Impeachment is too good for him. I'm currently leaning toward exile...

{ 9:46 AM }

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A: They're too busy prosecuting Tommy Chong. Q: Why aren't they prosecuting Nancy Victory (FindLaw/AP)?

Federal investigators have concluded President Bush's former telecommunications policy chief committed three ethics violations by allowing industry lobbyists to throw her a party. The Justice Department, however, is declining to prosecute her.

[...]

Ten days after the catered party in her honor in October 2001, Victory urged a policy change benefiting telecommunications companies that helped pay for the catered $3,000 event with 60 to 80 guests at her home in Great Falls, Va.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, released the findings from the IG's probe, which was triggered by stories last January by The Associated Press.

The party's six hosts were from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, Cingular Wireless, SBC Communications, Intelsat Global Service Corp., Motorola Corp. and Victory's former law firm, Wiley, Rein & Fielding.

[...]

By accepting the gift, Victory also violated the ethics standard that requires employees to avoid any actions that create an appearance that they are violating the law, the IG said.

On Oct. 24, 2001, Victory asked the Federal Communications Commission to immediately repeal restrictions that SBC, Cingular Wireless and other major cellular companies had long complained about.

The FCC voted two weeks later to phase out by Jan. 1, 2003, the limits on how much of the spectrum individual carriers could own in a geographic area. The agency had put the limits in place in the early 1990s to promote competition.

So the person in charge of Bush's telecommunications policy has a catered party thrown in her house by six of the industry's biggest lobbyists. Less than two weeks later she is repealing the "restrictions" they don't like and phasing out limits that promote competition.

Shouldn't these conflicts warrant the attention of federal prosecutors?

Not in this administration, which lied when it set high ethical standards for itself. But those promises were made back in a more innocent time, months before Osama bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans and gave Dubya his undeserved and temporary 90 percent approval rating — a confidence, born out of fear, that his administration and its deep ties to various industries interpreted as a license to pillage the US Treasury.

The Nancy Victory violations, those long-vanished ethical standards, and even the continuing existence of Osama bin Laden are forgotten now. Federal prosecutors have opted to spend their time and our resources chasing a 65-year-old bong dealer.

{ 12:11 PM }

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If only all bad CEOs were treated this way, and not just the Democrats (Page Six, link obsolete by now)...

September 24, 2003 -- Sam Waksal is working out, making friends and working as a janitor at the Schuylkill federal prison in Minersville, Pa. — and he's completely miserable, according to a fellow inmate.

"All in all, his days here are very long and sad. The general consensus seems to be that he won't last long here," Robert C. Lawrence, 39, wrote to PAGE SIX last week, the day before he was released.

"There seems to be a deal in the works that he will be cut loose once he turns over the 'correct' information regarding his dear friend Martha Stewart. If not, he will definitely end up being someone's meal ticket or jail bitch," Lawrence said in a neatly typed two-page letter.

Lawrence, convicted in Maryland of credit card fraud, served a 33-month sentence. Waksal is doing seven years for insider trading of shares in his ImClone cancer drug company.

"I thought I would write you this letter just to give you and your concerned readers a bit of inside information on the daily routine of our institution's new celebrity inmate, Mr. Sam Waksal," Lawrence begins.

"He starts out his day by engaging in a rigorous workout planned by his personal trainer/bodyguard... a steroid-head from New Jersey who fancies himself as a Steven Seagal/Sylvester Stallone/Soprano wannabe, complete with ponytail and unbelievable mob stories.

"This is usually followed by a quick shower, and then he makes his way back to the common area where he can be found watching the morning news with two gay guys. One of them happens to be an obnoxious fashion designer from New York who struts around like he is a supermodel or something.

"Some inmates say they have seen the three of them watching old Martha Stewart [TV] episodes... If so, that is just wrong.

"But now comes the best part of Mr. Waksal's day, his job. He works as a housing orderly... a janitor. He mops, sweeps and waxes the floors, and the ultimate degradation... he cleans the toilets. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

"Finally... he spends his time putzing around... 'making nice' if you know what I mean. He can be seen chatting to any number of brutal morons on one subject or another that always seems to leave the listener with a glazed look on his face."

No toilet brush for Ken Lay — not only a free man but a very wealthy one who still manages to fly first class, despite having overseen the bankruptcy of his company and the eradication of his employees' retirement savings while he stuffed his pockets and bought millions in Aspen real estate.

