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2008 Government Archive:

20080129

Jack Abramoff - Randy Cunningham- Money - Government - Lawmakers - History - 2006 Election - California - Maryland - "Question of Timing on Bush’s Push on Earmarks." ... "[Republican] President Bush has never shown much distaste for Congressional pork." ... "In the last seven years he has signed spending bills containing about 55,000 earmarks worth more than $100 billion for projects like a new lane for a local road, a new facade for a town landmark or a weapons contract for a company that happened to be a big donor to an influential lawmaker." ... "Such projects tucked into the endnotes of complex spending bills at the request of individual lawmakers with almost no oversight have contributed to a mounting pileup of waste and corruption, including sending the [Republican] lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the former [California Republican] congressman Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, to jail." ... "Mr. Bush was notably silent on the subject until after his fellow Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections." ... "“When the president and the Republican Congress had the power to address this, they did nothing,” [Maryland Democratic Representative Chris] Mr. Van Hollen said." -By David D. Kirkpatrick -NYTimes
Safety - Food - Drug - Medical - Manufacturers - Business- Investigation - Lawmakers - Science - Politics - "FDA flawed on food, medical device safety: GAO: When it comes to the safety of food and medical devices, the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has some work to do, government investigators reported to lawmakers on Tuesday." ... ""FDA has opportunities to better leverage its resources," according to a Government Accountability Office [GAO] report presented at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee. "Efficient use of resources is particularly important at FDA because we found that its food safety workload has increased in the past decade, while its food safety staff and funding have not kept pace."" ... "FDA oversees about 80% of the U.S. food supply, which includes $417 billion of domestic food and $49 billion of imported food annually, according to GAO." ... "In November, an advisory committee to the FDA found that the agency "suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities."" ... "Also Tuesday, the GAO said FDA has not met its statutory requirement to inspect domestic manufacturers of medical devices classified as high risk, such as pacemakers, or medium risk, such as hearing aids, every two years." -By Ruth Mantell -MarketWatch
Military - Politics - Government - Money - New York - "Army Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum." ... "Army officials in upstate New York instructed representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum Army base with their military disability paperwork last year. That paperwork can be crucial because it helps determine whether soldiers will get annual disability payments and health care after they're discharged." ... "Now soldiers at Fort Drum say they feel betrayed by the institutions that are supposed to support them. The soldiers want to know why the Army would want to stop them from getting help with their disability paperwork and why the VA— whose mission is to help veterans — would agree to the Army's request." ... "Cynthia Vaughan, spokeswoman for the Army surgeon general, says the VA was not doing anything wrong by helping soldiers at Fort Drum." ... "She says the officers who asked the VA to stop helping Fort Drum's soldiers were part of what the Army calls a "Tiger Team"— an ad-hoc group assigned to investigate, in this case, medical disability benefits." -By Ari Shapiro -NPR

20080127

Government - Spy - Intelligence - Imagery - Technology - Communications - California - "U.S. Spy Satellite, Power Gone, May Hit Earth." ... "A disabled American spy satellite is rapidly descending and is likely to plunge to Earth by late February or early March, posing a potential danger from its debris, officials said Saturday." ... "Officials said that they had no control over the nonfunctioning satellite and that it was unknown where the debris might land." ... "Specialists who follow spy satellite operations suspect it is an experimental imagery satellite built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in December 2006 aboard a Delta II rocket. Shortly after the satellite reached orbit, ground controllers lost the ability to control it and were never able to regain communication." ... ""It's not necessarily dead, but deaf," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an analyst of various government space programs." -NYTimes

