Making Rain: Davis and Devolites at ICG Government

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.

Here's the startling highlight from today's story:

The project started in 2003 with a $2 million contract to help the new Department of Homeland Security quickly get an intelligence operation up and running.Over the next year, the cost of the no-bid arrangement with consultant Booz Allen Hamilton soared by millions of dollars per month, as the firm provided analysts, administrators and other contract employees to the department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection offices.

By December 2004, payments to Booz Allen had exceeded $30 million -- 15 times the contract's original value. When department lawyers examined the deal, they found it was "grossly beyond the scope" of the original contract, and they said the arrangement violated government procurement rules. The lawyers advised the department to immediately stop making payments through the contract and allow other companies to compete for the work.

But the competition did not take place for more than a year. During that time, the payments to Booz Allen more than doubled again under a second no-bid arrangement, to $73 million, according to internal documents, e-mail and interviews.

In addition to his front page appearance at ICG helping his wife land these bidders as paying clients, Davis was also pushing for laws that reduced contract oversight.

Under the 2003 Services Acquisition Reform Act (H.R. 1837), sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., some contractors providing widely available commercial services would receive exemptions from cost accounting standards on sole source agreements worth up to $15 million. The bill also encourages government agencies to enter into share-in-savings agreements, where they would share the windfall generated from new innovations with contractors.

Davis's contacts with Beltway Bandits goes back to his rise to power and lead of the Republican National Congressional Committee.

Three of [VA Senator John] Warner’s top ten contributors for 2001 through 2006 were missile defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. TRW (now owned by Northrop Grumman) threw a luncheon honoring Sen. Warner and Rep. Tom Davis during the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia, at a time when the company was under investigation for possibly falsifying data in its missile defense testing program.

Tom Davis: 7 easy steps to mistakenly delete incriminating emails...

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 his $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:

Let's say you've written an email you shouldn't have. I'm using the example from John Stewart and the "Daily Show."
























(1) First, mistakenly delete the email.

But it's not really deleted. So next,
(2) go to your deleted files folder, and mistakenly delete it again.
















You still can't breathe easily. Now, (3), you have to mistakenly click on "Tools."

Then (4), mistakenly click on "Recover Deleted Items."


















Now you're only halfway finished.

(5) Find the file in this new folder. While you're looking for something else.

(6) Mistakenly click on the "X" for "Purge selected item."
















(7) Then click "Okay." By mistake.

















Oh, no! As long as your daily back up tape hasn't started running, you have made a terrible mistake and deleted the email!

Tom Davis and Alberto Gonzales

Tom Davis defends Alberto Gonzales?

Actually, he is defending the Alberto Gonzales of the General Services Administration,Lurita Alexis Doan.

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 low.

Let's not forget that for the crooks to keep power, they needed a multi-pronged attack: They needed the contributions from contractors with GSA and the other agencies contracting out core functions, donated to people in a position to take the money: Delay, Foley, and Davis, with a little help from Abramoff. They used the money for schemes such as the ones suppressing voter turn out. And they needed loyal Bushies in the Justice Department lawyers to look the other way.

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

I. Critics of Lurita Doan are poor performers.

Doan obstructed the investigation into her Hatch Act violation by claiming the witnesses had motive to lie: "There's not a single one of those who did not have somewhere in between a poor to totally inferior performance,” she said. Actually, three of the five witnesses "met performance expectations;" 3 on the rating scale of 5. Government raters are required to give a quota of "3" ratings, so many superior employees end up taking turns getting the 3. One appointee had been rated 4 of 5, and another had received the highest rating 5 of 5.

* Critics of Alberto Gonzales are poor performers.

II. Critics of Lurita Doan are picking on a successful African American, according to Davis.

REP. DAVIS OPENING STATEMENT:…the retaliation is actually being done against an African-American entrepreneur who supports the Bush Administration.

* Critics of Alberto Gonzales are picking on a successful Hispanic.

Not even Hispanics say this anymore.

III. Lurita Doan “can’t recall” the meeting where the improper activity occurred.
* Alberto Gonzales “can’t recall” the meeting where the improper activity occurred.

IV. Lurita Doan remembers the meetings in question but didn’t pay attention when the improper activity occurred. She claims she was Blackberrying. However, there is no Blackberry activity on her account during this meeting.

* Alberto Gonzales remembers the meetings in question but didn’t pay attention when the improper activity occurred.

Cross posted on MyDD and DailyKos.

