Despite a glaring need for more resources, made apparent by dangers from contaminated imports like contaminated drugs from China, toothpaste made with anti-freeze, and pet food contaminated with melamine, the local county's school system in Montgomery County (MD) has more staff and a bigger budget than all the nation's food, drug, blood and device inspectors. Compare the NIH budget for 2007 of $28.6 Billion, with FDA's budget: FDA gets 1/20th of that, at under $1.5 billion.

Crossposted on Beltway Progressive, RaisingKaine, and DailyKos.

The Army has a new ad aimed at parents of young men, telling them to listen to their kids rather than discourage them from enlisting to go to the Middle East. In this diary I challenge them - and you - to listen to Mike's story in honor of vets on Independence Day.

You'd think living between Walter Reed, Fort Belvoir and Fort Meade, I'd have met more returned vets. I have met only a few. Mike has a compelling story to tell, if only the right people would only listen to him.

Mike was seated on a stool in my favorite Irish pub. A pint of Harp and a shotglass of Rumplemintz were in front of him, and the only two other empty barstools were on his right. As soon as we pulled up to the chairs, and he leaned over to introduce himself, smile, and shake our hands.

Cross posted with photos at Beltway Progressive.
The Post today has a front page story continuing the series by Robert O'Harrow: Costs Skyrocket As DHS Runs Up No-Bid Contracts:  $2 Million Security Project Balloons to $124 Million.

What were Mr. and Mrs. Tom Davis doing during this alarming cost run-up? Instead of letting GSA and the House Government Reform Committee do their jobs overseeing the contract, Davis was speaking before the same contractors at his wife's company, ICG Government, telling them how to get the most taxpayer money in Homeland Security contracting. This photograph of his speech was prominently displayed on the front page of the ICG website, along with the photo of the head of Homeland Security (DHS). The front page at ICG also linked to his wife's bio, the only ICG bio that names a spouse. Davis also was presiding over running out Angela Styles from GSA, who had been demanding audits and accountability for the overruns.  Finally, he continues to defend Lurita Doan at GSA who eliminated auditors there. The Department of Homeland Security officials were so distraught with the forced contracts that the DHS hired its own auditor to report on the matter.

Read the startling highlight from today's story:

Cross posted on Raising Kaine.
Just a few quick links to remind Virginians that Cheney could never have succeeded in his power grab without a team carrying his water and parroting his talking points, and most importantly, leaving him alone. Tom Davis looked the other way for years while Cheney stole the Constitution out from under the American people. Davis's willingness to close his eyes to the abuses didn't stop the Congressman from holding out his oily palms to be greased by Cheney's chums in the energy industry--and then lying about it.

Most importantly, consider if Davis still were in charge of the Oversight Committee: no one would even know today that Cheney has considered himself "exempt" from the executive branch requirements since at least 2004.  Davis and his impotent Committee made no report and held no hearing about this disingenuous position. Certainly, Davis didn't campaign on the basis of bringing about Cheney accountability in 2006.  Will you demand he do so in 2008?

The case against Cheney is compelling and large. If you have time to only read one piece, see the slideshow on WaPo here.

Crossposted on BeltwayProgressive and RaisingKaine.

While Henry Waxman is demanding accountability and explanation for the destruction of evidence, Tom Davis (R-VA) is adamently and bitterly defending his colleagues at the RNCC who deleted emails they shouldn't have sent and were required to retain.

See also here. Davis's laughable excuses for Rove and company is even being spoofed by the Brits:

"The fact they are entirely and totally missing simply does not prove that. It just happened is all and is certainly not the fault of, nor can it be blamed on anyone in this administration, who are all honest, upright and exemplary men and women, without the first blemish, stain or fault to be found whatsoever."

Davis knows how hard it is to delete an email from a hard drive - he cultivated the campaign donations of the Tech industry as they jockeyed for a $20 Billion government contract. Does he really think the hi-tech voters in his NoVA district don't know how hard it is to delete emails? They are more tech-savvy there than workers in almost any other part of the world. I guess his bluster is for the Republican voters elsewhere.