20080125

John Edwards - Consumer - Marketplace - Politics - Government - Law - 2008 Election - North Carolina - South Carolina - "Health Care Up to Public, Edwards Says." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate and North Carolina's] Former Senator John Edwards does not discount the possibility that his health care proposal, which would allow Americans to buy new government insurance packages modeled on Medicare, could evolve into a federalized system like those in Canada and many European countries. And if it does, Mr. Edwards said he would be just fine with that." ... "But Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina, emphasized in a 40-minute interview on health policy that the choice would be made not in Washington, but by consumers in an open marketplace where private insurance competes with government plans." ... "“American health consumers will decide which works best,” Mr. Edwards said Wednesday afternoon while traveling through South Carolina on his campaign bus. “It could continue to be divided. But it could go in one direction or the other, and one of the directions is obviously government or single-payer. And I’m not opposed to that.”" ... "If the government is able to undercut private insurers on price — by forgoing profit, reducing overhead, and maximizing economies of scale — it theoretically could put the private system out of business and become the de facto insurer for the nation." ... "Republican candidates and policy strategists have raised the specter of “socialized medicine” and depicted the Democratic plans as a back-door route to a so-called single-payer government system." ... "Mr. Edwards brushed off that critique. “There is nothing back-door about it,” he said. “It’s right through the front door. We’re going to let America decide what health care system works for them.”" (1, 2) -By Kevin Sack -NYTimes

20080124

Telecom - Amnesty - Corporate - Government - Intelligence - Surveillance - Wisconsin - Nevada - Connecticut - "Feingold: "I Really Do Disagree" With Reid On FISA." ... "A long-debated provision over whether or not telephone companies would get a free pass for aiding the U.S. [United States] government in warrentless surveillance hits the Senate floor today. And it threatens to open up fissures within the Democratic Party." ... "In an interview with the Huffington Post on Thursday morning, [Wisconsin Democratic Senator] Sen. Russ Feingold, who opposes granting immunity to those companies, expressed disappointment that his party's leader, [Nevada Democratic Senator] Sen. Harry Reid, was not doing more to help strike the provision from a newly considered version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act." ... ""Of course I have great respect for the Majority Leader," said Feingold. "He is a good friend of mine. But I really do disagree with his way of proceeding."" ... "At issue is the likely passage of a version of FISA that contains retroactive immunity over one that doesn't. Reid has said he supports the former, but legislatively, the path has been paved for the passage of the latter. In addition, there is debate over an amendment offered by [Connecticut Democratic Senator] Sen. Chris Dodd, to strip immunity from any FISA bill. If that fails -- and it seems likely -- Dodd has threatened to filibuster the whole bill. On Wednesday, Reid was interpreted as saying any such filibuster will be the standing and talking variety as opposed to an agreed-upon 60-vote minimum threshold. Feingold, who supports Dodd's stance, took slight issue with that approach." ... ""We should have a normal process w[h]ere this is debated based on a majority vote in the senate," said the Wisconsin Democrat. "That's the way it should have been done and I regret that it's not being done that way. Of course, I support Senator Dodd. He and I were principally involved in making sure this didn't get jammed through before the holidays and I will be supporting him again. But this decision does make it harder."" -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com
US Immigration - Federal - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Arizona - Minnesota - Georgia - Colorado - "Immigration officials detaining, deporting American citizens." ... "Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia." ... "Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. [United States] citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona." ... "On Thursday, Warziniack was told he would be released. Immigration authorities were finally able to verify his citizenship." ... ""The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack said in a phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped the ball."" ... "The story of how immigration officials decided that a small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes deports American citizens." ... "U.S. citizens who are mistakenly jailed by immigration authorities can get caught up in a nightmarish bureaucratic tangle in which they're simply not believed." ... "Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves. Less affluent or resourceful U.S. citizens who are detained must try to maneuver on their own through a complicated system." -By Marisa Taylor with contributions by Tish Wells -McClatchyDC.com

