This is a true faith-bender. Blackwater, the former Erik Prince "security company", has negotiated a $42 million settlement with the Department of State. Having taken their gulp of medicine, they will now be eligible for even more contracts with the Department of State. How does that work, exactly?

New York Times:

The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.

The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges.

Amazing, though not even close to the end of Blackwater/Xe's troubles. Among the other legal actions pending:

Those include the indictments of five former executives, including Blackwater’s former president, on weapons and obstruction charges; a federal investigation into evidence that Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government officials; and the arrest of two former Blackwater guards on federal murder charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans last year.

Of course, Blackwater blackguard Erik Prince is now living in Dubai. We do have an extradition agreement with Dubai, don't we?

But no worries for Blackwater. They'll still be entitled to bid for federal contracts.

In June, the State Department awarded Blackwater a $120 million contract to provide security at its regional offices in Afghanistan, while the C.I.A. renewed the firm’s $100 million security contract for its station in Kabul. At the time, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, defended the decision, saying that the company had offered the lowest bid and had “cleaned up its act.”

Against the weight of those charges and the absurdity of those newly-awarded contracts, there is this: Roger Clemens was indicted this week for lying to Congress. Unfortunately, he can't bid for government contracts to cover his legal fees. Oh, and let's not forget this: Tom DeLay gets off, and not in a good way.

Justice isn't blind. It's absent.

That settles it: Newt's made up his mind to run for president, or he wouldn't be spreading this little story of his soul's redemption around the national media, would he? (Kind of traditional for Republican candidates to take a quick run through the All-Purpose Drive-Thru Jesus-Lovin' Sin Washer!)

Setting the stage for his entry into the presidential race, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., gave a radio interview to be broadcast today with Focus on the Family's James Dobson, in which Gingrich for the first time publicly acknowledged cheating on his first and second wives.

"There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them," Gingrich said during the interview. "I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I'm not only not proud of, but I would deeply urge my children and grandchildren not to follow in my footsteps."

What, you mean asking for a divorce while your wife's recovering from cancer surgery, Newt? You mean there was something wrong with that?

Gingrich argued that the Clinton case was different from his personal transgressions.

"The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge," he said, arguing that Clinton had "deliberately committed perjury."

Because he had been through a divorce, Gingrich said, he knew the importance of telling the truth during a deposition.

"The standard is: In a court of law should somebody who's popular get away with perjury?" Gingrich said. "And I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept felonies and you cannot accept perjury in your highest officials."

Even though Bill Clinton did not commit perjury, and Gingrich knows it.

It's worth noting that Gingrich did not limit his comments about Clinton and the Democrats to legalistic allegations of perjury.

Constantly espousing family values even while he carried on an affair, Gingrich linked his party to wholesome family values and Democrats to, well, something else.

During the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Gingrich said, "Woody Allen having nonincest with a nondaughter to whom he was a nonfather because they were a nonfamily fits the Democratic platform perfectly."

In 1994, Gingrich linked Democrats to Susan Smith, a woman who had murdered her two children in 1991.

Even though it turned out she'd been molested by her stepfather, a South Carolina state GOP executive, of course.

"I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things," he said. "The only way you get change is to vote Republican."

I really hope Gingrich does run. Because there's a question I've wanted to ask him for years (Hill staffers are such gossips!): "Can you confirm or deny the allegations that, during the same period you were attacking Bill Clinton for adultery, you were serviced by your employee/mistress (soon to be Wife No. 3) in the front seat of your car while waiting in the parking lot of your kids's school?"

Because I've heard that story for years and inquiring minds want to know. I mean, that's some real family values, right there. Maybe we should call Ken Starr to look into it.

Good for him:

Newsweek columnist (and Newsweek International editor) and CNN host Fareed Zakaria announced he would return a prize from the Anti-Defamation League because he was upset by the group's decision to oppose the mosque proposed for Lower Manhattan. Zakaria said last night on his CNN show, "I have to say I was personally and deeply saddened by the ADL’s stand because five years ago, the organization honored me with its Hubert Humphrey Award for First Amendment Freedoms. Given the position that they have taken on a core issue of religious freedom in America, I cannot in good conscience keep that award."

