Would You Put Trump In Charge Of Guarding Your Money?

Most Americans-- including some who voted for him and even some who plan to vote for him again-- do not find Trump honest and trustworthy. Pollsters never ask if respondents would put their pretty under-age daughters in a room alone with Trump or if they would agree to let Trump hold on to their savings for a few months. I think we've all know from the beginning-- albeit New Yorkers more than anyone is Alabama or Wyoming-- that Trump is a crook from head to toe and always has been. And I think more Americans are waking up to that now.

When Congress passed their big bailout bills, they were smart enough to make sure the bailouts would be subject to oversight by a team of honest brokers. But they somehow weren't smart enough to anticipate that Trump would fire the head of the team and replace him with a lackey. It should have brought chills to every Americans' spine when Trump said he himself would be in charge of making sure all the money was spent properly.




Yesterday Washington Post reporters Peter Whoriskey and Heather Long asked the question we'll be hearing a lot between now and November: Who's Getting These Hundreds Of Billions In The Government Aid?. They know the answer; we won't be finding out any time soon and, obviously, "if the names of the beneficiaries of the aid are withheld, it will be difficult to gauge how much of the relief money is being wasted, fraudulently obtained or reaching places it was intended to go, experts and watchdog groups say... The names of businesses that collectively will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in coronavirus relief from the federal government," they wrote, "may not be disclosed publicly, an omission that critics say could make the massive spending program vulnerable to fraud and favoritism. The $2.2 trillion Cares Act approved by President Trump last month requires that the names of recipients of some forms of federal aid be published, but those requirements do not extend to significant portions of the relief. Chief among the omissions is the $349 billion expected to be doled out to small companies in chunks as large as $10 million. The rescue legislation does not compel the Small Business Administration to disclose the identity of the recipients. So far, the agency has said it received about 487,000 applications totaling $125 billion in requests. A potentially even larger gap involves the trillions going out to businesses under the auspices of the Federal Reserve."

The legislation requires that the Fed disclose the loan recipients and the amounts they receive, "but there is a significant exemption: the Fed chairman, Jerome H. Powell, may request that the information be kept confidential, meaning only congressional leaders would be given access." Powell is petrified of Trump and rarely stands up to his outrageous demands.

Though most of the $2.2 trillion in spending has yet to begin, disputes already have arisen about who will be responsible for making sure it is done ethically.

The Cares Act requires several layers of oversight: It calls for a special inspector general, a congressional review commission and a “Pandemic Response Accountability Committee,” a group that will be composed of inspectors general armed with enhanced powers to subpoena documents and testimony.

But President Trump already has taken steps that undermine these reviewers. In signing the Cares Act into law, Trump angered some Democrats, who had insisted on oversight measures, by declaring that the special inspector general cannot issue reports to Congress without “presidential supervision,” a constraint that could compromise the watchdog’s independence.

Then on Monday, Trump removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s handling of the Cares Act. Glenn Fine, who had been the acting Pentagon inspector general, was informed he was being replaced at the Defense Department by Sean W. O’Donnell, currently the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Regardless of what happens to the oversight panels, the public disclosure of who receives the trillions in emergency money could play a critical role in the public debate over the programs.

Publishing the recipient information would enable outside groups-- not just government-appointed bodies-- to check into the spending, said Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group.

“We are always going to be in favor of as much transparency as possible in government spending,” he said.

But under the $2.2 trillion spending bill, the requirements for disclosure vary by the type of spending.

For example, one of the best known elements in the bill, which allows the Treasury Department to spend $46 billion to help airlines, air cargo companies and “businesses critical to national security,” requires the Treasury to promptly publish the name of the company getting money, the amount of the loan and the contract.

The Cares Act similarly sets out requirements for the Federal Reserve to disclose information about the loans it offers.

The Fed is required to turn over to Congress-- and ultimately put up on the Fed’s website-- the basic items of loans issued: the identity of the business, how much money was lent and the interest rate. Later it will disclose how much of the loan has been repaid.

Powell has stressed repeatedly in recent months that he believes the Fed must be transparent and accountable to the public in all its actions. In a speech Thursday, he also emphasized that the Fed is making loans that it expects will be repaid, not outright financial grants.

“I would stress that these are lending powers, not spending powers,” Powell said. The Fed’s expectation is “the loans will be fully repaid."

As the Fed chair, Powell has the discretion to keep the company name and amount borrowed confidential, sharing it only with certain congressional leaders who oversee Fed activities.

During the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve refused to turn over to reporters the records of some of its emergency bank lending. Bloomberg, the media company, sued for their release and, in a case that went to the Supreme Court, won three years later.

...There are no such requirements, for example, for the $100 billion destined for health care providers, or the $3.5 billion for companies developing diagnostics, medications and vaccines, or the $10 billion supposed to go to airports.

Those agencies could still release the information, however, and some are planning to do so.

...One of the most divisive of the disclosure debates could arise over the $349 billion promised to small businesses, a figure that could rise to almost $600 billion if a follow up relief bill is approved. The Small Business Administration hasn’t yet said how much has been disbursed.

Keep in mind, Trump absconded with millions of dollars he illegally misappropriated from his Inaugural Fund which was widely padded by crooked businessmen and even other countries to bribe him. Yesterday, Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for TARP, penned an OpEd for the Times, Why We Desperately Need Oversight of the Coronavirus Stimulus Spending. He went out of his way to take the high-road and not assert that Trump is a crook, a road that at this point in time is just patently absurd. But he did make note that "More than $2 trillion is about to head out the door, committed in a single news release last week by the Federal Reserve Board. In that release, the Federal Reserve announced how it and the Treasury Department intend to leverage just a portion of the $454 billion that Congress gave the department in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, known as the CARES Act, with the potential of trillions more in lending to come."

He asked the key question: "Who will conduct oversight of this staggering amount of taxpayer money? We need to ensure that this government aid is not being stolen, wasted or given to political cronies"-- all of the things Trump is best known for. "And we need to make sure that the public is aware of how and to whom those trillions are distributed. In short, we need watchdogs. As it prepares for more relief in the wake of vast economic ruin caused by Covid-19, Congress has leverage-- and must use it."

During TARP, the compliance officials at the Federal Reserve were often careful and thoughtful. But within the Treasury Department, where many of the key decisions were made, officials often had a far less rigorous approach-- and given the rushed nature of their actions so far, I fear this may apply even more so today.

For the CARES Act, Congress demanded the same watchdog function within Treasury-- but so far, that dog is still in the pound. The legislation promised a brand-new agency headed by a special inspector general for pandemic recovery who would keep the programs on the right policy track and protected from fraud. The new agency would also provide the necessary transparency to make sure that when decision makers fall short, as they inevitably do in the haste of an emergency, it could make quick recommendations to correct course and share both the flaws and the proposed solutions with Congress and the American people.

Perhaps most important, it would shine a bright light on the decision-making process within the Treasury Department, deterring policymakers from making decisions-- which are likely to determine which companies survive and which fail-- based on personal connections or cronyism rather than the merits. Unfortunately, President Trump included a signing statement to the CARES Act that suggested he would limit the ability of the new inspector general to reveal to Congress efforts by his administration to obstruct or impede his inquiries.

Some are also raising questions about the president’s intended nominee for the job, Brian Miller. Even in the absence of what the signing statement may portend about the president’s intentions, the job of special inspector general for pandemic recovery would require fierce independence and the steeliest of spines. Mr. Miller demonstrated those qualities when he was the inspector general of the General Services Administration for nearly 10 years. But he is now on the president’s legal team at the White House and apparently played a role in fending off oversight requests during impeachment.

This raises important questions, but Mr. Miller deserves the opportunity to demonstrate at a confirmation hearing that he is prepared to repel any efforts to muzzle his ability to provide unvarnished reports to Congress. That won’t be possible until he is formally nominated and a confirmation hearing scheduled. Until then, the critically important role of the special inspector general remains unfilled.

