Six Degrees of Jack Abramoff



Jack Abramoff is just a link in a 6 degrees of separation game in which each link is an awful person and you get disgusted and frightened before you've gone past 2 degrees of separation.

I started this on a lark, and then I realized it is just so easy to make these connections, so sadly this is just a skimming of the surface. As it is this post took more then my standard few minutes (so I spread work on it over a few days). You too can frighten and anger yourself by doing this.

Some connections we all know quite well such as the strong friendship of Abramoff and Delay.



Other obvious connections some people would like to pretend don't exist.



EXCLUSIVE EMAILS: Jack Abramoff Describes Relationship With President Bush

ThinkProgress has obtained emails written by Jack Abramoff in which the fallen lobbyist personally describes his relationship with President Bush. They depict a relationship far more extensive than has been previously reported.

At a January 26 press conference, President Bush said "You know, I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him."
But according to Eisler, Abramoff told him that the two have met almost a dozen times, shared jokes, and spoke about details of Abramoff's family.

The Republicans in the House have moved around the chairs to look like they are dealing with the Abramoff issue.



But the new Majority Leader Boehner also is quite connected (maybe the issue with DeLay was that is was just waaay too obvious).

Ex-aide to House leader tied to Abramoff
Now adviser to Karl Rove, he helped plan trip to Mariana Islands

WASHINGTON - A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff's firm show.

Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.

Okay, let's just throw in anther obvious one:



ROVE & ABRAMOFF SHARED ASSISTANT

In 2001, Karl Rove needed a Gal Friday, someone to help oversee the "strategic planning, political affairs, public liaison, and intergovernmental affairs efforts of the White House."

He chose Susan Ralston, who came highly recommended from a friend: Jack Abramoff. Ralston performed similar duties for the Don of K Street -- that is until Abramoff realized she'd be far more useful embedded in the West Wing. (Ralston had also previous worked for Abramoff and Rove's fellow College Republican crony Ralph Reed.)

Though Abramoff has been a Republican political figure all along, he didn't always work in Washington. He had other ideas of how to increase conservative control (and his personal wealth). He headed to Hollywood.





Yes, only Abramoff could join forces with the military of the right wing apartheid government of South Africa to make a film that destroys what slim hope Dolph Lungren had of becoming a movie star

INDICTED GOP LOBBYIST JACK ABRAMOFF'S FAILED CAREER IN HOLLYWOOD....

Following his triumphant portrayal of Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Hollywood pundits touted Lundgren as the Swedish Schwarzenegger. With his girlfriend, the flat-topped Jamaican actress Grace Jones, he formed a muscle-bound glamour couple that paparazzi could hardly resist. Therefore, it made little sense that Lundgren would follow a rookie producer into a small African kingdom to make a B-movie called Red Scorpion.

As he mulled the Red Scorpion offer, Lundgren got a tempting taste of Abramoff's largesse, when, thanks to the producer, he starred in his very own grip-and-grin photo-op with the president of the United States. "In [Lundgren's] living room somewhere, there is a photo of him with Ronald Reagan," the movie's production manager, Avi Kleinberger, told me.

The tale of "Red Scorpion"

Initially, the movie was set to shoot in Swaziland, but at the last minute Abramoff moved the production to Namibia, which was occupied by South Africa's apartheid government. Congress had passed (over Reagan's veto) the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, making it very frowned-upon, when not illegal, to do business with South Africa or its proxies. This did not seem to bother Abramoff, who planned to use South African Defense Force vehicles and equipment on the set and soldiers as extras.

James Glickenhaus, whose company, Schapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment, ended up distributing "Red Scorpion" after Warner Brothers jumped ship, said he was not aware of the help provided by the SADF, but he was aware of the controversy over the location. "Look, had the film been made in Nazi Germany, I wouldn't have distributed it," he said. "But I personally felt upon investigating that the Namibian government was more simpatico than the South African government."

Yes the movie was a dud but do read the full write up, it wasn't just a mission to push the anti-communist conservative Republican agenda, it was also a chance to screw people out of money (and leave some actors complaining about unpaid bills).

Abramoff has been part of the Republican machinery for 2 decades, going back to when he was the Chairman of the College Republicans.



Yep, the man who managed Abramoff's campaign was none other then Grover Norquist. The man who compared the estate tax in the United States to the Holocaust. Grover is the one you can go to for a quote that sums up his and his ilk philosophy of governing:

To Norquist, who loves being called a revolutionary, hardly an agency of government is not worth abolishing, from the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration to the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts. "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

But Norquist tried to widen the circle of Republican friends and donors, and here is where he made some interesting connections.

Friends in high places
Sami Al-Arian isn't the only prominent Muslim leader who posed for chummy pictures with President Bush. Many conservative Republicans are uneasy at the way GOP power broker Grover Norquist curries support from the Muslim community.

Norquist and Saffuri founded the Islamic Institute in 1999 with seed money from Qatar, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern sources. Among the contributors, records show, was Saffuri's former boss, a Muslim charity director and founder of the American Muslim Council, Abdurahman Alamoudi.

The records show Alamoudi gave at least $35,000 to the institute, although Alamoudi said in a written statement he did "not recollect having been quite that generous."

Also funding the institute were two Virginia-based nonprofit organizations. The Safa Trust donated at least $35,000, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought gave $11,000, the records show.

Last March, federal authorities raided those groups and others in Operation Greenquest, a major assault on suspected terrorist financial networks.
Among the more than 50 targets of the raid were people and organizations connected to Norquist and the Islamic Institute.

The American Muslim Council had long been viewed with suspicion by federal investigators, terrorism experts and Jewish groups.

