A story that should be passed on. As if we don’t have enough evidence already of the shameless corruption of this President and his cronies. Thanks to JLFinch at DKos for ferreting this out. From the Dallas Business Journal:

Once the color barrier has been broken, minority contractors seeking government work may need to overcome the Bush barrier.

That’s the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas…

…Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’

“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”

Incredible. No shame. No conscience. No sense that he needs to even pretend to restrain such blatant corruption and croneyism. He just brags about it in public for the world to hear and expects to be applauded.

That’s what we’re dealing with, folks. Here’s the HUD number if you want to complain: (202) 708-1112. And no, the HUD mission statement doesn’t mention anything about political litmus tests. At least not yet.

If the two Republican campaigns for federal office in Vermont have shown over the last few days that they have any one thing in common, it would seem to be questionable competence.

First let’s take the Tarrant campaign. Over the months he has been caught secretly running a fake blog, filing shady tax returns and creating a question over his Vermont residency, and encouraging schoolkids to do his campaign work for him while seeming to bribe their parents with gifts. While it boggles the mind, the latest example is just pathetic.

More after the link…

Tarrant is seemingly getting frustrated that his series of expensive, fluffy, utterly forgettable biopic-style ads combined with his apparent distaste for engaging the press to get any earned media to go along with the stuff he so readily pays for, have not closed the polling chasm between him and Bernie. He’s therefore decided it’s time to get nasty, and has been trying to do so by going after Bernie’s wife (brilliant), among other things. His latest assault, though, was just comical. From the news wires via in progressiveamerica.us, Bernie’s official campaign blog:

U.S. Rep. Sanders wants the federal government to run your health care,” Tarrant says in the ad. “I want all Americans to have health care coverage. Yet I want you to be able to choose your doctor and ensure that you get the highest quality care no matter how old you are.”

Weaver disputed that statement on three levels: He said Sanders wants states, not the federal government, to administer single-payer health care systems. He said Sanders has always supported giving patients choice of doctors and other providers. And he said Sanders was trying to protect senior health programs against Republican-backed cuts.

Lennon was sticking to his campaign’s guns Thursday evening. “To claim he doesn’t want a national, government-run, federal-government-created and run system is inaccurate

Putting aside for a moment that pointing at Bernie and yelling “Socialist! Run!” never works, Tarrant’s people went on to show themselves to be the Keystone Kops of the political scene:

But an Internet link Lennon provided to back up his assertion, to a Sanders biography on a site called Jewish Virtual Library, indicated Sanders had long supported a system administered by states.

The site says, “A longtime supporter of a Canadian-style single payer health care plan, in 1990 he (Sanders) introduced legislation to establish such a plan for the U.S. on a state-by-state basis.

So they attack Bernie and provide the press with Bernie’s counter argument all in one press session! Nice of them to take out the middleman. I said a few months ago that Bernie might have to consider counting Rich’s campaign as an “in kind donation,” but I think the amount would exceed the contribution limit…

And Rainville. Good lord. This is someone who has barely been running a campaign, despite her high profile hiring of the legendary “swift boat” national GOP media attack team.

But while she can’t seem to clearly articulate her views on any real issues of the day, she does seem to be quite competent at taking a single matter that should be easily finessed by any run of the mill campaign team, pull out her metaphorical M-16, commence shooting her self repeatedly in the foot, then changing clips to gleefully continue firing.

First it was her penchant for accepting sleazy contributions from the Republican power structure after distancing herself from them. Hey, Republicans take money from Republicans, right? An issue that should have been easily swept under the radar screen — that is until Rainville herself got a hold of it. She proceeded to do so many flip flops that she nearly single-handedly made it into a full-blown scandal, causing people to take notice when she flipped on her promise to avoid contributions from tobacco companies and vascillated over accepting money from a purported spouse-abuser.

Well, she didn’t seem to learn a thing from that ridiculous display, and has promptly returned to her now-familiar M.O. over her flip-flop on whether Donald Rumsfeld should keep his job. She seem pathologically unable to let such fumbles fall quietly from public view, insisting on returning for more verbal gymnastics, and in the process sounding more and more like — well — like a sleazy politician.

She finally pushed it so far that the press couldn’t take it anymore, which was a BIG mistake. From the Times Argus:

Martha Rainville is taking double talk to the level of an art form. It is no longer possible to dismiss Rainville’s inconsistencies and shifting positions as the mistakes of a neophyte politician. Instead, it appears she intends to run her campaign for the U.S. House without concern for whether she is making sense.

Rainville’s recent statements contradict the image that she has tried to convey as the former adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard. In that position, she came across as strong and articulate. As a politician running in the Republican House primary, her bizarre statements border on the offensive.

Ouch. And those were the lead in paragraphs to the piece. Guess who’s not getting an endorsement this year.

When you look so bad that the press starts doing your opponent’s work for them (especially given Republicans usually get treated with kid gloves by the press who are chronically terrified of being called “liberal” by the right-wingnuts), you’re in danger of entering the realm of self-parody.

Rich, Martha…its only May. You might wanna pace yourselves a bit…