Lurita Doan and Tom Davis: "the most pernicious of political activity"

Tom Davis and other Republican incumbents in the "Rove/Doan slideshow" should release their 2006 schedules, to show if they were illegally scheduled by GSA for events that would help their campaigns.

WAPO today:

In a June 8 letter to Bush, Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch accused Doan of "engaging in the most pernicious of political activity" during a Jan. 26 lunch briefing involving 36 GSA political appointees and featuring a PowerPoint presentation about the November elections by the White House's deputy director of political affairs.

At the presentation's conclusion, Doan asked what could be done to "help our candidates," according to a special counsel report. Several GSA appointees who watched the presentation told special counsel investigators that some appointees responded with ideas of how the agency could use its facilities to benefit the Republican Party.

Lurita Doan's defense? She couldn't have said anything; she never pays attention in Karl Rove meetings.

Doan told investigators that she did not pay attention to the briefing by White House political aide [to Karl Rove] J. Scott Jennings because she was busy reading e-mail on her BlackBerry....

Tom Davis had GSA champion Angela Styles fired because of her effective oversight over Tom Davis campaign donors. She was replaced with the likes of felon David Safarian and Lurita Doan.

Scooter Libby sentenced for manipulating news -- and WaPo still protects Tom Davis

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: for this administration, 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 absolutley 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.
  
• Because it's customary to complete a series before running the first article, the following articles in this entire series should have been written by that July date. Nevertheless, the next article in the series would not run until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. During those 4 months, his election was over. Congress had recessed, again, the city was empty, and most holiday travelers were going through airport security. Davis must have wondered how this good fortune could continue.
  
• But it did last last. The third installment did not run until almost two weeks later, and on a Saturday. Saturday is one of the lowest circulation days for most newspapers.

Additional stories in the Post on Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay don't even mention that Davis was one of very few Congressman singled out for donations from Jack Abramoff's tribal clients, and they don;t mention that he's one of only three Congressmen who received campaign contributions from Abramoff. They don't mention his admission that he knew about Walter Reed in 2004, and that he's named on the famous Lurita Doan GSA slides of candidates who should received campaign help from federal employees.

These aren't neo-cons who are targeted by the administration. It's reputable journalists who seem otherwise credible. They fall for flattery.

Radar Contact: "It's Our Best Format"

At Libby's trial, Judith Miller's testimony showed how the administration and the press combine forces for access journalism:

In a steady but slightly nervous voice, Miller described how her relationship with Libby began: with a bit of flattery [of her writing].... Miller recalled Libby saying that "he liked my reporting ..."

"You look like a lawyer to me, honey." Taxi's Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito) on the pick up line he uses in a bar he knows where women go after they've learned they flunked the Bar exam.

When she "expressed a desire" for regular conversations, Libby said "he would prefer not to see his name in print," Miller said. "We could continue meeting as long as I would identify him as an administration official or senior administration official." She readily agreed.

So Libby would combat these leaks by leaking to Miller, she explained in a tone that indicated this was the most natural thing in the world.

Tom Davis and Lurita Doan

Several stories here and here in WaPo expose more corruption and taxpayer robbery this week. The only problem is the Post once again fails to mention the get-away car driver: Tom Davis.

Blogged more here, while Davis was head of the House Oversight committee, Lurita Doan of GSA was making sure that Republicans, including Davis, were given assignments, such as appearing in government public ceremonies and events, that would give them "ink" and time in the media in a favorable light.

First, Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow of WaPo report that the conclusion of the new Special Counsel's Report is that the "GSA Chief Violated the Hatch Act."

Today, WaPO reports that Doan has been asked to refresh her bad memory and testify again on June 7. That invitation is from new Oversight Committee chair Harvey Waxman. Will he ask her to explain why Tom Davis appears on the slide of politicians whose campaigns must be "helped" by federal employees on government time?

According to the first version of the report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the Office said,"we recommend that the President take disciplinary action against Administrator Doan" because "her disregard for such protections and safeguards is serious and warrants punishment." Those passages were removed from the final version sent to Doan. The final version included a cover letter from Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch containing his "recommendation that the President take appropriate disciplinary action against you for your serious violation of the Hatch Act."

The second robbery is blogged here. According to WaPo, on April 12 the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas filed suit against Sun [Microsystems], alleging that the company violated the False Claims Act when it "made false statements to the government about its commercial sales practices and the discounts it offers to its commercial customers." While Davis ignored the fraud, he raked in the campaign contributions.

