Corps asked to explain pump contract | By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications — typos and all — from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found.
The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the
Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter (news, bio, voting record), R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush,
President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.
While it may not be a violation of federal regulations to adopt a company's technical specifications, it is frowned on, especially for large jobs like the MWI contract, because it could give the impression the job was rigged for the benefit of a certain company, contractors familiar with Corps practices say. ...
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Justice Dept official resigns over investigation connected with Abramoff
Fri, Apr. 27, 2007 | Justice Dept official resigns over investigation connected with Abramoff | by Marisa Taylor and David Whitney | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - A senior Justice Department official has resigned after coming under scrutiny in the Department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a Justice Department official with knowledge of the case.
Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.
He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff.
When contacted at his home in Washington, Coughlin said he resigned voluntarily because he was relocating to Texas. “I was not asked to resign,” he said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. “It’s important to me that it's made clear that I left voluntarily.” ...
WASHINGTON - A senior Justice Department official has resigned after coming under scrutiny in the Department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a Justice Department official with knowledge of the case.
Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.
He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff.
When contacted at his home in Washington, Coughlin said he resigned voluntarily because he was relocating to Texas. “I was not asked to resign,” he said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. “It’s important to me that it's made clear that I left voluntarily.” ...
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Republicans in the Senate blocked a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans
Bill to Let Medicare Negotiate Drug Prices Is Blocked | By ROBERT PEAR | Published: April 18, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 18 — A pillar of the Democratic political program tumbled today when Republicans in the Senate blocked a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans, a practice now forbidden by law.
Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to take up the legislation in the face of staunch opposition from Republicans, who said that private insurers and their agents, known as pharmacy benefit managers, were already negotiating large discounts for Medicare beneficiaries. ...
WASHINGTON, April 18 — A pillar of the Democratic political program tumbled today when Republicans in the Senate blocked a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans, a practice now forbidden by law.
Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to take up the legislation in the face of staunch opposition from Republicans, who said that private insurers and their agents, known as pharmacy benefit managers, were already negotiating large discounts for Medicare beneficiaries. ...
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Of 24 tests approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel.
Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation | Officials Profited From Reading First Program | By Amit R. Paley | Washington Post Staff Writer | Saturday, April 21, 2007; Page A01
The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.
The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.
"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."
...
One official, Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3 million off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a Reading First evaluation panel he sat on. Good, who owns half the company, Dynamic Measurement Group, told the committee that he donated royalties from the product to the University of Oregon, where he is an associate professor.
Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward J. Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about $150,000 in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS.
Members of the panel said they recused themselves from voting on their own products but did assess their competitors. Of 24 tests approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel. ...
The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.
The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.
"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."
...
One official, Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3 million off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a Reading First evaluation panel he sat on. Good, who owns half the company, Dynamic Measurement Group, told the committee that he donated royalties from the product to the University of Oregon, where he is an associate professor.
Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward J. Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about $150,000 in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS.
Members of the panel said they recused themselves from voting on their own products but did assess their competitors. Of 24 tests approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel. ...
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Congressman resigns committee post after home searched in corruption probe
Calif. Congressman resigns committee post after home searched in corruption probe | Rep. John Doolittle temporarily leaves Appropriations Committee as FBI investigates wife's fundraising business and ties to Jack Abramoff. | From Associated Press | 2:12 PM PDT, April 19, 2007
Rep. John Doolittle, whose house was searched by the FBI in an influence-peddling investigation, said today he will step down temporarily from the House Appropriations Committee.
The announcement by the nine-term California Republican came one day after the disclosure that agents had raided his home in Oakton, Va. In the search last Friday, the FBI had a warrant for information connected with a fundraising business run by Doolittle's wife, Julie, that had done work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"I understand how the most recent circumstances may lead some to question my tenure on the Appropriations Committee," Doolittle wrote House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
...
Doolittle's ties to Abramoff have come under scrutiny in the corruption investigation that has sent one former Republican congressman, Bob Ney of Ohio, to prison on a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and making false statements, and produced convictions against two senior Bush administration officials and several congressional aides. ...
Rep. John Doolittle, whose house was searched by the FBI in an influence-peddling investigation, said today he will step down temporarily from the House Appropriations Committee.
The announcement by the nine-term California Republican came one day after the disclosure that agents had raided his home in Oakton, Va. In the search last Friday, the FBI had a warrant for information connected with a fundraising business run by Doolittle's wife, Julie, that had done work for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"I understand how the most recent circumstances may lead some to question my tenure on the Appropriations Committee," Doolittle wrote House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
...
Doolittle's ties to Abramoff have come under scrutiny in the corruption investigation that has sent one former Republican congressman, Bob Ney of Ohio, to prison on a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and making false statements, and produced convictions against two senior Bush administration officials and several congressional aides. ...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
H1-B visas used to depress the wages of American workers ... mean IT H1-B hmakes $50k ... less than new US graduates ...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - New threat to skilled U.S. workers
The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted.
Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing.
...
What America can do to stop this is unclear, but it certainly doesn't have to speed up the process through a government program. We refer to the H-1B visa program, which allows educated foreigners to work in the United States, usually for three years. Many in Congress want to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, to 115,000 a year.
...
Ron Hira has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. A professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.
...
In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " Hira says. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "
Another rap against the program is that it's used to depress the wages of American workers. The program's defenders argue that the law requires companies to pay "the prevailing wage."
But "prevailing wage" is a legalism, Hira says. It does not translate into "market wage."
The median pay for H-1B computing professionals in fiscal 2005 was $50,000, which means half earn less than that. An American information-technology worker with a bachelor's degree makes more than $50,000 in an entry-level job.
Businesses bemoan the alleged shortage of Americans trained to do the work. But wait a second — the law of supply and demand states that a shortage of something causes its price to rise. Wages in information technology have been flat.
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it?
The master plan, it seems, is to move perhaps 40 million high-skill American jobs to other countries. U.S. workers have not been consulted.
Princeton economist Alan Blinder predicts that these choice jobs could be lost in a mere decade or two. We speak of computer programming, bookkeeping, graphic design and other careers once thought firmly planted in American soil. For perspective, 40 million is more than twice the total number of people now employed in manufacturing.
...
What America can do to stop this is unclear, but it certainly doesn't have to speed up the process through a government program. We refer to the H-1B visa program, which allows educated foreigners to work in the United States, usually for three years. Many in Congress want to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, to 115,000 a year.
...
Ron Hira has studied the dark side of the H-1B program. A professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he notes that the top applicants for visas are outsourcing companies, such as Wipro Technologies of India and Bermuda-based Accenture.
...
In other cases, companies ask their U.S. employees to train H-1B workers who then replace them at lower pay. "This is euphemistically called, 'knowledge transfer,' " Hira says. "I call it, 'knowledge extraction.' "
Another rap against the program is that it's used to depress the wages of American workers. The program's defenders argue that the law requires companies to pay "the prevailing wage."
But "prevailing wage" is a legalism, Hira says. It does not translate into "market wage."
The median pay for H-1B computing professionals in fiscal 2005 was $50,000, which means half earn less than that. An American information-technology worker with a bachelor's degree makes more than $50,000 in an entry-level job.
Businesses bemoan the alleged shortage of Americans trained to do the work. But wait a second — the law of supply and demand states that a shortage of something causes its price to rise. Wages in information technology have been flat.
The companies fret that not enough young Americans are studying science and technology. Well, cutting the pay in those fields isn't much of an incentive, is it?
Bush appointed Paul D. Wolfowitz: viewed the administration’s best-known neoconservative as a symbol of American unilateralism and arrogance ...
Wolfowitz Fight Has Subplot | April 14, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 13 — When President Bush appointed Paul D. Wolfowitz as the president of the World Bank two years ago, the White House had to put down an insurrection among European nations that viewed the administration’s best-known neoconservative as a symbol of American unilateralism and arrogance.
