Larkin's donation is a direct federal violation for both Larkin and Lalor and should be investigated further.

Even if the funds were presumed personal, Lalor should be instructed to return $1,300 to Larkin, however, the mere suggestion that the funds were of corporate sources, passed through his campaign coffers, puts Larkin, even if he didn’t know about it, in the hot seat, much that same way of Tom Delay.

To see these numbers on display, simply look up the FEC website and search the Congressional candidates. You won’t see this transfer on Larkin’s latest financials because he hasn’t posted it…yet.

I will end this just the way I started. You would think that with 12 years in the Assembly and 18 in the Senate, Larkin would know better. I’m guessing this isn’t the type of scandal that any of these candidates wants in the press a week before election, but hey…If it’ corporate money handled illegally by public officials, then it’s our right to know.

Special Note: Fliers for Larkin’s re-election are arriving in mail boxes all over Town of Ulster. It seems his staff doesn’t know where the district lines are.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't worry about it. The donors will get in trouble and the politicans will cost right on along. Ask Mr. Hinchey how that works, creative financing didn't hurt him none. I would say ask Mr. Zinn as well but that would be impossible.

Maybe while we are at this we can learn about the four $1250.00 donations from companies owned by Alan Ginsberg to Mike Hein. Funny, the guy has a hard time keeping up with his taxes but he can drop 5k in political donations.

Keep up the investigating, there is a lot of this out there. Fannie and Freddie gave plenty to Obama, I think he was the number 2 receiver behind Chris Dodd. Plus on the news today we got a scum bag Senator from Alaska getting houses built for them and so on and so on.

Anonymous said...

Without Mr Zinn to deend himself, Id ask that it be a private conversation between you two, as far as the Alaskan Senator goes...
Yesterday, Ted Stevens was convicted on seven counts of felony corruption. The race in Alaska will still be tight, but this shocking development sets the stage for Democrat Mark Begich to win in Sarah Palin's backyard and puts us one step closer to an overwhelming Senate majority.
Even John McCain said today it was time for Stevens to go.

So sometimes the evidence is enough to embarass even the republicans once in a while.

Anonymous said...

How ever did you stumble on this? Do any of the local papers wantr to follow this story, or will they let this slide just to let the "Good Ol Boys" right back in?

Anonymous said...

"Republicans once and a while", they are all bad. They all are making money off of their postion in one way or another both sides of the coin. The worst part is most of the time it is legal. The REALLY greedy ones do the illegal stuff

Anonymous said...

Follow the money,sounds like the jail project.

Anonymous said...

The UC Jail project had plenty of pockets to fill, as did the Noah Hotel deal and the LERW.

All this occured under the Republican controlled Legislature.If we really wanted to know where the money was going, I would start with the last remaining Republican office holder that is the common denominator...Bill Larkin.

Anonymous said...

8:31:

The Noah Hotel was a city deal under Sottile..if I am not mistaken? Isn't he still a democrat?

Didn't the democratic controlled legislature just give LERW $58,000 a couple of months ago.

Didn't the UC democrats vote unanimously to build the jail.

Sounds like plenty of blame to go around. When you are not too busy rewriting history

Anonymous said...

8:31 You are part right. The UC Jail was a Republican boondoggle, but Ward Todd did need two Democratic votes to pass it through...Frank and Jeanette.

The Noah "no show" Hotel was funded through the KLDC (4 million) and grants from the State and Fed for about 10 Million. When the deal finally crashed, only 3 million went back to KLDC. It didnt take 11 million to level the old Forst Meat building. And wheres Blaikeman now?

And Sottile? He endorses all the Republicans every year...whats so Democrat about that?

TRB

Anonymous said...

here's a link about where Blaichman got his millions:

http://www.house.gov/hinchey/newsroom/press_2005/112205noahhotel.html

and Blaichman's wife - a frequent Dem contributor (not that there's anything wrong with that):

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?zip=10003&last=Blaichman&first=Aviva

Anonymous said...

Hey TRB...when you say Sottile endorsed Republicans, you could say non-Democratic nominees:

Bill Larkin
George Pataki
Rick Jankowski
Vince Bradley
Pete Kierney

Im sure you could use those contribution links on this posting to check where his money has gone over the years.

Anonymous said...

Republicans and Democrats alike - all good old boys - just serves to distract us from the Takers(Politicians) vs. (Tax)Payers.