Wednesday, June 08, 2005
More Republican Scandals
Dan Froomkin from The Washington Post runs down the potential scandals threatening to engulf the preznit:
"After six weeks in the political wilderness, the Downing Street Memo yesterday finally burst into the White House -- and into the headlines.
The memo, which dates back to 2002, conveys a British intelligence official's conclusion that President Bush was manipulating intelligence to build support for war with Iraq -- and that he was already set on invasion long before acknowledging as much in public. The Sunday Times of London first published a leaked version on May 1...
...But even if the memo doesn't detonate, there are suddenly several other potential scandals sputtering away in the press today to cause the White House worry.
· The New York Times is reporting that a White House official with ties to the oil industry repeatedly edited government climate reports to play down global warming issues.
· The Guardian reports on new State Department documents suggesting that Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil.
· The Texas Observer and the Associated Press are reporting that two Indian tribes working with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now under criminal and congressional investigation, paid $25,000 each to a conservative tax-exempt group to underwrite an event that got tribal leaders a private meeting with President Bush.
· And The Washington Post reports that senators are asking for more information about the involvement of White House officials in pushing for a $30 billion air-tanker deal now considered the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades."
Those four scandals are in addition to the Coingate scandal in Ohio where the Bush campaign received contributions from a Republican campaign financier who invested $50 million dollars of a public employees compensation fund into his own coin business and lost $13 million of it . And breaking today, The Toledo Blade reports that $215 million dollars from the same workers' compensation fund was lost by the state government when they invested the money in a "risky hedge-fund" that donated $500,000 to various Republican candidates and causes including the Ohio Governor Bob Taft and Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
Yes, these sure are interesting times in and around the Republican Party these days. Remember when Bush was running in 2000 and he said he was going to restore dignity to government?
"After six weeks in the political wilderness, the Downing Street Memo yesterday finally burst into the White House -- and into the headlines.
The memo, which dates back to 2002, conveys a British intelligence official's conclusion that President Bush was manipulating intelligence to build support for war with Iraq -- and that he was already set on invasion long before acknowledging as much in public. The Sunday Times of London first published a leaked version on May 1...
...But even if the memo doesn't detonate, there are suddenly several other potential scandals sputtering away in the press today to cause the White House worry.
· The New York Times is reporting that a White House official with ties to the oil industry repeatedly edited government climate reports to play down global warming issues.
· The Guardian reports on new State Department documents suggesting that Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil.
· The Texas Observer and the Associated Press are reporting that two Indian tribes working with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now under criminal and congressional investigation, paid $25,000 each to a conservative tax-exempt group to underwrite an event that got tribal leaders a private meeting with President Bush.
· And The Washington Post reports that senators are asking for more information about the involvement of White House officials in pushing for a $30 billion air-tanker deal now considered the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades."
Those four scandals are in addition to the Coingate scandal in Ohio where the Bush campaign received contributions from a Republican campaign financier who invested $50 million dollars of a public employees compensation fund into his own coin business and lost $13 million of it . And breaking today, The Toledo Blade reports that $215 million dollars from the same workers' compensation fund was lost by the state government when they invested the money in a "risky hedge-fund" that donated $500,000 to various Republican candidates and causes including the Ohio Governor Bob Taft and Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
Yes, these sure are interesting times in and around the Republican Party these days. Remember when Bush was running in 2000 and he said he was going to restore dignity to government?