For a while, Mr. Wolfowitz seemed to defuse those fears, even taking on the Bush administration over how best to aid the poorest nations of Africa. But now it is clear that the chorus of calls in recent days for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster is only partly about his involvement in setting up a comfortable job, with a big pay raise, for a bank officer who is Mr. Wolfowitz’s companion.
At its core, the fight about whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank is a debate about Mr. Bush and his tumultuous relationship with the rest of the world, particularly the bank, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which have viewed themselves — at various moments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — as being at war with the Bush White House and its agenda.
As finance ministers gathered in Washington on Friday for the bank’s weekend meeting, Mr. Wolfowitz worked behind the scenes, seeking support for keeping his job. But there were few endorsements of his leadership beyond those offered by the Bush administration. ...
WASHINGTON, April 13 — When President Bush appointed Paul D. Wolfowitz as the president of the World Bank two years ago, the White House had to put down an insurrection among European nations that viewed the administration’s best-known neoconservative as a symbol of American unilateralism and arrogance.
For a while, Mr. Wolfowitz seemed to defuse those fears, even taking on the Bush administration over how best to aid the poorest nations of Africa. But now it is clear that the chorus of calls in recent days for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster is only partly about his involvement in setting up a comfortable job, with a big pay raise, for a bank officer who is Mr. Wolfowitz’s companion.
At its core, the fight about whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank is a debate about Mr. Bush and his tumultuous relationship with the rest of the world, particularly the bank, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which have viewed themselves — at various moments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — as being at war with the Bush White House and its agenda.
As finance ministers gathered in Washington on Friday for the bank’s weekend meeting, Mr. Wolfowitz worked behind the scenes, seeking support for keeping his job. But there were few endorsements of his leadership beyond those offered by the Bush administration. ...
Wolfowitz's big cause at the bank? Fighting corruption.: ... ordered VP for HR to raise romantic interests salary ... after warning by ethics commitee
April 17, 2007 | Wolfie's Piggy Bank | by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barracks language edited out, Tommy Franks once referred to the Pentagon's No. 3, Doug Feith, as "the dumbest guy on the planet."
It now appears Gen. Franks' honorific better applies to Feith's boss, the Pentagon No. 2, Paul Wolfowitz. For a man once hailed as the brightest of the neocons, Wolfie has behaved with a stupidity born of the arrogance of power.
Hailed in 2003 as architect of the Iraq victory, Wolfowitz, by late 2004, was being singled out as the bumbler of postwar planning and the man most responsible for what Gen. William Odom was already calling the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history.
With the roster of U.S. dead and wounded rising, Wolfie was looking for a place to hide. George Bush, who had heeded his cawing for war on Iraq from the first hours after 9/11, took pity. And more than pity. Bush made him president of the World Bank, the post to which Robert McNamara retreated after seven years at the Pentagon plunging us into a another war, a war we later learned McNamara had come to believe we could not win. ...
...
A few weeks in Eden, and Wolfie went straight for the apple tree. From memos unearthed by the Financial Times, he gave bank officials specific instructions on the care and feeding of his romantic interest, a mid-level Libyan bank bureaucrat by the name of Shaha Riza.
Warned by the bank ethics committee he was to have no role in deciding Shaha's salary, Wolfie brushed the ethics rules aside.
He ordered Xavier Coll, bank vice president for human resources, to assign Riza to the State Department and raise her salary by some 50 percent, to $193,000 today, tax-free. She would take home more than Condi Rice. Coll was then directed to assure that Riza receive annual pay hikes of 8 percent and be put on a glide path to the highest position of any civil servant at the bank. By 2010, she would be making $245,000, tax-free.
And what has been Wolfowitz's big cause at the bank? Fighting corruption. ...
Barracks language edited out, Tommy Franks once referred to the Pentagon's No. 3, Doug Feith, as "the dumbest guy on the planet."
It now appears Gen. Franks' honorific better applies to Feith's boss, the Pentagon No. 2, Paul Wolfowitz. For a man once hailed as the brightest of the neocons, Wolfie has behaved with a stupidity born of the arrogance of power.
Hailed in 2003 as architect of the Iraq victory, Wolfowitz, by late 2004, was being singled out as the bumbler of postwar planning and the man most responsible for what Gen. William Odom was already calling the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history.
With the roster of U.S. dead and wounded rising, Wolfie was looking for a place to hide. George Bush, who had heeded his cawing for war on Iraq from the first hours after 9/11, took pity. And more than pity. Bush made him president of the World Bank, the post to which Robert McNamara retreated after seven years at the Pentagon plunging us into a another war, a war we later learned McNamara had come to believe we could not win. ...
...
A few weeks in Eden, and Wolfie went straight for the apple tree. From memos unearthed by the Financial Times, he gave bank officials specific instructions on the care and feeding of his romantic interest, a mid-level Libyan bank bureaucrat by the name of Shaha Riza.
Warned by the bank ethics committee he was to have no role in deciding Shaha's salary, Wolfie brushed the ethics rules aside.
He ordered Xavier Coll, bank vice president for human resources, to assign Riza to the State Department and raise her salary by some 50 percent, to $193,000 today, tax-free. She would take home more than Condi Rice. Coll was then directed to assure that Riza receive annual pay hikes of 8 percent and be put on a glide path to the highest position of any civil servant at the bank. By 2010, she would be making $245,000, tax-free.
And what has been Wolfowitz's big cause at the bank? Fighting corruption. ...
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Wolfowitz [personally] Dictated Girlfriend's Pay Deal ... got $200,000 tax free, more than Condi Rice
Wolfowitz Dictated Girlfriend's Pay Deal | World Bank Board Weighs Its Options | By Karen DeYoung and Krissah Williams | Washington Post Staff Writers | Saturday, April 14, 2007; Page A01
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday. ...
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday. ...
Friday, April 13, 2007
'Independent Contractor': beyond calling it a dodge ... how to use misclassification to exploit undocumented immigrants.
Union Leader, Construction Company: 'Independent Contractor' Dodge Costly to Workers, States, Firms | Wednesday, April 11, 2007
(Press Associates, Inc.)
WASHINGTON (PAI)--The “independent contractor” dodge--a tactic unscrupulous construction companies use to avoid treating their workers legally, paying
taxes and following workers’ comp and other laws--is costly to workers, governments and even other construction firms, two witnesses told the House Education and Labor Committee.
In one of a series of hearings on the state of U.S. workers, Bricklayers President John J. Flynn and Cliff Horn, a Chicago-area masonry contractor testifying for
his industry’s trade association, told lawmakers on March 27 that widespread use of “independent contractors” in the construction industry hurts everyone.
Flynn went beyond calling it a dodge. He said it is a “crisis” in the workplace that citizens--and even congressmen--are largely unaware of. Horn said the honest firms that treat workers right, like his own, have to compete against the shady characters.
The anti-union anti-worker Associated Builders and Contractors opposed any changes.
Under federal law, an “employee,” whose work is guided by supervisors and who is paid by the company and adheres to company rules and standards, is protected by a variety of federal and state laws. But an “independent contractor” is not. ...
...
“They found this network would teach employers about how easily they could cheat the system. Accountants would actually coach employers how to use misclassification to exploit undocumented immigrants.
“And the most amazing part of it all was how easy it was to get this network to give up their tricks. It was as if they had no fear of being caught, of being exposed as part of a conspiracy to evade labor and tax laws. Our organizers’ story is chilling–because it illustrates how commonplace misclassification has
become. And that’s why we’re here today–asking this committee to fight for the basic right to be recognized as an employee, with all of the rights of an employee,” he concluded.
...
(Press Associates, Inc.)
WASHINGTON (PAI)--The “independent contractor” dodge--a tactic unscrupulous construction companies use to avoid treating their workers legally, paying
taxes and following workers’ comp and other laws--is costly to workers, governments and even other construction firms, two witnesses told the House Education and Labor Committee.