The money is already flowing. Critics of the CARES Act pointed out that there could be a delay in the appointment of the special inspector general, but we were told not to worry, there would be a Pandemic Recovery Accountability Committee immediately organized that consisted of sitting inspectors general. Even better, the widely respected acting inspector general of the Defense Department, Glenn Fine, was named as its chairman. But that didn’t last long: He was quickly sacked by Mr. Trump with no explanation, leaving the committee leaderless, dormant and very possibly housebroken.

Because Mr. Fine’s dismissal came after attacks on other inspectors general (including another Pandemic Recovery Accountability Committee member, Christi Grimm, the acting inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services), a chilling message was sent and received by the watchdogs who are expected to play a crucial role in overseeing the trillions of dollars spread throughout the government as part of CARES: Criticize the programs at your peril, and think twice before even raising your hand for the task of overseeing them.

Until there is a new chairperson of this commission who can operate without the fear of being fired merely for taking the position, this watchdog has been effectively neutered.

And then there was a Congressional Oversight Commission, patterned on the Congressional Oversight Panel from the TARP legislation, which a then little-known Harvard professor named Elizabeth Warren turned into a beacon of transparency and accountability. But the commission, like Congress itself, is dependent on cooperation by the administration to provide access necessary to analyze and report on the programs. The recent assertions by the White House that it can ignore congressional subpoenas provide little comfort that the commission will be able to fulfill its role.

Only one of its five commissioners has been named, and we are waiting for the critical chairman to be named by congressional leaders. Keep in mind that, as we wait, trillions are committed and will begin to be spent.

What is the best use of Congress’s leverage? It is already apparent that additional relief will be necessary. Before parting with another trillion dollars, Congress must condition any further funding on the inclusion of protections to ensure that the inspectors general overseeing the Treasury Department’s actions can be removed only for cause shown, the nomination and hearing for Mr. Miller must proceed as soon as possible, provisions must be enacted ensuring that oversight bodies will have unimpeded access to the information that they need to carry out their tasks, and the seats of the Congressional Oversight Commission must be filled.

Otherwise, buckle up for what oversight helped limit in TARP-- vast amounts of taxpayer money lost to fraud, policy decisions made in the dark with little chance of success and scandals that may make us yearn for the relative quiet of impeachment.

Yowza, is Republicrook ex-Guv "Virginia Slick" Bob McDonnell going away for 10 years? (Or maybe more!)

One shuffle closer to the chain gang? As Howie asked in September, when the jury dropped the hammer on Governor Bob and Mrs. Governor Bob, "After Throwing His Own Christian Wife Under The Bus, Whose Wife Will Bob McDonnell Be In Prison?"

by Ken

When we last dallied with "Slick Bob" McDonnell, he and his wife -- the onetime love of his life and indispensable partner in his political career, whom he had taken to portraying publicly as That Crazy Bitch (as I put it in July, "Man, what a dingbat ex-VA First Lady Mo McD is! Yes, the Dingbat Defense emerges as the McDonnells' secret weapon!") -- had been found guilty of corrupt gift-accepting so petty as to blight the very brand of Republicrookery. All that remained was for a judge to decided how long he's going away for, and then it's bye-bye, Bobby!

Slick Bob, you'll recall was the rocket-rising star of right-wing GOP politics (oops, that's redundant, isn't it? there isn't any other kind of GOP politics, is there?), the man who put a manly face and head of hair on crazed right-wing extremism. (The obvious contrast would be the creature from the crazy lagoon who served alongside him and but for the grace of God nearly succeeded him as governor, "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli, the man who flaunted the face of crazed right-wing extremism.) To the professional pols and commentariat, His Slickness was a mere hop, skip, and jump away from the White House.

Oops.

Now there's news, and it's not the kind the McD's were likely hoping for. This morning washingtonpost.com put out this word:

Former Virginia Governor McDonnell’s sentencing guidelines: 10 years at least

By Matt Zapotosky

The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison and 12 years and 7 months at most, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The guidelines recommended by the U.S. probation office are preliminary ones, and even if finalized, U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer is not required to follow them. But experts said Spencer typically heeds the probation office’s advice, and judges in his district have imposed sentences within the recommended range more than 70 percent of the time in recent years.

“It’s of critical importance,” said white collar criminal defense attorney Scott Fredericksen. “The fact is, the vast majority of times, courts follow those recommendations closely.”

To be sure, the matter is far from settled. Calculating an appropriate range of sentences in the federal system is a complicated, mathematical process that takes into account a variety of factors, including the type of crime that was committed, the defendant’s role in that crime and the amount of the loss. A probation officer is tasked with analyzing each factor objectively, then using the federal sentencing guidelines to calculate an appropriate range of penalties.

McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were convicted in September of lending the prestige of his office to Richmond businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. in exchange for $177,000 in loans, vacations and luxury goods.

McDonnell is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 6. His wife is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 20, and her guideline range — on which the probation office has not yet filed a report — is expected to be lower than her husband’s.

It is unclear how the probation office determined that those crimes necessitate a minimum decade-long sentence. The initial report on the matter is sealed, and people familiar with its contents revealed only the recommended range to the Washington Post.

The range is particularly notable because last December, prosecutors offered to let McDonnell plead guilty to just one count of lying to a bank as part of an agreement that would have meant he could be sentenced to three years in prison at the most, and probation at the least. Importantly, though, McDonnell would have been required to sign a statement acknowledging that he helped Williams’s company at the same time the businessman was giving him loot, fully shouldering blame for a relationship he has insisted was not criminal and was driven largely by his wife. . . .

In the Eastern District of Virginia, where McDonnell is being sentenced, judges imposed sentences within the guideline range more than 70 percent of the time last fiscal year, according to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. They imposed sentences below the guideline range without a request from prosecutors to do so in about 21 percent of cases.

Nationally, judges imposed sentences within the guideline range about 51 percent of the time last fiscal year, and deviated downward without a request from prosecutors to do so in about 19 percent of cases.

In the McDonnell case, prosecutors are not expected to ask for a sentence below the guideline range. . . .

Of course, I assume that even if Slick Bob gets that ten-year whammy he isn't going to serve ten years, that "good behavior" and what not will whittle it down to a fraction. But it would be a fraction of a heckuva lot longer sentence than your average Republicrook gets for crimes anywhere from 10 to 100 times worse.

But then, the average Republicrook doesn't even get indicted for his crimes. One thing Slick Bob may never overcome, even after he's paid his debt to society, is the crime of getting caught at such piddling pilfery.

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Politics Seems To Have Always Attracted The Criminal Element Among Us, But So Few Ever Go To Prison

Served some time for war crimes in Vietnam, but not a day for the Savings and Loan fraud he helped kick off

As tyrant and kleptocrat Hosni Mubarak dithers between joining his family in luxurious exile or fighting it out against 80,000,000 Egyptians who have the sympathy of everyone in the world other than the Saudi royal family, the Israelis, some U.S. neocons and a few scattered military dictatorships and monarchies, one thing we can be fairly certain of is that he's unlikely to ever see a day in prison-- let alone the descending blade of a guillotine. Not long ago Baby Doc Duvalier had the gumption to fly back into Haiti, a seething, impoverished nation he and his family had plundered. He wasn't hacked to bits. And he's not in prison or under house arrest or anything.

Last week hustler and ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, once Arnold Schwarzenegger's heir apparent, finally shuffled off to Club Fed, but outrageous political criminals from George Bush, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney to California Republicrooks Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert, Richard Pombo and John Doolittle are certainly not spending their days contemplating ever paying for their crimes against society. The system just doesn't work that way.

