> Then last Friday he was arrested in Maryland
> for a weird retail fraud scheme

part of me is wondering: is this the same guy?
Maybe two people with the same name?
A quick look at the photos show they're the same,
though, and it just boggles the mind.

(boggling)

(boggling)

(boggling)

I'm still boggled...
I'll leave it at that.

Posted March 13, 2006 1:53 PM by Greg London

Just because you're an idiot on a large scale doesn't mean you can't also be an idiot on a small one.

Posted March 13, 2006 2:06 PM by Steve Eley

Defense attorney Edward MacMahon moved to have the judge dismiss the death penalty as a possible outcome

Every now and then, I run across these sorts of sentences, and I think "I'm so sorry about the name, dude..." He's got to have heard every bad "Tonight Show" joke ever created, and probably a good many of them from the bench...

Posted March 13, 2006 2:46 PM by Chad Orzel

According to the Washington Post the White House (if not the President) was aware of the investigation as early as Jan. 2. Allen resigned in early February to "spend more time with his family." It's all an unfortunate misunderstanding, of course.

Posted March 13, 2006 3:55 PM by Tracie

I wouldn't have thought to link these two items but I am not as attuned to the Bizarro-world of the US government as Mr. Macdonald. I've been following the Moussaiou case with interest, and am doing a fair amount of boggling at the behavior of the Justice Department -- I can't imagine what they thought they were doing. Re: Claude Allen, WTF? I have no clue. Call it a cry for help. I do not know. Weirdness abounds.

Posted March 13, 2006 3:55 PM by Lizzy L

Part of me feels sorry for Mr. Allen.

The rest of me is really, really, really looking forward to The Daily Show tonight.

Posted March 13, 2006 4:08 PM by Stefan Jones

Ok, this just gets weirder. He apparently has an identical twin brother. According to NPR, some people which NPR didn't name are suggesting that perhaps the identical twin might be able to shed some light on the fraud scheme. (There was nothing concrete to that reporting though.)

Posted March 13, 2006 4:32 PM by JC

He resigned to spend more time with his money.

Posted March 13, 2006 4:42 PM by Greg London

Every now and then, I run across these sorts of sentences, and I think "I'm so sorry about the name, dude..." He's got to have heard every bad "Tonight Show" joke ever created, and probably a good many of them from the bench...

I worked with a guy named Rich Clark, and I swear it took me YEARS to notice.

Sometimes I'm glacial.

Posted March 13, 2006 4:50 PM by Sandy B.

The script for the Shrub administration is written by a team including Franz Kafka, Karel Capek, Groucho Marx, and William McGonnagal. That's the only sane explanation of which I can think.

Posted March 13, 2006 5:04 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano Ledgister: ...That's the only sane explanation of which I can think

You're trying to think of a sane explanation? Well, there's your mistake right there.

I think it was Sam Clemens who pointed out that the reason why truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction is required to make sense.

Posted March 13, 2006 5:50 PM by Ross Smith

In regard to the trampling of rights, here's a link to a This American Life radio segment about Guantanamo Bay, that aired a few days ago.

http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/06/310.html

If there should be a problem with this URL, one can get to the broadcast via the more normal way, via www.thislife.org.

Posted March 13, 2006 6:14 PM by Dave Levin

Claude Allen was one of the few guys in the Bush administration surviving on just a meagre salary of $150,000 p/a. He must've had a serious case of keeping up with the jones in that environment of self-enriching crooks.

Posted March 13, 2006 6:18 PM by Martin Wisse

I will second (third?) the recommendation for that episode of This American Life.

An alternate title might be "Evidence for the war crime trial."

Posted March 13, 2006 6:39 PM by Stefan Jones

George Bush's top advisor for domestic policy is a thief. That explains a lot, actually.

The astounding part of this is that many Americans never noticed, not until the man was actually arrested.

More seriously, the White House knew in early January that they had a high-level thief working there, with full access to all sorts of high-level secrets. As far as the American public knows, not a single step was taken to yank his security clearance in the month before the thief was pressured to resign.

The Bush Junta really has no regard at all for the simplest precautions to protect our national security.

Posted March 13, 2006 7:44 PM by Bob Oldendorf

Allen wasn't a "high-level thief." What he was doing was just a step above shoplifting or check kiting. The kind of scam a meth addict or compulsive gambler gets into.