Although it preached tolerance, its co-founder, Alamoudi, had been videotaped at a pro-Palestinian rally outside the White House in 2000 exhorting the crowd: "We are all supporters of Hamas ... I am also a supporter of Hezbollah."

Still, a few months after the rally in Washington, Alamoudi was photographed in Beirut at a conference attended by representatives of the terror groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and al-Qaida.

Abramoff's college republican campaign wasn't run just by Norquist alone, no Norquist had a very able assistant, Ralph Reed who'd become a life long friend of Mr. Abramoff.



Its that kind of wonderful Washington friendship where a political operator, who's whole resume is his connection to the Christian right and his participation in creating the whole GOP moral values myth, can feel free to really open up and say what he needs deep down inside.

Reed and Abramoff appear to have set up a business arrangement as Reed wound down from the 1998 election cycle. Responding to a query from Abramoff about how candidates he supported had done, Reed wrote: "Hey, now that I'm done with the electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts! I'm counting on you to help me with some contacts."

Such old time values - that humping yielded money (humping for money truly being the world's oldest profession):

Material released yesterday also appeared to undermine assertions by former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, now a candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor.

Reed has acknowledged receiving $4 million from Abramoff and Scanlon to run anti-gambling campaigns in the South. Reed has said he did not know where the funds were coming from, but e-mails suggest that he was aware that some of the money he was getting came from the casino-rich Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

The political partnership and friendship of Reed, Abramoff, and Norquist is a shining beacon that people of different faiths can work together and bond over common goals. Alas their goal was power, influence, and cash, but let's not let that tarnish that little image of a mini world faith conference going on there on K street.

Another one of Abramoff's Republican College friends became a business partner later in life.



Let's talk about Ben Waldman (couldn't find a picture, but I should credit Google Image Search for finding all the other pictures.) college Republican pal and business partner. Ben used to work in the West Wing under President Reagan and later worked on Pat Robertson's Presidential bid. You know Pat Robertson, the guy who talks to god, espouses the assassinations of foreign leaders, and promotes the idea of praying to god so god will off some supreme court justices.

Pat Robertson does more then just say awful things, he has some awful business partners himself. Such as Charles Taylor:

Pat Robertson and His Business Buddies

Pat Robertson did learn about the gold mining investment opportunity from a visiting Liberian delegation. Robertson did subsequently create the for-profit Freedom Gold Limited in the Cayman Islands in December 1998 in which he was listed as the president and the company's sole director. He did conclude a mining agreement signed personally by him, Charles Taylor and key members of Taylor's cabinet on May 18, 1999. And the deal does give the Taylor regime a cut of the action.

Ah, having business partnerships with murderers.

Now it's going to get really interesting.





Abramoff owned a casino cruise line with Adam Kidan (the guy with the sling, and another college republican); Ben Waldman also participated, but just an itty bit, Kidan and Abramoff were the main and equal partners. The cruise line was SunCruz. SunCruz was owned by Gus Boulis. But Mr. Boulis didn't really want to sell. So Abramoff used some of his influence to get interesting things to happen. Such as the following piece being entered into the Congressional Record by Representative Ney of Ohio (I'll do his picture later)

However, there are a few bad apples out there who don't play by the rules and that is just plain wrong.

One such example is the case of Suncruz casinos based out of Florida. Florida authorities, particularly Attorney General Butterworth, have repeatedly reprimanded Suncruz casinos and its owner Gus Boulis for taking illegal bets, not paying out their customers properly and has had to take steps to prevent Suncruz from conducting operations all together.

I don't want to see the actions of one bad apple in Florida, or anywhere else to affect the business aspect of this industry or hurt any innocent casino patron in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that steps will be taken by the industry, and in the case of lawbreakers by the appropriate authorities, to weed out the bad apples so that we can protect consumers across the country.

Wow Gus must have thought, the Congressional Record, these guys have got connections (which is the point of this post really- Abramoff really had connections).

Congressional records show that on June 9, 2000, six days after House majority whip Tom DeLay returned from a golf junket to Scotland with Abramoff, the whip's office sent an American flag that had flown atop the Capitol to Boulis. Less than a week later, on June 15, Abramoff, Kidan, DeLay's deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy, and Joan Wagner, Boulis's chief financial officer at SunCruz, flew on SunCruz's private jet from Ft. Lauderdale to Pebble Beach, California, to watch the U.S. Open golf tournament. (Rudy never mentioned the trip in his congressional disclosure reports.)

Sending a flag that had flown over the capital to help a pal secure a business deal on a casino, talk about disgracing the flag.

So Abramoff and pals get the SunCruz lines and suddenly Rep. Ney puts another bit in the Congressional Record saying that SunCruz is now owned by awesome honest guys. Yep Abramoff and Kidan. The article, Money, Mobsters, Murder that I quoted from above goes into some detail about Kidan's possible mob ties (his mom was killed in a gangland hit). So if I was feeling really energetic I'd have another arrow pointing to the Mob, but its hard coming up with a graphical representation of the mob.

You're probably guessing where this all ends. Gus Boulis is murdered 6 months after the sale.

But all this talk about Ney and Casinos and SunCruz makes me ask this question:
What does a Republican Congressman and 9/11 terrorists have in common?

Answer: They like to launder money at Casinos.



Like all of the other bad apples connected with Abramoff, Ney had issues even without his Abramoff connection.

Congressman Linked to Abramoff Is No Stranger to Lobbyists

So far, Ney is the only member of Congress directly linked to allegations that Abramoff traded such gifts as the golf outing for legislative favors. He is identified simply as "Representative #1" in a Jan. 3 plea agreement between Abramoff and federal prosecutors.

