Take A Tour of Wasington D.C.

Courtesy of the Hartford Courant:

In Washington, Follow The Perp Walk Of Fame

Those who believe in the innate goodness of humankind have never walked the 100 block of D Street SE.

Let's start at 110 D St., the drab Hill House apartment complex; police were summoned here, to Apartment 215, when a woman complained that her lover, then-Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., a married man, had tried to strangle her.

Walk a few doors down, and you arrive at a townhouse with a birdbath in front: 132 D St., the "Safe House" where, under artwork provided by clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former House majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and his colleagues made fundraising calls and set up a lobbying business.

Many of the modern day scandals summing up the GOP's legacy pretty well. Tom DeLay, Jack Abrahmoff, Bob Ney, Larry Craig, Karl Rove, Mark Foley, Randy Duke Cunningham, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the DC Madam, David Vitter, Gonzales, John T. Doolittle... This story has almost all of them, and even some that are still in the making.

Wilkes Ship Has Come In

And much like the "Duke Stir" it is a sinking ship:

A U.S. District Court jury has found Brent Wilkes, who was charged with bribing disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, guilty on all 13 counts in his corruption trial. TPM’s Paul Kiel notes that today’s verdict is from just the first of the two corruption trials Wilkes faces. The second involves former CIA executive director Dusty Foggo.

This guy is a real piece of work and deserves scrutiny for more than just bribing Randy "Duke" Cunningham:

Republican Cronies Were Scanning OR Reading?

Josh Marshall over at TPM digs this up:

If you're a Cunningham case afficionado, you know that in early 2002 Mitchell Wade was still acting as a cut out for his corruption mentor Brent Wilkes -- who's now awaiting trial in the Cunningham case. And around the same time Wilkes was greasing palms in DC trying to get into the Anthrax mail screening racket himself.

He got some help from Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) who got money from Wilkes. We pick up that part of the story from the San Diego Union-Tribune from March 19th, 2006 ...

Julie Doolittle was working at Buckham's offices in 2002 when Buckham introduced Brent Wilkes to her husband. Federal contracts for his flagship company, ADCS Inc., were drying up, partly because the Pentagon had been telling Congress it had little need for the company's document-scanning technology. So Wilkes was trying to get funding for two new businesses.

One was tied to the 2002 anthrax scare, when tainted letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

He called his proposed solution MailSafe – similar to the names of several anti-anthrax companies launched at that time – and began vying for federal contracts, even though the company had little to its name other than a rudimentary Web site.

The House Administration Committee, on which Doolittle sat, oversees the congressional mail system. Doolittle told his colleagues about MailSafe and introduced them to Wilkes, but the project never got off the ground.

Note the reference to the House Administration Committee. That was the committee then chaired by another Abramoff buddy -- the now-imprisoned Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). And Ney, as he'd earlier done for Abramoff associate Adam Kidan, actually read into the House record an encomium to Wilkes.

So it all comes back to the same question. Why did a company like Wade's, which had no track record whatsoever and had only been approved to receive federal government contracts two months earlier, get a contract from the White House to screen the mail of the President of the United States?

Are you sure it was only the Presidents mail they were screening?

Note the Tribune story:

Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

All Capitol Hill mail? Wouldn't that mean that these Republican cronies were also "scanning" sensitive mail from the Democratic party side of the aisle (and to and from God knows who else inside the Hill?) as well?

To me, this seems to give these Republican cronies the ability to spy on people's mail if they were unethical enough to abuse this contract for their corrupted GOP's advantage... Does anyone think these guys weren't reading what they were scanning? "Oooh, here's a hot one! Send it to Karl..." It's not like the GOP has ever been known to be ethical when given the opportunity.

I still want to know what these corrupt and immoral republicans were doing with all of that access to Capitol Hill mail.

Another Left Coast Republican Scandal

How about that Rep. Ken Calvert (R-California) movin' on up in the political world last month?

Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), for example, was forced off the Appropriations Committee in April after the FBI raided his home in Oakton, searching for records of his wife's business because she worked for now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists while her husband performed legislative favors for their clients.

In selecting Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) navigated a political minefield of ethical concerns and internal politics, as the 19 California Republicans lobbied on Calvert's behalf to keep the seat in the delegation's hands. Boehner, in a statement on the decision, tacitly acknowledged questions about Calvert's land deals and spending he has secured for projects near those properties.

