Jack Abramoff,Karl Rove,George Bush, and Other Criminal Cast Of Characters From the Republican Party

  This is a look at the depth of Jack Abramoff's reach and influence with Karl Rove and the Bush administration in general as they seek to subvert the laws and launder some money, looking forward to one party rule in the United States

  ( Edited for brevity )

  Daily Kos

Rove, the WH, Abramoff, China & Tinian Casinos

by dengre    Sun Apr 08, 2007

Here we go again.

Another (very) long and winding tale of yet another bit of corruption that weaves in and out of the Bush White House, Chinese Casinos, Team Abramoff, the Mariana Islands and the purge of US Attorneys.

As the Bush era enters the scandal-a-day phase it is hard to keep up. Do you really need to learn more?

Perhaps.

This is a tale of exploitation, greed and money laundering. The targets of the scam are not only foreign guest workers, but also US tax payers and US service men and women.

Like most of the scandals of the Gingrich/Bush era this one is about raising money for off-the-books operations to fix elections, control the news media and enrich the vested investors in the Gingrich/Bush Republican party.

And if you want to follow the money the Republican Party raised and spent in the moral twilight zone defined by their greed, desire, power and hypocrisy, you need to study Jack Abramoff.

That study will lead to long and complicated tales.

Like this one.

Let’s be clear:

The focus of the Bush White House and the Republican Party is obstructing justice

Why?

It is because they have so much to hide.

You could start looking anywhere, with anyone connected to the Republican power structure of the last quarter of a century. If you dig just a little, something will smell bad. Dig more and it becomes foul. Dig deep and you’ll find yourself in a river of corruption.

I am one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of US citizens who started to dig. The progressive netroots have provided us a way to link up, share notes, make new discoveries and hold the Republican Party accountable.

For many in the Gingrich/Bush GOP and their media-based sycophants it is the first time anybody has ever dared to hold them accountable. Their wails of protests are louder than a stadium full of testy two-year olds in full tantrum meltdown.

It makes me smile.

We have more power than they do. And we are learning how to use it.

Anyone of us can discover something and move it from a comment or Diary to a full blown National scandal. Revelations around Karl Rove’s Power Point and the growing Prosecutor Purge scandal are just two examples. There are many, many more.

And Jack Abramoff seems to be woven into every scandal of the Bush era. It is not surprising, as he was a 25-year bagman for the Republican Party and the effort to establish one party rule in the USA.

He worked with everybody, and as he told Vanity Fair (emphasis added):

"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn’t know me is almost certainly lying," he says. Such lies are not just, well, lies, but dumb to boot, he adds, for, as his own humiliations suggest, old e-mails never die; they just sit on hard drives, waiting to be subpoenaed and then to be leaked to the press. "This is not an age when you can run away from facts," he declares. "I had to deal with my records, and others will have to deal with theirs."

Try as they might to deny it, it seems that reality—that facts—are catching up with the Boy-King and his court of yes-men, liars and thieves. For years, Jack Abramoff was a key player in the modern Republican Party. He ran their money through the shadows of the global economy. He financed their dirty deeds and for many years he did it out of the spotlight. Then one day some facts were exposed. Jack had nowhere to run. Now he is in jail. More facts will come out.

Even though the efforts to obstruct justice have been massive, they will fail. They are failing. Any "important Republican" should be very worried these days. They are just a few news cycles away from ruin.

I know this because I’ve posted about Abramoff for some time now and have been researching him since 1999. By design, Jack’s work was criminal and very, very complicated. And since 1979, Jack has been part of a much larger effort to fund and establish one-party rule in the United States—by any means necessary.

Jack was a player in Iran-Contra. He helped organize the speaking tour for the Contras. I’ve always thought that Jack made a mistake that helped the Iran-Contra scandal break into the headlines, but that’s a story for another day.

At its root the Iran-Contra Scandal was a money laundering scheme run out of the basement of the Reagan White House. The operation was based on moving money around a three legged operation of drugs, guns and cash.