Or almost never does. Tom DeLay, has at long last been convicted and sentenced. (He was indicted October 3, 2005, for crimes committed in 2002.) Still, he's out on bail, pending appeal. A commercial blog, the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, suggested we share a post they did about politicians who have recently been incarcerated. They picked ten:

1. Bob Ney: The Jack Abramoff scandal wound up affecting lobbyists, politicians, and staffers at all levels-- Tom DeLay is still dealing with the fallout-- but Congressman Bob Ney, R-Ohio, was the only one to quickly be sentenced to spend time behind bars. Ney was already infamous on Capitol Hill for being the brain to say that French fries be renamed "freedom fries" on the House of Representatives food menus, but he would go on to more notorious heights. He was pegged for receiving cash gifts for political favors, and he resigned in fall 2006 as the House Ethics Committee began to investigate him. He pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy and fraud, and served 17 months of a 30-month sentence. Ney was remarkably forthcoming about his experience in the 2010 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money.



2. Bill Janklow: The governor and attorney general of South Dakota before acting as one of the state’s representatives to Congress, Republican Bill Janklow only served that body for a year before tragedy struck. In August 2003, Janklow was involved in a car accident while drinking and speeding (investigators pegged his speed around 63 mph in a 55 zone). He struck and killed a motorcyclist. The trial revealed that he was a regular speeder, and had been stopped but not ticketed on multiple occasions because of his office. He was sentenced to 100 days in jail but released after 30 to perform community service for the duration. He resigned from Congress as a result.

3. James Traficant: Congressman James Traficant, D-Ohio, did not play well with others. He was expelled from Congress following his conviction on a variety of money-related crimes, including racketeering, submitting phony tax returns, taking bribes, and, weirdly, making his aides perform basic chores on his Ohio farm and his Washington, D.C., houseboat. (That just seems mean, you know?) Even crazier, Traficant ran as an independent while incarcerated and got 15 percent of the vote, meaning people in Ohio must have frighteningly low standards for office-holders. He was in prison from 2002 to 2009.

4. George Ryan: The Republican governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003, Ryan started out as a crusader for human rights, enacting a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000. Before he left office, he commuted the sentences of state death row inmates to life terms, and he pardoned four more. Yet he had to leave office because of a string of scandalous investigations relating to bribes that greased the process by which unqualified truck drivers were acquiring licenses. He went to prison in 2007 and is set to be released in 2013.

5. Dan Rostenkowski: A Democrat from Illinois, Dan Rostenkowski served in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1995, a stunning 36 years. He eventually chaired the Ways and Means Committee and was integral in President Reagan’s tax policies. However, he was hit in the 1990s by allegations of impropriety and involvement in the Congressional Post Office scandal, which dealt with politicians using the CPO to launder money (e.g., making cash bribes look like stamp purchases). He pleaded guilty in 1996 to mail fraud and spent 15 months in federal prison.

6. Pat Swindall: Pat Swindall only served four years in the House; that was all it took for the Alabama Republican to do some dirt. He was convicted of perjury in a money-laundering case and served a year in prison, and years later he found himself in trouble again.

7. Don Siegelman: Alabama Democrat Don Siegelman was a lifelong politician, serving as secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor for the state during his career. His string of luck came to an end in the ’00s, though, as he was indicted on bribery and fraud charges for accepting campaign donations in exchange for favors. However, his conviction drew controversy because of potential connections to Bush-appointed prosecutors who had intentionally taken a tough stand on Democrats. He served time but was released to pursue his appeal.

8. Fred Richmond: New York Democrat first faced criminal charges in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. That wasn’t the one that undid him, though; the charges were dropped when Richmond consented to counseling. In 1982, he pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and tax evasion, and he consequently resigned his office in the House of Representatives. He was sentenced to a year but served nine months in prison.

9. Duke Cunningham: Duke Cunningham, R-California, was in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 2005. In his final year, it came to light that he’d underreported his 2004 income (which is something the federal government doesn’t, you know, let you do) and had taken more than $2 million in bribes. Yikes. He was hit with charges including conspiracy, fraud (wire and mail), and tax evasion. He pleaded guilty and resigned his office. In 2006, he was sentenced to eight years and change, and he should see free sunlight in 2013.

10. Edwin Edwards: After serving in the House of Representatives, Republican Edwin Edwards went on to earn four terms as governor of Louisiana. He dealt with allegations of financial impropriety almost from the start, and was indicted in the mid-1980s on bribery charges that he managed to beat. His shady ways caught up with him in the late 1990s, though. A 1998 indictment led to conviction on counts of fraud, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion, among others. He entered prison in 2002 and was released on January 13, 2011, with the provision that he finish his sentence in a halfway house.

Needless to say, Boehner put an anti-ethics corporate tool, Jo Bonner (R-AL), in charge of the House Ethics Committee as soon as the GOP took over. And ever faster than they were to try to repeal healthcare, they began clamoring to get rid of serious ethics regulations. Bonner told the Mobile Press Register yesterday that, privately, the vast majority of congressmembers want to get rid of the teeth on the one pathetic watchdog that even makes an attempt to keep these crooks on the straight and narrow.

Bonner, now the chairman of Congress’ internal House Ethics Committee, a separate group, said political realities prevented new Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, from making that wish come true when he took power.

“If he had disbanded OCE, he would have instantly become the target of criticism, from both the far left and the far right, that he was not serious when he said that we were going to have zero tolerance on ethical violations,” Bonner said.

Bonner’s House Ethics Committee can only start an investigation of a member of Congress when a complaint is lodged against that person by another member of Congress, or when the committee’s two top members agree to such action.

In contrast, the OCE has less stringent requirements for starting an inquiry -- they can begin an investigation “out of the National Enquirer,” Bonner said -- and the group has raised the ire of factions in Congress across the political spectrum.

House Republicans staunchly opposed the group’s conception a little more than two years ago. And though Democrats created the office in a largely party-line vote, it has aggressively investigated Democrats.

Among the freshman congressmen most likely to see the inside of a prison cell in the future are David Rivera (R-FL) and Tim Griffin (R-AR). We'll watch closely. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel is likely to be elected mayor of Chicago this month and John Ensign's ethics case is back on the front burner.

Will Rove Serve Hard Time Or Get Off As Easy As Mike Carona?

"America's Sheriff," Mike Carona, was once the crown prince of the California Republican Party and the undisputed heir apparent of Arnold Schwarzenegger-- but that was when Republicans wanted to amend the Constitution so the son of a Nazi Hauptfeldwebel in the German (not Austrian) Feldgendarmerie could become president of the United States. And it was long before Carona, then the disgraced Orange County Sheriff, was sentenced to 5 years in prison on-- what else?-- corruption charges.

Yesterday Carona was finally locked up in checked into Club Fed, a cushy, low security correctional institution in Englewood, a Denver suburb, primarily reserved for white white color criminals. Because he formerly worked as a sheriff, albeit a notoriously crooked one, it is feared that he would be a target if he were sent to a real prison with... you know... real criminals (like himself).

Contact with the outside world will be monitored. His incoming mail will be opened and inspected.

Carona will also be limited to 300 minutes of telephone time a month, which will be restricted to a list of 30 people that must be submitted during his first week.

Inmates are restricted, but have more freedom and perks than federal inmates in higher security compounds.
In fact in a 2006 article, Forbes Magazine named Englewood among the "Best places to go to prison."

Among the perks: pool table, ping-pong and foosball.

During his first week at the prison, Carona will also meet with his unit team, which includes a unit manager, case manager, education representative and counselor. The team is responsible for his rehabilitation, custody changes, and assigning work detail inside the 40-acre facility.

"There are numerous job assignments to meet the needs of the institution and provide an opportunity for you to learn employable skills and positive work habits," reads the inmate manual.

Most work hours for inmates are from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but other services are available at the Littleton prison to fill in the gaps of the day, including religious activities, psychological services, libraries, a recreational yard, gymnasium, weight room, hobby shop, music room, a wellness center, and library.

The handbook also mentions an arts and crafts program that includes work on leather, fine arts, macramé, pottery and ceramics.

