Wednesday, July 07, 2004

It's back, bigger and badder!



It's kind of amazing that the Upper Left Scandal Scorecard has grown to 46 entries going into this week. "Why's that?" you might ask. I mean, haven't the Republicans filled every nook and cranny of the government with crooks?

Well, yeah, but...

The Stakeholder, quoting a WaPo op-ed by Congressman Henry Waxman, points out the problem with a pithy quotation from Republican congresscritter Ray LaHood.
"Our party controls the levers of government. We're not about to go out and look beneath a bunch of rocks to try to cause heartburn."
Yep, it's the same old coverup that always seems to come along with Republican power. A prime example is this factoid from the Waxman article.
Compare the following: Republicans in the House took more than 140 hours of testimony to investigate whether the Clinton White House misused its holiday card database but less than five hours of testimony regarding how the Bush administration treated Iraqi detainees.
Imagine how long my list might be if they actually cared about enforcing the legal and ethical standards that they're supposed to supervise and operate under.

That being said, it's update time again and I won't leave you disappointed. I'm kind of delighted today, in fact, because we've got another Republican Congressman on the hook this week, and it's not Tom DeLay (not that I would object to having another item or two on The Hammer, but I hate to let him get all the, ahem, glory).

It is, though, a Texan. Rep. Joe Barton has been caught using his franking privelege to contact voters outside the District he represents, appealing to voters in new areas that he's running in as a result of the DeLay (there's that name again) inspired Congressional redistricting scheme.

Atrios reports
Barton’s present district includes parts of Tarrant, Ellis, Hill, and Johnson counties. However, his newsletter was also sent to voters in the new district who now are represented by Martin Frost, Jim Turner, and Chet Edwards.

The mailing was sent through Barton’s franking privilege available to him as a member of Congress. There is no stamp on the mailpiece, just his signature. Federal law specifically states that "members of Congress may not make any mass mailings outside of the district from which they are elected."
His Democratic opponent in the new District, Morris Meyer, says
"This is a continuing pattern of illegal and unethical behavior on the part of Joe Barton, whether it concerns campaign contributions or the proper conduct of a public official."
We say it's a scandal.

If you're afraid that the crooks in Congress will catch up to the bandits in Bushco, though, relax. The administration didn't let you down this week, either. Unsuprisingly, the most recent malefactor comes from Don Rumsfeld's DoD.

John A. Shaw, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, has been busted for conducting "...unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts," and using the results "...to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients."

In order to make investigative findings that allowed him to push no-bid contracts and other plush deals to his pals, Shaw has misrepresented himself as variously a Pentagon inspector general or a Halliburton employee (which leads one to wonder why a Halliburton employee can go where a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense can't) to gain admission to secure sites and programs to conduct his fraudulent 'investigation.'

It's, you got it, scandalous.

And that's not all! An alert reader notes that I've failed to include the August, 2003 Inspector General's report that revealed a scandal regarding the EPA report on New York City's Post 9/11 air quality.

The report said that, in editing EPA press releases, the White House "added reassuring statements and deleted cautionary statements."

Yep. It's a scandal. Thanks, Lee!

You can find these, and the other 46 entries, on the Upper Left Scandal Scorecard homepage, today, and every day.

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