"Congressman Calvert answered every question asked of him," Boehner said of the "candid" closed-door session of the GOP's steering committee.

snip

Calvert's rise had a beneficial domino effect for another lawmaker under scrutiny over Abramoff ties. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who has been contacted by the Justice Department over his 2003 golf junket to Scotland with Abramoff, took over as ranking minority member of the Science and Technology subcommittee on space from Calvert, who was forced to give up all assignments to assume the coveted Appropriations spot.

Not a bad gig for a guy that even conservative Bloggers were against getting the promotion. Why were thy worried about it? Well, because of Calvert's penchant towards making shady land deals:

Boehner, meanwhile, faced criticism even in the conservative blogosphere for his decision last month to name Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) to replace Doolittle on the powerful Appropriations panel. Doolittle stepped down from the panel after the FBI searched his house in its investigation into ties he and his wife had with Abramoff. Calvert has faced scrutiny over land deals and their proximity to earmarks, and several GOP lawmakers openly opposed his selection to the committee.

HMMM. Not even a month has passed since Calvert's promotion and already he is in more trouble:

A California city government agency broke the law when it sold a four-acre parcel of land to a group of investors which included Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., an investigative grand jury has concluded.

Calvert and his partners planned to build a mini-storage facility on the property. The land could have served as the only community park in a predominately Hispanic, lower-income neighborhood, according to a former local recreation official.

And who would've figured it involved a shady land deal? And at the expense of a park for some poor minority kids to play in as well. Well, CREW might have been able to point out the obvious... Calvert was already named to their list of the 20 most corrupt politicians in DC before his promotion:

The Jurupa Community Services District, the entity that oversees many governmental services for the unincorporated sections of Riverside County, California, arranged a land deal with a partnership including Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA). Rep. Calvert was named by CREW as one of the 20 most corrupt members of Congress, in part, because he used his position to earmark funds to increase the value of his own property. In other words, the earmarks benefited Calvert's own land deals. One of those land deals we questioned was with the Jurupa Community Services District. CREW raised the concern that Calvert received "preferential treatment" in that $1.2 million deal.

Now, a grand jury has determined that the deal with the District violated California law:

The Jurupa Community Services District violated state law when it sold 4 acres of public land to Rep. Ken Calvert and his investment partners without first offering it to other public agencies -- including the local park district that wanted it, the Riverside County grand jury concluded in a report released Tuesday.

The grand jury recommends that the water and sewer agency turn over the $1.2 million it pocketed from the sale, minus costs, to the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District.

Yep... Go figure? Think Boehner will have any better luck on his next round of promotions? I doubt it. Finding a republican that isn't corrupt is hard work these days. And republicans aren't about hard work, only easy money for them. And YOU, unfortunately, are their mark.

Keep in mind that Calvert investigations were just offshoots from the Cunningham scandal:

DoJ wants information stretching back to 1997, and requests that broad could lead them to knock on many new doors. Independent reports have already confirmed that as offshoots of the Cunningham probe, the DoJ is looking into Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Katherine Harris (R-FL), and possibly others, as well as former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- and, of course, Cunningham himself.

Anyone else think there may be some more skeletons in this guy's closet?

Another Casualty of the DC Madam

You can add this man to the casualty list:

Likely to be among those called to testify is military strategist Harlan K. Ullman. Two weeks ago, Palfrey alleged that Ullman, creator of the "shock and awe" combat theory and now a scholar with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was a customer of her business. Ullman has said that the claim was "beneath the dignity of comment."
(ABC News)

A Littlemore background on Ullman via Sourcewatch:

In 1996, Ullmann, then an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), published Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. The premise of the book was that, rather than relying on old-fashioned gimmickry like destroying the enemy's military capability, we could instead win wars by "sufficiently intimidating and compelling factors to force or otherwise convince an adversary to accept our will." Ullman approvingly cited the nuking of Hiroshima and the Germans' blitzkreig as examples of shocking and awing civilian populations into submission.

Ullman was the youngest officer to ever serve as Professor of Strategy at the National War College. He taught strategy to Colin Powell when Powell was a Colonel attending the NWC. In his autobiography My American Journey, Colin Powell was effusive with praise for Ullman:

"A teacher who raised my vision several levels was Harlan Ullman, a Navy lieutenant commander who taught military strategy. So far, I had known men of action but few who were also authentic intellectuals. Ullman was that rarity, a scholar in uniform, a line officer qualified for command at sea, also possessed of one of the best, most provocative minds I have ever encountered."

