We move closer and closer to totalitarianism with this administration. Every independent or investigative voice must be silenced. The Republican congress is not a silent partner in the takeover. Rather, they are walking hand in hand with the administration. The biggest scandal of the week is not the Ted Haggard story, which made the front page of the AJC at the bottom of the page. (The story does not say that this man has weekly conference calls with the white house to influence their policy, but he does.) Though it is scandalous that Haggard has been seeing a male prostitute for three years and buying drugs through him. Haggard has told a number of lies about the situation and is now backtracking as more and more comes out. True to the Jimmy Swaggart model, his 14,000 member church is supporting his versions of the events, even as they change. Circle the wagons. Liberals are attacking us. If you think about it, Haggard is a gay drug user and a religious right hypocritical mouthpiece. What is news in that?

But the BIG scandal is not in the AJC anywhere.

The congress has passed a bill in the dark of night, a big bill with so many items in it that no member of congress knows what is in the bill. And secretly (Really. I mean secretly. Isn't that a weird thought?) a provision was added to end oversight of waste and fraud of the 8 billion dollars that is being spent in Iraq each month. Those reports of shoddy construction, missing weapons, faulty vests for soldiers, etc., have been an embarrassment to Haliburton and others with no-bid contracts, so the office doing the investigating and reporting the fraud has been eliminated. It no longer exists by congressional fiat. [sound of a bubble popping]

Who put in this provision? Oddly, there are no fingerprints. No one will admit to having had it done. No one did it! Those who saw the "final" version of the bill say that it was not in there when they reviewed the final version. No one put it there, no one saw it, no one debated it. It is just there. This sounds a lot like what my sister and I had to say when Mom and Dad came home and we had broken something. I don't know Mom. Didn't hear the crash. We've been outside playing. Maybe there was an earthquake.

You'll have trouble finding any information on this in your local paper, so find the details, spelled out in order here.

I have a feeling that we are only seeing the tip of the iceburg with the Republican corruption that is currently in the news.