Friday, April 20, 2007

No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up

Chickens roosting, dots connecting, petards hoisting, and all that.
Remember the educational software company started by the President's brother, Neil Bush? When Barbara Bush made a big deal about donating money for the Katrina refugees in Texas, it turned out that the "donation" was only to be used to buy Neil Bush's products -- remember that?
And remember how cronyism is a Bush family value?
So keep that in mind while reading this AP report:

Reading First, created by President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law, offers intensive reading help for low-income children in the early grades. But investigators say that federal officials intervened to influence state and local decisions about what programs to use, a potential violation of the law. Some of the people who were influencing those decisions had a financial interest in the programs that were being pushed, officials said.
"I think we're very close to a criminal enterprise here," House Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said at an investigative hearing Friday. "Have you made any criminal referrals, Mr. Higgins?"
"We have made referrals to the Department of Justice," Higgins said.
Miller said his committee may also make criminal referrals. "I think when we put the evidence together we may join you in those criminal referrals," Miller told Higgins.
The article doesn't mention Neil Bush. But the commenters at Firedoglake put it together.
Well, that could explain why Bush is hanging on so hard to Abu Gonzales as Attorney-General.
Oh yeah, and some of the commenters at Firedoglake also note that Reverend Sun-Myung Moon is apparently invested in Neil Bush's company.
You remember Sun-Myung Moon? The Unification Church? Neil Bush travelled with Moon in a "world peace tour" in 2005.
Moon was the one who apparently bailed out Jerry Falwell's Liberty University a few years ago. That university is graduating its very first class of lawyers this spring. I wonder how many Liberty University grads will end up working for the Justice Department, alongside the lawyers from Pat Robertson's Regent University law school?

No comments: