Late-Night Shows Are Saying...

"Vice President Dick Cheney also in Iraq this week. Cheney told the Iraqi government that their leaders have to show some progress on both their domestic and economic fronts. And the Iraqis said to Cheney, 'Uh, you first.'" --Jay Leno

"Interesting fact came out today on the new $5 bill. It turns out it used to be the old $10 bill." --Jay Leno

"Today, Barack Obama criticized John McCain for mistakenly saying that Iran was sending aid to al Qaeda in Iraq, which is not true. And afterwards, President Bush told McCain, 'Don't worry about it. I didn't know that either.'" --Jay Leno

"As you know, Governor Paterson is legally blind, which has gotta be an advantage when you're having an affair. This way, when your wife catches you in bed with another woman, you go, 'Honey, I thought it was you.'" --Jay Leno

"That's the other big scandal on the East Coast. A male aide to former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey says the governor's wife should have known he was gay, because they all used to have three-way sex together. As he called it, a 'McThreevey.'" --Jay Leno

"So, let's see, Jim McGreevey was having three-ways. Eliot Spitzer was having sex with prostitutes. The new governor, David Paterson, was having an affair. You realize the only politician in New York not getting any sex -- Hillary Clinton." --Jay Leno

"Are you fold excited about March Madness? You know, here's how it works. We go from 65 to 32, then to 16, and then to eight and -- well, no, no, that's -- those are Hillary Clinton's superdelegates." --David Letterman

"Vice President Dick Cheney, you know where he is right now? He's in Baghdad. He visited there. While he was in Iraq, he said that it's a successful endeavor. At least I think that's what he said. It was hard to hear over the explosions." --David Letterman

"Speaking of that, this week marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war and the third anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished.' ... Remember critics saying, oh, the war was just about oil so we could keep the price of gasoline cheap? That worked out well, didn't it? Now we're the ones with shock and awe." --Jay Leno   About.com

Technorati Tags: Jay Leno.David Letterman, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton

Obama's Passport File Illegally Accessed

  Of course you all know this by now, but today, Chairman Henry Waxman  ( Oversight Committee ) sent a letter to the State Department asking for the names of the companies who had hired the contractors who got the unauthorized information to Barack Obama's passport files. Chairman Waxman also wishes for the State Department to release this info to the public.  Source

  I do not see that happening under the currant administration as it seems that someone in the Bush Crime Syndicate is up to no good once again. Contractors do not get this kind of info just by pure luck.

   Anyway, here's Waxman's letter to State. You can also get the full text in (pdf).

Dear Madam Secretary:

Yesterday, Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, the Under Secretary of State for Management, confirmed that three contract employees working for two State Department contractors gained unauthorized access to the passport records of Senator Barack Obama. When Ambassador Kennedy was asked for the identities of the contract employees and the companies, however, he declined to provide them:

Question: Are you releasing the names of any of these three contractors or the companies for which they were contracting on behalf of the State Department? …

Ambassador Kennedy: In a word, no.

I am writing to request that you provide the Oversight Committee by Monday with the identities of the companies involved in these breaches. I also believe this information should be made publicly available.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in House Rule X.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman

Technorati Tags: Henry Waxman, State Department, Barack Obama, passport, Patrick Kennedy

Bush's Past Business Failures

  Before I list George Bush's failures as a business man, I'd like to first point out that in most cases, Bush came out ahead of the game. the idiot did make some pretty good money as a loser. If you are a Republican, that counts as a success.

   Once you look at the Bush business record, then you begin to realize why Bush was selected as the chosen puppet for the conservative group when it came time to picking their presidential nominee back in 2000. Bush is just to plain ignorant about things to ask any questions when ordered to perform for his masters.

   It was once stated that Bush is the only oil man in Texas who couldn't find any oil and after reading this you will understand why. George Bush is nothing but an elite class, spoiled rotten, dumb-ass, idiot. He has the morals of Satan trying to look like a Christian and there is nothing Christian about the man, as we all know.

  Now that I have said my piece, let's get down to business.

 

The Sources and Sprynet.com

1) Arbusto, an oil exploration company, lost money, but it got considerable investments (nearly $5 million) because even losing oil investments were useful as tax shelters.

2) Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. bought out Arbusto in 1984 and hired Mr. Bush to run the company's oil interests in Midland, Texas. The oil business collapsed as oil prices plummeted by 1986, and Spectrum 7 Energy was near failure.

3) Harken Energy acquired Mr. Bush's Spectrum 7 Energy shares, and he got Harken shares, a directorship, and a consulting arrangement in return. Harken, under Bush, brought in Saudi real estate tycoon Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh as a board member and a major investor. Over the next few years, Harken would turn out to have links to: Saudi money, CIA-connected Filipinos, the Harvard Endowment, the emir of Bahrain, and the shadowy Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

• A 1991 internal SEC document suggested George W. Bush violated federal securities law at least 4 times in the late 1980s and early 1990s in selling Harken stock while serving as a director of Harken. This is essentially the same kind of activity that Martha Stewart is going to prison over. Except at the time of the investigation, Mr. Bush's father was president and the case was quietly dropped.

In his book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, John W. Dean explains that his family name and his father's prominence were significant factors in George W. Bush's business "success", or, were significant factors in repeated saves from serious business and financial failures. Both Arbusto/Bush Exploration and Spectrum 7 failed with Bush as chairman and CEO. At Harken, Mr. Bush was relieved of day-to-day management responsibilities but still served on the board of directors. Dean also notes:

• George W. Bush claims his formative years, which he extends to age 40, are out of bounds. Yet those are the years when one's character and values are formed. Bush had occasionally overindulged with alcohol, and he was a bit of an irresponsible youth.
• Dean believes Mr. Bush took advantage of his insider information when he sold his Harken stock in 1990, but he escaped SEC penalties because his father was president and many of the investigating officials had Bush family ties and other conflicts of interest. Many of the facts about the Harken deal remain buried and Bush has stonewalled all efforts to find out more.       ( to be continued )

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Harken Energy, business, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp

Idiot In Charge: Bush's Failures

Published on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 by TruthDig.com

Bush’s Legacy of Failure

by Robert Scheer

That idiotic “what me worry?” look just never leaves the man’s visage. Once again there was our president, presiding over disasters in part of his making and totally on his watch, grinning with an aplomb that suggested a serious disconnect between his worldview and existing reality. Be it in his announcement that Iraq was being secured on a day when bombs ripped through that sad land or posed between his treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman to applaud the government’s bailout of a failed bank, George Bush was the only one inexplicably smiling.

Failure suits him. It is a stance he learned well while presiding over one failed Texas business deal after another, and it served him splendidly as he claimed the title of president of the United States after losing the popular, and maybe even the electoral, vote. It carried him through the most ignominious chapter of U.S. foreign policy, from the lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to an unprecedented presidential defense of torture.

The totally unwarranted assurance was there this week as the once proud dollar fell into the toilet and the debacle of Iraq and Bush’s other failed Mideast policies pushed oil prices to record highs. The Europeans, who didn’t support the U.S. imperial intervention, are doing much better, not having to pay for guarding besieged oil pipelines while U.S. taxpayers are saddled with trillions in future debt, not to mention 4,000 U.S. military deaths and 30,000 U.S. injuries in a war the administration had promised would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues. Even in Baghdad last week there wasn’t enough oil to keep the lights on for more than a few hours.

But the president is happy because his legacy issue, the war on terror, is intact. No matter that this week the Pentagon was forced to release a report conducted over the last five years that concluded, after surveying 600,000 official Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces, that there is “no smoking gun” establishing any connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The report was so embarrassing that we taxpayers who paid for it were not going to be told of its existence, even though the explosive conclusions were totally declassified, until ABC News forced its posting online.

The network reported that the Pentagon had canceled plans to issue a press release or make it available by e-mail or otherwise online because, as one Pentagon official put it, the study is “too politically sensitive.” Damn right it is-Bush squandered U.S. treasure and lives in an effort that had nothing to do with the infamous attack on America. As for the real war on terror against the real al-Qaida, those folks are very much on the rebound, just where they were before the 9/11 attack, building their bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Wall Street is crumbling, not because of planes crashing into buildings but because the outrageous knaves of finance, freed from the most minimal requirements of public accountability, have been permitted to destroy America’s reputation in the world for financial probity.

