RAGA followup
Newspapers around the country followed up on the Washington Post story that I mentioned yesterday: a Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) fundraising group that allegedly "telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions."

Basically -- surprise -- everybody denied doing anything shady. It's part of the genius of the method Pryor dreamed up that the contributions were forwarded to the Republican National Committee without attribution to the AG's involved, so that determining their involvement with a particular donation is next to impossible.

Anyhow, here are excerpts from the newspaper stories:

Ohio: The Cleveland Plain Dealer's T.C. Brown reports:

[Former Attorney General Betty Montgomery] dropped out of RAGA several months after joining the group in late 1999. Montgomery attended one donor meeting in October 1999 at Kiawah Island Resort, S.C. She was identified as a solicitor and given an assigned list of 10 organizations to contact, but she said she made no solicitation calls.

"I was not comfortable with being asked to solicit money," Montgomery said yesterday. "I just wasn't comfortable with some of the people we were going to be soliciting or comfortable with the whole theory."

That sounds pretty genuine, and I'm more willing to give Montgomery the benefit of the doubt than the other AGs. Current AG Jim Petro, on the other hand, is a RAGA member who is comfortable with the "whole theory," but says he's been good:

"I've had discussions or made a few phone calls to companies that care a great deal about policy making," Petro said. "I have not solicited where there is a conflict or appearance of impropriety."

But he declined to identify the corporations.

Delaware: Dover Newszap's Joe Rogalsky reports Attorney General Brady's response:

"I do not think anybody believes I am not going to do what is right because I received a contribution from someone. I screen all contributions to make sure there is no conflict."

For example, Ms. Brady said, she did not accept contributions from BlueCross BlueShield when her office was evaluating a proposed business transaction involving Delaware's BCBS franchise.

Texas: The Dallas Morning News reports that Senator John Cornyn is more combative. Todd Gillman writes:

Sen. John Cornyn angrily accused Democrats on Thursday of trying to "smear" Alabama's top lawyer – a federal appeals court nominee – with questions about the fund-raising tactics of a Republican attorneys general group Mr. Cornyn once helped lead. [...]

Mr. Cornyn said he would never have sought money from anyone with pending litigation or regulatory issues he might have to handle. "I have no memory of making those calls, and to the best of my knowledge I've never even seen those [call] lists," he said.

Some companies on Mr. Cornyn's list do show up on GOP donor records. Plano-based Rent-a-Center, for instance, gave $177,600 in 2000 and 2002; it also gave $50,000 to Democrats.

I had to wonder what "he might have to handle" meant: Cornyn personally? Or the Texas Attorney General's office as a whole?

South Carolina: The Charleston Post and Courier gives the Washington Post the byline to a brief article including former S.C. Attorney General Charles Condon's position:

Condon defended the group late Wednesday, saying its goal was to elect more Republican attorneys general and to support free enterprise by trying to ensure that courts aren't used to make laws.

Virginia: No followups yet to the news about former Attorney General Mark Earley's fundraising on behalf of RAGA. The Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith and Tania Branigan wrote yesterday:

In November 1999, when Democrats were pressing for tighter gun controls, Earley told Congress that the solution was better enforcement, not more legislation. He was assigned to solicit a contribution from the Fairfax-based National Rifle Association, which donated $25,000 a month after Earley's testimony, the documents state. Randy Kozuch, the gun group's director of state and local affairs, also served on the RAGA finance committee that year.

The documents state that Earley was assigned to contact several other major donors, including pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly, which paid $15,000 to join RAGA and sponsored a lunch at its spring conference for $5,000.

Earley said he had never solicited funds from the NRA for RAGA. "There may be documents that someone suggests [calls] be parceled out to certain individuals, but I do not remember dealing with the NRA," he said. "I did deal with some businesses that did business in Virginia," he added.

I guess I'm pessimistic much more will be learned. It would take a whistleblower at a company that made a donation (and possibly benefited thereby) to generate much more of a story.

Many of the AGs focus their denials to avoiding fundraising from companies with pending litigation. But the denials leave the door open to fundraising from companies that could expect legal action if pending legislation were passed: "Those bozos in the State House are going to pass resolution XYZ; I sure agree with you it's bad law -- and you know what, I see how we might be able to at least take a narrow view of our authority. We'll do what we can -- but we need to win some elections..."

Don't want to believe your AG would do that? Neither do I. And in addition to being speculative, I don't even know whether the scenario above would be illegal; like Michael Kinsley says, sometimes "the scandal is what's legal."

At any rate, I also don't want to have to just take the AGs' word for it that they didn't act unethically. That's not how a government of, by, and for the people ought to work. I guess I wish Attorneys General were barred from political fundraising of any kind, but they and groups like this should at least have to fully disclose the fundraising they do.


