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AH Cooperative Lists Thread

TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb in 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

3) Few in Britain knew who Norman Scott was when his corpse was dredged from a river, and even fewer knew he'd been a lover of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jeremy Thorpe. But the investigating detectives found out and were strongly encouraged by men in grey suits to drop it - but word trickled out from various sources, and rumour grew, and eventually it made into print, in an issue of Private Eye, leading to a cascade of events. It was never proven or disproven if Thorpe had ordered a hit, but it was proven that a Russian agent had heard the rumours and had been blackmailing the Deputy PM of the Heath government for information. The government fell, the Liberal Party fell, a huge purge was ordered of multiple nation's compromised intelligence, foreign, and military depts, and Britain temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR to save face. The Scott Affair blew up Britain's political world with an atom bomb, leaving the way for Footite Labour and Thatcherite Conservatives to be the powers of the 80s.

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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

3) Few in Britain knew who Norman Scott was when his corpse was dredged from a river, and even fewer knew he'd been a lover of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jeremy Thorpe. But the investigating detectives found out and were strongly encouraged by men in grey suits to drop it - but word trickled out from various sources, and rumour grew, and eventually it made into print, in an issue of Private Eye, leading to a cascade of events. It was never proven or disproven if Thorpe had ordered a hit, but it was proven that a Russian agent had heard the rumours and had been blackmailing the Deputy PM of the Heath government for information. The government fell, the Liberal Party fell, a huge purge was ordered of multiple nation's compromised intelligence, foreign, and military depts, and Britain temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR to save face. The Scott Affair blew up Britain's political world with an atom bomb, leaving the way for Footite Labour and Thatcherite Conservatives to be the powers of the 80s.

4) If you'd have asked anyone in the run up to the 1960 Presidential Election which of the the major candidates was the most corrupt, you could probably be safe to bet they'd say the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, as opposed to the public darling, Senator of Massachusetts John Kennedy. In hindsight this seems laughable, as the Kennedy White House in now infamous its corruption given the amount of scandals associated with it. The trail of corruption started long before Kennedy arrived in the White House of course when Joe Sr. had made deals with leading members of Organised Crime to deliver the Mid-West in return for protection from the FBI and the possible reclamation of Cuba from Castro. While the latter was a burning failure, the former was easily doable and in 1971 resulted in the conviction of former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy for covering up evidence, abuse of power and loosing hundreds of Justice Department documents. Several minor scandals followed, though were no less horrific, such as possible war crimes in Indochina with US equipment and endorsement, unconstitutional use of police powers and the FBI in controlling the Civil Rights movement, and various suspect arms-deals. The final damning piece, and the one which the public is most familiar with, is the circumstances surrounding the death of his well-known mistress, Marilyn Monroe after her body washed up on an L.A. beach which investigation by LAPD implicated members of the Secret Service and many others at the highest level of government. Kennedy was well on course to be the first President to face impeachment without acquittal before his death: Dr. Max Jacobson would be the last scandal of the Kennedy era, whose accidental poisoning of the President has long been the fodder of theorists as to a wider government cover-up.

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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

3) Few in Britain knew who Norman Scott was when his corpse was dredged from a river, and even fewer knew he'd been a lover of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jeremy Thorpe. But the investigating detectives found out and were strongly encouraged by men in grey suits to drop it - but word trickled out from various sources, and rumour grew, and eventually it made into print, in an issue of Private Eye, leading to a cascade of events. It was never proven or disproven if Thorpe had ordered a hit, but it was proven that a Russian agent had heard the rumours and had been blackmailing the Deputy PM of the Heath government for information. The government fell, the Liberal Party fell, a huge purge was ordered of multiple nation's compromised intelligence, foreign, and military depts, and Britain temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR to save face. The Scott Affair blew up Britain's political world with an atom bomb, leaving the way for Footite Labour and Thatcherite Conservatives to be the powers of the 80s.