The mosque, whose planned location two blocks from the World Trade Center site has ignited a national debate ripe for election year posturing and maybe even a discussion of religious tolerance. Zakaria elaborated in his Newsweek column in which he called the ADL's decision to criticize the mosque's location as "bizarre":

The ADL’s mission statement says it seeks “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” But Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, explained that we must all respect the feelings of the 9/11 families, even if they are prejudiced feelings. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted,” he said. First, the 9/11 families have mixed views on this mosque. There were, after all, dozens of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center. Do their feelings count? But more important, does Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims? Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.

For their part, the ADL says they are “saddened, stunned and somewhat speechless” at the move.

And the ultimate for the "Et tu, Brute?" files, The Simon Wiesenthal Center also opposes the Cordoba House, saying it's a good idea, but a bad location. However, they have no problem building a Museum of Tolerance on a...wait for it...Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.

Fred Clark of Slacktivist writes one of those blogs that I just love. He's smart, compassionate and very, very perceptive. This piece on the credit report industry is timely -- go read the rest:

Kevin Drum makes a helpful comparison between your credit history and your medical history:

In the same way that medical records are available only to people with a legitimate medical need, I think that credit records should be available only to those who actually extend credit. Beyond that, they're private. Employers don't get them, the FBI doesn't get them, journalists don't get them and my neighborhood association doesn't get them. I don't care how much each of these people really, reallythinks it would be handy to have a peek at them. Short of a subpoena or a court order, my financial records are my business. You can't have them.... The credit reporting agencies [have] been placed in a privileged position where they're allowed to collect sensitive private information — just as doctors and banks and census takers are. That privileged position means they have a heightened responsibility for maintaining privacy, not a license to use their databases for anything that can make them an extra buck or two.

I think that's exactly right.It also seems to be exactly the opposite of the current relationship between citizens and credit reporting agencies.

Right now, the credit reporting agencies are permitted to collect and evaluate sensitive private information about anyone and everyone. (Although, again, "evaluate" may be too elevated a term for the crude reductionist number-crunching of their secret "scoring" formulas.) Almost no information about you and your money and how it is spent is off-limits to them. They are further permitted to sell this information to anyone to whom they wish to sell it, repackaging and marketing your private financial information for sale to insurance companies, your boss or your prospective employer.

Fred goes on to describe the carelessness with which those agencies treat your information, and why protecting consumers from the consequences is a political winner:

There are at the moment Democratic attorneys general in 31 states. Of those, I'm guessing, about 31 are hoping some day to be governors or senators. Advocating for their constituents against the costly and predatory negligence of credit-reporting agencies seems like a promising step toward fulfilling such ambitions. (I forget who it was who first observed that some seek power in order to enact policies while others seek policies in order to attain power, but I think this should appeal to those in either category.)

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that about 9 million Americans are victims of identity theft every year, so it's a safe bet that each of these AGs (or A's G) has thousands of constituents whose credit histories are scarred by such theft and who are therefore being forced to pay premium rates for everything from mortgages to consumer loans to insurance and utilities. Some of these constituents may have been denied employment or promotion on the basis of these lucratively inaccurate and uncorrected credit scores.

These costs are real and therefore they can be measured and quantified and added up into a single Very Large Dollar Amount -- the amount that constituents have been inaccurately and unfairly overcharged due to the negligence and irresponsibility of others. That VLDA is the basis for the class-action lawsuits that these attorneys general ought to be filing on behalf of their constituents.

Whether or not such lawsuits can succeed in achieving restitution for the millions of citizens who have paid dearly for the carelessness of the credit-reporting agencies, the lawsuits ought to be able to achieve at least a bit more of what is desperately needed and sorely lacking in the current system: accountability and transparency.

Without transparency and accountability, the power that credit agencies have will be abused and expanded and extended until its abusive presence is felt, as Matt Lauer put it, in "all portions of your life."

State lawsuits will allow AGs to subpoena information on the calculations and variables that go into the credit-reporting agencies secret-formula scores. Such information would empower consumers to improve those scores beyond what is currently knowable from the best-guesses of hack finance writers and "credit-monitoring" scams.

More importantly, the state lawsuits would allow the AGs to subpoena information on the marketing of citizens private financial information -- to gauge the full scope of the credit-reporting agencies' plans for the use of this private information beyond the realm of actual credit. Informed attention to the misuse of this information for employment decisions or by insurers or utilities would likely lead to the sort of outcry that would make limits on such misuse a legislative priority.

