A whistleblower lawsuit, called a Qui Tam, was unsealed that shows Dick Cheney's son in law stole millions - or more - from US taxpayers and the soldiers they were paid to protect.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16116668/Unsea led-Deepwater-Qui-Tam-Lawsuit

See the intial story here:  http://beltwayprogressive.blogspot.com/2 007/03/deepwater-is-deep-caca-and-cheney s-son.html

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WaPo's Chris Cillizza is reporting that Rep. Tom Davis is expected to announce later this week that he won't compete for the Republican nomination for senate after all (h/t American1989 in the diaries).

Several informed Republicans with ties to Virginia politics told The Fix earlier today that Rep. Tom Davis could announce as soon as this week that he will not run for the Senate seat being vacated by John Warner (R) in 2008.

When Sen. Warner announced just before Labor Day that he would leave the Senate at the end of his term, Davis was widely expected to enter the race. But the congressman has been hinting for the better part of a week that he has changed his mind.

It looks as though the decision of the Virginia GOP a couple weeks ago to hold a convention to determine the nominee instead of a primary has, as expected, compelled Davis to step aside, although Davis is officially denying he's made any such decision.

In the time since the news of Davis's decision was posted here around 8 p.m. ET Monday evening, Davis spoke with Washington Post reporter Amy Gardner, saying that while he plans to talk to the media on Thursday about his political future, he has not made a final decision about the race.

This leaves many things up in the air including whether Davis will even run for re-election to his congressional seat next year, whether he'll give a senate run against Jim Webb in 2012 a go and even whether former Gov. Jim Gilmore will get in the race as he is expected to do and remain the only Republican in the field. But one thing's for sure, as Cillizza put it in his Senate rankings listing John Warner's seat the one mostly likely to switch parties:

Let's see. Former Gov. Mark Warner (D) raised more than $1 million in the first 17 days of his candidacy. The Post's own poll put Warner 30 points ahead of both of his potential Republican opponents -- Rep. Tom Davis and former Gov. Jim Gilmore. Republicans recently opted for a convention rather than a primary, a move likely to favor the more conservative, but less general-election friendly Gilmore...Put simply: It's good to be Mark Warner right now.

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Cilliza of WahingtonPost.com has some good details:

Bottom line, Rep. Davis will NOT run and will announce later this week. This seat in VA is now a SOLID Democratic pick-up next year.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/20 07/10/va_senate_davis_expected_to_op.htm l

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The Republican Party's Virginia Central Committee just voted 47-37 to settle on its nominee for the open Senate seat at a party convention rather than through a primary. This is a blow to Rep. Tom Davis and a victory for former Governor Jim Gilmore.

Full analysis here, at Campaign Diares.

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This morning, the Virginia GOP's Central Committee, made up of 85 statewide Republican activists, met to decide whether the state would hold a primary or a convention to decide the Republican nominee for senate next year. They chose a convention.

Virginia Republicans will hold a convention rather than a primary next year to choose their candidate to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. John W. Warner.

The state party's central committee voted 47-37 on Saturday in favor of a convention. No date or location was decided.

Supporters of a convention argued that it's more economical and the party would avoid a divisive public squabble between GOP rivals in a primary.

The decision was hardly free of politics, however. From The Politico:

[Congressman Tom] Davis and his allies were lobbying for a primary, while his likely GOP opponent, former governor Jim Gilmore preferred a convention. Conservative activists dominate the GOP conventions, and Davis' home base of Northern Virginia is usually under-represented among GOP activists. By contrast, anyone can vote in a GOP primary - including Democrats - because the state does not register voters by party.

So, not only does this decision, as James at Raising Kaine says, make it much less likely that Tom Davis will win the nomination, but it actually makes it much less likely that he'll jump in at all. From The Washington Post:

[The] vote by the 84-member Republican State Central Committee on whether to hold a convention or primary in June could play a major role in whether Davis enters the Senate race.

The Politico concurs:

Davis has said that a primary was crucial for his campaign, so he could increase his name recognition outside of Northern Virginia.  Some political observers have questioned whether he will even jump in the race, given his obstacles for both the nomination and in the general election.

Thus this morning's decision is somewhat bittersweet, for if it does prevent Davis from running for senate, that means we lose the opportunity to take his very winnable northern Virginia congressional seat but at the same time, a Gilmore candidacy makes a Warner victory all the more assured. For, while this week's WaPo poll shows Warner beating Davis more handily than he does Gilmore, Davis is far less well-known throughout the state and has much more room for growth. On the other hand, Gilmore, as a former governor, is well-known throughout the state so opinion of him is pretty well fixed; in fact, as the Washington Post poll makes clear:

Gilmore, a conservative who dropped out of the presidential race this year, could be hampered in a general election against Warner, because people's perception of Gilmore has worsened since he left the governor's mansion in 2002.

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