4) If you'd have asked anyone in the run up to the 1960 Presidential Election which of the the major candidates was the most corrupt, you could probably be safe to bet they'd say the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, as opposed to the public darling, Senator of Massachusetts John Kennedy. In hindsight this seems laughable, as the Kennedy White House in now infamous its corruption given the amount of scandals associated with it. The trail of corruption started long before Kennedy arrived in the White House of course when Joe Sr. had made deals with leading members of Organised Crime to deliver the Mid-West in return for protection from the FBI and the possible reclamation of Cuba from Castro. While the latter was a burning failure, the former was easily doable and in 1971 resulted in the conviction of former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy for covering up evidence, abuse of power and loosing hundreds of Justice Department documents. Several minor scandals followed, though were no less horrific, such as possible war crimes in Indochina with US equipment and endorsement, unconstitutional use of police powers and the FBI in controlling the Civil Rights movement, and various suspect arms-deals. The final damning piece, and the one which the public is most familiar with, is the circumstances surrounding the death of his well-known mistress, Marilyn Monroe after her body washed up on an L.A. beach which investigation by LAPD implicated members of the Secret Service and many others at the highest level of government. Kennedy was well on course to be the first President to face impeachment without acquittal before his death: Dr. Max Jacobson would be the last scandal of the Kennedy era, whose accidental poisoning of the President has long been the fodder of theorists as to a wider government cover-up.

5) There is little as deadly in politics as a friend scorned, especially when that friend knows where all the bodies are buried. Charles Haughey would find that out to his cost when he fired Brian Lenihan to appease his coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats. Controversy had arisen during Lenihans run for President when old allegations had resurfaced at his part in pressurizing the incumbent President Patrick Hillery to grant a dissolution of the Dail back in 1982. A dissolution would have brought Haugheys Fianna Fail back into power and Haughey and his allies bombarded the Áras an Uachtaráin with phone calls to persuade the President to call the dissolution, calls which to his credit Hillery refused to take.

Lenihn had never hidden the fact he made these calls, in fact he had gone on the record in 1990 with a journalist to confirm the stories. But as the Presidential campaign heated up these calls took on new relevance and Lenihan was pressurized to come clean on what he had done and on whose authority. Lenihan originally refused to answer, before eventually stating "on mature recollection" that he had never made a call to the President and then requested an audience with Hillery who would confirm his story, an audience the outgoing President refused to grant.

By this point relations with the coalition had become so frayed that the Progressive Democrats threatened to bring down the government by supporting the oppositions no confidence motion. Haughey, backed into a corner, gave Lenihan a pre-typed resignation letter to sign to which the latter angrily refused. At this point, feeling he had no option, the Taoiseach sacked Lenihan.

All this would have been damaging enough but as Lenihan stewed over the matter at home his sense of grievance and betrayal grew. Seeking some sort of revenge he discretely contacted some journalists and opposition members of the Dail informing them of certain irregularities in the Taoiseach's finances and suggesting that maybe the matter was worth further research.

The flood of allegations that came out in 1991 created a political firestorm, the resulting no confidence motion easily passed and Fianna Fail were out of Government. Even worse was to come for Haughey who attempted to fight for his position, only to be defenestrated by his own party, Haugheys explosive rebuke to party elders at a behind closed doors session a thing of Irish political folklore. The defining image however will always be of Charles Haughey being led away in handcuffs by the Garda on myriad charges of extortion and graft.

The trial and conviction, the appeal and his eventual release and self-exile to the Irish hinterlands are all parts of the Haughey legend, a story worthy of any Greek tragedy. As for Brian Lenihan he passed away from cancer in 1995, always to be remembered as the man who brought down a government, humbled his best friend and cast Fianna Fail out of power for a generation.


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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

3) Few in Britain knew who Norman Scott was when his corpse was dredged from a river, and even fewer knew he'd been a lover of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jeremy Thorpe. But the investigating detectives found out and were strongly encouraged by men in grey suits to drop it - but word trickled out from various sources, and rumour grew, and eventually it made into print, in an issue of Private Eye, leading to a cascade of events. It was never proven or disproven if Thorpe had ordered a hit, but it was proven that a Russian agent had heard the rumours and had been blackmailing the Deputy PM of the Heath government for information. The government fell, the Liberal Party fell, a huge purge was ordered of multiple nation's compromised intelligence, foreign, and military depts, and Britain temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR to save face. The Scott Affair blew up Britain's political world with an atom bomb, leaving the way for Footite Labour and Thatcherite Conservatives to be the powers of the 80s.