Ullman, a 1963 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, retired as a Commander. His career included commanding a Swift Boat in Vietnam, as well as a Navy Destroyer (USS Dupont DD-941) in 1980-1981.

Also, a bit more on Center for Strategic and International Studies via sourcewatch:

Originally CSIS sprung out from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and many of principals were also faculty members at the university. For some time CSIS had an office on the Georgetown campus. Several of the principals were "Cold Warriors" and made a little industry out of finding "communist influence" around the world. During the war against Nicaragua, CSIS produced several documents "proving" a communist plot, etc. For many years, CSIS was also seen as a think tank where right-wing "officials-in-waiting" could wait until their next appointment in government.

Woohoo! Mcarthyism in it's lowest form... (IE: disguised as "thinking")

Ullman joins Tobias in the republican sin-bin:

The Blotter gets the scoop on Tobias:

"Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation. Tobias, 65, Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the Ambassador for the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for 'personal reasons.' On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the 'Pamela Martin and Associates' escort service 'to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.' Tobias, who is married, said there had been 'no sex,' and that recently he had been using another service 'with Central Americans' to provide massages.

Tobias' private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the 'D.C. Madam,' who is facing the federal charges."

These guys just can't seem to get enough of the Randy "Duke" Cunningham treatment.

The DC Madame, with noted GOP clientele and connections, has promised to drop dimes on many more of her pant dropping District of Columbia elite customers in the hopes of avoiding jail time and because she isn't "shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever."

The real kicker on this one?

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Another fine chapter in "the never ending lies" as more extreme hypocrisy eminates from the stink pile of the failed and unethical bush administration.



Sure he does... The only time bush has a problem with their ethics is when they get caught with their pants down...

Think Progress provides an update on Tobias:

"Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution “loyalty oath.”

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it “was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus.” But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security Presidential Directive saying prostitution “and related activities” were “inherently harmful and dehumanizing.”"

This could be be some must-watch TV:

Watch "20/20" this Friday at 10 p.m. EDT for ABC News' Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross' exclusive interview with the D.C. Madam, Jeane Palfrey.

You have to wonder if these guys are just "low ranking teasers", and if there will be any bombshells on the show Friday?

Good thing it won't interupt my regular viewing of KO on Countdown! heh

More on Tobias

Think Progress provides an update on Tobias:

"Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution “loyalty oath.”

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it “was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus.” But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security Presidential Directive saying prostitution “and related activities” were “inherently harmful and dehumanizing.”"

More Illegal Sex With Bushies

The Blotter gets the scoop on Tobias:

"Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation. Tobias, 65, Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the Ambassador for the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for 'personal reasons.' On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the 'Pamela Martin and Associates' escort service 'to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.' Tobias, who is married, said there had been 'no sex,' and that recently he had been using another service 'with Central Americans' to provide massages.

Tobias' private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the 'D.C. Madam,' who is facing the federal charges."

These guys just can't seem to get enough of the Randy "Duke" Cunningham treatment.

The DC Madame, with noted GOP clientele and connections, has promised to drop dimes on many more of her pant dropping District of Columbia elite customers in the hopes of avoiding jail time and because she isn't "shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever."

The real kicker on this one?

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Another fine chapter in "the never ending lies" as more extreme hypocrisy eminates from the stink pile of the failed and unethical bush administration.



Sure he does... The only time bush has a problem with their ethics is when they get caught with their pants down...

Doolittle is on the run...

While Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars wonders "when?" and "if?" Dollitle will go:

We reported on the FBI raid on the home of California Congressman John Doolittle last Friday and now, according to the AP, he has now decided to give up his seat on the House Appropriations Committee. Will he go the way of Bob Ney? Let's hope so. For more on Doolittle's follies, check out Nate's latest post.

I have a more important question: Is anyone lining up credible candidates to run in case of an early election date in California?

The Hill may have provided the answer in a story on March 7:

House Democrats, now on the defensive after having picked up 30 seats in November, have only a pair of high-profile candidates — both 2006 repeats — in top Republican-held districts: Charlie Brown has officially filed to run against Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Larry Kissell has said he will challenge Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.).

Though, if they want to remain in reality, The Hill may just want to change their thinking about whom is on the defensive... "Good grief!"

