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Donald Rumsfeld’s “snowflakes” (memos in which he sprinkled his brilliant musings to his staff) include references to Muslims as people who avoid “physical labor,” and advice to his minions that they “keep elevating the threat,” and “link Iraq to Iran.” Another “snowflake,” (he produced 20 to 60 each day) urged military analysts to “talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists.” A former Rumsfeld aide complains that journalists are now seizing on only a few “snowflakes” in an avalanche of more than 20,000. (Washington Post)

As we reported earlier this week, the State Department is forcing employees to fill open positions in Iraq. In a town-hall meeting yesterday, those employees voiced their ire, with one employee saying, “I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?” Not to be outdone, the administrator running the meeting compared the dissent over the policy to America’s former acceptance of slavery. (AP)

Erik Prince has a new boss. The Department of Defense’s Reconstruction Operations Centers is taking over control of the State Department’s security convoys. But the Reconstruction Operations Center is outsourced through a $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis. This means that Erik Prince now will answer to Aegis CEO Tim Spicer, the guy who used his “mercenary army to launch a counter-coup of the government of Sierra Leone” and “plotted the overthrow of the authorities in Equatorial Guinea.” (Wired)

Lifelong Rudy buddy Bernie Kerik is facing new accusations, this time from his lawyers. They accuse him of welching on $200,000 in legal bills that he ran up during his latest criminal investigation. (Smoking Gun)

The Bush administration wants you to think twice before blowing the whistle. A six-month investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting, in collaboration with Salon, reports that federal whistle-blowers, instead of receiving legal protection from whistleblower laws, typically face efforts to silence them and bury the issues they have raised. (Salon)

Speaking of silence, federal agents are investigating allegations that Blackwater illegally exported firearms “silencers” to Iraq. Criminal penalties for smuggling silencers can bring up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $1 million per count. (MSNBC)

Here’s a surprising group calling from retroactive immunity. A letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee advocating protection for telecom firms was signed by: former AG John Ashcroft (admittedly, now an AT&T lobbyist), former Deputy AG James Comey, Jack Goldsmith and Patrick Philbin. (Washington Wire)

Since Alberto Gonzales declared victory over white collar crime in July, it is just about time for a postmortem on the Justice Department’s Corporate Fraud Task Force. The American Lawyer has taken an exhaustive look at the task force’s success (no easy feat, given the government’s unwillingness to publish statistics on these investigations). They find that the government obtained a good number of guilty pleas, but that most of that success comes from local U.S. Attorneys without assistance from the national Task Force. More interesting? The drop off in investigations since Bush’s reelection: from 357 indictments between 2002-05, to only 26 in the next two years. (Law.com)

The Hillary-Chinatown connection continues to simmer, with two conservative bloggers filing complaints against her with the Federal Election Committee. The complaint is based on recent articles in the NY Times and LA Times accusing Clinton’s fundraisers of collecting money from dishwashers, and in some case, reimbursing those donors. (Politico)

Good to know that some things can still shock. A Freedom of Information Act has given Cox News access to internal discussions about a 2005 super junket involving 34 travelers, one Air Force 737, and plenty of stopovers in beach resorts. At the time, one State Department official referred to the trip as the most “egregious” boondoggle she had seen in 27 years. (Cox News Service)

Watchdog organizations are trying to get the Appropriations Committees to strip earmarks for BAE and ProLogic, both firms that are undergoing federal investigations. The firms are slated for a combined $59 million this year in earmarks. (The Hill)

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