I sure hope Karl Rove doesn't wind up in Englewood. I watch Lock Up Raw and I know where I'd like to see him. Or any of these places. But why should justice finally catch up with Rove? Eric Lipton answered that in Monday's NY Times:

The Bush White House, particularly before the 2006 midterm elections, routinely violated a federal law that prohibits use of federal tax dollars to pay for political activities by creating a “political boiler room” that coordinated Republican campaign activities nationwide, a report issued Monday by an independent federal agency concludes.

The report by the Office of Special Counsel finds that the Bush administration’s Office of Political Affairs-- overseen by Karl Rove-- served almost as an extension of the Republican National Committee, developing a “target list” of Congressional races, organizing dozens of briefings for political appointees to press them to work for party candidates, and sending cabinet officials out to help these campaigns.

The report, based on about 100,000 pages of documents and interviews with 80 Bush administration officials in an investigation of more than three years, documented how these political activities accelerated before the 2006 midterm elections.

This included helping coordinate fund-raising by Republican candidates and pressing Bush administration political appointees to help with Republican voter-turnout pitches, particularly in the 72 hours leading up to the election when Democrats took control of the House and Senate for the first time in a dozen years.

The Office of Special Counsel, a relatively obscure federal agency, is charged with enforcing the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Certain members of the White House political staff-- including the top aides at the Office of Political Affairs-- are exempt, as are the president, vice president and members of the cabinet. But the law still prohibits the use of federal money, even by these officials, to support political causes.

The report found that during the Bush administration, senior staff members at the Office of Political Affairs violated the Hatch Act by organizing 75 political briefings from 2001 to 2007 for Republican appointees at top federal agencies in an effort to enlist them to help Republicans get elected to Congress.

Mr. Rove and Ken Mehlman, who was the director of the office until the end of 2003, did not respond Monday to requests for comment.

When NJ voters made the patron saint of white-collar Republicrookery their governor, what kind of gov't did they expect?

The rail tunnel that's not gonna happen: Governor Christie has a message for those concerned about humongous transit and road congestion in northern NJ: Fuck you!

"The move would scuttle a project that has been in the planning for two decades and was supposed to double the capacity on trains into New York City and alleviate congestion on the region’s roads."

-- from Patrick McGeehan's NYT report on NJ Gov. Chris Christie's announced intention to pull the plug on a trans-Hudson rail tunnel

by Ken

One of the shrewdest comments I've heard about the massive breakdown of government in Florida, of which the mortgage-fraud crisis is the tip of the iceberg, was that of a colleague who wondered what Floridians were expecting after decades of electing all those right-wing assholes. I wonder whether New Jerseyans are waking up enough to begin to experience buyers' remorse.

Now it turns out that a lone lying-scumbag tub of lard can undo years of regional planning. The project at issue is a new tunnel planned to carry trains under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York, on which $600 million has already been spent, with actual construction scheduled to begin in the near future. Can you begin to imagine how much planning and scrapping and coordinating and agitating and horse-trading and assuaging a project like this involves? Well, you can forget about it.

Governor of New Jersey Blocks Hudson Tunnel Project

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: October 7, 2010

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Thursday that he has decided to terminate the construction of a commuter train tunnel between northern New Jersey and Manhattan because of escalating estimates of the project’s cost.

Until last month, the project had been estimated to cost $8.7 billion. But after his staff reviewed the project, Governor Christie said they concluded it would cost more than $11 billion, and possibly as much as $14 billion.

The federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had pledged $3 billion each toward the tunnel, but Mr. Christie said New Jersey could not afford to pay the balance. . . .

Now this may sound like an old story, but as reporter McGeehan points out, the old story was: "In early September, Mr. Christie surprised other elected officials and an array of transportation advocates who had supported the tunnel by ordering a temporary halt to spending on the project."

If there were the slightest reason to suspect that the fart-brained Christie, who spent his time as U.S. attorney presiding over an orgy of white-collar Republicrook public-funds siphoning and grifting before being planted by Karl Rove in the NJ governor's race, had the slightest concern about controlling legitimate spending, he might have the support of people who don't like seeing government robbed by the kind of people Christie has always championed. Cost overruns are absolutely a legitimate concern, but of course Republicrooks only care about them when (a) the project is intended for the general welfare of ordinary citizens, and (b) the money isn't finding its way into their pockets.

There is, of course, no reason to think that the governor, who probably should be preparing for trials on assorted state and federal crimes committed on a daily basis during his time as U.S. attorney and as a gubernatorial candidate, lifted a greasy finger to see what the real story is concerning the budget for the tunnel, and what can be done to manage costs. In the ideological sub-basement that is his tiny brain, nothing is more important than lowering the tax bill of white-collar crooks, and since nothing comes more naturally to him than misappropriating government funds, he seems to think he can siphon off the money budgeted for the tunnel for projects dearer to the hearts of his crook constituents: highways. Again, if there were the slightest indication that he has any interest in or commitment to properly maintaining the state's infrastructure, his view might be worth listening to, but no, he's just trying to get himself off the hook for finding road-repair money.

In fact, this stunt is going to cost New Jersey a hefty chunk of change.

New Jersey Transit, the state-run operator of commuter trains and buses, had already hired contractors to begin digging the tunnel, and the Port Authority had begun condemning property in Midtown Manhattan that stood in the way of the project.

All told, about $600 million had been spent. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey who supported the project, said that about half of that money came from the federal government and would have to be repaid by New Jersey. . . .

Transportation advocates and officials in Washington said that the federal money would probably be spent on transit projects in other states. They said they expected Mr. Christie to suggest spending the Port Authority’s money on other projects in New Jersey.

So it appears that the federal money is lost, and while the PANYNJ, a bi-state agency, isn't exactly free of political control -- half its commissioners are appointed by the governor of each state, and Wikipedia notes that "a governor can veto actions by the commissioners from the same state" -- one hopes there's some understanding there that this was a mass-transit project, albeit one that could have provided some relief for the region's horrendous traffic congestion.

After all, an awful lot of New Jerseyans do in fact commute to New York on a daily basis, and again, the NYT's McGeehan notes that this project "has been in the planning for two decades and was supposed to double the capacity on trains into New York City and alleviate congestion on the region’s roads." I wonder if New Jersey commuters who voted for Governor Turdo, either out of pique at former Gov. Jon Corzine or under the illusion that he could bring order to the state's troubled finances, imagined that with a wave of his crooked wand he would undo those two decades' worth of work on this project.

In fact, projects of this sort, hugely expensive infrastructure transformations whose payoff will spread over multiple generations to come, have become harder and harder to implement in an era where it has become increasingly difficult to rally public support for payoffs that aren't immediate. Again, there are legitimate environmental and other considerations that properly need to be factored in, but again, there's no evidence that Governor Turdo knows or cares about any of them. He's just the lying, blundering blowhard who presided over the "clerical error" that cost his state its shot at those $400 million of federal education funds and came up blaming everyone in sight except his own bloated, turdalicious self.

The Right has poured a lot of time and and gazillions of dollars into learning how to press the buttons of ordinary Americans to get them to vote for people whose mission is to screw them silly. Voters of New Jersey, congratulations!

#

As many Alaskans mourn their senatorial cash cow, let's not forget that Ted Stevens became a master crook sitting atop a cesspool of Republicrookery

"In the money-driven context of American politics, the perks of incumbency can transform into a sense of personal entitlement as V.I.P. back-slappers relentlessly donate and entreat their way into a grateful politician's inner circle."

-- from this morning's NYT editorial "A Senate Lion Brought Down"

by Ken

Okay, so he's a crook, but he's our crook. Besides, he didn't steal from us. If anything, he stole for us. So why shouldn't he get a little for himself on the side?