In the name of ending what were claimed to be onerous regulations imposed after the Great Depression, this administration accelerated a bipartisan pattern of allowing Wall Street to betray investors with impunity while abandoning the federal government’s obligation, once accepted equally by conservatives and liberals, to ensure our national solvency. This tendency, under way for decades to give the bankers what they wanted-codified in the Financial Services Modernization Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton and which permitted banks, stock brokers and insurance companies to merge-was exacerbated by Bush’s appointment of rapacious corporate foxes to watch the corporate henhouse.

They will take care of their own, which is why Bush was smiling, happily posed in that photo op between Henry Paulson Jr. and Ben Bernanke announcing the Bear Stearns bailout, made possible only by the federal government using your tax dollars to pick up the bad debt of the banks. Tape that picture to your wall to remind you, when you open a credit card bill with a 30 percent interest rate-not the 2 percent the Fed will charge banks-or see the increase in your adjustable rate mortgage, of just what your government will do for the really big guys that it will never do for regular folks.

In the years to come, as millions lose their retirement income and homes, we will have occasion to remember Georgie Porgie, who kissed the taxpayers and made them cry before he ran away.

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

© 2008 TruthDig.com

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Wall Street, Iraq

Only in America

  Let us get away from all of the political crap that is going on, for just a bit. Here are a few not quite news-worthy articles for a change of pace.

 

ORLANDO, Fla. - A teacher was put on paid leave Tuesday while officials investigate why a student urinated in a lunch box during her class.
The Meadowbrook Middle School student urinated in a lunch box while hiding behind a classroom bookcase, Orange County school officials said Tuesday.
According to statements by other students in the class, school officials think that when the boy asked to go the restroom on Thursday, teacher Jameeka Chambers told him to hold it or use her lunch box.    Newsday

 

Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Ben Russell has a title most people would walk away from. Russell, 15, from Eagle River, Alaska, beat seven other contestants from around the country to claim the title of rottenest sneakers in the country.

News of the Weird

William Torres, 21, was arrested in Allentown, Pa., and charged in connection with two homicides; he was taken into custody after a Friday afternoon traffic stop in January, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, pajama bottoms and fuzzy slippers with a lion's face. [Morning Call (Allentown), 1-26-08]

    And just for enquiring minds who want to know:

Male bats have the highest rate of homosexuality of any group of mammals that exist - especially fruit bats.   Source

  This could be my kind of church

Thats weird

A church leader in Florida has urged parishioners to have sex every day for a month to help cut America's high divorce rates.
Pastor Paul Wirth, who is taking up the sex marathon challenge with his wife Susie, said that couples right across the nation were struggling in their relationships.
For married people he said it seemed like "the sex is great up front but then for some reason life happens."
But for singles "it's like you're always thinking about it and you're like, man I'd like to have it as much as possible."
Sometimes that prevented single people from having a great and healthy relationship later on when they got married.
But Mr Wirth's challenge for his single parishioners is a little different than that for married couples. He wants them to abstain from sex for 30 days     

  Have a good day everyone! Try not to let Bush upset you today.

Technorati Tags: news, America, Jameeka Chambers, Ben Russell

Georgia State Rep. Ron Sailor Jr Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering

Newsday

ATLANTA - A Georgia lawmaker pleaded guilty Tuesday to money laundering charges stemming from an undercover sting, and federal officials said the case had opened up a broader public corruption investigation in the state.
As part of a plea deal, state Rep. Ron Sailor Jr., a church pastor, also agreed to resign within 24 hours from the Georgia Legislature.
Sentencing was scheduled for May 22. The 33-year-old Democrat from Decatur could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

  Another one bites the dust!  forget about the fine and just give him the 20 years. Gives him plenty of time to think about his stupidity.

