Ohiocore

Meet a former Vietnam War hero and decorated Navy "Top Gun" pilot, recipient of numerous commendations including the Navy Cross and two Silver Stars, the Representative of California's 50th Congressional District elected no fewer than eight times, and recently, admitted felon. Say hello to Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA).

You might hear a lot about him since he just plead guilty to Federal charges of :

• conspiracy to commit bribery;
• mail/wire fraud; and
  
• tax evasion.

San Jose Mercury News: "The tax evasion charge came after Cunningham reported joint income with his wife of $121,079 for 2004 and claimed he was due a refund of $8,504. Prosecutors said his income was $1,215,458 and he owed $385,077 in taxes." Whoopsy, he just left off the $1.1 Mill. on the front of that.

The story continues:

In court documents, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations. Prosecutors did not name the conspirators.

The implicated parties is where things will get even more interesting. Clearly Cunningham's buddy Mitchell Wade who bought the Congressman's house at $700,000 over market and also received blanket military appropriations contracts is part of the scandal: "Wade let him live rent-free on his yacht, the Duke Stir, at the Capital Yacht Club. His firm, MZM Inc., donated generously to Cunningham's campaigns."

MZM?
MZM's own piddly webpage banners itself as "Athena Innovative Solutions, Inc." Ok, wtf. So maybe they don't have their name straight, but hey, they're hiring... how do you feel about being National Intelligence Policy Advisor, a HUMINT spy or "Media Exploitation Specialist"? Perhaps you'd be better at supplying "all levels" of law enforcement with "Nontraditional Information Collection". I hear that's popular again.

ADCS?
See also Brent Wilkes, president of ADCS Inc:

An associate of Wade, Brent Wilkes, president of a Poway company called ADCS Inc., also gave Cunningham campaign cash and favors. Wilkes reportedly flew Cunningham in a corporate jet to go hunting in Idaho and golfing in Hawaii, and a charitable foundation Wilkes started spent $36,000 hosting a black tie 'Tribute to Heroes' gala in 2002 that feted Cunningham with a trophy naming him a hero.

ADCS, which specializes into turning paper records into digital files, has received tens of millions in Defense Department contracts since the late 1990s.

ADCS's webpage is worse than piddly. It only has *one page*. This is an electronic document specialist company, and they don't have even a single hyperlink on their webpage. No email, no address, no testimonials, no demos, no staff lists, no biography, no contact information. NOTHING! Wonder what they've been doing with all those millions of dollars, eh? Oh, they've been busy as the "unchallenged leader in developing and providing a total enterprise solution combining data capture and indexing, data conversion, and information management." Yeah, I can tell.

Their company.monster.com/adcs/ profile is more detailed, but it seems to think that /ADCS/ is the "Wilkes Corporation". In fact, that page touts their support of ADCS, Inc. amongst some other nefariously named shell corporations:

1. Group W Outfitters
2. Group W Media
3. Group W Advisors
4. Group W Transportation
5. Group W Holdings

Wow, impressive, they've got the whole Group W. (Isn't that the Army recruits of questionable moral character in Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant"? I believe it is.) ADCS doesn't have anything posted on monster right now, but Wilkes Corporation is hiring. Check out that webpage... Look familiar? I guess when they got 5 or 6 pages up they had a whole new company!

What is it with these guys? Why start with a stupidly self-named shell corporation: when you are trying to encapsulate the numbers from yourself, having your last name on them is a bad idea! I'm glad their corporate culture statement says "Here at Wilkes Corporation we have a work hard-play hard mentality."

This scandal should include others from a rather exclusive bunch. According to his own Official Biography, Cunningham "has been recognized for his work as a fiscal conservative by such organizations as Citizens for a Sound Economy, the National Taxpayer's Union, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.... and by several law enforcement organizations for his tough-on-crime position." I'm sure these organizations enjoyed broad credibility before this rude fellow selflishly perverted their commendations into personal criminal gains, but let's look at them anyway.

In order, that's:

• Citizens for a Sound Economy: Headed nationally by Dick Armey. You might have heard of the Texas brand, directed by one Peggy Venable, granted $305,250 from ExxonMobil. They fought to purge mention of global warming and other unpatriotic thoughts from the $345 Million Texas textbook market, an effort simultaneously ignorant and dogmatic, Quixotic and Orwellian, if not apparent in their own description:

  "Texas CSE is leading the campaign to insure that Social Studies, History and Economics textbooks... instill patriotism in our students and are free from propaganda.... [we] found hundreds of errors and anti-American sentiment in proposed science textbooks"
  

  then perhaps best captured by the Texas Observer. The Texas CSE are based at 1005 Congress, Ste 910 in Austin. Well, isn't that remarkable! The very same suite occupied by:
  


• LILLY & COMPANY, LLC: the legal encapsulation of one Coulter-esque young blond hatchet, Susan Lilly, who "proudly serves as the chief fund-raising consultant to three congressional Republican candidates, five statewide Republican candidates and numerous other candidates, PACs, associations and committees." In fact, it might be more than that...
  

National Taxpayer's Union; and

National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Are all the fundraising consultants in Red Texas women under 35? More later...

Howard Kurtz is incisive in his "Dressed for Success, Primed for Failure" at the Post. The topic is everybody's favorite former FEMA Director, Mike Brown:

After Brownie was reckless enough to appear alongside Bush in a long-sleeved white shirt, came this urgent advice from Worthy: 'Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.'

Look more hard-working. Key word: look. Forget results. It's all about image.

The hurricane hits on Aug. 29. What was the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency worrying about? His appearance. 'You look fabulous,' Worthy told him.

'I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?' Brown replied in perhaps his only rapid response of the crisis. And an hour later: 'If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god.'

Yes Mike, you can quit now. A major American city was just decimated and permanently disabled on your watch, while you were getting paid a 6-figure salary to prevent precisely that! How great do you look now? It's messed up that you're *still* getting paid it too, even after being tossed from the job. So yes, Mike, you can take your FEMA funded fashion and phantom salary and go home, you prissy lazy incompetent bitch!!

You can get the firsthand account by reading Brown's own email correspondence, now part of the Congressional record, having been downloaded more than 350,000 times as of Nov 3rd.