Day: January 15, 2006

Abramoff’s ‘Rep. Number One’ to Give Up Committee Chairmanship – Temporarily

Jon Ponder

Saving face: “Representative Number One” in the Abramoff indictment also happens to be the chairman of the House committee that will be charged with “reforming” the lobbying corruption. Even for Republicans, this was too much:

Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in a lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.

“Unfortunately it has become clear to me in recent days that the false allegations made against me have become a distraction to the important work of the House Republican Conference and the important work that remains ahead for the House Administration Committee,” Ney said in a written statement.

Maybe this is sort of like the way Rep. Tom DeLay “temporarily” gave up his position as majority leader.

Specter Says the ‘I’ Word

Jon Ponder

Impeachment: It happened this morning on ABC’s This Week. Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed the obvious. If President Bush broke the law, he should be impeached:

SPECTER:[When we found] the disclosure of the surveillance, I immediately said the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings, and I talked to the attorney general, and we’re going to explore it in depth, George. You can count on that.

[GEORGE] STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, if the president did break the law or circumvent the law, what’s the remedy?

SPECTER: Well, the remedy could be a variety of things. A president — and I’m not suggesting remotely that there’s any basis, but you’re asking, really, theory, what’s the remedy? Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George, under our society is to pay a political price.

Next GOP Scandal May Snare House Appropriations Chair

Jon Ponder

Corruption eruption: Last month, a potential bombshell story concerning the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee went largely unnoticed in the traditional media. On Dec. 23 — yes, Christmas Eve “Eve” — the San Diego Union-Tribune published a story alleging that Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has been engaged in Abramoff-Dukester style scratch-backing with a powerful K Street lobbyist:

From powerful positions on the House Appropriations Committee, California Rep. Jerry Lewis has greenlighted hundreds of millions of dollars in federal projects for clients of one of his closest friends, lobbyist and former state Congressman Bill Lowery.

Meanwhile, Lowery, the partners at his firm and their clients have donated 37 percent of the $1.3 million that Lewis’ political action committee received in the past six years.

The story made headlines again last week when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against Rep. Lewis, citing the newspaper story and alleging that:

[At] least one staffer has moved back and forth between Rep. Lewis’s and Lowery’s offices: Jeffrey Shockey left Rep. Lewis’s employ in 1999 after which he joined Lowery’s lobbying firm. He remained with the firm until 2005, when he left to return to work for Rep. Lewis. When he left, Lowery’s firm hired Shockey’s wife, Alexandra, to represent some of her husband’s old clients, with the result that on behalf of her husband’s former partners, she now lobbies staffers who work for her husband.

Doling out $480,000 to get hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts sounds like a very good deal. The question is, is it legal?

Gifted Newcomer Portrays Child Predator in Sundance Short Film ‘First Date’

Jon Ponder

As the Sundance Film Festival gets underway this week, there is pre-festival buzz about First Date, a short film produced in Kansas City, KS. Its depiction of a sexual predator who sets up a date with a teenage boy online is bringing attention to a breakthrough acting performance, as well as kudos for shining a light on the growing problem of online child predation.

The story follows the predator, whose online name is “KC Muscle,” played by Santiago Vasquz, as he undertakes extreme measures to make his first date happen with an underage boy played by Tian Wei.

“First Date” was written and directed by Gary Huggins, a Kansas City-based film historian. It is among 20 short films selected out of 4,311 submissions for Sundance 2006, which opens January 20. It will also show this month in France at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, which is the short film industry’s top international venue.

Huggins says he wrote the part of KC Muscle specifically for Vasquez. He had confidence that Vasquez could handle the role because he had worked for many years as an undercover narcotics cop. He literally knew how to play a role as if his life depended on it.

[…]