Corruption and Cronyism Archives

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May 08, 2008

From Susan at No Quarter: ...Here’s some of the transcript from Donna’s nasty meltdown: BRAZILE: Well, Lou, I have worked on a lot of Democratic campaigns, and I respect Paul. But, Paul, you’re looking at the old coalition. A new Democratic coalition is younger. It is more urban, as well as suburban, and we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics. We need to look at the Democratic Party, expand the party, expand the base and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. BEGALA: We cannot win with egg heads. We cannot win with egg heads and African-Americans. OK, that is the Dukakis Coalition, which carried ten states and gave us four years of the first George Bush... ... For months now, I’ve jokingly said to pals that I’m looking hard for video of Barack Obama in bed in a threesome with Tony Rezko and...

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When slimeball Bob Novak admits something, listen up. From the Washington Post: Buyer's remorse was beginning to afflict supporters of Barack Obama before Tuesday's primary election returns showed he had delivered a knockout punch against Hillary Clinton. The young orator who had seemed so fantastic, beginning with his 2007 Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in Iowa, disappointed even his own advisers over the past two weeks, and old party hands mourned that they were stuck with a flawed candidate. The whipping Obama gave Clinton in North Carolina and his near miss in Indiana transformed that impression. The candidate who delivered the victory speech in Raleigh, N.C., was the Obama of Des Moines, bearing no resemblance to the gloomy, uneasy candidate who had seemed unable to deal with bumps in the campaign road. Returning to his eloquent call for unity, the victorious Obama dismissed in advance Republican criticism of his ideology or his...

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May 07, 2008

Mayor McDermott of Hammond, Indiana rocked challenging Mayor Clay of Gary, Indiana. Here's the video on you tube: CNN coverage...

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Wow, this is brilliant. From J Brown, New American Disenfranchisement: ... The media has portrayed this race as a battle between two very good candidates that has now reached a point that could hurt the Democratic Party’s chances in November and damage their voter coalition. However, the reality is that this is a battle between the Wealthy & Elitist Far-Left Leadership & Supporters of the DNC and the Left-Of-Center Clinton Political Machine. This primary turmoil was directly brought on by the far-left of the Democratic Party who have turned to Populism, Voter Disenfranchisement, and taken advantage of states with inequality in how they award pledged delegates. ... The best gauge of a Clinton Presidency is to look at Bill Clinton’s presidential record. Since leaving office, Bill Clinton, has struggled with his legacy, primarily because there was no world changing event on his watch and no single societal changing policy that...

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From Fred Siegel in The Australian: When Obama had a chance to back clean Democratic candidates for president of the Cook County board of supervisors and Illinois governor, he stayed with the allies of the Outfit. The gubernatorial candidate he backed, Rod Blagojevich, is under federal investigation, in part because of his relationship with Tony Rezko, the man who helped Obama buy his house.The Chicago way has delivered politically for Obama even this year. Ninety per cent of his popular-vote lead over Hillary Clinton comes from Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90 per cent comes just from Cook County.For 20 years, Obama, who had planned to run for mayor of Chicago, kept silent about the close, if at times competitive, relationship between Wright, whose 8000-member mega-church gave him his political base, and Farrakhan. His ambition overrode his moral integrity.Obama laid the blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis on those who...

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May 04, 2008

ObamaTruth.org...

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April 16, 2008

His dubious past and now his present, from USA Today: Barack Obama often boasts he is "the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists," yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show. Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign finance data shows. TESTING THE LIMITS: Obama's claim of independence questioned OBAMA FUNDRAISERS: Which lawyers bundle money? Thirty-one of the 38 are law firm partners, who typically receive a share of their firm's lobbying fees. At least six of them have some managerial authority over lobbyists. "It makes no difference whether the person is a registered lobbyist or the partner of a...

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March 24, 2008

Frontline airing tonight and tomorrow night (also can be seen online)...

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March 23, 2008

His faithful describe him as hope and love (Is Barack Obama the Messiah?), but he's really a better at it than most insider politician. From a 2006 Harpers article: ... it is also startling to see how quickly Obama's senatorship has been woven into the web of institutionalized influence-trading that afflicts official Washington. He quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on. For the staff post of policy director he hired Karen Kornbluh, a senior aide to Robert Rubin when the latter, as head of the Treasury Department under Bill Clinton, was a chief advocate for NAFTA and other free-trade policies that decimated the nation's manufacturing sector (and the organized labor wing of the Democratic Party). Obama's top contributors are corporate law and lobbying firms (Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys are fund-raisers for Obama as...

