Goodfella
by digby
Via Perlstein, I see the Republicans can't find even one congressman to head committees who isn't implicated in a corruption probe.
BACKGROUND - Republican committee assignments have become a corruption merry-go-round:
* April 19, 2007 – Doolittle steps down from the Appropriations Committee following the FBI raid of his home. Doolittle is under investigation for his work with convicted lobbyist Republican Jack Abramoff
* May 11, 2007 – The Republican Conference names Ken Calvert – under investigation for a shady land deal -- to replace Doolittle on Appropriations.
* May 15, 2007 – The Republican Conference names Tom Feeney – under investigation for his work with convicted lobbyist Republican Jack Abramoff -- to replace Calvert as the senior Republican on the Space Subcommittee of the Science Committee.
My main recollection of Feeney's oily visage is during the Florida recount when he was the speaker of the Florida house:
Feeney first came to national prominence in 2000, shortly after his election as Speaker, when he led efforts to certify the state's Republican presidential electors even though it was still unclear whether George W. Bush or Al Gore had won the state's electoral votes. Feeney and his colleagues claimed that Florida's electoral votes were in imminent danger of being removed from consideration if the results of the popular vote in the state could not be determined with legal certainty. While Article 2 of the United States Constitution places this power in the legislature, many Democrats insisted that recounts needed to be completed, and that by doing so, a clear legal victor would emerge. Feeney and State Senate president John McKay argued that the state Supreme Court's verdict in favor of the Democrats' position on recounts essentially "tainted" the entire process, so that there was (as Feeney stated) "a great risk" Florida's electoral votes would be disregarded altogether in the selection of the next President.
This was, of course, one of the pressure tactics set forth by Rove and the Federalist society cabal to keep people thinking that the sky was falling (by threatening to blow everything up) if the election wasn't decided that minute. It was very clever.
Tom Feeney was one of the corrupt levers of Bush family power in Florida that put Junior in the white house and he was amply rewarded for his crimes. After his successful intimidation in 2000, he was elected to the US Congress and immediately welcomed into the warm (and lucrative) embrace of Jack Abramoff and the boys. It was a sweet deal.
Tom Feeney has been up to his sweaty brow in Bush corruption from the get. No way are they cutting him loose. He's a made man.
Update: Bradblog has also been following another story about Feeney and Florida "voter election fraud."
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