crime of opportunity

* josh:

"On Friday came a reminder that the Duke investigation began as a defense contracting scandal and that investigators are still pursuing the Pentagon angle. Federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia filed a bill of information against Richard A. Berglund, a retired lieutenant colonel who worked for defense contractor MZM. Berglund stands accused of making illegal contributions in early 2005 to the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA).
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So flipping Berglund doesn't get the feds any closer to Wade. They already have Wade. But Berglund, a former military officer, could help point the way into the Pentagon. He was the program manager for MZM's Martinsville, Va., facility (in Goode's district), which handled defense-related work. Stay tuned."

* josh:

"So Ken Mehlman, now head of the RNC, had a White House official keeping Jack Abramoff up to date on events in Guam, around the time Abramoff took credit for getting an investigation into his work on the island deep-sixed. We already know that at Abramoff's behest Mehlman killed an appointment at the State Department because the would-be appointee, Allen Stayman, because Stayman wasn't good news for Abramoff's sweat-shop owner clients in the Marianas islands.

At a certain point you start to detect a pattern, no? Mehlman was a fixer for Abramoff while Mehlman was political director at the Bush White House. And now he says he barely knew Jack Abramoff."

* msnbc via laura:

"Investigators believe a group of U.S. soldiers suspected of raping an Iraqi woman, then killing her and three members of her family plotted the attack for nearly a week, a U.S. military official said Saturday.
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The Americans entered the Sunni Arab’s family home, separated three males from the woman, raped her and burned her body using a flammable liquid in a cover-up attempt, a military official close to the investigation said. The three males were also slain.

The soldiers had studied their victims for about a week and the attack was “totally premeditated,” the official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. [...]
The official said the rape and killings appeared to have been a “crime of opportunity,” noting that the soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but had noticed the woman on previous patrols."

jeebus.