From the LA Time Group... report by watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The 13 members of Congress recommended for investigation by the watchdog group are:

• Sen. Bill Frist: The report accuses him of violating federal campaign finance laws in how he disclosed a campaign loan. It also calls for an inquiry over his recent sale of stock in HCA Inc., his family's hospital corporation. The sale has raised questions about possible insider dealing. Frist aides confirmed Friday that the SEC was investigating. They have denied claims of campaign finance violations.

• Rep. Roy Blunt: The report criticizes him for trying to insert provisions into bills that would have benefited, in one case, a client of his lobbyist son and in another case, the employer of his lobbyist girlfriend, now his wife.

• Sen. Conrad Burns: The report says that questions arose over $3 million in appropriations he earmarked for an Indian tribe in Michigan that was a client of lobbyist Abramoff. The senator received substantial campaign contributions from Abramoff and various clients.
"Sen. Burns did nothing wrong, and any accusation to the contrary is pure politics," said James Pendleton, his director of communications. He said Burns had earmarked the appropriation at the request of the Michigan congressional delegation.

• Rep. Bob Ney: The report says the chairman of the House Administration Committee went on a golf outing to Scotland in 2002, arranged by Abramoff, at a time when the congressman was trying to insert a provision into legislation to benefit one of Abramoff's tribal clients.
Ney reported to the House that the trip was paid for entirely by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, which denied paying any of the costs. Ney has said he had been duped by Abramoff.

• Rep. Tom Feeney: The report says he incorrectly reported that a golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff in 2003 was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, which denied it. A Feeney aide said the congressman had been misled. Questions also have arisen about two other privately funded trips.

• Rep. Richard W. Pombo: He paid his wife and brother $357,325 in campaign funds in the last four years, the report says. He also supported the wind-power industry before the Department of Interior without disclosing that his parents received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their ranch.
Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Pombo, said that "each of the charges is baseless." He called the watchdog group "a Democratic attack group, and all of their charges should be taken with a grain of salt."

• Rep. Maxine Waters: The report cites a December 2004 Los Angeles Times investigation disclosing how members of the congresswoman's family have made more than $1 million in the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that Waters has helped. Before publication of the Times investigation last year, Waters declined to be interviewed, but said of her family members: "They do their business, and I do mine."

• Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.): The report says he encountered controversy over disclosures that Pennsylvania taxpayers paid for his children's schooling while they lived in Virginia. Santorum maintained he did nothing wrong, and has pulled his children out of the school, according to reports.

• Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and William J. Jefferson: Both congressional veterans are under federal investigation.
Cunningham, who has announced that he will not run for reelection, faces questions over his dealings with a defense contractor who allegedly overpaid him when he purchased Cunningham's house. Jefferson is under scrutiny for his role in an overseas business deal. Normally the House ethics committee does not hold inquiries while criminal investigations are underway.

• Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-N.C.): The report says that questions have been raised about his private business interests, including a savings and loan in Asheville, N.C., and personal business interests in Russia.

• Rep. Marilyn N. Musgrave (R-Colo.) and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.): Both second-term House members encountered criticisms tied to campaign activities, the report says.
Musgrave was accused of misusing her congressional office for campaign purposes. Renzi was accused of financing portions of his 2002 campaign with improper loans.

Perhaps the Attorney General Gonzales will be going after Neil Bush and his Tailand trips??

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it’s obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving children. According to high-level sources who did not want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors porn cases over their objections. … Acosta [said] that this was Attorney General Gonzales’ mandate.

Also, to warm our hearts... FEMA has requested MAJOR nationwide support for Disaster Recovery of Hurricane Rita, scheduled to hit Texas Friday...
San Diego has mustered First Responders and Rescue groups and today they left for Texas... It took a week AFTER Katrina for FEMA to allow a small group of responders from San Diego to assist- they cooled their heels in Texas for DAYS... Wonder why the difference???

From WORDSMITH - Today's word of the day

tenderloin (TEN-duhr-loin) noun

The part of a city notorious for vice and corruption.

[After a district in New York City known for vice, crime, corruption,
extortion, graft, etc. It received its nickname from the choicest part
of the meat, alluding to the luxurious diet of corrupt police members
getting an easy income from bribes.]

Boy, can I think of LOTS of ways to use this in a sentence!


and more from today: TPM Cafe

By emily knight

Am I the only one who heard Bush read a speech at the White House that concluded with the words (which I copied verbatim), "We will not allow democracy to keep us from saving lives." It aired on CNN Sat., Sept. 3, around 5:oo PM EST.

What could he have possibly meant?

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, could see the danger. "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just," he wrote in 1785, reflecting on the crime that was slavery. "His justice cannot sleep forever."

