[Daily Brief]

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to brief we go

In the News
Let's start with the big stuff: Jack Abramoff's gangrene has been discovered creeping up the White House's leg:

"The Bush administration's top federal procurement official [David H. Safavian] resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government."

This is huge. Not only did Safavian obstruct justice, he tried to acquire control for Abramoff of federally-controlled lands in Washington. More: he was a former lobbying partner of Grover Norquist. And he was, until last week, working on Katrina cleanup. Expect the GOP to begin to cauterize itself against this rot by eviscerating some of their most loyal, highly-placed, and long-standing lieutenents. Will Norquist go down? How far up does Abramoff's corruption climb? Wait and see. (Laura Rozen has some analysis. Other papers have more news: Times, The Hill.

In other corruption news, the Dems, displaying a new, still-fragile backbone, have vetoed Bill Frist's kangaroo court to investigate the Katrina debacle. Frist wouldn't give Dems veto power or equal representation; Dems gave Frist the finger. Yet more corruption: Bush wants Julie Myers to head the Immigrations Dept. She is, of course, a long-time political hack with no experience in immigration nor in running large departments. It stinks enough that Michelle Malkin balks. Oh, what the hell, one more: the FEC is suing the Club for Growth, a Republican PAC, for violating campaign finance laws in 2004.

Also, here's a faith-based twist on what blind ideology can do to you (follow the link, it's a must-read):

"Immediately after the hurricane, there were only two secular organizations to which FEMA's Web site urged that contributions be made; all the others were faith-based. What's worse, in at least some instances, FEMA relied on faith-based charities to spearhead the emergency-relief effort, regardless of whether they had expertise."

Finally, the World Wildlife Fund reports that illegal fishing in the Atlantic could lead to the extinction of cod and other species.

Around the Blogosphere
Good stuff with little commentary. Consider the links worth clicking.

Sam Rosenfeld on Safavian. Brad DeLong on the dollar's decline. John Quiggen says instant runoff voting is great, but Americans is too stoopid to use it. Kevin Drum says we're not cutting our way back to solvency. Scott Shields on Mitt and Karl. Dwight Meredith takes a dip in the hypocrisy pool (in a good way).

And that's today's briefing.

(Incidentally, there is a way to continue to get Times editorials--at least two ways to get Krugman--but because I don't want to be the linker who queered the deal, email and I'll tell you how.)