FBI FUBAR. The Washington Post takes an in-depth look at the FBI's total technological failure, courtesy of throwing $170 million at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). But the article comes up short on the decision-making process that was responsible for the selection of SAIC in the first place.

For the context behind the decision, you have to go to ThinkProgress:

The Players:
Adm. William Owens, former SAIC president and CEO, became an influential member of Sec. Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board

Christopher Henry, former senior vice president at SAIC, became a key aide to Douglas Feith, who was in charge of supervising contract work done by SAIC in Iraq.

Gen. Wayne Downing, SAIC board member, became the chief counterterrorism expert at the National Security Council. Also a lobbyist for disgraced Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, he was a vocal advocate for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Follow the Money:
In the last election cycle, SAIC’s PAC gave $45,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee alone.

In other words, routine Republican cronyist incompetence.

I find it difficult to believe Google couldn't have solved the FBI's information-retrieval problem in six months.

{ 11:36 AM }

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The Barbra Streisand tax. So who do you think will end up paying more taxes, an Oscar presenter with $100,000 worth of coupons for eye surgery, or with $1.8 billion in gross profits all of Enron in the five richest years of its history?

Clue: it ain't Enron.

{ 9:59 AM }

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Airheads. Every fifteen minutes another unbelievably loud and close fighter jet zooms over my desk.

That's because it's time for the Chicago Air & Water Show, an expensive and idiotic display of something whose purpose I fail to understand.

Of course I do understand that these types of shows are actually displays of air power, but that makes them even more sickening under the circumstances. What kind of role did air defense play in 9/11? A failing role. Did the "Shock and Awe" of American air power do much of either, three years after the fact? The Iraqi insurgency seems neither shocked nor awed. When does the bragging stop and the achieving begin?

Speaking of shockingly awful, since 9/11 it is difficult to witness these jets flying in such close proximity to North America's tallest buildings — all in the name of "entertainment." Tons of steel flying at hundreds of miles per hour next to the nation's highest skyscrapers. What could go wrong?

And the cost... Body armor, nope. Veterans, nope. Airport security, nope. Given this administration's reckless tendency to fund a bizarro universe instead of the one in which we live, how do we know the budget for altimeters and gyroscopes wasn't slashed, sending these jets headlong into a bunch of highrise condominium buildings? It's no longer inconceivable that routine aviation threatens cities.

So much risk for so little return. Wherever he has been for the last five long years, Osama is grinning.

{ 3:38 PM }

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Let's tax Jesus. Enough hiding behind religion — it's time to tax any church with a partisan affiliation (WaPo):

Conservative Christian radio host James C. Dobson's national organization, Focus on the Family, said yesterday that it will work with affiliated groups in eight battleground states to mobilize evangelical voters in the November elections.

In targeting individual churches the way political organizers traditionally pinpointed certain wards, Focus on the Family is filling a void left by the near-collapse of the Christian Coalition and stepping into an area where recent Republican Party efforts have created resentment among evangelicals. [...]

During the 1990s, the Christian Coalition distributed millions of voter guides through churches and played a major role in mobilizing evangelicals. After the Christian Coalition suffered financial and management problems, the Republican Party directly organized conservative Christian congregations in key states in the 2004 presidential race.

When memos leaked about the Bush-Cheney campaign's effort to collect church membership directories, however, the GOP came under sharp criticism from some evangelical leaders. Neither the Federal Election Commission nor the Internal Revenue Service charged Republican officials with any violation, and the GOP never backed away from the tactic. But political strategists came to view church-based organizing as both effective and controversial. [...]


The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, charged that "Dobson's drive to build a church-based political machine will jeopardize the tax exemption of participating congregations."

If only.

{ 10:00 AM }

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Meet a Lieberman supporter. They can't run away fast enough (WSJ):

Comverse Technology Inc.'s former chief executive is regarded as a fugitive by the U.S. government, which last week charged him with conspiracy related to backdated stock options, his attorney said.

Robert Morvillo, a high-profile criminal-defense lawyer who is representing Kobi Alexander, Comverse's former CEO, said he last spoke to his client about two weeks ago. At that point, Mr. Morvillo said, Mr. Alexander was in Israel. He said he has no idea of his client's whereabouts.

During the last two weeks of July, the federal government charges, Mr. Alexander transferred more than $57 million from the U.S. to accounts in Israel "to conceal the funds from U.S. authorities."

CEO criminal Kobi Alexander contributed to that Connecticut elephant in donkey clothing, Joe Lieberman.

I guess despite years of documenting white-collar crime, this post officially makes me anti-Semitic.

{ 7:30 AM }

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