In one of a series of hearings on the state of U.S. workers, Bricklayers President John J. Flynn and Cliff Horn, a Chicago-area masonry contractor testifying for
his industry’s trade association, told lawmakers on March 27 that widespread use of “independent contractors” in the construction industry hurts everyone.
Flynn went beyond calling it a dodge. He said it is a “crisis” in the workplace that citizens--and even congressmen--are largely unaware of. Horn said the honest firms that treat workers right, like his own, have to compete against the shady characters.
The anti-union anti-worker Associated Builders and Contractors opposed any changes.
Under federal law, an “employee,” whose work is guided by supervisors and who is paid by the company and adheres to company rules and standards, is protected by a variety of federal and state laws. But an “independent contractor” is not. ...
...
“They found this network would teach employers about how easily they could cheat the system. Accountants would actually coach employers how to use misclassification to exploit undocumented immigrants.
“And the most amazing part of it all was how easy it was to get this network to give up their tricks. It was as if they had no fear of being caught, of being exposed as part of a conspiracy to evade labor and tax laws. Our organizers’ story is chilling–because it illustrates how commonplace misclassification has
become. And that’s why we’re here today–asking this committee to fight for the basic right to be recognized as an employee, with all of the rights of an employee,” he concluded.
...
refinery profit margins go from $17 per barrel to $39; refineries run at 92% capacity vs. 76% years ago, creating price spikes
House committee asks oil firm CEOs to explain why gas might soon cost $4 per gallon
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday April 11, 2007
...
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, has sent a letter to the CEOs of seven major oil companies demanding to know why gas prices could soon climb to $4 a gallon.
Kucinich, whose committee oversees the Department of Energy, is asking top oil executives what role their companies play in the record high prices of gasoline.
"We seek to learn how the realities of decreasing refinery capacity, decreasing gasoline inventories, rising oil company profitability and increasing market concentration in the oil industry may be the root cause of new record-high gasoline prices," Kucinich said in a statement.
...
News reports have indicated that refinery profit margins on the West Coast have increased substantially, from an average of $17 per barrel over the past five years to $39 per barrel currently.
The number of refineries in California has fallen by more than half since the early 1980s, but more important, the remaining refineries have not increased supply capacity to keep pace with consumer demand. West Coast refineries ran at about 76% of capacity in 1985. Outages at one refinery were easily compensated for by increased production at other refineries. Now, West Coast refineries are running at nearly 92% of capacity, leaving little room even for maintenance without spiking prices due to lack of supply. Current inventory supplies may have fallen to only 17 days. That is below the very low level of inventory supply reached in May of 2006, when the state's gasoline prices hit a new record of $3.38 per gallon. At that time, California had about 18 days of gasoline supply on hand, well below the national average at that time.
The oil industry has experienced increasing concentration of market share in the past two decades. In 2006, the three largest refiners controlled about 50% of the state's market, with the top seven controlling 81 percent. Chevron alone controls 25% of the state's refining capacity. ...
RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday April 11, 2007
...
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, has sent a letter to the CEOs of seven major oil companies demanding to know why gas prices could soon climb to $4 a gallon.
Kucinich, whose committee oversees the Department of Energy, is asking top oil executives what role their companies play in the record high prices of gasoline.
"We seek to learn how the realities of decreasing refinery capacity, decreasing gasoline inventories, rising oil company profitability and increasing market concentration in the oil industry may be the root cause of new record-high gasoline prices," Kucinich said in a statement.
...
News reports have indicated that refinery profit margins on the West Coast have increased substantially, from an average of $17 per barrel over the past five years to $39 per barrel currently.
The number of refineries in California has fallen by more than half since the early 1980s, but more important, the remaining refineries have not increased supply capacity to keep pace with consumer demand. West Coast refineries ran at about 76% of capacity in 1985. Outages at one refinery were easily compensated for by increased production at other refineries. Now, West Coast refineries are running at nearly 92% of capacity, leaving little room even for maintenance without spiking prices due to lack of supply. Current inventory supplies may have fallen to only 17 days. That is below the very low level of inventory supply reached in May of 2006, when the state's gasoline prices hit a new record of $3.38 per gallon. At that time, California had about 18 days of gasoline supply on hand, well below the national average at that time.
The oil industry has experienced increasing concentration of market share in the past two decades. In 2006, the three largest refiners controlled about 50% of the state's market, with the top seven controlling 81 percent. Chevron alone controls 25% of the state's refining capacity. ...
White House pulls nomination to top EPA air post: "demonstrates a pattern of discounting health impacts, ignoring scientific findings and ..."
White House pulls nomination to top EPA air post | By Chris Baltimore Wed Apr 11, 6:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday withdrew its choice to head the
Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution office after he ran afoul of key U.S. lawmakers.
William Wehrum, nominated to head the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, was the architect of rules to regulate harmful power plant emissions that environmental groups and many Democrats blasted as too lenient.
...
Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, had placed a hold on both nominations last year after the panel approved it in party line votes. At the time, the Senate was under Republican control.
A hold prevents the full Senate from voting on nominees, effectively putting them in limbo.
Boxer, a California Democrat, had called Wehrum an "extremely troubling" nominee, whose record "demonstrates a pattern of discounting health impacts, ignoring scientific findings and substituting industry positions for the clear intent of Congress."
Wehrum would have replaced Jeffrey Holmstead, who left the agency in 2005 to work for Bracewell and Giuliani LLP, a Washington lobbying group whose clients include many big U.S utilities and refiners. A former lawyer for chemical and utility companies, Wehrum was a senior attorney in EPA's air office.
An aide to Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), the panel's top-ranking Republican, declined to comment. Inhofe had criticized Boxer's hold as "obstructionist" and called the nominees "highly qualified."
...
Boxer said she also had concerns that Beehler had sought to weaken environmental standards at his previous job as a Defense Department official. Beehler had previously worked for privately held Koch Industries, an oil and chemical conglomerate.
"The air program under Wehrum has racked up a long line of court losses," said John Walke, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that had formally opposed the nominee.
Chief among those was a determination by the Supreme Court last week that the EPA erred in 2004 when it ruled that it lacked the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday withdrew its choice to head the
Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution office after he ran afoul of key U.S. lawmakers.
William Wehrum, nominated to head the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, was the architect of rules to regulate harmful power plant emissions that environmental groups and many Democrats blasted as too lenient.
...
Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, had placed a hold on both nominations last year after the panel approved it in party line votes. At the time, the Senate was under Republican control.
A hold prevents the full Senate from voting on nominees, effectively putting them in limbo.
Boxer, a California Democrat, had called Wehrum an "extremely troubling" nominee, whose record "demonstrates a pattern of discounting health impacts, ignoring scientific findings and substituting industry positions for the clear intent of Congress."
Wehrum would have replaced Jeffrey Holmstead, who left the agency in 2005 to work for Bracewell and Giuliani LLP, a Washington lobbying group whose clients include many big U.S utilities and refiners. A former lawyer for chemical and utility companies, Wehrum was a senior attorney in EPA's air office.
An aide to Sen. James Inhofe (news, bio, voting record), the panel's top-ranking Republican, declined to comment. Inhofe had criticized Boxer's hold as "obstructionist" and called the nominees "highly qualified."
...
Boxer said she also had concerns that Beehler had sought to weaken environmental standards at his previous job as a Defense Department official. Beehler had previously worked for privately held Koch Industries, an oil and chemical conglomerate.
"The air program under Wehrum has racked up a long line of court losses," said John Walke, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that had formally opposed the nominee.
Chief among those was a determination by the Supreme Court last week that the EPA erred in 2004 when it ruled that it lacked the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. ...
former deputy US defense secretary, one of the architects of the war in Iraq ... under pressure to quit over pay scandal
World Bank chief under pressure to quit over pay scandal | AFP Published: Thursday April 12, 2007
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz Thursday confessed to errors over a pay scandal surrounding his girlfriend but still faced an open revolt from staff members agitating for his resignation.