20080123

Dick Cheney - US - Iraq - Military - Government - Intelligence - Politics - Language - Database - History - "Bush Administration Lied 935 Times About Iraq Before Invasion: Study: President [Republican President Bush] cited as most frequent liar, with 259 false statements about weapons of mass destruction and more." ... "For years, the [Republican President] Bush administration has faced charges that it bent the truth or flat-out misled the public about Iraq's alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of the country. Now, a study by two nonprofit journalism organizations claims that President Bush and top officials in his administration issued nearly 1,000 false statements about the security threat posed by Iraq in the wake of 9/11." ... "Relying on what it described as a "massive database" of information that fed the results of the project, the authors said their research was based on juxtaposing what President Bush and the top officials in his administration said in public against what was known, "or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis." The searchable database includes public statements drawn from both primary sources like official transcripts and secondary sources like the reporting of major news organizations over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also used information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews." ... "An example given in the report is a portion of an address given at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on August 26, 2002, during which Cheney said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." According to the report, former CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] Director George Tenet later said Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time, and another CIA official, referring to the speech, told a prominent journalist, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "" ... "As for criticism that the report does not have any new information but rather rehashes already-reported facts, [Center for Public Integrity spokesman Steve] Carpinelli said, "The difference is that while there have been many intelligence reports that came out that contradicted a lot of statements from administration officials, there's been nothing that could show you how it was a coordinated effort." The report is accompanied by a bar graph that Carpinelli said shows how the false statements reached their peak in the months prior to the March 2003 launch of the Iraq war and how they tapered off soon after." -By Gil Kaufman -MTV.com
US - Iraq - Afghanistan - Military - Politics - US_Debt - Government- "U.S. war costs in Iraq up-budget report." ... "War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and [Republican] President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008, the nonpartisan office [Congressional Budget Office: CBO] wrote." ... "Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Congress has written checks for $691 billion to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and such related activities as Iraq reconstruction, the CBO said." ... "Of the total, the CBO estimated that $440 billion had been spent on fighting in Iraq launched with the goal of ousting President Saddam Hussein from power and securing weapons of mass destruction that were never found." ... "All of the Iraq and Afghanistan war money -- about $11 billion a month -- is effectively being put on a government credit card at a time when U.S. [United States] government debt has skyrocketed to more than $9 trillion, up from around $5.6 trillion when [Republican President] Bush took office in January 2001." ... "Bush has opposed paying the cost of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan with tax increases or other specific offsets." (1, 2, 3) -By Richard Cowan with contributions by Howard Goller and Doina Chiacu -Reuters
Iraq - Law - Politics - Jobs - Teachers - People - Police - Government - Military - History - US - "Iraq's New Law on Ex-Baathists Could Bring Another Purge." ... "Maj. Gen. [Major General] Hussein al-Awadi, a former official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, became the commander of the Iraqi National Police despite a 2003 law barring the party from government." ... "But now, under new legislation promoted as way to return former Baathists to public life, the 56-year-old and thousands like him could be forced out of jobs they have been allowed to hold, according to Iraqi lawmakers and the government agency that oversees ex-Baathists." ... ""This new law is very confusing," Awadi said. "I don't really know what it means for me."" ... "He is not alone. More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. [United States] officials and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of U.S. hopes for the legislation. " ... "The very first decree of the U.S.-led occupation government was to disband the Baath Party and purge its members from the government. Issued May 16, 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 1 also banned the top four ranks of the Baath Party from public-sector jobs." ... "U.S. officials believed the order would remove about 20,000 Baathists, or 1 percent of the 2 million people in Iraq said to be party members, according to L. Paul Bremer, then the occupation administrator." ... "He blamed the Iraqi politicians who oversaw the de-Baathification process in mid-2003 for going beyond the intention of the order and purging thousands of additional people, including about 11,000 teachers." ... "The Iraqis tell a different story. According to Ali Faisal al-Lami, executive director of the de-Baathification commission, Bremer's order pushed 140,000 Iraqis out of their jobs." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Amit R. Paley and Joshua Partlow-WashingtonPost
Mitch McConnell - Noteworthy - Government - Intelligence - Surveillance - Corporate - Telecom - Amnesty - Politics - Nevada - Kentucky - Vermont - Connecticut - Wisconsin - "Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action." ... "[Nevada Democratic Senator] Harry Reid -- who has (a) done more than any other individual to ensure that Bush's demands for telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers will be met in full and (b) allowed the Republicans all year to block virtually every bill without having to bother to actually filibuster -- went to the Senate floor yesterday and, with the scripted assistance of [Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell and [Vermont Democratic Senator] Pat Leahy, warned [Connecticut Democratic Senator] Chris Dodd, [Wisconsin Democratic Senator] Russ Feingold and others that they would be selfishly wreaking havoc on the schedules of their fellow Senators (making them work over the weekend, ruining their planned "retreat," and even preventing them from going to Davos!) if they bothered everyone with their annoying, pointless little filibuster." ... "To do so, Reid announced that, unlike for the multiple filibusters from Republican colleagues, he would actually force Dodd and company to engage in a real filibuster. This is what Reid said:"

"[I]f people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate."

