Goldy

The League of Conservation Voters has renewed its demand that members of Congress return tainted campaign funds to recently indicted, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, until legal issues regarding his campaign finance schemes are resolved.

The LCV has also reissued a report, “Tom’s Tainted Team“, that exposes the ten as financially beholden to DeLay and the powerful special interests that back him. For example, each of the ten have voted for a provision in the House energy bill that would protect makers of the fuel additive MTBE, even though they each represent districts with drinking water contaminated by the dangerous chemical, and where lawsuits are pending against MTBE polluters. All ten also voted for a change to House Ethics Rules intended to protect DeLay from further investigations.

“While this latest ethical cloud hangs over Congressman Tom DeLay, the decent thing for these members to do would be to return the money they took from him until this issue is resolved,” said LCV President Deb Callahan. “If they cannot be shamed into that, perhaps they could put the money in a trust and donate the interest to hurricane relief until Rep. DeLay’s case has worked its way through the courts.”

The 10 Members of “Tom’s Tainted Team” and their campaign contributions from Rep. DeLay are as follows:

Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-CO) – $30,000
Rep. Chris Chocola (R-IN) – $40,000
Rep. Phil Gingrey (GA-11) – $25,000
Rep. Katherine Harris (FL-13) – $20,000
Rep. Mark Kennedy (MN-06) – $29,500
Rep. Rick Renzi (AZ-1) – $30,000
Rep. Mike Rogers (AL-3) – $30,000
Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-32) – $26,644
Rep. Clay Shaw (Fl-22) – $30,020
Rep. Heather Wilson (NM-1) – $46,959

“It’s worse enough that these members are siding with MTBE and big oil polluters over their constituents, but the fact that they continue to support one of the most ethically challenged members of Congress in history and take his ‘tainted’ money is unconscionable,” said Ms. Callahan.

There is a tendency with stories like DeLay’s indictment to focus on inside politics, but the scandal is not merely about how he illegally skirted campaign finance laws to help elect Republicans, it is also about how these politicians exercised the power of their offices in return. It is not enough to hold DeLay responsible for his actions, we most also hold responsible all those who benefited from his illegal activities.

Seattle’s tax revenues are coming in higher than projected, and City Council candidate Dwight Pelz has a good suggestion for what to do with some of the extra money.

City Council candidate Dwight Pelz said Wednesday that Seattle should put up to $10 million of the city’s $55 million in extra tax revenue into public schools.

This week Mayor Greg Nickels proposed a $760 million general fund budget, up from $717 million a year ago. Nickels proposed that some of the extra money from strong tax revenue go toward street resurfacing, more sidewalks, police and firefighters.

Roads, police and firefighters are good… but so are schools, and man could they use the money. This sounds like a pretty reasonable proposal to me.

Yesterday, former FEMA direct Michael Brown accused HA of publishing false and defamatory statements about his resume. Yeah… whatever. But the observant folk over at Capitol Buzz point out that if anybody should be accused of making false statements about Brownie’s resume, it is Brownie himself:

At this point everyone knows that Mike Brown’s resume was exaggerated. But what many people don’t know is that Brown signed an affidavit attesting to his resume’s accuracy when he was first nominated to be the head of FEMA. With his appearance before Congress today, Brown contradicted that affidavit and could now face criminal charges.

Earlier today, Brown said under OATH: “I started out as an intern in the planning office. I then became the assistant to the city manager, where I was liaison to the Emergency Services Division, the police and fire departments. I ended up drafting the emergency operations plan. I ended up putting together with a committee the emergency operations center. I worked closely with the emergency, fire and police departments.”

But on the resume he submitted to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in 2002 when he was up for confirmation, it says the following: “1975-78, Assistant City Manager, Police, Fire & Emergency Services, Edmond, Oklahoma.”

And of course, those weren’t the only false statements Brownie made under oath before congressional committees. Think Progress puts the lie to Brownie’s testimony that Louisiana Gov. Blanco’s Aug. 27th request for a federal emergency declaration excluded Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquerines parishes. But…

In fact, Blanco requested the President to declare a disaster in ” all the southeastern parishes ,” which includes Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines . See the request for yourself HERE.

Kind of funny when a blog named “HorsesAss.org” has more credibility than I high level federal appointee, huh? Um… actually… it’s kind of sad.

A week has passed since last Tuesday’s primary election, and still no scandalous mishaps in King County Elections to report.

“Overall, I’ve been very impressed with the huge effort they’ve taken to make things better,” said Sheryl Moss, a member of the Citizens Election Oversight Committee who observed the primary as a representative of the Secretary of State’s Office. “Only time will tell if they’ve gone far enough.”

Michael Sheridan, the state Republican Party designate on the committee, also said the primary looked good from what he saw — although he reserved final judgment until all the votes are counted and the numbers reconciled.

“It seemed like the knowledge base was a lot deeper than it had been,” Sheridan said. “The system seemed to be well thought out.”

David Irons could hardly contain his disappointment…

County Councilman David Irons of Sammamish, said he hopes the conduct of the primary is “stellar.”

