They got Bucky Bush a contract, can I get one?

Rumsfeld Asked for Contract Details

By Walter F. Roche Jr., Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to provide details on a series of contracts awarded to a St. Louis company that has an uncle of President Bush on its board of directors.

In a letter sent to Rumsfeld on Thursday, Waxman asked for copies of all military contracts awarded to Engineered Support Systems Inc. and a briefing on the process used to award those pacts. William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, an uncle of the president, has served on Engineered Support's board of directors since 2000.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...eadlines-nation

S. Korean Group Sponsored DeLay Trip
Visits May Have Broken House Rules

By Mike Allen and R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page A01

A delegation of Republican House members including Majority Leader Tom DeLay accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign agent despite House rules that bar the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents, according to government documents and travel reports filed by the House members.

Justice Department documents show that the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, a business-financed entity created with help from a lobbying firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on Aug. 22, 2001. DeLay; his wife, Christine; and two other Republican lawmakers departed on a trip financed by the group on Aug. 25 of that year.


The exchange group in late 2003 hosted three Democratic House members and another Republican on a similar trip. It spent at least $106,921 to finance the three-day trip in 2001 from Washington to Seoul by the Republicans, which DeLay (Tex.) and accompanying staff assistants described at the time as having an "educational" purpose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...7-2005Mar9.html

When do you think the ethics committee will launch an investigation?

I'm watching Washington Journal and there is a Republican out of Arizona named Jeff Flake.

He is surprising me with what he is saying about earmarks. He just said Republicans should be ashamed of themselves, they've taken earmarks to a whole new level EVEN WORSE THAN DEMOCRATS. He also said it's going to hurt Republicans at the polls.


Kudos to this man on this issue. He has got some guts. A REAL fiscal conservative. I don't agree with everything he says, it seems he doesn't want to fund mass transit. hmmmm...

I'd actually hear him out though. I don't even want to listen to the BS from most Republicans.

Communication? what a concept.

If he's a REAL fiscal conservative is he pushing for all sorts of spending cuts? Mass transit as well. People like to talk about cutting the deficit, but only in somebody else's district or somebody else's favorite program.

Oh hell yes. It appeared to me that he's a hardline fiscal conservative. He said they can't take away his earmarks over votes or speaking out because he has none. He described the way it works, favors for support for silence. THAT surprised the hell out of me. With the way Republicans have gutted the ethics committee I thought they all behaved like that. It was an interesting segment.

He's from Arizona. Have you heard of him?

My Republican sources say one can't pay any attention to Jeff, as he's just a Flake…according to Rove.

I hope Jeff is up for it like he never has been before...

I remember Paul O'Neil, the ex Secretary of the treasury say they couldn't touch him because he was sucessful and his carreer was already over.

He covered this as well It was part of the silence.

Keep quiet and I'll reward you and your district.

He also said a politician was more apt to try to get a transportation museum rather than repair roads and infrastructure because the politician can cut the ribbon at an opening of a museum but the road repair goes largely uncredited.

I'm tellin' ya artie, it was a breath of fresh air. I'm positive there are things I would disagree with, but it sure was a good start.

It was a nice surprise.

More power to him then. Our state legislature has more than a few fairly far right members, but we send people like McCain and Kolbe to Washington. This state is pretty much purple all in all. Was a presidential swing state until Kerry opened his mouth last year.

<shakes head>

We always had moderates. But even the moderates changed when Bush got in. Robert Michael would never survive in this climate. Paul Simon wouldn't either. Although one was a rep and one a senator they were almost always very civil to one another no matter what their positions were on issues. It was a rare moment to see either one really torqued. Now... well, that's the first thing you see.

Then we have Hastert himself.