Technorati Tags: Ron Sailor, Georgia, money laundering, Democrat

Barack Obama: As President Of The United States? Part VI: Senior Citizens

HERE in downloaded PDF from his website

BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN TO STRENGTHEN RETIREMENT SECURITY
“We … have an obligation to protect Social Security and ensure that it’s
a safety net the American people can count on today, tomorrow and
forever.  Social Security is the cornerstone of the social compact in this
country. …Coming together to meet this challenge won’t be easy. …It
will take restoring a sense of shared purpose in Washington and across
this country. But if you put your trust in me – if you give me ‘your hand
and your heart’ – then that’s exactly what I intend to do as your next
President.”
–Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA,
October 27, 2007

AT A GLANCE
Commitment
As someone who was largely raised by his grandparents, Obama has first-hand knowledge of how hard America’s seniors have worked to defend our country, teach our children and grow our economy.  He will honor their lifetime of work.
Protect Social Security
Obama will preserve Social Security by stopping any efforts to privatize it and working in a bipartisan way to preserve it for future generations.
Secure Hard-Earned Pensions
Obama will fight to ensure that companies don’t dump their pension obligations.
Help Americans Save More
Obama will make retirement savings automatic.
THE PROBLEM
Insecure Retirement Savings
Retirement savings are near a historic low and 75 million working Americans lack employer-based retirement plans.  Too many companies have dumped their pension obligations, leaving workers in the cold.
Income Security
With skyrocketing health care, energy and housing costs, and the risk of being defrauded by insurance companies, too many seniors do not have the resources to live comfortably.
 BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN
Protect Social Security
Obama is committed to ensuring Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future.  Obama will be honest with the American people about the long-term solvency of Social Security
and the ways we can address the shortfall.  Obama will protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries alike.  And he does not believe it is necessary or fair to hardworking seniors to raise the retirement age.  Obama is strongly opposed to privatizing Social Security.
Obama believes that the first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system.
Currently, the Social Security payroll tax applies to only the first $97,500 a worker makes.  Obama supports increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security and he will work with Congress and the American people to choose a payroll tax reform package that will keep Social Security solvent for at least the next half century.
Strengthen Retirement Savings
Reform Corporate Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Workers and Retirees:  Current bankruptcy laws protect banks before workers.  Obama will protect pensions by putting promises to workers higher on the list of debts that companies cannot shed; ensuring that the bankruptcy courts do not demand more sacrifice from
workers than executives; telling companies that they cannot issue executive bonuses while cutting worker pensions; increasing the amount of unpaid wages and benefits workers can claim in court; and limiting the circumstances under which retiree benefits can be reduced.
Require Full Disclosure of Company Pension Investments
Obama will ensure that all employees who have company pensions receive detailed annual disclosures about their pension fund’s investments.  This will provide retirees important resources to make their pension fund
more secure.
Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less Than $50,000
Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year.  This will provide an immediate tax cut averaging $1,400 to 7 million seniors and relieve millions from the burden of filing tax returns.
Create Automatic Workplace Pensions
Obama’s retirement security plan will automatically enroll workers in a workplace pension plan.  Under his plan, employers who do not currently offer a retirement plan, will be required to enroll their employees in
a direct-deposit IRA account that is compatible to existing direct-deposit payroll systems. Employees may opt-out if they choose. Experts estimate that this program will increase the savings participation rate for low
and middle-income workers from its current 15 percent level to around 80 percent.
Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families
Obama will ensure savings incentives are fair to all workers by creating a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans.  His plan will match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that
earn less than $75,000.  The savings match will be automatically deposited into designated personal accounts.
Over 80 percent of these savings incentives will go to new savers.
Prevent Age Discrimination
Obama will fight job discrimination for aging employees by strengthening the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and empowering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to prevent all forms of discrimination.
SENIORS
Affordable Health Care
Provide Cheaper Prescription Drugs:
Our seniors pay the highest prices in the world for brand-name
drugs.  To lower drug costs, Obama will allow the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices for the Medicare program, just as it does to lower prices for our veterans.  He also supports allowing seniors to
import safe prescription drugs from overseas, and will prevent pharmaceutical companies from blocking cheap and safe generic drugs from the market.
Protect and Strengthen Medicare:  Obama is committed to the long-term strength of the Medicare program.  He will reduce waste in the Medicare system, including eliminating subsidies to the private
insurance Medicare Advantage program, and tackle fundamental health care reform to improve the quality and efficiency of our healthcare system.  Obama supports closing the “doughnut hole” in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
Provide Transparency to Medicare Prescription Drug Plans:  Many seniors are enrolled in Medicare prescription drug plans that are actually more expensive for them than other available plans.  Obama will
require companies to send Medicare beneficiaries a full list of the drugs and fees they paid the previous year to help seniors determine which plans can better reduce their out-of-pocket costs and improve their health.
Strengthen Long-Term Care Options:
As president, Obama will work to give seniors choices about their
care, consistent with their needs, and not biased towards institutional care.  He will work to reform the financing of long term care to protect seniors and families.  He will work to improve the quality of elder care, including by training more nurses and health care workers.
Protect and Honor Seniors
Ensure Heating Assistance:
Obama will increase funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program (LIHEAP) which helps low-income citizens – many of them seniors – pay their winter heating and summer cooling bills.
Support Senior Volunteer Efforts:
Retired Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to
contribute to local and national public service efforts.  Obama will engage more interested seniors into public service opportunities by expanding and improving programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors
with quality volunteer opportunities.
OBAMA RECORD
Social Security and Pensions
In the midst of the 2005 debate over Social Security privatization, Obama gave a major speech at the National Press Club forcefully arguing against privatization.  He also repeatedly voted against Republican amendments that aimed to privatize Social Security or cut benefits.  Obama has also voted to force companies to properly fund their pension plans so taxpayers don’t end up footing the bill.
Medicare
Obama has supported a number of efforts to strengthen Medicare, including voting for legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper prescription drug prices and to extend the enrollment period for low- income beneficiaries.
 Protecting Seniors
After reports that lobbyists, but not the American people, received information about the most unsafe nursing homes in the country, Barack Obama demanded the Department of Health and Human Services release that information.  Following Obama’s letter, the names of the four Iowa care facilities cited for
unsafe care were released to the public.  Obama’s efforts follow his successful efforts in Illinois to make nursing home information public and strengthen elder abuse laws.