So how do you mistakenly delete an email? Here are the instructions, in 7 easy steps:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has a report on unethical family payments by members of Congress that shines the light on Tom Davis.

The totals found by the report (over $25,000 plus a $78,000/year part-time job) do not include the tens of thousands of dollars that Davis had directed to his wife's campaign when donors reached the federal limit for his own campaign.

Davis's latest pet project, one which helps no honest Virginian constituent, is defending Lurita Doan.  CREW calls her one of the most corrupt in Washington with details here (pdf).

The report is getting some local and national press today.

Cross posted on RaisingKaine.

Tom Davis defends Alberto Gonzales?

Actually, he is defending the Alberto Gonzales of the General Services Administration, Lurita Doan, a Republican campaign contributor. Doan was eager to use her federal office and GSA resources to help Republicans, including Davis, to keep their seats in 2006.

This is much smarter:  not only is the spotlight is not as bright on GSA as it is on Justice, but GSA contractors are a lot more willing to pay politicians for access to the contracts GSA awards.  Davis collects protection money from them, which he wouldn't get if he were defending Gonzales.  The prize GSA contract is Networx, the biggest GSA contract ever, at $20 billion.  Not counting other GSA bidders who have contributed to Davis, the bidders on Networx have paid him, and his wife, campaign contributions of over half a million dollars.  His wife, a Virginia pol with no campaign limits, gets additional cash from such donors through her work for ICG, a lobbying and consulting firm whose services include preparing GSA contractors for hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.  That's the Committee Tom Davis chaired until January 2007.

Tom Davis has been slowing down the GSA hearing with prepared remarks defending Doan and softball questions to the Bush donor.

If Davis wants to defend federal workers, perhaps he should start with the workers Doan maligned when she lied about their performance ratings, saying they were low. They were not.

Tom Davis is planning to run for Senate in 2008.  He hopes to use his ill-gotten campaign contributions to buy a Senate seat to represent VA with Jim Webb.

Let's look at the similarities between the Alberto Gonzales scandal at Justice and the GSA scandal:

Cross Posted on Beltway Progressive.

NYT, June 5: I. Lewis Libby Jr., once one of the most powerful men in government as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was sentenced today to two and a half years [30 months] in prison for lying to a grand jury and F.B.I. agents who were investigating the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative during a fierce debate over the war in Iraq.

What Scooter Libby did was a serious, insidiuous, anti-democratic control of information, and WaPo itself continues to ignore political corruption in exchange for Access Journalism.

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The Scooter Libby trial disclosed what the press and administration already know: this administration believes a critical part of its media dis-information campaign includes controlling the timing of press reports. If they can't stop a story before it publishes, the next best thing is controlling when a story publishes.



The Post is absolutely giddy when it reports on how the NYT and Judith Martin were involved in this game, but silent on it's own failure to cover corruption for its own Access Journalism. In other words, politicians don't have to schedule a "Saturday night Massacre." The Post will schedule it for them.



WAPO: "With a candor that is frowned upon at the White House, explained Cheney's former top press assistant," Cathie Martin, explained how important it was to influence timing of news reports critical of politicians. "Fewer people pay attention to it later on Friday," Martin testified. "And in our view, fewer people are paying attention on Saturday, when it's reported."



Examples include not only Bob Woodward's involvement in keeping the cover up going in Plamegate, on black hole prisons, and the Ford interview criticizing Bush. They include the Post's baseball buddy, Tom Davis.

The first of several Post stories by Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow on Tom Davis and his own campaign finance scandal followed this formula. It ran on Friday, July 28, 2006 before the July 4th weekend. Washington, DC was empty by then, and most holiday travelers were on the road. Tom Davis couldn't have asked for better scheduling if he had selected the date himself. But his luck continued. Read more below.