This seems to be the attitude of many Alaskans faced with the loss of their cash-generating senior senator's Senate seniority, as reported in this morning's Washington Post:

Alaskans Fret About a Future Without Help From 'Uncle Ted'

By Karl Vick

ANCHORAGE, July 30 -- Alaska's vast landscape is littered with federally funded tributes to Sen. Ted Stevens's single-minded promotion of the state, from the brushed steel of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to the $187 million that subsidizes air mail for the one-third of residents who live beyond the reach of roads.

In his almost 40 years in the Senate, the octogenarian Republican in many ways defined the shape of the Last Frontier, not least by using his perch on the Appropriations Committee to ensure that his state's tiny population remained the nation's richest in federal spending per capita. More than $9 billion arrived in Alaska from Washington in 2006, twice as much as a decade earlier.

So it was perhaps to be expected that many here greeted the news of Stevens's indictment on corruption charges as if they were condemned to a pauper's death, fearful that they will no longer be able to depend on the largess of "Uncle Ted." . . .


A third of Alaska's jobs can be traced to federal spending, according to the latest study by the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research. Many spring from military expenditures that Stevens encouraged during decades of service on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees defense spending. . . .


The watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense said Wednesday that Stevens secured or played a significant role in 891 earmarks worth $3.2 billion to Alaska between 2004 and 2008. Divided among the state's 670,000 residents, the per capita figure of $4,872 is 18 times the national average of $263 over the same four years, the group said. . . .

It's understandable, then, that many of Uncle Ted's fellow Alaskans are standing by him, considering how much they stand to lose with his (now surely inescapable) fall.

For the rest of us, though, it's appropriate to view Uncle Ted's long-overdue fall-in-progress as an all-too-familiar cautionary tale. If you delve into any Alaskan history going back to and even before the campaign for statehood, you get an image of a very different Ted Stevens, one who might even be described as a crusading idealist, a far cry from the sinkhole of corruption he developed into.

This morning's New York Times editorial takes the most charitable imaginable approach, yet still gets this angle right:

A Senate Lion Brought Down

Any member of Congress should be able to see the larger lesson in the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaskan patriarch accused of concealing more than $250,000 in home improvements and furnishings allegedly bestowed by the state's chief power broker.

Unfortunately, that lesson -- beware of favor-seekers bearing gifts -- strikes so directly to the heart of the back-scratching political culture of Washington that time and again lawmakers become inured to the risks and put their careers in jeopardy.

Mr. Stevens denies any corrupt behavior and insists that he paid for everything he received from William Allen, one of his state's dominant oil magnates until last year, when he admitted to bribing a half-dozen state politicians to get government favors. That will be up to a jury to decide. But Mr. Stevens's constituents have a right to wonder why their revered senator, a Republican who has served them fiercely for four decades, ever agreed to have his home richly upgraded by someone so obviously hunting for the inside track to politicians.

No bribery charge or quid pro quo is specified, which is always a difficult case for prosecutors to prove. Rather, Senate ethics violations are the core of the case, and this is as it should be. The senator is accused of concealing the alleged gifts from required disclosure to the public. At the same time, prosecutors say that Mr. Stevens "did use his official position and his office" to help Mr. Allen with oil deals ranging from Russia and Pakistan to special grants and contracts in Alaska.

In the money-driven context of American politics, the perks of incumbency can transform into a sense of personal entitlement as V.I.P. back-slappers relentlessly donate and entreat their way into a grateful politician's inner circle.

Voters are on to this downward spiral, even if too many lawmakers are in denial. Congress's esteem is at an all-time low, despite the spate of ethics reforms that helped bring the Democrats back to power in 2006. To its credit, the House is finally starting up a panel of outsiders to oversee its ethics; senators proudly rejected their august chamber's need for such an attempt to regain public trust.

In the case of the continuing Alaska investigation, it's revealing that an outside force -- an op-ed newspaper essay by a suspicious observer -- eventually triggered the federal raids that convicted state officials and indicted Mr. Stevens. Taxpayers should question whether government watchdogs would otherwise still be snoozing. In fact, statehouse lawmakers cited in the article first reacted by mockingly donning C.B.C. (Corrupt Bastards Club) baseball caps.

HUBRIS would have been the more appropriate logo. The tragedy in the indictment of Mr. Stevens is that overweening pride too easily befalls politicians.

#

MONEY WOES FOR THE GOP-- AND THE POLLS PREDICT A WIPEOUT

The same people who brought us the greatest heist in the history of America-- at least $23 billion missing and unaccounted for in Iraq-- have also been stealing from each other. Yes, the Republican Party. Sure, the GOP deserves to be robbed by one of their own golden boys (Christopher Ward) but it barely makes a dent in the deficit their congressional re-election efforts are running up. They're at least $30 million dollars behind their own goal ($58 million). Panic-stricken by the unexpected losses in three solidly Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi-- as well as by local legislative races in districts all over the country including a New York state senate seat that has been in GOP hands since Abraham Lincoln's days and a Florida house seat that was designed specifically to elect Republicans-- the Republican leadership has been berating caucus members about raising money. But with the GOP having given up trying to win back the majority and just playing a defensive game of trying to hold losses below two dozen, few members are doing anything but looking out for their own races. Even potential donors sympathetic to their corporatist ideas, see them as losers and don't want to give them any money.

The only Repugs who have ponied up big bucks are NRCC chairman Tom Cole, Minority Leader John Boehner, and GOP closet queen David Dreier of California. Each member of the caucus was given a goal. How have they been doing? Well, Michigan wingnut Thaddeus McCotter was assessed $950,000 and donated only $8,500 while Tom Davis of Virginia was supposed to contribute $605,000 and handed over $50,000. Currently the DCCC is holding over $45 million, while the GOP counterpart has a debt of $10 million.

Several opinion polls make the picture even gloomier... if you're a right winger. CNN reported today that "63% of Democrats questioned say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year. Only 37% of Republicans feel the same way, and 36% of Republicans say they are not enthusiastic about voting." Only part of this can be blamed on the worst Republican presidential nominee since in our lifetimes and on the demoralization Republicans feel after assessing 2 George Bush terms that have left the country less secure both domestically and internationally, largely due to his inability to cope with any serious problems effectively. This is compounded by the widespread perception that congressional Republicans have abdicated all responsibility for governing and have been mere rubber stamps for the catastrophic Bush agenda.

"Republicans are far less enthusiastic about voting than Democrats are, and enthusiasm has plummeted among GOPers since the start of the year," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. "There was already an 'enthusiasm gap' in January, when Democrats were 11 points higher than GOPers on this measure. Now, that gap has grown to 26 points."

...Fifty-three percent of registered voters questioned in the poll say they think that Obama, D-Illinois, will win the election, with 43 percent saying that McCain, R-Arizona, will win.

"In recent elections, the public has a good track record at predicting the outcome of presidential elections. Most polls which asked this same question in 2000 and 2004 showed more Americans predicting a victory by George W. Bush over John Kerry or Al Gore. The public also correctly forecast that Bill Clinton would beat Bob Dole in 1996," Holland said.

In the battle for Congress, 54 percent of those questioned say they would vote for the Democrat in their congressional district, with 44 percent saying they'd vote for the Republican candidate.

"Democrats lead Republicans by 10 points in the congressional vote. At this point in 2006, the Democratic lead was seven points. Democrats went on to win a landslide in 2006," [Bill] Schneider said.

Don't click if you're a wingnut

At the same time, Diageo's first June poll shows that 76% of respondents feel that the country is on the wrong track (including most Republicans!) The same survey shows that Americans are most concerned about issues where Democrats have an advantage (the economy, high energy prices, and opposition to the war in Iraq) while issues seen as advantageous to the right are way down the list in people's priorities (moral values, support for the Iraq war, terrorism, immigration, taxes, gay marriage, fear, crime, bestiality, frivolous lawsuits, gun control, avian flu and the rest of the panoply of Republicans use to seduce voters).