In the grand scheme of things most American politics IS moderate. That is the point of that political compass I post all the time. Our pols are a lot closer to each other than the nutbar fringe parties that inhabit the political world of parliamentary politics. The nuttiest fringes can make a deal and play kingmaker. Here they get marginalized. Just look at the Greens. (if you can find them)

Are you equating 'moderate' style with moderate views? A personally agreeable fascist is not preferable to a personally disagreeable libertarian. To me, at least.

A little of both. Moderate style, willing to get along and make a compromise. Moderate veiws, always pro-corporate but with a counterbalancing force of Democrats. Till they moved away from being the party of the working man.

House Ethics Panel in Gridlock
Democrats Refuse to Participate Under New GOP Rules

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 11, 2005; Page A02

The House, facing new controversy about the travel of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other lawmakers, was left last night with no mechanism for investigating improper behavior by its members when Democrats shut down the ethics committee by refusing to accept Republican rules changes that restrict the panel's power.

Democrats said they do not plan to allow the ethics committee to organize until Republicans repeal a series of rule changes they pushed through in January, making it more difficult to initiate an investigation unless at least one Republican member supports the probe.

<snip>

the best line of the year. This idiot should be tarred and feathered... and then caned. Yo rightwingers, can you believe the arrogance and balls of this little punk and his fat fargin boss Dennis Hastert? Lying mof*&^$$##^&


Ron Bonjean, communications director for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said it was unclear last night how the logjam could be broken. "Democrats have chosen to shut down the ethics process," he said. "It's up to the House Democrats to put the ethics process above partisan politics."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar10.html

You cannot believe the string of cursing that followed my reading of that last paragraph.

Torture by Proxy



President Bush declared in his State of the Union address, "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." Considering what's come to light since then, the most charitable conclusion is that Bush is completely out of the loop.

In recent weeks, past and present administration officials have confirmed that since September 2001 the Central Intelligence Agency has dispatched between 100 and 150 terror suspects to countries where fine points of law and human rights don't stop beatings, drugging or long isolation.

Before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA occasionally engaged in this indefensible practice, known as "extraordinary rendition." But afterward, Bush gave the agency wider license to export prisoners in terror-related cases who hadn't been tried or even charged with any crime. Despite his State of the Union declaration, the president has apparently not revoked that authority.

Now wait a minute. Didn't I just read this: "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture."?

U.S. law and international conventions bar sending prisoners to another nation unless there are strong assurances of humane treatment. The CIA says with a straight face that it gets those assurances before delivering suspects to jailers in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan — countries that have such abysmal human rights records that promises of decent treatment are a joke.



Bush has argued that tough new rules of engagement are necessary to fight stateless terrorists. But morality aside, what intelligence of value have U.S. officials gleaned from suspects who've been handed off to modern-day dungeons? A case in point: In 2002, federal agents arrested Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian engineer, at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York because his name appeared on a terrorist watch list. Although Arar insisted that he was not a terrorist, the U.S. delivered him to Syrian interrogators. After months in a windowless room and regular beatings with thick electric cables, he said, he confessed to anything they wanted just to stop the torment. A year later, Arar was released without charges.

This barbarism is why U.S. judges have refused to condone the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects. Yet the military still holds about 500 foreign nationals at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most have not been charged and have no lawyer, often after years in custody.

Two American citizens have been held in military brigs. The evidence against U.S.-born Yaser Esam Hamdi was so flimsy that last year federal agents packed him off to his family in Saudi Arabia rather than present their case in court. Last week, a federal judge ordered the administration to charge the second, Jose Padilla, or release him within 45 days. Government lawyers say interrogations produced a lot about Padilla's activities, including his relationship with Al Qaeda leaders and his plans to blow up high-rise buildings. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said this week he may still prosecute him. But because most of Padilla's disclosures occurred while he was in military custody, without access to a lawyer, it's doubtful his statements would be admissible in court.

These are only the practical issues. The more haunting problem with Bush's war on terrorism remains the moral one: A nation that considers itself a beacon of freedom seems unable to practice the respect for law and human rights it ardently preaches to others.