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From John Kass in the Chicago Tribune: When the parish priest does right by the patronage boss to protect the mayor who gets endorsed by that great reformer Sir Barack of O'bama, that's the Chicago Way. Naturally, there are some squares who don't think taxpayers should pave the Chicago Way to make it easy for Rezko to help purchase the senator's dream house in a kinky deal exposed by the Tribune and still not fully explained. "It's really the Old Chicago Way," said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. "In the old days they would pretty much admit it up front, and now they deny it. It's essentially about power, access to government jobs, government contracts and taking care of your own." The Chicago Way. What is it? Is it easily abused? Is it dangerous in the wrong hands? This is critical, as the nation's eyes turn...

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February 25, 2008

From Ed Strong: ... Ever wonder why the “progressive” (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security “crisis?” Or sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of “government mandated” universal health care? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America’s energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru? Follow the money. Obama’s presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama’s top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as “a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities...

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January 04, 2008

From Katrina Vanden Heuvel in The Nation: Edwards is the only candidate who says, fearlessly : "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." We haven't heard words like that in our campaigns in a while, at least not from anyone near top of the polls. What Edwards has brought - and we can't lose - is that fighting spirit to take back our government from corporate powers and interests. Outspent 6 to 1, John Edwards' fiery populist message beat the Clinton machine in Iowa. Unafraid to use the "C" word--Corporate power and greed--Edwards appeared Thursday night to be a man in motion and on a mission. Exhausted from his "middle class marathon" tour, his passionate and unconventional non-concession speech was a challenge to the status quo powers which are depriving decent Americans of healthcare, jobs and their...

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December 15, 2007

Press Conference - CNN Craig Ferguson - Late Late Show Drunk and/or stupid compilation International embarassment - CNN And another - BBC David Letterman - Late Show...

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December 01, 2007

Buying the War on PBS... "The program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation went virtually unchallenged by the media." In "Buying the War" Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war. "Many of the things that were said about Iraq didn't make sense," says Walcott. "And that really prompts you to ask, 'Wait a minute. Is this true? Does everyone agree that this is true? Does anyone think this is not true?'" In the run-up to war,...

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November 25, 2007

From NOW: NOW shines a bright light on the scandalous connection between VECO Corporation—an Alaska-based oil services company—and Alaska's old-boy Republican network. Two state legislators have been convicted in Federal court for accepting bribes from VECO. The FBI has video and audio evidence that reveal VECO executives shockingly handing out cash to those legislators in exchange for promises to roll back a tax on the oil industry. But that may only be the tip of the oily iceberg. NOW's Maria Hinojosa learns that dozens more lawmakers are being eyed in the growing scandal, including one of the country's most powerful politicians, Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. NOW investigates the bribes, the connections to Big Oil and the payoffs to obtain friendly tax policies....

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November 13, 2007

"I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business."...

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August 31, 2007

That says it all - how sad that our country has come to this. What's in our future, Tiananmen Square? From the Washington Post: Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration. The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some...

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See the article Does Comcast Hate Macs? at tech.blorge.com......

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July 14, 2007

Fact Checkup Some of the facts - supporting evidence and more facts are at the above link: SiCKO: There are nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. SiCKO: 18,000 Americans will die this year simply because they're uninsured. SiCKO: $100 million spent to defeat Hillary's health care plan. SiCKO: The United States is ranked #37 as a health system by the World Health Organization. SiCKO: There are four times as many health care lobbyists as there are members of Congress. SiCKO: Drug industry money to members of Congress, and the president, who led the effort to pass the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. SiCKO: The Medicare Part D plan will hand over $800 billion of our tax dollars to the drug and health insurance industry. SiCKO: Canadians live three years longer than we do. SiCKO: Canadian "wait times" not nearly as long as some try to allege. SiCKO: Drugs...

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As the corporate media trots out their front men to denounce the truths revealed about the medical industry in Sicko, one journalist tells his story. From David Coddon in the San Diego Tribune: I'm not making this up. Wish I were. I have a heart condition. Last week, on the Fourth of July, I went to my box to retrieve the previous day's mail. In it was a letter from my health insurance provider. It began: “Dear Mr. Gddon:” That was only the beginning of the insult. Paragraph two: “We have completed our review of your application (for Long Term Disability coverage) and have concluded that we are presently unable to approve your request for coverage.” The letter then cited health conditions “taken into consideration,” including two that I have never suffered from. Deflated and angry, but it being Independence Day and bound to do my patriotic duty, I proceeded...