"That is what Democrats have been urging Reid to do to the filibustering Republicans all year -- in order to dramatize their obstructionism -- but he has refused to make them actually filibuster anything, generously agreeing instead that every bill requires 60 votes. Instead, he reserves such punishment only for the members of his own caucus trying to take a stand for the rule of law and the Constitution, those who are trying finally to bring some accountability to this administration." -By Glenn Greenwald -Salon

20080122

Alberto Gonzales - Pete Domenici - Heather Wilson - Criminal - US Attorneys - Politics - Hatch Act - Federal - Law - Civil Rights - 2006 Election - 2008 Election - New Mexico - Minnesota - "Attorneys probe deepens." ... "The federal investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys could jolt the political landscape ahead of the November [2008] elections, according to several people close to the inquiry." ... "Washington’s attention has been diverted from the scandal since the August resignation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, and has focused instead on Democrats’ efforts to hold White House officials in contempt for ignoring congressional subpoenas to testify on Capitol Hill about the firings." ... "But recent behind-the-scenes activity in several investigations suggests that the issue that roiled Congress in 2007 could re-emerge in the heat of the [2008] election year. Two inquiries by the House and Senate ethics committees are examining whether several congressional Republicans, including one running for the Senate this year, improperly interfered with investigations." ... "As potent as the congressional probes might be, they appear to be far narrower than a sprawling inquiry launched by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)." ... "Investigators from these offices have been questioning whether senior officials lied to Congress, violated the criminal provisions in the Hatch Act, tampered with witnesses preparing to testify to Congress, obstructed justice, took improper political considerations into account during the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys and created widespread problems in the department’s Civil Rights Division, according to several people familiar with the investigation." ... "The internal Justice Department probe cannot bring charges but can refer findings to a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia or a special prosecutor, who could then pursue a criminal investigation." ... "[Former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David] Iglesias’s case is in the crosshairs of all three investigations. Testifying before Congress, he alleged last year that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) pressured him to accelerate an investigation of a Democratic politician in New Mexico ahead of Wilson’s tight [2006] reelection bid. Iglesias said he did not plan to bring charges before the November elections, and was fired in December 2006." ... "In a sign that the investigation has widened beyond the nine fired attorneys, Justice last summer interviewed Thomas Heffelfinger, U.S. attorney in Minnesota, who resigned before it was revealed that he was targeted for dismissal." -By Manu Raju -TheHill.com

20080119

Environmental - Corporate - Government - Law - Politics - Investigation - California - Cars - Emissions - "EPA won't give details on denying emissions waiver." ... "Invoking executive privilege, the [Republican President Bush run] U.S. [United States] Environmental Protection Agency refused to provide lawmakers Friday with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations." ... "The EPA informed [California Democratic Senator] Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared with Congress." ... "The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the EPA denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles." -AP via -SFGate.com

20080118

Dick Cheney - Government - Electronic - E-Mail - History - Censorship - Politics - Presidential Records Act - Archives - Law - Calif - "White House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone." ... "The [Republican President Bush] White House possesses no archived e-mail messages for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President [Dick Cheney], for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal White House study that was disclosed yesterday by a congressional Democrat." ... "The 2005 study -- whose credibility the White House attacked this week -- identified 473 separate days in which no electronic messages were stored for one or more White House offices, said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman [California Democratic Representative] Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.)." ... "Waxman said he decided to release the summary after White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that there is "no evidence" that any White House e-mails from those years are missing. Fratto's assertion "seems to be an unsubstantiated statement that has no relation to the facts they have shared with us," Waxman said." ... "The competing claims were the latest salvos in an escalating dispute over whether the [Republican President] Bush administration has complied with long-standing statutory requirements to preserve official White House records -- including those reflecting potentially sensitive policy discussions -- for history and in case of any future legal demands." ... "The White House is required by law to preserve e-mails considered presidential or federal records, and it is the target of several lawsuits seeking information about missing data and efforts to preserve electronic communications." (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen and Elizabeth Williamson -WashingtonPost