And that could lead to a situation in which the misuse or sale of private financial records is as obviously illegal -- and unthinkable -- as the misuse or sale of private medical records.

The news surrounding the pending congressional ethics trial of Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is all quite confusing. Despite reports that he has reached a settlement in the case, the House Ethics committee moved forward with his trial.

According to Reuters:

People familiar with the talks say representatives of New York Democrat Charles Rangel and lawyers for the House ethics committee have reached a plea deal in his ethics case. However, committee members have not agreed to the settlement.

It was not immediately clear how many of the 13 charges of ethical violations Rangel agreed to accept.

The committee did meet, and the charges against Rep. Rangel were read. A full copy can be read here (PDF). There are some eyebrow-raising charges, including a failure to report $600,000 of income on his congressional disclosure statements, along with rental income from a Dominican Republic property he purchased in 2005.

This sequence on pages 11-12 got my attention:

78. In April 2008, Respondent met with CCNY officials and AIG officials (the "AIG meeting"), including Edward "Ned" Cloonan, a federally-registered lobbyist, regarding the Rangel Center. The briefing memo prepared for Respondent by CCNY stated the objective of the meeting was to "close $10M gift for the Rangel Center to create AIG Hall."

79. At the AIG meeting, a potential donation to the Rangel Center was discussed. AIG raised concerns about a potential donation, including the potential headline risk. Respondent asked AIG, at least twice, what was necessary to get this done.

Seriously? AIG? In 2008? As the ethics report points out, AIG lobbied members of the House of Representatives on income tax issues, free trade issues and treaty issues. As head of the Ways and Means Committee, Rangel stepped way out of line when he undertook dealings with Verizon, AIG, Nabors Industries and others. That should be enough right there.

Will there be a trial? I'm guessing here, but I think the deal may involve a public release and reading of the charges, and his admission to the understatements of income on his disclosure statements. Ultimately, the charges are damning enough on their face to disgrace him. After all, if the Democrats want to point the finger at Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, et al, then Charlie Rangel surely must also be a target, particularly with the evidence against him.

Charlie Rangel is 80 years old. He's been in Congress since 1971. At some point, his desire for a "legacy" outweighed any sense of ethics he had. So much of these charges center around his apparent need to have the Rangel Center become reality that he used his stationery, his station and evidently traded his soul for it. It's not a day to celebrate, but I am glad to see it coming to light.

If Democrats are smart, they'll point to the fact that at least they're cleaning out the rotten apples, whereas the Republicans double down and let the Vitters and Ensigns rot in the barrel along with everything else. It's about the best outcome there is, given that Charlie Rangel really doesn't have much of a defense for these charges.

Ruh roh:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will stand trial on ethics charges after a House panel accused him Thursday of multiple violations.

The veteran lawmaker will challenge the findings in an open hearing.

The news of Rangel’s trial comes at a bad time for Democrats, who are hoping to retain control of Congress this fall.[..]

A visibly frustrated Rangel on Thursday afternoon told The Hill that he did not know what the “alleged violations are finally going to be.”[..]

Rangel is facing a competitive and crowded primary on Sept. 14. In a poll released this week, Rangel attracted 39 percent of the vote, followed by State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV with 21 percent.

In all likelihood, Rangel’s trial will not start before his primary.

House ethics committee rules prohibit the committee from acting 30 days before a primary and 60 days before an election.

The House ethics rules also ensure that Rangel and his team of lawyers will have at least 15 days to review the allegations against him before the trial begins. [..]

In order for the committee to move forward with the trial, Rangel had to waive his rights to settle and accept the ethics committee punishment, according to ethics committee rules governing the trial process. Sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Rangel's attorney and the committee had failed to reach a settlement, which would have required an admission from Rangel that he broke ethics rules.

Public trials for ethics violations are rare and usually involve serious allegations against members, including censure and removal from office.