The former deputy US defense secretary, one of the architects of the war in Iraq, refused to say if he might be forced out as the bank's 24-member executive board investigates the controversy.
But ahead of the bank's annual spring meeting this weekend, which threatens to be overshadowed by the dispute, he said: "I will accept any remedies they propose.
"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," Wolfowitz told a news conference, as uproar deepened over an employment package worth nearly 200,000 dollars given by the World Bank to his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza. ...
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz Thursday confessed to errors over a pay scandal surrounding his girlfriend but still faced an open revolt from staff members agitating for his resignation.
The former deputy US defense secretary, one of the architects of the war in Iraq, refused to say if he might be forced out as the bank's 24-member executive board investigates the controversy.
But ahead of the bank's annual spring meeting this weekend, which threatens to be overshadowed by the dispute, he said: "I will accept any remedies they propose.
"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," Wolfowitz told a news conference, as uproar deepened over an employment package worth nearly 200,000 dollars given by the World Bank to his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza. ...
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Retirement rumors loom over senator with Attorneys-linked ethics problem
Retirement rumors loom over senator with Attorneys-linked ethics problem | Michael Roston | Published: Thursday April 12, 2007
The Associated Press today reports on rumors that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), one of two members of Congress in possible ethical trouble for allegedly contacting the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico to discuss grand jury proceedings, may retire. But the senator's staff pointed to the ample money he has raised as evidence he won't quit.
"Down the road, as the election comes — will questions about his health or the [U.S. attorney] story hurt his campaign?" asked University of New Mexico political science professor Lonna Atkeson in an interview with the AP.
At a recent banquet in Albuquerque, the New Mexico Republican apparently "called recent weeks 'hell' like he had never experienced his entire career." ...
The Associated Press today reports on rumors that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), one of two members of Congress in possible ethical trouble for allegedly contacting the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico to discuss grand jury proceedings, may retire. But the senator's staff pointed to the ample money he has raised as evidence he won't quit.
"Down the road, as the election comes — will questions about his health or the [U.S. attorney] story hurt his campaign?" asked University of New Mexico political science professor Lonna Atkeson in an interview with the AP.
At a recent banquet in Albuquerque, the New Mexico Republican apparently "called recent weeks 'hell' like he had never experienced his entire career." ...
So this hateful garbage has been going on for a long, long time. There was new in ... Mr. Imus’s “nappy-headed ho’s” comment
Thursday, April 12, 2007 | Bob Herbert: Paying the Price
You knew something was up early in the day. As soon as I told executives at MSNBC that I was going to write about the “60 Minutes” piece, which was already in pretty wide circulation, they began acting very weird. We’ll get back to you, they said.
...
Mr. Imus then said: “Give me an example. Give me one example of one racist incident.” To which Mr. Wallace replied, “You told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car, coming home, that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes.”
...
But some of the most telling and persuasive criticism came from an unlikely source — internally at the network that televised Mr. Imus’s program. Women, especially, were angry and upset. Powerful statements were made during in-house meetings by women at NBC and MSNBC — about how black women are devalued in this country, how they are demeaned by white men and black men.
White and black women spoke emotionally about the way black women are frequently trashed in the popular culture, especially in music, and about the way news outlets give far more attention to stories about white women in trouble.
...
So this hateful garbage has been going on for a long, long time. There was nothing new about the tone or the intent of Mr. Imus’s “nappy-headed ho’s” comment. As Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists told me the other night, “It’s a long pattern of behavior, and at some point somebody has to say enough is enough.”
The crucial issue goes well beyond Don Imus’s pathetically infantile behavior. The real question is whether this controversy is loud enough to shock Americans at long last into the realization of just how profoundly racist and sexist the culture is.
...
You knew something was up early in the day. As soon as I told executives at MSNBC that I was going to write about the “60 Minutes” piece, which was already in pretty wide circulation, they began acting very weird. We’ll get back to you, they said.
...
Mr. Imus then said: “Give me an example. Give me one example of one racist incident.” To which Mr. Wallace replied, “You told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car, coming home, that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes.”
...
But some of the most telling and persuasive criticism came from an unlikely source — internally at the network that televised Mr. Imus’s program. Women, especially, were angry and upset. Powerful statements were made during in-house meetings by women at NBC and MSNBC — about how black women are devalued in this country, how they are demeaned by white men and black men.
White and black women spoke emotionally about the way black women are frequently trashed in the popular culture, especially in music, and about the way news outlets give far more attention to stories about white women in trouble.
...
So this hateful garbage has been going on for a long, long time. There was nothing new about the tone or the intent of Mr. Imus’s “nappy-headed ho’s” comment. As Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists told me the other night, “It’s a long pattern of behavior, and at some point somebody has to say enough is enough.”
The crucial issue goes well beyond Don Imus’s pathetically infantile behavior. The real question is whether this controversy is loud enough to shock Americans at long last into the realization of just how profoundly racist and sexist the culture is.
...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Favoritism Shown Towards Wolfowitz's Girlfriend: Salary goes from ... $132,660 ... $180,000 ... $193,000. ... amkes more than Condi Rice! (her boss
Favoritism Shown Towards Wolfowitz's Girlfriend (99 comments ) | READ MORE: Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush
Employees of the World Bank have been "expressing concern, dismay, and outrage" regarding favoritism shown by the bank and the Bush administration towards the one-time girlfriend of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, according to an internal memo circulated within the bank by the World Bank Group Association, which represents the rights of the bank's 13,000 employees. Among other things, the April 3 memo alleges that Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz's romantic interest was given a "promotion [that] clearly does not conform" to bank procedures. Moreover, the memo alleges, she was then given a raise "more than double the amount allowed" by the bank's rules.
A copy of the memorandum was leaked to myself and other journalists Wednesday evening as World Bank employees have become more outspoken in their criticism of Wolfowitz's tenure as president of the bank.
...
Wolfowitz, who as Deputy Secretary of Defense was considered an architect of the U.S. war with Iraq, disclosed to bank board members that he had a romantic relationship with a senior bank communications officer, Shaha Riza, shortly after he was nominated to head the World Bank. Bank regulations disallow bank employees from supervising spouses or romantic partners, but Wolfowitz reportedly attempted to circumvent the rules so he would be able to continue to work with Riza. Informed by the bank's ethics officers that that would not be allowable, the problem appeared solved when Riza was detailed to work at the State Department's public diplomacy office in September 2005--even though her salary was still to be paid by the World Bank.
Before she was detailed over to the State Department, Riza was earning $132,660, according to the bank's payroll records obtained by the Governmental Accountability Project. Had the bank's board adhered to its ordinary rules, as Riza was shifted over to the State Department, she should have only been eligible for a raise of about $20,000. Instead she was given a raise of $47,340, whereupon her salary became $180,000. Then last year, she received yet another raise which brought her salary to $193,000. That salary increase not only meant that Riza earned more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but apparently made her the single highest paid State Department official.
After GAP shared the records it obtained with the Washington Post's "In the Loop" columnist Al Kamen, and the New Yorker also mentioned the preferential treatment in a profile of Wolfowitz last week, the World Bank's Group Association was "inundated with messages from staff expressing concern, dismay, and outrage," according to the April 3 memo circulated by the association to the bank's rank and file employees.
"We call on Senior Management and the Board to clarify what appear to be violations of Staff Rules in favor of a staff member closely associated with the President," wrote Alison Cave, the chairman of the association. ...
Employees of the World Bank have been "expressing concern, dismay, and outrage" regarding favoritism shown by the bank and the Bush administration towards the one-time girlfriend of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, according to an internal memo circulated within the bank by the World Bank Group Association, which represents the rights of the bank's 13,000 employees. Among other things, the April 3 memo alleges that Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz's romantic interest was given a "promotion [that] clearly does not conform" to bank procedures. Moreover, the memo alleges, she was then given a raise "more than double the amount allowed" by the bank's rules.