Yeah… sure you do, Dave.

But the primary attracted only a third as many voters in King County as the 2004 general election, Irons pointed out.

“I don’t think this is necessarily a good test,” Irons said. “I’ll keep my powder dry.”

How about a countywide recount in the Sheriffs’ race? Is that a good enough test, Dave?

Hmm. If I were Irons, I wouldn’t worry so much about my powder… I’d be worried about keeping my pants dry after I get my ass whooped in the general election.

CNN is reporting that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury on one count of criminal conspiracy.

UPDATE:
From the AP:

A Texas grand jury today charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.

The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury’s term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.

The Austin American-Statesman gives some great background on the case, in a story published before the indictment, but I think Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo best sums up what this means for the Republicans:

So let’s see.

House Majority Leader Indicted for Criminal Conspiracy.

Senate Majority Leader the target of an increasingly serious probe of potential insider trading.

Rumors of October Rove indictment in the Plame case.

Is this a problem yet?

Um… yeah.

I was out most of the day, and only just had a chance to view the clip (courtesy of Think Progress) of former FEMA director Michael Brown, giving my blog a free plug before a congressional subcommittee. Oh my. I had thought he was just blaming me for his downfall… I hadn’t realized he was actually blaming me for FEMA’s ineffectual response.

Here’s the full transcipt, again, courtesy of Think Progress:

While FEMA was trying to respond to probably the largest natural disaster in the history of this country, a catastrophic disaster that the president has described covering an area the size of Great Britain — I have heard 90,000 square miles — unless you have been there and seen it, you don’t realize exactly how bad and how big it was — but in the middle of trying to respond to that, FEMA’s press office became bombarded with requests to respond immediately to false statements about my resume and my background.

Ironically, it started with an organization called horsesass.org, that on some blog published a false, and, frankly, in my opinion, defamatory statement that the media just continued to repeat over and over. Next, one national magazine not only defamed me, but my alma mater, the Oklahoma City University School of Law, in one sentence alone leveling six false charges.

[snip]

But I guess it’s the media’s job. But I don’t like it. I think it’s false. It came at the wrong time. And I think it led potentially to me being pulled out of Louisiana because it made me somewhat ineffective.

So… um… it’s all my fault? What a prick.

Once again, I stand by the reporting in my original post, and I decry Brown’s defamatory statement that I made a defamatory statement.

Darcy Burner is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Dave Reichert in WA’s 8th Congressional District, and while you may not yet know her name, a recent poll shows that she can win:

In the 8th, 69% of likely voters said that they disapproved of the current Republican-controlled Congress.

64% disapproved of the Bush administration. And only 34% would vote to re-elect Reichert. (To give you a sense: a normal number for a first-term incumbent would be in the low fifties.)

Furthermore, while likely voters in the 8th would choose Reichert over a generic Democratic candidate 45% to 21%, when presented with just a little information about me, they choose me at 41% to Reichert’s 31%.

Read (and recommend) Darcy’s diary on Daily Kos for more information.

I logged on this morning to find a huge spike in traffic, and apparently the thanks goes to former International Arabian Horse Association Commissioner of Judges and Stewards FEMA director Mike Brown. He’s currently giving live testimony before a congressional committee (synopsis: “It’s not my fault”), and I’m told he actually gave HorsesAss.org credit for breaking the story about his inadequate resume.

Thanks for the on-air plug, Mike!

I suppose he thought that the domain name would discredit the information, but the facts are basically as I originally presented them: his immediate job experience prior to joining FEMA was a decade of regulating horse show judges for the IAHA, and subsequent investigation by both me and the MSM makes it pretty damn clear that he did indeed resign under pressure.

Further investigation by the MSM also revealed that his already thin resume was intentionally padded, and that he was just as unqualified to serve as FEMA’s general counsel (his first job at the agency) as he was to serve as its director. The guy simply was not qualified for the job.

That said, listening to Brown’s testimony, I think he’s saying something very important… something that speaks to the broader ideology of the Bush administration. He’s not just blaming the state and local authorities for the chaos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina… he keeps repeating that various rescue and relief operations are not and should not be the responsibility of the federal government.

Uh-huh.

In response, I would just like to point out that the whole purpose of having a Federal Emergency Management Agency is to deal with regional events that are so catastrophic that state and local agencies are unable to respond. If we can’t expect that from our federal government, I wonder what purpose the Union serves?

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos]

UPDATE:
Think Progress has the transcript of Brown’s kind words:

Ironically, it started with an organization called horsesass.org, that on some blog published a false, and, frankly, in my opinion, defamatory statement that the media just continued to repeat over and over.

What a putz.

Have they no shame? Uh… apparently not:

At a meeting with staff of the special House committee looking into Katrina preparations today, the disgraced and displaced former FEMA director said he had rejoined the agency as a consultant to “provide a review” of how the agency functioned before, during, and after the storm. This according to two congressional sources.

A congressional aide told NBC News nobody’s sure

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Speaking of elections, I’m a touch confused by (un)Sound Politics apparent dismay that (gasp!) a candidate for office is counting ballots in Pierce County. Aren’t these the same folks who vehemently argue that King County should have an elected auditor?

