It was such a touching piece of news on the presidential website. Martinelli handing out money to a parade of NGO's that do nice works for the poor and the needy. And a slap in the face of all those lefties who say that trickle-down economics are a fraud. How could it be a fraud if our great leader himself is trickling down the checks?
The funds, $750,000 in total, came from a "company that is interested in investing in Panama", Martinelli's propaganda had it:
Los recursos entregados a estas fundaciones -que suman un total de 750 mil dólares- provienen de una donación voluntaria de una empresa interesada en invertir en Panamá.
However.
Monica Palm, ten days later, revealed that that company interested in investing is called "Club Flush Entertainment, Inc.", and that Club Flush was in a bit of hot water, legally speaking, because they falsified, forged, counterfeited - whatever you wanna call it - a resolution from the government gambling authority. Bingo!
So, Palm wondered, could it be that in our country the line between a donation and a bribe is not really drawn, yet?
You see, dear reader, this now is the cambio all those people hoped for when they voted for Martinelli. The government collects ever more bribes. But instead of keeping everything for themselves, they give a little bit to charities that are managed by their rabiblanco wives, so that these bitches in their designer pantsuits from two seasons back can look good and have their pictures taken with il Duce. And then they continue to steal the inheritance of foreign individuals who leave real money to fight poverty when they die. Win-win, and rien ne va plus!
Surely nobody thinks that it is better to keep all the money from bribes, corruption and gambling to oneself, as did president Perez Balladares, rather than to “give a little bit to charities that are managed by their rabiblanco wives, so that these bitches in their designer pantsuits from two seasons back can look good and have their pictures taken with il Duce” ?
I think that there shouldn’t be any bribe money at all, and that essential issues in our society, like food and shelter and education, shouldn’t be left to look-good NGO’s.
I wanna dedicate this one to the Martinellis and all the respectable ladies with whom they socialize:
No doubt it could also be money laundering…
Well, he turned a bribe into a legit donation to charity. That IS money laundering.
Of course dear Watson… in a “perfect” world there shouldn’t be any bribes, but we are not living in Wonderland – we are living in the Bananama Republic.
Does any commentator honestly believe that Balbina Herrera would not have taken any bribes if she would have been elected president in lieu of Ricardo Martinelli?
what we are talking about then, is degree of badness. Martinelli is slightly less bad because he gives the bribe money to charity? Mind you if a company wants to give a large sum of money to Panama, for do gooding, hoping they will be looked at with kindness when it comes to getting some permits or something, I think they are in for a surprise. The right way to bribe would have been to keep it all under the table.
But I am with XIO on this one, if I have to take two president, one who keep it all to himself, or one who passes it on some, I will take the latter, for lack of another third, honest choice – we shall wait a LONG LONG time for that.
@Xio: No, I don’t think Balabina would have been more honest. And that is the real tragedy here, that we’re discussing which of the two evils is more acceptable, and as if it is an issue that stands by itself. It’s not about one bribe more or less, it is about a system that allows this, so-called charities whose figureheads accept this type of funding for work that belongs to the state in the first place. It makes me wanna puke, just as it did when I found out that the Teleton was hiding its accounting from the public and couldn’t explain where a lot of money went. It’s double corruption; first we need to donate money for something we already pay taxes for – like a national alarm number – and then that money is stolen. And in the present case it is about money that is used to further corrupt what’s left of the legal system and is then donated to glorify the “work” of a bunch of rabiblanco bitches. It’s disgusting, and if I were ready to accept it I might as well close this website down, and Martinelli could just openly launder narco-money and donate a small percentage to charity for the savages – at least it would be transparent that way.
A real good example of Corruption is the Carnival funding in previous Years up to 2009 was over four million dollars plus each year!
There has never been an accurate accounting of all these monies to fund these carnivals!
Last years carnival 2009 cost less than $750,000.00!
That was for everything, Toilets, Security, floats, and clean up!
Funny how all these monies have been used to fund these individuals in charge for their personal use within these so-called carnival budgets.
NO audits or paper trails to follow.
Just a big hole where millions of dollars just seem to crawl or walk into some ones personal accounts, homes, beach or mountain homes, over the top apartments, large expensive SUV’s and expensive schools for their children?
“Panama where the numbers never add up”