Diageo also reported favorability ratings for prominent politicians:

Bush- 31% favorable/66% unfavorable
Hillary Clinton- 48% favorable/48% unfavorable
McCain- 52% favorable/37% unfavorable (52% of Republican voters are satisfied with McCain as their nominee and 45% prefer someone else)
Barack Obama- 57% favorable/33% unfavorable (68% of Democratic voters are satisfied with Obama as their nominee and 30% prefer someone else)
Bill Cinton - 46% favorable/50% unfavorable

The poll also showed that most people, regardless of party, feel that Democrats would do a better job handling health care (54-24%), the economy (54-28%), and the war in Iraq (46-34%). Republicans coule lose 10 Senate seats and 40 House seats, the second of the 3 steps to bring us to a productive 1936 Congress which only had 16 GOP senators and 88 GOP House members.

Estimated haul in the Republicrook embezzling scandal zooms up from $500K to over $800K. Do I hear $1 mil? (It appears that it's anybody's guess!)

"Once considered the gold standard among bookkeepers for Republican political operations -- he was treasurer for at least 83 GOP committees over the past decade -- Ward came under scrutiny in late January when lawmakers demanded to meet outside auditors who had purportedly performed annual audits of the NRCC."

--from Paul Kane and Ben Pershing's report in today's Washington Post,
"House Republicans' Audit Shows Treasurer Stole at Least $800,000"

I know we shouldn't laugh about this, but it's kind of hard to keep a straight face when it comes to Republicrooks stealing from one another. Although Charles J. Ward's reign of pilferage apparently came to an end in October, when he was still on the National Republican Congressional Committee payroll as a consultant, after stepping down as treasurer in the summer, estimates of the size of his haul are still growing.

Just last week, when federal prosecutors filed a civil action aimed at the seizure of Ward's Bethesda home -- into which he was claimed to have funneled chunks of pilfered pelf for mortgage payments plus another $200K for renovations -- they estimated his total take as "more than $500,000." Now, based on on a forensic audit commissioned by the NRCC (the tab for which itself is closing in on $600K, and the committee is reported to have spent another $300K beefing up its security procedures -- or possibly instituting some), the guesstimate has reached $810K and is still climbing.

"We'll never know the full extent," NRCC chairman Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma predicted confidently to reporters.

One person who might have derived some small pleasure from the Ward revelations, but who unfortunately can't because of his position atop the blossoming scandal, is House Minority Leader John "Rhymes With Complainer" Boehner of Ohio [right], who as the House's top GOP-er since the fall of former Speaker "Planet Denny" Hastert (on whose watch most of Ward's creative bookkeeping took place) seems to have turned mahogany with embarrassment. Boehner, alas, appears poorly positioned to derive much comfort from the eclipse of his own office's embezzling scandal:

In 2003, a former campaign staffer for Boehner pleaded guilty to embezzling $617,000, which had been the largest political embezzlement in this decade. A staffer for the late Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) pleaded guilty in 1993 to stealing $1 million from the former senator's 1992 presidential campaign, an incident believed to mark the biggest political fraud case ever uncovered.

Kane and Pershing have some delicious detail about the nuts and bolts of Ward's funds diversions as he worked his way up the NRCC's accounting hierarchy in his 12 years there. For example, once he became deputy treasurer in 2001 he was able to divert money to his own bank accounts with wire transfers, for which his signature alone was then sufficient. It appears that once he was promoted to NRCC treasurer, he began diverting NRCC funds directly into mortgage payments.

Ironically, the House GOP may also face the wrath of the famously toothless Federal Elections Commission, "which last year issued guidelines telling political committees that lax oversight of treasurers would result in hefty penalties."

Republicans, of course, aren't great believers in oversight, at least oversight of Republicans. Ward's problems came to public attention when he acknowledged in January that he hadn't actually been having outside audits done of NRCC accounts, and had instead been forging his own audits. Even in Republican circles, this falls below what are considered accepted accounting procedures.

#

When Republicans steal from other Republicans, isn't the defense obvious? "I was just trying to uphold my party's principles"

"[Christopher J.] Ward first came under scrutiny in late January when, under pressure from House Republicans worried about the NRCC's finances, he admitted that he had forged audits of the committee's books for several years. The NRCC asked the FBI to investigate.

"In mid-March, the NRCC accused Ward of taking at least 'several hundred thousand dollars' dating back to 2004. The government's filing yesterday alleges that the diversion of funds goes back to at least April 2003."

--from a report by Paul Kane and Del Quentin Wilber
in today's Washington Post

So now we're talking about a cool half million smackers, eh?

As a point of fact, Mr. Ward still hasn't been charged with a crime. What the federal prosecutors filed was paperwork for a civil suit, seeking to have the Ward home in Bethesda seized by the government to prevent him from selling it while the legal wheels continue to grind. The papers purport to document mortgage payments of $72K and renovation payments of nearly $200K made with money embezzled from the National Republican Congressional Committee, for which Ward had worked since the '90s.

Former NRCC Treasurer Embezzled $500,000, Court Papers Say

By Paul Kane and Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 7, 2008; A03

The former treasurer of a key Republican campaign committee embezzled more than $500,000 over a five-year period, using it to fund mortgage payments and a six-figure remodeling of his Bethesda home, according to court documents filed yesterday.

The papers were filed by federal prosecutors in an attempt to force the former treasurer, Christopher J. Ward, to forfeit his home to the government.

The government alleges that Ward, who had worked for National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) since the 1990s, made numerous unauthorized diversions of funds from its accounts and joint accounts set up with Senate Republicans. He often shifted money into his personal account just as payments for his mortgage or home remodeling were due, according to the court filing.

Ward, who was fired earlier this year, has not been charged with a crime, but the civil action filed yesterday seeks to seize his home in the 6300 block of Massachusetts Avenue. Such efforts prevent subjects of investigations from selling properties that were allegedly part of their crimes and hiding the proceeds.

Ronald Machen, Ward's lawyer, said yesterday he had not seen the government filing.

Ward first came under scrutiny in late January when, under pressure from House Republicans worried about the NRCC's finances, he admitted that he had forged audits of the committee's books for several years. The NRCC asked the FBI to investigate.

In mid-March, the NRCC accused Ward of taking at least "several hundred thousand dollars" dating back to 2004. The government's filing yesterday alleges that the diversion of funds goes back to at least April 2003.

Ward allegedly targeted fundraising panels set up with the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the annual President's Dinner, the biggest event of the year, according to the court papers.

Investigators said they have pinpointed $198,841 in payments to contractors from Ward's personal accounts that appear to have been made with money taken from the political committees. In a three-month span in 2007, the government charges, Ward transferred $95,000 from the 2006 President's Dinner committee to his own Wachovia Bank account and then made payments to the contractors.

Over the 21 months after April 11, 2003, Ward made $72,000 in mortgage payments with money taken from President's Dinner committees, according to the court document.

We just have to wonder, now that the official motto of the modern Republican Party is "Steal anything you can get your mitts on that isn't nailed down, and even then do what you can do," how they distinguish what Mr. Ward is alleged to have done from standard operating procedures. Is it that he didn't get someone's permission to steal the money? Or that he was stealing from his own people? Or did he just violate another Republicrook principle: Don't get caught!

Maybe when the time comes he'll just throw himself on the mercy of the court, explaining, "I wouldn't've done it if I knew there was, like, a rule or something against it."

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WHY ARE REPUBLICANS ALWAYS STEALING MUSIC FROM DEMOCRATS TO PUSH THEIR ODIOUS AND HATEFUL IDEOLOGY? BOSTON vs HUCKABEE VERSION

Mike & Barry sittin' in a tree, s-t-e-a-l-i-n-g

Two weeks ago we reported how dishonest Republican Senator John McCain was caught stealing 2 songs from John Mellencamp for use in his campaign to personify a third Bush term. It isn't uncommon for Republican political hacks to steal popular music from Democratic songwriters and singers. They never pay for the usage-- which is ironic since it is the Congress that sets the rates and conditions and McCain has voted on the legislation dozens of times and is certainly aware that it is a crime to just use people's music without paying royalties. Bush was caught over and over again using popular songs from Democrats in his campaigns and he was repeatedly asked to cease and desist. Even back in 1984 Reagan was caught using Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," an anti-Vietnam War anthem for his campaign, although he eventually stopped when Springsteen said he would sue him if he kept using it.