Doolittle Officially Joins the Republican Scandal Club

The Hill has the "Randy Cunningham/Jack Abrahmoff/Brent Wilkes/Average Republican Politician" scandal coming back around and biting Rep. Doolittle in the ass:

The FBI searched the Virginia home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) last Friday in its investigation into the ties of the congressman and his wife, Julie, to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to law enforcement and other Congressional and K Street sources. […]

Doolittle has been under fire for paying his wife’s company, Sierra Dominion, a 15 percent commission on all contributions that the company raised for Doolittle’s campaign committee and leadership PAC. Her only other clients were Abramoff’s former firm, Greenberg Traurig; Abramoff’s former restaurant Signatures; and the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, which Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), created.

The Justice Department previously subpoenaed Julie Doolittle’s files.

Doolittle also received contributions from indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his associates, and investigators are probing whether those contributions are linked to any official action Doolittle took to help Wilkes’s company obtain millions of dollars in government earmarks.

The National Republican Party has not commented on whether or not they will provide the traditional doughnut for Doolitle to sit on while he nurses his bitten corrupt ass.

Meanwhile, White House officials have been spotted sporting "up-armored Humvee kits" modified into diaperized ass-protectors in the hopes that they will not get bitten (with the added bonus of protecting their clothes when they repeatedly soil themselves) by further investigations, which might explain the continued shortage of propper protective gear for the front-line troops in the GWOT.

Needless to say... "Get yer popcorn while it's still hot!"

Republican Cronies Were Scanning OR Reading?

Josh Marshall over at TPM digs this up:

If you're a Cunningham case afficionado, you know that in early 2002 Mitchell Wade was still acting as a cut out for his corruption mentor Brent Wilkes -- who's now awaiting trial in the Cunningham case. And around the same time Wilkes was greasing palms in DC trying to get into the Anthrax mail screening racket himself.

He got some help from Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) who got money from Wilkes. We pick up that part of the story from the San Diego Union-Tribune from March 19th, 2006 ...

Julie Doolittle was working at Buckham's offices in 2002 when Buckham introduced Brent Wilkes to her husband. Federal contracts for his flagship company, ADCS Inc., were drying up, partly because the Pentagon had been telling Congress it had little need for the company's document-scanning technology. So Wilkes was trying to get funding for two new businesses.

One was tied to the 2002 anthrax scare, when tainted letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

He called his proposed solution MailSafe – similar to the names of several anti-anthrax companies launched at that time – and began vying for federal contracts, even though the company had little to its name other than a rudimentary Web site.

The House Administration Committee, on which Doolittle sat, oversees the congressional mail system. Doolittle told his colleagues about MailSafe and introduced them to Wilkes, but the project never got off the ground.

Note the reference to the House Administration Committee. That was the committee then chaired by another Abramoff buddy -- the now-imprisoned Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). And Ney, as he'd earlier done for Abramoff associate Adam Kidan, actually read into the House record an encomium to Wilkes.

So it all comes back to the same question. Why did a company like Wade's, which had no track record whatsoever and had only been approved to receive federal government contracts two months earlier, get a contract from the White House to screen the mail of the President of the United States?

Are you sure it was only the Presidents mail they were screening?

Note the Tribune story:

Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

All Capitol Hill mail? Wouldn't that mean that these Republican cronies were also "scanning" sensitive mail from the Democratic party side of the aisle (and to and from God knows who else inside the Hill?) as well?

To me, this seems to give these Republican cronies the ability to spy on people's mail if they were unethical enough to abuse this contract for their corrupted GOP's advantage... Does anyone think these guys weren't reading what they were scanning? "Oooh, here's a hot one! Send it to Karl..." It's not like the GOP has ever been known to be ethical when given the opportunity.

The Duke of Hurl

We have all read the ongoing fish story (it keeps getting bigger and bigger!) of Republican Randy "The Duke" Cunningham getting a nice profit of $700,000 from Mitchell J. Wade, "the defense contractor whose firm, MZM Inc., saw its number of government contracts soar in the months immediately after the home sale."

Cunningham, obviously feeling a little seasick from the accusations, has hurled noxious reasoning at the situation in claiming that he is the most ethical human on the face of the earth:

signonsandiego.com
"My whole life I've lived aboveboard," Cunningham said. "I've never even smoked a marijuana cigarette. I don't cheat. If a contractor buys me lunch and we meet a second time, I buy the lunch. My whole life has been aboveboard and so this doesn't worry me."

