ETHICS
The Incorrigible Congressman

Last Thursday, "in a highly unusual move," the Senate voted to direct the Justice Department to investigate the inclusion of an earmark in a 2005 transportation bill. The reinstatement of the $10 million earmark which had been rejected by the Senate directly benefited a key fundraiser for Rep. Don Young (R-AK), the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee. This week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced she would ask the House to accept the call for a DOJ investigation, while also continuing to press for an internal inquiry by the House ethics committee. Young is "perhaps best known as the architect of the 'bridge to nowhere,' a project in a massive 2005 transportation bill that he named after his wife, Lu, and 'stuffed like a turkey,' as he put it when the $286 billion bill was done." Young's ethics troubles -- which hardly begin with the mysterious 2005 earmark -- have forced him to spend more than $1 million in legal fees, doling out $238,000 on lawyers in 2008 alone. The New York Times editorial board said of Young's latest earmark battle, "He remains incorrigible."

A COCONUT ROAD TO NOWHERE: As chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Young visited Florida, where he "received $40,000 in campaign donations from land developers during his visit. He requited by tailoring an earmark in the 2005 transportation bill for their pet project: a cross-wetlands connection to the interstate, known as the Coconut Road Interchange, that would boost development values while abusing the environment." The interchange was "a low priority" for county officials, but it was vitally important to Young donor Daniel Aronoff because it would have increased the value of his property. In fact, "local officials ultimately refused the money and asked Congress to let them use it for its original purpose." The 2005 bill approved by Congress included a $10 million earmark for "widening and improvements for I-75 in Collier and Lee County" Florida. However, the bill President Bush signed redirected that $10 million for "Coconut Road interchange I-75/Lee County." Young's office "admitted that it may have been a staff member who altered the bill after the vote, but not to finagle it -- only to somehow 'correct' it." The congressman defended the earmark last week, saying, "I think it's the right thing for the state of Florida, and you know, right now, they're supportive of it."

YOUNG'S TIES TO ABRAMOFF: Young's dubious ethics hardly start and end with earmarks. He also has deep ties to the face of Washington corruption: convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Though Young claimed in 2006 that he had "never had any personal or professional relationship with Abramoff," just this week "a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff's firms" were leaked, showing "that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young's personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with Young himself." In 2000, Young directly aided Abramoff and his garment industry clients in the Mariana Islands, blocking a bill addressing labor and immigration scandals there. "Young stopped it cold in his committee, refusing to hold even a hearing." He dismissed reports of "rampant abuses" in the Marianas, "notably the trafficking of women for a commercial sex trade and the exploitation of mostly female workers from poor Asian countries." Young also said "the stories of worker abuse were largely fabricated by trade unions and special interest groups promoted by the news media." In a private memo to Mariana officials, Abramoff took credit for Young's stonewalling, writing, "We erected a roadblock in the House to stop the bill from moving." Though Young tried to deny his close ties to Abramoff, the lobbyist did not mince words. "The loss of Chairman Young's authority cannot easily be measured -- or replaced," Abramoff wrote on Jan. 4, 2001. "We have lost major institutional memory and friendship."

YOUNG'S TIES TO CORRUPT OIL FIRM: Even with the Coconut Road and Abramoff scandals in the headlines, Young's most pressing legal battle centers around a completely separate issue. Last July, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into Young's ties to Alaska oil services company VECO Corp. The FBI is looking into whether Young "accepted bribes, illegal gratuities or unreported gifts" from VECO. Last January, Young recorded "$38,000 in payments to Mr. [Bill] Allen, the former VECO chief. The refunds, which haven't been previously reported, were labeled 'fund-raising costs' in documents filed with the Federal Election Commission." Just five months later, in May 2007, both Allen and VECO's chief lobbyist, Richard Smith, pleaded guilty to extortion, bribery, and fraud, admitting to bribing other state legislators. VECO employees donated at least $157,000 to Young between 1996 and 2006, and the company is at the center of another investigation into its ties to Alaska's senior senator, Ted Stevens (R). Last summer, FBI and IRS Alaska home after contractors told a grand jury "that in 2000, Veco executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Steven's house."

Under the Radar

JUSTICE -- UNITED STATES LEADS THE WORLD IN INCARCERATION: According to data from the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London, "[t]he United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners." The U.S. "leads the world in producing prisoners." "Americans are locked up for crimes -- from writing bad checks to using drugs -- that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations." Last February, a report from the Pew Center on the States found that for "the first time in the nation's history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars." For some minority groups, the numbers are higher. The Justice Department says that "[o]ne in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars" while "[o]ne in 15 black adults is, too." The high incarceration rates in the U.S. come despite figures from the FBI showing that in the last 20 years, "violent crime rates fell by 25 percent." Indeed, Europeans had previously come to the United States to study its prison systems and "came away impressed," but now, "far from serving as a model for the world," the contemporary American prison system "is viewed with horror." 