$90 million stolen from taxpayers while Tom Davis looks on, defends contractor

According to WaPo, On April 12, the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas filed suit against Sun [Microsystems], alleging that the company violated the False Claims Act when it "made false statements to the government about its commercial sales practices and the discounts it offers to its commercial customers."

Sun was selling tens of millions of dollars a year in software and services to agencies across the government, and the GSA stood to lose millions in industrial funding fees. Details on the prices remain secret because they are considered to be proprietary information. But the audit findings -- that Sun's commercial customers were getting discounts not provided to the government -- could not be ignored by agency officials.

One GSA contracting officer negotiating the discounts for taxpayers, Herman Caldwell, was reassigned. Lurita Doan and James A. Williams were pressuring the new GSA contracting officer, Mike Butterfield, to give Sun a break. Williams was told the government had already been overcharged $77 million over 6 years and was about to be overcharged another $14.4 million.

Hours later, a new contracting officer, Shana Budd, was assigned to replace Butterfield

Tom Davis had a critical role making this possible, converting government buying into a cookie jar for greedy contractors, for example, with a “Share in Savings” program that allowed contractors to pay themselves with amounts they claimed to save the government.

"It's kind of like going into a used-car dealership and being too trusting," said Angela B. Styles, a corporate lawyer who served as President Bush's chief contracting official from 2001 to 2003. "I don't think you really want a partnership with a used-car dealer because you're probably not going to get the best car at the lowest price."

****

"You couldn't design a better system to make accountability impossible," said Daniel Guttman, a government contracting expert at Johns Hopkins University Center for the Study of American Government. "We simultaneously increased the incentive to get masses of contracts out the door and assured no one will look and see how the money is being spent."

Tom Davis defended Budd at the March hearing.

Budd defended herself ... in an e-mail released at a March 28 hearing by Waxman's committee. It was read by Rep. Davis....

In a report prepared by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators questioned Waxman's findings and defended Doan and the Sun contract. "There is no evidence the Administrator acted improperly with respect to the Sun Microsystems contract," the report said, adding that "many of the issues" had been resolved before Budd took over the contract.

Waxman responded that Doan's statements "appear to be misleading" based on the committee's review of the e-mails of her multiple contacts with Larry Allen.

The testimony of the two GSA employees, Butterfield and Caldwell, is evidence. Perhaps there was no more evidence because as long as Davis had been head of the Oversight Committee, there had been no investigation. Sun Microsystems also paid Davis and his pay-to-play politicians to hold back investigators.

SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE, Tom Davis, $5,000 of $10,500.

DAVIS, THOMAS M III VIA TOM DAVIS FOR CONGRESS
10/21/1999 $500.00 20035262854
06/07/2000 $500.00 20035893423
07/18/2001 $1,000.00 22990161786
06/25/2002 $1,000.00 22991431733
09/19/2006 $2,000.00 26930426824

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
07/15/2003 $1,000.00 24990274948
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE CONTRIBUTIONS
11/16/2001 $2,500.00 22990161785
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE
05/28/2003 $2,000.00 23991565976

WASHINGTON MANAGEMENT GROUP, Tom Davis, $1,750 of $11,200.00 Total Contributions

ALLEN, EDWARD L. MR. JR. ARLINGTON, VA 22207
WMG/ASSOC
DAVIS, THOMAS M III VIA TOM DAVIS FOR CONGRESS
06/16/2004 $500.00 24961800258
01/27/2006 $500.00 26940071388

CAGGIANO, PAUL J BETHESDA, MD 20814
WMP President
DAVIS, THOMAS M III VIA TOM DAVIS FOR CONGRESS
09/26/2000 $250.00 20036182097

DAVIS, THOMAS M III VIA TOM DAVIS FOR CONGRESS
12/15/2001 $500.00 22990118509

HARTWELL, STEPHEN MOUNT VERNON, VA 22121
WMG Principal
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE
02/14/2003 $7500.00 23020140686
10/28/2004 $200.00 24021041394

FAIRFAX COUNTY REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE (FEDERAL)
07/22/2004 $1,000.00 24962200931

This is a favorite Committee for Tom Davis; he has donated $58,000 from Tom
Davis for Congress to this Committee. Other than James Hyland, Davis's wife
Jeannemarie Devolites has received the most donations for an individual candidate from this Committee at almost $5,000.

