Think Progress is reporting that Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sent a letter to embattled HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson urging him to make public all information regarding a HUD contract with Hookergate's Shirlington Limosuine:
I request that you release all documents and communications in your possession pertaining to any HUD contracts with Shirlington Limousine. Thorough examination of these documents is critical to eliminating suspicion of inappropriate or illegal activity in awarding Shirlington Limousine a federal contract. I also ask you to clarify your comments regarding the eligibility of Administration opponents to compete for federal contracts.Continue reading
Launching “Sunlight Labs”
I've long had the fantasy of one-click political influence disclosure. Imagine pressing one button and finding everything you need and want to know about a member of Congress, or a corporation, labor union or individual trying to influence her. Web 2.0 technologies - Web services, API's, XML, AJAX, RSS - now make that possible.
To speed up making this happen, this week we decided to create a small, informal "Mash-Up Lab." We are going to treat this as a pilot project for six months to experiment on our own and to provide ad-hoc technical support to nurture other mash-up projects -- some of which Sunlight has already nurtured, to realize a one-click future. These will be projects that strategically and tactically bring together nonprofit organizations, exemplary developers, and web-applications.
Continue readingBuddy, Can You Spare a Tax Break?
Whenever I hear stories like the ones today about the deal reached to preserve a tax break for investors, I think back to a statistic that I once compiled at the Center for Responsive Politics, when it was my full-time job to track money in American politics.
When you stare, day in and day out, at databases that document the names and occupations of Americans who’ve given $1,000 or more to political candidates, PACs and parties, you tend to slip into the mindset that everybody gives, that you’re looking at a cross-section of the general population.
Continue readingWaxman, Frank Request Jackson Documents
Via our good friends at OMB Watch comes a copy of a letter sent by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Barney Frank, D-Mass., to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, attempting to get to the bottom of the alternately fallacious or anecdotal account of his turning down a well qualified contractor who made a negative comment about President Bush. Messrs. Waxman and Frank write in part:
A competitive procurement process should provide the best value for the taxpayer and be free of extraneous political influence. Continue reading
Cunningham Uncooperative:
Josh Marshall has a huge find from the North Country Times. Duke Cunningham, imprisoned for accepting bribes as a congressman, is not cooperating with investigators:
Randy Cunningham has not been helping federal authorities as they continue to probe the former North County congressman's web of corruption, a top Pentagon investigator said Tuesday. Rick Gwin, special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's western regional office, said he is troubled by the lack of assistance, particularly in light of Cunningham's plea agreement that calls for him to tell all that he knows. "In my opinion, he has not been cooperative and I have not gotten any information from him to further develop other targets," Gwin said in a telephone interview from his office in Mission Viejo. "I was hoping that from a jail cell, he might become more cooperative, but we just don't have the cooperation that I think we should have." ... "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," he said. "All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."Continue reading
Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry:
Yesterday news broke that President Bush's Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson became a lightening rod after it was reported that in a speech he stated that he believes that he should only give contracts to supporters of President Bush. Jackson made his point by telling an anecdotal story about a contractor trying to obtain a contract from HUD. The contractor, for some inexplicable reason, told Jackson that he did not like President Bush, at which point Jackson decided that he wouldn't give this man the contract because, as Jackson himself says, "Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president?" Now, Jackson is retracting his statement by saying that he made up the story. The HUD spokeswoman stated, "The secretary's story was anecdotal. He is not part of the contracting process. He was trying to explain to this group how politics works in D.C." Josh Marshall says, "This doesn't sound like a particularly exculpatory explanation. That story was made up. Jackson was just how explaining how he does business?" Think Progress offers two points about why this explanation is a bit unbelievable:
1) That excuse isn’t just difficult to swallow — it also contradicts the spokesperson’s first response in which she indicated Jackson was referring to a real contract: “On May 3, Tucker told the Business Journal that the contract Jackson was referring to in Dallas was ‘an advertising contract with a minority publication,’ though she could not provide the contract’s value.” It looks like Jackson is changing his story as criticism builds. 2) Bidding for a government contract isn’t ‘asking for money.’ It’s not Alphonso Jackson’s money to give away to his buddies. It is the taxpayers’ money. It should go to whoever can do the best job, regardless of their political views.So, either Jackson lied by making up his "anecdotal story" or he is lying to cover up the story. Either way the real issue is not with the factual accuracy of Jackson's story but whether he was factually representing his own belief when he stated: "Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president?" It seems that Jackson wanted to make this very point and then crafted a story to fit his predetermined belief/actions. Jackson needs to come clean on whether he is breaking the law by only distributing contracts to supporters of President Bush. Doesn't he know that lies make baby Jesus cry? (georgia10 at Daily Kos has more dirt on Jackson) Continue reading
White House-Abramoff Logs:
ABC's The Note reports that Judicial Watch expects to receive the White House-Jack Abramoff logs sometime before 5pm and will post them at their website (LINK). Paul Kiel notes that a Bush loyalist interviewed in the New York Daily News stated, "There are a bunch of visits, (but) he didn't get into the West Wing very often." Kiel's site TPM Muckraker is asking readers to guess how many visits Abramoff made to the White House with the winner getting Muckraker merchandise.
Continue readingMorning News:
- Roll Call reports that the House Republican caucus remains "noncommital" on whether to push Bob Ney (R-OH) to resign if he is indicted on charges related to the Jack Abramoff bribery case. Just two days ago Ney's former chief of staff Neil Volz pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery among other charges.
- While House Republicans are weighing their options with Ney they are urging Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to pull Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) from the Appropriations Committee. Mollohan has been under fire for his earmarking of money to campaign contributors and nonprofits that he formed. He recently stepped down from his position as ranking member of the House Ethics Committee due to these allegations.
- USA Today reports that the ethics troubles of Democrats, including Rep. Mollohan, are having a dulling effect on the party's attempt to tar the Republicans as a party with a "culture of corruption." Other Democratic ethics woes include the advancing bribery probe of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) and rehashed allegations against Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) for using his staffers as babysitters and tutors.
A Past of Politicizing Procurement?
As Ellen Miller pointed out yesterday, the Housing & Urban Development Secretary, Alphonso Jackson, is decidely hands-on when it comes to his job--so much so that he even intervenes in procurement matters, if only when he feels prospective contractors are insufficiently enthusiastic about his boss, President George W. Bush. As reported in the Dallas Business Journal, Jackson was quite explicit in describing how he denied government business to a potential advertising contractor who had "a problem" with the president. The bit in his remarks that interested me was that Jackson said, "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."
Continue readingSeriously
InstaPundit posted a bit of this commentary ($$$$) by David Winston, which notes,
The antics of Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) coupled with the ethical cloud now hanging over Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and William Jefferson (D-La.) and even Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) make it difficult, if not impossible, to take seriously the "corruption" diatribes we hear regularly from top Capitol Hill Democrats.One might well ask, as the Pet Shop Boys might put it, how can they expect to be taken seriously? Certainly, there is nothing--no ideological orientation, no policy proposal, no higher standard of candidate recruitment--that makes individual Democrats (or Republicans, for that that matter) ethically pure. Continue reading
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