Hit the books, junior!

The chickens are finally coming home to roost for Rafaello Follieri, former boyfriend of Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway and alleged defrauder of big-time investors. Follieri used his family’s Vatican connections to persuade capital firms to bankroll a scheme whereby he would buy up Church properties in the States and redevelop them for socially responsible purposes. It seems, however, that he was simply pocketing the cash and using it to fund an extravagant playboy lifestyle.

All in all, not a bad short-term scheme, and Follieri managed to drag it out for two years. It likely reminds fans of French literature of a famous forebear: Andre Gide’s The Vatican Cellars. In that novel (whose plot is partly borrowed from an actual 1892 scam), the scheming Protos poses as a priest to persuade credulous Catholics that the Freemasons and a cabal of mutinous Cardinals have imprisoned the Pope in the Vatican cellars, replacing him with an impostor. Under the utmost secrecy, he collects donations for a holy SWAT Team to free the Pontiff. Donors are warned not to mention a word of the situation to anyone, lest the plans be blown or the faith of the masses shaken.

Might Follieri have been wiser to have used such a scheme? Unlike real estate transactions, top-secret kidnappings and rescue efforts are entirely off the books. And impostor accusations are hard to disprove: we all know that Saddam Hussein had look-alikes. Perhaps Mr. Follieri now wishes he’d read his French classics. It looks like he’ll have plenty of time to catch up.

Richard Nixon reportedly viewed Patton–one of his favorite movies–the night before he decided to bomb Hanoi. But while it’s not unusual for hawkish presidents to look to war heroes (or celluloid portrayals thereof) for foul-mouthed, inspirational exhortations, the inverse is nearly unheard of. Until now, that is. Ladies and Gentleman, your President, as presented by General Ricardo S. Sanchez:

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a “confused” pep talk:

“Kick ass!” he quotes the president as saying. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.”

“There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!”

A White House spokesman had no comment.

The Bush Administration jumped so many sharks this week it should change its name to Knievel. First, Scott McClellan—the most docile of the press secretaries, the roundfaced, bullied mouthpiece who repeated himself like the broken Vista guy in the Mac ads when the real world Jack Donaghys finally lifted their moratorium on journalism—hit ‘em up with the publication of a book that, as Frank Rich points out, covers a lot of familiar territory, but still fingers W’s henchmen for some nasty business. Alas, when a useful idiot ceases to be useful, he still makes a sound.

Then, Condi Rice swung through Scandinavia to the tune of headlines like “Condeleezza Rice enlists in KISS Army Fan Club” and “Rice rejects Iceland’s criticism of Guantanamo Bay.” I’m not one for stuffy notions of the dignity of the office, and I give Rice credit for kicking it with all our NATO allies, and not just the big guns, but there’s something sad about having to take the Guantanamo fight to Reykjavik when you already got clowned domestically by Harold and Kumar. It feels a little like Ted Haggard’s latest proclamation of heterosexuality. At least she got a photo-op with the dude who called Islam “a vile culture.”

But Bjork’s countryfolk weren’t the only island-dwellers to give W’s operation the shaft this week: today, Australia announced it was cutting and running from Iraq, mate. The contraction of our foreign coalition matches the contraction of W’s coalition in Congress: W and his would-be successor can’t even strong arm enough of their fellow elephants into opposing the new G-I bill to make it subject to a veto.

With Karl Rove defending his myopic strategery and dogging McLellan from his Fox News perch and Ari Fleischer, whose credibility is beyond reproach, coming out of his Arli$$ retirement to suggest that McClellan’s accusations actually came from a Random House editor, one wonders, where is attack dog #1, the the gun-waving, terrorism-fighting, smirking, steaming #2 known as Dick Cheney. It used to be, when things got hot, Dick got on camera. Where’s our “last throes,” Dick? Where’s a smirk and a McCarthyite attack on your opponents’ patriotism? Shark got your tongue? Sometimes a stunt gets the better of even a dude who’s earned the title “Evil.”

You don’t understand, OJ: people are paying to see me.

To the surprise of only those who believe in Santa Claus, ESPN is reporting that surefire NBA lottery pick O.J. Mayo received gifts—including hotel rooms, clothes, and a flat screen TV—from representatives of sports agents while he was at USC. Today, we get NCAA president Myles Brand’s reaction:

“This is not acceptable behavior and on occasion, it’s illegal. You get thrown in jail if you rob a bank, but people keep robbing banks. The fact of the matter is these kinds of activities are unacceptable, they are unfortunate. We expect the schools to enforce the rules and protect our student-athletes.”

Brand added that he’d like to see the NBA set up a rule whereby players are required to stay in college “two, three, or four years.”

While I can’t find the original article, it appears that, as of 2006, the NCAA was paying Myles Brand $895,000 a year. (Similarly, USC head coach Tim Floyd has a base salary of $850,000.) That same year, Brand delivered a speech defending the NCAA’s pursuit of increased revenues and dismissing complaints that the association’s commercialism was inappropriate. “Nonsense,” he said. ” ‘Amateur’ defines the participants, not the enterprise.”