Years before Ney came to Washington, however, he began accepting honorariums, in the form of personal checks, and travel from lobbyists and business interests when he served in the Ohio Legislature in the 1980s and '90s.

Two of his former legislative aides in Ohio became lobbyists and went to jail for bribery after Ney went to Washington.

On Capitol Hill, Ney has been tied to a string of favors from Abramoff, including the Scotland golf trip.

But this is the piece I want you to pay attention to:

He also traveled to England as the guest of a convicted swindler and businessman seeking government trade concessions, reported winning $34,000 at a London casino he visited with the ex-con's business partner, and made a personal deal with another Washington lobbyist to buy her family houseboat.

Going into a casino with a little bit of money (in Ney's case I think it was $100) and coming out with a lot of cash is a classic way of money laundering, it is one of the attractions that casino's hold for folks like the mob, and for 9/11 terrorists.

Yes the 9/11 terrorists loved going to Casinos.

Terrorists at Casinos has a laundry list of media reports of the casino visits from Atta and the other 9/11 terrorists. They loved Vegas and casinos it seems.

Brad Blog notes that al Qaida has indeed been reported to be interested in money laundering via casinos:

The Toronto Star of September 20, 2002 reported that members of al Qaida were arrested in Buffalo, New York, for participation in a money laundering scheme centered at the Casino Niagara.

But both of those links mention something else. Something that brings me to this last connection. And this is only one that may be of a stretch, but after reading the above and then reading the below one has to wonder: Yes is a small world, but is it this small of a world afterall?



From the Casino Watch page (which Brad Blog also notes), you'll see this little bit:

SunCruz Casinos turns over documents in terrorist probe
TAMPA, Fla. - SunCruz Casinos has turned over photographs and other documents to FBI investigators after employees said they recognized some of the men suspected in the terrorist attacks as customers.

Michael Hlavsa, chairman of the gambling cruise company, said Wednesday two or three men linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings may have been customers on a ship that sailed from Madeira Beach on Florida's gulf coast.
9/26/01 By VICKIE CHACHERE Associated Press Writer and Florida Times-Union

Brad Blog has this observation:

Since Abramoff used SunCruz to provide services to Republicans (we may safely presume that the Super Bowl junket wasn't the only occasion), I'd very much like to see that September 5, 2001 passenger manifest. Who was on the boat with the terrorists?

6 days before dying in the Pentagon and World Trade Center some of the 9/11 terrorists were on one of Abramoff's SunCruz boat gambling.

Was poor Jack just a bad apple magnet?

- rob 6:33 PM - [PermaLink] -

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And at 12:01AM George Bush turned back to reading "my pet goat II: Goat gets a rain coat"

White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

Yep pretty much every defense Bush's defenders offered back in September about the Federal Government's failure to respond has been proven a lie.

Brownie is doing a heck of a job letting the drown cat out of the bag: Ex-FEMA Chief Brown Blames DHS

WASHINGTON - Top Department of Homeland Security officials were told about New Orleans' levee failures the day Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, former disaster chief Michael Brown said Friday, contradicting agency officials who said earlier they were unaware of the severity of the problems until the next day.

"I find it a little disingenuous," Brown, who at the time headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a Senate oversight committee. "For them to claim that we didn't have awareness of it is just baloney."
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A management audit prepared by Brown months before the Aug. 29 storm showed that the agency had a lack of adequate and consistent situational awareness to size up emergencies, and was unable to properly control inventory and track assets, she told fellow committee members. Collins said the audit also showed that FEMA misunderstood standard response procedures.

"Despite this study, key problems simply were not addressed and, as a result, opportunities to strengthen FEMA prior to Katrina were missed," she said.

Collins said Brown also told Senate investigators that the Bush administration's sluggish response to Katrina was blamed in part on what he called a clash of cultures between preventing terrorism and preparing for other disasters.

Remember better to spend billions to save few from an enemy than to spend millions to save many from a reality.

- rob 5:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This isn't news to anyone, but maybe those who have been holding there ears going "lalalalabushisgoodlalalabushisgod" might hear just a little bit this time.

Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq
Intelligence 'Misused' to Justify War, He Says

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

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A lot of Bush's troubles can really be chocked up to simple misunderstandings.

Such as the difference between "classified" and "declassified" intelligence. It is an obvious thing to misunderstand. The average American would assume that a programme, a job, a memo, is classified because its revelation would hurt American. Ha, well you know the average joe six pack can be forgiven for such a mistake, but you see something is classified when its revelation would hurt Bush, not America, a subtle distinction know doubt.

Someone not fully into the ways of "inside the beltway", as they say...um... inside the beltway, might mistakenly believe that if an item is declassified it means its revelation could no longer harm national security. That is quite off the mark actually. If something is declassified it is because its revelation could help Bush or at least harm his enemies, national security doesn't enter into such a decision.

Libby Testified He Was Told To Leak Data About Iraq

Cheney was one of the "superiors" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said had authorized him to make the disclosures, according to sources familiar with the investigation into Libby's discussions with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame.
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The disclosure in a legal document written by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald demonstrates one way in which Cheney was involved in responding to public allegations by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the administration had exaggerated questionable intelligence to justify war with Iraq.

In a letter written in January and released in court papers filed by Libby's defense Monday, Fitzgerald wrote that Libby testified that his "superiors" authorized him to disclose information from the National Intelligence Estimate to reporters in the summer of 2003.

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They don't represent the people

Hastert, Frist said to rig bill for drug firms

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member.