It proved to be too easy to trace the funds and expose the secret agenda of the modern GOP. Abramoff came up with a solution. His innovation was to add gambling as the fourth and stabilizing leg to the operation. Purchasing the fleet of SunCruz gambling ships was a part of the plan. So was exploiting Tribal casinos. Gambling was also what attracted Jack to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

The CNMI is a string of islands some forty miles North of Guam in the Western Pacific. By 1986 the CNMI had formally became a Territory of the United States. Different islands within the CNMI set rules for their development. Saipan decided to let in foreign investors, import tens of thousands of "guest workers" and set up sweatshops to take advantage of their newly acquired right to sew a "Made in the USA" label on CNMI produced garments. All of the CNMI embraced the sex trade, but Saipan led the way. And all of the Territory embraced gambling through poker machines, but one island, Tinian, authorized the building of up to five casinos.

The CNMI, but especially, Tinian has a lot of "shadow material".  In 1945, US planes would leave an airstrip on the island to introduce Japan and the world to the Atomic Bomb. On top of that, for the last twenty five years the CNMI has embraced an economic system rooted in the hidden shadows of global trade (human trafficking, sweatshops, forced prostitution, money laundering, drug smuggling, gun running and the like).The Mariana Islands have some karma to work through. And the history of the CNMI is part of the collective hidden history of the United States and our collective karma to resolve.

Perhaps that is why I care about this issue, but I digress...

An oddity of the CNMI is that only members of the indigenous population can own land. Everybody else—foreign, US citizen or even the US Government—has to lease the land they use from the locals. When the Mariana Islands became a US Territory, the US military occupied a lot of land. They still do. And they have long-term leases.

When Tinian decided to allow up to five casinos on the island they faced a few obstacles. One was that the US military had the best real estate locked up in long-term leases. Another was that the transportation infrastructure on Tinian sucked.

That is what Jack Abramoff would have discovered back in the late 1980s when he formed a company with his father to build a casino on Tinian. That effort never got off the ground. Through the early 1990s Jack visited the CNMI to try and get a Tinian casino off the ground. It didn’t work. There were too many obstacles that only the Federal government could remove. Fortunately for Jack, he was part of the effort take over the government in the 1994 midterm elections.

As Lou Dubose reported Abramoff helped raised $700,000 for GOP candidates in the 1994 elections. The money was passed through DeLay, who then was elected GOP Whip over Gingrich’s chosen candidate. After that, "Abramoff was a made man."  

Most reports of the work Abramoff, DeLay, the Republican Congress did for the CNMI focus on the effort to block legislation to end the sweatshops, sexshops and human trafficking. And to be sure, they did all of that. It is a very sordid tale of abuse that deserves more attention, but there are other Abramoff activities that deserve an investigation.

Jack never stopped pursuing a casino on Tinian. A major focus of Team Abramoff in 1996 and 1997 was getting the Department of Defense to lease back land to the CNMI Government for economic development (aka Tinian Casinos). With the help of Tom DeLay that effort was successful.

 

A few weeks later DeLay would travel to the CNMI to ring in the New Year and enjoy a cockfight with Governor Tenorio, but I digress...

For those who thrive on the global shadow economy, it was a good thing that Jack and Tom came through for the Tinian Casino. By the fall of 1997, Chinese investors from Hong Kong had already committed millions to build it. And over the years the Jacked-Up Republicans appropriated millions for improvements to the Titian airport to help the Chinese get to their unregulated international gambling/money laundering operation.

For most of the last decade only one casino has operated on Tinian and it was a perfect set-up for off-the-books money. According to a 2002 Security Report released by the US Attorney for Guam, the casino on Tinian was an international center for money laundering:

Unfettered access into the C.N.M.I and the presence of an unregulated international gambling casino on Tinian, allow for the perfect venue to launder illegal funds, regardless of their source. This situation is further compounded by the lack of any civil or criminal revenue enforcement by the territorial government or sufficient Federal assets to continually scrutinize banking and money handling businesses.

