The Onion: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity with New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader WC has a new updated version of the Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) Shenanigan Program & Worksheet -- now with the latest Brent Wilkes-based corruption!
--Josh Marshall
Frist: 'Intelligent Design' should be taught alongside evolutionary theory in public schools.
--Josh Marshall
Yup, Max Sawicky's right: the Wall Street Journal editorial board does think you're stupid.
--Josh Marshall
Some stories may not be that consequential in the grand scheme of things. But they win out on sheer comedic value.
As an example, take this article from today's Independent Record, of Helena Montana. The article is about one Shawn Vasell. We discussed Mr. Vasell in a post a few days ago over at TPMCafe.
He was a staffer passed back and forth between Jack Abramoff and Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) during the period in which the two were deep into the pay-for-play game. As the Post described Vasell's job history in those years, Vasell "served as client manager on the Mississippi Choctaw account, and shuttled between jobs in Burns's Montana office and Abramoff's shop. Vasell was registered as a lobbyist for the Choctaw and Coushatta tribes in 2001, joined Burns's staff in 2002, then rejoined Abramoff's team as a lobbyist for the tribes in 2003."
Well, the Independent Record reports that Vasell is now in trouble with the law, if of a rather less serious type than that currently bubbling up around his former colleague, Mr. Abramoff.
According to the paper ...
Vasell, 32, of Arlington, Va., was charged in June with four counts of breaking state big game laws: illegally possessing big game, hunting on private property without permission, hunting with someone else's license and hunting without a license, better known as poaching.The alleged crimes were committed on Nov. 26, 2004, Stillwater County records show. The incident was the subject of a lengthy essay and photo display on the now-defunct personal Web site of Billings resident J.R. Reger. Vasell is accused of illegally using Reger's hunting license when he shot a mule deer buck around 3 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving last year.
According to the Web site, Vasell committed the alleged crimes with Reger and his brother, Mike. All three were photographed posing with the allegedly poached buck. In one photo, Vasell poses alone holding up the head of his trophy with the hunting rifle leaned against the animal's body.
I must confess that I've fished once or twice with an out-of-date license. So, I guess, he who is without sin, and so forth ... But if you go down further into the article you'll see that Vasell's lawyer is suggesting that his client may himself have become the victim of liberal Montana game wardens who've been spending too much time in the left blogosphere.
Speaking of Vasell's lawyer, Mark Parker of Billings, the paper reports ...
He also implied that the wildlife investigators were tipped off to the alleged crimes "because people like to make a mountain out of molehill with Mr. Vasell" for political reasons."If you blog around the Internet, you'll find that this has been the matter of some political quibbling,'' he said. "There seems to be a political component of this that we haven't quite fleshed out."
Reminds me to nail down that story about Abramoff and the poached elk ...
Late Update: A pdf copy of the website that brought Vasell to grief. Apparently part of the problem was that Vasell shot the deer from the window of a pick-up truck.
--Josh Marshall
I should be getting a copy tomorrow of 'Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown', a documentary CNN has on this Sunday about the Iraq intel failure. But since Sunday is only two days away, I wanted to pass on the following. A friend, whose opinion I put a great deal of stock in, tells me that it's very good. So definitely, if you have a chance, try to catch it Sunday evening.
If I get it in time, I'll post a review tomorrow here on TPM.
--Josh Marshall
Arianna Huffington has a new post up at her site about Judy Miller, this time taking aim at Times uber-boss Arthur Sulzberger. And she gets into a thicket of issues I've been giving a lot of thought to as the Judy saga has unfolded.
I'm far from knowledgable about the inner workings of the Times, as many of my colleagues seem to be. But you don't have to be to know that the new editorial regime at the paper stakes much of its legitimacy on the failings of the old one, and that treatment of Iraq is perhaps the key narrative thread connecting the two.
Allegedly, what brought down the Raines regime at the Times was not simply that he and the paper on his watch had been taken in by a serial fabricator, Jayson Blair. It was that he and his team had missed, ignored or made excuses for other warnings signs about Blair. And this was taken, perhaps not unreasonably, as evidence of a deeper pattern of poor editorial judgment, with political and cultural implications we all remember.
Now, let's assume, for the sake of discussion (but as I and many others believe), that Judy Miller is sitting in that prison cell for much more than the actions one might reasonably call those of a journalist. Assume that she has dirty hands in this whole affair and that the Times has quite publicly and effusively fastened its credibility to hers.
If this all proves to be the case, how will this be any different for Keller and Sulzberger than the Blair matter was for Raines?
After all, going back two years now, the Times has quite publicly and painfully failed to take any account of or responsibility for Miller's compromised reporting. And the backstory many of us suspect to her present confinement (though it is important to say that they remain suspicions and are not proved) was richly telegraphed or foreshadowed in that earlier reporting.
So if this all comes to pass, what will the upshot be for Keller? Isn't it the same? Actually, isn't it a lot worse when you consider that the real-world consequences of Blair's lies were limited at best. Journalistically they were capital offenses. But the stories he made up, from my recollection at least, were mainly human interest type stories (with the exception of some reporting about the DC sniper), which might well have been true, but weren't. The consequences of Miller's deeds are legion; and just as ignored.
--Josh Marshall
Paul Begala has a post up at TPMCafe about the right's bashing of Cindy Sheehan, and particularly, the almost total lack of attention to the antics of this nutball or as he terms it this "right-wing thug [who] ran his pickup truck over hundreds of crosses bearing the names of heroic Americans killed in Iraq [and] took out scores of American flags in the process."
--Josh Marshall
I guess the feds think they've got a pretty good case against our man Duke Cunningham. The San Diego Union-Tribune has just reported this morning that they've filed a suit to force Duke to hand over the mansion in Rancho Santa Fe because it was bought with illegally obtained money.
The Post, meanwhile, has some more detail on what we suspected about the relationship between Duke, Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade. Says the Post: "Wade is a former consultant to ADCS who met Cunningham through his work for the San Diego company..."
And there was an earlier IG investigation into Wilkes, a Bush Pioneer, and Duke, reports the Post ...
The Pentagon's inspector general previously investigated several ADCS contracts because of complaints "alleging favoritism and inappropriate actions," and he concluded in 1999 that they were awarded as the result of irregular procedures. Louis A. Kratz, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense, said in a recent interview that he had requested the IG probe. Both Cunningham and Wilkes had called him seeking the release of funds for ADCS, he said.Kratz said he had never before experienced anything close to their "meddling" and "arrogance." Wilkes "implied that it was his money," Kratz said, though the funding was earmarked for a program, not a company. The document conversion program was later killed, Kratz said.
"I can't address the specifics of this report," said K. Lee Blalack II, Cunningham's attorney, "but there is nothing inappropriate nor unusual about a member of Congress calling the Pentagon on behalf of a constituent regarding the use of appropriated funds."
And a note for anyone covering this story. Chalmers Johnson has been hip to Duke's games for years, though I doubt he knew the sheer audaciousness and criminality of the man's corruption. Look up Duke's name in Sorrows of Empire or get in touch with Johnson for more of the big picture.
(ed.note: I haven't been in touch with Johnson since the Duke story broke, though I've interviewed him once or twice for different stories in the past. My recollection is from the above-noted book or perhaps from his earlier book, Blowback.)
--Josh Marshall
Ahhh, back when the gravy train was still rolling.
Here at the Wilkes Foundation's San Diego Tribute to Heroes website you can see "Honored Hero" Duke Cunningham posing with now-fellow-investigatee Brent Wilkes and his wife Regina at the 2002 Tribute to Heroes event.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) decides not to challenge Sen. Mike DeWine next year.
--Josh Marshall
Roll Call reports (sub. req.) that the Roberts hearings kick off September 6th.
--Josh Marshall
Got an unconfirmed report that Ohio Gov. Bob Taft will be charged today with 4 misdemeanors. More soon.
Late Update: Confirmed.
--Josh Marshall
And a candidate will come out from Ohio ...
Chillicothe Mayor Joe Sulzer (D) announces he'll take on Rep. Bob Ney (R) next year.
--Josh Marshall
For those of you who need a refresher on Duke Cunningham's various acts of public corruption, you can check out this graphical version of the CunningScam, TPM Reader WC's entry into the Duke Cunningham Shenanigan Program & Worksheet contest.
It needs to be updated to cover Duke's new ADCS, Inc. pay-for-play operation. And I wish the graphics were separated out a bit more (actually, I just realized this problem is more a matter of my fonts being set small). But it gives a good run-down of how Duke's various houses, boats, pay-offs, sweatheart loans, and insider defense contracts fit together.
--Josh Marshall
Has Duke's CunningScam been an open secret for a long, long time?
TPM Reader JS pointed my attention to this clip in The Hotline from late 1997 about Duke's string pulling for Brent Wilkes' ADCS, the company the Feds raided yesterday afternoon ...