HARTWELL, STEPHEN WASHINGTON, DC 20005
WMG/CHAIR
KYL, JON VIA JON KYL FOR U S SENATE
02/13/2006 $500.00 26020230294

SISTI, THOMAS KENSINGTON, MD 11570
WMG
FLYNN, JOHN THOMAS VIA JOHN THOMAS FLYNN FOR CONGRESS 03/01/2005 $250.00 25038771089

House.Gov monitors this blog on taxpayer dime

During the time I can't get a straight answer on why McNicoll would omit and distort facts to protect Tom Davis, I couldn't help but notice that this blog is getting hits from house.gov. Although one hit is barely after 5 at 5:00:03 pm, the rest are after 9 and before 5 pm.

Here are five of the hits on screenshots - sorry for the resolution. I am no expert in graphics. There is a House.gov hit May 8 at 4:56, 4:42, 3:10 and 2:07.

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This next one shows hits from house.gov May 9 at 9:47 am.

Your tax dollars at work!

A loyal Bushie lies for Tom Davis

Brian McNicoll, Director of Communications, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform accuses Dan Catalano of making up facts on whether Tom Davis can “measure up” should he decide to run for the U.S. Senate ["The man who would be king," The Odd Dominion, May 1, 2007]. In his retort, McNicoll is certainly guilty of making up his own facts to save his boss’s face. (Was this distortion written on government time?)

To say that Davis's name is on some bills during a time when lobbyists paid for the privilege to write them is no compliment. Davis, in fact, collected more money from lobbyists than 428 of the 435 members of Congress. After Tom Delay resigned in disgrace, he moved up from #8 to #7. He worked closely with Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff at the Republican National Congressional Committee. Disgraced Mark Foley was a member of his $100,000 club that Davis called “The Business Leadership Trust.” Foley said he was being pressured by "the White House and Rove gang," who insisted that Foley run. If he didn't, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career.

As to Davis's wife’s job at ICG, it's true they weren’t married when he got that job for her. At that time, he was her "mentor" and campaign manager and they were divorcing their spouses with children. She had lost three elections and Davis was setting her up with a position with no federal campaign limits so that after donating to him up to the limit, bidders on government contractors could substitute money for competence. ICG did register as a lobbyist after they got caught by the Post. Again McNicoll gets his facts wrong: Andrew Hurst brought it up on his website and in debates, calling for Davis’s resignation, for example at here, here, and here.

The ethics committee letter on her job and the money she receives from clients testifying before Davis's Reform Committee, a letter written by a new crop of ethics members after Party leader Dennis Hastert fired the members who censured DeLay, did not give Davis a clean bill of health. In fact it clearly told him to avoid an appearance and an actual conflict of interest. ICG and Davis have yet to reveal which ICG clients were prepared for Davis’s hearing by his wife, but the sham hearings with obviously prepared questions include the Carnival Cruise Katrina contract and public health hearings including tobacco use and needle sharing.

As to the work he did on the Reform Committee, yes, he and Waxman didn’t call each other names. But it didn’t take a genius to conclude that the response to Katrina was “A Failure of Initiative.” And the tragedy was foreseeable and in fact was foreseen and Davis did nothing to prevent it while agencies responsible for response were dismantled and sold to contractors under Davis’s watch while he collected their campaign contributions. Tom Davis knew about Walter Reed conditions in 2004, but did not want to hold hearings because it would “embarrass” his Party or his President. See Congressional Quarterly March 7, 2007. Davis accepted campaign contributions from the Halliburton-connected contractor for Walter Reed during the decline of the staff and facility. Davis held a half-day hearing on Abu Gharib while Democrats had to meet in the basement.

At the recently-revealed GSA scandal, Tom Davis knew Lurita Doan was firing auditors, giving GSA contracts to friends. Davis had forced out previous GSA manager Angela Styles who had been pushing for audits of incompetent contractors, replaced her with David Safavian, a felon who sold access to contracts to Jack Abramoff. See more on Ms. Styles here. Tom Davis’s name appears on the slides of Republicans that federal employees were supposed to help on taxpayer time.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. I appreciate that Mr. McNicoll’s boss may have asked him to respond to the May 1 article, but the inaccuracies of a loyal Bushie should not go uncorrected.

Overseeing the administration and the media

WaPo April 25, 2007

"Oversight is just as important, if not more important, than legislation," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The new investigations illustrate just how many questions went unanswered in the six years when Democrats "couldn't hold hearings, we couldn't compel information . . . all we could do was ask for it," he said.

