I am shocked — shocked — that $6 million of stimulus money went to a company accused of “overbilling, bribery of union officials and other alleged improprieties on several large New York projects.” Such lapses in oversight never happen with government spending projects!

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A major scandal has arisen in the biggest environmental lawsuit in history - the $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron oil company brought by a lawyer representing citizens of Ecuador.

As reported in Tuesday’s New York Times, Chevron has released video implicating Ecuador government officials close to the president in a massive bribery scheme.  Chevron claims its covertly recorded videos “reveal a $3 million bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit currently pending against Chevron and individuals who identify…

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Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev has signed into law amendments that will bring increased penalties for price collusion and unfair competition. The new amendments will allow the authorities to bring unscrupulous businessmen and bureaucrats to justice. Government officials will be subject to disqualification and sufficiently large fines if they will restrict the movement of goods across the country. Section 178 contains a very harsh sanction - up to six years imprisonment for committing a crime in the area of restriction of…

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As I’ve noted before, “South Florida is corrupt and weird.” And just how corrupt and how weird is it?

First, corruption: The New Times, Miami’s alternative weekly, has issued corrupt local politician trading cards, “commemorating those halcyon days when bankruptcy loomed, graft was common, and lawmen busted bad pols like fishermen nail snook in the Keys.” What I find odd is that, given the long litany of corrupt South Florida politicians, they only found room for seven cards.

Now, weirdness: For what…

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Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is now being used to force states to adopt racial quotas in government contracts, even if their state constitution or civil-rights laws forbid such quotas. Slate’s Mickey Kaus reports that “CalTrans, the huge state agency that spends billions in federal highway construction funds, ’sets a quota of having 6.75 percent of contracts go to women or members of a targeted group–African American, Asian-Pacific American, and Native American.’”

The stimulus package also repealed welfare reform, as Kaus and…

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Detroit can astound even the most seasoned political cynic, and now it’s done it again. As the Detroit Free Press reports, the trustees of the city’s two public employee pension funds have been enjoying perks that even some CEOs would envy, apparently on the pensioners’ dime.

The trustees who oversee Detroit’s two public pensions, their lawyers and staff spent $380,000 over the past year circling the globe to attend conferences — often traveling in packs, with virtually no limitation on where…

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Obama is firing an inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who uncovered wrongdoing by a prominent Obama supporter and opposed letting him off the hook.

Ironically, when Obama recently nominated a liberal judge to the Supreme Court, his Administration trumpeted Walpin’s support for her.

Walpin is the Inspector General for the Americorps program, which is riddled with waste, fraud, and ideological misuse of taxpayer funds. Walpin “has been doing a good job” and he has “identified millions of dollars in AmeriCorps funds that were wasted or misspent,” notes Senator…

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The $800 billion stimulus package signed by Obama not only will make the economy shrink over the long-run, it will pay $88.6 million for unnecessary new construction in the Milwaukee School District, whose enrollment is shrinking so fast that it already has 15 vacant schools. And it will funnel over $355 million into the corrupt, racist Detroit schools, no strings attached.

Detroit is the fastest-shrinking big city in America. It once had two million people, but it has lost so many people that now…

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Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist welcome you back to another episode of LibertyWeek, wherein we start by highlighting CEI’s new Agenda for Congress. After all, they need adult supervision from somewhere, right? We then take on the new rules for bailout spending at Treasury, Gov. Blagojevich’s no-show status at his own impeachment trial, and an interview with Bureaucrash Crasher-in-Chief Pete Eyre. Finally, we round out the program with some appropriately strenuous Olympic News.

Listen here.

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Miami has been named the fattest city in America by Men’s Fitness magazine, and its neighboring burg of Hialeah among the nation’s most boring by Forbes. Some double whammy. For my part, having grown up in the area, the dubious honor of these two that I find surprising is not the one the rest of the nation would think about.

Some might ask: “How about all those beaches; isn’t that enough motivation to stay in swimsuit shape?” Well, no, unless you live right…

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Welcome back to LibertyWeek, where your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring you the best in news and views, always from the perspective of free markets and limited government. We start this week’s episode with praise for the new look and feel of OpenMarket.org: the blog you want to read. We then move on to the most delicious edition of Scandal Watch yet — the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on federal charges of “staggering” corruption. After that we…

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The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Change to Win (CtW) union coalition have each released statements denying involvement in the corruption scandal that led to the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich this morning.

However, it may be some time before more is known. SEIU, in its statement, says, “In keeping with the U.S. Attorney’s request, we are not sharing information with the media at this time.”

Meanwhile, the Politico’s Ben Smith credits an unnamed “Democratic source” with confirming the identity of “SEIU official”…

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Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern is not known for being shy about his ambitions. Since taking his union out of the AFL-CIO and forming the new Change to Win federation in 2005, he has sought to assert his union’s influence over private equity firms, centralize his authority within the union by forcing various locals to merge, and negotiate large deals with employers without member participation. Now, however, it is worth asking who is really in charge at SEIU.

Amidst all…

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I wrote recently of California’s declaration to allow tropical forestry carbon offsets so that California businesses wouldn’t have to actually reduce their emissions, but I suggested that guilt-laden Californians could be doing more harm than good. The countries where they will supposedly be investing in forests have proven records for corruption.

I now feel vindicated. Reuters Africa reports that yesterday at the EU climate talks:

Brazil ruled out on Thursday letting rich countries offset their greenhouse gas emissions by helping to save the Amazon rain…

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Tune in to lucky episode thirteen of the best pro-freedom podcast around, CEI’s very own LibertyWeek, with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist.

This week we cover everything from the Twitter revolution and falling oil prices to Sen. Ted Stevens’ corruption trial and Iain Murray’s Fannie-fueled cyber-fight with Matt Yglesias. Also listen for new audio effects created by LibertyWeek Technical Producer Ryan Young.

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