Saturday, July 24, 2004

REAL ART UPDATES
 
Three stories I've been following, all from the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle.
 
First, an update on Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry's blatant cronyism:
 
Lobbyist's wife leaves post amid controversy

The wife of a lobbyist with close ties to the governor has resigned from her job with the Texas Health Department, saying she feared her continued employment would distract from the efforts of the fitness campaign she was hired to lead.

The Houston Chronicle reported last week that Martha "Marty" McCartt began directing the Texas Round-up festival, a program touted by Gov. Rick Perry, on July 1 with a salary of $40,000. The newspaper reported the job was not advertised or posted as normally required for state positions at that level.
 
That's funny: I was certain that she would resign in order to "spend more time with her family."  She really must be dedicated to her cause.
 
That's sarcasm, by the way.
 
Click here for the rest, and here for my original post.
 
Next, a brief on the Congressional ethics investigation of Republican House Majority Leader/Lizard King Tom DeLay making it past more GOP obstruction:
 
Panel declines to throw out DeLay case
 
The House ethics committee on Friday declined to dismiss a complaint accusing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of misusing his office to raise funds for Republicans and to marshal government resources against Democrats.

The committee said it would extend a preliminary inquiry into the charges made against the Sugar Land Republican for up to 45 days. The extension could push a decision on whether the accusations warrant a formal investigation to past Labor Day, when the fall election campaigns are in high gear.
 
Of course, DeLay continues to assert that the charges of ethics violations are without merit; however, the fact that the investigation has made it this far, past Republican attempts to scuttle it, shows that the Ethics Committee, at least, seems to believe that there's something worth looking into.
 
Click here for the rest, and here and here for earlier posts.
 
Finally, the mysteriously destroyed records of President Bush's Air National Guard service have mysteriously reappeared:
 
Pentagon releases new Bush National Guard records
 
The Pentagon on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the president's activities during that summer.
 
A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."


Like records released earlier by the White House, these computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no Guard service for Bush during those three months.
 
First, and obviously, this is really fishy.  It was fishy when these records, which at least one reporter contended existed as late as last month, were reported by the Pentagon as having been destroyed in the mid 1990s.  Their bizarre reconstitution raises that fishiness to the level of the smell of a Galveston beach.  I'm talking fishy on a grand scale.  It's time to reel this one in: Bush needs to be filleted and fried. 
 
Second, also obviously, Bush still has no proof that he actually showed up for duty during the months in question.  Frankly, it's beginning to look like Michael Moore and others who have been blasted by the entire Fox News Network are right.  Bush was a deserter during the Vietnam War.
 
Click here for the rest, and here and here for earlier posts.
 
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