The DCCC is arguing that the conservative group Freedom's Watch has unlawfully coordinated with the NRCC on political advertisements in the LA-6 special election. This is how they make their case:

LA-6 should be a comfortable win for the GOP. Bush won there by 19 points in 2004 and the district hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress in 32 years. But the Democrat in the race, Don Cazayoux, is up in the polls and nonpartisan election watcher Charlie Cook has rated the race as "lean Democratic."

So Republican-leaning outside groups are throwing tons of cash at the race. If they coordinated with the Republican Party in order to plan how that cash is spent, they broke the law. The regulatory body in charge of investigating such cases? The FEC, currently out of commission.

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Henry Waxman's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a persistent thorn in the side of private military and security firms, has zeroed in on a new target: the use of foreign tax havens by government contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. The investigation follows recent reports that KBR has used an offshore subsidiary to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll taxes, as well as MoJo's reporting on Blackwater's Barbados-based sister company, Greystone, whose local address and telephone number in Bridgetown trace back to a firm that specializes in shielding corporate revenues from U.S. tax authorities.

This week, Waxman's committee fired off letters to 15 companies, including KBR, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, CACI, Science Applications International Corporation, EOD Technology, and the Prince Group (the holding company that owns Blackwater and Erik Prince's other business ventures), asking whether these contractors have any "subsidiaries or other affiliated entities that were incorporated in any of the 39 foreign jurisdictions designated as tax havens by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development"—and demanding detailed information on their foreign subsidiaries and affiliates if the answer to that question is yes.

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Satire becomes reality. In the preview for "War, Inc." that Bruce posted below, private contractor John Cusack executes a war for the American government and then watches bewilderedly as a hip-hop star and her entourage invade the country right behind him. Soon English-language billboards and bumper stickers are everywhere.

That's ridiculous, right? An over-the-top display of how the encroachment of American culture and capitalism works. Leftist Hollywood hysteria.

Guess again, sucker:

[Llewellyn] Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland. "The people need this kind of positive influence. It's going to have a huge psychological impact," Mr Werner said.

The 50-acre (20 hectare) swath of land sits adjacent to the Green Zone and encompasses Baghdad's existing zoo, which was looted, left without power and abandoned after the American-led invasion in 2003...

Success seems improbable at best. Resentment is sure to be created. How about some of the naivete and over-confidence that got us into so much trouble with this war in the first place? Do you have any of that for us, Mr. Werner?

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We've written before about the fact that John McCain has more or less abdicated all of his responsibilities in the Senate while running for president. The man almost never votes anymore: he once went five consecutive weeks without voting. Now we learn that he's the Senate's top absentee, passing Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of North Dakota, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in December 2006 and was unable to return to the Senate until last fall, in terms of votes missed. I guess it takes time to suggest doing nothing about America's economic crisis.

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