4) If you'd have asked anyone in the run up to the 1960 Presidential Election which of the the major candidates was the most corrupt, you could probably be safe to bet they'd say the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, as opposed to the public darling, Senator of Massachusetts John Kennedy. In hindsight this seems laughable, as the Kennedy White House in now infamous its corruption given the amount of scandals associated with it. The trail of corruption started long before Kennedy arrived in the White House of course when Joe Sr. had made deals with leading members of Organised Crime to deliver the Mid-West in return for protection from the FBI and the possible reclamation of Cuba from Castro. While the latter was a burning failure, the former was easily doable and in 1971 resulted in the conviction of former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy for covering up evidence, abuse of power and loosing hundreds of Justice Department documents. Several minor scandals followed, though were no less horrific, such as possible war crimes in Indochina with US equipment and endorsement, unconstitutional use of police powers and the FBI in controlling the Civil Rights movement, and various suspect arms-deals. The final damning piece, and the one which the public is most familiar with, is the circumstances surrounding the death of his well-known mistress, Marilyn Monroe after her body washed up on an L.A. beach which investigation by LAPD implicated members of the Secret Service and many others at the highest level of government. Kennedy was well on course to be the first President to face impeachment without acquittal before his death: Dr. Max Jacobson would be the last scandal of the Kennedy era, whose accidental poisoning of the President has long been the fodder of theorists as to a wider government cover-up.

5) There is little as deadly in politics as a friend scorned, especially when that friend knows where all the bodies are buried. Charles Haughey would find that out to his cost when he fired Brian Lenihan to appease his coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats. Controversy had arisen during Lenihans run for President when old allegations had resurfaced at his part in pressurizing the incumbent President Patrick Hillery to grant a dissolution of the Dail back in 1982. A dissolution would have brought Haugheys Fianna Fail back into power and Haughey and his allies bombarded the Áras an Uachtaráin with phone calls to persuade the President to call the dissolution, calls which to his credit Hillery refused to take.

Lenihn had never hidden the fact he made these calls, in fact he had gone on the record in 1990 with a journalist to confirm the stories. But as the Presidential campaign heated up these calls took on new relevance and Lenihan was pressurized to come clean on what he had done and on whose authority. Lenihan originally refused to answer, before eventually stating "on mature recollection" that he had never made a call to the President and then requested an audience with Hillery who would confirm his story, an audience the outgoing President refused to grant.

By this point relations with the coalition had become so frayed that the Progressive Democrats threatened to bring down the government by supporting the oppositions no confidence motion. Haughey, backed into a corner, gave Lenihan a pre-typed resignation letter to sign to which the latter angrily refused. At this point, feeling he had no option, the Taoiseach sacked Lenihan.

All this would have been damaging enough but as Lenihan stewed over the matter at home his sense of grievance and betrayal grew. Seeking some sort of revenge he discretely contacted some journalists and opposition members of the Dail informing them of certain irregularities in the Taoiseach's finances and suggesting that maybe the matter was worth further research.

The flood of allegations that came out in 1991 created a political firestorm, the resulting no confidence motion easily passed and Fianna Fail were out of Government. Even worse was to come for Haughey who attempted to fight for his position, only to be defenestrated by his own party, Haugheys explosive rebuke to party elders at a behind closed doors session a thing of Irish political folklore. The defining image however will always be of Charles Haughey being led away in handcuffs by the Garda on myriad charges of extortion and graft.

The trial and conviction, the appeal and his eventual release and self-exile to the Irish hinterlands are all parts of the Haughey legend, a story worthy of any Greek tragedy. As for Brian Lenihan he passed away from cancer in 1995, always to be remembered as the man who brought down a government, humbled his best friend and cast Fianna Fail out of power for a generation.


6) Tony Blair's time in office was controversial with many in Labour: where he argued they needed to move to the centre to prevent a Conservative victory, that there'd been so many years of Labour government "the public want a new Labour", they saw it as Tory lite. So it wasn't too surprising that on the nascent internet's message boards, a man was writing an anti-Blair fanfic. "Gordon Banks To Play" was an 'alternative history' tale of populist blood-and-thunder, depicting a world where the Nazis had briefly invaded Britain but been thrown out, and after years of socialist liberation government, Prime Minister Ronnie Kray is 'shifting to the centre' in a borderline fascist way. Everyone can tell this was a rude jab at Blair but it was hardly alone.

