We've written about Seth Glickenhaus, a billion-dollar investment manager with an exceptionally poor opinion of Bush fiscal policy, before. A sample of his lengthy remarks: "Bush has no fiscal sense whatsoever and is radical in his approach. The Republicans live solely to make the rich richer. [...] I am not a pacifist, and I want us to be strong, but we could easily save $200 billion a year by rationalizing the Pentagon and still be far and away the strongest nation in the world."
Other groups that have benefited from Education Department grants include K12, a for-profit company founded by Reagan administration education secretary William J. Bennett to promote home schooling....
What sense does it make to give government grants to a for-profit company promoting home schooling founded by a moralizing blowhard gambler?
Bush shoots quail. His father, also shooting quail, had previously named it vice president.
Bush spent the morning hunting quail with his father, former President Bush, members of his staff and Nancy Brown Negley, the daughter and heir of George S. Brown, the founder of the Brown & Root Construction Co.
A-hunting we will go — with a Halliburton heir! The whole cabal is shooting quail together!
Cashing in stock options before the market crashed, presidential brother Neil Bush made at least $171,370 in a single day by buying and selling shares in a small U.S. high-tech firm where he had previously been a consultant, according to tax returns that give a glimpse into his business dealings.
The July 19, 1999 purchase and quick sale of stock from Kopin Corp. of Taunton, Mass., came on a day that the company received good news about a new Asian client that sent its stock value soaring.
"My timing on this transaction was very fortunate," Bush told The Associated Press.
Bush's profit was a slice of at least $798,218 that the president's younger brother reported on his tax returns from three transactions involving Kopin's stock.
AP obtained his tax returns for the years 1997 through 2001 from a source familiar with his finances.
Those returns, as well as records that have come to light in Bush's divorce case, show that since his controversial tenure with the failed Colorado savings and loan Silverado more than a decade ago, he has become a globe-trotting businessman with a variety of consulting deals.
For instance, a Chinese firm, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. of Shanghai, offered to pay Bush $2 million in stock for his consulting services, but Bush told AP he has "not received one penny of compensation" because he never did the consulting.
Bush's tax returns also show $357,000 in income from his company, Ignite!, which is developing interactive, multimedia lessons for students.
[...]
Bush's big paydays stem from his role in 1995 as the intermediary who helped broker a deal that got an Asian company, Telecom Holdings, to invest $27 million in Kopin.
"Neil helped put together an approximately $27 million dollar deal and was awarded stock options for his efforts. Stock options can range from anywhere to being utterly worthless to very valuable," Bush lawyer John Spalding said. "A realtor in a similar deal would have made three times as much money and it would have been paid at closing. Neil eventually made around $500,000 in compensation for his work that was not guaranteed."
After the 1995 deal, Kopin snapped Bush up as a consultant for two years "to see what other doors he could open up for us" in Asia, according to Kopin chief financial officer Richard Sneider.
"Neil Bush was a matchmaker and he was given stock options in Kopin as part of his compensation," Sneider explained. "Our executives were pleased with his hard work on the Asian investment."
Funny how Martha Stewart, whose insider stock deal netted her $228,000, may go to jail while Neilsie, who netted more than three times as much from his insider status, gets Asian prostitutes and a new fiancee, Maria Andrews.
Note to Sharon Bush: It's time to start talking to publishers again. Your story is worth far more than a house and some child support. Think of yourself and the kids Neil abandoned. You could make a lot more cash with a tell-all book on the innermost workings of the Bush dynasty than Barbara and H.W. are willing to give you. Compare Michael Moore's, Al Franken's and Hillary Clinton's hardback sales to Lynne Cheney's or David Frum's and you'll see what I mean.
Here's a recent and extensive WaPo overview of Neilsie's checkered past entitled "The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush." "He has real pluck about him," says Thomas "Lud" Ashley, an ex-congressman and bank lobbyist, and family friend.
It's important to note that the Justice Department will still be in charge of the investigation. The lead prosecutor will be U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago. He will report to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
No reason was given for Ashcroft's recusal--only that it is to avoid the appearance of impropriety. While Comey promises a full and independent investigation, we'll hold off on the celebration until we see if that indeed is what we get.
We think the investigators already know who the culprit is. It may be someone who is close to Ashcroft. A cynic would say that by having Ashcroft recuse himself, the Administration can try and claim he had nothing to do with any future determination not to bring criminal charges against the official on the grounds that the Justice Department doesn't believe it can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, which of the White House officials are Ashcroft buddies?