Part V: THE ECONOMY

Part IV: HEALTHCARE

Part III: ETHICS

Part II: ETHICS

Part 1

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Social Security, the economy, 2008

McCain And Cheney Visit Iraq

 Associated Press 

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Sen. John McCain stressed the importance of a U.S. commitment to Iraq during talks with Iraq's prime minister Monday, and explosions struck Baghdad during twin visits by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and Vice President Dick Cheney. Helicopter gunships circled over central Baghdad and the heavily fortified Green Zone, but no details were immediately available on the cause of the explosions.

   Let's see now. We have an old man with memory problems and we have the most corrupt Vice President in our history in Iraq at the same time. This cannot be a good thing for the United States or anywhere else in the world. The Bush Crime Syndicate is up to something.

Technorati Tags: John McCain, Iraq, Dick Cheney

Republicans to Deal Cocaine Again?

  Many of you may remember the 1980's as the decade of cocaine and the Contra scandal that went with it. That was the one in which the Republicans ( Ronald Reagan ) were letting the CIA import cocaine into the United States so that dear old Uncle Sam could supply weapons to our South American enemies, Noriega being our point man until he was no longer of useful to the U.S.

  Well now, it seems that the Republican Drug Cartel is up to its old tricks once again, only this time it is that mean man Chavez down in Venezuela who is the Bush Crime Syndicate target. Gotta control South America because we need the oil, so let's dope up or citizens again in order to pay for the things we might need.

   Read this following article in full and then start bitching to your Representatives. Pass this on while you are at it because everyone needs to be aware of this Bush activity.

Chimpy's new gambit is in Venezuela, here we go again!

by boilerman10 Sat Mar 15, 2008  @ DailyKos

You are in a park...a man approaches, you just know this is a dope sale pitch, but you arn't sure if it's a sting, so you engage this guy and he opens his pocket to show you pack after pack after pack of sniff and rock and he says, "I got crack, I got blow, I'll take you anywhere you want to go."  

Sounds like the 1980's when the snowstorm of cocaine unleashed upon the nation funded the Contra armies and death squads in Central America.  Oh yeah, just like Noriega in Panama, our point man in the coke trade who was so useful...until he wasn't.

Well guess what, the Chimpy Junta is up to mischief!  Hey, everything old is new again I guess, because the dirty bastards are doing it again.  This time the target is Venezuela.  Let's jump.    

You don't need to be either a social scientist or a New York City cop with 25 years on the beat to remember the horror that was unleashed in Harlem and Spanish Harlem when the coke epidemic exploded like a shrapnel shell in those neighborhoods.

