This qualified for the cronyism, too, but after I read the second article, about Sen. James Imhofe (R. - Dumbf**kistan) I couldn't resist putting it here.
The Environment Is Doomed
Earlier this year, President Bush appointed 66-year-old Sam Bodman to serve as Secretary of Energy, a guy who for more than a decade ran a Texas-based chemical company that spent years on the top-five lists of the country's worst polluters.
And what action will our incompetent Republican Party take to protect the environment? Have the eternally dumb Imhofe (dumber than a bag of hammers and half as useful) have hearings featuring witness Michael Crichton, writer of fiction, testify about it (yes, truth IS stranger than fiction).
Michael Crichton, Novelist, Becomes Senate Witness
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - His last book, "State of Fear," was published more than nine months ago, but the reviews were still pouring in on Wednesday, even as Michael Crichton folded his 6-foot-9-inch frame into a seat to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
"More silly than scary," the flier dropped off by the Natural Resources Defense Council said.
"Notable mainly for its nuttiness," an analysis from the Brookings Institution said.
"Does not reflect scientific fact," the Union of Concerned Scientists said.
[]
His is an unpopular and contrary stance when measured against the judgment of groups like the National Academy of Sciences. But it was not those organizations that asked Mr. Crichton to Washington to counsel Congress on how to consider diverse scientific opinion when making policy. It was the committee chairman, Senator James M. Inhofe, a plainspoken* Oklahoma Republican who has unabashedly pronounced global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
In Mr. Crichton, a Harvard medical school graduate who never practiced medicine, he had found a kindred spirit - and a star witness for his committee.
* "Plainspoken" is apparently NYTimesSpeak for "stupid".
The Corruption:
Tom Delay get indicted again, by a different grand jury, for the same conduct, but this time there are two indictments. The man is just a walking ham sandwich. Oh, and this time, if convicted, he could get a life term. And in Texas, life means life.
I Love Me Some Texas Justice
The Cronyism:
Of course, today's crony is Harriet Miers,
a woman who has excelled in endeavors that require networking and shoulder-rubbing and no actual proof of legal expertise. (General counsel? Lest we forget, Mike Brown's first job at FEMA was as general counsel.) (Amy Sullivan)
Even the wingnuts are crying "crony, crony!"
What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court. It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder. (Michelle Magalong)
Just talked to a very pro-Bush legal type who says he is ashamed and embarrassed this morning. Says Miers was with an undistinguished law firm; never practiced constitutional law; never argued any big cases; never was on law review; has never written on any of the important legal issues. Says she's not even second rate, but is third rate. Dozens and dozens of women would have been better qualified. Says a crony at FEMA is one thing, but on the high court is something else entirely. Her long history of activity with ABA is not encouraging from a conservative perspective--few conservatives would spend their time that way. In short, he says the pick is “deplorable.” There may be an element of venting here, but thought I'd pass along for what it's worth. It's certainly indicative of the mood right now...(Rich Lowry, National Review Online)
And, really, she's just your average, run-of-the-mill, crooked corporate lawyer:
Miers Led Law Firm Repeatedly Forced to Pay Damages For Defrauding Investors
In case anyone thought Harriet Miers wasn't a corporate-shill-in-White-House-clothing, take a gander at how Miers did her best Ken Lay impression while heading a major Texas corporate law firm. That's right, according to the 5/1/00 newsletter Class Action Reporter, Miers headed Locke, Liddell & Sapp at the time the firm was forced to pay $22 million to settle a suit asserting that "it aided a client in defrauding investors."
The details of the case are both nauseating and highly troubling, considering President Bush is considering putting Miers at the top of America's legal system. Under Miers' leadership, the firm represented the head of a "foreign currency trading company [that] was allegedly a Ponzi scheme." The law-firm admitted that it "knew in March 1998 that $ 8 million in [the company's] losses hadn't been reported to investors" but didn't tell regulators.
This wasn't an isolated incident, either. The Austin American-Statesman reported in 2001 that Miers' lawfirm was forced to pay another $8 million for a similar scheme to defraud investors. The suit, which dealt with actions the firm took under Miers in the late 1990s, was again quite troubling. As the 9/20/00 Texas Lawyer reported, Miers' firm helped a now-convicted con man "defraud investors and allowed the firm's [bank] account to be used as a 'conduit.'" The suit said "money from investors that went into the firm's trust account was deposited into [the con man's] bank accounts and was used to pay for his 'expensive toys.'"
If you think Miers wasn't involved in any of this -- think again. Miers wasn't just any old lawyer at the firm. She was the Managing Partner -- the big cheese.
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