A copy of the memorandum was leaked to myself and other journalists Wednesday evening as World Bank employees have become more outspoken in their criticism of Wolfowitz's tenure as president of the bank.
...
Wolfowitz, who as Deputy Secretary of Defense was considered an architect of the U.S. war with Iraq, disclosed to bank board members that he had a romantic relationship with a senior bank communications officer, Shaha Riza, shortly after he was nominated to head the World Bank. Bank regulations disallow bank employees from supervising spouses or romantic partners, but Wolfowitz reportedly attempted to circumvent the rules so he would be able to continue to work with Riza. Informed by the bank's ethics officers that that would not be allowable, the problem appeared solved when Riza was detailed to work at the State Department's public diplomacy office in September 2005--even though her salary was still to be paid by the World Bank.
Before she was detailed over to the State Department, Riza was earning $132,660, according to the bank's payroll records obtained by the Governmental Accountability Project. Had the bank's board adhered to its ordinary rules, as Riza was shifted over to the State Department, she should have only been eligible for a raise of about $20,000. Instead she was given a raise of $47,340, whereupon her salary became $180,000. Then last year, she received yet another raise which brought her salary to $193,000. That salary increase not only meant that Riza earned more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but apparently made her the single highest paid State Department official.
After GAP shared the records it obtained with the Washington Post's "In the Loop" columnist Al Kamen, and the New Yorker also mentioned the preferential treatment in a profile of Wolfowitz last week, the World Bank's Group Association was "inundated with messages from staff expressing concern, dismay, and outrage," according to the April 3 memo circulated by the association to the bank's rank and file employees.
"We call on Senior Management and the Board to clarify what appear to be violations of Staff Rules in favor of a staff member closely associated with the President," wrote Alison Cave, the chairman of the association. ...
Mr. Rove’s efforts to maintain one-party rule go deep into the government. ... helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how
The Rovian Era | Published: April 1, 2007
Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.
Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch. This is not the Clinton administration’s permanent campaign. The Clinton people had difficulty distinguishing between the spin cycle of a campaign and the tone of governing. That seems quaint compared with the Bush administration’s far more menacing failure to distinguish the Republican Party from the government, or the state itself.
This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of taking the chief operative of a presidential campaign, one famous for his scorched-earth style, and ensconcing him in the White House — not in a political role, but as a key player in the formation of policy. Mr. Rove never had to submit to Senate confirmation hearings. Yet, from the very start, photographs of cabinet meetings showed him in the background, keeping an enforcer’s eye on the proceedings. After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy.
In that position, as David Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg reported in The Times, Mr. Rove took a lead role in selecting federal judges and the hiring — and firing — of United States attorneys. Mr. Rove’s staff maneuvered to fire the prosecutor in Arkansas and replace him with a Rove protégé, and also seems to have been involved in the firing of a United States attorney in New Mexico who refused to file what he considered to be baseless charges of election fraud against Democrats.
Mr. Rove’s efforts to maintain one-party rule go deep into the government. Last week, we learned about a meeting set up by Mr. Rove’s staff with officials of the General Services Administration that was wildly inappropriate and perhaps illegal. The aim, as outlined by Mr. Rove’s deputy, Scott Jennings, seems to have been to take advantage of the billions of dollars in contracts put out by the agency every year to return Republicans to the majority in Congress in 2008. It included PowerPoint slides on vulnerable House and Senate seats.
This sort of behavior should not be all that surprising. It was not that long ago that the Bush White House embraced the priorities of the Republican governor of Mississippi and virtually ignored the far greater needs of Louisiana’s Democratic governor after Hurricane Katrina. ...
Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.
Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch. This is not the Clinton administration’s permanent campaign. The Clinton people had difficulty distinguishing between the spin cycle of a campaign and the tone of governing. That seems quaint compared with the Bush administration’s far more menacing failure to distinguish the Republican Party from the government, or the state itself.
This was, perhaps, the inevitable result of taking the chief operative of a presidential campaign, one famous for his scorched-earth style, and ensconcing him in the White House — not in a political role, but as a key player in the formation of policy. Mr. Rove never had to submit to Senate confirmation hearings. Yet, from the very start, photographs of cabinet meetings showed him in the background, keeping an enforcer’s eye on the proceedings. After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy.
In that position, as David Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg reported in The Times, Mr. Rove took a lead role in selecting federal judges and the hiring — and firing — of United States attorneys. Mr. Rove’s staff maneuvered to fire the prosecutor in Arkansas and replace him with a Rove protégé, and also seems to have been involved in the firing of a United States attorney in New Mexico who refused to file what he considered to be baseless charges of election fraud against Democrats.
Mr. Rove’s efforts to maintain one-party rule go deep into the government. Last week, we learned about a meeting set up by Mr. Rove’s staff with officials of the General Services Administration that was wildly inappropriate and perhaps illegal. The aim, as outlined by Mr. Rove’s deputy, Scott Jennings, seems to have been to take advantage of the billions of dollars in contracts put out by the agency every year to return Republicans to the majority in Congress in 2008. It included PowerPoint slides on vulnerable House and Senate seats.
This sort of behavior should not be all that surprising. It was not that long ago that the Bush White House embraced the priorities of the Republican governor of Mississippi and virtually ignored the far greater needs of Louisiana’s Democratic governor after Hurricane Katrina. ...
RFK Jr.: White House rewards industry reps with enviro posts: "No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries."
RFK Jr.: White House rewards industry reps with enviro posts | Mike Sheehan | Published: Thursday April 5, 2007
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sheds light on how the Bush administration appoints industry types to environmental jobs in the forthcoming issue of Vanity Fair.
"Spinning the revolving door between government and business as never before, the White House has handed more than 100 top environmental posts to representatives of polluting industries," writes Kennedy, who outlines "a devastating rollback of three decades of progress."
Kennedy, a lawyer and talk show host, rips President George Bush's ecological record by saying, "No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries."
He keeps up the criticism of Bush, asserting that the president "has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy."
Kennedy says, "Most insidiously, the president has put representatives of polluting industries or environmental skeptics in charge of virtually all the agencies responsible for protecting America from pollution."
He acknowledges that some of the particularly troubling officials have departed the administration, but notes that they often return "to the private sector whose interests they served." Yet many continue to hold key positions, maintains Kennedy, at the very federal agencies that regulate the environment.
"The revolving door between business and government —- turning the regulated into the regulators —- has never before spun so fast," he writes. "And as a consequence environmental protection has been advancing backward on a broad front." ...
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sheds light on how the Bush administration appoints industry types to environmental jobs in the forthcoming issue of Vanity Fair.
"Spinning the revolving door between government and business as never before, the White House has handed more than 100 top environmental posts to representatives of polluting industries," writes Kennedy, who outlines "a devastating rollback of three decades of progress."
Kennedy, a lawyer and talk show host, rips President George Bush's ecological record by saying, "No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries."
He keeps up the criticism of Bush, asserting that the president "has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy."
Kennedy says, "Most insidiously, the president has put representatives of polluting industries or environmental skeptics in charge of virtually all the agencies responsible for protecting America from pollution."
He acknowledges that some of the particularly troubling officials have departed the administration, but notes that they often return "to the private sector whose interests they served." Yet many continue to hold key positions, maintains Kennedy, at the very federal agencies that regulate the environment.
"The revolving door between business and government —- turning the regulated into the regulators —- has never before spun so fast," he writes. "And as a consequence environmental protection has been advancing backward on a broad front." ...
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Iglesias’s military service in support ... of the "Global War on Terror (GWOT)" apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors in Justice Dept
Docked for Duty? | Web-exclusive commentary | By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball | Newsweek | Updated: 50 minutes ago
The Justice Department called David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, an 'absentee landlord'—a key reason listed for his firing last December. Just one problem: Iglesias, a captain in the Navy Reserve, was off teaching classes as part of the war on terror. Now Iglesias is striking back, arguing he was improperly dismissed.
April 4, 2007 - When he wasn’t doing his day job as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias was a captain in the Navy Reserve, teaching foreign military officers about international terrorism.
