Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

Campaign Corruption 2.0

• So you thought the crash-and-burn of Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham was the end of all the crazy corruption in Washington? Aw. That’s cute.
• Sorry, Chuck. Get ready for Corruption Scandals 2.0.
• According to the Federal Election Commission, there’s a new crime wave coming, with ten brand-spankin’ new campaign embezzlement investigations underway. [Roll Call]
• We’re talking about official campaign money used for some decidedly non-campaign expenses, like “personal country club dues, health club fees, non-campaign-related travel costs.”
• Officials are staying hush-hush about who’s under investigation, but in a phone interview with Roll Call this week, the vice-chair of the FCC elaborated, saying “that half of the agency’s 10 embezzlement cases involve candidate committees, while three involve political action committees and two are political party cases.”
• Hmmmm. Roll Call put two and two together and came up with two probable lawmakers, both of whom were recently audited: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., NY) and former Rep. Richard Pombo (R., CA).
• The Meeks audit found he spent $6,230 of campaign funds on a personal trainer. When busted, his campaign staff argued “that the personal trainer was necessary to alleviate stress brought on by the candidate’s duties.”
• Auditors found that in the Pombo case, his wife paid herself $58,623 out of the campaign coffers, a third of which “appeared…to represent the personal use of campaign funds.”
• We can’t wait to find out the identities of the other eight.

We’ve officially decided to use company funds for a personal trainer. We have stress too, you know.

Hell Or Bootcamp? We Report, You Decide.

• Bootcamps and wilderness programs. They’re supposed to help troubled teens regain a sense of self-esteem while they get back on their feet. Turns out that many of them, though, are doing anything but. (Ed. Note: We’re not talking about some granola-crunching, Outward Bound programs, but rather more intensive regimens designed for reform.) [USA Today]
• The first federal inquiry into these boot camps and wilderness programs was released yesterday. In it, a staggering 1,619 incidents of abuse in 33 states during 2005 are cataloged.
• The study, by the Government Accountability Office, also looked at a sample of 10 deaths since 1990 and found untrained staff, inadequate food or reckless operations were factors. In half of those cases, the teens died of dehydration or heat exhaustion, the GAO says.
• Here’s the problem: There are no federal rules governing residential facilities for children, and some states do not license such programs.
• The GAO’s findings were reported yesterday at a hearing before the House Committee on Education and Labor, whose chairman, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., requested the investigation. “This nightmare has remained an open secret for years,” Miller said in a statement. “Congress must act, and it must act swiftly.” He has sponsored a bill designed to encourage states to enact regulations.
• Think that Congress is overreacting? Read these examples of abuse, and then think again. In 2004, Roberto Reyes, 15, died from complications after a spider bite at Thayer Learning Center in Missouri, which describes itself as “a military based, Christian boarding school.” Once he had become too sick to exercise, Thayer’s staff tied a 20-pound sandbag around his neck.
• Meanwhile, in 2001, Anthony Haynes, 14, died from dehydration at the American Buffalo Soldiers boot camp in Arizona. After being fed a diet that consisted of an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch, and a bowl of beans for dinner, Anthony began vomiting dirt in the 113-degree Arizona heat.

How’s that for reform.

Need To Know Basis: The Newest Contractor Shootings In Iraq

• We have some new answers about the latest shooting of Iraqi civilians by outside security contractors.
• Tuesday morning, two Iraqi women were shot and killed Tuesday by a “heavily armed security firm linked to U.S. government-financed work in Iraq.” [CBS News]
• First things first: It wasn’t Blackwater this time.
• The security group in question was the Unity Resources Group, owned by Australia, headquartered in Dubai and working for a U.S. development firm.
• Unity Resources was in Iraq to guard RTI International, a North Carolina group with $450 million in contracts through the U.S. Agency for International Development. However, USAID charges it was not responsible for providing RTI with security while in Iraq (thus, the outside Australian/Dubai company.)
• The circumstances of the shooting were “remarkably consistent” with the shootings in the Blackwater case. According to eyewitnesses, the Unity guards opened fire on a white Oldsmobile with the two women inside as it approached their convoy in Baghdad.
• The guards say they were defending themselves from what they believed might be a suicide attack. They fired at least 19 rounds into the car. [Herald Sun]
• Coming so soon on the heels of the Blackwater shootings — and the controversy over whether the U.S. would allow Iraq to prosecute or eject the company — this new killing has inflamed tensions between Iraqis and the United States.
• At the funeral for the two women yesterday, Iraqi Rev. Kivork Arshlian called for punishment: “This is a crime against humanity in general and against Iraqis in particular. Many other people were killed in a similar way. We call upon the government to put an end to these killings.”

We miss that campaign for the hearts and minds.