You see the confusion was that it was a Defense bill, and they thought it meant "defending our special interests" instead of "defending America." Sadly they don't see a difference either.

- rob 3:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If I gave to the Republican Party I'd probably wonder why I'm donating to a party that as part of its campaign strategy is to destroy the concept of democratic campaigns being a "market place of ideas." Really aren't the republicans supposed to be all pro free market?

Yes, when you donate money to the Republican Party part of your donation goes directly to lawyers who are fighting to keep modern elections dirty. Yay!

Tobin legal defense may total $2.5 million

ARE REPUBLICAN donors still paying big time for the legal defense of convicted 2002 phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin?

The Republican National Committee's latest financial report shows a disbursement of $1,771,360.21 on Dec. 15 to the Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly LLP, which has defended Tobin since he was indicted in December 2004.

The RNC last August acknowledged doling out $722,000 for Tobin's defense in 2004 and early 2005.

Yesterday, RNC spokesman Aaron McLear wouldn't say what the latest disbursement to the firm was for.

If it was for Tobin, well - ka-ching. That's a total of $2.5 million.
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He was accused of helping former state GOP executive director Chuck McGee carry out a plan to jam Democratic and firefighters union get-out-the-vote telephone lines on the morning of Election Day 2002. Tobin was acquitted of the most serious charge, conspiring against votersÃ?’ rights. But he still faces a maximum seven-year prison term and $500,000 in fines.

Honest elections, honest reporting, and honest discussion of ideas don't play well for the Republican party these days, what with them having abandoned all their real conservative values (small government, no governmentintrusionn, fiscal responsibility, states rights) years ago. So when honesty doesn't work you get... Tobin, Rove, etc.

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AMERICAblog actually takes the time to read a Washtington Times Magazine article and notes the following.

1) The article makes clear that Bush is spying on Americans talking to Americans inside the United States, even when neither of the two Americans are members of Al Qaeda or an affiliate.
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2) The article makes clear that Bush's domestic spy program is totally ineffective and unnecessary as Al Qaeda stopped using the phones and email a long time ago.
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3) The article says that the Bush teams knows of specific Al Qaeda members in the US at the moment, but because of Bush's incompetence he has been unable to find them.

I imagine the artcile isn't as blunt as all that, but I haven't read it, and AmericaBlog has some good quotes, so check out his post.

- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

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President for Life
File this one under "mother of all nightmares." The Huffington Post has an article called: President Bush Forever! which mentions Joint Resolution 24, a proposed amendment to the constitution to repeal the 22nd amendment. In other words, a proposal to remove the amendment which limits a President to two terms in office. I've stated recently that this administration has a go-for-broke/break-all-the-rules attitude. If they aren't tossed out via impeachment, they're likely to attempt a Rovian coup d'etat. War with Iran or Syria, a terrorist strike in the US-- the scenarios are endless.

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I've got a fun post coming to ya tomorrow (I've been working on it off and on for a while now).

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The XXI Winter Games will feature sater slides instead of bobsleds

Olympics News: Games face a snow job

Just over a week ago, 1-2 feet of pristine white stuff fell in the region, prompting one USOC official, in an assessment of preparations last week, to write: “It was like Christmas morning, turning an industrial city into a magical Olympic host and the mountains from a brown, patchy countryside to a virtual whiteout.”

But most of all that golden snow appears gone now, the victim of three days of astonishing weather — the temperature hitting 59 on Feb. 1 — as northern Italy enjoys a mild winter much like New England. The ski venues are making snow like crazy and snow is even getting trucked in from snowier climes.

- rob 1:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Heck of a job Brownie!

Ex-FEMA chief: I may tell all about Katrina

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support.

Looking forward to the emails between Brown and Bush about which color clothes clash with the debris when going to visit disaster areas. After several exchanges I think they decided on muted colors and earth tones, and to always roll up their sleeves.

- rob 9:38 AM - [PermaLink] -

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The continuing distruction of our national security due to incompetence, cronyism, and office politics (gosh I'm just so, negative, you know?)

Top Counterterrorism Officer Removed Amid Turmoil at CIA

The CIA's top counterterrorism officer was relieved of his position yesterday after months of turmoil atop the agency's clandestine service, according to three knowledgeable officials.

Robert Grenier, who spent most of his career undercover overseas, took charge of the Counterterrorism Center about a year ago after a series of senior jobs at the center of the Bush administration's national security agenda.
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By the summer of 2002, with President Bush heading toward war in Iraq, then-Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet recalled Grenier to headquarters and promoted him to chief of a newly created Iraq Issues Group. His staff ballooned as the administration planned and launched the invasion in March 2003.

Grenier's predecessor at the Counterterrorism Center, who remains undercover, moved on to become chief of the National Clandestine Service, the successor to the CIA's directorate of operations. Sources said the two men differ sharply in style.
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There were rumors last September, when Robert Richer, the number two in the clandestine service, abruptly resigned, that Grenier was considering leaving with him. But the CIA denied the rumors at the time and said Grenier was very happy in his job.
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Grenier's departure comes at a time when the agency is bleeding top talent, robbing the CIA of institutional memory and damaging morale among case officers and analysts. Since Porter J. Goss became director in September 2004, well over a dozen senior officials -- several of whom were promoted under Goss -- have resigned, have retired early or have requested reassignment. Grenier was the third person to be head of counterterrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks.

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And speaking of unqualified Bush appointees (and who isn't):

A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

NASA Chief Backs Agency Openness (Feb. 4, 2006) Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.
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Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

According to his résumé, Mr. Deutsch received a "Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Class of 2003."