But Iglesias’s military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT) apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S attorney late last year was that he was an “absentee landlord” who was spending too much time away from the office. ...
The Justice Department called David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, an 'absentee landlord'—a key reason listed for his firing last December. Just one problem: Iglesias, a captain in the Navy Reserve, was off teaching classes as part of the war on terror. Now Iglesias is striking back, arguing he was improperly dismissed.
April 4, 2007 - When he wasn’t doing his day job as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias was a captain in the Navy Reserve, teaching foreign military officers about international terrorism.
But Iglesias’s military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT) apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S attorney late last year was that he was an “absentee landlord” who was spending too much time away from the office. ...
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
calls the Bush administration appointment pattern "very unusual."
One-third of US attorney jobs went to Bush insiders | RAW STORY | Published: Sunday April 1, 2007
"About one-third of the nearly four dozen U.S. attorney's jobs that have changed hands since President Bush began his second term have been filled by the White House and the Justice Department with trusted administration insiders," writes the Washington Post.
Experts tell the Post that no other administration in recent history has had such a penchant for filling prosecutor jobs with political friends.
James Eisenstein, a Penn State political scientist and expert on US attorneys, calls the Bush administration appointment pattern "very unusual." ...
"About one-third of the nearly four dozen U.S. attorney's jobs that have changed hands since President Bush began his second term have been filled by the White House and the Justice Department with trusted administration insiders," writes the Washington Post.
Experts tell the Post that no other administration in recent history has had such a penchant for filling prosecutor jobs with political friends.
James Eisenstein, a Penn State political scientist and expert on US attorneys, calls the Bush administration appointment pattern "very unusual." ...
Bribery in the Beltway
April 2, 2007 | Investigative Report: Contract Corruption | Bribery in the Beltway | By Laton McCartney
A year after U.S. Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced to prison in one the biggest federal information-technology scandals ever, details about the case continue to emerge.
...
But in recent months, it has become clear that the information-technology scandal that rocked Washington may be more far-reaching than had been initially recognized. The names of other members of Congress, along with a senior Defense Department official, have surfaced in relation to the case, at the heart of which are government charges that Cunningham and co-conspirators caused hundreds of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence I.T. contracts — a number of them involving national security — to be awarded to companies that in many instances, the government claims, weren't the best qualified for the job.
What is perhaps most alarming about this story, however, is the window it provides into the kind of corruption that can develop in an environment where projects are often funded through "black budgets"; the number of vendor choices is shrinking; accountability is minimal or nonexistent; and buying decisions can be driven by cronyism, massive campaign contributions — some of them illegal — influence peddling and pork barrel politics.
"I think that the Cunningham example is unique because of how deeply entrenched MZM was with a member of Congress," says Scott Amey, general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO), "but overall it does highlight the cozy relationship that many contractors have with members of Congress, senior government officials and the executive branch."
...
Pay to Play
For 20 years Steve Charles, the executive VP and co-founder of the ImmixGroup, a provider of enterprise technology and services in the government market, representing more than 150 I.T. vendors, has been helping technology companies sell to the government. Charles says that what really matters in selling to the feds is the ability of the would-be contractor to come up with an application or service that's effective in the public sector. "The other stuff — campaign contributions, who you know — they don't really matter at all," Charles says.
Ideally, perhaps, but there is a virtual revolving door between government contractors and government agencies. Virtually all of the I.T. contractors selling their wares to Defense and the various intelligence agencies contribute heavily to political campaigns, especially if the candidates they're backing are in a position to help them get business.
All of which is entirely legal — as long as it is documented and the contributions are reported.
In 2006, defense contractors contributed $16,308,831 to various candidates, 37% to Democrats and 61% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group based in Washington that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy. "Most defense-sector contributions are concentrated on members of the House and Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittees, which allocate federal defense money, and the Armed Service committees, which influence military policy," CRP notes on its Web site. "Contributions as a whole favor Republicans, but many of the top contributors within the sector give to both parties fairly evenly, a reflection of the fact that it is important to have friends in high places in both parties when competing for federal contracts."
Typically, the integrators and I.T. solutions providers doing classified business have in-house lobbyists. Their donations are also often channeled legally through outside lobbying firms — or "stealth rainmakers," as they're sometimes called — that specialize in, or focus heavily on, defense contractors. These include the PMA Group, American Defense International (ADI), and Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White. The largest of these firms, PMA, represents dozens of defense contractors including L-3, CACI and DRS Technologies.
L-3, a self-described "leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for National Security, the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies and other government customers," gave $360,000 through PMA in 2006. In total, it contributed $600,465, according to CRP.
Meanwhile, DRS, a supplier of integrated products, services and support to military forces, intelligence agencies and prime contractors worldwide, chipped in $480,000; CACI, an information systems and high technology services company that sells to the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies, doled out $80,000, CRP says.
The payback from these lobbying efforts can be enormous. Between 1998 and 2004, the 41 defense contractors that paid fees to PMA collectively won $266 billion in contracts from the Pentagon, according to CRP. That amounts to almost 30% of the dollar value of all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense. Moreover, of this amount, $167 billion — nearly two out of three dollars — was received from contracts that were awarded without "full and open" competition. In fact, PMA clients account for 47% of all such non-competitive contracts — contracts in which the government negotiates with a single contractor — handed out by the Pentagon since 1998. ...
A year after U.S. Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham was sentenced to prison in one the biggest federal information-technology scandals ever, details about the case continue to emerge.
...
But in recent months, it has become clear that the information-technology scandal that rocked Washington may be more far-reaching than had been initially recognized. The names of other members of Congress, along with a senior Defense Department official, have surfaced in relation to the case, at the heart of which are government charges that Cunningham and co-conspirators caused hundreds of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence I.T. contracts — a number of them involving national security — to be awarded to companies that in many instances, the government claims, weren't the best qualified for the job.
What is perhaps most alarming about this story, however, is the window it provides into the kind of corruption that can develop in an environment where projects are often funded through "black budgets"; the number of vendor choices is shrinking; accountability is minimal or nonexistent; and buying decisions can be driven by cronyism, massive campaign contributions — some of them illegal — influence peddling and pork barrel politics.
"I think that the Cunningham example is unique because of how deeply entrenched MZM was with a member of Congress," says Scott Amey, general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO), "but overall it does highlight the cozy relationship that many contractors have with members of Congress, senior government officials and the executive branch."
...
Pay to Play
For 20 years Steve Charles, the executive VP and co-founder of the ImmixGroup, a provider of enterprise technology and services in the government market, representing more than 150 I.T. vendors, has been helping technology companies sell to the government. Charles says that what really matters in selling to the feds is the ability of the would-be contractor to come up with an application or service that's effective in the public sector. "The other stuff — campaign contributions, who you know — they don't really matter at all," Charles says.
Ideally, perhaps, but there is a virtual revolving door between government contractors and government agencies. Virtually all of the I.T. contractors selling their wares to Defense and the various intelligence agencies contribute heavily to political campaigns, especially if the candidates they're backing are in a position to help them get business.
All of which is entirely legal — as long as it is documented and the contributions are reported.
In 2006, defense contractors contributed $16,308,831 to various candidates, 37% to Democrats and 61% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group based in Washington that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy. "Most defense-sector contributions are concentrated on members of the House and Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittees, which allocate federal defense money, and the Armed Service committees, which influence military policy," CRP notes on its Web site. "Contributions as a whole favor Republicans, but many of the top contributors within the sector give to both parties fairly evenly, a reflection of the fact that it is important to have friends in high places in both parties when competing for federal contracts."
Typically, the integrators and I.T. solutions providers doing classified business have in-house lobbyists. Their donations are also often channeled legally through outside lobbying firms — or "stealth rainmakers," as they're sometimes called — that specialize in, or focus heavily on, defense contractors. These include the PMA Group, American Defense International (ADI), and Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White. The largest of these firms, PMA, represents dozens of defense contractors including L-3, CACI and DRS Technologies.
