Whom do we blame for New York's political corruption?

Predictably todays editorials are filled with outrage and shock and dismay and folks being troubled by the arrest of yet another (this time several) New York Public officials on various sundry and sordid corruption charges.

And predictably the good government advocates are doing what they do best and talking about ethics reform (aka ethical masturbation), specifically campaign finance reform as if changing to the New York City model of matching funds would have prevented this latest dive into Albany's ethical morass. 

I hate to burst the campaign finance crowds bubble but one of the accused in this latest ethical cluster f*ck is a New York City Councilman.  Thats right someone elected under the very same campaign finance reforms that are supposed to be the magic bullet.

ITS THE PEOPLE STUPID

Not the laws, we have plenty

Not the campaign finance system, New York City has not solved the public ethics problem with matching funds by a long shot.

Not more disclosure, the criminals don't disclose their crimes has anyone looked at Joe Bruno's disclosures or Malcom Smiths for that matter.

So who is to blame?

In the most recent case you can certainly blame:

Malcolm Smith, just listen to the tapes the fact that there is a single politician that has not called on Malcolm to resign is a disgrace.

While we are on the subject of resignations how about all the politicians that are expressing shock and dismay and voicing how troubling this episode is hold a press conference and tell us who else they think is involved in corruption.  In all my years in government the one thing I learned about politicians is they copy other politicians.  Trust me they know who the bad apples are but they will not out them remember there but for the grace of God go I and politicians in glass houses know better than to throw stones.  But just once it would be refreshing to see a high level public official actually rat out one of their comrades just once.  This isn't the mafia you can tell the authorities when you know about wrongdoing it won't hurt and it might help.

Speaking of authorities I'd be out of character if I didn't heap some blame on JCOPE.  What did they have to do with Malcolm you might rightly ask.  Nothing thats the point they've done nothing.  When you let the streetlights stay broken and don't cleanup the garbage in a neighborhood pretty soon its not safe to walk the streets.  JJOKE has had no effect on improving public ethics in New York.  I've said it before why doesn't JJOKE use their extensive resources to investigate the abuse of the per diem system.  It's an easy investigation.  It will bear fruit and it might give some of these crooks pause before they move on to other more extensive forms of corruption.  I'll go out on a limb and predict if you looked at per diems more than 1/3 of those collecting them are doing so improperly.  Come on JJOKE prove me wrong.

Hell just check Bibens own records for time and attendance and what she has charged the state for in the way of travel before the New York City JJOKE office opened.  Ethics starts from the top.

Which brings me to the governor.  You can't take credit for cleaning up Albany when it's still a cesspool.  Biben is yours, JCOPE is yours, at the end of the day Albany's corruption is happening on your watch 

FIX IT

I'm sure you have the talent just put your mind to the problem.

UPDATE since a picture is worth a thousand words a video saves me the trouble of typing a new blog

Here's what I think
http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s2987536.shtml

BTW Ms. Bartoletti I guess campaign finance reform isn't the answer anymore for the goo goos  Newsflash the goo goos have become irrelevant on the issue of ethics reform