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July 06, 2007

From John Dean at FindLaw: Those with whom I have spoken have serious doubt that Bush and the White House staff really knows what Cheney is doing, why he is doing it, or how he is doing it. It has long been apparent that Cheney's genius is that he lets George W. Bush get out of bed every morning actually believing he is the President. In fact, his presidency is run by the President of the Senate, for Cheney is its true center of gravity. That fact has become more apparent with every passing year of this presidency, and anyone who thinks otherwise has truly "misunderestimated" our nominal president and his vice president. Vice President Dick Cheney has regularly claimed that he is above the law, but until recently he has not offered any explanation of why. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a law that Cheney...

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July 04, 2007

From the Los Angeles Times: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said Margaret Colgate Love, a former pardon attorney at the Justice Department. "This is really, really unusual.""Consistency and fidelity to the law are extraordinarily important. We have expended a lot of credibility to get judges to buy off on this," said one senior federal prosecutor who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. "I don't know how I am going to advise my people," the prosecutor said. "I cannot tell you how depressed and disgusted people are around here with this decision. It really undercuts law enforcement." In commuting the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, President Bush said that the former vice presidential aide had suffered enough and that the 30-month prison term...

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July 01, 2007

From Peter Travers at Rolling Stone: Sicko is a movie whose time has come, even if the Treasury Department is already on Moore's case for illegally taking a boatload of lung-sick 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for free medical care they can’t get at home. Another dumb move from the Dubya camp.In an era when the mainstream news media have lost the public trust to Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, Moore’s brutally comic take on matters of life and death is just the ticket. In France, no resident is denied care; that’s why the World Health Organization ranks it number one (the U.S. is thirty-seventh). Note to the president: Here’s your chance to lock up Michael Moore. The radically fierce and funny fireball he aims at our health-care system is a flat-out invitation to steal. First, Moore shows us how France, England, Canada and – yikes! – Cuba actually...

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June 26, 2007

From Democracy Now: AMY GOODMAN: Hundreds of thousands of protesters are gathering in Germany ahead of tomorrow’s G8 meeting of the world’s richest nations. The three-day summit is being held in the coastal resort of Heiligendamm. German police have spent $18 million to erect an eight-mile-long, two-meter-high fence around the meeting site. Global warming will be high on the agenda. Going into the meeting, President Bush has proposed to sideline the UN-backed Kyoto Accords and set voluntary targets on reducing emissions of greenhouse gas. Other top issues will include foreign aid and new trade deals. Today, we spend the hour with a man who claims to have worked deep inside the forces driving corporate globalization. In his first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins told the story of his work as a highly paid consultant hired to strong-arm leaders into creating policy favorable to the US government...

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May 28, 2007

This is as bad as it gets. Two reports from NBC: Update to the original story Last September, NBC News first reported on a fierce debate within the Pentagon over Trophy, an Israeli-made weapons system, that literally shoots down rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and even more deadly anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). There were plans to battle-test Trophy in Iraq, but the U.S. Army blocked them and instead hired a favored defense contractor, Raytheon, to build a system from scratch. Now, a new congressionally-mandated review — obtained exclusively by NBC News — raises serious questions about the Army’s decision and what Army officials have told Congress. Over the last three years, U.S. commanders in Iraq have issued a series of urgent pleas for a defense against RPGs — a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Technologies which combat RPGs and ATGMs are technically referred to as Active Protection Systems (APSs)....

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April 14, 2007

From Mother Jones: Subpoenas have been authorized, the press is swarming, the Bush administration's flacks are taking a pounding — I think it's safe to say that the White House email controversy has officially blossomed into a full-blown scandal. This week the White House acknowledged that it may have "lost" an unspecified number of emails that were sent by staffers who used non-governmental, RNC-issued email addresses in what seemed at times a conscious effort to prevent their correspondence from becoming public record. "We screwed up, and we're trying to fix it," White House spokesperson Dana Perino told the press yesterday. She noted that only "a small slice" of the president's staff — among them Karl Rove and his deputies — used email addresses, along with BlackBerrys and laptops, supplied by the RNC. However, no mention has been made — and it's possible that in the end there may be no...