L-3, a self-described "leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for National Security, the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies and other government customers," gave $360,000 through PMA in 2006. In total, it contributed $600,465, according to CRP.
Meanwhile, DRS, a supplier of integrated products, services and support to military forces, intelligence agencies and prime contractors worldwide, chipped in $480,000; CACI, an information systems and high technology services company that sells to the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies, doled out $80,000, CRP says.
The payback from these lobbying efforts can be enormous. Between 1998 and 2004, the 41 defense contractors that paid fees to PMA collectively won $266 billion in contracts from the Pentagon, according to CRP. That amounts to almost 30% of the dollar value of all contracts awarded by the Department of Defense. Moreover, of this amount, $167 billion — nearly two out of three dollars — was received from contracts that were awarded without "full and open" competition. In fact, PMA clients account for 47% of all such non-competitive contracts — contracts in which the government negotiates with a single contractor — handed out by the Pentagon since 1998. ...
Fox-in-the-Henhouse Government
Fox-in-the-Henhouse Government | By Ruth Marcus | Wednesday, April 4, 2007; Page A13
The Bush administration's House of Straw seems to be blowing apart, buffeted by alternating gusts of scandal and incompetence.
The tornado of disastrous headlines -- a Pentagon that can't take proper care of its wounded, a Justice Department that can't be trusted to follow the law or tell the truth to Congress, a top White House aide who lied to a grand jury-- has been so overpowering that the day-to-day outrages of life in the Bush administration tend get overlooked.
...
· The president's amazing-even-for-this-crowd choice to oversee the federal family planning program, Eric Keroack, resigned after Medicaid officials in Massachusetts, where he had a private medical practice, questioned his billings. Keroack's suitability for the family planning post, in which he was responsible for overseeing the distribution of contraceptives to low-income women? He was director of a group that finds contraception "demeaning to women" and won't distribute it -- even to married women.
· President Bush nominated Michael Baroody, a top official at the National Association of Manufacturers, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission -- the agency charged with protecting consumers against the dangerous products of, yes, manufacturers.
Perhaps Baroody would be a great chairman, but he's spent most of the past two decades looking out for the interests of manufacturers, not consumers. The manufacturers association recently pressed the CPSC to relax its rules about when manufacturers must report incidents of defective products. (It did.) The group argued, again successfully, against a petition to require makers of cribs, strollers and similar items to include registration cards with their products to be able to help notify consumers in a recall.
· The Interior Department inspector general reported that Julie MacDonald, the official who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but who has no academic background in biology, overrode the recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species. MacDonald also shared internal documents with industry officials and groups that lobby for weakened environmental protections, not to mention an online gaming buddy, the IG found.
An Interior lawyer called MacDonald's involvement in one endangered species matter "the most brazen case of political meddling" he had seen in more than 20 years in government. Nor, it seems, is such politicization limited to MacDonald. "Policy trumps science within the Assistant Secretary's corridor on many occasions," another department lawyer told the IG.
· J. Steven Griles, a coal lobbyist who became the No. 2 official at the Interior Department (in other words, his job description didn't much change), pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship with lobbyist/felon Jack Abramoff. Griles's then-girlfriend introduced him to Abramoff and ran a lobbying group that received $500,000 in Abramoff-generated funds; in turn, Abramoff sought and received Griles's help on client matters.
· Griles's new significant other, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who helped him fend off ethics charges when they both worked at Interior, resigned as head of the Justice Department's environmental section. Wooldridge and Griles bought a $1 million beach house with the top lobbyist for the oil company ConocoPhillips; then Wooldridge -- supposedly with the blessing of ethics officials -- signed off on a move to ease up on anti-pollution requirements imposed on ConocoPhillips as part of a settlement.
· Lurita Doan, a GOP mega-donor turned head of the General Services Administration, attended a luncheon on agency premises at which Scott Jennings, a top aide to Karl Rove, briefed political appointees on GOP targets for the 2008 election. According to six people present, Doan asked GSA employees how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections." Doan, displaying an Alberto Gonzales-like memory, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week that she had "absolutely" no recollection of that statement.
It's wrong to paint with too broad a brush here: Most administration officials are decent, honest and hardworking; the Clinton administration, like others before it, had its share of scoundrels and hacks. But there is something in the "loyal Bushies" mind-set of this administration and its fundamental scorn for government that contributes to this arrogant misbehavior. ...
The Bush administration's House of Straw seems to be blowing apart, buffeted by alternating gusts of scandal and incompetence.
The tornado of disastrous headlines -- a Pentagon that can't take proper care of its wounded, a Justice Department that can't be trusted to follow the law or tell the truth to Congress, a top White House aide who lied to a grand jury-- has been so overpowering that the day-to-day outrages of life in the Bush administration tend get overlooked.
...
· The president's amazing-even-for-this-crowd choice to oversee the federal family planning program, Eric Keroack, resigned after Medicaid officials in Massachusetts, where he had a private medical practice, questioned his billings. Keroack's suitability for the family planning post, in which he was responsible for overseeing the distribution of contraceptives to low-income women? He was director of a group that finds contraception "demeaning to women" and won't distribute it -- even to married women.
· President Bush nominated Michael Baroody, a top official at the National Association of Manufacturers, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission -- the agency charged with protecting consumers against the dangerous products of, yes, manufacturers.
Perhaps Baroody would be a great chairman, but he's spent most of the past two decades looking out for the interests of manufacturers, not consumers. The manufacturers association recently pressed the CPSC to relax its rules about when manufacturers must report incidents of defective products. (It did.) The group argued, again successfully, against a petition to require makers of cribs, strollers and similar items to include registration cards with their products to be able to help notify consumers in a recall.
· The Interior Department inspector general reported that Julie MacDonald, the official who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but who has no academic background in biology, overrode the recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species. MacDonald also shared internal documents with industry officials and groups that lobby for weakened environmental protections, not to mention an online gaming buddy, the IG found.
An Interior lawyer called MacDonald's involvement in one endangered species matter "the most brazen case of political meddling" he had seen in more than 20 years in government. Nor, it seems, is such politicization limited to MacDonald. "Policy trumps science within the Assistant Secretary's corridor on many occasions," another department lawyer told the IG.
· J. Steven Griles, a coal lobbyist who became the No. 2 official at the Interior Department (in other words, his job description didn't much change), pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship with lobbyist/felon Jack Abramoff. Griles's then-girlfriend introduced him to Abramoff and ran a lobbying group that received $500,000 in Abramoff-generated funds; in turn, Abramoff sought and received Griles's help on client matters.
· Griles's new significant other, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who helped him fend off ethics charges when they both worked at Interior, resigned as head of the Justice Department's environmental section. Wooldridge and Griles bought a $1 million beach house with the top lobbyist for the oil company ConocoPhillips; then Wooldridge -- supposedly with the blessing of ethics officials -- signed off on a move to ease up on anti-pollution requirements imposed on ConocoPhillips as part of a settlement.
· Lurita Doan, a GOP mega-donor turned head of the General Services Administration, attended a luncheon on agency premises at which Scott Jennings, a top aide to Karl Rove, briefed political appointees on GOP targets for the 2008 election. According to six people present, Doan asked GSA employees how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections." Doan, displaying an Alberto Gonzales-like memory, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week that she had "absolutely" no recollection of that statement.
It's wrong to paint with too broad a brush here: Most administration officials are decent, honest and hardworking; the Clinton administration, like others before it, had its share of scoundrels and hacks. But there is something in the "loyal Bushies" mind-set of this administration and its fundamental scorn for government that contributes to this arrogant misbehavior. ...
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
[Guiliani] had actually been briefed of Kerik's alleged ties to organized crime before making him NYPD commissioner ...
