Friday, August 20, 2004

2:56 PM |

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, organized last March as a so-called "527" group, officially nonpartisan under the Internal Revenue Service code that govern such organizations.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has ties to the Republican Party and President George W. Bush, however.

The group is headed by Houston lawyer John O'Neill, whose criticism of John Kerry began in 1971 at the behest of the Nixon administration. He is the author of an upcoming book published by conservative publisher Regnery Publishing Inc. entitled "Unfit For Command," which elaborates on many of the claims in the "Any Questions?" ad, including allegations that none of Kerry's wounds in Vietnam were serious and two were self-inflicted.

O'Neill is a partner in the Houston law firm of Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, whose clients include a number of oil and energy corporations, including Exxon, Duke Energy, General Electric and Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company.

One of O'Neill's law partners, Margaret A. Wilson, was general counsel to Bush from 1998 to 2000, his last two years as governor of Texas, during which he ran for president.

The chief financier of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is Houston home builder Bob R. Perry, who has donated more than $5 million to Republican candidates and causes during the past five years, mostly in Texas, including Bush and Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay, whose congressional district is near Houston.

The group also received funding from the Crow family, a prominent family of Texas developers that includes Harlan Crow, who manages Crow Holdings, a Dallas-based international investment company. Harlan Crow is also a trustee of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

The group was organized last spring with the assistance of Merrie Spaeth, a Republican public relations executive from Houston, who also was a public relations consultant to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during his investigation of former Democratic President Bill Clinton. Her late husband, Tex Lezar, ran for lieutenant governor of Texas on George W. Bush's GOP ticket in 1994.

Until his death this year, Lezar was a partner in O'Neill's law firm. Lezar was one of the speech writers in the Nixon White House in 1971, a special counsel in the Justice Department during Republican Ronald Reagan's first administration and vice chairman of Attorney General Ed Meese's anti-pornography commission during Reagan's second term in office.

9:17 PM |

When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby - dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

The bear apparently got into campers' coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

"He drank the Rainier and wouldn't drink the Busch beer," said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.

Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.

"He didn't like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier."

3:41 PM |

10:36 AM |

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

In the three days immediately following Hurricane Charley's devastating blow, Gov. Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush, Attorney General Charlie Crist, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and other notable political leaders toured the wreckage.

But there was one significant absence: U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Longboat Key.

Although her district includes the hardest hit counties -- DeSoto, Hardee and Charlotte -- Harris was nowhere to be seen.

1:50 PM |

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

6:26 PM |