The Daily MuckIn a signing statement appended to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008, President Bush asserted that he is not obliged to obey four key sections of the bill because they trample on his executive authority. One provision that Bush’s statement targets precludes the the use of taxpayer money “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq” or “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.” (Boston Globe)
Barack Obama’s (D-IL) presidential campaign announced last night that it will give to charity over $70,000 in contributions linked to Antoin Rezko, the Chicago developer due to begin trial next month for corruption. The campaign said it discovered the money after it undertook a more extensive review of Rezko-related contributions. (AP)
Civil Rights groups have called upon Attorney General Michael Mukasey to rescind a Department of Justice opinion that authorized an administration scheme by which registered Republicans switch their affiliation to “independent” so that President Bush can stack the bi-partisan, eight person Civil Rights Commission with political allies. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) are leading the effort to have a Bush memo, which laid the foundation for the end run around the Civil Rights Act of 1957, rescinded. (CREW)
A report recently released by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found that the Army Corps of Engineers charged the government over $500 million in fees to oversee reconstruction projects in Iraq, many of which failed or fell behind schedule because of poor oversight. The Army charged more than twice the rates charged by the Air Force for similar work. (New York Times)
A survey from the Ethics Resource Center, a non-profit research group that has studied organizational ethics for several decades, reveals that 60% of government workers admit to observing ethical and/or legal violations in the past year. 63% of local government employees, 57% of state level employees and 52% of federal employees “observed at least one type of misconduct, ranging from abusive behavior by superiors to bribery.” (USA Today)
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide on a suit brought by private military contractors who survived the “Good Friday Massacre” in Iraq in April 2004. The suit, which is on appeal from the federal district court in Houston that dismissed the case as nonjusticiable, alleges that KBR and its then-parent, Halliburton Co. fraudulently induced private contractors (in this case, truck drivers) into believing they would not be placed in active combat zones, yet were ordered to drive a route that KBR officials knew to be extremely dangerous. (Law.com)
President Bush’s budget proposal is going digital, but at a cost. While lawmakers and others will be able to read this year’s budget online for free, they will have to pay for a print copy. In previous years, Bush provided free paper copies to Congress, federal agencies, and the media. (The Hill)
A recent dinner for John McCain that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential campaign, listed 24 lobbyists as “co-chairman” for the event. This should come as no surprise since McCain, who recently hired Conrad Burns as the chairman of his Montana campaign, has 59 lobbyists – more than any of the other presidential candidates – fundraising for maverick McCain’s “straight talk express.” (Billings Gazette, ABC’s “The Blotter”)
Congress will subpoena former and current Food and Drug Administration investigators to learn more about the bogus clinical data that led to the FDA’s approval of the antibiotic drug Ketek in 2004. Ketek, which is manufactured by Sanofi Aventis, was linked to liver failure in some patients. (New York Times)
Video footage taken by an undercover investigator for the Humane Society of the United States has revealed numerous violations of state and federal laws concerning health and animal cruelty at a slaughterhouse in California. The video shows workers trying to get apparently unhealthy cows to stand up for inspection by giving them electric shocks, using forklifts and spraying their noses with water. (Washington Post)