The Inside Scoop On The Wiretapping Debate

The Story

• Before the August Congressional recess, the Bush Administration pressured Congress to hastily pass a vast expansion of Presidential eavesdropping powers. The measure was temporary, and now Bush wants it to be made permanent. [American Progress]
• But it appears Congress may have grown a spine. [Washington Post]
• Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) introduced the RESTORE act which would, in the words of Conyers, “provide the intelligence community with strong tools to track down terrorists” while also protecting civil liberties.
• Here are the checks it places on the power of the executive branch to conduct surveillance: [Think Progress]
• FISA Court: “Restores court oversight of intelligence by requiring that electronic surveillance programs be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court”
• Warrants: “Mandates that FISA warrants be obtained when the administration wants to undertake surveillance of persons in the US”
• Comprehensive Scope: “Ensures FISA is the exclusive means of electronic surveillance and that no modifications can be made without express legal authorization”
• Disclosure: “The bill also requires the Justice Department to reveal the details of all electronic surveillance conducted without court orders since 9/11.”
• The bill also refuses to offer immunity to telephone companies who may have broken the law by turning personal records of customers over to the feds without a warrant.
• Bush has pushed hard for telecom immunity, but has refused to detail exactly what actions were taken. Says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), “To give immunity at this point in time would be a blind immunity — not knowing what, in fact, was done.” [Washington Post]
• Besides, as we reported several weeks ago, “because of its expansive language, if the measure, which was written by the White House in coordination with industry officials, succeeds, it could shield the entire warrantless wiretapping program from judicial review.” [MicCheck]

The Audio

President Bush, on the wiretapping reauthorization

• “It must keep the intelligence gap firmly closed and ensure that protections intended for the American people are not extended to terrorists overseas who are plotting to harm us.”
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• “Keeping this authority, is essential to keeping America safe.”
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• “It must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks.”
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President Bush loves his telecom pals.

U.S. Baghdad Embassy Construction On Hold For Very Bad Things

• Things are going badly in the Green Zone. [Reuters]
• The State Department has delayed indefinitely the construction of the sprawling U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad until First Kuwaiti, the shady contractor in charge of construction, fixes a “punch-list” of problems.
• These aren’t just a few missing light bulbs. A report by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, found “hundreds of violations of fire codes and other regulations and electrical problems.”
• The problems are “so severe and widespread that the inspectors concluded that none of the buildings on the new embassy compound could be approved for occupancy.”
• First Kuwaiti has gone $144 million over budget on the embassy project, and have been implicated in a laundry list of ethics violations including a $13 million kickback scheme in 2003 and egregious overcharging for living container contracts in 2005. [Think Progress]
• What’s worse, Howard J. Krongard, the State Department Investigator General, whose job it is to solve these problems, has spent more time covering them up than getting them solved. [MicCheck]
• A September letter from Waxman says that Krongard, “repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration.” [Washington Post]
• Oh, one more thing, First Kuwaiti has allegedly kidnapped at least 52 Filipino nationals to work as slaves on the embassy compound. That’s right, slaves. [MicCheck] [Think Progress]

Imperialism on the backs of slave labor.

Good News, Bad News

According to new figures by a Chicago-based market research firm, the 2006 sales of Britney Spears’s two perfumes — Fantasy and Curious — totaled $84 million. [Forbes]

Good News: Young Jayden and Sean Preston just might get a college fund after all!

Bad News: At $50 a pop, that’s a whole lotta people who want to smell like the heady combination of Cheetoes, vomit and Newport Lights.

Quote Of The Day

Child: “Mother, mother! Daddy was electrocuted!” Mother: “We have power?”

— Popular Iraqi joke [McClatchy]

Speed Round

AUDIO: NOOSE AT COLUMBIA

The campus rallies against racism when Madonna Constantine, a black professor at Columbia, discovers a noose hung on her office door. Here’s some audio from her speech.

GENOCIDE?

90 years ago massacres in Turkey killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians. Now, the House of Representatives wants to call the actions “genocide,” but President Bush and all eight living Secretaries of State say doing so would alienate a key ally in the War on Terror and could cause Turkey to cut off U.S. access to a vital airbase. [Washington Post]

HOSTAGES

The Taliban frees a German and five Afghans they had captured in exchange for the release of five Taliban prisoners. [NY Times]

SCHOOL TRAGEDY

A disgruntled student opens fire in a Cleveland high school, injuring five, then kills himself. [LA Times]

DE JA STRIKE

UAW workers walk off the job at Chrysler plants after the bargaining deadline passes. [LA Times]

OCTOBER 13

The date Sen. Larry Craig will attend his induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame Association. Inductees were chosen back in March (and hey, you have to admit Craig *is* famous). [Roll Call]

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Rep. Henry “Mustache of Justice” Waxman has held eight hearings on contractor fraud and abuse in Iraq this year in his role as chief of House Oversight. His counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, has held…one. [Roll Call]

THERE OUTTA BE A LAW

“Whereas on September 30,2007, Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre established a National Football League record by throwing his 421st touchdown pass.” – One of the first resolutions passed by the House Of Representatives after returning from their Columbus Day recess. [Washington Post]

44%

Percentage of its trash the city of Seattle now recycles. Next goal: 74% by 2025! [NY Times]

GREAT AMERICAN HERO?

According to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., CA), Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater, is “an American hero just like Ollie North was.” [Think Progress]

FORGET ABOUT THAT WHOLE WAR ON DRUGS THING

The ACLU wants the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency to stop injecting immigrants full of psychotropic before forcing them on planes to be deported. [AP]

WHAT WOULD JESUS EMBEZZLE?

The son of televangelist Oral Roberts is under investigation for skimming a little off the ol’ offering plate, buying $51,000 in clothes, a Mercedes Benz convertible for his wife Lindsey, and 14 home renovations, all courtesy of Oral Roberts University funds. [CNN]

THE OTHER WAR

The Marines want to take control in Afghanistan, leaving Iraq in the hands of the Army. [NY Times]

WE MUST BE DREAMING

According to the AP, the State Department may be phasing out contractors in Iraq. [AP]

25,000

The number of people the U.S. is holding in military prisons in Iraq. [Think Progress]

“A DISASTER FOR OUR COUNTRY”

Former President Carter on Vice President Dick Cheney. [Think Progress]