The latest GOP thief is Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, who's been stealing music from the popular rock band Boston. Barry Goudreau, who was in the band early on, before being fired in 1980, is a Huckabee supporter; he didn't write "More Than A Feeling" or any other Boston songs. The songwriter is band leader Tom Scholz, and, like John Mellencamp, he isn't amused to find his music (the classic "More Than A Feeling") being used to push the Republicans' reactionary and bigoted agenda. He wrote to Huckabee and demanded he stop. Huckabee refuses.

“You have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed,” Mr. Scholz wrote. “In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!” In response, Fred Bramante, who was chairman of Mr. Huckabee’s New Hampshire primary campaign, said: “Governor Huckabee plays ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ Does that mean Lynyrd Skynyrd is endorsing him?”

They probably do. But that's up to them. Scholz is insisting... and he wrote the campaign and explained that "Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for." Scholz likes Obama's positions and hopes to vote for him to be president but doesn't plan to use Boston to push him.




IT'S NOT JUST REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES EITHER...

John Amato just reminded me that a certain unethical candidate from the Connecticut for Lieberman Party kept using an Orleans song, "Still the One," even though the songwriter, John Hall, was a Ned Lamont supporter.

ORANGE COUNTY'S CORRUPT REPUBLICAN SHERIFF RESIGNS IN DISGRACE-- FINALLY!

Carona-- with the indicted wife in the background

Last October there were a flurry of articles about one of California's most corrupt non-Congressional politician, Mike Carona, the Republican Sheriff of Orange County, once considered the heir apparent to Schwarzenegger-- lauded in the clueless media as "America's Sheriff," which was as stupid, asinine and dangerous as the same idiots lauding Giuliani as "America's Mayor." As I mentioned last Halloween, the level of corruption among Carona and his gang of deputized GOP thugs (the self-styled "Team Forever") would even make fellow Republicans like Duke Cunningham, John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter, Dick Pombo, Darrell Issa, even Jerry Lewis blush with it's crassness and magnitude. Back then he was absolutely refusing to resign.

Today's L.A. Times reports on his long overdue resignation.

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona said this morning he is resigning his office, effective today, to concentrate on fighting federal corruption charges that he sold access to his office for thousands of dollars in gifts and kickbacks.

Carona's longtime political adviser and attorney, Michael Schroeder, said at a news conference this morning that Carona's resignation was in no way an indication that the three-term sheriff intends to plead guilty, and that "no new evidence had popped up" to cause him to step down...

Prosecutors allege that Carona tried to enrich himself, his wife and his mistress by trading favors for cash and gifts.

His resignation comes a week after he had returned to work following a self-imposed leave of absence. In early November, he announced he was taking 60 days of paid leave. Soon after, he, his wife, Deborah, and a woman whom authorities describe as his longtime mistress, Debra Hoffman, were indicted in a federal corruption case.

Carona faces conspiracy, mail fraud and witness tampering charges; his wife is charged with one count of conspiracy; and Hoffman, one count of conspiracy, four counts of mail fraud and three counts of bankruptcy fraud.

Before resigning today, Carona promoted Assistant Sheriff Jack Anderson to second-in command, leaving Anderson to fill in for him until the Board of Supervisors appoint a successor to complete Carona's term, which ends in 2011...

"Politicians calling for his resignation played absolutely no role in this," Steward said. "The most important thing was we need Mike on a daily basis and we got used to having him in the 60-day period he took off. We need his continued help in the defense. It's very, very time-consuming."

A Times readers poll this morning shows that 80% of respondents think the resignation is "long overdue" and that "he should have done it when he was indicted." A little less than 7% of respondents thought his resignation was "a shame" and that "he's innocent until proven guilty." He has even less support that George Bush.

ALASKA HOLIDAY SEASON UPDATE

Soon to be indicted Ted Stevens wears that Hulk tie when he's pissed off

-by Philip Munger

Women have a saying up here-- Alaska, where the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

For men, at least-- the odds keep getting better. For women, unfortunately, the goods couldn't get much more odd. Which might be part of the reason Alaska, the land of faux macho men, is also the 12th most populous state per capita for lesbians. Loneliness for the wives of imprisoned prominent GOP political and industrial figures may soon influence that demographic in the 2010 census.

However you look at it, Alaska is the most in-flux political climate in the USA right now. The changes have more to do with local than national politics, but reflect the national trend of voter aspirations welcoming articulate and aggressive progressive candidates for local and national office. People are sick and tired of the rank hypocrisy of the far right. They should be, and the recent Alaska political scandals are a case in point. We’re also paying close scrutiny here to the inexperience of the Democratic Party machine, as it struggles to take advantage of a political discovery bigger for them than was Prudhoe Bay for big oil. The Dems have been so out of power for so long, many newcomers voting-- or running, for that matter, were kids when the Dems last controlled local politics. Most voters in the next election lived in another state or were unborn when Senator Ted Stevens took office in 1972. That was 13 years after statehood and eight years after the Great Alaska Earthquake.

The GOP has controlled Alaska for a long time. The Houston crew that came with the big Prudhoe drillers brought their culture to the Arctic. Such as it is. Unfortunately for Alaska, it became the paradigm. The combination of increasingly open corruption by the oil industry through the enormous clout of providing 85% or more of the state's revenues, and the strict party discipline enforced by a machine overloaded with cynical oilmen and a fundamentalist televangelist or two, stifled all else.

But a change began to surface long before the FBI began raiding the offices of state GOP legislators at the end of August 2006. As early as 2002, former Wasilla Mayor, Sarah Palin, began building a maverick GOP political machine independent of state GOP Chairman Randy Reudrich’s organization. Palin narrowly lost a 2002 GOP lieutenant governor primary.

When the 2002 gubernatorial victor, Frank Murkowski came into office in December 2002, he appointed Palin to run the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Another commission member then was state GOP party chair, Reudrich. Palin complained to the governor about Reudrich’s penchant for doing party business while collecting a state paycheck. She also was instrumental in bringing to light other ethical lapses by members of Murkowski’s administration.

In January 2004, Palin resigned from the commission, and began rebuilding her organization.

Meanwhile, Ray Metcalfe, a former GOP state representative, began investigating the son of the patron saint of Alaska, U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens, in 2004. He was already incensed at the corruption of the legislative process he had encountered as a congressman, but was even more irritated at the unquestioned lobbying mastery here by big oil and its surrogates. He had already started his own party, the Republican Moderate Party, which sought to bring a higher percentage of oil wealth being extracted in Alaska into state coffers, rather than into corporate profits. By mid-2004, Metcalfe was receiving tips on GOP corruption from many whistleblowers. He went to the state to complain, getting a feeble response. The media treated him as a dilettante or worse. Most now believe he then went to the FBI.

One of Frank Murkowski’s first acts as governor had been to appoint his daughter, Lisa, to his former U.S. Senate seat. From there, it was downhill for the next four years of his administration. He was a hapless public speaker, unable to change from the haughty tone of a D.C. Senator to that of governor of a state whose population perceives itself as friendly and approachable. His long fight to purchase an executive jet that could only land on Alaska’s few large, paved airports had already made him the butt of many jokes, when the FBI’s raids of the offices of several prominent GOP legislators and power brokers, brought his party’s corruption to national attention.

As Murkowski tried through a number of special sessions of the state legislature to pass a combination of incentives and fee adjustments that would force big oil to develop natural gas resources, but also lock up the long-term resource extraction fee structure, on the North Slope of Alaska to the advantage of big oil, the FBI was secretly video- and audio-taping hundreds of hours of conversations between Alaska politicians and oil industry lobbyists. The FBI brought in special investigators from all over the country, preferring to keep the Anchorage FBI office as far out of the loop as possible.