Bingo. You cannot be a "moral" country based on "values" and advocate torture and heinous behavior like "extraordinary rendition." What kind of legalese is that anyway?

We do not have the moral high ground. We have lost all credibility in the world because of Sherriff Bush and his policies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

You are talking about the guy that was videotaped mimicing a death row woman prisoners appeal for mercy. He was making fun of a woman begging for her life

Of course he advocates torture. A monster that does that gives no thought at all to lying.

I heard about that. Nice guy.

He doesn't fool me one bit. He can talk about Jesus all he wants. I'm not buying it.

To remind: Tucker Carlson reported that. It has never gotten the attention that it might have deserved. Maybe for many it's a non-issue. I'm ashamed of myself for ever looking past it even though it cut to my quick when I first read of it.

Carlson eh? Honestly I was hoping it was only a roumor. For many it may be a non-issue, for me it's just another of many indicators of his state of mind. His REAL state of mind not the phony compassion crap.

It slips out all the time.

I expect that for many, it is a non-issue because they share that state of mind or at least the opinion.

And I can understand that. I was there at one time. However, when I saw what the Reagan administration was doing I wrote them off. I applied my standards across the board, I didn't overlook stuff because of who they were associated with.

The FBI investigating nuns was just a little extreme. It disgusted me.

Now it's the 2000s version of a bad 80s movie plot.

Sometimes the story is just not worth a remake.

Heaven Forbid!



{runs screaming from forum}

" I expect that for many, it is a non-issue because they share that state of mind or at least the opinion."

Yup.

He does understand who votes for him, at least, what turns them on.

Except there was no calculation to this. It was not done for political effect. It was raw.

So where do you break into that circle?

Correction: I did not and do not have Bush's state of mind. I was talking about being faith-based.

What was the woman convicted of? Was there anything particularly heinous about the murder?

She went with a boyfreind to intimidate a drug dealer, the woman was there by happenstance, and she took a pickaxe and beat her to death with it claiming repeaatedly to have had an intense orgasm while doing so.

She later coverted, married her minister while in the jailhouse - they never having been in the same room together, and a number of conservative organizations came out against her execution in additional to the usual suspects.

Meanwhile her appeals failed and shrub did the squeeling bit in part to distract from the fact that the Texas Governor is the weakest of the fifty states with no power at that point to have stopped her execution anyway.

Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip
Later in 2000, Lawmaker's Vote Helped Defeat Regulatory Measure

By James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page A01

An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company.

The sponsor of the week-long trip listed in DeLay's financial disclosures was the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy Research, but a person involved in arranging DeLay's travel said that lobbyist Jack Abramoff suggested the trip and then arranged for checks to be sent by two of his clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.


The dates on the checks coincided with the day DeLay left on the trip, May 25, 2000, according to grants documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The Choctaw and eLottery each sent a check for $25,000, according to the documents. They now say that they were unaware the money was being used to finance DeLay's travels.

But Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center, said that, when the trip was arranged, Abramoff promised he would secure financial backing. She said that even without Abramoff's efforts, the National Center would have borne the cost of the trip, which was intended to allow the group to network with conservative British politicians and included an outing to the famous St. Andrews golf course in Scotland.

<snip>



DeLay, an avid golfer, listed the purpose of the trip on a report filed with the House clerk as "educational." He was majority whip at the time and brought his wife, Christine, and two top staff members -- Tony Rudy from the whip's office and chief of staff Susan Hirschmann, as well as her husband, David Hirschmann, according to filings with the House clerk that indicated the total cost of transportation, lodging and meals was $70,265.

Internet Gambling Bill Killed

Two months later, in July 2000, DeLay and 43 other Republicans joined 114 Democrats in killing the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which would have made it a federal crime to place certain bets over the Internet and was opposed by eLottery and the Choctaws. The bill was supported by 165 Republicans and 79 Democrats but fell about 25 votes short of passage; because of a parliamentary maneuver, it required a two-thirds majority vote.