Brand is right that it’s “unacceptable” for Rodney Guillory, the guy buying Mayo the gifts, to try to funnel the payments through allegedly non-profit shadow corporations. But remember that the NCAA is a tax-exempt organization–one with roughly $500 million a year in revenue and regular million dollar payouts for besuited blowhards. It provides vicarious thrills and bragging rights to the privileged segment of American society that call themselves alumni through a business model that compensates the athletes—the main attraction—at a tiny fraction of their market value. (Mayo could make a pretty compelling case that the value of his scholarship is less than .5% of what he would have made with an NBA contract and endorsement deals last year.) And of course, out of his boundless magnanimity and benevolent paternalism, Brand would like to protect guys like Mayo by requiring them to stay in school for four years.

So I say, here’s to you, O.J. Mayo. Way to get yours. Don’t bother denying it. Don’t act demure or contrite. Be honest: tell them Myles Brand and the rest of the NCAA are a bunch of wrinkled, profiteering, bloviating douche bags, peddling nostalgia for pennies on the dollar that should be yours. The next time some inflated sports-world muckraker confronts you with evidence that you got paid, tell ‘em the truth. You’re a baller and you want to get paid like one.

Do you think America’s health care system is a mess? Do you think private insurers look to maximize profits by denying coverage and care? Do you make videos?

Unleash your inner Michael Moore/Erroll Morris/Jason Reid and win $1,000 by making a one-minute (or less) video on the bad behavior of America’s private insurers. The Northwest Federation of Community Organizations (NWFCO) is holding the contest as part of their Sick Profits campaign. I was an intern with NWFCO for a summer and can attest that they do really good work.

Contest guidelines are here.

Contest YouTube page is here.

Under fire for allegedly injecting Guantanamo detainees with mind-altering substances to coerce confessions, Department of Defense officials blamed Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada, who they said provided them with syringes supposedly filled with B-12 vitamins.

“You’ll have to ask Migs about that,” said Navy Commander J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon Spokesperson. “He already lied to us about his age. We feel betrayed.”

Tejada’s agent declined to comment and suggested that media contact Berkeley professor and former Department of Justice attorney John C. Yoo, whose infamous memo held that the U.S. can use drugs on prisoners.

A phone message left with Professor Yoo went unanswered, but an administrative official at Berkeley Law School explained that the Professor was on a retreat with Erik Prince, Skeletor, and the ghosts of Heinrich Himmler and J. Edgar Hoover. He is due back next week.

The whole hubbub has not gone unnoticed by Congress; Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has vowed to hold hearings. “I find it very troubling that Miguel Tejada lied about his age,” said the Senator.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s my article from this week’s Weekly on Yale Lewis, George Clinton’s lawyer. You can pick up a copy of the print edition until tomorrow morning, when the next issue comes out.

I also recommend this video by my friend Patrick on the recently deceased photojournalist Dith Pran, who survived the Khmer Rouge and coined the term “Killing Fields.”

Finally, while Pran had the talent, determination, and luck to make it out of Cambodia, turn his experiences into a career, and help educate the world, he’s obviously the exception. I wonder what will happen to this guy. I can’t imagine being anything but indefinitely homicidally pissed after an experience like that. God bless America.

One day after the airing of the last episode of The Wire–the topical urban TV drama in which nearly every idealistic reformer is either undone by his/her personal demons or is corrupted by the quest for power–New York’s Eliot Spitzer sees his political career potentially torpedoed by his patronage of a prostitution ring. For those who don’t recall, Spitzer’s ascendence was due largely to his image as an ethically-beyond-reproach Attorney General. With the help of “more powerful prosecutorial tools than any official in the country“, he took on and bested huge, influence-wielding industries (insurers, investment bankers), getting himself named “Crusader of the Year” and “the people’s champion” by Time Magazine in 2002.

Now, just like [insert idealistic Wire character here], it appears his quest to change the world may be largely done.

Yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter (R, PA) appeared at a news conference to tell the world that New England Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick had been “illegally” videotaping other teams’ signal communications since 2000.

“We have a right to have honest football games,” said Specter.

On Tuesday, that same Senator Specter had a chance to vote for an amendment to the amended Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Amendment would strip the Act’s provision of immunity to telecom companies that allowed the National Security Agency to monitor customers’ electronic communications without a warrant. One of these companies is already being sued. Senator Specter voted against the Amendment, but neglected to call a press conference to discuss it. (An avowed opponent of waterboarding, Senator Specter also voted yesterday against a measure that would prohibit waterboarding.)

If you’re wondering why Senator Specter voted against the immunity-stripping Amendment, you can have a look at the statute under which the companies might be liable here; the statute that some (wrongly) say justifies the wiretaps here; and the amendment itself (along with a handy roll call) here. You can find something called the Fourth Amendment here. And you can read about his proposed blame-the-taxpayers compromise here.

As for the rules that Specter alleges Bellichick broke for seven years, they’re in the NFL’s “Game Operations Manual.” You know, the one they taught you about in your high school civics class. As far as I can tell, you can’t find it online. I wonder why.

We have a right to honest football games.

Fraudulent transactions by a trader named Jerome Kerviel have cost one of France’s biggest banks, Societe Generale, $7.1 billion (4.9 billion euros), and Kerviel is now on the lam. According to the story in the New York Times:

The trader “had taken massive fraudulent directional positions in 2007 and 2008 far beyond his limited authority,” the bank said.

“Aided by his in-depth knowledge of the control procedures resulting from his former employment in the middle office, he managed to conceal these positions through a scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions.”

Initially, it reminds of the individual con man movies like The Hoax and Catch Me if You Can, but this quote–”one person could engineer it, but how could one person finance it?”–from a bank’s chief executive hints at a high-finance Ocean’s Eleven.