Rangel's characteristic bravado notwithstanding, there are reports that vulnerable Democratic congresspeople have already petitioned Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to put pressure on Rangel to resign, rather than taint the entire party. Interesting that when you get the same kind of scandals on the other side, you don't see this same desire to get rid of the scandalized member; rather, they circle the wagons around them (see Vitter, DeLay, et al.). I'm not sure exactly what Rangel has done, but Jonathan Capehart at WaPo says good riddance:

The committee has had a lot to look into. But my favorite, hands down, is his amended financial disclosure forms that revealed not one but two checking accounts -- CHECKING -- with up to $500,000 in them. How that slips the mind of the man who at the time was the powerful chief of the tax-writing committee is beyond me.

"At long last, sunshine has pierced through this cloud that has been over my head for more than two years," Rangel said. This is classic Rangel. Trying to make a walk over hot coals look like a stroll on the Mall. I look forward to hearing whatever explanations he has for his violations. And I look forward to whatever penalties befall him.

While O'Keefe may have walked away from his recent criminal charges with a slap on the hand, it's going to be more difficult to weasel his way out of these lawsuits:

A former ACORN employee in San Diego who lost his job after being filmed giving advice to "ACORN pimp" James O'Keefe is suing the amateur videographer and his partner, Hannah Giles, San Diego CityBeat's Dave Maass reported Friday.

Juan Carlos Vera was one of a number of ACORN employees who in the summer of 2009 was secretly filmed giving advice to O'Keefe and Giles, who told media they were posing as a pimp and prostitute with plans to bring underage prostitutes to the US from Latin America.

In a lawsuit (PDF) filed in a California court this week, Vera argues O'Keefe and Giles broke the law when they taped their conversation inside the ACORN office. California is one of about a dozen states where conversations can only be recorded if all parties to it agree. Vera is seeking $75,000, plus unspecified "special damages."California Attorney General Jerry Brown cleared Vera of wrongdoing in a report earlier this year. Brown found that, though Vera appeared sympathetic to the "pimp and prostitute" during the taped meeting, he immediately notified the police of the conversation.

Brown's investigation also found that the O'Keefe videos were "significantly edited."The shocking prospect of ACORN employees aiding in human trafficking prompted Congress to de-fund the group last year, a move that was later ruled unconstitutional. And a report from the Government Accountability Office, released earlier this year, found no evidence of wrongdoingon the part of ACORN, which received some $40 million in federal funding from 2005 to 2009.

In February, Hannah Giles admitted that the flamboyant pimp and prostitutes costumes in which she and O'Keefe were seen in some of the videos were never worn inside ACORN offices, contrary to most news reports. "In truth, O'Keefe represented himself to low-level ACORN workers as the college law school boyfriend of Giles, desperately trying to save her from the house of an abusive pimp who she believed would kill her," Brad Blog reported.

Vera's lawsuit is not the first one to be launched by an ACORN employee over the O'Keefe videos. In January, Pennsylvania ACORN worker Katherine Conway-Russell sued the duo, claiming that they had misrepresented her in the videos."Unlike the videos [O'Keefe] has been showing on the Internet, we refused to help him and called the police and filed this report," Conway-Russell said in an ACORN-produced video.

Oh my! Sounds like someone needs to hold hearings and issue some subpoenas to get to the bottom of this scandal. Yoo hoo, Congressman Waxman:

During the last 18 months, Congressman Darrell Issa has made a name for himself: “Obama’s Chief Antagonist.”

At least, that’s what the Washington Post recently dubbed the U.S. representative from Vista. Politico.com has called him a “conservative firebrand” whose “daily denunciations draw cheers from partisans and booking from TV producers.” Talking Points Memo described Issa’s first 18 months as ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as a “tireless quest for scandal.”

His investigations have included Toyota, ACORN, the Environmental Protection Agency and whether the Obama administration offered U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak a job to keep him out of the Pennsylvania Senate race.

“He’s throwing a lot of mud and seeing what will stick,” says Melanie Sloan, executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “I think he’s always looking for an issue that he can use to hurt the White House. That doesn’t mean he’s always wrong. I just question his motives.”

Issa has made it clear that, should the Republicans gain a House majority in November, he plans to double his staff and begin issuing subpoenas.

These investigators may want to start with Issa himself. A CityBeat analysis of Issa’s 2010 financial disclosure statementan annual report of his financial holdings revealed several conflicts of interest and a real-estate deal that benefited Issa to the tune of $3 million.

Issa filed his form on June 15, 2010, and, at 17 pages, it’s significantly longer than most of his congressional colleagues (Rep. Brian Bilbray, for example, turned in an eight-page form). That’s because Issa, who founded the company behind the Viper car-alarm system, is among the wealthiest members of Congress -- if not the richest.

