• The company ESRI verified that it was issued a subpoena in the Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) investigation. The San Bernardino Sun also reports that the documents released by another subpoena recipient, San Bernardino County, show Lewis recommending "in 2002 that the county hire The Tom Skancke Co., a Las Vegas firm that lobbies Congress and does public-relations work." During the aftermath of the Duke Cunningham conviction when the spotlight turned to Lewis the congressman bluntly declared, "It is an ironclad rule in my office that we do not recommend lobbyists, even if a constituent asks for that recommendation."
• A district aide to Bob Ney (R-Ohio) was subpoenaed in the federal investigation into influence peddling by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. According to the Associated Press, "The subpoena for Matthew Parker, director of Ney's district office in St. Clairsville, was issued by a federal magistrate in Washington and announced Thursday."
• Former DeLay chief of staff Tony Rudy is seeking to escape Washington, DC and move to California. Rudy, who pled guilty in the Abramoff investigation, must get an okay from a judge before he can escape the city that was his undoing.
• Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) was found guilty of "trading government favors for campaign donations". That makes Siegelman the third Governor to be found guilty by a court over the past few years and the second to go to jail. Kentucky's Governor Ernie Fletcher has also been indicted and will face trial.
  

Room 8's story on Iraq War opponent Rep. Gary Ackerman's war profiteering made it to print today in Newsday.

Additionally, the records - reported on www.r8ny.com, a New York City political Web site - show Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) accepted a "personal loan" last year for as much as $100,000 from Selig Zises, a large investor in a California-based company that Ackerman called Xenonics Options. However, Ackerman, who denies any improprieties, said the alleged loan was actually a sale of stock that he accidentally misreported.
...
On March 9, 2002, Ackerman, a senior member on the International Relations Committee, purchased between $1,001 to $15,000 of stock in Xenonics, which is today valued at between $100,000 and $250,000, according to financial records.

The stock had ballooned to as much as $1 million as Room 8 had previously reported. It has since fallen to level reported by Newsday. Ackerman's attempt at playing dumb -- "If I was smart or really knew something, I would have sold it then" -- is pretty lame since, as Gur at Room 8 points out, "said questionable dude not only sits on the House Financial Services Committee, but also on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets - which has oversight on the Securities and Exchange Commission." Ackerman says that he "played no role in steering federal dollars to Xenonics."

The real, moral question remains: how does one square opposition to a war with profiting from it? If you oppose said war what would the ethical use of the profits be? Should he give it away to charity? Perhaps an organization trying to bring peace and understanding to said war-torn nation. Or should he spend those war profits on an absolutely awesome bat mitzvah for his little tatalah? It's decision time Ackerman: mensch or schlemeil?

• According to the San Bernardino Sun, the top technology firm ESRI has received a subpoena in the ongoing investigation into Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and his ties to Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, the lobbying firm representing ESRI and numerous municipalities that have received subpoenas. From 2001 to 2006 Lewis "earmarked more than $90 million for ESRI projects that included defense intelligence systems such as database mapping to assist in rebuilding war-torn Iraq." From 2000 to 2005 ESRI paid the Lowery firm $360,000 in fees to lobby Congress.
• TPM Muckraker reports that Bernard Kerik, the first choice to head the Department of Homeland Security for President Bush's second term, will plead guilty to accepting "improper gifts totaling tens of thousands of dollars while he was a city official in the late 1990's".
• The Wall Street Journal profiles the Han Solo of the Congressional Pork Wars, Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Flake is "a ringer for actor Owen Wilson who crashes not weddings but his own Republican Party" by asking "colleagues to come to the House floor and explain why taxpayers should pay for pet projects in their districts." He has twice targeted Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) -- the Sith Lord if we are to keep with the Star Wars theme -- and even targeted an earmark inserted by none other than the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Flake questions the culture that underlies much of the corrupt behavior in Congress, "What’s just mystifying is the sense of entitlement now: You have the right to have your projects and to ask for it through the process without anyone else knowing about it or being able to challenge it. That’s your inherent right as a member of Congress."