Um… I’m not particularly passionate about this issue one way or the other, but I’ve never quite understood the argument that the only way to take politics out of the elections department is to elect the guy running it. And… uh… doesn’t Stefan’s latest dig argue against having candidates working in the elections office?

Unless, of course, the unsound folk simply support an elected auditor because it would be perceived as a slap in the face of Ron Sims? Nah… that would be cynical.

Well, I’m guessing some people are awfully disappointed by the latest round of numbers just released by King County Records & Elections in the District 1 Council race: Bob Ferguson now leads Carolyn Edmonds by 1070 votes, 13212 to 12142.

Of course, Edmonds and her supporters are disappointed. But even more disappointed are some righty provocateurs who had hoped beyond hope that this race might fall within the .5% margin that triggers an automatic recount… throwing a monkey wrench into KCRE’s operations, and creating fertile ground for rehashing old news about old elections.

Oh well. I guess we’ll all just have to settle for talking about the issues.

I’m oddly flattered. I just got off the phone with an executive at a very prominent Seattle-area business, who called to urge me to drop my “stupid little stunt” seeking an injunction to shut down the Alaska Way Viaduct, the 520 bridge, and other dangerous roads. “Executive X” warned that should my lawsuit succeed, the region would lose thousands of jobs, and cost companies like his millions. I replied that no court would issue such an injunction without overwhelming evidence that these structures present an imminent danger, and thus stunt or not, a successful lawsuit would be a great public service.

He was unimpressed, and needless to say, he declined to contribute to my legal offense fund.

Actually, I think he was just feeling me out, trying to get a sense of whether I am serious about pursuing a lawsuit, and whether or not I have the legal or financial resources lined up to follow through. (I am serious, but no, I don’t yet have the resources.)

In any case, it was a brief call, and the conversation quickly turned to Dino Rossi. Executive X told me that both he and his company contributed to the Rossi campaign because they felt that he would be more sensitive to the needs of the business community, and was less likely to play politics on important issues (I had to suppress a giggle on that latter point), but… that Rossi could not be assured of similar support come 2008. He said that he had few complaints with Gov. Gregoire’s performance thus far, and that many in the business community would take a wait and see attitude. He also expressed extreme disappointment that Rossi had allowed himself to be used to promote Initiative 912.

Executive X would not say if he has had any private conversations with Rossi about the transportation improvement package, and the initiative that would repeal it. While he believes Rossi is “aware” of the strong position his and other companies have taken in opposition to I-912, he’s not sure that Rossi “fully appreciates the potential political ramifications.” He wouldn’t elaborate on what those ramifications might be.

This was not a friendly conversation; he told me that my blog was “irresponsible” and “dangerous”, and that he feared that my efforts opposing I-912 were counterproductive… that I should leave the No campaign to the “professionals.” (Like I haven’t heard that before.) He also expressed doubt that I would keep my promise to protect his anonymity, and thus refused to provide many details.

Personally, I just think he was having a bad Monday morning.

But he made one thing absolutely clear: defeating I-912 is a big deal to him and other members of the business community… a big enough deal that he bothered to take a couple minutes out of his busy schedule to call up and complain to an irresponsible, dangerous, untrustworthy blogger like me.

So the question I have for Executive X and other business leaders is: “Where’s Rossi?”

It looks like the Boeing strike is over:

The company gave in to union demands on issues that had triggered the strike more than three weeks ago and which had shut down Boeing’s jetliner production in the Puget Sound area at a critical time, just as Boeing was cranking up to meet growing demand by customers for new jets.

Apparently, former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, a Boeing consultant, helped broker the deal.

Anyway… good news for the machinists, good news for Boeing, and good news for the whole region.

I sure do enjoy teasing the Seattle Times editorial board, but apart from their pandering to publisher Frank Blethen’s obsession with repealing the estate tax, I really do respect their right to use their op/ed pages to promote candidates and causes I generally find wrongheaded, selfish or downright silly. I mean… it’s not like they’re out shooting dogs or something.

And occasionally I even learn something useful. For example, take today’s column by editorial board member James Vesely on a recent Elway poll exploring community attitudes on the Eastside.

In “Resident Opinions About Life on the Eastside,” Elway discovered the top four reasons people gave for high satisfaction with where they live: parks and recreation

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I hate to steal a page from the Karl Rove playbook, but King County executive wannabe David Irons is a flip-flopper. Take for example his “stance” on Southwest Airlines’ controversial proposal to move to Boeing Field.

If elected, he wrote earlier this month to Boeing Field neighbors who don’t want more airplanes flying over their homes, “I will put a stop to this ridiculous proposal.”

On Monday, he wrote in an e-mail to a supporter of the Southwest proposal that if the airline paid for road improvements, “I am open to this concept.”

Flippity.

Irons, a county councilman, said yesterday he has been consistent on the issue. He’s willing to consider a Southwest operation at Boeing Field, but only if it pays for road improvements

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