The The Carpetbagger Report notes that the GOP has scored what I like to call a sleaze hatrick:
The Republican White House is under a criminal investigation.
The Republican House leader is under a criminal investigation.
And as of this week, the Republican Senate leader is under a criminal investigation.
Connect these dots:
1) FEMA does a bad job, so let’s reward it. Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall:
Fully $50 billion of those recovery and reconstruction funds passed by Congress today are going to FEMA. FEMA is going to administer those funds. That is just friggin’ crazy.
Even if FEMA were still a model government agency, as it was by most accounts in the 1990s, this would still be a really, really bad decision. As the title says, FEMA is an emergency management agency, not a reconstruction agency. It doesn’t have the organizational structure or competence to run the economy of a significant chunk of the United States for the foreseeable future, which is what this amounts to.
The fact that FEMA is stuffed with GOP cronies, and has functioned as a patronage piggy bank for the last few years, may not be irrelevant here either.
2) And then there’s this: in the ultimate in arrogance and destruction of democracy, the GOP allowed only 40 minutes “debate” in the House — and no amendments. It’s unclear if the Democrats were even allowed to see the text of the bill in advance of the vote; Raw Story says that as of yesterday at least, “Democrats said no one had even seen a copy of the legislation.”
Thus, I disagree with Daily Kos’s claim that a vote against this bill was necessarily “horrible”. Depending on the reason it may have been real patriotism. In a way it’s a pity that our representatives are so cowed that they more of them didn’t vote against it just to slow things down for a day or two until more bugs (and invitations to massive waste) could have been removed.
It’s going to sweep the country.
And because of stories like this one about helicopters, and this one about bleeding disaster preparation funds to pay for the Iraq war, and this one about cronyism and stupidity at FEMA.
Even Bush’s supporters are going to fear he has lost the mandate of heaven.
And if the gas supply goes wonky….
OK. Imagine a place where the ruler and key staff members are suspected of some crimes relating to the administration of government. Rather than face the music, the ruler just pardons everyone in danger of being indicted.
Even Richard Nixon rejected the pardon-everyone strategy. Even Ronald Reagan waited until after they were convicted to pardon constitution-subverters Oliver North and Admiral Poindexter.
But in Kentucky it seems they are either more stupid, more desperate, or more arrogant: via TPM we learn Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) is going to pardon all his aides who are suspected of patronage hiring in violation of state law.
Gov. Fletcher did not, however, pardon himself. Due to appear before a grand jury tomorrow, Gov. Fletcher said he wouldn’t testify, although he didn’t say whether he’d take the Fifth or simply be in contempt (full text of speech). And there’s talk, although it’s hard to know how serious, of impeachment.
This incident shows how the power of pre-conviction, and especially pre-indictment, amnesty can work harm (here, by removing a way for the public to get at the truth of the accusations). Nevertheless, I remain persuaded that on balance giving the executive branch the power to declare amnesties is a good and necessary thing, a power perhaps not used enough in our over-criminalized society.
This is weird and dirty: Profiling Report Leads to a Demotion. The circumstantial evidence is strong that the politicos at the Bush Dept. of Justice are so worried about perturbing white racists that they didn’t want to draw any attention to a report demonstrating disparate treatment of minorities during traffic stops. [Note: Why do I say “politicos” plural, when the article speaks of just one — because I don’t think demoting a civil servant is something that’s easy to do.]
In fairness, one should note that unlike some other reports in other departments (think global warming and pollution), no attempt was made to change the actual wording of the report or its conclusions. Here the fix was just political: first try to tone down the press release, then when the career official objects, decide to issue the report online with no fanfare at all…then demote the official.
Even so, the only motive I can see for not wanting to draw attention to racially disparate actions by local cops — a group over whom the US government has only limited authority, primarily via very rare civil rights lawsuits or prosecutions — is a political fear of annoying white racist voters.
Or is there some other equally plausible explanation I am missing here?
Using a recess appointment, Bush Appoints Bolton as U.N. Envoy–thus appointing a man with a defective memory who lacks support in the Congress.
This will really help our foreign policy.
Jotwell Blenderlaw