DeLay spokesman Allen said that DeLay voted against the bill because it had exemptions for jai alai and horse and dog racing. Rudy later that year went to work for Abramoff as a lobbyist.




This is interesting to me. I wonder if he clued Blair in on the finer points of being a fear monger for political purposes? Exporting the Republicans no holds barred, everyone is a god damned terrorist except loyal Republicans technique to loverly London?



DeLay told Cox News Service earlier this month: "I went to London to meet with conservatives in England and Scotland and talk about the things we had been doing in the Republican, conservative House. They wanted to dialogue to see if they could adopt some the things that we had done."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar11.html

An extensive 5 page article on corruption. No wonder Republicans gutted the ethics committee.

Casino Bid Prompted High-Stakes Lobbying
Probe Scrutinizes Efforts Against Tribe

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 13, 2005; Page A01

When a ragtag band of Louisiana Indians won their governor's support for a casino three years ago, they never could have fathomed the powerful cast of characters who would collaborate to flatten them.

Jack Abramoff, one of Washington's most prominent Republican lobbyists, tapped into the gambling riches of a rival tribe to orchestrate a far-reaching campaign against the Jena Band of Choctaws -- calling on senior U.S. senators and congressmen, the deputy secretary of the interior and evangelical leaders James Dobson and Ralph Reed.
The Players

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton ultimately ruled in favor of the Jenas Band of Choctaws' casino application.

J. Steven Griles, Norton's deputy at Interior, allegedly mounted a late but unsuccessful challenge to the Jenas' plan.

Jack Abramoff, lobbying for a competing Indian tribe, mobilized anti-Jenas efforts outside and inside Washington.

David Vitter, then a congressman from Louisiana, urged Norton in February 2002 to turn down the Jenas' application.

Michael Scanlon and Abramoff were paid $32 million by the Louisiana Coushatta tribe, which operated a casino in the state.

Ralph Reed was paid up to $4 million by Abramoff and Scanlon to organize anti- gambling campaigns in Texas and Louisiana.

Opponents of the Jenas' bid invoked the name of evangelical leader James Dobson in order to pressure federal officials.


The story of what Abramoff did for the Louisiana Coushatta tribe provides the most complete picture yet of the role of the lobbyist at the center of a widening federal corruption investigation in Washington. It was reconstructed through interviews with tribal leaders, government officials and former business associates, as well as through Interior Department and other documents and e-mails obtained by The Washington Post.

Abramoff arranged for Dobson and Reed to pressure federal officials to reject the Jenas' bid on anti-gambling grounds. He and his partners drafted anti-Jena letters that were then signed by congressional leaders, some of whom have received thousands of dollars in donations from tribes represented by Abramoff. One ally inserted language opposing the casino into a bill late in the legislative process.

And in an attempt to influence the Interior Department -- which has the final say on a tribe's gambling ambitions -- Abramoff directed his tribal clients to give at least $225,000 to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a conservative group that was founded by Gale A. Norton before President Bush chose her to be his interior secretary. Federal officials are investigating the nature of the relationship between the group's president, Italia Federici, and Norton's then-deputy, J. Steven Griles.

The Jenas lost their first round. They came back to win approval for a second casino plan. Meantime, the spoils of the lobbying war have been bountiful.

Tribal money bolstered the campaign coffers of many members of Congress. Dobson had the opportunity to flex grass-roots muscle that he would later use to mobilize evangelicals for Bush's reelection. Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, quietly received as much as $4 million to whip up public sentiment against expansion of gambling in Louisiana and Texas. Reed's efforts, in turn, boosted support for a congressman from Louisiana who was elected last year to the U.S. Senate.

