Next, it'll be Ralph Reed trying to reanimate his corrupt political corpse by nominating himself as a leader of a "younger, hipper" conservative Christian movement - oh, wait! It'll be interesting if anyone falls for his schtick. Last time we heard from him, he was rallying the faithful to stir up anti-gambling sentiment at Jack Abramoff's behest.
I guess some folks never change.
Speaking of which, wouldn't it be nice if Congress had been all hot to investigate Cheney for the myriad, other law-breakin' schemes he's suspected of participating in? Why not investigate his role in US torture policy, say?
Reminds me of how they sat on their hands when it was revealed the government was tapping Americans' phones and tracking our Internet behavior, but when the FBI searched William Jefferson's office - after finding a garbage bag full of cash in his freezer - they went ballistic.
No, this is not a story about someone getting younger. This is a story about a curious state senator who lives high on the taxpayer hog, yet makes false, unfounded, unsubstantiated claims.
What is so curious is that taxpayer funded Sen. Jim Peterson is posting false claims on the republican legislator blog about state employees.
Facts can be a curious thing to someone who is a state employee and one of the highest paid state employees in Montana at that. Montana State University paid Sen. Jim Peterson around $120,000 per year to sit on his farm in Buffalo with no known job duties, no grant application, or any research reports on record. That is more per year than the any state official I know, including the Governor.
Besides the obvious conflict of interest of a MSU Ag. Department employee on sabbatical passing a $1,000,000 amendment to increase funding for MSU Ag. Extension Services as a member of the Appropriations Joint Subcommittee on Education. Sen. Jim Peterson only told the other members that he was no longer receiving payment from the MSU Ag. Department during his 4 months of legislative duty minutes before pushing through the $1,000,000 expansion.
During the 2005 Legislative Session then House Member Jim Peterson and his colleagues passed SB 146 to transfer every Public Defender in Montana from being county employees to the state. The bill received the vote and full support of Peterson.
So, the average annual increase of state employees under the Martz Administration was 1.2% per year, curiously enough the exact same percentage, 1.2%, as Schweitzer. It was the legislatively mandated transfer of the Public Defenders office to the State of Montana that boosted numbers close to what Peterson claims.
For someone who is feeding from the taxpayer trough and culpable to any expansion of government, Sen. Peterson should not be so curiously lose with the numbers and should be accountable to the people of Montana for his own $120,000 taxpayer generated pay check.
What you knew: Ted Stevens, indicted! Jerk! Tainted his good family name!
What you didn't know: Stevens had a PAC - Northern Lights PAC - that donated heavily to Republican lawmakers. That PAC was stuffed by VECO executives, the same folks accused of giving illicit donations to Stevens.
Basically, Stevens' cronies were funding campaigns of prominent politicians.
Many of 'em started giving the money away. Exceptions abound, including Stevens' Democratic pal, Daniel Inouye, who's keeping his thirteen grand.
What you're guessing: Dennis Rehberg took ,000 from Northern Lights PAC, and has yet to give the tainted cash away. Oh, I'm sure he will, especially after the news spreads that he's on the VECO teat, just like a whole lot of other GOPers. He'll do the right thing, I'm sure.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and one of the chamber's most powerful members, was indicted Tuesday in Washington for failing to disclose more than $250,000 worth of gifts that he received from businessmen who were seeking his help on federal issues and projects.
The Alaska delegation is particularly challenged by ethics. Laura McGann has a quick recap of what our northern neighbors' representatives have been up to.
Matt Stoller on why Senate Democrats defense of Stevens irks him:
The Senate is a damn club. I'm not saying these are bad people, though some of them are, just that they are part of a rotten system that compels them to make immoral choices. They deserve criticism for it, they are the MOST empowered parts of society. The sooner we learn this the sooner we can start to fix it, but if you keep denying that these people are part of a corroded system it won't get better. We're supposed to be smart activists, not blind obedient morons following elitist DC Democrats off a cliff.
