Loyalty without truth
is a trail to tyranny.
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a middle-aged George Washington
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Thursday, 5 January 2006 at 2h 19m 57s | When the shoe fits, throw it at someone else | Thinking hurts too much these days. The nazi's are crawling
everywhere,
inhabiting and destroying everything.
Remember all the hubub made about Al Gore meeting a Chinese buddhist in a
temple in 1996, that turned out to be nothing at all? Well now we have George
Bush pioneer fund raiser Jack Abramoff involved in the largest web of
corruption since the Credit Mobilier
of the 1870's, involving fake charity
funds that accepted $100,000 checks from a law firm in England that got the
money from Russian lobbyists.
Oh but will the corporate nazi media pound on this story like they pounded on
the Buddhist temple?
Of course not.
Today's f***ing Chronicle headline blasts out that Abramoff is a "rogue
lobbyist"
as if Abramoff was all alone and independent in bad guy land. Hey hack
Chronicle reporter : would you care to mention his already convicted or being
prosecutied cohorts in crime over the last year : namely, public relations
executive --and former aide to House Majority Leader DeLay-- Michael Scanlon;
chief of staff at the
General Services Administration David Safavian, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
and Ohio Bush Pioneer Tom Noe? ALL ARE CONNECTED dumb asses.
And David Safavian was appointed by George Bush in 2003. [Read
on ...]
So what the hell then does Bush mean when he says that Abramoff was "equal
opportunity" corruption? Oh, Byron Dorgan(North Dakota) and Harry Reid(Nevada)
both accepted small donations by local indian tribes ($18,000 and $5,000
respectively) in their districts that also
happened to be clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- but that is and was not
illegal.
Bush himself got more than $100,000 from Abramoff and his other connected
pioneers, in addition to appointing officials helpful to the purposes of Mr.
Abramoff. There's more here from Lou Dubose at the Texas Observer:
"In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in
annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush
advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in
bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on
the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He
had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as
Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar
fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so
closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of
his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the
President. "
Some "roque" operator.
And from the Bloomberg News: [SOURCE]
"Now you have two people instead of one," said Stan Brand, a former counsel to
the House of Representatives when it was controlled by the Democrats. "What
you're building is a ladder. You have Abramoff at the intermediate step,
elected officials above him, and Scanlon and Safavian underneath."
In other words, this vast network of corruption was orchetrated and abetted by
the Republican party.
Liars and heinous hypocrites. They speak of themselves when they pilory the
perceived opposition.
Bush even gets to recess appoint the prosecutor Alice Fisher -- during the
weekend of the Hurricane Katrina debacle -- to oversea the Abramoff
investigation. Alice
Fisher has no prosecution experience but used to work with the law firm of now
Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff and has done work with Tom Delay's
legal action network.
At law.com she is lauded a bit maniacally for
her "great" work investigating Enron. Oh you mean that lame investigation
where all but a few scapegoats (including the two big boys Ken Lay, and ex-
Secretary of the Army Thomas White) walked away scott free.
Yeah, she's great at investigating.
But even from law.com , you can still get a glimpse of why Bush had to
sneak her appointment over the Katrina weekend ...
"I suck up to and wash the dirty laundry of powerful Republicans and gain
legal experience from shamefully farcical investigations."
Fisher first worked with Chertoff in 1995, when he hired her as deputy special
counsel to the Senate Whitewater investigation. She had graduated from the
Catholic University of America School of Law in 1993, and worked as a
litigation associate in the Washington office of New York-based Sullivan &
Cromwell.
Then Chertoff brought her into the Senate investigation of investments that
President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton made in the troubled
Whitewater Development Corp.
Following her work in Whitewater, Fisher moved into the Washington office of
Latham & Watkins in 1996.
So I'm sure she'll be spiking the investigation. Why else would Bush so
secretively appoint her over that particular weekend? Was her services in such
dire need that Bush had to rush her through without following the
Constitutional requirement of Senatorial "advice and consent."