Thanks to bad things for the tip.

{ 9:14 AM }

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$300 billion for busywork. In the absence of a real reason for war, soldiers become accountants (FindLaw):

Before 2nd Lt. Ben Shumaker arrived in Iraq in late April, he expected to be protecting soldiers against chemical and biological weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein's army.

There were no such attacks, so Shumaker and his team were put to work looking for hidden weapons of mass destruction - the primary reason given by the Bush administration for the war in Iraq.

When no such weapons were found, Shumaker, a 23-year-old chemical officer with the 101st Airborne Division, found himself with no mission.

Then he was offered a job he had never imagined - assistant to the division commander's accountant.

"I was supposed to find weapons of mass destruction," said Shumaker, of Clarksville, Tenn. Instead, they made him an accountant, "because I was doing nothing."

With all those mammoth financial interests hovering around the place, it's only logical that an accountant would have more value in post-invasion Iraq than a weapons officer.

Here's a photograph of one reluctant but very expensive accountant, Chemical officer 2nd Lt. Ben Shumaker, with the 101st Airborne Division.

{ 9:35 AM }

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The crony surplus. There's a limitless supply of Texas energy insiders for Iraq (Houston Chronicle):

Houston's Robert E. McKee III, a former ConocoPhillips executive, has been appointed the new senior adviser to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

He will replace Philip J. Carroll, the one-time head of Shell Oil Co. who has overseen the often tumultuous effort to jump-start Iraq's oil sector for less than five months.

His selection as the Bush administration's energy czar in Iraq already is drawing fire from Capitol Hill because of his ties to the prime contractor in the Iraqi oil fields, Houston-based Halliburton Co. He's the chairman of a venture partitioned by the giant Houston oil well service and engineering firm.

[...]

McKee's appointment already is coming under scrutiny because of his role as chairman of Houston-based Enventure Global Technology, an oil-field joint venture owned by Shell and Halliburton.

Halliburton's role in Iraq has been highly controversial, since the Corps of Engineers chose the firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney for the job of repairing Iraq's energy infrastructure without seeking bids from competing companies.

"The administration continues to create the impression that the fox is in charge of the hen house," said Rep. Henry Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a persistent critic of the Halliburton contract.

"Given Mr. McKee's close relationship with Halliburton, he's an odd choice to hold them accountable for the billions of dollars they are charging American taxpayers."

[...]

He retired in April, leaving what had become ConocoPhillips a wealthy man. McKee ranked second in the Houston Chronicle's latest list of 100 highest-paid executives, taking home $26.2 million in total compensation last year.

$26.2 million is chump change. McKee can expect to see a sweet payday, given that the US expects to pay over $20 billion for Iraqi ZIP codes and an atrocity museum.

{ 9:45 AM }

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Conjoined twins: Texas and Iraq. Not even the propagandists can tell them apart (Yahoo News):

U.S. Army hero Jessica Lynch is Canadian, snipers loyal to Saddam Hussein crouch on a roof flanked by the skyscraper that was home to television's J.R. Ewing and the streets of the Iraqi city of Nassiriya are near downtown Dallas.

Welcome to the world of NBC's made-for-television movie "Saving Jessica Lynch" where Iraq meets Texas in the telling of the 20-year-old Army private's ordeal in Iraq.

[...]

When production officials looked at what they quickly needed to do to get the movie on TV in time for its November airing, Texas emerged as the best locale.

To create the illusion of Iraq, several blocks of warehouses in south Dallas were transformed into Nassiriya by spraying sand-color concrete onto buildings destined to be condemned and creating removable facades for other buildings.

[...]

"I felt this movie should be shot on American soil because the film is about an American icon," [Executive Producer Dan] Paulson said.


The American icon is played by Canadian actor Laura Regan, who said it is an honor for her to portray Lynch.

[...]

The Iraqi street scene in Dallas will remain intact after the movie is aired, and some country music stars indicated they may use it for patriotic music videos that celebrate the war.

Texas and not Hollywood is apparently the best place to go for "removable facades."

Here is Dan Paulson's filmography, a list desperately in need of some cynical publicity.

This will be the second fake TV movie dramatization in three months intended to mythologize the Bush administration — i.e., tell new lies about the previous lies.

So Jessica Lynch will be played by a Canadian. French-Canadian?

And what is it about the intimate connection between country music and blind war-support?

{ 9:12 AM }

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