Abramoff profited, as well. He and Michael Scanlon, the public affairs executive he recommended to the tribe, were paid $32 million over three years by the Coushattas.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar12.html

Warning: Ethics-Free Zone

Monday, March 14, 2005; Page A18

THIS MAY NOT sound like news, but the House of Representatives is now an ethics-free zone. To be precise, it has no mechanism for investigating or disciplining members who violate ethics rules. The proximate cause of this breakdown is the revolt by the five Democrats on the evenly divided ethics committee. Led by the ranking Democrat, Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), committee Democrats understandably balked last week at acceding to new rules for how the panel should conduct its business -- rules dictated by the GOP leadership and slanted toward making the ethics process, already tilted in favor of gridlock, even more feckless.

Last week's tumultuous events cap a year in which the committee took the extraordinary step of issuing three admonitions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), infuriating the majority leader and his supporters. In the aftermath, the ethics panel's chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), and two other committee Republicans were removed and replaced with those more loyal to the Republican team. In addition, the GOP leadership did its best to neuter the committee by rewriting the rules for the new Congress. When their own members were too embarrassed to go along, the leadership was forced to backtrack on some of the most egregious changes. It left in place three others, leading to the current standoff.


The ethics committee Democrats have two sets of legitimate gripes -- one procedural, the other substantive. The procedural concern is the failure to adhere to the historical, bipartisan method of rewriting ethics rules. Instead, committee Republicans were bypassed, their ordinary role was usurped and the new, rigged rules were written in secret by the leadership.

The new rules also pose substantive concerns, the most critical of which provides for the automatic dismissal of a complaint if it's not acted on within as little as 45 days and no longer than 90 days. It's true that members shouldn't needlessly spend months under an ethics cloud, but the proposed cure is worse than the supposed disease: It's a hands-off, no-paper-trail way for members to let ethics complaints simply disappear. Another rule, to let a single lawyer represent multiple parties in an investigation, is a road map to obstruction, letting those involved in an inquiry get their stories straight in advance.

Republicans are now trying, laughably, to portray the impasse as the result of Democrats' refusal to "put the ethics process above partisan politics," as a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) put it. Democrats have no lack of partisanship on this issue, but the GOP spin is hard to take from the people who rigged the rules and changed the players when they didn't like the result. Mr. Mollohan now has a single Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), co-sponsoring his resolution. We would hope that -- especially in light of new ethical questions involving Mr. DeLay -- additional members of the majority will sign on, putting the long-term good of the institution ahead of the short-term interests of those with the greatest stake in an ineffectual ethics process.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Mar13.html

Delay and Company

By KAREN TUMULTY
Monday, March 14, 2005 Posted: 2:07 PM EST (1907 GMT)


The G.O.P. leader's troubles mount, with new questions about his dealings with the former aide who helped build his political machine.

Ed Buckham's name was one you didn't hear much outside the secluded corridor where he worked on the first floor of the Capitol. But in that suite, which houses the majority whip's offices, Buckham was far more than an ordinary congressional aide in the three heady years following the Republican takeover of the House in 1994.

Thanks to an unusually close and trusting relationship with his boss, Tom DeLay's chief of staff quietly became one of the most powerful people in Washington.

"He was the guy DeLay turned to when he made a final decision," recalls a former aide to a member of the House Republican leadership, "and even after he made the final decision, the guy who could talk him out of it."

What even fewer people outside that office knew was that the two shared a bond that transcended power and politics: Buckham, a licensed nondenominational minister, was also DeLay's pastor.

For a while, in DeLay's early days as whip, they organized daily voluntary prayer sessions for the staff--until it began making some aides uncomfortable. After that, according to two sources who worked in the office at the time, the two of them frequently prayed together privately, joining hands in DeLay's office.

Buckham shared not only DeLay's religious faith but also his audacious vision for harnessing the financial and political clout of business and conservative interests to carry out the G.O.P. agenda and increase its majority in Congress.

I can't understand how the man can even be considered any kind of Christian at all. It amazes me.

