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GOP Elephants Gone Wild!


First Foley and now Haggard have established the Republican Party platform: family values and teen cock!

{ 11:36 AM }

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Black boxes emit no light. I highly recommend HBO's documentary Hacking Democracy. If the USA survives as a democracy, it will be due in no small part to Bev Harris and blackboxvoting.org.

{ 9:33 AM }

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While Kerry apologized... other things happened in business news (WSJ):

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.''

Do I even need to add that he was a generous Bush contributor?

Also from the business pages: Who's cutting and running from Iraq? Bush's hand-picked crony Riley Bechtel.

{ 1:36 PM }

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Ecology of slime molds. No wonder they don't believe in evolution &mdash they can't rise above their own slime (WSJ):

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.

{ 8:52 AM }

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GOP gets out the noncitizen vote. Look what ten bucks or less will get you in Republican stronghold Orange County, California:

Eleven people who were paid as much as $10 for each voter they registered in a Republican recruiting drive targeting central Orange County were charged with fraud.

Fraudulent voter registration charges were filed this week by prosecutors who said Democrats were unwittingly signed up as Republicans. Central Orange County includes the district represented by Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

There were at least 37 instances in which Democratic, Green Party voters and a noncitizen were registered as Republicans. Each defendant was charged with felony counts of fraudulent completion of registration affidavits.

No charges were filed against the companies or executives hired by the Republican Party to conduct the registration drive.

County GOP chairman Scott Baugh said he got complaints from people who received letters welcoming them to the Republican Party. Registration workers were fired for being too aggressive or submitting faulty paperwork, he said.

County GOP chairman Scott Baugh was last noted here for his loyal assistance to a Republican NAMBLA porn collector.

{ 11:48 AM }

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Send Chevron to Guantanamo. Enemy combatant in the War against the American Taxpayer, Chevron:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — The Interior Department has dropped claims that the Chevron Corporation systematically underpaid the government for natural gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico, a decision that could allow energy companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.

The agency had ordered Chevron to pay $6 million in additional royalties but could have sought tens of millions more had it prevailed. The decision also sets a precedent that could make it easier for oil and gas companies to lower the value of what they pump each year from federal property and thus their payments to the government.

Interior officials said on Friday that they had no choice but to drop their order to Chevron because a department appeals board had ruled against auditors in a separate case.

They "had no choice" but to drop their order.

Funny how their political will dries up when it means confronting Chevron versus interrogating an innocent Pakistani taxi driver whom they want to torture for no good reason.

At least if we tortured Chevron, Condi's ex-playground, we'd get a few hundred million dollars to help us pay for all the renditions and the Abu Ghraibs.

{ 9:11 AM }

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