The FBI stings have so far brought five known convictions, either from pleas or from criminal trials. One more trial, of former State Rep Bruce Weyrauch is scheduled for 2008. Testimony in the trials of former legislators Tim Anderson, Pete Kott, and Vic Kohring has revealed that ex-Veco executives Rick Smith and Bill Allen, plead to bribing former State Senator Ben Stevens (son of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, current State Senator John Cowdery, and Senator Stevens himself. Rumors that other legislators, political appointees of former governor Murkowski, and oil industry lobbyists will be indicted, are rampant.

Senator Stevens and U.S. Representative Don Young have both issued statements to the effect that they are under Federal investigation. And, they’re both up for re-election in 2008. Both are less popular here than they have ever been. But Young has attracted challengers, where-– so far, at least-– Sen. Stevens has not.

2006 was a watershed year for change in Alaska politics. At the same time the FBI was taping legislators and lobbyists exchanging bribes for votes in the special sessions, Governor Frank Murkowski was conducting a GOP primary campaign that has gone down in Alaska political annals as the most inept on record. That took some doing. He came in third, just above the write-ins for Hugo Chavez and Homer Simpson.

Sarah Palin’s populist organization brought together her old base in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, expanded on that in Southcentral and Interior Alaska, and tapped into resentments about Juneau-based politics, and a need to clean house. Her November challenger, former Democratic Party Governor, Tony Knowles, had only his undistinguished eight years in Juneau, from 1994 to 2002, to run on.

Palin beat Knowles handily in a three-way race. Having narrowly lost a 2004 bid to unseat U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Knowles’ political career is largely seen here as over. For instance, Knowles, who spent $1.1 million to Sarah Palin’s $880,000 in the gubernatorial general campaign, garnered just over 97,000 votes. Diane Benson, running against Don Young for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat, received about 94,000 votes statewide, while spending $192,000 to Young’s $2 million in the campaign.

Benson was initially impelled to run for the seat Young has held since 1972 in early 2006, after Alaska Democratic Party chairman Jake Metcalfe had been unsuccessful in persuading any of Alaska’s leading Democrats to file for the race. Benson’s son, Latseen, an airborne infantryman in the 101st Airborne Division, had been severely injured near Kirkuk in November 2005, during his third tour.

Since the 2006 race, Benson has extended her contacts with the Wounded Warrior network, with Veterans groups, with military families, and with Native American organizations in Alaska, and nationwide. She has also remained highly critical of Don Young's conduct in the U.S. House, calling for an ethics investigation by that legislative body, of his conduct during the passage of the 2005 U.S. transportation bill. She knew, before deciding to run again in 2008, that she would face serious primary challengers.

Two other challengers have entered the Democratic primary race for Young’s seat. Former State Democratic Party chair Jake Metcalfe whose support for Diane Benson in 2006 was tepid, filed from Washington, D.C. the first week of August. Former State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz, who, like Benson, has been highly critical of the ethical lapses of Alaska politicians, filed on October 1. Both Berkowitz's and Benson's campaigns have recently released polls showing their candidates beating Young in a general election. Berkowitz’s poll, especially its claim that Berkowitz would soundly beat Benson in the primary, is tainted by the unabashed direct links between pollster and candidate.

A three-way Democratic primary race for Young’s seat by a group of credible, fairly liberal candidates is unprecedented in Alaska. The primary isn’t until late August, but it is likely that the winner will emerge as Alaska’s next member of the U.S. House, as Young seems determined to try to hold on until the FBI frog-marches him out of his animal head-adorned DC lair Besides, indications are that he's spending more money on attorneys than his campaign is taking in. If things don’t improve for the out-of-power, increasingly discredited, foul-mouthed relic from his own largely mythical past, he’ll be out of money by mid-July.

Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, who visited Washington D.C. last January at the behest of organizations interested in his candidacy for Young's seat, passed on running against Young. Many observers here are wondering why Begich is waiting so long to declare his candidacy for Ted Stevens’ seat. I've speculated that Begich's hesitancy is based on a genuine fear that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will declare her candidacy against Stevens. But I'm beginning to doubt that she will do that. As a friend told me last night, "She's having way too much fun right now as Gov." But if Mark Begich waits until after the inevitable indictment of Ben Stevens by the Feds, he'll appear to be a shameless opportunist.

It has been interesting watching Alaska’s mainstream media trying to cover the corruption trial of GOP ex-state legislator Vic Kohring in Anchorage, as Sarah Palin also convened her first-ever special session of the legislature in Juneau. Journalistic resources were sorely stretched.

The session was to rewrite the corruption-tainted oil extraction fee legislation from August 2006. Even though lobbyists from the most thoroughly despised big oil company in Alaska, Exxon, openly sought to change legislation in congressional offices, they failed to have an impact on the governor’s relentless, behind-the-scenes pressure on what is likely to be a new legislative coalition when the state house and senate convene in January. The session ended up in the most remarkable victory by an Alaska politician in the state’s history, with the enactment of the highest extraction fee for petroleum products from State land, in our history. The new fee schedule will bring in billions of dollars. It was Palin's triumph. She was already the most popular governor in the USA.

Local elections in 2006 and 2007 have indicated a growing distrust of vacuous promises by wingnut candidates, or for wingnut-sponsored initiatives. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough and its rapidly growing suburban areas around and between Palmer and Wasilla, one of the most conservative regions in Alaska, has seen a succession of liberal and moderate victories at school board, borough assembly and city council levels. Most recently, the Mat-Su Valley electrical co-op, Matanuska Electrical Association, withdrew plans to erect a huge coal-fired power plant south of Palmer. It would have been the first man-made object people would see as they crossed one of the most scenic and inspiring river valleys in the world. Not to mention the pollution.

Soon after the 2008 Alaska legislative session opens, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the class-action lawsuit filed against Exxon in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It has been wending its way through the courts since my son, who is now in college, was a toddler. Over a thousand plaintiffs have died, some by their own hands, waiting for this settlement.

When the Supreme Court decided to take the case, Governor Palin called the news “a kick to the guts” of all Alaskans. Last week the three Democratic party candidates for Don Young’s U.S. House seat provided statements to me regarding their support of the governor’s statement, and of the state’s notice it will be filing an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs, and against Exxon’s position.

Diane Benson, supporting the governor, noted “Governor Palin has called this case “a kick in the guts” to Alaskans. She almost got it right. What Exxon did to us, to our fishers and coastal residents, rhymes with “a kick in the guts,” but was an even lower blow. To use another maritime law term-- we’ve been Shanghaied.

Ethan Berkowitz stated “It’s too bad that we’re no longer surprised when Exxon has the audacity to lobby our legislators in Juneau for tax fairness, stall in the D.C. courts and leave Alaska twisting in the tide. The Palin Administration did the right thing filing a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the state and making sure Alaska stands up to Exxon.”

Jake Metcalfe, in spite of my request that he specifically endorse the governor’s position, failed to mention Palin, who is unpopular in Southeast Alaska, Metcalfe’s bastion. He said “Exxon should do the right thing and pay the plaintiffs now. That said, I'm confident the judicial branch of our government will do the right thing in the end.”

Benson isn’t so sure about this Supreme Court, commenting, “for the focus of this case to now shift, at the Supreme Court level, to an archaic maritime law case, that of the privateer Scourge, in the aftermath of the War of 1812, is almost beyond words. I’m concerned about this intersection of Exxon’s cynical defense and George Bush’s corporation-friendly Court.”

One thing is sure for 2008 in Alaska. It will be the most important election here since 1994, when-- like many other parts of he USA-- the selfish, consciously deceitful Gingrich agenda was foisted on us, and true conservatism, moderation, and liberalism were all subordinated to a mean-spirited me first modality.