If he was a high-level thief -- say, by finding a way to funnel public funds going to "faith based" aid agencies into a contracting firm owned by his wife -- they probably would have given him a pass.

You know, as long as they got a campaign contribution.

Posted March 13, 2006 7:54 PM by Stefan Jones

Stefan: uh, yeah: I meant "high-level" in the sense of "someone whose job is at the top of the federal bureaucracy, with direct access to the President."

And I was pointing out that much of the advice that Allen gave on domestic policy amounted to various schemes for stealing.

Studying the news, we read of George Bush's response:

"If the allegations are true, something went wrong in Claude Allen's life and that is really sad," Bush said in a statement.

"When I heard the story, I was shocked and my first reaction was one of disappointment, deep disappointment. Shortly thereafter I felt really sad
for the Allen family."

Curiously, Mr Bush's reaction to the news did not allude to his own arrest for theft.

Posted March 13, 2006 8:18 PM by Bob Oldendorf

The script for the Shrub administration is written by a team including Franz Kafka, Karel Capek, Groucho Marx, and William McGonnagal.

I would pay heavy money to see Donald Rumsfeld square off behind the podium and launch into The Tay Bridge Disaster.

Posted March 13, 2006 9:31 PM by Bruce E. Durocher II

Ross Smith: Fiction doesn't always make sense. Think of late Heinlein. Or of the young man I just flunked for plagiarism who told me "I turned in the wrong paper" and seemed deeply hurt when my reply was "I don't believe you."

Posted March 13, 2006 10:16 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Bob Oldendorf: That should read 'Bush's top domestic advisor is a petty thief.

Posted March 13, 2006 10:17 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Bruce Durocher: It would make more sense than some of Rummy's recent pronouncements ('FDR was unpopular'...Gee, he was so unpopular he got elected for a fourth term after campaiging for a third term on a 'he kept us out of war' platform).

Posted March 13, 2006 10:19 PM by Fragano Ledgister

I think it was Sam Clemens who pointed out that the reason why truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction is required to make sense.

Which is why Fletcher Knebel (author of Seven Days in May, Vanished, et al) stopped writing political fiction after Watergate -- he said the truth was so strange that he couldn't write anything that was still fiction but believable.

Posted March 13, 2006 10:46 PM by CHip

When Henry Kissinger won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, Tom Lehrer is reported to have said "It was the moment satire died ... What could I come up with that could beat that?" (Or words to that effect: SMH interview)

Posted March 14, 2006 12:51 AM by Epacris

Which is why Fletcher Knebel (author of Seven Days in May, Vanished, et al) stopped writing political fiction after Watergate -- he said the truth was so strange that he couldn't write anything that was still fiction but believable.

It was something of the sort, or so he said, that made Tom Lehrer give up satire, alas.

Posted March 14, 2006 12:52 AM by y

Haven't you heard? It was Claude Allen's evil twin Floyd.

Yeah, that would explain why he resigned: this gang is full of guys who step aside rather than sully the team's reputation.

Where's Puddinhead Wilson when you need him?

Posted March 14, 2006 1:37 AM by paul

oooh! Snap.

Epacris, meet y; y, Epacris here.

Posted March 14, 2006 1:42 AM by Mez

The finals were a great spectacle in themselves, and became a 'must-see' for me decades ago after watching the wrestling scene in Topkapi. It gave me a very strange sensation, though, to see Henry Kissinger and Juan Antonio Samaranch sitting cosily together ready to hand out the medals. (Others managed to hook up with eligible Danish princes ... mutter, mutter, grumble ) <waves shyly across an anchronistically bleak Sydney afternoon to Epacris>

Posted March 14, 2006 1:45 AM by Mez

So, it looks like the link it didn't like was the stuff about the historical origins of the sport at www[dot]kirkpinar[dot]50megs[dot]com [slash] oil05[dot]htm

Posted March 14, 2006 1:51 AM by Mez

The problem was that 50megs.com had, at some point, been used by a comment-spammer. I've removed that restriction (and it'll stay open until the next time a comment-spammer uses a 50megs.com address).

Posted March 14, 2006 2:33 AM by James D. Macdonald

Next bizarre bit of business: do you recall Claude A. Allen?

The Whitehouse seemingly doesn't - I'm getting a 404 on that link.

