FRIST-- WORSE THAN MARTHA STEWART, MUCH MUCH WORSE

Look, I reserve my sorrow and anguish for victims of Katrina, Rita, Bush and the earthquake in Pakistan, not for multi-millionaires striving like heck to claw their way to billionaire status but who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar and get a good slap (or even a tepid slap). Do you think Martha Stewart or Bill Frist would ever be treated the way those New Orleans cops treated Robert Davis, a retired elementary school teacher whose only crime appears to have been born the ancestor of kidnapped citizens of Africa a few hundred years ago? No, rich white folks don't get brutalized by the regimes' enforcers. Especially not Republican rich white folks.

I could give a crap if Martha Stewart was sent away to do some easy time in a cushy Connecticut prison. Be more careful next time or, better yet, realize you have to obey the same laws the rest of us have to obey. Well, at least most of the rest of us. "Kenny Boy" Lay is still hiding-and-spending stolen assets, as are the vast majority of Bush-connected crooks. "Duke" Cunningham isn't even being investigated by "Doc" Hastings' so-called "House Ethics Committee," let along being kicked off the House Intelligence or Defense Appropriations committees, access to which were linchpins in the millions of dollars in bribes he was able to coax out of defense contractors (and all mention of the fact that he was selling presidential pardons to convicted Republican criminals has disappeared without a trace). And so on and so on.

But what about Republicrook Senate Majority Leader (and self-proclaimed presidential candidate), Bill Frist who was caught red-handed doing something about 500 times more egregiously illegal than Martha Stewart? His punishment should be 500 times harsher than hers. But this week he's still doing grievous damage to America as Senate Majority Leader. And today the Associated Press ran a story by Larry Margasak exposing that Frist broke the law by accumulating stock-- OUT SIDE IS FAKE "BLIND" TRUST-- in his billionaire family's Hospital rip-off business while he was aggressively pushing medical policies that would drive the price of that stock up. No cops beat the shit out of him today.

According to the AP story, documents show that outside the farcical "blind" trust, Frist earned a great deal of money and was utterly entangled in gross conflict of interest, exactly what a true blind trust seeks to avoid for public officials. Margasak got a hold of two experts in the field of blind trusts, Edmond M. Ianni, a former Wilmington, DE, bank executive who established blind trusts for corporate executives, and Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. Ianni questioned why Frist's brother was able to manage assets "when the whole purpose of a blind trust is to ensure lack of not only conflict of interest but appearance of conflict of interest?" And Clark's assessment was even starker, saying "she doesn't believe the Senate trusts or the Tennessee trust insulated Frist from a conflict because the senator or his brother were advised of transactions and could influence decisions. 'What I find most appalling is the Senate calls it a qualified blind trust when it's not blind,' Clark said. 'Since the Senate says it's OK, the Senate has made it a political question. It's up to the voter. But there's no doubt it's a conflict of interest.'"

Caught red-handed and exposed today Frist, through his team of high-priced lawyers, admitted his brother could influence investment decisions in the Bowling Avenue partnership that controlled the stock and said the partnership was placed in a Tennessee trust because Senate ethics rules didn't allow the non-public HCA shares to be included in Senate-approved trusts." This guy sure likes dancin'! The brother, a well-known crook, refuses to comment on any of this of course. The shares in question brought Frist around a million dollars, perhaps much more.

Margasak doesn't mention that medical student Frist was a notorious cat torturer but he does point out that Senate Majority Leader Frist "with his background as a heart surgeon as well as majority leader, has been at the forefront of legislation that would affect the hospital chain. Among the issues: a Medicare prescription drug benefit and limits on medical malpractice lawsuits" (in case you were wondering why the legislation screws the poor and elderly and is a gigantic windfall for corporate entities... like Frists').