“The White House has said that Jack Abramoff had very little contact with the President’s staff and that it wanted all the relevant facts to be public. The 600 pages of documents it is withholding are directly relevant and should be produced.” Remember Casino Jack? Henry Waxman does, and has asked the White House to produce 600 pages of information previously withheld from the House investigation into Abramoff’s activities. (And this time, the White House might actualy play ball. Given an out by Waxman — that the information might be shown only to committee staff rather than going public — White House Counsel Fred Fielding pounced, “saying he was ‘pleased that such a concept is proposed in your letter’ and pledging to ‘seek to accommodate our respective interests in the documents we have withheld.’“)
Category: Campaign Finance
Judges for sale…
“‘The reputation of the American judiciary is in the hands of the state courts,’ Breyer said. The rising demands on judges to raise money for their expensive campaigns — plus the spending of outside groups — could lead to the impression that the courthouse door ‘is open to some rather than the door is open to all.‘” Having managed to corrupt thoroughly our other two branches of government, unchecked torrents of campaign cash now work to undermine elected judgeships. “The spending increases in large part reflect a decision by business groups to get involved in the contests. The National Association of Manufacturers announced in 2005 that it was establishing the American Justice Partnership to promote tort reform in the states, and the resulting battles between trial lawyers and business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce have led to some of the most expensive campaign battles.”
…and the Dems, Bought and Paid For.
“The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earn more than 21 percent of all income. That’s a postwar record. The bottom 50 percent of all Americans, when all their wages are combined, earn just 12.8 percent of the nation’s income…If the Democrats stand for anything, it’s a fair allocation of the responsibility for paying the costs of maintaining this nation. So far, neither the Democratic candidates for president nor the Senate Democrats have shown much eagerness to advocate this fundamental principle. It seems the rich have bought them out.” Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich laments the cooptation of the Democrats by the super-rich. “It turns out that Democrats are getting more campaign contributions these days from hedge-fund and private-equity partners than Republicans are getting. In the run-up to the 2006 election, donations from hedge-fund employees were running better than 2-to-1 Democratic. The party doesn’t want to bite the hands that feed.“
Nothin’ could be finer than a Colbert Carolina.
“After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call.” Finally, the candidate we’ve all been waiting for…Charleston’s own Stephen Colbert announces he’s running for president in South Carolina, and South Carolina only, on both the Democratic and Republican tickets. (Sadly, Aragorn can’t vote in the Palmetto State.) In The Atlantic, Joshua Green handicaps his chances. “I can’t point to anything other than truthiness, but I believe the ‘drunken college student’ demographic is being overlooked. Anecdotal evidence lends support. ‘I’m surprised how many students seem to get their news from Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert,’ Blease admitted. ‘In the grand tradition of student mischief, you could see Colbert having a pied-piper effect.’” Update: But is he breaking the law?
Dont give me that do goody good bulls**t.
Score another one for legalized corruption (and lament anew what passes for Democratic leadership these days): Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells private-equity firms they don’t need to fear a tax hike this year. “[P]rivate-equity firms — whose multibillion-dollar deals have created a class of superwealthy investors and taken some of America’s large corporations private — hired dozens of lobbyists, stepped up campaign contributions and lined up business allies to wage an unusually conspicuous lobbying blitz [against a tax hike]…Several prominent lawmakers expressed surprise to find that the managers’ profits, known as carried interest, were taxed as capital gains, for which the rate is usually 15 percent. That is less than half the 35 percent top rate paid on regular income.“
Dolla Dolla Hil, Y’all.
Well, if the family business issue is bothering primary voters, it’s not being reflected in the funding tallies. In the third leg of the all-important money primary, Hillary Clinton comes out tops in 3rd quarter fundraising with $27 million raised, with Obama clocking in at $20 million and Edwards — who’s announced he’ll accept public financing — coming in third at $7 million. “Overall, Sen. Barack Obama has raised slightly more than Clinton for the primary, and the two look to be fairly evenly matched financially as they head into the final stretch before the first electoral contests in January.” And, whoever your primary candidate is, the real silver lining here is that Dems overall have raised twice as much as the GOP. “‘This just shows the difficult political climate that Republicans are facing,’ said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. ‘The bright side is that next spring, the Republicans will have plenty of money to give the candidate who goes up against Hillary Clinton.’” We’ll see.
Turning a Deaf Earmark.
“They are trying to change the whole vernacular so that earmarks aren’t earmarks anymore,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.” (Or, put another way, “When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.“) Under the current Congress, it seems, “earmarks” have now become “congressionally directed spending” but, alas for real reform, the intent — to get pet projects into the public agenda by roundabout means — continues. “Members of Congress are now resorting to less obvious tactics that allow them to get money to favored beneficiaries without acknowledging support for what others consider to be earmarks…Government watchdog groups and a few dissident lawmakers have noticed these sleights of hand and have begun to complain. They say the approach deceives the public about how many special spending projects are being handed out, noting that lawmakers’ contacts with agencies usually are conducted out of public view.”
Cronyism > Competition.
Where does the GOP’s commitment to free market fundamentalism reach its limit? Where there’s money to be made, of course. The Post looks into the rise of no-bid contracts under Dubya. “A recent congressional report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without ‘full and open’ competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with a $60 billion increase last year alone.”
McNulty, Bunk, Freamon…Heaton.
It played its part against the Barksdale operation in Baltimore. Now it seems an undercover wire may have helped bring down GOP rep and Abramoff flunky Bob Ney. “‘Heaton’s substantial assistance in the investigation and prosecution of Ney was critical to Ney’s decision to admit his involvement in the corrupt relationship with Abramoff,’ Butler wrote. ‘The tapes made by Heaton captured important circumstantial evidence that statements Ney had made to others about matters material to the investigation were false or intentionally misleading.’“
Reform: The Next Step.
“So many concerns raised by the Abramoff scandals were enforcement issues. There is no change to that here.” Heartened by the comprehensive ethics bill passed by the House last week, observers nevertheless argue that more stringent enforcement mechanisms are needed to make congressional reform real. “Government watchdogs and ethics lawyers generally agree that the bill would shed new light on the Washington influence game but wonder how those who don’t play ball would be found and punished. Without an effective bureaucracy for managing the flow of new disclosures provided by the law, they say, the legislation won’t mean much.“