The latest corruption news comes out of Detroit - its mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was charged for perjury for lying about an affair with a top aide in an investigation over whether Kilpatrick used city security to cover up the affair.
Here's the thing, party affiliation is largely irrelevant in this case. Why? A couple of reasons.
If, say, Kilpatrick's party was well known for touting "character" as a prerequisite for office, claiming that it was the party of personal responsibility and morality, well, that'd be a story! Or if the politician involved touted, say, "family values" and voted against gay rights at every step, then was caught trolling for blow jobs in a public bathroom, well, party affiliation would matter!
Or, say, the corruption in the case were part of a larger pattern that connected to the poltician's party affiliation, well, then affiliation is relevant. Say, oh, I don't know, the party spun off a lobbyist who put relatives of politicians in key positions at industries across the country, demanded that those industries give money only to his party, bribed politicians and their staffers (luxury trips, say?), to enact legislation on behalf of "loyal" clients, well, that would be a story!
Just as revelations that Rudy Giuliani, while mayor of NYC, used taxpayer money to provide security for his trips to Long Island weren't about the political party he belonged to - that particular brand of corruption belonged to Giuliani, not his party - so, too, is Kilpatrick's brand of ethics solely his.
To make hay of that - well, it's a long-standing conservative strategy to attack where you, yourself, are weak. I'll just leave it at that.
The Justice Department has apparently concluded its investigation of Conrad Burns, according to Burns' lawyer Ralph Caccia. Naturally Burns and his lawyer are crowing that "justice" has been served, and he's been completely exonerated. Naturally Burns blames everybody else for his woes, calling accusations of his corruption "baseless and politically motivated," rued this "era of 'political character assassination,'" etc. & co.
I'm sure a lot of folks on the right are going to be crying foul and blaming the "liberal" media and bloggers for "smearing" Burns' character, but the truth of the matter is that Burns' activities look, smell, and feel grossly corrupt. Did the DoJ find evidence to pursue charges against Burns? Maybe not. But is there enough circumstandial evidence out there to make the electorate wonder if Burns was fit for his Senate office? Absolutely.
Burns and his pal Leo Giocometto are hardly choir boys. In fact, I'd welcome any attempt by the state GOP or rightie bloggers to argue otherwise. I'd get in that debate any day of the week.
The truth is simple. Burns was in deep with the corrupt DC system, and his ouster from his Senate seat was a good thing, both for Montana and the country. Good riddance.
Sure the US is the most powerful nation in the world. Sure we started a cr*p war and threaten to drag the world down with us. Sure our politicians are generally deceitful little hamsters who talk out of both sides of their mouths, and seem to represent a mysterious cabal - at least that's based on the votes they make. So it's easy to forget other countries exist that have similar problems as ours.
Take England, for example. I stumbled onto this site -- The Public Whip. It's a grassroots organization helping bring transparency to its government by recording the votes of members of Parliament and how often each representative votes with or against her party. At least...I think that's what it does. D*mned if I know exactly what's going on here. Check out the Help/FAQ page for your own interpretation. But based on what I can glean from the site, parliamentary representatives' votes are not too well recorded...or something.
Anyhow, it's worth a bit of exploring on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Who knows? It might even serve as inspiration for a similar effort here on this side of the pond.
The Washington Post has an intense article on the extent to which Karl Rove worked to redirect the full machinery of the federal government to help advance GOP electoral goals. This stuff isn't rare, but Rove's actions were unprecedented in their scope.
It's good he's leaving. Maybe the federal government can finally focus on, I don't know, governing.
I suppose I've got to offer up some comment on Karl Rove's impending resignation, but to be honest I'm not really sure what it means. It'll be fascinating to see the changes in the White House because of it - hopefully the sane faction will win out and the administration will work to reverse its politicization of the government, especially the Justice Department. (Does this foreshadow an Alberto Gonzalez resignation?)