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April 06, 2007

From CNN: Gonzales has said he knew little about the discussions concerning the dismissals, but his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, testified March 29 that Gonzales was continually briefed on the matter. Previous battles with Congress over the administration's torture policy and the warrantless surveillance program have left Gonzales with little good will on Capitol Hill. As part of intensive preparations for coming congressional questioning concerning the eight fired U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales next week will take part in mock question-and-answer sessions that could include outside legal advisers, Justice Department officials said Thursday. How well Gonzales performs during the testimony may determine whether he keeps his job, political observers say. Gonzales canceled plans for a family vacation to focus on the preparations, which resemble what a Cabinet nominee does before a confirmation hearing, officials said. When he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17, Gonzales...

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March 28, 2007

From Real Time with Bill Maher: Valerie Plame was the CIA's operational officer in charge of counter-proliferation. Which means she tracked loose nukes. So, when Bush said, as he once did, that his absolute, number-one priority was preventing terrorists from getting loose nukes, okay, that's what she worked on. That's what she devoted her life to, staying undercover for 20 years, maintaining two identities every goddamn day. This is extraordinary service to your country.Valerie Plame was the kind of real-life secret agent George Bush dreams of being when he's not too busy pretending to be a cowboy or a fighter pilot.CIA agents are troops. This was a military assassination of one of our own, done through the press, ordered by Karl Rove. He said, of Valerie Plame, quote, "She's fair game." And then Cheney shot her.Valerie Plame's husband told the truth about their lie, so they were willing to jeopardize...

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Typical Republican hypocrisy. From NNDB: On Laura Schlessinger's popular train wreck of a radio show, listeners can hear strangers' lives ruined by bad advice for three hours daily. Callers are often interrupted before they can finish explaining their personal problems, and she usually berates them brusquely for what she perceives as moral, parental, or religious failings. Schlessinger married a dentist when she was 25, and had at least two extramarital affairs before they were divorced. Her first radio appearance was as a caller on The Bill Ballance Show in Los Angeles in 1974. She became a regular caller, and later a guest on Ballance's show, as he became her mentor in radio, and her first known extramarital affair... After a few years with Ballance, Schlessinger began the program that still runs today as The Dr. Laura Show, although she is neither a medical doctor nor a psychologist. Her PhD is...

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March 17, 2007

From the AP: "My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department. I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained... They all knew that I worked with the CIA. They might not have known what my status was [(covert)], but that alone - the fact that I worked for the CIA - should have put up a red flag... I did not recommend [my husband, Ambassador Wilson, for the CIA fact-finding trip]. I did not suggest him." Valerie Plame put a glamorous face and a personal story to Democrats' criticism of the Bush administration Friday, telling a House committee that White House and State Department officials "carelessly and recklessly" blew her CIA cover in a politically motivated smear of her husband. Plame, the operative at the center of the leak scandal that resulted in...

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March 11, 2007

"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." ~ Jesus From the AP: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group. "The...

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March 10, 2007

From Deepak Chopra: In a free market it would be insane to invest in death, which is what the war system produces as its end product. Not only does death rob the economy of workers, it demoralizes those left behind. I wrote recently on the seeming paradox that the Iraq war could be such a total failure while no one in Congress is seriously trying to stop, or even curb it. Pres. Bush's proposed budget gives fully 20% of the federal budget over to defense (a larger proportion than it looks since the lion's share of the budget already goes to Social Security, Medicare, debt payments, and other entitlement programs). A bad war is "good" for the war system that includes big oil, weapons development, university research grants, aerospace, and hundreds of interconnected industries that no politician dares to challenge. That's because every region of the country, with few exceptions,...

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March 08, 2007

Another flawed editorial debunked at Think Progress......

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From Arianna Huffington: Before the GOP spin machine kicks into high gear, shouting from the mountain tops that the Libby verdict is just about making false statements to the FBI, and that no one was ever charged with the underlying crime of outing Valerie Plame, let's make it clear that Libby was found guilty not just of perjury but of obstructing justice -- obstructing justice in order to encumber the investigation and keep secret the dark, ugly truth about how the White House sought to cover up its lies about Iraq and its efforts to intimidate and silence critics of the administration. But the cover ups are unraveling. And they are unraveling at a speed and in a quantity that guarantee Bush's legacy will both be marked by the tragedy of the Iraq war, and soiled by corruption, indictments, and convictions. So on the same day that the Libby jury...

