Link: Home builders push to limit impact fee increases – The Business Journal of Phoenix What ever happened to Republicans being in favor of local control and smaller, less-intrusive government? Now, it seems that they are only in favor of doing the bidding of big business in whatever way they can, by whatever means they … Read more
by David Safier My Sunday posts tend toward the abstract or trivial, and today, I’m reaching new heights (lows?) of triviality. Have you ever wondered, “Am I taller than Bob Dylan? Is famously short Dudley Moore shorter than Dustin Hoffman? Did Edith Piaf make it to 5 feet? How about Henry VIII? How do Jerry … Read more
by David Safier OK, this is a good idea: turn school playgrounds into parks during after school hours and weekends. It’s not finalized, but TUSD and the city are looking at opening the gates to 12 elementary schools on a trial basis. If it works out well, the goal is to open all school playgrounds … Read more
Meet McCain’s National Finance
Co-Chair Fred Malek.
So, who
is Fred Malek, anyhow?
On a Friday in August 1959, five men in their twenties were arrested about 2 a.m. and held in the county jail all day after sheriff’s deputies found a blood-spattered, unoccupied car about 1:15 a.m. at the entrance to Vicary’s
Park on Kickapoo Creek Road near Peoria, Ill.…After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it."
Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of
the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park
table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the
evening at a West Bluff tavern.One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed,
skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of
Berwyn, Ill.
It’s unclear to me whether or not Malek’s earlier fondness for drunken
barbarism influenced at all the carrying out of his prominent
role within the Nixon Administration.
You make the call:
Malek’s responsiveness program was extensively investigated by the Senate
Watergate committee. The panel found that the program was aimed at influencing
decisions concerning government "grants, contracts, loans, subsidies,
procurement and construction projects," decisions regarding "legal and
regulatory actions," and even personnel decisions that affected protected
"career positions" — all to advance Nixon’s reelection.
Wow. I’m thinking Mr. Malek might really feel at home in Bush’s concept of the current Department of Justice.
Read more about Malek…