You don't need to be a clinic worker to remember the human disaster of the coke blizzard.  If you weren't in the outreach, or the prevention groups you have no idea how horrible it was.  Cocaine and crack were everywhere, cheap and easy to find.  In an out-of-the-way place like Syracuse, NY coke was so readily available that renowned local columnist, the late Bob Haggart often commented on the "Saturday night snowstorm."

Naturally, if the Bush administration gets its hands into mischief they invariably screw it up.  Bill Conroy, from Al Giordano's Narco News Bulletin relays a story that should scare the bejebus out of all of us,  but as you read this story you find yourself thanking your lucky stars that those don't give a damn about America neo-cons in Bush's regime tipped their hand and gave away the store.

Let's take a look at this.  We know that Bush and the neo-cons have a hard on for Chavez.  We know that this criminal administration has tried several ways to undermine and depose Chavez because of his more people oriented, socialistic policies.  Oil is at the heart of the matter, but oil isn't the entire thing, it's the money that is going to just plain Venezuelans instead of the "patrones and their Gringo amigoes."

So, after trying to foment war by turning the right wing death squad guerrillas from Uribe's Colombia loose in an unofficial cross border war, and trying to undo Chavez in elections and dirty tricks, and now in desperation the neo-cons returned to doing this:

Two Florida-based companies that have exported a total of at least 11 aircraft to Venezuelan buyers since 2003 are linked to four cocaine planes and what appears to be an elaborate covert intelligence operation, an ongoing Narco News investigation shows.

The covert program, law enforcement sources contend, likely involves the CIA and components of Defense Department intelligence agencies, and is focused, in part, on penetrating, or even propping up, narco-trafficking groups in Venezuela. That country’s outspoken leader, Hugo Chávez, is regularly demonized by U.S. policymakers for, among other things, supposedly allowing his country to become a haven for narco-traffickers

The US has already been victimized once by Republicans trying to be dope peddlers in the name of democracy!  The last exercise in Republican "caring for America" cost thousands of US citizens their lives, packed our prisons, wasted our treasure and left a broad swath of destruction that still impacts the nation to this day and these filthy Republicans and their most accomodating pals in Congress, the Pentagon and the CIA want to do it again.

Yeah!  Vote for McCain.  Have a cocaine explosion in America again because we need to export democracy you know, and if your son or daughter is ruined or dies from the "liberty for Venezuela" cocaine, well they weren't very bright anyway were they?  I want to know McCain's stand on this "cocaine to undo Chavez scam?"  This is a Republican administration sponsered scam Senator, do you disavow it?

Dear God in heaven where do people like those in this wretched administration who would try to do this horror again come from!  In my life I have seen war whooping Republican good-for-nothing ideologues restart the Vietnam war in a different place and put our nation into an unwinnable quagmire which is destroying us as well as the Iraqis.  Now we have to go through the 'drugs-for money-for guns" disaster again too?  

This is a huge article, with photos and links of its own.  Due to the sheer mass of the article I will post about 8 more paragraphs and do so free use only.

Whos involved:

The companies at the center of this parade of cocaine planes are Skyway Aircraft Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla., and Planes and Parts Enterprises LLC of Doral, Fla.

In addition, a third Florida company, also named Skyway Aircraft Inc., but based in Clearwater, Fla. (just north of St Petersburg in the greater Tampa area), is linked to a fifth cocaine plane, a DC-9 jet (tail number N900SA), which was apprehended by Mexican authorities in April 2006 with some 5.5 tons of white powder onboard. The DC-9 had been sold to an unknown Venezuelan buyer only days before it was busted in Mexico.

Two of these cocaine planes – the Gulfstream II and a Beech 200 (N391SA) found in Nicaragua with the false tail number N168D – have been tied to the CIA’s terrorist rendition program via their Federal Aviation Administration-issued tail numbers, according to European investigators.

In addition, the two Skyway companies are associated with individuals who have done highly sensitive work for the Department of Defense or U.S. intelligence agencies, public records show and Narco News sources confirm. The third company, Planes and Parts, it turns out, appears to be little more than a paper shell company that can be traced back to a Mail Boxes Etc. service located at a UPS store in the Miami area.