Posted March 14, 2006 5:42 AM by Francis

The Whitehouse seemingly doesn't - I'm getting a 404 on that link.

Whoever scrubbed the link from the whitehouse.gov site wasn't terribly thorough, the text version of the page is still available. The original graphic version of Claude Allen's bio is still available in Google's cache, although presumably it'll disappear as soon as Google gets around to recrawling the page.

Posted March 14, 2006 6:34 AM by Richard Parker

But Fragano, FDR was popular in the Rumsfeld household when Donald (Princeton '55, for my sins and my dad's), and that's all Rummy needs to know.

Actually, Mez, y owes Epacris a Coke. (Jinx!)

Posted March 14, 2006 9:42 AM by Captain Slack

Captain Slack: I'm confused. When Donald what?

Posted March 14, 2006 10:01 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Here's the text of that page the White House removed:

THE PRESIDENT & HIS LEADERSHIP TEAM

Claude A. Allen -- White House Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy

Most recently, Claude A. Allen was the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also served as the Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the State of Virginia and served in the Virginia Attorney General's Office from 1995 to 1998. He was an Associate at Baker & Botts in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1995 and served as a professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1985 to 1987. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and Duke University Law School.

202-456-5594

They got rid of him a lot faster than they dumped Heckuvajob Brownie.

The National Organization for Women didn't think much of him.

Posted March 14, 2006 10:56 AM by James D. Macdonald

Jim Macdonald: Is it just me, or is the fall of Allen a general stimulus of schadenfreude?

Posted March 14, 2006 10:59 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Thanks JDM, for clearing up the "questionable content" query. It is just a touch disappointing that it wasn't the references to oiling up, wrestling & black leather trousers that triggered the spring.

Orf to beddy-byes now at the fag-end of the Ides of March, all tired out from the excitement of our Royal Visit (ER2, not PNH), fishery protests, et al.

Posted March 14, 2006 11:12 AM by Mez

What with that Evil(?) Twin business, this is starting to remind me of "Arrested Development". Next episode: driving around in a banana truck?

Posted March 14, 2006 11:16 AM by Faren Miller

Unfortunately for the "evil twin theory" he was caught redhanded in a Target parking lot--supposedly anyway.
And the evil twin theory rests on poor Floyd having his brother's drivers license and credit cards in his pockets for MONTHS...

Posted March 14, 2006 11:50 AM by Emma

Josh Marshall is now reporting* that Claude and Floyd were actually born as conjoined twins and separated shortly after birth. However, in an ironic twist, it turns that it was Claude, not Floyd, who was raised chained to the wall in the attic and fed scraps of human flesh from those Nosey Parkers who got too close to the truth. Also, Claude is apparently in the house right now!

/ sound of something in the furnace ducts /

*NB: Josh Marshall is reporting no such thing.

Posted March 14, 2006 12:12 PM by HP

Jim Macdonald: Is it just me, or is the fall of Allen a general stimulus of schadenfreude?

No more than the reaction to arrests of various members of the Gambino crime family is an example of schadenfreude.

Posted March 14, 2006 12:24 PM by James D. Macdonald

"y owes Epacris a Coke"

On one board, we named simultaneous posting like that "dysfractionation." I like the word, but I don't know if it's a "you had to be there" injoke or not.

Posted March 14, 2006 3:23 PM by Sandy B.

Update on Moussaoui: the judge has ruled that the government may continue to seek the death penalty against him, but they can't use key witnesses.

Smooth move, Republicans. Where were you when they covered "rule of law" and "fair trial" in civics class?

Posted March 14, 2006 4:21 PM by James D. Macdonald

In not quite the words of Montgomery Scott: 'Rule of law? How quaint!'

Posted March 14, 2006 4:31 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Thing that worries me is this: if they were pulling these stunts in the sentencing phase, what were they doing in the trial phase?

Can you say "reversible error"? I knew you could!

Posted March 14, 2006 6:47 PM by James D. Macdonald

Jim -- IIRC they didn't get to a trial phase per se, because M (after a great deal of flamage) pled guilty to everything (including, according to a legal analyst NPR called, some things he couldn't possibly have done).

Posted March 14, 2006 10:53 PM by CHip

Is there a reason why W wants the idiot Moussaoui dead? He's (Moussaoui, c'est à dire) clearly a nutcase, and while he has unsavoury connections I can't see that he's actually done anything that deserves death (or quite a few lesser punishments). What am I missing, if anything?