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March 07, 2007

From Margaret Carlson: What the I. Lewis Libby verdict shows beyond a reasonable doubt is that the first instinct of the White House when caught doing something wrong is to lie. From the false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, to Abu Ghraib, to Katrina, Walter Reed Hospital and the purging of eight U.S. attorneys, the urge to cover-up is reflexive and immediate. They bet they'll never be found out, and most times they aren't. That's because it takes a village to expose the truth -- subpoenas, a special prosecutor, congressional investigations, investigative journalism, pictures and smoking guns. Against a powerful White House, which until recently was enabled by a complacent Republican Congress, no such village was likely. But yesterday, the truth was finally catching up with the White House on three stages. As Libby's wife, Harriet, sobbed in court when the jury foreman answered guilty to four of five...

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February 12, 2007

Like Bunny Greenhouse. From the Washington Post: Even though the ATF has enjoyed successive years of budget hikes under Bush, it had to cut back on such basic needs as replacement cars for the field agents and bulletproof vests to protect them. One reason is that the Bush appointee to head the agency, Carl J. Truscott, spent agency money for a new headquarters building in downtown Washington, already $19 million over budget, not counting another $75 million for acquiring the site, designing the building, buying furniture, and such. Truscott ordered some $300,000 worth of extras for his own office, including a $30,000 conference table. He also spent $1 million a year of ATF's budget to provide an extensive security detail for himself, including five full-time agents and two armored SUVs. Deputy Director Edgar A. Domenech took over for Truscott after he resigned when this became known. Domenech reversed a decision...

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February 10, 2007

From Steven Weber at the Huffington Post: The women responded: "We will not take one dime. We want accountability". And why wouldn't Issa or Shays think that the motive behind the grieving families's lawsuit would be anything other than financial? After all, that is how America does business. That is the heart of why Blackwater USA is there: to profit. It's just one of many war profiteers, connected to and consigned to due business in Iraq by Bush, Inc. I saw ghosts yesterday. I was watching the hearing on Iraq Reconstruction and Contractors on C-Span (the only network that uses special thermographic paranormal detection equipment: static unblinking cameras) in which the mothers, wives and daughters of four men killed on a convoy which was attacked and overrun (the men were shot, mutilated and hanged, their corpses then set ablaze), spoke of their struggle to gain simple answers to questions surrounding...

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January 06, 2007

Just thought I'd add my voice to the many who have been scammed by Office Depot, a store that does not honor correctly submitted mail-in rebates. I bought an item solely based on the price with the promised rebate of $75. I sent in all the required forms and receipts well within the specified timeframe. Today I got back a card saying my claim was not postmarked in time, which is blatantly false. Of course, there is nothing I can do to prove this, as I did not send the envelope delivery confirmation - I didn't even think to do that, as my post office is "Old Faithful", I was sending it weeks ahead of the deadline, and I naively trusted Office Depot to behave honorably. I would take that precaution next time, but there will be no next time, as I will never set foot in an Office Depot...

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December 25, 2006

From the AP: Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse. The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition. Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse. In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges...

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November 16, 2006

From the Wall Street Journal: "When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed." The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different...

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November 04, 2006

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: "Republicans have wrapped themselves in the American flag, and then they appear to be carrying the cross of Jesus Christ — if you're not with us, you're against Christianity. Those are high standards to hold themselves up to, and the current Congress has failed miserably — taking bribes, influencing votes and now Mark Foley. It's hard when they say one thing, and do something else. The population is just tired of the hypocrisy." Conservative Christians and evangelicals — a typically reliable Republican voting bloc — may be up for grabs come Tuesday's general election. Credited with delivering crucial ballots that helped propel President Bush to his second term in 2004, some of these once steady voters are wavering in their support of the GOP, following a series of morally dubious incidents. In January, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to charges involving fraud, public corruption...

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November 03, 2006

Another hypocrite bites the dust. It's like a parade of hypocrites. From the AP: The Rev. Ted Haggard said Friday he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a male prostitute. But the influential Christian evangelist insisted he threw the drugs away and never had sex with the man. Haggard, who as president of the National Association of Evangelicals wielded influence on Capitol Hill and condemned both gay marriage and homosexuality, resigned on Thursday after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed that he had many drug-fueled trysts with Haggard. On Friday, Haggard said that he received a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel, and that he bought meth for himself from the man. But Haggard said he never had sex with Jones. And as for the drugs, "I was tempted, but I never used it," the 50-year-old Haggard told reporters from his vehicle...

