Think Progress

Under the Radar

ETHICS -- DESPITE ROVE'S CLAIMS, VOTER FRAUD WASN'T A 'PROBLEM' IN NEVADA: The Washington Post recently reported, "Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud." One of those districts was Nevada. The U.S. attorney in that region, Daniel Bogden, was fired last year as part of the Bush administration's prosecutor purge. According to Justice Department documents, part of the reason he was fired was because Karl Rove and Benton Campbell, chief of staff for the Justice Department's Criminal Division, believed that Bogden didn't go after voter fraud aggressively enough. Yet as the Las Vegas Sun reports, voter fraud wasn't a problem in Nevada. In fact, Bogden didn't have any cases to pursue. "Secretary of State Ross Miller, a Democrat, said he knew of no cases brought to the U.S. attorney's office in recent years," noted the Sun. "Nevada Republicans say the same. The biggest case Nevada had seen recently was an allegation in 2004 that a Republican-financed group had shredded registration cards from Democratic voters. The FBI investigated but it appears the case was not forwarded to Bogden." As the New York Times said in a March 16 editorial, "In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. ... There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country. Rather, Republicans under Mr. Bush have used such allegations as an excuse to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups." Gonzales has admitted that when he approved of the firings in Nov. 2006, he didn't know why Bogden was on the hit list.

ETHICS -- NOMINEE TO PROTECT CONSUMER SAFETY RECEIVES $150,000 FROM MANUFACTURERS GROUP: On March 1, President Bush nominated Michael Baroody to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which is charged with protecting the public from dangerous consumer products. Baroody is a senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), "a trade group that opposes aggressive product safety regulation" and "has called for weakening the Consumer Product Safety Commission." Today, the New York Times reports that Baroody will "receive a $150,000 departing payment from the association when he takes his new government job," even though he will be charged with "enforcing consumer laws against members of the association." This "extraordinary payment" will nearly equal the $154,600 salary Baroody will receive as chairman of the commission. NAM often has issues before the CPSC and "recently prevailed on the agency, for instance, to relax the requirements for when companies must notify the agency about defective products." While at NAM, Baroody repeatedly lobbied for looser business regulations, frequently at the expense of public safety. NAM opposes tougher rules regulating asbestos and in 2003, teamed up with the asbestos industry and spent $180,000 opposing asbestos reform legislation. In 2000, NAM successfully killed a bill in the Senate that would have helped reduce safety risks to motorists by requiring tire manufacturers to report accident data and potential defects to the National Highway and Transportation Safety Board. A coalition of consumer groups has come out in opposition to Baroody's nomination.

ETHICS -- REP. MCHENRY ATTACKS PROSECUTOR WHO SUPPORTED HIS CAMPAIGN AS 'POLITICALLY MOTIVATED': CBS News recently reported that a campaign aide to Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) had been indicted on charges of voter fraud. The aide, Aaron Lay, is alleged to have "illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 congressional primary runoffs in which McHenry was a candidate." McHenry barely won the primary campaign, in which Lay served as a political director, by a margin of just 86 votes. Since news of the indictment broke, McHenry and his supporters have attempted to spin the charges, claiming that they are the work of a "politically motivated" district attorney on a partisan witch-hunt. "It's unfortunate that political opponents chose to target this young man in order to attack me," declared McHenry in a statement. His spokesman, Jason Deans, told reporters that the indictment "is the culmination of a three-year smear campaign...this case is much like the Duke Lacrosse case in that a politically motivated district attorney sought an indictment against a young man." McHenry's attempt to spin the story as a "politically motivated" district attorney on "a three-year smear campaign" is difficult to believe. First, the district attorney, Locke Bell, is a Republican and a supporter of McHenry's. Bell told the Charlotte Observer yesterday that he had contributed money and helped host a fundraiser for the congressman. Also, Bell could not have possibly participated in "a three-year smear campaign" against Lay and McHenry, as he only "inherited" the case recently when he became district attorney in January. Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell is actually a recently elected supporter of McHenry, not a long-time political opponent on a three-year quest to "attack" and "destroy" him.

Think Fast

"Households are spending about $1,000 more per year for gasoline than they were just five years ago, an 85 percent increase" according to consumer groups' analysis prepared for the House Judiciary Committee. "In the past five years the oil industry has picked consumers pockets for 200 billion in excess profits," said the Consumer Federation of America.

"Nearly two dozen officials who received hefty performance bonuses last year at the Veterans Affairs Department sat on the boards charged with recommending the payments."

"Navy veteran David Miller said that when he checked into the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City, he didn't realize he would get a hard sell for Christian fundamentalism along with treatment for his kidney stones." Miller, an Orthodox Jew, "said he was repeatedly proselytized by hospital chaplains and staff in attempts to convert him to Christianity during three hospitalizations over the past two years."

"Two federal appeals court judges appeared to support giving detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, access to all the evidence against them when challenging their designation as enemy combatants. The Bush administration proposes to limit detainees' lawyers to the evidence presented to the U.S. military tribunal that made the determination."

92 percent: Proportion of the world's opium that Afghanistan now produces. Bush administration officials acknowledge that until recently, "fighting drugs was considered a distraction from fighting terrorists." The problem has become so severe that American officials now "hope that Afghanistan's drug problem will someday be only as bad as that of Colombia." 

"For the first time," the Senate is expected to vote today on measure sponsored by Sen. John Warner (R-VA) "that would force President Bush to report to Congress how he intends to revise U.S. strategy if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain benchmarks."

"Warm temperatures melted an area of western Antarctica that adds up to the size of California in January 2005, scientists report," noting "clear signs that melting had occurred in multiple distinct regions, including far inland and at high latitudes and elevations, where melt had been considered unlikely."

41: Number of Iraqis killed in violence yesterday. At least 125 people were wounded.

"A Texas businessman listed as a major fundraiser for President George Bush has made millions of dollars in profits from a federal reading program that critics say favored administration cronies at the expense of schoolchildren."

And finally: Do people love Vice President Cheney more than they love President Bush? In 2006, Cheney received at least 15 presents totaling $21,674, many reflecting his "love of outdoor pursuits." Bush received at least 20 gifts worth just $12,364. Gifts for Bush included "two wooden benches" and "jackets." At Christmas, Bush gave Cheney "$667 worth of instruments to measure temperature, barometric pressure and tides."