I really, really hope I am wrong.
| Friday, 30 December 2005 at 3h 31m 32s | Too much computer time | I thought this was hilarious
| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 14h 22m 22s | Larry Johnson blog | Larry Johnson is an ex-CIA career professional who has been an excellent source
of realistic an relevant information about anything related to the CIA and
government operations.
Go
here to
read Larry Johnson's blog.
Larry recently posted a lot of good points about why fighting "terrorism" with
conventional military is wasteful and stupid, since it is more effectively
attacked with law enforcement covert operations.
Killing civilians and destroying cities (aka, Falluja) only create more
terrorists.
But don't just listen to me. Go read Larry Johnson.
| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 14h 25m 32s | President spoiled rotten | Steve Chapman over at the Chicago Tribune, has
this to
say: [
SOURCE]
Steve Chapman
Beyond the imperial presidency
Published December 25, 2005
President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal
government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He
wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't
think he should be constrained by their intentions.
He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he
insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man
at the helm of government.
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives
of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret
eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust
executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good
for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power
weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
Even people who should be on Bush's side are getting queasy. David Keene,
chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to enlarge
executive authority, Bush "has gone too far."
He's not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose Padilla, a
U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off a "dirty
bomb." For three years, the administration said he posed such a grave threat
that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy combatant. In
September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.
But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court, the
administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on
comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court for
permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the once-
cooperative court flatly refused.
In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the administration
suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common purse snatcher--a
reversal that, they said, comes "at substantial cost to the government's
credibility." The court's meaning was plain: Either you were lying to us then,
or you are lying to us now.
If that's not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written by
conservative darling J. Michael Luttig--who just a couple of months ago was on
Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question Bush's use of
executive power is like Bill O'Reilly announcing that there's too much Christ
in Christmas.
This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he doesn't
need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan, the
administration also detained him as an enemy combatant rather than entrust him
to the criminal justice system.
But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he could
present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was way too
much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi Arabia, where
he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this logic: Hamdi was
too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to release.
The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal
monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people
overseas again raises the question: Why?
The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct electronic
surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to terrorists.
The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But Bush bridles at
the notion that the president should ever have to ask permission of anyone.
He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when it
authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be true.
Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a revision
of the law to give the president explicit power to order such wiretaps because
Congress--a Republican Congress, mind you--wouldn't have agreed. So the
administration decided: Who needs Congress?
What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like
this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need
it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In
their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be
bothered to earn it.
Herr Bush is an alcoholic degenerate spoiled-rotten brat. He is also mean and
vindictive. And he is also the President.
Oh shit.
| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 at 0h 25m 1s | Ho ho ho ... |
Yea, I know ... it's one day late.
| Tuesday, 13 December 2005 at 2h 28m 13s | An appointed mobster | More on the Randy Cunningham defense contractor scandal. You
can read
about it
here.
According to the LA Times, Schwasti-boy seems to be involved ( that's
Schwartzeneger for those of you for whom my belligerent sarcasm is not
immediately recognized .) According to Dan Morain, LA Times Staff
Writer,[SOURCE
]
A businessman tied to the bribery scandal involving former Rep. Randy "Duke"
Cunningham donated more than $70,000 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign
committees and received two gubernatorial appointments.
At Schwarzenegger's behest, Brent Wilkes, founder of the government contractor
ADCS Inc., resigned Nov. 29 from the Del Mar Fair Board and from another panel
that oversees the leasing of state land for racetracks, said Margita Thompson,
the governor's press secretary.
Schwarzenegger appointed Wilkes to the Del Mar board in April 2004 and to the
State Race Track Leasing Commission last April. A seat on the Del Mar board is
a sought-after post given the panel's association with the Del Mar racetrack,
among the most successful tracks in the nation.
...Wilkes' company, ADCS, which is based in Poway, has received millions in
federal contracts.
Keep your eye on the ball folks. The news will be pounding on the $80,000
donations. What is important here are the appointed positions, not the money.
Look what this manipulator of federal contract laws gets appointed to,the
Del Mar Fair Board and a panel that oversees the leasing of state
land for racetracks.
Can you say, money laundering?