[...] Last summer, Issa went on a property-buying spree. In the span of two months, he bought industrial complexes in Oceanside and Carlsbad and a condo overlooking Oceanside Bay. Even his son picked up a home in Vista.
The Carlsbad complex, however, is at the center of a lawsuit playing out in Los Angeles County Superior Court. A bank lender in Ventura County is accusing a bank of selling Issa the building for at least $3 million less than it should have.

The property is a series of five brand-new buildings near McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. Currently, all but one unit is empty, but they can be rented through Greene Properties, a company that employs Issa’s wife and son. The project was dreamed up by Orange County “new urbanism” developer David Dirienzo, who defaulted on a $36-million construction loan in January 2009.

The main lender, East West Bank, put the property up for auction but decided not to sell, instead filing a $12-million “credit bid” to hang onto it. Two weeks later, the bank sold the property to Issa’s company, DEI LLC, for $8.5 million.

In the complaint, Ventura County Business Bank, a secondary lender with an 8.3-percent interest in the original loan, accuses East West of negligence and “breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.” The complaint alleges that East West did not properly market the property and that the bank declined offers to buy the property and loan that were “significantly in excess” of what Issa paid. It specifically states that East West “discouraged” a potential buyer from making an $11.5-million bid on the property, which could have resulted in a $3-million discount for Issa.

This sort of real-estate deal may be familiar to San Diegans. In 2005, Randall “Duke” Cunningham, a former member of Congress representing San Diego County, was caught in a bribery scandal that centered around property bought and sold at abnormal prices.

Chalk up yet another tone-deaf move on the part of BP:

BP chief executive Tony Hayward has come under fire in the US for taking a break from the Gulf oil clean-up to watch his boat sail in a yacht race off the Isle of Wight.

In a statement, BP described the outing as "a rare moment of private time" and said that "no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP" and can direct recovery operations if required.

But Mr Hayward, who has come under fire for verbal gaffes that some said suggested he was tone-deaf to the mood in America, was immediately criticised in the US.[..]

Richard Shelby, Republican senator for the Gulf state of Alabama, said during a tour of areas affected by the spill: "People here are not on their yachts today.

"I believe it's the height of arrogance. He is the chief executive of BP, he was testifying in Washington and now he's going out on his yacht in England. That yacht should be here, skimming and cleaning up the oil."

A ban on fishing in much of the Gulf of Mexico and sharp fall in tourism means that many fishing vessels and pleasure boats have been forced to remain at dock because of spill caused by an the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Mr Hayward watched his boat Bob take part in the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. BP would not say whether or not he had joined his crew was on board, or was spectating from afar. A BP spokeswoman refused to comment beyond saying that the embattled chief executive was at the race with his son.

Peta Stuart-Hunt, a press officer for the event, said Mr Hayward "wasn't listed on any of the crew list. If he is on the boat, he's in contravention of the rules."

It's not exactly the first time someone from BP decided to contravene the rules,is it?

Look, I'm not a small person, and I don't begrudge people time off. But after Hayward's infuriating testimony on Capitol Hill last week and his stepping down from day-to-day oversight, it might have been smarter for him to lay low rather than invite questions about how out of touch he is with the suffering in the Gulf caused by his company.

"Who could have known?" I am so sick of that all-purpose excuse, aren't you? Maybe if we passed a law requiring the electric chair for anyone found guilty of major pollution, we could trust these companies to make safety their priority instead of profits:

WASHINGTON — Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.

The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.

“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.”

The company went ahead with the casing, but only after getting special permission from BP colleagues because it violated the company’s safety policies and design standards. The internal reports do not explain why the company allowed for an exception. BP documents released last week to The Times revealed that company officials knew the casing was the riskier of two options.

Though his report indicates that the company was aware of certain risks and that it made the exception, Mr. Hafle, testifying before a panel on Friday in Louisiana about the cause of the rig disaster, rejected the notion that the company had taken risks.

“Nobody believed there was going to be a safety issue,” Mr. Hafle told a six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials.

“All the risks had been addressed, all the concerns had been addressed, and we had a model that suggested if executed properly we would have a successful job,” he said.