Yesterday, officials at Texas A&M said that was not the case.
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A copy of Mr. Deutsch's résumé was provided to The Times by someone working in NASA headquarters who, along with many other NASA employees, said Mr. Deutsch played a small but significant role in an intensifying effort at the agency to exert political control over the flow of information to the public.

Such complaints came to the fore starting in late January, when James E. Hansen, the climate scientist, and several midlevel public affairs officers told The Times that political appointees, including Mr. Deutsch, were pressing to limit Dr. Hansen's speaking and interviews on the threats posed by global warming.

Facts are enemies. Bush understands this and has set his little dogs on anyone who would dare discuss facts in public.

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For some reason the brilliant strategy of:

• Allowing the unfolding Ambramoff scandal to be painted as bipartisan as it is obviously a Republican issue.
• Not connecting for the public (or themselves) the fact that Ambramoff, the "Duke" and other scandals are part of a Republican culture that feels that lobbyists and government contracts owe them something. They expect their tithe for doing the people's business.
• Sitting by and allowing the executive department grab so much power as almost making their offices moot.
• Keeping quite about the huge ballooning budget and deficit caused by the merry spending of the republicans
• quietly marveling at the destruction of our government's ability to handle any crisis.
• Allowing the most obvious of cronies to be appointed to positions they have no qualifications for
• Not standing by our soldiers and demand proper armor for our troops and proper services by the contractors hired to provide them

isn't the big crowd pleaser their political advisors told them it would be.

Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 -- Democrats are heading into this year's elections in a position weaker than they had hoped for, party leaders say, stirring concern that they are letting pass an opportunity to exploit what they see as widespread Republican vulnerabilities.

In interviews, senior Democrats said they were optimistic about significant gains in Congressional elections this fall, calling this the best political environment they have faced since President Bush took office.

But Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

Seriously even with the news industry down playing the sheer weight of the corruption and incompetence there is no way the Democratic party should miss this opportunity to regain the House at the very least. If they do fail every single Democratic consultant has proven themselves to be some incompetent that they could only find employment in the Bush administration.

- rob 2:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Good job AMERICAblog!

We raised $5,000 for the body armor, we more than covered it, thank you!

Wow, you guys were amazing. In just two hours, we raised over $5,000, with over 180 donations ranging from $1 to $400 (average donation was around $20, so this really was a community effort).

Editor & Publisher has more: Newspaper Story on Soldier Forced to Pay for Body Armor Sparks Fundraising

NEW YORK It may have been a case of financial insult added to injury. Now an article in the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette has sparked a fundraising appeal on a popular political blog.

The newspaper reported today that a local man, 1st Lt. William "Eddie" Rebrook IV, had recently paid a bill for $700 for lost body armor he used in Iraq -- which was purportedly pulled off his body after he suffered severe wounds in a roadside bombing one year ago. The last time he saw the body armor "he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered," the article explained.

Rebrook, 25, left the Army for good because of his injuries. Apparently there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle, he said. He "scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday," the Gazette related.
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"We liberal folk may disagree with the Bush administration over the reasons for going to war and over how they're fighting this war," he declared, "but one thing you'd expect no disagreement over would be the treatment of our soldiers. They fight for their country and they deserve some respect in return. And that means not charging them for their body armor because someone blew them up on the battlefield."

Aravosis later reported receiving $4400 in donations from 187 people in the first two hours.

- rob 1:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Friend found this:

josemonkey.com: Cartoon Violence

I don't want to make light of the ongoing, violent protests over the cartoons depicting Mohammed, but I just saw this headline on CNN:

Bush urges end to cartoon violence

With a headline like that, I can't help but think that Dubya called a press conference to call attention to such senseless acts of violence as anvils falling on Wile E. Coyote's head and Jerry hitting Tom with a giant mallet.

- rob 1:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yes DC is a small town

The GOP is so secure in their power that they don't really care how it "looks" anymore.

When is a relationship too close?

Boehner Rents Apartment Owned by Lobbyist in D.C.

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

- rob 1:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yet another Dieblod success story:

Carlisle plans re-vote on fire/EMS levy

CARLISLE — Voters will have another opportunity Tuesday in a special election to decide whether the city should have a combined fire and emergency medical services department with 24-hour staffing or continue as a volunteer fire department.

This is the second time in three months this levy has been before voters. Last November, the levy was narrowly defeated.

But those election results were set aside due to voting irregularities from the new electronic touch screen voting machines.

More votes were cast than there were registered voters in the city’s Montgomery County precinct.

And yet local and state governments still seem to lesson to Diebold's sales pitch: Not only do we cost alot, you'll also need to spend more money running an election, and as an added bonus you'll pretty much toss your citizens right to have their voted counted out the window. Buy Now!

Got this thanks to Bradblog which notes:

Montgomery County is one of 41 counties in Ohio to have added new Diebold AccuVote TSX touch-screen (DRE) voting machines for last November's election.

In that election, remarkable and virtually inexplicable results occurred across the state in regard to four Election Reform initiatives on the ballot, all of which were predicted to pass by large margins in a historically accurate poll released just prior to Election Day. We wrote about the "staggeringly impossible" results of that election back in November. Those results have still not been explained, despite 44 of 88 counties in the Buckeye State using all-new touch-screen voting machines for the first time in that election.

- rob 6:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Corrupt little "kings" who think the United States treasury is their own little slush fund.

Did we used to make fun of Saddam for his extravegant palaces?

ATF Director Is Linked to Cost Overruns For New Building

The new headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the District is at least $19 million over budget at a time when the agency is considering sharp cuts in the number of new cars, bulletproof vests and other basics it provides agents.