Tom Davis (R-VA) used his Committee chairmanship for 12 years to cover up administration scandals and blackmail campaign contributions for himself and his wife. Now Davis is in the passenger seat. Entrenched incumbents had continued their law breaking, and honest politicians fell by the wayside, forced to compete with the crooks by joining them or leaving public service. Now Waxman is issuing subpoenas.

See the latest on the connection between the media and the cover ups on PBS tonight.

Since Democrats assumed control of Congress in January, they have hired more than 200 investigative staffers for key watchdog committees. They include lawyers, former reporters and congressional staffers who left oversight committees that had all but atrophied during the six years that the GOP controlled Congress and the White House. They have already begun a series of inquiries on subjects ranging from allegations of administration meddling in federal scientists' work on global warming and the General Services Administration's alleged work for Republican campaigns to how disproved claims that Iraq had purchased nuclear material from Niger evolved into a case for war.

Making government more effective AND embarrassing the administration

As reported by this Boston Globe expose, the Government Oversight and Reform Committee did little reform and no oversight. In fact, Chairman Tom Davis went so far as to remove the word "oversight" from the committee name.

Now that Henry Waxman is the Chair, according to today's Politico, "already, GOP aides have begun circulating opposition research on him, trying to paint him as an overzealous liberal whose investigations are little more than a partisan scheme."

I'll acknowledge some credit to Tom Davis (any time he deserves it, but so far just this once): "Over the years, [Waxman] worked closely with Rep. Tom Davis when the Virginia Republican was the committee's chairman. And Davis, now the committee's ranking member, has refrained from publicly criticizing Waxman since Democrats took power."

However, Davis does take a snide shot trying to undermine Waxman's catch up on years of neglect. His spokesman David Marin states:

"The overriding question will be: Is this about making government more effective, or is this about embarrassing the administration?"

Do we have to choose? As champions of the self-proclaimed Party of Individual Responsibility, members of the administration should be embarrassed. Or did they lose their individual responsibility when they became Bushies?

The next hearing is on the lies surrounding Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire. According to the uniformed services, they reported the truth about his tragic loss all the way up to the White House. When did the story change? Karl? Rummy?

Washington Post says administration's use of federal employees to manipulate elections is a bad idea

Republican incumbents should release their 2006 schedule, to show if they received this illegal GSA help.

Playing Politics at the GSA: Lurita Doan's willful disregard of the Hatch Act

Tuesday, April 3, 2007; Page A22

LURITA DOAN, the troubled and troubling administrator of the General Services Administration, wants us to "honestly and absolutely" believe that she has no recollection of a meeting she hosted for political appointees with a White House official that had all the feel of a Republican pep rally. There was a PowerPoint presentation on the 2006 elections and talk of using the agency to help GOP candidates in the next election cycle. Yet the Republican fundraiser, who's been in her post for only 10 months, would have us think she forgot.

* * * *

All this -- the PowerPoint presentation, the high-level official from the White House who did the presentation, the go-team cheerleading of Ms. Doan -- leads us to an important question: Who else in the federal government has seen this show? House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) asked that question and more in a letter to Mr. Rove on March 29. He, and we, are eager for a response.

Karl Rove staff and Lurita Doan offer your help to local corrupt Republicans

Karl Rove deputy J. Scott Jennings directed Lurita Doan, the chief of the GSA, and as many as 40 agency officials to help in the re-election of embattled Republicans in the 2006 election. The presentation was made by the White House aide given at the General Services Administration and discussed targeting 20 Democratic congressional candidates in the next election.

Jennings' 28-page presentation included 2006 election results and listed the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need their help in 2008. The 2008 list includes the following local pols: Thelma Drake (VA-02), Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06) and Tom Davis (VA-11) . The last two slides of the 28 identify Virginia as battleground states in the 2008 Senate race where GSA help will be needed.

WaPo covers politics and the GSA here.

Deepwater is in Deep Caca ...and Cheney's son-in-law?!

Crossposted on DailyKos and Raising Kaine.

WaPo reported today about the Deepwater Revolving door and pay-to-play politics that jeopardizes the Coast Guard, Homeland security and border control. The story mentioned Phillip J. Perry.

The Perry family of McClean, VA has donated generously to the campaigns of crooks like Bob Ney, Randy Forbes, and Conrad Burns, as well as Tom DeLay's ARMPAC, Robert Ehrlich, and Tom Davis. The Perry family donations exceed $50,000.

