Today, the administration named Dr. Eric Keroack deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Though it's not a high profile job, the post oversees the nation's family planning program, making sure low-income women get access to birth control.
That might be an odd fit for Keroack. He is medical director of five Boston-area "crisis pregnancy centers" that use ultrasounds to convince women not to have abortions. The centers, called A Woman's Concern, also emphasize abstinence and are participating in a campaign for the "Sanctity of Human Life Month." Keroack is also on the medical advisory council of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. Not surprisingly, his appointment didn't go over well with the family planning crowd. "The appointment of anti-birth control, anti-sex education advocate Dr. Eric Keroack to oversee the nation's family planning program is striking proof that the Bush administration remains dramatically out of step with the nation's priorities," Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards emailed in a statement. According to a spokesperson at the office of population affairs, Keroack is due to start work on Monday.
"Abstinence Clearinghouse" is such a sad, sad phrase.
Racism means a Lott to us. The funny guys at Fark get the headlines right more often than the mainstream media: "Trent Lott selected as Senate Minority Whip, because if there's one thing that Trent Lott likes, it's whipping minorities."
He arrives at the post with a résumé burnished during the administration of Bush's father, whom he served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It is long on analytical and bureaucratic achievement and short on direct policymaking — foreign or domestic — or any military connections. [...]
He finally got the top job in 1991 after President George H.W. Bush tabbed him. The second confirmation process did not go much more easily than the first.
He did manage to gain approval, albeit while receiving the most nay votes of any intelligence-director nominee. He was criticized in testimony for "politicizing" his intelligence analysis to fit his hard-line, anti-Soviet feelings or prevailing White House attitudes...
Politicizing intelligence analysis? Is this guy related to Cheney too?
Former CA Inc. Chief Executive Sanjay Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $8 million Thursday for his role artificially boosting financial results at the software maker. [...]
Prosecutor Eric Komitee said Mr. Kumar deserved severe punishment as the architect of an elaborate coverup that was "the most brazen in the modern era of corporate crime.''
On a lavish, weeklong Caribbean cruise last year, software entrepreneur Warren Trepp wined and dined friends and business partners aboard the 560-foot Seven Seas Navigator.
Among Mr. Trepp's guests on the cruise ship: Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada and his family. The two men have enjoyed a long friendship that has been good for both. Mr. Trepp has been a big contributor to Mr. Gibbons's campaigns, and the congressman has used his clout to intervene on behalf of Mr. Trepp's company, according to congressional records, court documents and interviews. The tiny Reno, Nev., company, eTreppid Technologies, has won millions of dollars in classified federal software contracts from the Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Central Intelligence Agency.
At a time of rising concern over lawmakers who direct or "earmark" federal spending to their supporters and business partners, a growing part of the budget is shielded from scrutiny. This is the "black budget," mostly for defense and intelligence, which is disclosed only in the vaguest terms. The ties between Mr. Trepp and Mr. Gibbons raise questions about an influential politician in America's fastest-growing state, and also offer a rare glimpse of contracts in this secret budget being awarded to a politically connected businessman without competitive bidding.
Mr. Gibbons, a 61-year-old Republican, has been elected to five terms in the House and has served on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees. A former combat pilot and decorated Vietnam veteran, he is stepping down at the end of this term and is running for governor of Nevada in next week's election. His wife, Dawn, ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for the House seat being vacated by her husband.
Mr. Gibbons is in a tight and bitterly fought race. He held a double-digit lead until two weeks ago, when a cocktail waitress said he accosted her after a night of drinking. Mr. Gibbons has forcefully denied the claim, which is unproven, but details of the case have been page-one news in Nevada, and his lead slipped to six points in a weekend poll.
Mr. Trepp, 56, is known on Wall Street as the one-time chief trader for Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert, which collapsed in 1990 following a criminal investigation of junk-bond abuses.
Because this is front-page news in the most conservative of financial newspapers, the tide is indeed turning.
If only its ostrich-headed editorial board would read its own newspaper, maybe the finger-waggers of the Wall Street Journal would learn something.
