Thursday, August 16, 2007
Republican Business As Usual
I was tempted to write the word as 'Bidness' because it involves Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, former head of the Republican National Committee and all around BSD. However you write or say it, you know that anytime you have Republicans near large sums of federal money, a lot of it is going to end up in their pockets.
Among the beneficiaries are Barbour's own family and friends, who have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from hurricane-related business. A nephew, one of two who are lobbyists, saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special reconstruction panel. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in June raided a company owned by the wife of a third nephew, which maintained federal emergency- management trailers.I don't know what the fuss is about. It's not like Mississippi has so many competent people that you can avoid family & friends. And, the people of Mississippi have been fucked over so often, they are probably all family to some degree.
Meanwhile, the governor's own former lobbying firm, which he says is still making payments to him, has represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery.
No evidence has surfaced that Barbour violated the law; at the same time, the pattern that emerges from public records and interviews raises ``many red flags,'' said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group in Falls Church, Virginia, that investigates the investments of government officials. ``At the minimum, the public is entitled to a full explanation of the facts,'' he said.
Barbour, 59, who is running for re-election this year, turned down an interview request. His spokesman, Pete Smith, declined in an e-mail to answer questions.
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