The article continues on about the planes and the owners but this little blurb early on caught my eye:

Attorney Mark Conrad, a former high-level supervisory U.S. Customs agent who has an extensive background in the intelligence world, offered the following insight into the cocaine planes saga in a prior interview with Narco News:

Even though it looks as if you are unraveling odd connections you may be only seeing a small part of what is going on — or you may be seeing what you are expected to see, missing something else.

My guess — and that is all that it is — is that this has something to do with operations in Venezuela — either to finance ops, or to divert attention from Agency ops in Venezuela to destabilize Chávez. ... It is not in the U.S. interests for Chávez to create another Cuba on some of the largest oil field reserves in the world.

If that’s the case, then it might well be that the current U.S. administration has placed a higher value on controlling the flow of oil from Venezuela than it has on controlling the flow of cocaine into this country.

This is all I dare use free use and remind everyone that this is Bill Conroy's article appearing on Narco News Bulletin  Please read it all!  It will leave you nauseous

My friends, this is a reason not to vote for Republicans.  Any administration that would poison and addict its own people in order to enhance the profits of energy companies is an administration that should be jailed and executed.  This, this very rebirth of the Iran-Contra fiasco at its worst is the true face of Ronald Reagan and those who would trumpet his administration, and this is more than America should have to bear.  Naturally, we cannot depend upon our "in the tank with the Bushies" media to ask any questions or raise any hell about this business which has alarmed Latin America, brought the FBI into play, and has raised the eyebrows of our allies.

We need to spread this news far and wide, and I would very strongly suggest that Obama should begin asking very pointed and very public questions about these shenanigans; after all it's only the American public being poisoned, addicted, jailed, and ruined in the name of oil, err, I mean "liberty for Venezuela."

Please raise hell about this!  It's only your kids, your loved ones, or your friends that might get caught up in this filthy Bushist scam!

Technorati Tags: Bush administration, Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, CIA, cocaine

News For America: The Lazy Edition

  While the other blogs and media outlets all cover the Sunday news shows to see who is lying about what in the political world, I'm going off on a different tract today. Today, you are getting brief news snippets from all over that may have some effect on you and your life in good old America. Or, maybe not.

     Heparin Blood Thinner Being Probed By The U.S./China

BEIJING - China and the United States are working together to investigate the blood-thinner heparin, which has been linked to 19 American deaths, China's food and drug administration said Sunday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been widening its investigation into the hundreds of adverse reactions -- including difficulty breathing, nausea and falling blood pressure -- linked to U.S. health care company Baxter International's heparin injections.
Heparin is derived from pig intestines, and China is the world's leading supplier.   Full Story

    Georgia Hit by Another Severe Storm

ATLANTA - Two people in rural northwest Georgia are dead and dozens injured after a series of severe storms moved through the state, producing the first-ever tornado to hit downtown Atlanta.
A woman was killed in Polk County early Saturday afternoon when a storm demolished her home and threw her and her husband into a field, while an elderly man in neighboring Floyd County was killed by flying debris as he sat in his home, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Officials have not released the victims' names.
Calls to the Polk and Floyd County sheriff's departments were not immediately returned.   Full Story

  5 Killed In Ohio Car Wreck

LUCAS, Ohio - Authorities say a car drove off a hilly state highway in northern Ohio, overturned, struck several trees and caught fire -- killing the three men and two women inside.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol says the accident took place just after 4 p.m. Saturday on State Route 603 near Mansfield, about 70 miles northeast of Columbus.   

  What would the day be without a Poll in it?

Nearly nine in 10 Americans say it's important to know presidential and congressional candidates' positions on open government, but three out of four view the federal government as secretive, according to a survey released Sunday.
Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University conducted the survey in conjunction with Sunshine Week, a nationwide effort by media organizations to draw attention to the public's right to know.
The survey found a significant increase in the percentage of Americans who believe the federal government is very or somewhat secretive, from 62 percent of those surveyed in 2006 to 74 percent in 2008. That's a sobering jump, said David Westphal, Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers and co-chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Freedom of Information Committee.

"On the other hand, it's gratifying to see that almost 90 percent believe a candidate's position on open government is an important issue when they make their Election Day choices," he said.  Full Story

  Only 74% believe the government is secretive? Wait a minute. I forgot. The other 26% have to be the followers of our Idiot-In-Chief in the White House. My bad!

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