Giuliani, Bush, and Kerik in Cesspool of Political Incest and Corruption | Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 04/03/2007 - 2:40pm. Analysis | BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Ex-NYPD Commissioner and former GOP Hypocrite of the Week Bernard Kerik is beleaguered by legal and moral problems. No wonder George Bush and Rudy Giuliani liked having him around their corrupt, crony-filled administrations.
Most recently, Kerik is on the verge of being charged with multiple felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping. The wiretapping charge stems from an incident when Kerik and Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro were overheard planning to wiretap Pirro's husband in order to catch him engaging in an extramarital affair. Ironically, this conversation took place over a line that federal law enforcement had legally wiretapped. More ironically, Kerik was himself caught having two simultaneous extramarital affairs a few years ago. (He achieved the distinction of cheating on his mistress with another woman, all while being married to a third woman.)Giuliani (a total of six marriages for him and his current wife) and Kerik have had a tight relationship over the years. Kerik served as his driver, campaign advance man, corrections commissioner, and ultimately top police official. After leaving office, Giuliani tapped Kerik to serve as a partner in his business firm. Proving to be a loyal minion, Giuliani pushed Bush to appoint Kerik as Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq, where Kerik botched the disastrous "training" of police. But everything came to a halt when Bush nominated him to be Secretary of Homeland Security in 2004.
After just a week in the national spotlight, Kerik withdrew his nomination when forced to admit that he hired an undocumented worker as a nanny and housekeeper. Then more started to come out: big stock-option windfalls, alleged connections with the mob, and, of course, the affairs (which both took place in a rent-free apartment donated to assist the 9/11 recovery efforts at Ground Zero).
Kerik pleaded guilty last summer to improperly receiving $165,000 worth of free renovations to his residence in 1999 from a company allegedly tied to the mob.
Given the ease and quickness of the Kerik revelations, Bush and Giuliani could certainly have found out about them before the Homeland Security nomination and the other appointments. They either didn't look hard enough or just didn't care. In fact, Giuliani recently told a grand jury that he had actually been briefed of Kerik's alleged ties to organized crime before making him NYPD commissioner, which he now says was a mistake. ...
many states enacted or modified their felony disenfranchisement laws in the Jim Crow era as a way to suppress the voting power of black citizens
Restoring Voting Rights: A Progressive Goal Conservatives Can Share (3 comments )
READ MORE: Florida, Charlie Crist, United States, Maryland, U.S. Republican Party, Bill McCollum
Stating "I believe in my heart that everybody deserves a second chance," Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist is hoping to announce this week that Florida will restore voting rights for most people with felony convictions who have completed their criminal sentences. Restoration is a long-overdue reform. Nationally, it is also a reform on which the left and the right increasingly agree.
...
overnor Crist's proposal accelerates a trend that already has momentum. Since 1997, sixteen states have reduced barriers to voting by people with criminal records. Leaders embracing the trend span the political spectrum. Ten years ago then-Texas Governor George W. Bush -- hardly known as soft on crime -- signed a bill into law that restored voting rights to people who completed their sentences. Likewise, the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, which last fall released its report, "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections," agreed that re-enfranchisement of ex-felons is a voting-rights issue, not a punishment issue, and that states should restore voting rights to persons who have completed their sentences.
On the left, Iowa Governor Thomas Vilsack issued an Independence Day Executive Order in 2005 restoring the right to vote to tens of thousands of Iowans who had completed their sentences. And last week, the heavily Democratic Maryland legislature passed a bill restoring the right to vote to 50,000 Maryland citizens, which Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is expected to sign into law soon.
Politicians' efforts to restore voting rights have been surpassed by the political rank-and-file. Last November a majority of Rhode Island voters approved a ballot measure amending the state constitution and restoring the right to vote to 15,000 of their fellow citizens as soon as they are released from prison--even prior to the completion of supervised release.
The United States is the only democracy in the world that disenfranchises people who have completed their criminal sentences. By comparison, in most European nations, some or all prisoners are entitled to vote. Although the practice of disenfranchisement predates the Civil War, many states enacted or modified their felony disenfranchisement laws in the Jim Crow era as a way to suppress the voting power of black citizens. Make no mistake; the laws continue to have that effect. Nationwide, 13% of black men are disenfranchised because of a felony conviction, a rate that is seven times the national average. In Florida that figure is a startling 18.8%. ...
READ MORE: Florida, Charlie Crist, United States, Maryland, U.S. Republican Party, Bill McCollum
Stating "I believe in my heart that everybody deserves a second chance," Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist is hoping to announce this week that Florida will restore voting rights for most people with felony convictions who have completed their criminal sentences. Restoration is a long-overdue reform. Nationally, it is also a reform on which the left and the right increasingly agree.
...
overnor Crist's proposal accelerates a trend that already has momentum. Since 1997, sixteen states have reduced barriers to voting by people with criminal records. Leaders embracing the trend span the political spectrum. Ten years ago then-Texas Governor George W. Bush -- hardly known as soft on crime -- signed a bill into law that restored voting rights to people who completed their sentences. Likewise, the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, which last fall released its report, "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections," agreed that re-enfranchisement of ex-felons is a voting-rights issue, not a punishment issue, and that states should restore voting rights to persons who have completed their sentences.
On the left, Iowa Governor Thomas Vilsack issued an Independence Day Executive Order in 2005 restoring the right to vote to tens of thousands of Iowans who had completed their sentences. And last week, the heavily Democratic Maryland legislature passed a bill restoring the right to vote to 50,000 Maryland citizens, which Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is expected to sign into law soon.
Politicians' efforts to restore voting rights have been surpassed by the political rank-and-file. Last November a majority of Rhode Island voters approved a ballot measure amending the state constitution and restoring the right to vote to 15,000 of their fellow citizens as soon as they are released from prison--even prior to the completion of supervised release.
The United States is the only democracy in the world that disenfranchises people who have completed their criminal sentences. By comparison, in most European nations, some or all prisoners are entitled to vote. Although the practice of disenfranchisement predates the Civil War, many states enacted or modified their felony disenfranchisement laws in the Jim Crow era as a way to suppress the voting power of black citizens. Make no mistake; the laws continue to have that effect. Nationwide, 13% of black men are disenfranchised because of a felony conviction, a rate that is seven times the national average. In Florida that figure is a startling 18.8%. ...
Scandals and Missteps Dog New Nevada Governor ... [the one being investigated by a fired US attorney?]
Scandals and Missteps Dog New Nevada Governor | By Sonya Geis | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, April 2, 2007; A03
As Jim Gibbons campaigned for the Nevada governorship last fall, the five-term Republican congressman ricocheted from scandal to scandal and from gaffe to gaffe. When he squeaked to a narrow victory with 48 percent of the vote, he hoped to be able to focus on his legislative agenda and put his problems behind him.
Things have not turned out that way.
Since Gibbons took office, his troubles have only increased. The FBI is investigating gifts from a friend to whom Gibbons steered business while he was in Congress. In March, Gibbons revealed he had established a legal defense fund last fall, raising questions about whether he used unreported money from his campaign. And last week the Wall Street Journal reported Gibbons's wife was a consultant to a company that Gibbons helped to get a federal contract.
Meanwhile, the local press mocks the governor's apparent ignorance about his own legislative proposals. ...
As Jim Gibbons campaigned for the Nevada governorship last fall, the five-term Republican congressman ricocheted from scandal to scandal and from gaffe to gaffe. When he squeaked to a narrow victory with 48 percent of the vote, he hoped to be able to focus on his legislative agenda and put his problems behind him.
Things have not turned out that way.
Since Gibbons took office, his troubles have only increased. The FBI is investigating gifts from a friend to whom Gibbons steered business while he was in Congress. In March, Gibbons revealed he had established a legal defense fund last fall, raising questions about whether he used unreported money from his campaign. And last week the Wall Street Journal reported Gibbons's wife was a consultant to a company that Gibbons helped to get a federal contract.
Meanwhile, the local press mocks the governor's apparent ignorance about his own legislative proposals. ...
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