SCIENCE -- IS DR. COBURN BLOCKING LEGISLATION FUNDING BREAST CANCER?: The Senate is currently considering the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act, legislation that would authorize $40 million per year over five years to fund research into the possible links between breast cancer and the environment. The proposal has over two-thirds support in the Senate. But the bill's passage has been stalled, as an anonymous senator placed a "hold" on it. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) released a statement announcing that a single senator was blocking the bill, calling it "unconscionable" that one person would "singlehandedly block our ability to have a reasonable debate on a bill." It appears that this lone senator may be Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- "an obstetrician who sees patients one morning a week." On Monday, when Reid brought the bill to the floor for a vote, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) "objected" on behalf of Coburn. In 2006, Coburn put a hold on the same bill, claiming it "would take the authority for research out of the hands of scientists and put it into the hands of politicians." In March, the Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee passed the breast cancer bill, overriding Coburn's efforts to amend it. Scientists and Engineers For America Action Fund also assert that Coburn is the one placing the hold.

MILITARY -- DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS CONCEALS VETERAN SUICIDE STATISTICS: Monday marked the opening day of a class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) brought by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who claim that the VA's "failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides" among veterans. The VA denies the charges, but CBS News reported this week that the VA has concealed veteran suicide statistics and fed the news organization faulty data for a story on the issue. While the VA told CBS that there were only 790 suicide attempts for all of 2007, in an e-mail between the VA's head of Mental Health, Dr. Ira Katz, and its top media adviser, Katz stated there were "about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans." In November, when CBS exposed the 6,200 suicides that occurred in 2005, Katz attacked the network, claiming it was not "an accurate reflection of the rate." Yet, just three days later, in another internal e-mail, Katz acknowledged "there are about 18 suicides per day among America's 25 million veterans," a fact that "is supported by the CBS numbers." A recent RAND report found that about 20 percent of those deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from depression or post traumatic stress disorder.

Think Fast

The Bush administration is scrapping a $20-million prototype of its "virtual" border fence along the Arizona-Mexico border "because the system is failing to adequately alert Border Patrol agents to illegal crossings. ... The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co."

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch "is moving to tighten his already-imposing grip on American news media, striking a tentative deal to buy his third New York-based paper, Newsday," for $580 million. The deal would put him in charge of three of the nation's 10 largest-circulation papers (including the Wall Street Journal and The New York Post).

Steve Yount, president of the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, said the resignation of Managing Editor Marcus Brauchli at the Wall Street Journal "has drawn concern among members who believed he helped keep some newsroom independence under the new News Corp. ownership." Yount said members see it as a "loss of  'a buffer who would maintain editorial independence.'"

Just months after leaving office, former Mississippi Republican senator Trent Lott is already cashing in as a lobbyist. "The firm he founded with former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) earned at least $945,000 during its first quarter in business, according to House filings." That number is likely to grow as the firm "continues to ink new contracts" as Lott and Breaux trade on the "valuable access" they earned as senators.

"The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, with full deployment of a new peacekeeping force delayed until 2009 and no prospect of a political settlement," United Nations officials said yesterday. Estimates say perhaps 300,000 have died and some 4.27 million are "seriously affected by the conflict."

Italy's major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant from oil to coal, "generally the dirtiest fuel on earth." European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years. "[T]his plan is like barging into a war without having a plan for how it should be conducted," said NASA climatologist James Hansen.

This week, the CIA "is expected to begin briefing members of the Senate and House intelligence committees" on new information indicating that "North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor before Israel bombed the site last September."

"A day after the Bush administration urged India to step up pressure on Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his coming visit to New Delhi, India tartly said it did not need 'any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations,'" making clear that "no saber rattling from its friends in Washington would impair its relationship with a vital energy supplier."

And finally: Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the "millionaires' amendment" of the McCain–Feingold campaign finance law. Addressing whether his client had an advantage because he was wealthy enough to fund his own campaigns, the plaintiff's counsel, Andrew Herman, said, "[T]he public was not particularly interested in Mitt Romney, who spent a significant amount of money on his own behalf, and many other spectacular flameouts." After some laughter, Chief Justice John Roberts said, "I'm not sure we need characterizations of the political candidates."

Good News

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has taken down the building's photo homage to former Secretary Alphonso Jackson and replaced it, "under orders of acting Secretary Roy Bernardi, with an equal number of photos of homeowners, cityscapes and housing."

State Watch

CALIFORNIA: California home foreclosures hit a record 47,171 in the first quarter, more than four times as many as a year earlier.

INDIANA: Indiana sets a new record for gas prices at $3.55 per gallon.

MARYLAND: "New homes built in Montgomery County would have to meet federal energy efficiency standards under innovative legislation approved yesterday by the County Council."

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Former attorney general John Ashcroft compares waterboarding to being "interviewed by John Stewart."

WONK ROOM: Gas prices break a 25-year-old record: $3.51 per gallon.

ATTACKERMAN: The new book by the foreign policy director of the Heritage Foundation argues that America should sever ties with its traditional European allies.

MICHAEL CALDERONE: Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow says he would "walk on broken glass" for Fox News's Bill O'Reilly.

Daily Grill

"This is an Iraqi led and Iraqi initiated operation. And this is what we've been wanting to see the Iraqis do is take on more responsibility."
-- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 3/25/08, on the Iraqi government offensive against Shi'ite militias in southern Iraq

VERSUS

"[They] made it sound like we were just there supporting the Iraqi Army, but we did all the work. We just had four humvees out there with some Iraqi [troops].
--  U.S. soldier in Iraq, 4/21/08

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