The CIA faced some embarrassment when it was revealed that the intelligence agency had been giving Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai bags of cash for favorable treatment. This revelation was embarrassing for a number of reasons. First, it confirmed reports that Hamid Karzai was running a corrupt government with facilitation by agents of the U.S. government. Second, it is pretty tragic for America to have to bribe the man it installed as president, whose life it protects on a daily basis. You might think this exposure of corrupt practices would lead to a cooling off of the previously secret nefarious activity – not so.

I was always sort of rooting for Dan Halloran, the Republican pagan Queens, NY District 19 city councilman, because he showed that the GOP wasn’t totally overrun by uptight Christian theocrats. However…

Two House Democrats have come into possession of evidence of significant crimes by Walmart, including bribery. The Democrats, Henry Waxman and Elijah Cummings, sought additional documents from Walmart on possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The joint investigation by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee is apparently ready to go with a report, but Waxman and Cummings asked Walmart CEO Michael Duke basically if he had anything to add before the final report was released. This includes access to documents which the committees requested.

After reading the New York Time’s excellent reporting on Walmart’s pervasive bribery of foreign officials (Mexico in this case, but it’s hardly isolated to them), I remembered reading stories last year, including this excellent piece by Dan Froomkin, about how the Chamber of Commerce and major corporations were quietly but persistently lobbying Congress to water down the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Murdoch, his son, and his indicted “fifth” daughter get ready to testify before Parliament later this morning.

The New York Times has one of the most stunning headlines of the day: Losses at Afghan Bank Could Be $900 Million. The story tells a story of Afghanistan’s own “Too Big to Fail” problem that offers opaque descriptions of precisely what caused the problem, but waits until the 17th and 18th paragraph to explain the real problem with the bank. The fact that our government is discovering, but not revealing, the degree to which we have been backing “a vertically integrated criminal enterprise” is the real story.

The Guardian version of the cable hides the ties between British Gas Country Director for Kazakhstan, Mark Rawlings, and a U.S. citizen recently acquitted of bribery because he had offered the bribes at the behest of the CIA.

It’s a sad state of affairs that you have to bribe state governments to get them to give health insurance coverage to children, but that’s where we are in this new cruel version of America.

In the race to see which would be discounted more quickly, Cheney’s freedom won out over cheap Chinese toys at Christmas season: the final price for Cheney’s freedom is $35 million.

It seems like the value of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s freedom, like all other goods, declines the closer you get to Christmas. Cheney better hope that Nigeria ratifies this deal soon though, because you never know what happens to goods left on the shelf after the holidays.