A club review in this morning's New York Times had this curious nugget:

Fat Baby, the latest hot spot on the Lower East Side…has played host to several celebrities. Vice magazine held its holiday party there (and if anybody knows hipster porn stars, it's Vice). Jenna Bush came in and left behind her ID (unhip). The manager returned it but quickly became embroiled in a rumor-filled predicament that culminated in a phone call from the Secret Service (hip).

Interestingly, this bit of NYT reportage reinforced an item that has been floating on ConspiracyPlanet.com for a few days now:

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Is this story the reason why Radar Magazine got shut down?)
According to a source who has seen the footage, which features a self-described downtown coke dealer relating his late-night run-in with the First Daughter, and brandishing her college ID as a souvenir, the man insinuates that the two shared more than just drinks...at one point the dealer claims that the young, blonde Jenna Bush with the Texas accent he hung out with that night (and who happened to leave behind Jenna Bush’s belongings) had been "helping [him] clean up" the bar after a long night of partying...we hear the UT-Austin ID card displayed in the film clearly shows the hard-partying political liability's name, picture and student ID number.

Modified Image: Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 8:07 PM 0 comments  

 
A Well-Connected Freshman


In its December 3, 2005 edition, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Geoff Davis spokesperson Jessica Towhey saying that disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham's $11,000 gift to Mr. Davis could not be returned because it had already been spent:

"The money does not sit around collecting dust...This is an example of putting politics ahead of the important issues."

Yes.
The important issues of cash collection.
TIME magazine, today, reports a little tidbit that might upset stoic Republican composure:

Sources tell TIME that ex-Rep. Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.

Willikers...Yet more domestic wiretapping!

Image: AP, Cincinnati Enquirier, NYT, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 4:03 PM 0 comments  

 

Clearly Washington politicians have fashioned a cutting-edge manner of postmillennial redemption with this morning’s widely reported post Abramoff spate of charitable giving sweeping through the grimy, cash-soiled power corridors of Washington.
Never fear that Jack Abramoff’s crimes have been obvious for quite some time, bug-eyed and clammy-handed pols, panicked over unexplained sin, have chosen self-publicized and unexplained charitable “redirection” in recent days over a messier and unpredictable session in a media sob sister’s confessional.
Serious matters like jail time are, still, up in the air.
This allegedly charitable media/political exculpation of tainted cash strikes me as unusual to say the least.
I have sympathy for the charities but shouldn’t the redirected course of stolen money find its way back to the original owner and victim of the crime?
And, shouldn’t some impartial jurist rather than the alleged criminal oversee any return or redirection of stolen property?
Imagine an arrested bank robber saying, “Well, officer, you caught me fair and square. And to prove my good faith I’m going to redirect my stolen loot to an obscure religious charity rather than give it back to the 1st National Bank.”
Yup.
It would be funny were it not so sickening.
Haven’t the Abramoff funds commingled with other funds resting in various politicos’ war chests for quite some time?
Haven’t portions been spent?
Can tainted cash be so easily extracted from larger pools of lucre?
Didn’t Mr. Abramoff himself describe his bribery as "a stream of things of value” including non-monetized free meals, free tickets to events and free travel?
Can Indian tribes people look forward to evenings of fine dining and travel since politicians seem not to be redirecting their stolen cash back to their victimized selves?

Locally, the Abramoff/Delay imbroglio has deeply stained the fabric of our Christian conservative representatives as yesterday’s post on Congressman Geoff Davis showed.
This morning’s papers bring news of Mitch McConnell’s $18,500 transgressions and Jim Bunning’s laughable $1,000 bribe direct from the hand of Jack Abramoff.
Other republican Kentucky pols and organizations include:
Governor Ernie Fltcher-$1,000
5th District Congressman Hal Rogers- $32,000
4th District Congressman Geoff Davis-$30,000
State Republican Party-$10,000

Modified Image: Google
- posted by Sean @ 10:48 AM 1 comments  

 

On December 6, 2005 a spokesman for Kentucky’s ultra rightwing freshmen 4th District Congressman Geoff Davis told the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Geoff Davis is not wealthy.

The comment was in defense of the Congressman’s lavish personal reimbursements totaling $69,154 for “campaign expenses” incurred during his failed campaign in 2002, his successful run in 2004 and his future, now suddenly Delay/Abramoff-free, 2006 attempt.
Davis’ spokesperson Jessica Towhey continued justifying to the Cincinnati Enquirer:

"It is reasonable for Geoff Davis to spend $1,000 to $2,000 a month on the campaign trail…[Davis] has put more than 100,000 miles on his truck campaigning.”

Poor baby!
Why you would almost think he didn't count rich developer friends among his supporters back in the district.
The bulk of the Enquirer’s facts came from information posted on the excellent BluegrassReport.org where information on the Congressman’s lavish cash gifts from Tom Delay ($30,000), Randy Cunningham ($11,000) and, by extension, Jack Abramoff can be found.
Readers of this blog might remember that I had a chat with a Davis staffer last September regarding the Congressman’s lock-step support of President Bush’s suspension of fair wage laws within the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone.
On September 21, 2005 Armstrong Robinson returned a call I made to Congressman Davis’ Washington, DC office and described the Rooseveltian fair wage laws as:

“Outdated Depression-era law.”

As a resident of the 4th District, I told Mr. Robinson that I would be interested in having a copy of Davis' position in writing.
Mr. Robinson, on September 21, 2005, promised to get this information in “this afternoon's mail”.
On November 10, 2005 I received a two-page letter from Davis’ office (dated November 8) that failed to deliver Armstrong Robinson’s promised detail of Mr. Davis’ support for the Bush post Katrina fair wage suspension.
Mr. Davis doesn’t want the ordinary working families of northern Kentucky to know that following the worst natural disaster in American history he was for the elimination of the 1931 fair wage law that successfully flooded the work-starved Louisiana and Mississippi labor pool with unskilled Latino workers.
Mr. Davis’s staff claims he isn’t wealthy.
The congressman’s recent actions suggest, barring the widening Abramoff scandal, that he wanted to change his personal economic status at a time when he was using his elective office to support the President’s quasi-legal suspension of Federal Law and the elimination of a fair wage for ordinary working people.
Give the smelly Delay-Cunningham-Abramoff money back Mr. Davis or 2006 will see you driving that old truck back to Hebron.

PS

Six minutes after I published this post my tracker registered a visit from someone using the information system within the US House of Representatives.
Coincidence...or not?

Image: Google, Cincinnati Enquirer
- posted by Sean @ 5:13 PM 0 comments  

 


Photos: AP Google, NYT
- posted by Sean @ 3:48 PM 2 comments  

 

Earlier this afternoon, President Bush was wheeled out to, again,
obliquely defend his criminal domestic wiretapping by urging the renewal of a piece of legislation made meaningless by his actions.
This very quick photo of the TV screen as Mr. Bush spoke shows the White House displaying, in addition to the Attorney General nodding like a dashboard ornament, failed Bush cronies Harriest Miers and Karl Rove.
One wonders if the President really has literally fallen on his face once too often.

Photo: sean
- posted by Sean @ 3:32 PM 0 comments  

 
Coming Soon...




Jack Abramoff will plead guilty to three felony counts in Washington today...setting the stage for prosecutors to begin using him as a cooperating witness against his former business and political colleagues.
--The New York Times

Modified Image: NYT, Pixar
- posted by Sean @ 11:51 AM 0 comments