The Daily MuckThree months after Logistics Health Inc. hired a Bush appointee who had supervised military health programs at the Pentagon for six years, Logistics won a $790 million medical services contract. Logistics, which is headed by Bush’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, was underbid by two other companies but still won the contract. The two competing firms have filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Office. (LA Times)
Just last month, Senator Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) former senior aide Kay LiCausi, now a political consultant, was honored as one of the “top forty business people under the age of forty” by NJBIZ magazine. Now, federal investigators are scrutinizing LiCausi’s lobbying contracts with organizations aided by Menendez. (Harpers)
Two former top executives of DBH Industries, the leading supplier of body armor to the U.S. military, falsely inflated the value of the inventory of DHB’s top product, the Interceptor vest, according to charges brought yesterday. The two were also indicted on charges of insider trading and tax evasion in a scheme that earned them almost $200 million and could earn them up to 70 years in prison. (CBS)
Responding to charges that they have not policed themselves adequately, federal judges are beginning a revision of ethics rules that is the “most sweeping tightening of federal judicial-misconduct policies in a quarter of a century.” The judges overseeing this process have refused to disclose public comments that may shape the new policies. (McClatchy)
Kids are emerging as an important new class of political donors. A loophole in federal election law, which does not specify age limits for political donations, allows parents to give money in the name of a child. Democrats are taking advantage of this “student” giving. (ABC, “The Blotter”)
Rudy Giuliani says he is being “tortured” while running for president because campaigning has cut into his sleep. Giuliani, who oversaw enhanced policing during his tenure as NYC mayor, joked about the “liberal media’s” concern about sleep deprivation and waterboarding, but former POW John McCain is not laughing. (Think Progress, New York Times)
The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to declare unconstitutional a part of the PATRIOT Act that allows the federal government to deny visas to people who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity.” The ACLU’s lawyer argued that the provision could be used to bar people, such as prominent Muslim scholars, “who have done nothing more than disagree with U.S. foreign policy.” (New York Times)