Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned today. Norton, introduced to Abramoff by Tom Delay, was alleged to have done favors for Abramoff. Abramoff, in turn, got his clients to donate money to a conversative environmental group founded by Norton. The photo at right shows Norton (in center) with Abramoff (at right).

Source: Raw Story

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has sent out donation forms designed to look like tax returns.

These forms have "Return Enclosed" printed on the bottom and are sent to "U.S. Individual Resident". The language of the form implies that one is legally obligated to return it. For example, text from the form:

Vanity Fair, usually protective of their content before publication, has released a PDF of an article that will be published in their next issue.

The article is a talk with Jack Abramoff about his current predicament and his relationships with prominent Republicans, many who claim they don't know him or, as Bush said, don't recall meeting him. Abramoff apparently has a stash of photographs of himself with many of these folks (including Bush) that he plans to sell.

Blogger Doug Thompson of Capital Hill Blue was recently shown an FBI document declaring him to be an enemy of the state:

Iraq had WMD, Iran has nukes.

Iraq was linked to Al-Quaida, Iran is arming the Iraq insurgency.

A blogger, whose writes under the name Baron Bodissey, is doing an independent investigation into alleged Islamist compounds and training camps in rural Virginia. He is investigating the Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a militant Islamist organization originating in Pakistan.

The US city of Baltimore, Maryland, has installed street lights with solar-powered cameras mounted on them. The street lights not only take your pictures when near, but they shout a warning when they sense motion: "Stop! We have just taken your photograph. We will use this photograph to prosecute you. Leave the area now!". The city is concerned about people stealing the street lights.

14 out of 16 provisions of the Patriot Act have been made permanent by the US Senate, with relatively minor concessions to opponents of the act. Even after Bush has admitted he is breaking the law to spy on US citizens, only 7 senators opposed the permanent expansion of state power.

Source: Yahoo News

Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican congressman who resigned last November, has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for corruption. The #3 guy at the CIA, Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo (I guess these guys like nicknames because it makes them more "mob"), is currently being investigated by the CIA as he oversaw at least one of Cunningham's contracts.

Despite a supposed 45 day review of the deal that could give the United Arab Emirates control over a number of major American ports, the deal, which faces bipartisan condermnation, will apparently close on Monday.

Source: Yahoo News (via AmericaBlog).