Bad Deeds for 2-23-07

Texas Governor Perry took Merck money before mandating cervical vaccine – Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says that it’s just a coincidence that he and eight other lawmakers received donations of $5,000 each from Merck lobbyists just a few days before mandating the drug giant’s HPV cervical cancer vaccine for all females in Texas ages 12 and up.

Oil and Coal Lobbyist in Bed with Interior Department

• Steven Griles, lobbyist for coal, oil, and other corporate interests gets job in Interior Department.
• Griles begins lobbying on the inside for his former clients. On one occasion, for example, he calls over to the Environmental Protection Agency to urge that an environmental study not delay a huge coal-bed methane project planned by his former clients in Wyoming and Nevada.
• Interior Department assigns an official to keep an eye on Griles.  That official is Sue Ellen Wooldridge, then the deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
• Griles and Wooldridge begin dating.  But they didn’t tell that to anyone at the Interior Department, especially not the Inspector General, who was investigating Griles for ethics violations.
• Wooldridge writes a letter to the Inspector General siding with Griles.
• Griles recommends Wooldridge for promotion to be the Solicitor of the Interior Department.
• At her confirmation hearing before the Senate, Wooldridge is asked about any possible conflicts of interest, as she would now be overseeing all ethics matters at Interior. She says no.
• Griles leaves the Interior Department to return to lobbying for energy interests, and Wooldridge is again promoted, this time to being the Justice Department’s top environmental prosecutor.  She is again asked during her Senate confirmation hearing if there are any possible conflicts of interest for her taking the job.  She does not mention Griles.
• Griles and Wooldridge, who are already living in a condo together, decide to buy a $1 million vacation home with another oil lobbyist, Don Duncan, the top lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.
• A few months later, Wooldridge, on behalf of the government, signs a deal to let ConnoPhillips “delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup.”
• Griles has now been informed by federal prosecutors that he is a target in the Abramoff investigation

46 of 49 Nations Approve Cluster Bomb Ban; US Snubs Conference – A declaration calling for a 2008 treaty banning cluster bombs was adopted Friday by 46 out of 49 nations attending a conference in Oslo. Though Poland, Romania and Japan opted to vote against the resolution, the U.S. did them one better, refusing to even attend the conference.

Egyptian Blogger Sentenced to Jail – An Egyptian court has sentenced 22-year-old blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman to four years in jail after Soliman used his blog to call President Hosni Mubarak a dictator and criticize the country’s top Islamic institution as “the university of terrorism”.  It’s worth noting, once again, that the Bush administration’s passion for Democratic reform in the Middle East has not extended to its ally Egypt, long rumored to be the White House’s proxy torturer of choice.

N.Y.U. Student Republicans Mount “Immigrant” Hunt – Members of the College Republican club of New York University held a “Find the Illegal Immigrant” challenge.  An student played an “illegal immigrant,” wearing a name tag saying as much.  The first contestant to find him or her in the crowd was supposed to win a prize.

Army deliberately shortchanging troops on their disability retirement ratings to hold down costs – In the Army — in the midst of a war — the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement has plunged by more than two-thirds, from 642 in 2001 to 209 in 2005,

EPA Closing Its Libraries, Destroys Documents – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun closing its nationwide network of scientific libraries, effectively preventing EPA scientists and the public from accessing vast amounts of data and information on issues from toxicology to pollution. Several libraries have already been dismantled, with their contents either destroyed or shipped to repositories where they are uncataloged and inaccessible.  Members of Congress have asked the EPA to cease and desist.  Please call EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson at (202) 564-4700 and tell him that scientists and the public should retain access to this information.  Urge him to immediately halt the dismantling of the library system

Michael Savage says Diane Sawyer: is a “lying whore” who “in essence, is agreeing that the Holocaust didn’t occur” – On the February 16 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage asserted that ABC News correspondent Diane Sawyer was “aiding and abetting” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a February 13 interview, in which, Savage claimed, Sawyer had refused to challenge Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the existence of the Holocaust.  Savage said: “Here Diane Sawyer goes to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and does not once say to him, ‘How could you deny the Holocaust?  Here are the pictures of the 6 or 7 million Jews that Hitler killed. How dare you do this to the world?’ ” Savage added: “So Diane Sawyer, in essence, is agreeing that the Holocaust didn’t occur.”  In fact, in her interview with Ahmadinejad, Sawyer asked, “Would you be willing to go to Auschwitz and see their documentation?  You’re a scientist.  Would you be willing to look at the room with documentation?”  When Ahmadinejad responded: “Do you think it would solve any problem?” Sawyer replied: “It would be information for you if you genuinely believe it’s a myth.”   Savage said Sawyer was “disgusting” and “full of crap” and repeatedly called her a “lying whore,” a “prostitute,” and a “witch.”  He added, “I stand by those words, and if you don’t like it, sue me. Take me to a court of law for calling you a whore, because you are an intellectual prostitute for what you have done for ratings.”  Click on the title above for addresses and phone numbers where you can register your complaints about Savage.

Regards,
Jim