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UPDATE, 7/21: Just doing my job: Don't expect Virginia AG Jerry W. Kilgore to be worried about predecessor Mark Earley's activities; Jerry's the current RAGA chairman. The Richmond Times-Dispatch adds his -- paraphrased -- "yes, I fundraise, but not from companies in litigation with my state" statement to the list. The short article was still a memorable one: Kilgore's spokesman said that as RAGA chairman, the AG's phone calls soliciting donations for the Republican fundraising group are "part of the job description." Call this the "of course he's fundraising" response. Which is truly inspired spin, since it begs the question of who Kilgore is fundraising from, and whether this is a job a state attorney general should be doing. (Revised to note chairmanship.)

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:48:00 AM -- |    

 
Nice
The Texas GOP siccing the state police on its democratic opposition, Tom DeLay orchestrating federal help for them in Washington, now this:

Months of political tension in the House of Representatives erupted into open warfare today when Democrats stormed out of a Ways and Means Committee session and the panel's chairman called in the Capitol Police.

The day began with a fairly ordinary procedural fight over an otherwise-innocuous pension bill. Committee Democrats complained that the Republican majority had not given them enough time to review a substitute bill that they had received shortly before midnight Thursday. Most of the Democrats then moved to a nearby library to plot strategy after they demanded that Republicans read the legislation line by line.

Infuriated, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) instructed the Capitol Police to remove the Democrats from the ornate library. Republicans said Democrats were being disorderly and did not have the right to occupy the libary.

Via Southknoxbubba. You just about expect the GOP politicoes to start tearing off their "human" skin to reveal reptile aliens beneath. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:22:00 PM -- |    

 
Michelle Malkin: symptom of a culture
At lunch I often head over to Wendy's. I've already read the Washington Post on the way to work, and I don't just want to chew a hamburger, so I get the Washington Times. (That'd make a nice ad on a bus for the Times, I think.)

That's how I happened to come across "A somber summertime toll," by Michelle Malkin. It starts off badly enough:

Every summer, the stories come. And the tiny bodies pile up. "Toddler trapped in hot van dies." "Kids die from heat in SUV." "Baby boy dies in hot van."

"Tiny bodies pile up" kind of put me off: it managed to be unctuous, and oddly contemptuous and detached all at once. But whatever; goodness knows I can write a weak lead, too. That's so sad, I thought, you hate to hear about that stuff. Poor kids. So bad writing or not, I read on. And, one more annoying paragraph down, Malkin discovers a pattern:

But in what seems an increasingly common trend, too many of these horrible deaths share a common denominator: day care.

Hey, I thought in dull surprise, how's that going to work? So I read Malkin's recital of a number of cases in which, indeed, some poor child was left in a vehicle outside a day care center, either by its guardian or by the day care staff. I noted that vans, SUVs, and Bible Belt states seemed to play recurring roles, too, but dismissed that as a churlish, unworthy thought. I know I shouldn't think ill of SUV and van owners, they're persecuted enough as it is. Let alone the Bible Belt: the salt of the earth, except of course sometimes in the college towns and big cities.

What would Michelle make of all this, I wondered. And all too soon I found out:

I believe Dakota, Nehemiah, David, Amber, Brandon, Darnecia, Dominique, Zaniyah, Chloe and Alan are not merely victims of isolated day-care accidents. They are also symptoms of a culture where parents treat children as disposable as their diapers. Some of these kids probably spent more of their brief lives in their deadly car seats than they did in their own parents' laps.

It is absolutely unfathomable to me that anyone could leave a child forgotten in a car, like an old umbrella or a fast-food wrapper. But then again, we live in an age where teens dump their newborns in toilets and junkies sell their offspring for drugs and "liberated" women pick up and drop off their kids at day care as nonchalantly as their dry cleaning.

Why must it take the unforgettable suffering of innocents, stifling to death in sun-baked cars, to remind mothers and fathers of the sanctity of life?

Aha. YOU INSUFFERABLE, ARROGANT PIG, I thought quietly, and returned to chewing my hamburger. At least I don't use dead children and -- who knows -- maybe add to their parents' anguish to make crappy little culture war points, I thought furthermore. FATHOM THIS, YOU SELF-RIGHTEOUS TWIT, I added silently: the hell with you and all your nasty right-wing pals wagging their fingers at me and my wife and all the other decent people who put their kids in day care. MAYBE YOU HAVE A CRACK HABIT OR SOMETHING AND JUST REALLY NEEDED THE MONEY, EVEN IF YOU HAD TO WRITE A SHAMEFUL PIECE OF TRASH LIKE THIS, I mused more charitably.

I then regained the Zen-like composure that so many have noticed over the years, and reflected that Wendy's makes good hamburgers. Too bad I nearly ruined one having my wife and me and our friends compared to junkies or teens throwing kids in toilets. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:41:00 AM -- |    

 
State Attorneys General shaking down corporations?
I'm no lawyer, but this seems pretty shaky to me. Today's Washington Post runs a story by R. Jeffrey Smith and Tania Branigan, "GOP Attorneys General Asked For Corporate Contributions." The top paragraphs:

Republican state attorneys general in at least six states telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions, according to internal fundraising documents obtained by The Washington Post.

One of the documents mentions potential state actions against health maintenance organizations and suggests the attorneys general should "start targeting the HMO's" for fundraising. It also cites a news article about consolidation and regulation of insurance firms and states that "this would be a natural area for us to focus on raising money."

Naturally! What could be a more lucrative source of contributions than corporations looking for a way to avoid state legal action? It reminds me of Willie Sutton's famous line about why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is."

The fundraising was coordinated by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA); the documents provide details for the years from 1999 to 2001. RAGA's origins provide another news peg:

RAGA was founded by [Alabama Attorney General William] Pryor and the Republican National Committee with the explicit aim of soliciting funds from the firearms, tobacco and paint industries and other industries facing state lawsuits over cancer deaths, lead poisoning, gunshots and consumer complaints, according to statements by Pryor and other officials.

William Pryor is already a highly controversial 11th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee. I think you can add a cavalier attitude about the appearance and reality of conflicts of interest to the list of criticisms against him.

The story lists a number of state attorneys general who were mentioned in the RAGA fundraising documents. To add a little value here, I'm providing links to their current web sites, and to the current state attorney general. If you're from one of these states, you might want to find out whether your current or former attorney general hit up the HMOs or other companies (listed below) for what seems like a tasseled loafers version of protection money. You may want to suggest your current Attorney General should have a look, too, or at minimum take note that you take a dim view of this kind of fundraising:

VA: then-Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley

DE: Delaware Attorney General Jane Brady

SC: then-South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon

TX: then-Texas Attorney General, now U.S. Senator John Cornyn

OH: then-Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery

To be clear: I'd only have questions of each of these people; I don't claim to be absolutely certain they've done something wrong or unethical. I don't have the documents the Post reporters do. But the HMO and insurance quotes smell pretty bad, and the Post article provides details for Pryor's and Cronyn's activities. Re Senator Cornyn (R-TX):

One document states, for example, that Cornyn was asked to collect a donation from Shell Oil in late 1999, but does not mention whether Shell gave the group money. The firm was one of five energy companies that reached a $12.6 million settlement with Cornyn in August 1999 in a dispute over unpaid royalties. Two years later, Shell was one of 28 oil and petrochemical companies to reach a $120 million settlement with him and the U.S. Department of Justice in a separate dispute over toxic waste.

Last night, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Cornyn, said the senator does not recall telephoning Shell Oil. Stewart also said he was "troubled by the inference that there is some kind of connection" between any such phone call and a legal settlement that "benefited the citizens of Texas."

Well, Don, I'm troubled, too; "does not recall" is so much weaker than the "did not" I'd have rather heard. Just too many fundraising phone calls to recall any particular one, maybe.

Other companies approached by RAGA members included Pfizer Inc., MasterCard Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., Anheuser-Busch Cos., Citigroup Inc., Amway Corp., U.S. Steel Corp., Nextel Communications Inc., General Motors Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Shell Oil Co., among other companies. The Post article notes:

[The fundraising documents] make clear that RAGA assigned attorneys general to make calls to companies with business and legal interests in their own states.

I, for one, would be especially interested if any of these companies faced legal or regulatory action in one of the states listed above. And yes, there is also a Democratic counterpart to RAGA; I can only hope they haven't been targeting companies for fundraising that they are or should be targeting for legal action. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:40:00 PM -- |    

 
Texasgate: Fluff up the pillows at the Ardmore Holiday Inn
Hardball politics continues down in Austin, Texas. I hadn't been following that part of the story on this blog, so I checked by Charles "Off the Kuff" Kuffner to get caught up.

Texas governor Perry called a special session of the Senate to consider a redistricting plan. Under Texas Senate rules, two thirds of the Senators have to agree to consider a bill; on Monday, it developed that there were enough Democrats -- and Republican Bill Ratliff, from a rural district that would have been diluted with urban voters -- to block the bill. Game over.

Not. Kuffner reports that (1) Governor Perry said he might call another special session, and (2) Texas Republicans began talking about getting around the Senate two-thirds rule. The parliamentary shenanigans would involve keeping a "blocker bill" off the agenda in the next special session. The Houston Chronicle explains:

Under Senate rules, senators are required to debate bills on the floor in the order they get out of committee. Senators typically put a "blocker bill" at the top of the list, forcing lawmakers to get support from two-thirds of the senators if they want to take up another bill first. A blocker bill already is on the agenda this session.