Copley's Wilkie reports, the "affable" Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) "effuses" about a San Diego software company, ADCS, "that recently won a lucrative" DoD contract to "convert paper records to electronic files. ... But to others involved in the same project, (his) enthusiasm went beyond cost-saving zeal and regional promotion." Critics say he helped direct $3.2M worth of DoD business to ADCS which is run by campaign contributor Brent Wilkes, who gave Cunningham $2K in '96 and whose business partner, Randall Kerley, gave him $500. "How directly and passionately did (Cunningham) pressure the Pentagon on behalf" of ADCS? He "says he merely talked up" ADCS because it had the best software, "despite Pentagon assessments that others had superior products." But "others, however, say" Cunningham "pressed" DoD officials "to go with Wilkes' company, using as a stick his strong ties with military brass and his powerful position" on the House Nat'l Securtiy Cmte in '96. Pentagon officials are mum on the issue. "For his part, Cunningham says that anyone, including a reporter, who dares paint his actions as anything but aboveboard "can go to hell" and he has said that he told DoD to go with the best company. Wilkie concludes: "Regardless of who had the better product, the issue may be whether (he) should have used his Pentagon ties to promote any company run by a campaign contributor" (12/12).
And how much <$NoAd$> second-rate product is the Pentagon using today because of Duke Cunningham?
And why isn't there more of an outcry that this guy is still serving in Congress?
--Josh Marshall
In a sense it's a tongue-in-cheek proposal. But when Kevin Drum today suggests we might do better to shut down all of the rest of our intelligence agencies beside INR -- the State Department's in-house intel bureau -- he's really not that far off. It's not just a broken clock being right twice a day, as their detractors in other parts of the government and the commentariat like to say. INR has gotten a lot of big questions right of late. And in most cases it's been through a mix of skepticism, area expertise and breadth of knowledge that seems to provide a check on institutional myopia.
We might also take time to go back and read Ernest May's Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France, a book which, in an immediate sense, is about French and German intelligence in the lead-up to the war but is more generally a look into the nature of intelligence failures. A fascinating study.
I reviewed it here at TPM three years ago.
--Josh Marshall
You know how Jack Abramoff was hired to protect sweatshop owners in Saipan from having to comply with American labor laws. And you remember how he helped Indian gambling interests get out of paying taxes. But did you know that right after 9/11 he was hired by a Saudi petro-billionaire to help him deal with US government claims that his banks handled money for and funded various terrorist groups including al Qaida?
--Josh Marshall
Last week I told you about California defense contractor Brent Wilkes.
He was the one who, in addition to this defense contracting company, ADCS, Inc., had also opened up Group W Advisors, his own DC lobby shop and Group W Transportion, a private air carrier that only owned 1/16 of a Lear Jet and had as its primary line of work giving freebie flights around the country to members of Congress like Tom DeLay, Roy Blunt, but mostly our old pal Duke Cunningham, who represents the district where ADCS is located.
Now, when I read that article what jumped out to me was until a few years ago ADCS had an employee by the name of Mitchell Wade. And in case you were wondering, yes, the same Mitchell Wade (owner of MZM, Inc.) who bought Duke's house for 3/4 million dollars over price and bought the boat for him to live on in DC.
Helluva coincidence.
The two companies shared a lot in common: tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to Duke, lots of freebies for Duke, etc. And ADCS managed to haul in almost $76 million dollars in defense contracts from 2000 to 2004.
Apparently the Feds think there's some connection too.
This afternoon agents from the FBI, the IRS and DOD's Defense Criminal Investigative Service conducted raids on the offices of ADCS in Poway and Brent Wilkes' home.
Now, we could go back down the list of Duke's cartoonish shenanigans with his attempts to secure a pardon for convicted kickback scammer Thomas Kontogiannis after Kontogiannis bought his boat at double market rates and gave him a bunch of sweetheart loans, or all the rest of the ridiculousness with the other boat and the houses and all the rest of it.
But look at the key points. MZM, $66 million in revenues in 2004. Between 2000 and 2004 ADCS bagged $76 million in defense contracts. $60 million here, $70 million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. The two companies were connected.
This isn't just a Duke Cunningham scandal. It's a serious defense contracting scandal. And even if Duke says he's not going to run next year, it ain't over.
Late Update: In addition to a lot of flights on their Lear Jet, between 2002 and 2004, Brent Wilkes, his wife Regina and an executive with their company gave $30,000 to Tom DeLay's ARMPAC. Brent Wilkes, Regina Wilkes, various ADCS executives and the ADCS PAC, meanwhile, combined to give approximately $59,000 to Duke and his PAC from 2000 to 2004, all but $6500 of which came in 2001 and 2002.
