All In the Family

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to provide details on a series of contracts awarded to a St. Louis company that has an uncle of President Bush on its board of directors.

In a letter sent to Rumsfeld on Thursday, Waxman asked for copies of all military contracts awarded to Engineered Support Systems Inc. and a briefing on the process used to award those pacts. William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, an uncle of the president, has served on Engineered Support's board of directors since 2000.

In his letter, Waxman cited a Feb. 23 Los Angeles Times article that reported some ESSI contracts were awarded without bids and disclosed that the president's uncle recently cashed in $450,000 worth of stock options in the defense firm.

"These relationships and the sole-source nature of the contracts raise questions about the processes by which these contracts were awarded and administered," Waxman wrote in the letter. ...

William Bush did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. In a previous interview, the president's uncle said he never used his family connections to help the company win contracts.

"I don't make any calls to the 202 area code," he said, referring to Washington.

William Bush is the youngest brother of the president's father, former president George H. W. Bush.

Of course he doesn't call the 202 area code. Houston is 713, and Crawford is in the 254 area code. W's hardly ever in 202 anymore.

While we're on the subject of unabashed crony capitalism, Kevin Drum has a post predicting that the new tax proposal in Texas is a sign of what the Texans in Washington would like to bring to the whole country. Hint: they aren't even hiding the fact that their bill lowers taxes on the rich and corporations, and increases it on the bulk of individuals. No, I'm not kidding.

One bright spot, there are documents that suggest that Tom DeLay may have actively been involved with corporate contributions to TRMPAC. Hearing the theme from Jaws in the background yet, Tom? We can hope.