The Justice Department inspector general's office recently received a complaint alleging that ATF Director Carl J. Truscott put through or proposed unnecessary plan changes and upgrades to the 438,000-square-foot building in the past two years, according to four sources familiar with the project.
...
Truscott planned to purchase, among other things, nearly $300,000 in extras for the new director's suite, including a $65,000 conference table and more than $100,000 for hardwood floors, custom trim and other items, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
...
The ATF headquarters' contracted price was $119.7 million in May 2004. Now the building, planned for a decade, is expected to cost at least $138.5 million when it is completed later this year, according to the General Services Administration.

ATF has also spent an additional $75 million for site acquisition, design, furniture and other costs, and is reviewing whether further expenditures will be needed before the agency can move into the space on time later this year, officials said
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ATF executives have been told to expect cutbacks of 20 to 30 percent in their operating costs this fiscal year. The heads of the agency's eight directorates were required to submit memos two weeks ago outlining cuts under that scenario.

Likely effects include no new cars for the agency, which commonly buys more than 300 vehicles a year, and no bulletproof vests to replace about 500 that are expected to expire this year, sources said.

Meanwhile, they said, Truscott has devoted much of his time to the new headquarters. At one meeting, they said, he and his aides discussed the relative merits of shower curtains vs. shower doors, and soap dispensers vs. soap dishes for the building's gymnasium area, which was redesigned to include more workout space. The consensus was shower curtains and soap dispensers, but towel service was ruled out as too costly, the sources said.

Other meetings focused on the colors of wallcoverings, types of flooring for different areas and details of $2 million worth of educational and historical exhibits, sources said. Managers spent weeks deciding on seating charts for their departments, sources said, even though the building was far from finished.

And when the agents asked for bulletproof vests Truscott looked up from his throne and said "let them eat cake...and then take a nice shower, bring your own towel, of course, we must be wise with our money."

- rob 6:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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An amazing post at First Draft noting that a King of a middle eastern land seems to understand that New Orleans is a continuing tragedy while the representative of the people of the United States (supposedly our President) doesn't even bother to acknowledge the tradgedy even exists anymore.

First Draft - Third World USA

"I just want you to know that you're not alone," the king said.

"This is not something that's going to be solved in a day and a night. This is a long challenge... We in Jordan will be with you with whatever we can do."
...
Nagin said that Abdullah talked to him about ways to contribute to education, housing and hospitals, and that Abdullah would have a proposal for him in two weeks.

"The international community is looking up and wondering what's going on," Nagin said. "And they're saying, why is the support so slow for New Orleans? The king asked me that directly. I think the international community may be poised to help us fill the gap."

Yes, the mayor of New Orleans a city in the richest country in the world is in a position where he feels (and rightly it seems) the need to get foreign aide.

The post continues with some comparisons, here's a few.

King of Jordan--Visited the 9th Ward

King of America--Bypasses unwashed to meet with landed gentry
...
King of Jordan--asks why is this place still such a mess

King of America--says progress is "pretty dramatic"
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King of Jordan--after my visit I'm going home to develop a plan for schools and houses and hospitals for you

King of America--after a few hours here I'm off to a multi-million fundraiser for me and mine

Meanwhile it Bush has forgotten about New Orleans, except where it reconstruction efforts fit into his larger "let opportunity to screw the poor be missed" policy.

Louisiana governor vows 'hardball' with Washington

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned state lawmakers on Monday that corruption could no longer be tolerated as the area rebuilds from the Hurricane Katrina disaster and vowed to "play hardball" with Washington over oil and gas revenues.
...
Five months after Katrina, much of the city remains in ruins and two-thirds of its population has not returned. Local and federal officials have blamed each other for the lack of a clear recovery plan and the White House has come out against a proposed bill that would have bailed out uninsured homeowners with billions of federal dollars.

Blanco, a Democrat, has threatened to block planned August sales of offshore oil and gas leases unless Washington agrees to give the state 50 percent of the royalties.

Louisiana currently gets no royalties from leases more than 6 miles off its coast and says it needs the billions of dollars it would receive to help repair coastal wetlands that oil industry development has left vulnerable to hurricanes.
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Industry leaders understand our predicament," Blanco said. "It's time to play hardball as I believe that's the only game Washington understands."

- rob 5:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Extremist Intolerant Hate is not just a trade mark of militant Islamics. It's pretty much the generic term for any radicalized religious group.

As we see in this glaring example by some American "Christians:" Funeral Protest Planned

Some members of a Topeka, Kan., church who protested outside of a memorial service for the 12 miners who died in the Sago Mine disaster are planning another protest -- this time outside of U.S. Army Sgt. Matthew Hunter's funeral.

Hunter, 31, of Valley Grove died Jan. 23 in Iraq from a roadside bomb. Born in Wheeling, Hunter was a 1992 graduate of Wheeling Park High School. He received numerous medals during his years of military service.
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Phelps-Roper said the purpose of the protest is to help people "connect the dots," to help them realize that "America is doomed."

Westboro Baptist Church members believe God is punishing AmericaÂ?s support of homosexuality.
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"The nation is Bible ignorant," she said.

Phelps-Roper said members of the church have protested outside of five funerals this week across the country. She said, if possible, church members also plan to protest outside of the funeral of Coretta Scott King, who is the late wife of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

But we won't see TV pundits discussing if this extreme example means that Christianity spurs on such hatred, no that coverage is limited to Islamics.

News flash: it isn't Christianity, Islam, or Judaism that creates such hatred -- it is humans. Petty insecure pathetic humans trying to bring meaning to their sad little lives, even if the meaning is just to live in fear and hatred.