So Late It's the Next Day Update: As of some time last night, the websites for ADCS, Group W, and seemingly all companies tied to Brent Wilkes are offline.
--Josh Marshall
Another thought about the Abramoff matter.
Clearly, in less than a decade, Jack Abramoff was able to amass a vast sum of money. Given the nature of the enterprise, it's not clear that we know the full amount even today. But certainly it ran into many tens of millions of dollars.
But pay attention to the big picture rather than just his personal enrichment or particular bad acts.
This is a huge sum of money Abramoff was sitting on. There was lots of money to keep Grover Norquist rolling in cash, lots of spare cash to fund Ralph Reed's transition from Christian Coalition sachem to power lobbyist, money for skyboxes to use to raise more money without the in-kind donation of the use of the skybox, millions of dollars pushed through front organizations then passed on to others.
This isn't just a crooked lobbyist. This is someone managing a slush-fund. The sort of unregulated, unwatched pile of money patronage-based political machines always need to keep running.
So who is he running it for?
--Josh Marshall
Abramoff's lawyer says his client is willing to talk to government prosecutors about the murder of Gus Boulis.
--Josh Marshall
Ahh, the little details. Apparently, when Jack Abramoff was putting in for the $60 million loan to purchase SunCruz in 2000 -- the episode for which he's now been indicted -- he put down Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) as his character reference.
--Josh Marshall
Mitchell Wade gets called before the Duke grand jury. North County Times has the story.
--Josh Marshall
If only Abramoff had bought the book -- just out from the ABA, The Lobbying Manual: A Complete Guide to Federal Law Governing Lawyers and Lobbyists.
Thanks to TPM Reader MS for the tip.
If only he'd been there for Jack.
--Josh Marshall
Bolton stopped by for a jailhouse visit with Judy Miller before heading off to the UN? So says Arianna.
Maybe he had pity on her and dropped by to leak some new info.
--Josh Marshall
The Republican Party from Rep. Ron Kind's (D) 3rd district in Wisconsin blasts the congressman for celebrating the 70th birthday of the "Socialist Ponzi scheme" Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, so where were we on finding examples of contacts and chummification between Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay after February 2001 when DeLay allegedly called Jack into his capitol hill office and told him "I want no more dealings with you"?
This, remember, is the account the Post passed on over the weekend, absent any rebuttal, notwithstanding the voluminous public record showing the claim to be false.
So, to the details.
TPM Reader BB points out the $20,000 that Abramoff and his wife Pamela gave to DeLay's leadership PAC ARMPAC in the 2002 and 2004 campaign cycles. But really Abramoff and his wife and his myriad clients gave so much money that I don't even know where to start.
One example is how Abramoff had the Mississippi Choctaws give $6,000 to TRMPAC. And TRMPAC didn't even come into existence until eight months after the DeLay/Abramoff showdown.
Looking over the data it occurred to me that DeLay may have once again been the victim of sloppy reporting, as news outlet after news outlet continued to claim that he was extremely close to Abramoff even though he had dramatically washed his hands of the man.
On March 25th, 2002, as one example of this lousy reporting, USNews spotlighted the battle of the lobbyists between Haley Barbour and Abramoff and called one of Abramoff's trump cards the fact that he was "a big pal of Rep. Tom DeLay."
The weird thing is that Grover Norquist, who was tight with both DeLay and Abramoff (and got tons of cash funneled to him from the latter), was apparently totally in the dark about the falling out too. In April 2002, for instance, Norquist gushed to the Times about how tight Abramoff was with DeLay. "He walks in to see DeLay and DeLay knows that he is representing clients whose views are in sync with DeLay's views."
If Norquist was so out of the loop, you probably can't blame Tom Hamburger and Jim Vandehei for blowing it too. On May 23rd, 2002, in the The Wall Street Journal, they noted that Abramoff was "helping raise money for Mr. DeLay." And apparently even DeLay wasn't quite clear the relationship had gone sour, since he was still asking Abramoff for free meals that same month.
Even the folks who cover the hill full-time were out of the loop. On August 15th, 2002, writing in the Washington Business Forward, Roll Call's John Bresnahan noted Abramoff's "close ties to prominent conservatives like soon-to-be Majority Leader Tom DeLay" as key to Jack's political juice.
And, yes, a few months later, on December 9th, 2002, The Legal Times still thought DeLay's was Abramoff's "friend and political ally." They may have been thrown off the scent by Bresnahan's poor reporting.
As we got more and more examples of DeLay/Abramoff encounters, I started to think that DeLay might be like one of those people we all know who tries to break it off with an abusive or exploiting love interest, but just can't stick to their guns when the baddie comes back to them with that same old sweet talkin'.