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October 31, 2006

Showtimes... In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. Electronic voting machines count 80% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. While fraud was never proven, the faulty tally alerted computer scientists, politicians and everyday citizens to the very real possibility of computer hacking during elections. In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems...

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October 15, 2006

From Christian Miller, author of Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq, in the Huffington Post: The Department of Justice under the Bush administration has completely checked out of the accountability game when it comes to contractors operating in Iraq. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty has just announced that the Justice Department is going to begin cracking down on contract fraud. Now there's swift justice. The get-tough declaration comes right before the November elections, but far too late to expose any embarrassing examples of war profiteering or Katrina wrongdoing. The fact is, the Department of Justice under the Bush administration has completely checked out of the accountability game when it comes to contractors operating in Iraq. It's not as if there has been a lack of leads. Consider these well documented cases, many of them found in Blood Money, my new book on the reconstruction of...

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October 10, 2006

Sure, Republican leadership appointed crooks to high office, but once the public found out about the crooks, and the Republicans were shamed and pressured to do something about it, they finally did. You're doing a heck of a job, Denny. Bob Schieffer interviews Congressman Ray LaHood about Mark Foley - must see video......

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October 04, 2006

From Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone: One muggy day in mid-August, Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold's election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a "patch," a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. "We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood says. Georgia law mandates that any change made in voting machines be certified by the state. But thanks to Cox's agreement with Diebold, the company was essentially allowed to certify itself. "It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state. Urosevich said not to talk to county personnel about it." The debacle of the 2000 presidential election made it all too apparent to most Americans that our...

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See it here......

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October 02, 2006

From CBS News: There is no getting around it: The unraveling of the page scandal could be the undoing of some House Republican leaders, if not the party's hold on Congress, CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports. Congressman Mark Foley has left the premises to undergo rehab for what he called "alcoholism and related behavioral problems" as the FBI and Florida officials begin investigating his contacts with a young male page. But on Capitol Hill, one senior House Republican tells CBS News that this scandal "could be the congressional equivalent of Katrina." "Our base is moral conservatives, and we look like a bunch of hypocrites who just didn't want another scandal before the election," he adds. Today, Republicans named a new candidate to replace Foley, but winning is a long shot. Increasingly, angry Republicans are asking if their leaders knew about this matter more than a year ago — and...

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September 08, 2006

From Joe Conason at Salon: The 9/11 Commission report states explicitly, as Clarke and other senior officials have affirmed, that Clinton and Berger ordered the CIA and the military to use any force necessary to get bin Laden. It would be uplifting to believe, as the producers of ABC's "The Path to 9/11" have claimed, that the network spent $40 million on its anniversary docudrama to educate the American people and improve the nation's defenses. And it would be reassuring to believe, as the producers have insisted in recent days, that "our ambitions and our goals and our standards were all about accuracy." But it is impossible to believe, after viewing their somewhat cheesy, sometimes incomprehensible and severely distorted version of the events leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that they acted in good faith on either of those motivations. Whether "The Path to 9/11" succeeds in...

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Condoleezza Rice is portrayed as following up on the memo warning Bush about 9/11, but in reality, she did no such thing. From Think Progress: ABC has been aggressively advancing its inaccurate and politically slanted miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” to the right wing. Big players like Rush Limbaugh have been provided copies, as have obscure right-wing bloggers like Patterico. But ABC has refused to provide a copy to President Clinton’s office. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger have also requested copies of the film from ABC, and both have been denied. Both Berger and Albright are harshly criticized in the film in scenes that, according to former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, are “180 degrees from what happened.” Samuel "Sandy" Berger's letter to Disney president and CEO Robert Iger: Dear Mr. Iger: I write with a great deal of concern over reports I’ve...

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September 02, 2006

From Eric Boehlert on NOW, the introduction to his new book, Lapdogs: It must have been an awkward encounter when Bob Woodward sat down for two hours at his Washington, D.C., attorney's M Street office on November 14, 2005, to answer questions, under oath, posed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Woodward, of Watergate and Washington Post fame, was the most famous reporter of his generation, and Fitzpatrick, by the fall of 2005, was the most talked-about investigator in America. Appointed to uncover who inside the Bush administration had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative married to a prominent war critic, Fitzgerald's media-centric investigation had already put one New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, behind bars. His probe had also issued subpoenas to half a dozen influential Beltway reporters as well as most members of Bush's inner circle. Fitzgerald's pursuit had become the most fevered Beltway whodunit of...

