It’s just gets better and better from the AP. We’ve now gotten our hands on a copy of the internal email which includes the list of runners-up for the award granted to Solomon’s bamboozling Reid coverage.
A couple examples of the runner-ups …
Seth Hettena in San Diego, for being first to report that murder charges were imminent against seven Pendleton Marines and a Navy corpsman for the April killing of an Iraqi man in Hamandiya.
Hettena’s also done a lot of good Duke coverage. Sure glad he didn’t win.
Also coming up short was …
Margie Mason, Asia Medical Writer, for outgunning the competition on the latest outbreak of bird flu, on Sumatra. When a family on the Indonesian island was decimated by the disease, she tracked down the family’s lone survivor _ a man who was hospitalized and recovering in a nearby city. Mason interviewed him and his mother, who was taking care of him. Their comments revealed an alarming mindset that denied bird flu existed and blamed the Tamiflu drugs for the deaths.
Bird flu? Who cares about bird flu? Surprised this was even a runner-up.
See the whole email here.
UPI’s Pamela Hess …
When the Senate took $1.9 billion out of the war supplemental to fund border security last month, $1.6 billion came out of funds to replace equipment destroyed or worn out from four years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The money was diverted at the behest of the White House in a last-minute bid to address growing political unrest about illegal immigration. The Office of Management and Budget championed the change without input from the Army or the Marine Corps whose budgets were sliced, a Pentagon budget official told United Press International last week.
Full story here (reg.req.).
Room on the docket (from WaPo) …
A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay’s attorney, Richard Cullen.
The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay’s family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay’s family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.
I guess this is part of how DeLay never profited from any of this personally.
Late Update: Paul Kiel has more.
From those of you at the AP, or in touch with those who are, keep the tips coming. Confidentiality, of course, protected in all cases.
As of 1:52 AM on the East Coast, about a quarter of the votes are in in the run-off race to replace Duke Cunningham. 50% to the Republican Brian Bilbray and 44% to Democrat Francine Busby.
Rep. Katherine Harris, down 30 points in her race for a Florida Senate seat, tells the world she loves animals! That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
Wingers want gays back in the closet. Even the gay mannequins.
Gene Sperling gives us a primer on estate tax repeal and why even the compromise versions pushed by a handful of senate Dems are terrible ideas.
This may interest the FBI in the course of their investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)….
Over at TPMmuckraker, Justin’s uncovered a significant tie between Lewis and Letitia White, his former “gatekeeper” turned lobbyist: Lewis’ stepdaughter runs a political committee that’s based out of a house White co-owns with a defense contractor.