Why do you think the mob was always heavily involved in the development of
gambling institutions, because you could shuffle a lot of cash and make them
appear as winnings. I recall reading about how a certain mob racket out of
Miami operated by hiring professional gamblers to sit around and "win" while
they were really shuffling the money through. They would get a "cut" of the
winnings but those "winnings" would be re-deposited elsewhere.
Of course you do realize that this is all uninformed speculation on my part,
but I still hear an implosion.
| Tuesday, 6 December 2005 at 5h 4m 14s | More Corruption from San Diego | Thanks to Kevin Drum [SOURCE]
...Last week Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes
and evading more than $1 million in taxes. Government documents in the case
also referred to a "co-conspirator No. 1," later identified as a military
contractor named Brent Wilkes. But acording to the San Diego Union-
Tribune, Cunningham wasn't the only guy Wilkes was associated with:
"Wilkes befriended other legislators, too. He ran a hospitality suite, with
several bedrooms, in Washington — first in the Watergate Hotel and then in the
Westin Grand near Capitol Hill."
When will the Chronicle discuss or investigate this?
Instead, here are today's front-page stories.
ON THE BORDER
Civilian border patrols across the country have helped polarize political
debate over immigration reform. As part of an occasional series, The Chronicle
spends an evening on patrol with small group in California.
- Tyche Hendricks
|
-- This is the next distraction from the real issues of health care,
corruption,
and movement of capital to low cost labor regions of the world (ie, China!!!).
Blame everything on the Mexicans.
Quake survivors in a race with time
As winter arrives, many ill-prepared for harsh conditions
- Declan Walsh
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-- Reminder to San Fran : be afraid, man-made disaster looms
THE LINE OF FIRE
Some citizens fear for safety if courts uphold S.F.'s voter-approved ban on
handguns
- Cecilia M. Vega
|
-- the voters approve and "some" citizens get to have a story on the front
page.
Hey, can "some" of us other citizens get to have special stories like this
too. Was it another slow news day today?
How about Cunningham scandal may link other legislators ?
-or-
DeLay's money laundering charges upheld
See what I mean. Note that it's not whether the 3 chosen stories were valid
stories, but whether they were so important as to be on the front page. Why
does the Pakistani earthquake victim story trump the Tom Delay money laundering
charges?
At least the quake story is more valid than a day two discussion on whether or
not Schwastikaniger can attract
moderates with an appointment of Governor Davis's ex-cabinet member -- as if
merely his appointment of a stereotype is worth more than the substance of his
policy proposals.
But instead, what we read is the 2nd hand version of the real conversation.
It's all about the show and the costumes, or the chosen morality drama, NOT
about honesty, integrity, and the truth.
| Tuesday, 6 December 2005 at 3h 50m 49s | Fair and balanced my ass |
Mendacious and Biased
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A manufactured "War" on Christmas has a "Victory" ?
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If Liberals do ... What?
Look at the pompous, over-blown kinship of those who call themselves news
analysts and news anchors on the Fox news network. Hired propaganda agents?
Zealots for the cause of 6 to 7 figure salaries? You be the judge,
but "mendacious and biased" to the extreme is certainly what the Fox network is
really all about. History has already deposited the relics of truth.
| Friday, 2 December 2005 at 3h 22m 1s | Watch this very carefully | Another installment in an ongoing
investigation :
San
Francisco
Chronicle
headlines today.
This was on page one, for the second day in a row.
Governor's hire riles GOP conservatives
ANALYSIS: A move to attract moderates
- - Carla Marinucci
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We get the reaction to yesterday's story and the "analysis" on the front
page?
Was it a slow news day?
Notice how the "ANALYSIS" is just the cliff notes for the dupes
called "moderates." With these two loaded sentences probably not even chosen
by writer Carla Marinucci (the executive editors usually create headlines) we
learn that Schwastikaniger is trying to re-package his "image." The "fact"
that he's "riling" conservatives would certainly make him "attractive" to those
on the fence "moderates" that really do want to vote for Scwasti-baby but are
just too worried that the Gubernator is lock step with his "conservative"
advisors.