It was perfect for the needs of the GOP and the owners of the casino—the Peoples Republic of China (PRC):

The P.R.C. has built and currently operates a 600-room hotel and international gambling resort on the island of Tinian in the C.N.M.I. This facility has been in operation for approximately three years. Federal officials indicate that it has-never enjoyed more than a 20 percent occupancy rate and is believed to be a "marker" for mainland China with involvements in international money laundering operations. In March of 2002, this casino became the subject of investigation by Federal authorities because it received $3.5 million in fraudulent loans in connection with the Bank of Saipan fraud scheme cited earlier.

So, just to take a moment for review: Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican party actively helped the PRC build a casino money laundering facility on a US Territory.

And then they protected the money laundering operation from oversight.

Part of that effort was suppressing the 2002 security report and punishing the authors—Robert Meissner, a DOJ regional security specialist and acting Guam US Attorney, Frederick Black. Both lost their positions and were replaced with hand picked cronies. The active effort to obstruct justice and protect the Tinian money laundering facility worked for a while. Rove and Abramoff were able to keep the report out of the public eye for two election cycles. But then Jack got into trouble. Those pesky "facts" are coming to light and the truth is leaking out (you can read more about it here, here, and here). More questions can and should be asked.

One of the reasons that the CNMI was so important to Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party was the PRC’s Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino. It was a way to get off-the-books money into the system. Most of this effort was done in the shadows, but every now and then mistakes were made and a glimpse of the activity was revealed. Take this May 23, 2000 report of a planned Bush fundraiser as an example:

A $250-per-head fundraising event will be held next month for U.S. presidential hopeful, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino, the first in a series of activities to be conducted by a CNMI committee.

House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, who was designated last month as chair of the George W. Bush for President Committee for the Northern Marianas, said they hope to raise more than $80,000 during the event scheduled for June 14.

And by June 1st the event was "postponed":

The $250-per-head dinner scheduled for June 14 at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino to raise funds for U.S. presidential candidate George W. Bush has been postponed to a later date .

House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, chair of the George W. Bush for President Committee for the CNMI, said the postponement was due to the busy activities by the campaign head committee in the mainland in preparation for the July convention.

There is not a record that the fundraiser ever officially happened. And George Bush’s disclosed take from the CNMI in 2000 was very small, less than $2,000. By contrast, Bush’s CNMI donations from 2004 were just shy of $30,000. Given the close race in 2000, I just don’t see Rove leaving $80,000 on the table. My hunch is that it became part of the stream of off-the-books funds that Jack Abramoff, their star GOP bagman, was collecting for "special" off-the-books electoral efforts in 2000. We may never now how much money was spent that year in the effort to elect Bush and establish one party rule in the USA.

The money might help explain why, in 2003, George Bush told the CNMI Governor he was "secretly" aware of the Territory:

U.S. president George W. Bush knows about Saipan for some reasons—reasons that cannot be disclosed, according to Governor Juan N. Babauta.

"President Bush is very much aware of where Saipan is for a number of reasons, reasons which I can't disclose," told reporters yesterday when asked about his upcoming meeting with the President at the White House.

Of course by 2003 there were several other "secret" reasons Bush might know about the CNMI.

One might be the firing of Fred Black and the suppressing of the 2002 Guam/CNMI Security Report.  

Or it could be the close working relationship between Jack Abramoff and Karl Rove—a relationship so tight that Karl hired Jack’s long-time assistant, Susan Ralston as his own Gal Friday.

Or it could be the money. To win re-election in 2004, Bush would need a lot of undisclosed funds.

Yet another reason for Bush’s "secret" knowledge might have been his plan to let Karl Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, select the members of the President's Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Commission (AAIP). This detail was reported in several sources, including Ralston’s political obits (emphasis added):

In a startling development, the highest-ranking Asian Pacific American in the White House has abruptly resigned. [snip]

As the top administrative aide to Bush strategist Karl Rove, Ralston brings the scandal of imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff right into Bush’s inner circle. [snip]

Even Ralston’s role in forming Bush’s "White House Initiative on AAPI’s" has come under criticism for being "largely perceived as a commission she stacked with her people," many relatively unknown in the community.

