Nigerial Official Falls For New Orleans Fraud Scam

Breitbart;

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.
The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

You may have heard of Rep. Jefferson before;

Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson’s home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer.
[…]
The impact of the case has stretched across continents and even roiled presidential politics in Nigeria. According to court records, Jefferson told associates that he needed cash to pay bribes to the country’s vice president, Atiku Abubakar.
Abubakar denied the allegations, which figured prominently in that country’s presidential elections in April. Abubakar ran for the presidency and finished third.
The indictment does not name Abubakar. But it describes Jefferson’s dealings with an unnamed “Nigerian Official A” who was a high-ranking official in Nigeria’s executive branch who had a spouse in Potomac, Md. One of Abubakar’s wives lived in that Washington suburb.

Moves are already underway for his explusion from Congress.
SDA Flashback – Rep. Jefferson enlists help of National Guard during Katrina: “Finally, according to the source, Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck.”

Continue reading →

h/t

Via Free Republic, news coming in that the Israelis have destroyed Hamas headquarters. Many martyrs.
In other good news, a case of “friendly jihad”.
(h/t Maz2 in the comments)

Boston Globe;

New Hampshire authorities said yesterday that they will not press charges against a former Marine who stepped into a deadly shooting and killed a 24-year-old high school dropout who had moments earlier fatally shot a police officer.
[…]
Kenney pulled out a .45-caliber handgun and shot McKay four times. As McKay stumbled across the road, bleeding, Kenney ran his vehicle over the dying officer, Ayotte said.
Floyd, who had been driving by in a Chevrolet Tahoe with his son, also named Gregory P. Floyd, saw the entire scene, Ayotte said. A video camera in McKay’s cruiser also recorded the shooting, Ayotte said.
The elder Floyd drove his Tahoe into a spot between McKay and Kenney as a shield and told his son, who is in his late teens, to run to the officer’s cruiser and radio for help.
The elder Floyd picked up McKay’s gun from the ground and ordered Kenney to drop his weapon. Kenney refused, and Floyd saw Kenney appear to be reloading, Conte said. Floyd then shot and killed Kenney, Conte said.

(Journalism types – help me out with something, please. How is the information that Kenney was “a cousin of World Cup champion skier Bode Miller” relevant?)

“nappy headed”…
(Vulgar language warning)

~$ whois ecofraud.ca
Status: EXIST
Registrar: Namespro Solutions Inc.
Registrar-no: 817195
Registrant-no: 1868362
Domaine-no: 1868365
Subdomain: ecofraud.ca
Renewal-Date: 2008/04/30
Date-Approved: 2007/04/30
Date-Modified: 2007/04/30
Organization: Marc Gendron
Description:
Admin-Name: Marc Gendron

“Moscow had today more than 15.000 police and security people in the streets… and less than two thousand communists lost near an empty Red Square.”

Writings by Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui have been obtained by The Smoking Gun.
As they always are.
(h/t WM Redux in the comments.)
Kathy Shaidle – “We really need to ban “Creative Writing” programs.”
Barack Obama, paraphrased – “Virginia Tech. Don Imus. Same thing.“

“That’s ‘Kaylee’ – with two e’s“.

Update – The page has been pulled. The Youtube video is also gone, but the original text and comments can be viewed here.

… arriving on the scene. The deer-humper looks up from the ditch, sees the cop looking down at him, and asks himself this question: “Is there any point in stopping?”

Guelph Mercury (Feb.28);

Windmill owners like Max Woschnigg received little sympathy yesterday from Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan.
Woschnigg recently installed a windmill on his Guelph-area property to provide all his energy needs, and as a result is facing a property tax increase that will nearly offset his energy savings.
“We all pay property taxes,” Duncan said yesterday in Guelph, arguing it’s only fair that people should pay tax on the improvements they make to their properties.
“There’s a benefit to this,” Duncan stressed to reporters, after he announced the opening of more renewable energy projects in Ontario.
Duncan’s comments disappointed Woschnigg, who said Canada is far behind the rest of the world in wind energy.
“Other countries pay to install those windmills, and here they penalize you,” he said yesterday.
“What do you expect from Canada?” he added, dismissing government officials as nearsighted on the potential for wind power. “They are narrow-minded.”
But Woschnigg added he won’t consider appealing his increased assessment until he learns exactly how much tax he has to pay for the 80-kilowatt wind turbine installed in December on his 90-acre farm on Highway 124, just west of Guelph.
The turbine will save him about $3,600 a year in energy costs. But the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation recently informed him the windmill will increase his property’s assessed value by an estimated $59,000, Woschnigg said.
That will likely increase his taxes by roughly $3,000 a year, he added, leaving him with only a small net annual benefit from his investment.