Posted March 15, 2006 11:48 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Fragano, I think it's to prove that Our Fearless Leader[/sarcasm] is Fighting Terror and not just making speeches about it. Their evidence for his involvement in some of these acts is probably flimsy. (The feds are also trying a couple of Muslims in Lodi, based on the testimony of another Muslim who claims Al-Zawahiri was a frequent visitor to the Lodi mosque at a time when all the experts on Al Qaeda are saying he was in Afghanistan.)

Posted March 15, 2006 12:02 PM by P J Evans

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors are considering abandoning their crippled death penalty case against al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, a transcript of a closed-door meeting with the judge reveals.

"Without some relief, frankly, I think that there's no point for us to go forward," prosecutor Robert Spencer told U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema after a ruling Tuesday that gutted half his case.

Because of misconduct by a government attorney, Carla Martin, Brinkema decided to bar "any and all witnesses and evidence dealing whatsoever" with aviation security.

She lambasted prosecutors, saying, "In the annals of criminal law, I don't know if there has ever been a case with this many significant problems."

Posted March 15, 2006 2:49 PM by James D. Macdonald

PJ: If trying to have a loon like Moussaoui executed is trying to fight the 'War on Terror', then the strategy is clearly being devised by Boris and Natasha.

Posted March 15, 2006 4:40 PM by Fragano Ledgister

You noticed!! (LOL!)

Posted March 15, 2006 4:43 PM by P J Evans

Jim McDonald: Some 19th century bearded German chappie noted 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.'

One wonders: which are we in?

Posted March 15, 2006 4:44 PM by Fragano Ledgister

PJ: Do I get arrested for revealing state secrets?

Posted March 15, 2006 4:44 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Only if this is farce, I think.

Posted March 15, 2006 4:59 PM by P J Evans

As near as I can tell, the government is prosecuting Moussaoui because by his inaction, he failed to set the federal government in motion to take steps that might have prevented 9/11.

It seems that George Bush - of all people - should be very careful about having that established as a precedent for earning a death sentence.

Posted March 15, 2006 5:22 PM by Bob Oldendorf

PJ: I hope this is farce; I'm worried that it might be tragedy.

Bob: He should be.

Posted March 16, 2006 8:25 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Well, at least it's a reason....

A motive has been suggested for that TSA attorney for sabotaging their own case:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for two airlines being sued by 9/11 victims prompted a federal attorney to coach witnesses in the Zacarias Moussaoui death penalty trial so the government's case against the al-Qaeda conspirator would not undercut their defense, victims' lawyers allege.

A United Airlines lawyer received a transcript of the first day of the Moussaoui trial from an American Airlines lawyer and forwarded it to Carla J. Martin, a Transportation Security Administration lawyer, the victims' lawyers, Robert Clifford and Gregory Joseph, claim.

Martin forwarded that day's transcript to seven federal aviation officials scheduled to testify later in the sentencing trial of the 37-year-old Frenchman, in violation of an order by Moussaoui trial judge Leonie Brinkema.

Not a very good reason, perhaps, but it beats "Federal prosecutors are secretly in the pay of al Qaeda." Though "We have total contempt for the laws of this nation and utter disregard for granting a fair trial" still isn't off the table.

Posted March 17, 2006 5:59 PM by James D. Macdonald

The Bush mob lies just for the sake of lying, to keep their hands in.

Here we see Bush's advance men pretending to be Secret Service agents pretending to be reporters:

Advance Workers for Bush Impersonated Reporters

A Mississippi couple whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina said two men who later identified themselves as Secret Service agents pretended to be Fox News journalists when surveying their neighborhood in advance of a March 8 visit from President Bush.

The men arrived on March 3 at the site of the beachfront home that Jerry and Elaine Akins are rebuilding in Gautier, Miss., Elaine Akins said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"They didn't show any cards or anything," Akins said. "They just came up and said they were with the media, and then they said they were with Fox. They just talked to us and asked us about rebuilding our house. Then, after everything was over with, they approached us and they were laughing, and they said: 'You know, we really weren't with Fox. We're government, Secret Service men.' "

Posted March 18, 2006 12:04 PM by James D. Macdonald