 

And Ralston did indeed stack the membership of the AAPI with loyal "Bushies". Chief among them, is her fellow Loyola University alumni, Rudy Pamintuan. Ralston made sure that this young "Baby Jack" was appointed as Chairman of Bush’s AAPI.

Pamintuan runs a PR agency out of Chicago; Sherman Consulting. From the Web site, it seems to be a typical dodgy "Baby Jack" firm. Now, a "Baby Jack" is an outfit spawned by Abramoff and his 25-year money laundering operation. The folks running these outfits are the next generation of Abramoffs. (Think of the "PR Firms" ran by Michael Scanlon).

In the shadow economy, PR firms are almost as important as casinos. These "companies" are easily establish, can operate in political realms, move massive amounts of cash, impact campaigns and avoid any disclosure rules that might apply to lobbyists, and Federal employees.

To be a "Baby Jack", one has to use connections to the powerful to land business that you otherwise would never be on the short list to get. For example, the poorly designed Sherman Consulting web site list FEMA among Rudy’s clients. Another of Rudy’s clients is the extremely corrupt Governor of the CNMI. According to the Marianas Variety Rudy is helping Fitial’s attempt to block the 110th Congress from extending US labor, immigration and custom laws to the rogue US Territory (and Pamintuan is trading on his connections to the White House in that effort):

Rudy Pamintuan, chairman of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders, is on island to help the CNMI government prepare for the hearing.

"It is my understanding that during the hearing, there will be workers who will speak against the CNMI...and from a key strategic standpoint it’s good to have someone oppose or counter that testimony," he told Variety.

Pamintuan, who is president of his own Chicago, Illinois-based public policy and media strategy firm, Sherman Consulting Inc., met with Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and other CNMI elected officials on Monday.

"If the other side is bringing a handful of victims to speak against the CNMI...and it is not opposed (then the) CNMI is in losing proposition," he said.

 

So like Abramoff before him, Pamintuan is advising the CNMI to attack any victims of rape and abuse who dare to travel to Washington and have the courage to testify about the decades old system of vile corruption that has been allowed to flourish on the CNMI. And like Abramoff, Rudy wraps himself in his connections to "Important Republicans" and uses these connections to get paid. That’s one reason why Rudy is a Baby Jack. Another reason is gambling.

In 2005, the very corrupt Benigno R. (Ben) Fitial was elected CNMI Governor. One of his first acts was to push for more casinos on Tinian. So far four deals have been announced. One is with an outfit called Bridge Capital. And by some coincidence several members of AAPI, including Chairman Pamintuan, are investors in the Bridge Capital casino project on Tinian.

Curious.

And Chairman Pamintuan is advising Fitial on how to stop the 110th Congress from extending US laws to the CNMI and ending decades of abuse and trading on his ties to Rove and the White House.  In that effort he is presenting himself as a representative of the White House and not as a PR firm hired by the CNMI. After the 2-8-07 CNMI Senate Hearings, Rudy made a statement to the Saipan Tribune that undercut the testimony of Bush’s head of the Office of Insular Affairs, David Cohen:

The White House has not issued any position on the CNMI immigration issue and is, in fact, "unaware" of the current talks about renewed U.S. Congress attempts to implement federal immigration control in the Commonwealth.

Rudy Pamintuan, chairman of the White House Advisory Commission on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, said he personally inquired about the issue with the White House policy office.

"I contacted the policy folks at the White House. They have not really looked into it. There is no position either for or against it because they have not even looked at the issue," said Pamintuan.

And the next day, Cohen had to set the record straight:

Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs deputy assistant secretary David B. Cohen maintained yesterday that his recent testimony to the U.S. Senate about CNMI immigration was all cleared by the White House.

"The written statement that I submitted for the February 8 hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was thoroughly cleared by the Administration, including the White House," said Cohen in an email message yesterday.

 

Like Abramoff, Pamintuan is working his connections to Karl Rove and the Bush White House to block reforms to the CNMI. And like Jack, Rudy is attracted by the profit potential of unregulated casinos on Tinian.