Emphasis mine.
Via reader “Dorothy”.

* * * *
*

… is about to get a lot more interesting.
h/t Second Thots.
Screenshot
Update Varlaki has now pulled his entire blog content down. He responds with an apology in the comments here. I don’t know that it’s going to be enough to avoid an interview with the RCMP, considering the specific nature of his threat.

While the Black Rod is probably your best all round bet for following Gary Doer’s big steaming cow pie known as the “Crocus Scandal”, today’s Winnipeg Sun has this new development;

[Manitoba] Premier Gary Doer and his cabinet instructed senior officials in the provincial finance department in 2000 to keep the Crocus Investment Fund afloat “unconditionally,” even though government knew the fund was facing a cash crisis.
At least according to newly-revealed correspondence between senior finance officials.
E-mails between three senior officials in the finance department, including then deputy minister Pat Gannon — now retired — paint a picture of pandemonium among bureaucrats as they scrambled to figure out how to keep Manitoba’s largest labour-sponsored investment fund from falling further into money problems.
Copies of the e-mails and other confidential documents related to Crocus — obtained by the Winnipeg Sun — provide further evidence Doer and his cabinet knew a great deal more about troubles at Crocus than they had let on.
The e-mails were written about the same time cabinet was briefed about the potential cash crisis at Crocus, in late November 2000.
That cabinet briefing was leaked to the news media two weeks ago, triggering a firestorm of controversy about why Doer and his cabinet failed to inform investors that the fund was in trouble.
The e-mails centre on a letter written by the Finance Department to then-Crocus CEO Sherman Kreiner, responding to Kreiner’s requests for legislative changes to help the struggling fund with its cash-flow problems.

Black Rod mentioned that leaked cabinet document on March 5th;

Take the case of Winnipeg Free Press reporter Dan Lett. Last week he was merrily writing stories about a leaked heretofore unknown secret cabinet document that proved the NDP knew in 2000 that Crocus needed to become a Ponzi scheme or it would go broke. The NDP gave their blessing.
And then he got a call from someone he calls “my Grit source.”
Like Saul on the road to Damascus, he had a mystical conversion. Hallelujah. Another sinner saved.
The truth, he wrote, had been there all along. Why couldn’t people see it ?
[…]
But who was this “Grit source” that brought such enlightenment to the Free Press newsroom?
What anonymous source would warrant such front page treatment?
Who, we ask, is friends and partners with Sherman Kreiner and would be in a position to sell the Crocus Fund’s talking points as overlooked “details?”
Would you believe the Big Grit himself?
Lloyd Axworthy.

This isn’t a story I’ve had time to follow closely – but I know there are regular readers here who have. Feel free to use the comments for supporting links to your own blog posts and related news stories.
More here at PC Manitoba.
NEW. Now up – aCrocus Timeline at the Black Rod.

After a fruitless chase of the culprits responsible for spiriting away the Ghosts of Liberal Past, Ralph Goodale resumes the hunt…

GOODALE: Well, my question was: was it or was it not? It’s important to get to the bottom of this. The story in the Vancouver Sun appeared to be talking about what would be considered secret security information. That information is secret for a reason yet it’s in the public domain. It needs to be examined very carefully as to how it got there. It was within the ambit of government. Suddenly it’s in the public domain. It is secret security information or at least it purports to be. I think the government has that question to answer.
[..]
REPORTER: Sir, you pinpointed the PMO as the potential source of that information. What evidence do you have, if any?
GOODALE: I asked the question was it or was it not the Prime Minister’s Office. The point is the Prime Minister’s Office is the pinnacle of government. They need to get to the bottom of this.

For (in the words of Lorne Gunter) – another cow pie to step in.
h/t National Newswatch.