Except then, due to accidentally sending an email from the wrong address, the writer was revealed to be Labour MP George Galloway, one of Blair's more open critics and a former junior minister that had lost his role under the new regime. And that was unusual. That required removing the whip from Galloway and was worth three weeks of tabloid fodder, as well as meaning the general public had to be told what message boards where and what a "counterfactual" was. (A wag online would write an alternate history where news didn't break until the election, called "If Galloway Had Played")

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TBS.com - Ten of the BIGGEST Scandals in Modern History

1) Coming only a few years removed from the end of the Syrian War and the beginning of the Lost Decade, the APEX scandal came at precisely the worst time for President Webb - Scoop Jackson, who had won a landslide victory in 1976 on the promise of cleaning up American politics in the aftermath of the Watergate hearings and dealing with the nations growing energy crisis, had boldly nationalized international oil giant Exxon along with legislation breaking up the 70's "super-conglomerates" that had dominated domestic markets for years. After a quick rebrand (Exxon became American Petroleum EXports), APEX became one of the worlds most profitable companies overnight and was a key part of Jackson's legacy. Surviving proposed cuts during the Connally Administration, APEX's public ownership became a major selling point to American voters from Democratic politicians, with the two-word slogan "Our Oil" becoming ubiquitous during political campaigns from the 90's to the early 2000's. However, anonymous whistleblowers revealed in February of 2002 widespread embezzlement, money laundering and corruption within APEX, and the resulting investigations led to a landslide defeat of the Democrats in the 2002 midterms, the impeachment and eventual conviction of President Webb and 2003, and the privatization of APEX in 2005. Jeffrey Skilling became an international celebrity overnight for his role in defrauding APEX and buying off Congressmen's silence through illicit bribes, "APEX bucks" became a buzzword overnight and Webb's bizarre habit of bringing up men he killed in Vietnam during his trial has been one of the most enduring (and funniest) political moments in recent memory.

2) The Modern Olympics had evolved from it's early intentions of brotherhood in sportsmanship, and a display of feats of amateur talent. By the 1980s, they had become an industry in and of themselves. A frontier of the Cold War as well, as the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1984 displayed. It all came crashing down in 1988 amidst the blood-doping scandal. Blood-doping had begun at the start of the decade on the back of tightening restrictions on more traditional doping. What is interesting is that those restrictions were imposed because of abuses by the Eastern Bloc, whereas it was the American team who were the flagbearers of blood-doping. It was a pretty terrible idea, using supplies of oxygen-rich blood, injected intravenously before a competition to give athletes an unnatural boost that would show no traces of stimulants. This was a technique that had been utilised for some time in horse racing. And it's known to be a health risk to the horse. Turns out the same is true for humans - especially when proper hygiene isn't taken into account. The American team was stricken down by flu during the 1988 competition, and it was the investigation of their mysterious illness which uncovered not only blood-doping, but the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the United States. The result saw the Americans banned from attending the Olympics, the end of Connally's re-election campaign, and within a decade the virtual collapse of the Modern Olympics as people knew it.

3) Few in Britain knew who Norman Scott was when his corpse was dredged from a river, and even fewer knew he'd been a lover of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jeremy Thorpe. But the investigating detectives found out and were strongly encouraged by men in grey suits to drop it - but word trickled out from various sources, and rumour grew, and eventually it made into print, in an issue of Private Eye, leading to a cascade of events. It was never proven or disproven if Thorpe had ordered a hit, but it was proven that a Russian agent had heard the rumours and had been blackmailing the Deputy PM of the Heath government for information. The government fell, the Liberal Party fell, a huge purge was ordered of multiple nation's compromised intelligence, foreign, and military depts, and Britain temporarily suspended diplomatic relations with the USSR to save face. The Scott Affair blew up Britain's political world with an atom bomb, leaving the way for Footite Labour and Thatcherite Conservatives to be the powers of the 80s.

4) If you'd have asked anyone in the run up to the 1960 Presidential Election which of the the major candidates was the most corrupt, you could probably be safe to bet they'd say the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, as opposed to the public darling, Senator of Massachusetts John Kennedy. In hindsight this seems laughable, as the Kennedy White House in now infamous its corruption given the amount of scandals associated with it. The trail of corruption started long before Kennedy arrived in the White House of course when Joe Sr. had made deals with leading members of Organised Crime to deliver the Mid-West in return for protection from the FBI and the possible reclamation of Cuba from Castro. While the latter was a burning failure, the former was easily doable and in 1971 resulted in the conviction of former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy for covering up evidence, abuse of power and loosing hundreds of Justice Department documents. Several minor scandals followed, though were no less horrific, such as possible war crimes in Indochina with US equipment and endorsement, unconstitutional use of police powers and the FBI in controlling the Civil Rights movement, and various suspect arms-deals. The final damning piece, and the one which the public is most familiar with, is the circumstances surrounding the death of his well-known mistress, Marilyn Monroe after her body washed up on an L.A. beach which investigation by LAPD implicated members of the Secret Service and many others at the highest level of government. Kennedy was well on course to be the first President to face impeachment without acquittal before his death: Dr. Max Jacobson would be the last scandal of the Kennedy era, whose accidental poisoning of the President has long been the fodder of theorists as to a wider government cover-up.