And, because the compromised DoJ is in charge of the investigation, will we ever find out?
For nearly 21 months, a government task force steadily moved toward recommending rules that within three years would force every coal-fired power plant in the country to reduce emissions of mercury, which can cause neurological and developmental damage to humans.
The Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored working group had a well-regarded mix of utility industry representatives, state air quality officials and environmentalists. Without settling on specific emission reductions, the panel agreed that all 1,100 of the nation's coal- and oil-fired power plants must use the "maximum achievable control technology" (MACT) to reduce mercury and other hazardous pollutants.
But in April, the EPA abruptly dismantled the panel. John A. Paul, its co-chairman, said members were given no clue why their work was halted -- that is, until late last month, when the Bush administration revealed it was taking an entirely different approach, using a more flexible portion of the Clean Air Act.
[...]
...critics accuse the White House and its allies in the utility industry of subverting a process involving one of the most toxic chemicals known, which once airborne can pollute rivers, lakes and oceans and penetrate the food chain. John Stanton of the National Environmental Trust, a member of the working group, said the administration's decision marks "really a fundamental shift in the recognition of the threat posed by mercury to the very most susceptible," including the fetuses of pregnant women who eat mercury-tainted fish.
[...]
"This is a case of politics polluting science," Stanton said.
Some critics blamed White House political adviser Karl Rove, Office of Management and Budget regulatory experts or Vice President Cheney's office for dictating the new policy. In fact, the regulatory turnabout was engineered by Jeffrey R. Holmstead, the EPA's senior air quality official and a former industry lawyer, who is little known outside a circle of government regulators and utility industry executives.
Holmstead had been a scholar with a libertarian group that advocated market solutions to environmental problems and a partner at the Washington law firm Latham & Watkins, which has represented electric power companies and other industries before Congress. He was associate counsel to President George H.W. Bush, with primary focus on environmental issues.
Back in July, candidate John Edwards called for Holmstead to resign, citing him as "an extreme example of this administration's problem with telling the truth when it conflicts with its political agenda."
Like father, like son — the Bushes are awash in special interests that discount the value of Americans' lives. In contrast to the lubricious ass-kissing they offer the anti-abortion zealots, administration environmental policy is essentially "Republicans against fetuses and pregnant women," and their idea of family values includes only the Bush family itself.
Having failed to apply "lessons learned" from previous U.S. military operations, the U.S. Department of Defense can't account for $1.2 billion of materials related to the Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to a government audit.
The report found "substantial logistics support problems," according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. "Frustrated" reads a sign in a photo from one of a series of distribution centers in Kuwait, Bahrain and Germany, where military materials languished as operations personnel in Iraq did without intended supplies.
The missing $1.2 billion in materials is the discrepancy between what the military knows it sent out, and what auditors have been able to locate in the field. The materials could anything from consumables like food to weapons parts, said William Solis, GAO's director for defense capabilities and management.
"The actual military operation was deemed a success, but the logistics effort was less than perfect," Solis said. The logistics problems, he added, "could have impaired readiness."
Pentagon representatives, in oral comments to GAO, "generally concurred" with the findings and pointed to a series of corrective actions already taken, according to the GAO. The steps included designating a defense logistics executive and streamlining the distribution process. Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood confirmed the Pentagon had implemented the policy changes, but was unfamiliar with the GAO report.
The Dec. 18 report, which covers [only] approximately $19.1 billion in government spending, pointed to an inadequate tagging system where items either weren't tagged or were undeliverable because the tag fell off.
The probe, compiled in response to a request from Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., chairman of a defense appropriations subcommittee, is the result of preliminary work on a full report expected in 2004.
Solis couldn't quantify a total as to the financial value of the boxes, crates and electrical equipment still sitting in storage, but said the materials took up a lot of space.
"It's acres," Solis said. "I forget how many. I know it's more than several football fields."
"Impaired readiness" equals "lives lost to administrative fuckups."
Body armor, food and weapons go missing, but there's always a fake turkey available in Baghdad for a presidential photo op.
Who knows the harm done to our soldiers and reservists without the right supplies? It's anyone's guess how many of the 489 soldiers (so far) died because "the tag fell off."
Normal people don't need the bother of the AFA's moralizing hypocrisy. We're busy trying to live our lives — without the intrusions of abnormal zealots, and without intruding into other adults' pursuit of happiness. Live and let live, period.
