Old news for those of you who have read Greg Palast's
"Best Democracy Money Can Buy" - but for me, especially relevant now the SCLM have finally decided to shine some light on Bush:
In 1999, facing a grilling under oath, Barnes admitted in a sworn statement to the court that it was indeed him who got George W. into the Air Guard. Amazingly though, he claimed to have done this nice thing for young George without any contact, direct or indirect, from the Bushes. How Barnes knew he should make the fix without a request from the powerful Bush family remains a mystery, one of those combinations of telepathy and coincidence common to Texas politics.
Ben Barnes, was a lobbyist to whom GTech paid fees of $23 million. GTech is a lottery company in Texas which was about to lose its contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Then a funny thing happened: The Texas Lottery Commission fired Littwin.
Almost immediately thereafter, the Bush-appointed commissioners canceled the bidding for a new operator, though the low bidder had already been announced to replace GTech. The commissioners also halted the financial audit, ended the political payola investigation and gave the contract back to GTech.