5) There is little as deadly in politics as a friend scorned, especially when that friend knows where all the bodies are buried. Charles Haughey would find that out to his cost when he fired Brian Lenihan to appease his coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats. Controversy had arisen during Lenihans run for President when old allegations had resurfaced at his part in pressurizing the incumbent President Patrick Hillery to grant a dissolution of the Dail back in 1982. A dissolution would have brought Haugheys Fianna Fail back into power and Haughey and his allies bombarded the Áras an Uachtaráin with phone calls to persuade the President to call the dissolution, calls which to his credit Hillery refused to take.

Lenihn had never hidden the fact he made these calls, in fact he had gone on the record in 1990 with a journalist to confirm the stories. But as the Presidential campaign heated up these calls took on new relevance and Lenihan was pressurized to come clean on what he had done and on whose authority. Lenihan originally refused to answer, before eventually stating "on mature recollection" that he had never made a call to the President and then requested an audience with Hillery who would confirm his story, an audience the outgoing President refused to grant.

By this point relations with the coalition had become so frayed that the Progressive Democrats threatened to bring down the government by supporting the oppositions no confidence motion. Haughey, backed into a corner, gave Lenihan a pre-typed resignation letter to sign to which the latter angrily refused. At this point, feeling he had no option, the Taoiseach sacked Lenihan.

All this would have been damaging enough but as Lenihan stewed over the matter at home his sense of grievance and betrayal grew. Seeking some sort of revenge he discretely contacted some journalists and opposition members of the Dail informing them of certain irregularities in the Taoiseach's finances and suggesting that maybe the matter was worth further research.

The flood of allegations that came out in 1991 created a political firestorm, the resulting no confidence motion easily passed and Fianna Fail were out of Government. Even worse was to come for Haughey who attempted to fight for his position, only to be defenestrated by his own party, Haugheys explosive rebuke to party elders at a behind closed doors session a thing of Irish political folklore. The defining image however will always be of Charles Haughey being led away in handcuffs by the Garda on myriad charges of extortion and graft.

The trial and conviction, the appeal and his eventual release and self-exile to the Irish hinterlands are all parts of the Haughey legend, a story worthy of any Greek tragedy. As for Brian Lenihan he passed away from cancer in 1995, always to be remembered as the man who brought down a government, humbled his best friend and cast Fianna Fail out of power for a generation.


6) Tony Blair's time in office was controversial with many in Labour: where he argued they needed to move to the centre to prevent a Conservative victory, that there'd been so many years of Labour government "the public want a new Labour", they saw it as Tory lite. So it wasn't too surprising that on the nascent internet's message boards, a man was writing an anti-Blair fanfic. "Gordon Banks To Play" was an 'alternative history' tale of populist blood-and-thunder, depicting a world where the Nazis had briefly invaded Britain but been thrown out, and after years of socialist liberation government, Prime Minister Ronnie Kray is 'shifting to the centre' in a borderline fascist way. Everyone can tell this was a rude jab at Blair but it was hardly alone.

Except then, due to accidentally sending an email from the wrong address, the writer was revealed to be Labour MP George Galloway, one of Blair's more open critics and a former junior minister that had lost his role under the new regime. And that was unusual. That required removing the whip from Galloway and was worth three weeks of tabloid fodder, as well as meaning the general public had to be told what message boards where and what a "counterfactual" was. (A wag online would write an alternate history where news didn't break until the election, called "If Galloway Had Played")

7) When a routine inspection went into the fiances of David Owen, Home Secretary, no one could have believed the storm waiting to be unfolded. Given to posterity as the ‘Saint Bart’s Blood Scandal’ it was discovered that the Kray Twins had supplied most of London’s NHS Hospitals with stock for transplants and transfusions that had been smuggled in from abroad, namely from certain areas of Africa, either where power was still with White settlers or there was no legal power at all, with ‘stock’ taken at gun point. Owen had no knowledge that the Krays had been involved, though he had received illicit cash to ensure a lack of insight to the quango, both as a junior minister, a member of DoH’s oversight committee and as a Cabinet minister. As investigations continued into his finances, Owen finally blew the whistle on the quango to escape a jail sentence, but once the police discovered it to be a Kray driven racket, it was as if Owen had sunk the Bismark of British organised crime.