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August 31, 2006

First, who Big Tobacco is sleeping with, from Tobacco.org: Activists with INFACT, the national corporate watchdog organization, held a rally around the mock "Philip Morris for President?" campaign today at the Republican National Convention. The fiery campaign, which features a 12-foot cigarette dressed like Uncle Sam, exposes Philip Morris' unabashed corporate giving in this election cycle and challenges the tobacco giant's undue influence over public health policy. Republican National Convention banners with the Philip Morris and Kraft logos provided the backdrop for the rally along Walnut Street. As of June 30, Philip Morris was the Republican National Committee's largest single donor at $619,000. . . Second, what that bought them. From the Washington Post: The nicotine in Marlboro, the brand preferred by two-thirds of high-school smokers, increased 12 percent. Kool menthol lights increased 30 percent. Two-thirds of black smokers use menthol brands. The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose...

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August 18, 2006

From Tom D'Antoni in the Huffington Post: "Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke." Yesterday Federal Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that "smoking causes disease, suffering, and death," and that tobacco companies were gulping profits like a Hummer gulps gas, “with little, if any, regard for individual illness and suffering, soaring health costs, or the integrity of the legal system.” The defendants are Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Ltd.; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A.; and the now-defunct Tobacco Institute. She added that "Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American...

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Jack Cafferty on CNN: The judge said the president is violating the first amendment to the constitution, the fourth amendment to the constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, passed by Congress in 1978, specifically to prevent this kind of abuse of power. It means President Bush violated his oath of office, among other things, when he swore to uphold the constitution of the United States. But the Congress is controlled by the Republicans and they are controlled by the president and they have done nothing in the way of oversight. ...Wolf, you know, it seems like we are having this discussion about this judge's ruling sort of in the abstract, as though there's no precedent for what the judge decided. The judge, in effect, upheld the ruling of the FISA court, which says if you want to wiretap phones, you need a warrant to do so. The court...

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August 06, 2006

Check out the book by Dean Baker......

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July 29, 2006

And the biggest sham of all is that they claim to be Christian. Jesus said: "I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." From Molly Ivins: I...

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July 27, 2006

A hilarious "The Word" - Crooks and Liars video......

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July 15, 2006

This is very funny! From Mrs. Betty Bowers: Goodness me, who would have ever guessed that the Achilles heel for most Republican men would be the sight of pre-operative transsexuals in dresses made for someone 20 years younger? With a mouth so busy frothing it apparently has no time to eat, Miss Coulter claims to be livid at the 9/11 widows for being people difficult to hate more publicly. This week, sweet Ann Coulter released her latest in a series of pre-rehab books, entitled Godless. Naturally, the title led me to believe that it was an unexpectedly candid autobiography. Alas, she may be saving that book until after she's been strapped to a bed at Hazelden for a month. Instead of using this book to dabble in the bracing novelty of introspection, Miss Coulter turns her two-setting mind ("off" and "off her rocker") to hector us about religion. Let's be...

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Papantonio on the Mike Malloy Show: mp3. More info at Brad Blog... From Rolling Stone: Kennedy, meanwhile, is preparing to up the ante on those he believes abetted the GOP's electoral theft. In July, the outspoken attorney plans to file "whistle-blower" lawsuits against two leading manufacturers of electronic voting machines. According to Kennedy, company insiders are prepared to testify that the firms knowingly made false claims when they sold their voting systems to the government — misrepresenting the accuracy, reliability and security of machines that will be used by 72 million voters this November. "This is a unique way to try and stop these vendors," Kennedy tells Rolling Stone. "In both cases, our whistle-blowers are familiar with security problems that were well known by the vendors but concealed from election officials during the bidding process. Because we're relying on 'inside' knowledge, it is a far more frightening prospect to the...

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In her statements, Plame said, "I would much rather be continuing my career as a public servant than be a plaintiff in a lawsuit. But I feel strongly, and justice demands, that those who acted so harmfully against our national security must answer for their shameful conduct in court." From the AP: The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove today, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of participating in a "whispering campaign" to reveal Plame's CIA identity and punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq. Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named...

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