“knowingly exposes troops and civilians to contaminated water from Iraq’s Euphrates River,” according to two former employees.

for $70 billion in tax cuts. (Sub. req’d.)

One week ago, the Office of Women’s Health of the FDA “sent an e-mail notice to women’s groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director.” Immediately, eyebrows were raised. Alderson was a Mike Brown-redux — an “FDA veteran trained in animal husbandry who spent much of his career in the agency’s Center for Veterinary Medicine”:

Three days after the Alderson announcement, the FDA main press office sent out a very different announcement. It said that 20-year FDA veteran Theresa A. Toigo would be the new acting director of the women’s health office. … Alderson — and the statement announcing his appointment — was never mentioned.

Asked yesterday who exactly was running the office, FDA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said that Alderson had never been appointed acting director. She said that Toigo would take over from the departed Wood, and that her office knew nothing about the statement regarding Alderson, who is the agency’s associate commissioner for science.

Alderson had never been appointed acting director? Then what explains this, on the Office of Women’s Health website?

(P.S. It’s since been deleted.)

The FBI complaint filed against David Safavian yesterday accuses him of lying to ethics officers at the General Services Administration, where he served as chief of staff. Safavian informed the officials that Jack Abramoff, who had invited Safavian on a golfing trip to Scotland, had “no business before GSA.” In fact, Safavian was already actively helping Abramoff acquire control of two GSA-managed properties in the Washington area, one of which was a 40-acre plot that became the campus for a Hebrew school that Abramoff founded called the Eshkol Academy.

Come again? Jack Abramoff, the corrupt, scandal-plagued lobbyist, founded a Hebrew academy? Yes, but it was a distinctly Abramoff-style venture.

In 2004, he thought the school would be a prime place to make money off the lives of tribal elders. Abramoff recommended that one of his clients, the then-broke Tigua tribe, retain him at no cost. At the same time, he suggestioned they allow Eshkol Academy to “buy term life insurance policies on tribal elders and receive the benefits upon their death, with the money then channeled back to Abramoff.” According to the Washington Post, some of the money that went into the school was used to buy “two Zamboni ice-cleaning machines, even though it did not own a hockey rink.”

The school was closed a short time later, but the scandals persisted. In May ’04, Abramoff’s assets were frozen by a Montgomery County, MD judge “in connection with a lawsuit over unpaid wages filed by employees of a religious academy that Abramoff founded.” Abramoff had shorted thirteen teachers a quarter of their pay when Eshkol shut down.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is a self-proclaimed “little oinker” and aspires to be the “chief porker.” Your tax dollars make his dream possible. Thanks to you, Alaskans receive $6.60 back for every $1 they pay in at-the-pump gas taxes.

Young is chairman of Congress’s Transportation and Infrastructure Commitee and has ensured that the six-year $295 billion transportation bill is “stuffed like a turkey” with $721 million in projects for Alaska. Projects include:

$223 million for a bridge larger than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate, to connect a town with 8,900 people to a town with 50 people.

$200 million for another “bridge to nowhere,” which will connect Anchorage to a town with one tenant and a handful of homes.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has raised the idea of “charitable pork” — lawmakers giving up pet projects to help Hurricane Katrina victims — and Montana is considering giving up the $4 million it received in a federal bill for a downtown parking garage.

Young’s response to his state giving up some money?

“They can kiss my ear!…That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard….I raised enough money to give back to them voluntarily and that’s it!”

So much for unity and sacrifice.

“Good leaders create a climate of honesty and integrity.” — George W. Bush, 10/26/00

VERSUS

According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, fifty percent of Americans say they would not call President Bush honest. — CNN, 9/19/05

Last week, after “more than an hour of solemn ceremony” swearing in Rep. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as House speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush stepped to the podium to tell “a short story about ‘unleashing Chang,’ his ‘mystical warrior’ friend.”

Below, courtesy of the Gainesville Sun, are Bush’s words, “spoken before hundreds of lawmakers and politicians”:

“Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.

“I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.”

Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave it to Rubio as a gift.

”I’m going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior,” he said, as the crowd roared.

To find out more about Jeb’s condition, click here.

after four U.S. soldiers killed in roadside bombings.