If you spend any amount of time paying attention to the news recently, watching the American government sold bit by bit to large corporations, this story might not come as a shock to you. But it still bears mentioning. As someone wrote in the comments on the original, if there's wrongdoing and no one cares and no one gets punished, is it even wrongdoing?

The story is as follows: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the head of the Committee on on Oversight and Government Reform, is curious about a call made by Heideh Shahmoradi, an aide at the Transportation Department, to a member of Congress. Since Shahmoradi left a voicemail instead of speaking directly to that Congressman, Waxman was able to get the transcript of the call, and he says it seems like this DOT aide was lobbying against California's tougher carbon emission standards by saying it would hurt (the exact phrase is "greatly impact") the car factories in the member's district. There's more, including the letter Waxman send to the DOT Secretary, over at TalkingPointsMemo, which is always good for this sort of reporting.

Of course, we don't know all the details here, and any assumption of actual illegal acts is premature. But can't we start coming down on the side of "likely" once in a while?

[Source: TPM]