If Perry calls another special session, lawmakers may decide not to put a blocker bill at the top of the list, which could mean that only a majority of senators could be required to support a bill for it to get a Senate floor debate.

Only if there are enough senators in town to have a special session in the first place. The same Houston Chronicle article gets one Senator Armbrister's (D-Victoria) reaction:

"Any kind of gamesmanship that violates the traditions of the Texas Senate, they won't have a quorum," Armbrister said, suggesting that a number of senators would boycott the Senate.

And Armbrister is actually undecided about redistricting.

Ardmore, Oklahoma might be hosting a passel of Texas politicians again pretty soon.


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UPDATE, 7/17: This morning Mr. Kuffner posted a great summary of the past week's events. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:38:00 PM -- |    

 
Happy Bastille Day!
We visited George Washington's Mt. Vernon home again this weekend. The tour guide pointed out a fat key hanging in a small case on the wall of the entrance hall. It turned out to be a gift to Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette: the key to the front gate of the Bastille.

Allons enfants, and all that! Liberte, egalite, fraternite! Pour me another glass of that wine! Here's the French embassy's web site about Bastille Day.



Speaking of France: last summer we went on a glorious vacation to Spain and France, and spent a week in the Languedoc area of southern France. This is a picture I took of Olargues sur l'Orb, right around this time last year. We had a great time, and people were quite patient with my French. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:51:00 PM -- |    

 
Sixteen words
You probably know Bush's controversial 2003 State of the Union speech sentence by heart by now:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

This sentence was clear on its face and in its implications at the time: the British believed something, the United States could not verify it (or Bush would have said "We have learned...").

To the extent the American public feels deceived by these particular sixteen words, let alone duped by them into supporting the war against Iraq, we can only blame ourselves for listening or reasoning poorly.

The only way the statement would have been deceptive is if the United States had known that the British conclusions were based on the same evidence the United States found unpersuasive.* So far, this does not appear to be the case; rather, the British insist their conclusions were based on evidence not available to the United States. The Washington Post reported last week ("CIA Asked Britain to Drop Iraq Claim"):

The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa ... The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States. [...]

The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, however, has stood behind its September conclusion that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" for a possible nuclear weapons program despite the release of a report by a British parliamentary commission this week that challenged the allegation and, in effect, Bush's decision to include it in his address.

British officials have insisted that the Bush administration has never been provided with the intelligence that was the basis for the charge included in London's September intelligence dossier. [links added]

It remains true that the Bush administration was relying on if not a weak reed, then one of patently unknown strength, however clearly that was stated (or, if you insist, "hidden in plain sight") in the State of the Union address. Given that the other major clues to Iraqi nuclear WMD development were aluminum tubes later shown to be inconclusive, we're left with a weak public case for imminent Iraqi nuclear WMD. That deserves to be investigated in the United States with the same thoroughness the House of Commons committee displayed.


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* ...And/or on additional evidence the United States knew to be unpersuasive. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:00:00 PM -- |    

 
Texasgate: Lieberman requests more investigation of AMICC's role
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) has requested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reopen its perfunctory investigation of the role one of its agencies, AMICC, played in the politically motivated hunt for the missing Democratic legislators' plane. A press release on his Senate website said,

[T]he first effort of the IG's office "reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the harm done."

Lieberman expressed disappointment in the failure of the IG's office to get a key fact straight, to fully understand the seriousness of the abuse committed, and to address the issue of clear wrongdoing by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The key fact involved was characterizing the DPS call as "typical," when in fact missing planes comprise a small portion of AMICC's workload. Lieberman also held up for particular criticism taking AMICC employees' statements at face value (no matter how credible those employees doubtless generally are), and failing to make any recommendations to make future abuses less likely. The Transportation Department OIG did much better on both counts. Re the DHS' relaxed view of the incident, Lieberman writes

The IG's office concluded that because of the relatively small amount of time spent by AMICC personnel on the Texas DPS request, no misdeeds occurred. "...this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the harm done in this case," Lieberman wrote. "The core issue here is not how much time.... (was) spent on this matter, but whether it was appropriate for federal officials to use their access to information, their ability to activate local officials, and the weight of federal resources to try to track down a private plane that was not alleged to be involved in any criminal activity nor was in any distress," said Lieberman. "That is to say, it is a question of the misuse of federal authority."

Senator Lieberman's insistence on investigating the Homeland Security and Transportation Department's roles in the Texas political dispute should be commended. You can contact him via his web site contact page.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 3:19:00 AM -- |