- rob 5:12 PM - [PermaLink] -

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King eulogists jab Bush at funeral - Yahoo! News

"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war / She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar," he said.

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor."

The mourners gave a standing ovation. Bush's reaction could not be seen on the television coverage, but after Lowery finished speaking, the president shook his hand and laughed.

I think Bush was thinking "heh heh his poem didn't rhyme too well."

- rob 5:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Great minds of the 21st Century.

Alberto Gonzales the Attorney General of the United States:

President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.

Yep, you heard it Gonzales leaked the existence of Bush's secret time travel espionage programme. Click the link for a video of Alberto letting that time traveling bombshell slip.

Aother snippet:

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Holds a Hearing on Wartime Executive Power and the National Security Agency's Surveillance Authority

Senator Biden?

BIDEN: Thank you very much.

General, how has this revelation damaged the program?

I'm almost confused by it but, I mean, it seems to presuppose that these very sophisticated Al Qaida folks didn't think we were intercepting their phone calls.

I mean, I'm a little confused. How did it damage this?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I would first refer to the experts in the Intel Committee who are making that statement, first of all. I'm just the lawyer.

And so, when the director of the CIA says this should really damage our intel capabilities, I would defer to that statement. I think, based on my experience, it is true -- you would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance.

But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget.

Yes our national security plan is to depend on the terrorists sometimes being a bit forgetful.

- rob 4:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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$700, that's less then Halliburton overcharges in a minute.

Because his blood was not enough - Bush's Defense Department wants the soldiers to give them money for the honor of getting injured in Bush's ill managed war of choice.

Soldier pays for armor
Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded

The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.

A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.

But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.
...
Rebrook said he knows other soldiers who also have been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.

Over at AmericaBlog they've got a fund raiser going for this soldier. Check it out.

- rob 1:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Hilarious

The Colbert Report-Thank you

Stephen Colbert:

"You American workers haven't seen an increase in real wages since the 1970s...But are you rioting? No. You're voting for Republican candidates who give people like me tax cuts. You know what? I think that's your way of saying 'thank you.'"

It's a great video segment in both Quicktime and Windows Media, thanks to Crooks and Liars.

- rob 8:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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March of the straw soldiers

"Let me put it to you in Texan," Bush drawled at the Grand Ole Opry House on Wednesday. "If Al Qaeda is calling into the United States, we want to know."

Yes, and so does every American. But that has nothing to do with Bush's decision to toss out the Constitution and judicial process by authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant. Let's be clear: the president and his team had the ability to monitor calls by Al Qaeda operatives into and out of the United States before 9/11 and got even more authority to do it after the attacks. They never needed to resort to extralegal and probably unconstitutional methods.

- rob 8:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The statement isn't a news flash, but if there is any hope that people might pay attention we bring you:

Raw Story: Powell's former chief of staff on Iraq intel: 'I participated in a hoax'

In an interview that aired on PBS on Friday, Feb. 3, Colin Powell's former chief of staff claimed that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, laying out a case for war with Iraq, included falsehoods of which Powell had never been made aware. He said, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council."

- rob 8:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Spies Like Us



Before we go traveling around the web I think we should state the obvious, because as with many obvious things, some people aren't getting it:

Nobody is against eavesdropping on the terrorists.

People, like myself, are against the executive branch doing it without permission from the judicial branch, or without a law from the legislative branch. There are laws that allow eavesdropping to happen and happen immediately, the question is why doesn't Bush feel like he needs to obey the law.

Now to our schedule smorgasbord of copying and pasting:

• Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Live blogging the NSA hearings

  Of course Gonzales begins his Opening Statement by quoting Osama bin Laden and Zawahri. We used to quote Madison, Jefferson and Lincoln to decide what the principles of our Government are going to be. Now we quote Al Qaeda. The Administration wants Al Qaeda and its speeches to dictate the type of Government we have. It is the centerpiece of everything they do and say.

• Daily Kos: Important development In Gonzales hearing

  During the first morning of Gonzales' testimony to the Congressional hearing on the wiretapping issue, a critical sleight-of-hand has been allowed to occur that has not been challenged.
  
  It is making a nonsense of the whole hearing and allowing the answers of Gonzales to deny aspects of the programme that the Democrat Senators believe they are discussing and certainly what all of us on DKos believed these hearings were about.
  
  It is all contained in the key words that Gonzales has been careful to continuously repeat "the programme that we are discussing today"
  ...
  As the hearing progressed this qualification on what was being addressed by Gonzales became more frequent.

  "Senator, yes. The programme that I am talking about today is limited to those international calls"

  In other words, Gonzales is talking about one programme concerned with wiretapping. His assertions that these are legal refers only to the wiretapping under this programme. Somewhere, the White House has other programmes but these are not part of the hearings. No doubt, those wiretaps that are more questionable fall under, or are hurriedly assigned, to these other programmes.
  
  This mechanism, this defining by Gonzales of the hearing being about just one of these programmes which he calls "narrowly tailored", allows him to address only those issues that he chooses to address.

• Lindsey Graham: "The Inherent Authority ArgumentÃ?…Seems To Have No Boundaries"

  Lindsey Graham (R-SC) explains the danger of the administration's legal position:

  All I'm saying is the inherent authority argument in its application to me seems to have no boundaries when it comes to executive decisions in a time of war, it deals the Congress and courts out, Mr. Attorney General.

  The problem isn't that the administration is monitoring communications with al Qaeda. That is not only appropriate, it's essential. The problem is that the legal underpinnings of this particular program, if accepted, would allow for unchecked executive authority.
  