Sure you buy them lunch, just like I am buying your story. Now the sharks are circling in a feeding frenzy around a deal that involves the "rental" of a 42 foot yacht, "The Duke-Stir", owned by Wade.

nctimes.com
Cunningham since April 2004 has been living on Wade's yacht in Washington. The congressman said that in lieu of rent, he paid more than $8,000 in dock fees and $5,000 for upkeep on Wade's boat.

We can set aside the dock fees, because Cunningham rented space for his own boat at the Potomac River marina for years before he moved into Wade's boat. According to Cunningham's accounting, that $5,000 over the last 14 months amounts to $357 a month.

Unless we are missing something, this looks like a sweetheart deal, with Cunningham paying far less than market rent, to say nothing of the true maintenance and depreciation costs of a fancy boat.

$357 dollars per month for a luxurious yacht? "Sweetheart deal"? You have got to be kidding right? Why even bother charging at that price? Around here that will get you a cardboard box in a park to live in.

Now, I am in a pretty generous mood today, so I will be nice enough to allow Cunningham the luxury of claiming the docking fees as a "legitimate" part of his rental fee. That would make $13,000 for 14 months of living on the "Duke-Stir". Being in a generous mood I will say that is about $930 per month. ($928.57 per month, to be precise)

Considering my wife and I pay about 2 grand per month on our mortgage that $930 per month seems a little bit skewerd for a luxury yacht charter?

Heck! My friends and I are looking at paying about a grand to charter a fishing boat for a day. It's a nice fishing boat, but it is not a yacht... So my mortgage really seems WAY too generous a comparison.

I found a nice charter service running out of Annapolis, Maryland, to try and do an honest comparison of how much a yacht would typically cost to charter. I chose only the yachts on the list that were within a few feet of the 42 foot Duke-Stir's length.

Name-------------Length---7 Days---14 Days
Llyric--------------------39------2532-----4561
Ray Sea Lady-------39------2745-----4886
Shenandoah----------41------2379-----4235
Engram-----------------43------3111-----5538
Wind Walker---------43------2196-----3909
Carolina----------------43------3111-----5538

To make this comparison as fair as possible I have also chosen the least expensive yacht on this list of comparable yachts, the Wind Walker, to base some (not so) fun calculations on.

At $3909 for a 2 week charter you would have to figure that it would come in at $7818 for 28 days... But continuing to be in a generous mood I will call that the full monthly charter cost. (Man! Am I ever generous today, huh?)

That means that to charter a yacht like the "Duke-Stir" it would cost $109,452 for 14 months, at the minimum by my more-than-generous calculations. Subtract the generous $13,000 that Cunningham claims to have paid in "rent" and you are looking at what is an extremely generous gift to Cunningham from Wade of...

$96,452

Keep in mind that this generously low calculation of Wades "Duke-Stir" gift is just tip of the iceberg when compared to the titanic $700,000 house warming gift that will sink Cunningham.

Kind of makes you want to hurl when Cunningham says, "My whole life I've lived aboveboard," eh? It is time to throw this ethically challenged Republican overboard. Feed him to the circling sharks. I am certainly being more than generous in that thought than he deserves...

Update: This is an excerpt from a signonsandiego.com news story where they do an indepth evaluation of the actual value of Cunningham's home:

Cunningham previously lived in the same slip aboard a 65-foot yacht called the Kelly C. Coast Guard records list Cunningham as the owner of the Kelly C.

In 1998, when Cunningham was living aboard the Kelly C, he used his position on the defense appropriations subcommittee, which oversees the District of Columbia's budget, to earmark $3 million to refurbish the waterfront where the yacht was docked.

Shortly after Congress approved the funding, Cunningham told Copley News Service he was fulfilling his duties as a member of the subcommittee.

It was not, he said then, because the beautification project would benefit an area he calls home when he is working in the nation's capital. It was, he said, because then-Speaker Newt Gingrich "said he wants to make D.C. a shining city, and so I said, 'OK, . . . I want to clean up the waterfront' . . . not for Duke Cunningham," he added. "I haven't got a nickel invested."

As Cunningham's office tries to deal with questions about Wade's yacht, a controversy continues to swirl around the sale of the congressman's Del Mar house. Real estate professionals in San Diego have questioned the sale's circumstances, saying their review of the comparable sales do not support the price that Wade paid Cunningham in November 2003.

Go read the entire story... It has a nice pic of the luxury yacht, Duke-Stir. It also makes a mockery of Cunningham's "aboveboard" life.