Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, people in the Trump Administration, etc.

Suzanne and I were talking about the resignation yesterday by Catherine Pugh, who served as Mayor of Baltimore. She has been implicated in a bunch of self-dealing transactions while sitting on the board of the University of Maryland Medical System, as well as in other settings.

I was saying "how could you not know that is unethical" and Suzanne countered that you build a team around you that doesn't provide an opportunity for you to be questioned. I know that's the case with politics in DC, and it's about creating a bubble or "echo chamber", and a group of sycophants.

James Comey--who has plenty of misjudgements of his own--wrote an op-ed ("How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Bill Barr") about how officials can fall into an abyss of moral hazard and bad decision-making, using the Trump Administration as an example.

As we were talking I remembered a John Sanford novel in the Virgil Flowers series, Deadline (Yes, I admit it, I read schlock fiction).

It's about a small community in Minnesota on the border with Wisconsin, somewhat remote, and the people on the school board believed they could loot the budget with impunity.

They did for awhile...

A long time ago, EE recommended Corrupt Cities: A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention, published by the World Bank. While it is focused on cities outside of the "developed world," it is no less relevant.

-- "DC ethics legislation misses the point: focus on what produces corruption as a regular outcome, not monitoring," 2011
-- "Big money, ethics violations, etc. in city government," 2012
-- "Missing the point on what matters to real estate developers and financiers and local vs. federal Washington, DC," 2011

In DC, so long as Councilmembers can have "second jobs" and need to raise lots of money for campaigns, they are susceptible.