20080116

Government - Computer - E-Mail - Archives - Law - Politics - US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Videotapes - Presidential Records Act - "White House Tape Recycling May Have Erased Controversial E-Mails." ... "The [Republican President Bush] White House has acknowledged in a new court filing that it routinely recycled computer backup tapes containing its e-mail records until October 2003, a practice that could mean that many electronic messages from the first two years of the [Republican President] Bush administration are lost forever." ... "The disclosure raises the possibility that the White House effectively erased e-mail related to some of the biggest controversies of the Bush administration, including the leak of a CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] officer's name, the start of the Iraq war and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes." ... "The backups are meant to preserve records in case of a disaster. They also serve a role in ensuring that federal record-keeping laws are met, according to administration officials and records management experts. Two separate statutes require the White House to preserve federal or presidential records." ... "In their lawsuit, the two advocacy groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive, allege that millions of e-mail messages are missing from White House servers between 2003 and 2005." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

20080115

Corporate - Government - Louisiana - 2008 Election - "Richard Baker to leave Congress by Feb. 6." ... "The dean of Louisiana's congressional delegation, [Republican Representative] Rep. Richard Baker, has decided to step down from Congress after 22 years to take a lucrative job in the private sector representing investors he has spent a career regulating." ... "The announcement by the Baton Rouge [Louisiana] Republican was not unexpected and makes him the third member of the state's seven-member House delegation in the past two months to resign or announce plans to resign." ... "Baker, 59, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee will take the helm of the Managed Funds Association, the industry group that represents the $1.8 trillion hedge fund industry. As president and CEO, his salary and benefits package is expected to exceed $1 million a year." -By Bill Walsh -NOLA.com

20080114

John Edwards - Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama - Government - Economy- Workers - Families - Alternative Energy - Consumer - 2008 Election - "Responding to Recession." ... "On the Democratic side, [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] John Edwards, although never the front-runner, has been driving his party’s policy agenda. He’s done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures." ... "Last week [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens." ... "And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I’m sure the Hillary-haters will find some reason that’s a bad thing, but there’s something to be said for presidents who know what they’re talking about." ... "The [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?" ... "Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right." ... "I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy." -By Paul Krugman -NYTimes

20080111

John Edwards - Peoples - Families - Lawyer - Corporate - Government - Drug Companies - Health Care - 2008 Election - "Corporate elite fear candidate Edwards." ... "Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- [2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Democrat John Edwards." ... "His stump speeches are peppered with attacks on "corporate greed" and warnings of "the destruction of the middle class."" ... "He accuses lobbyists of "corrupting the government" and says Americans lack universal health care because of "drug companies, insurance companies and their lobbyists."" ... "An Edwards campaign spokesman said on Thursday that inside-the-Beltway operatives who fight to defend the powerful and the privileged should be afraid." ... ""The lobbyists and special interests who abuse the system in Washington have good reason to fear John Edwards." ... ""Once he is president, the interests of middle class families will never again take a back seat to corporate greed in Washington," said campaign spokesman Eric Schultz." ... "Open attacks on the business elite are seldom heard from mainstream White House candidates in America, despite skyrocketing CEO pay, rising income inequality, and a torrent of scandals in corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street." (1, 2, 3) -By Kevin Drawbaugh with contributions by John Wallace -Reuters