What did they get for their money? They got to go through the Deepwater Revolving Door. Formerly a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, J. Phillip Perry, a son-in-law of Dick Cheney, was nominated to be General Counsel to the Department of Homeland Security from June 2005 until he left in February 2007.

After drafting the law that created DHS at OMB, Perry became its GC, a position he could have used to oversee some of the many problems Lockheed had complying with its contract to build boats that float on time and on budget for the Coast Guard. Perry returned to the DC firm of Latham and Watkins in March.

A significant target of the Perry generosity is Tom Davis (R-VA), who oversaw the Government Reform Committee during a period of pay-to-play politics and almost unprecendented scandal when the Committee set records for inactivity. The company escaped accountability for the waste and inefficiency so the money seems like a great investment. Here are the details of the Tom Davis donations from the FEC wbsite.

PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN------10/23/1998---$500.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC-98034022477
PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN------05/05/1999--$1000.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC-99034720146
PERRY, ANNE POWERS MRS----04/28/2000--$1000.00-HOMEMAKER-20036461485
PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN MR.-02/09/2001---$500.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC./EXECUTIVE-21990247559
PERRY, PHILIP JONATHAN MR.-07/16/2001---$250.00-WHITE & CASE /ATTORNEY-22990118540
PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN MR.-03/13/2002---$500.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC./EXECUTIVE-22990694379
PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN MR.-12/29/2003---$500.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC./EXECUTIVE-24990181655
PERRY, GERALD STEPHEN MR.-07/15/2005--$1000.00-THE DUTKO GROUP INC./EXECUTIVE-25971136867

Contractor Accountability - who could possibly object?

Who is objecting to Contractor Accountability, Whistleblower Protection, and Testimony from Valerie Plame?

The purpose of the Contractor Accountability bill is "to improve Federal contracting and procurement by eliminating fraud and abuse and improving competition in contracting and procurement and by enhancing administration of Federal contracting personnel, and for other purposes."

Coming after the scandal of the contracting out of Walter Reed, which was done so poorly and at a higher cost then the government employees who had been working there for decades, the bill had broad support. Only 73 of 433 members of Congress, all Republicans, voted against the bill. Tom Davis and Eric Cantor voted against contractor accountability.

Tom Davis even voted with 190 Republicans against bringing the bill to the Floor for a vote.

The National Association of Govermnment Contractors is for the bill. They're tired of being used as a "piggy bank" for Congressional campaigns.

The Washington Post is for it. When the Democrats first introduced this in 2000, the Post hosted Paul Light, Vice President, Director, and Douglas Dillon Senior at the Brookings Institution. Light said,

"If we're going to have a contract work force, which we surely do, we ought to know what it looks like. Make it visible, understand it, track its movement, and make sure it is the highest quality for the dollar possible. We are increasingly in the business of buying labor through service contracts, but we continue to treat that labor as if it were nothing more than a stick of furniture. Our contract officers need to get smarter, better, and more agile at understanding the difference between buying toilet paper and procuring professional services."

Davis succeeded in attaching to the bill a provision that would prohibit all government agencies from awarding contracts to any institutions of higher learning that deny military recruitment on their campuses. This amendment split the Democrats and united the Republicans. Under current law, the ban applies only to contracts from the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and a few other agencies.

Davis also voted twice with the Republicans to prevent the Whistleblower Protection Act from coming to the floor here and here. It is obvious that the Walter Reed scandal came to light only because of whistleblowers; considering that Walter Reed personnel responded to the scandal by prohibiting employees and patients from speaking with the press, the need for this critical protection is obvious.

Davis is also "clearly unhappy" that Waxman has scheduled testimony from Valerie Plame on Friday, and Davis is trying to close the hearing.

See his Rubber Stamp voting record here.

GSA Head to Staff: “Find Opportunities to Help Republican Political Candidates”

Crossposted at Raising Kaine and Daily Kos.

Project on Government Oversight (POGO) today says:

Today House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman put to rest recent reports that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan may have been acting in good faith when she steered a $20,000 contract to an old friend. According to a release from Waxman’s office, "Ms. Fraser used her professional connections to advance Doan’s nomination to GSA and to provide personal favors, and that Ms. Fraser continued to provide services with the expectation of payment to Ms. Doan after she became GSA Administrator.”

"Besides being caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Doan apparently urged her staff at GSA “to find opportunities to help Republican political candidates.”

The Post was a few hours behind POGO here.

