Amount Jack Abramoff paid to have a “custom-built, 15.2-inch-wide screen and manual flip-down video monitor” installed in his BMW, according to tommorow’s NYT.

The Bush administration has appointed 28-year-old former White House staffer Doug Hoelscher as the executive director of the Homeland Security Advisory Committees.

In his new position, Hoelscher will gather expert advice “on behalf of the president and the Homeland Security secretary” from 20 other advisory boards covering “key areas of homeland security, including threats to infrastructure and preventing terrorist attacks that use weapons of mass destruction.”

His experience?

Hoelscher has no management experience, a review of his professional credentials shows. He came to government in 2001 as a low-level White House staffer, arranging presidential travel, according to news reports. He earned $30,000 a year, salary documents show.

He discussed his job as President Bush’s travel arranger with the Des Moines Register in 2002:

Doug Hoelscher, a University of Iowa political science major and native of Williams, …is living out his dream at age 25. He works as a political coordinator for the president, dealing mostly with Bush’s domestic travel. “Ever since a young age I’ve had an interest in politics,” he said.

Despite Hoelscher’s apparent total lack of professional management or security experience, the press release announcing his appointment praises his qualifications and claims he will now be providing “strategic counsel” to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff:

“The department relies heavily on the expertise and advice of our advisory committees,” said Stewart Baker, Assistant Secretary for Policy. “Outside perspectives benefit the policy and decision making process, and the Administration has named a qualified and talented professional to cultivate these partnerships. Doug will provide strategic counsel to the Secretary and increase overall coordination between department leadership and our homeland security partners, and I look forward to his contributions and counsel.”

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today that Iraqis forces would “deal with” an all-out civil war in their country:

The plan is to prevent a civil war and to the extent one were to occur, to have the – from a security standpoint – have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to.

Rumsfeld ignores the fact that sectarian, rights-abusing Iraqi security forces are also part of the problem, and that the Bush administration bears some responsibility:

– As of March 2005 — two years into the war — the Pentagon had still not developed a “system to assess the readiness of Iraqi military and police forces so they [could] identify weaknesses and provide them with effective support.”

– U.S. advisors to Iraqi police unit “have been stretched thin” for “much of the last three years.” The L.A. Times reported today, “By the end of 2005 there were only 700 U.S. police trainers for an Iraqi police force of more than 100,000.”

– As a result, U.S. advisors believe that the training of Iraqi forces “have skewed toward weapons handling and battlefield tactics and not dealt enough with human rights, investigations and administration.”

Iraqi forces should be taking the lead in restoring order, but as Rumsfeld knows, you put down civil wars with the security forces you have, not the ones you want.

for having an Air America bumpersticker. The North County Times reports “after seeing the sticker, the employer commented that the woman could be a member of al-Qaida.”

Actually, he’s sick and tired of it. Country singers Tim McGraw and wife Faith Hill blast Bush’s Katrina reconstruction efforts as “embarrassing” and “humiliating.” (via HuffPost)

and “transfer prisoners to other jails in Iraq,” CNN reports. President Bush pledged to do this two years ago, predicting it would be “a fitting symbol of Iraq’s new beginning.” Fitting symbol, “incubator for terrorists,” who’s really keeping track?