Well I can prove statistically that Alaska is far more corrupt politically based on political crimes per 100,000 population. The great state of Alaska is the THIRD MOST CORRUPT STATE in the USA when you measure actual convictions of politicians per 100,000 people.
North Dakota is first
Louisiana is second
ALASKA IS THIRD
Mississippi is fourth and
Montana is fifth.
Illinois is ranked 18th! Not even close to the worst state.
North Dakota tops analysis of corruption - USATODAY.com
North Dakota Tops State Corruption List
Alaska has a US senator who has been convicted of felonies THIS year. Alaska is as corrupt as it gets politically and to deny this is to deny the facts.
Hmm, three of the least populated states in the top 5, who would've guessed.
It couldn't possibly be because of the fact that while there is a lower population that doesn't always form a correllary to an equal percentage of less political positions, right?
Its amazing thing about Statistics, they're easy to make say what you want. Its why the statement is out there that there's the lies, the truths, and then statistics. Its why I can show you statistics that tell you that if you foul people a lot you're naturally score more points as well in basketball.
And its amazing how you leave out certain facts from your thing. Such as the actual numbers of convictions.
Alaska had 51 convictions. Illinois had 10 times that number with 502.
Yes, by your statistics you could say Alaska is one of the most corrupt per person. HOWEVER, Illinois has TEN TIMES more corrupt politicians by your numbers than Alaska does. You can compare that to population all you want, that's a lot more dirty politicians.
This is all pointless however, as per capita is rather useless as the number you'd need to get even a halfway decent statistic would be to compare it to "per political position".
Even then, as has been pointed out, convictions is a poor means of determining corruption due to other variables...
...Have I mentioned that your source is a ****ty statistian that would be laughed out of a base level political science course if they tried to claim this "proved" anything...
...such as the effort by the justice departments of the states at actually rooting out corruption, how wide spread it may be that it is covering up other politicians, and other such things.
Lets look shall we, just a quick look between the two:
Illinois in the past few decades:
Two programs,
Illinois Chicago Hired Truck Program, city hiring of trucking companies with mob connections and ties to city employee's that did little work.
Operation Greylord, influence peddling and bribery within illinois circuit courts
Daniel Rostenkowski, mail fraud
Carol Moseley-Braun, conspiring to hide $30k of medicaid money
Percy Giles, racketeering, extortion, and other lesser charges
Arenda Troutman, bribery
Jim Laski, bribe taking in relation to trucking companies
Lawrence S. Bloom, tax evasion
Jesse J. Evans racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, attempted extortion, mail fraud, influence peddling, obstruction of justice
Virgil E. Jones, extortion
Joseph Martinez ghost payrolling
Ambrosio Medrano extortion
Allan J. Streeter extortion
Fred B. Roti racketeering, conspiracy, bribery
Judge Thomas Maloney bribe taking, extortion, and obstruction of justice
Treasurer Edward Rosewell mail fraud
Secretary of State Jesse White, fraudulently funneling taxpayer money to non-existant charity
Miriam santos, mail fraud and extortion
John S. Madrzyk, mail fraud
Walter S. Kozubowski, city clerk, mail fraud
Governor Blagojevich, well we all know that one
Governor George Ryan, illegal sale of government licenses and contracts while Sec of State
James DeLeo, state rep, taking bribes and tax offenses
Joe Kotlarz, state rep, theft and conspiracy
Bruce A. farley, state senator, mail fraud
John A. D'Arco, state senator, bribery and extortion
State Treasurer Jerry Cosentino, check kiting
Governor Daniel Walker, savings and Loan scandal
Jack ryan, sex scandal
Mel Reynolds, sexual abuse of 16 year old campaign volunteer
Dan Crane, censured in Congressional Page Sex Scandal
and Alaska:
Trooper Gate
Thomas Anderson, extortion, bribery, conspiracy, money laundering
Pete Kott, Bribery
Vic Kohring, bribery
Jim Clark, conspiracy
Ted Stevens, Bribery and tax evasion
Chicago is really bad. Chicago is Illinois.
Can you guarantee that Alaska will remain free of corruption. Oil=Money=corruption.
Not at all. I don't think anyone in here was saying that Alaska is not corrupt. Politics in general is corrupt. Go anywhere with politics and you'll find some corruption.
The statement however was that someone was trying to compare Alaska to Illinois in regards to a history and routine nature of corruption.
Then why did Alaska have the THIRD most convictions of Politicians per capita in from 1998 to 2007?
THAT is a fact.
Read above. You can get a lot of interesting "FACTS" with statistics, doesn't mean they MEAN anything.
George Ryan would probably disagree. There were 500 convictions in Illinois as well during the time frame.
Chicago is corrupt. I'm not claiming it isn't, but Alaska is ALSO corrupt. ALL States have corrupt politicians. I thinka ****load of people who don't know squat about Chicago outside of its reputation (One that stems from Al Capone's era) are talking a lot of **** and pretending their own states aren't similarly corrupt.
And no one is saying Alaska ISN'T corrupt. What people were rolling their eyes at was a poster trying to take a partisan jab because someone DARED to insult the almighty Obama and thus had to take a jab at Palin, using a comparison that was faulty. Alaska had 50 convictions for corruption in the span that the article was done, Illinois had 500. It wasn't that Alaska wasn't corrupt, it was saying that trying to compare it to Illinois in this example was a bad example and was just someone trying to take a ****ty partisan jab and doing it incredibly poorly. This was doubly true considering that no one before that poster was making it a partisan thing, instead talking about Illinois/Chicago politics in general. You'd note that two of those governors I listed above were REPUBLICANS...it wasn't about party until one hyper-partisan poster decided it'd be funny to throw a ****ty comparison in to protect their "Side".