  No president should have unchecked authority, especially not this one. [my apologies to Think Progress since I just pasted their entire post]

• Specter Criticizes Rationale for Spying

  Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday he believes that President Bush violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secret court to consider and approve such monitoring. The Pennsylvania Republican branded Gonzales' explanations to date as "strained and unrealistic."

• Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects
  NSA's Hunt for Terrorists Scrutinizes Thousands of Americans, but Most Are Later Cleared

  Bush has recently described the warrantless operation as "terrorist surveillance" and summed it up by declaring that "if you're talking to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why." But officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no.

Gen. Hayden: Check this out, I've got lazers in my fingers! zoosh zoosh

- rob 7:52 PM - [PermaLink] -

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New rules for attending the state of the union:

No T-shirts, no sweatshirts, and no brown skin.

TIME.com: The State of the Union's Mystery Suspect

Much has already been made of the fact that both anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young, the wife of Republican Congressman Bill Young, were ejected from the speech for wearing shirts with political messages; in Sheehan's case, her t-shirt read "2,245 dead. How many more?", while Young was sporting a sweat shirt with the words, "Support the Troops-Defending Our Freedom." Both have denounced their treatment-and both have received apologies from the police.
...
But on the same evening that President Bush was lauding democracy and freedom, there was one other person in attendance whose rights were infringed upon. The man, who did not want his identity revealed after the disturbing incident, was a personal guest of Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings. He is a prominent businessman from Broward County, Florida who works with the Department of Defense-and has a security clearance. After sitting in the gallery for the entire speech, he was surrounded by about ten law enforcement officers as he exited the chamber and whisked away to a room in the Capitol.

For close to an hour the man, who was born in India but is an American citizen, was questioned by the Police, who thought he resembled someone on a Secret Service photo watch list, according to Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer. Eventually, the police realized it was a case of mistaken identity and let him go.
...
But the man was "very, very scared" by the incident, says Fred Turner, a spokesperson for Hastings. On Tuesday night, he told the congressman that the experience was "maybe just the price of being brown in America," Turner says.

- rob 7:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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GOP Senator Sessions: America must trade freedom for security

From: AMERICAblog

How low can the Republicans go? Pretty low. Sessions and Cornyn are holding a press event with a family members of the pilot of the American Airlines jet that flew into the Pentagon. And Sessions literally said that there are 3,000 Americans who no longer have civil rights.

Live Free or Die? Republicans seem to think the ability to go shopping at the Mall is more important then the liberties the hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending.

Of course they don't believe that America should sacrifice liberty for temporary security, they only believe Americans should surrender to the will of George Bush. This argument of theirs is all part of the ploy to make Americans believe that Bush's policy of warrantless searches actually makes America safer, and that is very very doubtful. If there is probable cause that someone is involved in terrorism FISA would give out a warrant, the Bush administration only has to bother asking (and yes do some paperwork), heck they even have up to 72 hours AFTER the fact, so the idea that the snooping has to be done in a rush isn't an excuse for them not to do their homework. In fact, getting up to the point of probable cause allows the NSA and FBI to concentrate their efforts on actual suspects. It has been reportet multiple times that since these warrantless searches have started the FBI has been given thousands of pointless leads, taking them away from potentially more fruitful investigations.

If the Republican party really believes safety no matter what trumps liberty then they'd jump on outlawing hand guns. Why in 2001 7,900 Americans no longer lost their right to bare arms (and lets not mention the 2,239 murdered with another type of gun). Heck 2,090 American's lost their civil liberties because of knifes - let's face it you can eat just as well with just a fork and spoon, and what you can't eat without knife you shouldn't be eating anyway (steak?).

How far do they want to take their example? Thousands upon thousands killed by car accidents. By golly, there isn't even a mention about the right to drive in the constitution. Bye bye automobiles.

Environmental damage kills untold tens of thousands of Americans every year. I'm sure that Sessions and other GOP senators will leap at the chance of regulating corporations to force them to become better neighbors.

Pathetic.

Little Note: While looking up the stats on handgun deaths I converted the data to an amazingly ugly line graph:



Wow murder just went up every year George H.W. Bush was in office, and Clinton just brought it down to early eighties levels. Are we now seeing it trend back up? (another Bush in office you know).

Did the murder rate go down because of some amazing police initiative of Clinton's? Did he do warrantless snooping on crack dealers? Well besides helping police funding Clinton oversaw a booming economy. This may be news to the right wing, but economics do in fact effect crime. The good economy was also largely responsible for the declines in abortion and teen pregnancies under Bill Clinton (of course the right is wanting you to believe that because of Bill Clinton teens suddenly discovered blow jobs, and if so maybe that explains the reduction in teen pregnancies - its a good thing either way). One way to tell that Bush's "economic recovery" is not real is that it probably won't reduce crime or teen pregnancies, because the average American isn't participating in this recovery, they are actually hurting more.

Clinton can't take all the credit for the reduction in crime of course, just like he can't take all the credit for the economic boom. No there were other factors that reduced crime such as the reduction in the use of crack (though heroin became more popular but face it a guy stoned on heroin isn't nearly as dangerous as a stoned guy on crack). Also the baby boom continued to get older which took them even farther away from street crime and moved them up to government and big business crime.

And yes I should probably should point out that you aren't more likely to be a criminal if you are a baby boomer (though that would be an interesting argument someone might have fun having), just that there are so many baby boomers versus other population segments that a lot of the seventies and eighties crime increase can be attributed to a lot more then normal amounts of males in their twenties (and thirties) running around (and with bad haircuts).

- rob 7:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Look at the mouse get distracted by the string!

Camera Gear Interrupts Bush News Conference

Watch the video.

- rob 4:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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