Day: June 21, 2006

Docs Linking DHS to Hookers, Limos Missing

Buck Banks

What letter? There’s a new twist in one of Editor Trish’s favorite investigations — the Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham hookers and limos story. Congress Daily reports that the House panel investigating whether Cunningham used limos paid for by the gubmint to ferry him and prostitutes (paid for by ??) to D.C. hotels has received an affadavit that connects Shirlington Limousine to the Department of Homeland Security via Cunningham.

Shirlington was awarded a $24 million contract by DHS to cart its staffers and executives around Washington. The affadavit, given by Shirlington President Christopher Baker, alleges that Cunningham wrote a letter to DHS extolling the virtues of Shirlington, which supposedly tipped the scales in the limo company’s favor.

Problem is, Baker is an ex-con with links to a defense contractor who is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Cunningham case who may have fraudulently qualified for the contract. See, the company was granted the DHS contract under a set-aside program, the Historically Underutilized Business Zone program, despite the fact that its offices are located in a luxury high-rise.

The other problem is, DHS can’t seem to find a copy of the letter in any of its files. Oh yeah, and Baker has now refused to hand over his copy of the phantom letter and other documents he promised the committee would clearly extablish links between Cunningham, DHS and Shirlington.

Stay tuned, Trish, for more shenanigans that involve more missing documents and false allegations and less sexy stuff like hookers and limos.

FEMA May Never Be Fully Staffed

Buck Banks

Help wanted: Tropical Storm Alberto ushered in the 2006 hurricane season with a splash a couple of weeks ago, heralding the beginning of what will likely be an active period for tropical cyclones over the next five months. Alberto also marked the passing of an arbitrary deadline — when the Federal Emergency Management Agency was supposed to have a full complement of staff.

“We really have a case of ‘FEMA gone wild’ over there.”
—Rep. Bennie Thompson

According to GoveExec.com, the agency has responded to missing its third deadline by announcing that it would no longer set deadlines for full employment.

In a briefing Friday with reporters, FEMA Director R. David Paulison said the agency has hired about 85 percent of the workers it needs. This is the same percentage he offered when asked by a reporter May 23 about progress toward a goal of reaching 95 percent of capacity before June 1, when the hurricane season began.

Initially, the agency set a mid-May deadline for meeting that goal. Paulison pushed that date back to June 1, and the agency further delayed it to July, according to a FEMA fact sheet given to reporters last month.

Paulison took responsibility for the delays even though he’s been on the job less than a month. But his taking the blame while offering no solutions didn’t sit well with the House Homeland Security and Government Reform committees, which recently assumed oversight of FEMA because of its continued staff vacancies.

“One thing that the Department of Homeland Security has kept consistent is its inability to be straightforward,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the homeland security panel’s ranking member. “We really have a case of ‘FEMA gone wild’ over there, if leaders can’t even give us a straight answer on how many people are on staff and when we will have an effective fully staffed FEMA.”

Well, if the goal is “an effective fully staffed FEMA,” don’t hold your breath. Heck, those of us who live in Hurricane Alley would settle for just an “effective FEMA.”

Why Won’t These Black Kids Just Drink More?

Trish

A new study shows that African-American young people are under tremendous pressure from advertisers to drink, drink, drink. According to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY), during 2003 and 2004:

  • African-Americans aged 12 to 20 were consistently exposed to substantially more magazine advertising for distilled spirits and beer than were youth in general
  • African-Americans were exposed to from 17% to 21% more beer and ale magazine advertising, and 42% to 43% more distilled spirits magazine advertising per capita
  • African-Americans heard more radio alcohol advertising per capita than youth in general in nine of the 10 largest radio markets during the summer of 2003, and in six of the top 10 markets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston-Galveston and Detroit — during the summer of 2004
  • Alcohol ads ran on all 15 of the most-watched television programs among African-American youth in 2004, with three brands — Bud Light, Heineken Beer and Miller Genuine Draft — contributing more than half of the nearly $4.8 million

Despite the concerted effort of alcohol producers to get their products into the hands of black youths, the American Advertising Federation (full disclosure: I am a member) says alcohol use is less in this demographic.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States has noted that a government survey on alcohol use found that in the same time period, African-Americans aged 12 to 20 used alcohol at a rate of 19.1 percent, compared to 26.6 percent of Hispanic youths and 32.6 percent of Caucasians.

The problem, says CAMY, is that the effects of using alcohol are worse among black kids.

There is substantial evidence that, although African-Americans may drink less than the general population, they suffer higher rates of alcohol-related problems. Alcohol is the drug most commonly used by African-American youth. While African-American youth consume less alcohol than their White and other ethnic minority peers, more than a third (37%) of African- American high school students are regular drinkers (i.e. at least once in the past 30 days). Alcohol use contributes to the three leading causes of death among African-American youth between ages 12 and 20: homicide, unintentional injury (including motor vehicle crashes) and suicide. In the African-American population in general, abstention rates are higher than in the general population, but so are prevalence of heavier drinking and levels of alcohol-related health consequences.

Gee, do you think it’s time to stop pushing 12-year-olds to pop open a cold one?

Katherine Harris Aims for Democrat Nelson, Hits Republican Martinez

Trish

The best campaign strategy for Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to use against Katherine Harris might be to just give her the floor. She makes an effective case all by herself that she’s too mentally impaired to hold office. Her hometown paper, the Lakeland Ledger:

“She’s trashing the senator of her own party,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin told The Tampa Tribune.

It turns out that when it comes to political potshots, Harris is no more cautious than Dick Cheney on a hunting trip…

Nelson, said Harris, is “weak on immigration” because he favors a bill that would provide “amnesty to illegal immigrants.”

That’s because Nelson supports a bill drafted and sponsored by — oops — his Republican counterpart from Florida, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez.

“She’s trashing the senator of her own party,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin told The Tampa Tribune.

Hello? Katherine? Katherine’s handlers? Anybody? Somebody get research on the phone!

Nelson said last month that he favors [the Martinez] approach, “To get these people out of the shadows, working and paying taxes — which they are not — is what we need to do.”

Nelson has also proposed two amendments to the bill. One would add more beds in detention centers for illegal immigrants who will be deported. Another would increase the use of technology along the border for better patrolling.

Martinez told the Tribune that he thought the bill was “tough enough” before Nelson’s amendments, and that Nelson’s position on immigration may be tougher than his…

Harris has made it clear that Nelson is her main target. But with him standing so close to Martinez — one of the few Republicans who haven’t openly questioned her ability to win the election — Harris might want to use something other than a shotgun on the next attempt.

More on Top Three GOP Adulterers Running for President in ’08

Jon Ponder

Earlier this month our list of the top 10 GOP adulterers created a bit of stir. Now Steve Benen, writing in the Washington Monthly, has a related story on the three men on our list who are running for the GOP nomination for president in 2008, including the two frontrunners, Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, as well the candidate I have endorsed to be the GOP’s 2008 standard bearer, former House Speaker New Gingrich:

McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, “aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich.” McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife’s family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It’s possible that the age of the offense and McCain’s charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again, but Giuliani and Gingrich may face a more difficult challenge. Both conducted well-documented affairs in the last decade–while still in public office.

Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with “groping in the window at Macy’s.” In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director.

But the most notorious of them all is undoubtedly Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, “Let Our Family Represent Your Family.” (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair’s Gail Sheehy: “We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'” Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.