WTF is going on???

American citizens were told to go to the stadium and conference center to be protected and cared for...

They are now being held there by check points and armed guards? (reported even by Fox news of all places..)

No food, water, medicine or toilets. Bodies rotting in the sun. Babies and infirm dying.

Prisoners released and added to the group...

No electricity, no communications, no HAM radio operators allowed in for communication.

No rescue opperation allowed in (Red Cross - verified on their website, fire departments, private support)

S L O W and M I N I M A L supplies sent in and people evacuated out...

What are they (the Dept of Homeland Security - FEMA) doing... genocide???

This is beyond incompetence, this is criminal!


Sample news report from Chicago...

Even before the storm hit the Gulf Coast on Monday, he said, the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications had contacted emergency response agencies in Illinois and Washington.

In the event of a disaster, the city offered to send 44 Chicago Fire Department rescue and medical personnel and their gear, more than 100 Chicago police officers, 140 Streets and Sanitation, 146 Public Health and 8 Human Services workers, and a fleet of vehicles including 29 trucks, two boats and a mobile clinic.

"So far FEMA has requested only one piece of equipment {ndash} a tank truck to support the Illinois Emergency Response Team, which is already down there," Daley said. "The tank truck is on its way. We are awaiting further instructions from FEMA."

Repeat this for EVERY city and Country offering HELP and Support for the People of the Gulf Coast....
What was Mr. Brown thinking??? no wonder he was releieved of his position with the Aquine society. Not fit!

People are now dying for lack of water, medicine, and sanitation in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast. People are waiting to be rescued. The Mississippi is closed to business. East Coast states are now running out of gas, oil, diesel and it will spread. Over a million people are homeless, jobless…. The poverty rate and impact just sky rocketed…

but:

Bush had a photo op buying a new guitar and Condi Rice bought $1000 shoes. The shareholders of Halliburton just made a windfall so they can go shopping too.
After 9/11, Americans were told to "go shopping" ... the patriotic thing to do.
"Let them eat cake" keeps surfacing in my thoughts...followed by "When in the course of human events...."


From the NYT:

Some will prosper. Shares in Halliburton, the oil services company, sold for $8.60 in early 2002, when the oil economy was depressed. Yesterday, they hit $63.44, setting a record for the first time since 1997.

THERE was no mention of conservation when President Bush spoke Wednesday. By yesterday, he was talking of the need to conserve, but only in a general manner.

Perhaps the politicians are paralyzed by memories of the way Jimmy Carter was mocked for wearing a sweater as he urged us to adjust our thermostats during another energy crisis. The 55 miles per hour speed limit somehow seems to be a violation of the fundamental rights of American drivers. Sacrifice speed to help avert soaring prices? Surely you must be kidding.

There are other possible effects of Katrina that could hurt the economy. If the Port of New Orleans cannot get back to full capacity soon, a lot of Midwestern grain may have trouble finding a way to market. Railroad capacity is limited, making it hard to get that grain to other ports.

From Steve Gilliard:

George Bush has failed.

He has failed his office, he has failed the people of New Orleans, who he was elected to serve.

But most of all, he has failed the country.

This is not what Americans expect people to do in Bosnia. If Bosnians had been treated like the citizens of New Orleans, Americans would have been outraged. Wes Clark would have been retired in disgrace. It would have been a national disgrace. Americans would have been shamed to have failed the people of Bonsia so badly.

Yet the American bitter-enders, Goldberg, Limbaugh and Hannity, see no problem with Americans dying in the streets in an American city.

This is a national disgrace, a failure of imagination and leadership as bad as Bull Run. The weakness of Bush and his insanely incompetent leadership is murdering people as slowly and cruelly as the Serbs did. The anguish of the people is painful to watch.

Air drops, Special Forces teams, SEALs with their water craft, the expensive panoply of men we train to a razor's edge, who can save lives as well as take them. If this was Darfur, they would be on the ground, setting up resources, establishing security, preparing for the arrival of infantry units to protect the refugees. Instead, FEMA says help is coming, while people exist without water and food in broiling heat. The imagination which led to the dropping of humanitarian food packages over Afghanistan in yellow packages is missing here.

They bring in the pararescuemen, but a small team, not pulling every available PJ, CCT member and Special Forces team they can grab to begin the process of security. The National Guard wants to handle it. They can't. If they could, people would be getting help. The hospitals would be getting help. Instead, they wait and lie vunerable to the gangs which have always lived in the city.

The buses are taking people from New Orleans to Houston where they can sit overnight only (the stadium is full and the toilets plugged... no portipotties??). But these are the poor refugees...NIMBY is rearing it's ugly head.