20080110

Opinion - Government - Money - History - "Moody’s says spending threatens US rating." ... "The US [United States] is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said on Thursday." ... "The warning over the future of the triple-A rating – granted to US government debt since it was first assessed in 1917 – reflects growing concerns over the country’s ability to retain its financial and economic supremacy. " -By Francesco Guerrera, Aline van Duyn and Daniel Pimlott -FT.com
John Ashcroft - Michael B Mukasey - Alberto R Gonzales - Debra Wong Yang - Criminal - Corporate - Government - Lawyers - US Attorneys - Politics - Medical - New Jersey - Indiana - New York - Los Angeles - California - "Ashcroft Deal Brings Scrutiny in Justice Dept.." ... "When the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey [Christopher J. Christie] needed to find an outside lawyer to monitor a large corporation willing to settle criminal charges out of court last fall, he turned to [Republican] former Attorney General John Ashcroft, his onetime boss. With no public notice and no bidding, the company awarded Mr. Ashcroft an 18-month contract worth $28 million to $52 million." ... "That contract, which Justice Department officials in Washington learned about only several weeks ago, has prompted an internal inquiry into the department’s procedures for selecting outside monitors to police settlements with large companies." ... "The contract between Mr. Ashcroft’s consulting firm, the Ashcroft Group, and Zimmer Holdings, a medical supply company in Indiana, has also drawn the attention of Congressional investigators." ... "The New Jersey prosecutor, United States Attorney Christopher J. Christie, directed similar monitoring contracts last year to two other former Justice Department colleagues from the [Republican President] Bush administration, as well as to a former Republican state attorney general in New Jersey." ... "Officials said that while there had been no accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Christie or Mr. Ashcroft, aides to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey were concerned about the appearance of favoritism." ... "Mr. Mukasey, a former federal judge who was sworn in as attorney general in November, has vowed to remove political considerations from decision-making at the department in the wake of a series of scandals under his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales." ... "In the Bush administration, federal prosecutors have increasingly relied on out-of-court settlements with large corporations in criminal investigations that in the past might have resulted in indictments and trials." ... "Mr. Christie directed similar contracts in settlements with other medical-supply companies to two other former Justice Department colleagues — David N. Kelley, the former United States attorney in Manhattan [New York], and Debra Wong Yang, his counterpart in Los Angeles [California] — and to David Samson, the former Republican attorney general in New Jersey." (1, 2) -By Philip Shenon -NYTimes
Secretive - Criminal - Government - Telephone - Surveillance - Intelligence - Law - Accounting - US - Foreign - Terrorism - Politics - "FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills." ... "Telephone companies have cut off FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time." ... "A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said." ... "In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies." ... ""We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine." -By Lara Jakes Jordan -SFGate.com
John Doolittle - Jack Abramoff - Brent Wilkes - Randy Cunningham - Military - Government - Money - Politics - San Diego - California - "Lawmaker Tied to Abramoff to Retire." ... "[Republican] Representative John Doolittle of California, once a rising star in the Republican Party but more recently under investigation in a scandal involving the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, announced his retirement from Congress on Thursday, declaring that it was time for a new chapter in his life." ... "He stepped down last April from the powerful Appropriations Committee after he was linked to three inquiries involving accusations that panel members accepted bribes or campaign contributions in exchange for earmarking federal money to certain projects." ... "Mr. Doolittle has also been under scrutiny for the role that Mrs. Doolittle has played as a fund-raiser for her husband. Under the arrangement, the Doolittles kept some of the contributions given to his campaign committees, blurring the distinction between personal and campaign contributions." ... "Finally, Mr. Doolittle is under investigation for his ties to Brent Wilkes, a San Diego [California] military contractor who was convicted in November of 13 felonies related to the bribery of former Representative Randy Cunningham, another California Republican." -By David Stout -NYTimes

20080109

US - Iraq - Blackwater - Government - Politics - Human Rights - Law - Michigan - "Blackwater USA steps up lobbying efforts." ... "Private-security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, which protects U.S. [United States] government officials in Iraq and faces scrutiny over its role in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians, has ramped up its lobbying representation on Capitol Hill." ... "Law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice was tapped by the company, whose chairman is Erik Prince, a Holland [Michigan] native. They've been hired to lobby the government on contracting and other issues, according to the form posted online Tuesday by the Senate's public records office." ... "The company has attracted considerable congressional scrutiny and criticism from the Iraqi government and human rights groups for its involvement in several dozen shooting incidents." ... "Prince, a former Navy SEAL, is a Holland native whose family fortune was made in the auto parts industry. His sister, Betsy DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan GOP [Grand Old Party=Republican], is married to Dick DeVos, a Republican and Amway Corp. heir who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006." -AP via -MLive.com
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