Lost in the Shuffle

There are so many scandals surrounding this administration that it is "hard work" to keep up with all of them.

How about this - John Kyl, Lindsey Graham and Sam Brownback inserted a debate that they had on Guantanimo into the Congressional Record. It included interruptions and questions and answers. What's the problem with that? Well, I suppose that it never happened would be a problem. The Supreme Court didn't like it.

The transcript of the bogus discussion was submitted into the official Congressional Record after the actual debate had concluded.

Then in February, Kyl and Graham cited the unspoken conversation in a brief to the Supreme Court as an example of the legislative intent behind the act.

The Supreme Court outed Kyl and Graham last week for their not-ready-for-real-time performance by bringing it up in a footnote in its decision in the landmark case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

“Those statements appear to have been inserted in the Congressional Record after the Senate debate,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.

Then there's the former American company who left our shores for a post office box in Bermuda to avoid taxes. Two years ago they were given an exemption to the Jones Act which states that only American owned ships can transport people or goods within our own port system. Their exemption is coming to an end so they want it to be permanent and our fine Congress is helping them do it. Congress is giving Nabors Industries a leg up on the competition who are actually playing by the rules.

Competitors argue that they will be slowly strangled if Nabors is allowed to vie for contracts while paying little in taxes. Nabors is a well-run company, said Ken Wells, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, and its tax advantages allow it to underbid other offshore supply companies. The association, therefore, opposes the provision as a favor to one of its 101 members at the expense of the others, Mr. Wells said.

Nabors reported earning $428.4 million in profits in the United States last year. At the average tax rate actually paid by large American companies, Nabors would have owed about $86 million in taxes. Nabors told its shareholders that it paid less than $6 million. It paid $60.8 million in taxes to the federal government in 2001, the last year it was an American company.

I'm sure the extra $80 million is helping pay their lobbyist to get the provision through the House of Representatives. And it's not like we actually need their taxes to help fund the war or anything. Isn't $80 million just a drop in the ever rising deficit bucket?

You really need a score card to keep up with these guys. Because the slime just keeps on coming.