DeLay offered lobbyists the best seats they had ever had at the table, a say in legislative and political strategy, on the understanding that they in return would pour millions into DeLay's favored causes and candidates. In addition, he threatened to shut out lobbying shops that employed Democrats.

And WTF is this? If you employ any Democrats we won't work with you? This little dictator is a vicious son of a biitch. Did Democrats ever do that?

In Washington that seamless coordination between his office and the lobbying corridor of K Street has become known as DeLay Inc. It developed the muscle to push or block pretty much everything DeLay asked for, from protecting tax breaks for low-wage garment manufacturers on the Northern Mariana Islands (where DeLay spent New Year's Day 1998 with his wife and Buckham) to creating a Medicare prescription-drug plan that critics say is a better deal for pharmaceutical companies than it is for seniors.

Now the machinery that DeLay and his pastor built threatens to derail DeLay. He was slapped three times last year by the House ethics committee for violations of House rules, and finds himself potentially facing more serious trouble on multiple fronts.

But he's on Jesus's good side. He's a model Christian bubbling over with compassion and love.




http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/delay.company.tm/

Anyone watching WJ? The guy from the Washington Post is defending him and making alllll kinds of excuses for him and there hasn't even been one calll yet. What a maroon.

Mike Allen. Must want exclusive access.

<shakes head>

Now some f*ckhead Republican is calling saying it's aaaaaaaaawl politeeecs.

Now this idiot Mike Allen just blamed DEMOCRATS for shutting down the ethics committee!! Oh I can't believe this garbage. What a shill.

Now Pedro "accidently" cut off the most intelligent, knowlegable DeLay critic.


CSPAN does suck.

That does seem to happen to intelligent dems a lot.

Mike Allen, eh? He should know better.

I just tried to get into the Washington Post message boards. Can't post for 12 hours.

Hmmm I have an account there I think. Lemme check

It's a delay. I can see why. Anger management.

This guy doesn't like McCain messing with 527s.


Dirty fight for clean politics


By Jacob Sullum

In 1991, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for his "poor judgment" in meeting with federal bank regulators who were investigating Arizona businessman Charles Keating, one of his campaign contributors. Ever since, Mr. McCain has been trying to show he is not a hack politician kowtowing to special interests but a man of integrity and principle.
Yet the main principle served by Mr. McCain's crusade for campaign finance "reform" has been the principle of incumbent protection, the same goal that motivates hack politicians who kowtow to special interests. In the end, it's hard to see how Mr. McCain's crusade to remove the corrupting influence of money from politics is any more admirable than the corruption of which he was suspected in the Keating scandal.
Mr. McCain was one of five senators who met with regulators in 1987 and encouraged them to ease up on Mr. Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, under scrutiny for risky investment practices. The government ended up bailing out the S&L's federally insured depositors two years later at a cost to taxpayers of $3.4 billion, and Mr. Keating served several years in prison for fraud, although his conviction was later reversed because of juror misconduct.
Between 1982 and 1987, Mr. Keating steered $1.4 million in campaign contributions and gifts to the five senators. Mr. McCain had received $112,000 of that, along with nine trips on Mr. Keating's jets to the Bahamas and elsewhere.
Although the bank regulators later said they felt pressured by the Keating Five's intervention, the senators insisted they were not trying to exert inappropriate influence. Mr. McCain even said as much during one of the two meetings. "I would not want any special favors for them," he said, according to notes taken by one regulator. "I do not want any part of our conversation to be improper."
But when the meetings were publicly exposed, leading to 23 days of congressional hearings, Mr. McCain had an epiphany. "The thing I learned was that it's not only impropriety that counts," he said during his 2000 presidential campaign. "It's the appearance that's just as important."
It's debatable if Mr. McCain really learned that lesson. As Senate Commerce Committee chairman, he received hundreds of thousands of dollars from firms affected by the committee's work and has repeatedly been criticized for intervening with regulators on behalf of businesses whose employees gave him money, including Paxson Communications and AT&T.
Nor did Mr. McCain pay close attention to appearances when he set up the Reform Institute, dedicated to curbing the influence of special interest money yet dependent on special interest money to fund its operations. According to the New York Times, Mr. McCain "defended the large donations as a necessary part of advocacy work, and drew a distinction between the progressive agenda of the Reform Institute and political efforts to which campaign finance laws apply." Unlike them, he said, the institute is "nonpartisan and issue-oriented."
I'm not sure I understand this distinction. Don't some politicians have "a progressive agenda"? Aren't efforts to change government policy "political" by definition?
In any case, the Reform Institute helps keep Mr. McCain in the public eye and burnishes his image as a reformer, thereby enhancing his presidential prospects. The senator seems to be taking advantage of one of those terrible "loopholes" in campaign finance law that allows people to engage in unfettered political speech.
Meanwhile, he is determined to close other people's loopholes. His odious Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 already prohibits "nonpartisan and issue-oriented groups" from criticizing politicians close to an election, and it may lead to regulation of bloggers and online journalists.
Unsatisfied with this impressive assault on the First Amendment, Mr. McCain wants to ban the so-called 527 groups that raised such a ruckus in the last presidential campaign.
Mr. McCain describes the danger they pose this way: "Some billionaire decides he or she doesn't like you in office, and they decide to form a 527 and contribute $10 million or $20 million and dive-bomb into your state or district. That should alarm every federally elected member of Congress." Maybe so, but why should it alarm anyone else?
During the Keating Five scandal, Mr. McCain was suspected of trying to keep himself in office by doing a favor for a campaign donor. Chastened by this experience, he now tries to keep himself and his colleagues in office by silencing potential critics. In Washington, this is considered progress.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/...90219-4349r.htm

