In the midst of Mr. Abe’s resignation, Mainichi reports that Shukan Gendai has been investigating reports of tax evasion by Mr. Abe, who allegedly transferred his 2.5 billion yen inheritance from his father to his political organization without paying taxes.
While there are plenty of reasons for Mr. Abe’s departure, it would be fitting if the timing of his resignation was the result of fears that he too would be implicated in a political funds scandal, joining, well, most of the members of his cabinets.
Tobias S. Harris 
Do you have a link to that story that still works?
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I wish, but apparently Mainichi has taken it down.The title of the article as it appears in my Google Reader: 安倍首相辞意：「週刊現代」が「脱税疑惑」追及で取材Good luck finding it cached somewhere, or not.
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I\’ve heard said several times (including an interview with a former lawmaker) that you can\’t get elected – indeed, can\’t get nominated – for office without stretching rules about financing and support to their breaking point and beyond. As a result, elected officials would disproportionally be people with a roomy conscience and a pragmatic, result-oriented approach to rules and regulations in general. The accounting scandals would thus merely be what most everybody is doing, just on a larger, less acceptable, scale.
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Exactly right — which is why the revelations of corruption that tarnished the Abe cabinet in recent weeks aren\’t surprising. What\’s interesting is why the stories were being reported now.The other part of this is that the DPJ isn\’t in the best of positions to attack the LDP on this issue, because presumably the media is sitting on stories of corruption by DPJ members.
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Is it significant that Mainichi has removed that link? Does it suggest they\’re nervous about the story for some reason – or do these links expire quickly as a matter of routine?Cheers,Richard
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Asahi\’s links usually expire quickly, but I don\’t think Mainichi\’s do — and this link went cold faster than would be usual.I guess we\’ll have to wait for the forthcoming Shukan Gendai.
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Do not read too much in the article\’s disappearance:1) All the television networks are reporting the same story about the Shukan Gendai article\’s publication.2) The dailies have a habit of leaving an article online for a short time, yanking it offline, then resurrecting it a day later. The other day when I posted the article about Abe being out of the loop on the Endo takedown, Asahi Online pulled this same trick.No, I do not know the point behind the behavior.
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Here…you…are…boys and girls.That\’s $200, plus $100/hr after two hours (special rate, just for my fellow bloggers)…Deuces are wild, I\’d say. All the face cards too. Heck, anything goes.
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The check\’s, er, in the mail.Anyway, the Yahoo links were down earlier too, when I went to find the story elsewhere.
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