Lurita Doan marches to the corrupt drum. See all the corruption and waste the Oversight Committee has been exposing since the Democrats took over just a few weeks ago. Who was responsible for oversight before Henry Waxman (D-CA) took over? Tom Davis (R-VA)

There are more installments in the series from Robert O'Harrow and Scott Higham. According to this story, at GSA, where Tom Davis forced out Angela Styles for friend and felon David Safarian, Lurita Doan took over. Doan was a very friendly donor to Davis when he was RNCC Chair; the Doan family gave $153,215 to Republicans and over $40,000 to Davis's RNCC when he was Chair. At GSA, for the second time in her federal career, Doan illegally bypassed her own staff to provide a no-bid contract to a friend.

Although the Post states that three Committee members signed a letter asking for an explanation of the fraud, they don't dare embarrass Tom Davis by saying Davis, the Committee Chair, was not bothered enough by the stink to be one of the signers. The letter asking for an explanation was signed by minority Committee members Waxman, Holmes-Norton, and Obserstar.

On her way out of GSA, Styles had said "There is still not a lot of oversight in some areas of our contracting system, and I think it will haunt us." Done.

Challenging the Iraq Resolution as withdrawing support for our troops-Catch 22

Do you have questions for the Republicans on the Iraq War?

Now that our closest allies, the British, have announced they are phasing out their troop presence in Iraq, this war unquestionably belongs to the Bush administration and the Republicans who covered for them. The chief of the cover up is Tom Davis (R-VA), who put the Government Reform Committee on a strict diet of salt peter during his reign from 1998 through 2006. The absurdity of the actions of Davis's committee, whereby subjects of investigations could hire Davis's wife to prepare them for an investigation in which Davis could ask planted questions or prohibit questions altogether, is captured deep in the transcripts for the Committee.

Davis cites the Hurricane Katrina investigation as proof he was on the job. But clearly he was not. He limited the hearing and the questions. The most quoted example of planted questions involves the disaster and Carnival Cruise lines, a Florida company with ties to Presidential brother Jeb Bush, Florida governor. Carnival won a no-bid contract for providing housing for displaced Louisiana natives aboard their ships after Hurricane Katrina in amounts that exceeded the costs for providing a full luxury cruise. The ships remained more than half empty. Davis did not subpeona the company but had a friendly hearing on the no-bid, $236 million contract (including $44 million in expenses). When the VP of Marketing, Terry Thorton, testified how Carnival got the profitable award, Davis asked such planted questions as this one:

"You didn't seek the government contract. The government came to you, basically, with a solicitation."

"That's correct," Thorton replied.

This was not a question. Furthermore, it was not correct. Democrats found emails to prove it.

Back to the present, it is long past time to challenge the President on the Iraq War. Despite Davis's insistence that those who do so are guilty of treason (should they be hanged for it?), demanding that your country produce compelling reasons for sending people to die is patriotic, too.

How has your representative responded to your questions? The challenges to the war allowed by the Republicans are as meaningful as the challenges from Davis's Oversight Committee, and as absurd as this Q&A:

Group Headquarters was alarmed, for there was no telling what people might find out once they were free to ask whatever questions they wanted to. Colonel Cathcart sent Colonel Korn to stop it, and Colonel Korn succeeded with a rule governing the asking of questions. Colonel Korn's rule was a stroke of genius, Colonel Korn explained in his report to Colonel Cathcart. Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did. Soon the only people attending were those who never asked questions, and the sessions were discontinued altogether, since Clevinger, the corporal and Colonel Korn agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Catch-22

It's not over till it's under-Tyson's Tunnel

The Tyson's Tunnel Project has implications from Bethesda to the West to Prince George's to the East, and all the way around the Beltway. Tom Davis (VA-11th) is the Republican who refuses to cooperate with Henry Waxman's fraud tip line, who threatened Va Governor Kaine when he tried to trigger use of new technology to build a tunnel through Tyson's, and who shakes down fraudulent government contractors in Iran and the Hurricane-rattled Gulf to finance the campaigns for him and his wife.

The current project is ugly.

So who has Tom Davis's ear on the Tyson's tunnel project? Not voters, but real estate magnates.

...Northern Virginia Congressmen Tom Davis and Jim Moran [were] spotted with NoVa real estate investor Joe Robert, taking in the [Wizards baskletball] game [Wed., Feb 7th] from courtside floor seats with “nice full beers,” according to our source.