In the meantime, here are some thoughts from others.
No, Rove's legacy has nothing to do with his so-called strategic brilliance. His significance has everything to do with his cutthroat, win-at-all-cost style. Rove believes the political rule that there are no rules. Laws are meant to be broken. Scandals are meant to be covered up. Enemies are meant to be destroyed. The key to electoral success is to tear the country in half and see who comes out with the bigger chunk.
Moreover, Rove helped usher in an unprecedented approach to executive-branch governing - one in which the line between policy and politics no longer exists. Every agency, every official, every decision was a political opportunity to be exploited, laws and ethics be damned.
I'll hasten to add that no doubt other political operatives would have liked to do the same in previous eras, but they were stopped - not by self-restraint - but by a strong opposition and media scrutiny. Rove's "brilliance" - if it was not just an accident of history - was to recognize that today's profit-driven media is afraid to challenge authority, and the Democratic party was overly afraid for its image, a combination that allowed Rove and the White House to abuse its powers repeatedly with little outcry.
Josh Marshall reacts to Rove's claim that he's not leaving in the shadow of Congressional investigations by reminding us, "the innocent explanation is never right with these guys," and notes that "Rove is connected to pretty much every instance of high-level wrongdoing." There are plenty of reasons for Rove's departure; few are innocent.
In fact, The Next Hurrah's Marcy compiles a list of these possible reasons that seems eminently reasonable. Let's not forget that some of Rove's pet projects were unpopular among conservatives - like immigration reform - or that he failed spectacularly on projects that were dear to conservatives - like Social Security reform or the 2006 election. No doubt he's been dropped by a party that's ready to move on from the disastrous Bush administration; an unpleasant circumstance when you're being investigated by multiple Congressional committees and possibly the DoJ.
But, as someone quipped in the wake of the resignation, "now everything he does is off the record."
The Billings Gazette today praised Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg for posting their schedules online, but, like us, noticed one glaring absence from the list:
Max Baucus ought to join this bold minority movement in telling his employers (that's all of us Montanans) what he's doing in the job we're paying him to do. With Baucus disclosing his daily meetings, Montana would have the distinction of having the first entire delegation sharing this information publicly.
As chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, Baucus is busier than when he was merely the ranking member. All the more reason to have his staff put his schedule on line.
Then you'll want to make sure that you go to The Naked Truth: Political Corruption -- an Indecent Exposure of Big $$ in Politics.
We've got David Sirota, the strategist, author, and soon-to-be ex-Montanan; David Donnelly, clean elections and corruption guru from Public Campaign Action Fund; and Rep. Diane Sands, who has fought harder for clean elections than anyone else in Montana.
We've got drink specials and we've got free pizza from Biga Pizza -- the best damn pizza in town.
Doors open at 6. The exposure begins at 7.
It's all happening at The Badlander - 208 Ryman.
Also, Shakespeare & Co. will be on hand tonight -- selling the just released paperback version of Sirota's Hostile Takeover, an eye-opening read into the state of big money in politics. Forward Montana gets a bit of the proceeds, so don't just come to the event, but 10 books while you're there. They make great Father's Day gifts.
John Adams previews next week's Naked Truth: Political Corruption -- Forward Montana's Indecent Exposure of Big $$ in Politics.
Jon Tester discusses energy issues in Billings, including the cost of diesel on his own farm. Ignorant commenters claim drilling ANWR will solve the whole problem of imports. Try again, folks. ANWR, if it yielded anything close to our guesses, would take years to develop and could only give us about a year's worth of petroleum without imports -- nothing close to self-sufficiency.
Jon Tester did us proud yesterdayand showed why many of us thought that he's made for this stuff.
He started out the hearings on "The Conditions of the Commonwealth of the North Marianas Islands" by saying "I've got gobs of questions" and he sure did. http://energy.senate...
Watch the Webcast. John comes on about half way through and zeros right in on "drug smuggling" and meth and organized crime.