That may have been what happened in June 2003, when, according to the Post, Abramoff got DeLay to write a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of his client, the Louisiana Coushattas. DeLay even got it co-signed by Hastert, Blunt and Cantor. Even the lobbyist who Abramoff outwitted with that coup had to marvel at what Jack could make happen. "I do this for a living," V. Heather Sibbison told the Post, "and I have never seen a letter like that before. It was incredibly unusual for that group of people, who do not normally weigh in on Indian issues, to express such a strong opinion about a particular project not in any of their home states."
I'm not sure whether that was just after or just before Abramoff introduced DeLay at that year's College Republican National Convention. But that may have been part of the new romancing.
Not surprisingly, after that summer relapse, by October 16th, 2003, the Post's Juliet Eilperin had gotten the wrong impression and wrote that Abramoff was still a "lobbyist who advises DeLay."
From what I could tell it was only after the law started to come after Abramoff in early 2004 that most reporters finally got it through their thick heads that DeLay didn't want anything to do with the guy.
--Josh Marshall
Later this morning or perhaps closer to noon, I'm going to put up more morsels from our reader research into sundry instances of chumminess between Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff after their alleged made-for-Hollywood parting of ways in February 2001.
But for now I wanted to let you know that we have a new Table for One guest at TPMCafe starting this morning, Andrew Rasiej.
He's running for New York City Public Advocate. And I know the great majority of you don't live in New York or the surrounding area. But I had him on because he's talking about a bundle of issues and ideas about technology and reinventing civic life in the United States, ones which are just as relevant in Houston or Cincinnait or San Francisco, and ones which should be of particular interest to many readers of this site.
Stop by the Table for One and see what you think.
--Josh Marshall
As long as we're helping the Washington Post research team find examples of the DeLay friendship after February 2001, I almost forgot about his free-mealing privileges at Signatures. We don't know if DeLay was a Signatures-Free-Mealer at Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's clip. But in May 2002 DeLay did ask Abramoff to set him, his wife and four pals up for a special table and a free meal.
--Josh Marshall
UhOh, more post-Feb 2001 DeLay-Abramoff chumminess. This from the Times, April 3rd, 2002 ...
Mr. Abramoff's rising influence is also illustrative of another trend in lobbying: success can be built on a strong relationship between a lobbyist and a single, powerful lawmaker. His interest in raising money for Republicans and conservative causes is the foundation of Mr. Abramoff's relationship with Mr. DeLay, who is determined to meld the lobbyists on K Street here into the Republican Party's political, legislative and fund-raising operations.Mr. Abramoff described the bond this way: "We are the same politically and philosophically. Tom's goal is specific -- to keep Republicans in power and advance the conservative movement. I have Tom's goal precisely."
Mr. Norquist, who is friendly with both men, said of Mr. Abramoff, "He walks in to see DeLay and DeLay knows that he is representing clients whose views are in sync with DeLay's views."
This came to us courtesy <$NoAd$> of TPM Reader AP.
--Josh Marshall
So yesterday we asked readers to come up with examples which belie Tom DeLay's claim -- printed unrebutted yesterday in the Washington Post -- that he washed his hands of Jack Abramoff after a confrontation in his office in February 2001.
So far we've only heard from readers who were online and willing to do a bit of research late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. But we've already got some pretty good material, a few examples of which we'll list here in reverse chronological order ...
TPM Reader JJ points us to a February 11th, 2004 piece in Roll Call that reported a power conclave at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant in which DeLay and his crew of staffers-turned-lobbyists discussed a possible crackdown on trade organizations hiring Democrats ...
At a dinner hosted by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff a few blocks from the Capitol at Signatures - a Republican hot spot that features a drink called "The Lobbyist" - DeLay chewed over the topic with a group of lobbyists that included his own former chief of staff, a one-time top aide to Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and a trusted adviser to Hastert....
Those who attended the dinner included Susan Hirschmann of Williams & Jensen, Gregg Hartley of Cassidy & Associates, Dan Mattoon of Podesta Mattoon, and Abramoff, a lobbyist with Greenberg Traurig LLC. Paxon, now a lobbyist with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, was invited but did not attend the session.
Another reader pointed us to a June 12th 2002 piece in Roll Call about DeLay's daughter baby shower at which Abramoff and then-associate Tony Rudy were guests.
And of course there's Abramoff's continuing maxed-out donations to DeLay and his PACs after that date.
Keep sending us in examples.
--Josh Marshall
