Billionaire Republican crooks finally facing charges:

Fraud and insider trading charges against two Texas billionaires have created a political snag for the GOP. Samuel and Charles Wyly, brothers who founded Sterling Software and sold it for nearly $4 billion in 2000, have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates in recent years.

Samantha Smith, a spokeswoman for Burr, said the $4,000 he accepted from Charles and Dee Wyly in 2004 was spent in that election cycle. “It’s money that was spent in 2004,” she said. “If Democrats are asking for us to return the money, it’s already gone.”

But you knew it was bad money even back then, didn't you?

Advising its new mayor on how to assert dominance:

Council members elected by a few people in a district begin to be major power brokers at the expense of the mayor. This results in fractured ward politics and policies that do not represent long-term visionary needs for the entire city.

To overcome these and other deterrents of this form of government, I recommend the following for the mayor of Sacramento: Use the bully pulpit through the media directly to the people to stop obstructions of progress by either city staff or council members.

Translation: If anybody gets out of line, grab the nearest tv news crew and trash that person's reputation.

Preparing for a lesser future:

The Department of Defense has reopened its program to help military spouses pay for school, but, as expected, fewer people will be eligible, and they'll get less money.

Under the new rules, the program will pay for course work for spouses of service members in lower pay grades only. It will only pay for associate's degrees, licensing and certification programs - no bachelor's or master's degrees.

This is so typical of the DoD. Raise hopes high and then dash them with new rules and cuts.

Sideshow Bob raises money for preppy warlord:

Kelsey Grammer, the star of the hit TV series “Frasier,” is coming to Wilmington early next week, but his visit is political, not theatrical.

Grammer will appear at fundraisers in Wilmington and Lumberton Monday for Republican Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano, Pantano confirmed Tuesday. He said the private fundraisers would be held at private homes, but would not disclose the locations.

Yawn...

For good or ill, big changes are on the way:

Faced with a looming, $3 billion budget deficit, North Carolina is eyeing a major shakeup of its tech operations that could see the state outsource the bulk of its IT work to the private sector while consolidating other operations internally.

"The Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) issued a Request for Information to seek input and ideas from the vendor community for improving the delivery of IT in state government," Perdue said in the memo, dated July 21st.

I wonder how this will impact FOIA requests?