Analysis is another word for "spin." They are dressing this proto-fascist up
in "moderates" clothes so that they can re-install those "buggy" computer
voting machines and make-believe that it was moderates to "attracted" the new
Schwastikaniger who voted for him in 2006. These people don't play. Do. Not.
Underestimate.
So I go read the
article. It is
filled with ambiguous words that are
apparently the norm of political "analysis" and is chock-a-block with quotes
from politicos and policy analysts.
After a more fleshy 2 paragraphs which beef out the headlines, The first quote
comes from Steve Frank, longtime political activist and publisher of the
California Political News and Views, an influential conservative blog,
who says "He can't run as a Republican, because his administration has hired
some of the key people we recalled with Gray Davis in the first place."
Then we get Michael Spence, who heads the California Republican Assembly, a
conservative grassroots organization, (astro-turf??) who "said that
within hours of the news of Kennedy's appointment, the buzz from the right
included talk of finding alternatives to the GOP governor who has "betrayed the
loyalty of people who worked for him in the special election."
Next up, unnamed "political insiders in California -- still a year from the
2006 election for governor -- said no one should be writing Schwarzenegger's
political obituary, despite the devastating defeat of all his measures in the
Nov. 8 special election. "
Yet when Mrs. Marinucci makes her point
that "Many Democrats agree," she chooses to quote one person alone in support
of her plural form : Phil Trounstine (who??), the head
of the San Jose State Survey and Policy Research Institute and former
communications director for Davis who worked closely with Kennedy in the
Democratic governor's inner circle. In other words, she asks ex-governor
Davis's press manager
who now works as top gun at an institute that "surveys" opinions and produces
white papers rationalizing policy based on the surveys.
Okay, yea, and he's the only "Democrat" she quotes. Couldn't she try to get a
quote from State Senate Majority leader Peralta, or oft-quoted Burton, or
someone higher up in the Democratic food chain. Or at least someone else, I
mean if Democrats agree, than certainly she could have found any number who
could have been quoted. But hey, since he "worked closely" with
the woman, I suppose that makes his quotes worth twice as much.
I'm onto you Madame Marinucci. You are the hand-maiden of Judith Miller,
aren't
you?
The piece ends with the establishment Republican voice, ex-Governor Pete
Wilson. In fact, ex-Governor Wilson's quoting takes a full 33% of this "front
page article." But hey, since "Democrats agree," why give 10% from Pete to get
more than one source from the labeled Democratic side?
So what is this piece anyway, an outsourcing of 3 politicos and some
unknown "Democrat" on the front page, calling itself "analysis" ?
This is what the Chronicle does? It puts this kind of speculative,
inconsequetial political gossip borderline persuasion on the front page
in lieu of actual factual based news. The story should not be on the front
page, because there is not one smidgeon of analysis, just a bunch of
presumptions and opinions by a few selected persons. There were no numbers to
support the contentions of "the analysis," only hearsay and voices from people
who have a very good reason to be biased.
It's political gossip, not analysis.
| Thursday, 1 December 2005 at 2h 54m 18s | Paul Waldman is cool | Paul Waldman writes a regular blog at the online blog-a-zine
gadflyer.
President Bush gave the umpteenth version of his Iraq speech today, and as
always we were told that this speech would really turn things around because
Bush would define the issue and explain to people why
IraqiscentraltothewaronterrorandtheterroristsareontherunandastheIraqisstandupwew
ill standdownandwewillnotcutandrunandvictoryisaroundthecornerblahblahblah.
In fact, the speech included no fewer than fifteen repetitions of the
word "victory." So this is my question:
Just what, exactly, is "victory" in Iraq?
After all, we won't have the insurgents signing an armistice. There are no
generals to surrender. Zarqawi could be captured tomorrow and the insurgency
would continue unabated. So how will we know when we've won? Bush keeps telling
us that in order to honor the sacrifices of the brave men and women who have
died there, we have to keep our soldiers there to keep dying, to finish the
job, to achieve that glorious victory. So what is this victory supposed to
consist of? And just as important, is there a single person in the
administration who has a clue what the answer to that question is?
Copyright © Paul Waldman.
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