Through a combination of blackmail, charisma and secret mountain’s of cash, Ronnie and Reggie Kray had spun a web of corruption in Westminster. It effectively immunised them from prosecution attempts, and had a number of rackets that they ran on behalf or with the help of successive governments. The Scandal at Saint Bart’s was one of several, leaving no party or faction in Westminster untouched. In the mid-60s, John Profumo, while Minister for Transport, had been blackmailed into giving a Kray run company the scrappage rights to steam locomotives on government run rail lines; Tory peer Lord Boothby and Labour MP Tom Driberg were known to frequent orgies organised by Ron Kray, and Jeremy Thorpe was discovered to have hired members of the Kray Firm to carry out a hit after his former lover attempted to blackmail him.

The discovery that organised crime had penetrated so deep into British society and government was an astounding bombshell to all the public, and even to the PM. Suddenly, a crusade against corruption was launched with gusto, the Prime Minister himself leading the charge of what became Operation Riverboat: remembered now as the war on the Kray’s Firm, but also the MI5/Police campaign to up end corruption in Westminster and uproot organised crime. Nothing was sacred to the Riverboat teams, as the Krays in London were smashed, so to were similar gangs like the McGraw’s of Glasgow, and Charrington’s in Middlesbrough. Dozens of MPs were sacked too, as more and more were discovered to be partial to dodgy dealings and finances, whether they were in collusion with crime or not. Britain now has some of the most strict laws in the world regarding the finances and conduct of government employees, but all of this was forced to come out of an influence of crime in a leading nation rivalled only by post-Soviet Warsaw Pact and Prohibition America.

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Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-19??: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-19??: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-19??: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 - 19XX: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-1992: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 - 1999: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
1999- 20??: Marxist-Leninist-Krushchevists vs OGAS Group vs 'EuroCommunists' (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-1992: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 -1999: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
1999-2006: Marxist-Leninist-Krushchevists vs OGAS Group vs 'EuroCommunists' (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
2006-2xxx: New Futurists vs EuroCommunists vs True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) (vs Anti-Party Group)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-1992: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 -1999: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
1999-2006: Marxist-Leninist-Krushchevists vs OGAS Group vs 'EuroCommunists' (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
2006-2xxx: New Futurists vs EuroCommunists vs True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) (vs Anti-Party Group)
2010-2xxx: True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) vs New China Faction (Marxist-Lenist-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought) (vs Anti-Party Group)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-1992: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 -1999: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
1999-2006: Marxist-Leninist-Krushchevists vs OGAS Group vs 'EuroCommunists' (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
2006-2xxx: New Futurists vs EuroCommunists vs True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) (vs Anti-Party Group)
2010-2018: True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) vs New China Faction (Marxist-Lenist-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought) (vs Anti-Party Group)
2018-2xxx: Anti-Party Group (Liberal Coalition) vs Anti-Party Group (Nationalist Coalition) vs New China Faction (Marx-Len-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought)
 
Party Systems of the USSR since Khrushchev's retirement

1969-1974: Industrial Group vs Agricultural Group (vs Anti-Party Group)
1974-1979: Pro-Détente vs Anti-Détente vs Pro-Chinese (vs Anti-Party Group)
1979-1985: Conservatives vs Futurists (Cybernists) vs ‘Titoist’ Reformers (vs Anti-Party Group)
1985-1988: Futurists (Reformers) vs Futurists (Neo-Stalinists) vs Pan-Nationalist (vs Anti-Party Group)
1988-1992: Anti-Party Group vs Luddites (vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists)
1992 -1999: Anti-Party Group vs OGAS Group vs Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevists (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
1999-2006: Marxist-Leninist-Krushchevists vs OGAS Group vs 'EuroCommunists' (vs Neo-Trotskyites)
2006-2010: New Futurists vs EuroCommunists vs True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) (vs Anti-Party Group)
2010-2018: True Soviet (Marx-Len-Kruschevists) vs New China Faction (Marxist-Lenist-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought) (vs Anti-Party Group)
2018-2024: Anti-Party Group (Liberal Coalition) vs Anti-Party Group (Nationalist Coalition) vs New China Faction (Marx-Len-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought)
2024-:New China Faction (Marxist-Lenist-Maoist Bo Xilai Thought) vs Anti-Party Group (Nationalist Coalition) vs. Workers Democracy Faction (Marxist-Leninist-Khasbulatov Thought)
 
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