Who bought the floor seats? Well, the host seemed to be Joe Robert, who according to the FEC donated $161,000 to federal, mostly Republican, candidates including over $14,000 to Davis as an individual and as RNCC Chair, to Rick Santorum, Michael Steele, and crooks like Conrad Burns. Tom Davis's PAC and his wife are both in Robert's top 10 recipients (if not for Gov. Warner almost all donations are to pro-development Republicans). Robert donated another$50,000 to state races as JE Robert Company. He is also a Washington Baseball Club member. His "charity" All Children Matter has donated almost $500,000 to Republicans in Virginia.

When you want to influence Tom Davis, be sure to bring your VIP tickets. But remember, his biggest obsession baseball.

Davis leaves a cold trail, complains trail is cold

Tom Davis headed the Government Reform Committee since 1998. Despite allegations of torture, failure to provide adequate troop protective gear, waste, fraud, and missing packages of money called "footballs" used to "hand off," Davis issued no subpeonas and took almost no testimony on the issues related to the Iraq War.

Now that new Chairman Henry Waxman is holding a hearing, Davis is criticizing him for starting hearings so late. Then he undermined the Democrats newly established tip line.

Former committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., now the senior minority member ... criticized Waxman.

He said Waxman was rushing to "old judgments" in a hearing that was "old news."

Davis accused Democrats of trying to embarrass the administration.

He said Waxman's interest in finding out if government contractors were funding terrorism was "Self righteous finger wagging and political scapegoating [that] won’t make Iraq any more secure, it won’t rebuild that savage nation, and it won’t bring U.S. troops home any sooner.”

MSN:

The hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform scrutinized the chaotic days that began after a burning and looted Baghdad fell to U.S. troops four years ago. Bremer ran the country for 14 months.
* * * *
Waxman and a hearing witness, special inspector general for Iraq Stuart Bowen Jr., criticized Bremer for failing to install accounting systems that would have forced Iraqi ministries to account for up to $12 billion in Iraq's funds. The money came from a United Nations oil-for-food program and seized Iraqi assets, but fell under Bremer's control.

"Without strong standards, we have no way of knowing whether the cash could end up in enemy hands," said Waxman.

So much for homeland security.

Not all Republicans felt the need to defend the waste and corruption. Other Republicans disagreed with Davis's assessment. "Conservative Republicans should feel no obligation to defend waste just because it happened in Iraq," said Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn.

Democrats are planning more investigations coming up, many of them in Waxman's committee. The newly named, newly energized Oversight Committee scheduled further hearings this week on homeland security contracts and drug prices.

Davis, who had almost 9 years to establish a tip line while he was Chairman, then announced the Republicans would not cooperate with the new Oversight tip email. He had started his own email address, and did not offer to share information collected on it with the majority.

There you have it. Congressional Democrats and Republicans can’t even agree on a single tip line for whistleblowers to report waste, fraud and abuse. Makes you wonder how the warring parties will able to get it together long enough to manage the bigger issues on the national agenda.

Tom Davis makes National Quote of the Week

Surface Air Temperature Increase 1960-2060
NASA Home > Life on Earth > In Everyday Life

Government Reform Committee Chair Henry Waxman charged another White House cover up, this time on global warming, when he said,

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger,” said Waxman, adding that he is “not trying to obtain state secrets.”

The cover up facilitator for the past decade has been none other than former Chair Tom Davis of VA. Davis continues the White House spin in a linguistic gymnastic routine that earns him national recognition:

Here's my nomination for quote of the week: "The issue of politicizing science has itself become politicized." It was spoken by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., at a hearing on global warming.

* * * *

[Y]es, truth always has been elusive, and always will remain so. Once we seemed to be able to agree on facts. But now we are told to dismiss facts if they get characterized as political. In Davis' world, it's political, and apparently dismissive on that basis, to speak up to make the point that someone else has been political.

It reminds me of my cub reporting days so many years ago. The local political establishment was alleged to be corrupt -- election fraud and such. The alleged
ringleader responded by telling me, with a tone of utter disdain, that those who alleged his corruption were "politically motivated." As if that were bad, or disqualifying, or a surprise, or relevant to whether the guy and his allies were actually corrupt. Perhaps you're wondering how a charge of stealing elections could be anything other than politically motivated.

* * * *

We seem to have two options: We must draw the curtain on political performance art to permit the pursuit of empirical data about global warming. Or, we could try what might be the most effective tool of all, at least nowadays, which would be taking scientific fact and finding fresh and innovative ways to present it through political performance art.

Did someone say Al Gore?