This is certainly shocking and almost (technically... ???) unprecidented in the last 4 years.


Senate panel holds secrecy hearings

Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Posted: 9:38 AM EST (1438 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The more information the government tries to keep secret, the greater the chance that what should be kept secret will be leaked to reporters, according to a retired Associated Press newsman and executive.

"Overdone secrecy raises, rather than reduces, the risk that really vital secrets will be breached," Walter Mears, former AP executive editor and vice president, said in prepared testimony for a Senate hearing Tuesday. "Without sensible priorities for withholding information, things that shouldn't get out will get out."

Mears, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter, was among five witnesses appearing before the Senate Judiciary terrorism, technology and homeland security subcommittee. The panel is looking at legislation designed in part to force government officials and agencies to respond more quickly to requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration set a higher threshold for FOIA disclosures, advising agencies to make sure the information they released would not jeopardize national security.

"Too often, security becomes an excuse for shielding embarrassing information and secrecy can conceal mismanagement or wrongdoing," Mears said, recalling former President Nixon's effort to use national security as an excuse for the Watergate cover-up. "Forgetting history risks repeating it."

A bill by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, would require agencies to give people seeking documents a tracking number within 10 days and to set up telephone or Internet systems allowing them to learn the status and estimated completion date.



Bipartisan cooperation??? OMG!!! How could something like this ahppen?? Quick rightwankers, attack John Cornyn IMMMMMMediately!!!! (if not sooner)

Agencies that didn't respond within 20 days would lose all exemptions to FOIA requests except for national security, personal privacy, proprietary information or a ban in another law.

The hearing comes during "Sunshine Week," a campaign for government openness spearheaded by more than 50 media companies, journalism groups, universities and the American Library Association.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/15/...a.ap/index.html

Sunshine Week? What the hell is that? 2 days into Sunshine Week and the media coverage is mostly cloudy with a 100% chance of no credibility.

Maybe they should have waited a week until springtime.

a 100% chance of no credibility.

Now that's about right.

They just change the proprietor sign now and then. Dems are just pissed they lost their 40 year control.

Well, that makes everything alright, then.

Dollar Democracy.

I think he means pardon us for not jumping on the bandwagon.