Rudy is an investor in one of the new planned casinos on Tinian, an accomplishment that always eluded Jack—or maybe not. Rudy’s investment partner is Bridge Capital, one of those shadowy "investment" firms that specialize in building multiple fronts to shield the identities of the true investors from prying eyes. Several other planned Tinian casinos have similar hidden owners/investors. They could be anybody from Jack Abramoff to Tom DeLay to some guy named Mo.

Now a careful reader might remember the above pull quote from 2002 security report that Abramoff and the Bush White House worked so hard to suppress, especially this line (emphasis added):

The P.R.C. has built and currently operates a 600-room hotel and international gambling resort on the island of Tinian in the C.N.M.I. This facility has been in operation for approximately three years. Federal officials indicate that it has-never enjoyed more than a 20 percent occupancy rate and is believed to be a "marker" for mainland China with involvements in international money laundering operations.

As of now, the only folks coming to the one casino on Tinian seem to be money launderers for the PRC, the GOP and other players in the global shadow economy. A twenty percent occupancy rate is bad and it hardly seems to indicate the need for more casinos on Tinian to handle the overflow money washing.

Still, the folks on the CNMI are planning more casinos on Tinian and later this year, they will even vote on a referendum to authorize building casinos on Saipan.

The reason is the US Marines and other US military personnel.

Plans are underway to move 6,000 or more Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Speculation is growing on the CNMI that tens of thousands of Marines will be stationed on Guam and many will live and train on Tinian.

The planned casinos are being designed with the US military in mind:

"Tinian is not going to be a little Macau, not a Las Vegas. Everyone wants to be in Tinian because of the military personnel transfer," Gov. Benigno R. Fitial said [snip]

Fitial sees the potential revival of a military economy and casino industry in the CNMI. Just recently, the Pentagon announced the movement of its troops from Okinawa, Japan back to Guam. Through the existing provisions in the CNMI’s Covenant with the United States that allows the US military to use a huge portion of land on Tinian as sight for military exercises, Fitial is optimistic that a portion of the 6,000 Okinawa-based military force will be relocated to Tinian.

Landing more US military spending on the CNMI is a big priority for the Fitial government and the Pirates of Saipan. It would be a new source of Federal welfare for the Territory and the Pirates of Saipan could take the troops to the cleaners in the Tinian casinos. But that’s not all, Governor Fitial sees other CNMI industries that the military can support:

Fitial expressed hope that Tinian would soon have a military economy in the not so distant future.

He added that he was just "joking" when he said the adult industry should be relocated to Tinian because the "poor troops need some form of entertainment."

And now we are going to move US Marines onto an island with a casino controlled by the PRC, a booming sex trade and borders maintained by a corrupt and ineffective local government. Sound great, I mean in a post 9-11 world what could be wrong with this plan. I mean, aside from everything.

So as I promised, this is a very long and winding tale. There are more details and more research that needs to be done, but here are the headlines:

• Within months of 9-11, a security report raise critical issues related to threats to the homeland from problems on Guam and the CNMI. When this was brought to the attention of the Bush WH they suppressed the report and punished the authors.
• All of the security issues raised in 2002 still exist on the CNMI and Guam. Some have even gotten worse. Nothing has been done to follow up on the 2002 Security Report.
• Susan Ralston, the former assistant to Abramoff and Rove used her position at the White House to have her pal Rudy Pamintuan appointed Chairman of Bush’s Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islanders.
• Pamintuan is using his connection to the White House to land new business for his PR firm, Sherman Consulting and he presents his PR work as "official" statements from the White House.
• Pamintuan is also using his connections to the White House and service as Chairman of the AAPI to help shape policy that will make his investments in a Casino project on Tinian more profitable.
• The Bush White House and the Republican Party is supporting the building of more unregulated casinos on Tinian.
• The Bush Department of Defense is letting troop relocation decisions be used to support the growth of an unregulated gambling industry on Tinian, an industry that will target US service personnel for exploitation.
• The Republican Party has protected a Chinese Government owned and operated casino money laundering facility for almost a decade.
• The Republican Party has protected a system of sweatshops, labor abuse, forced prostitution and human trafficking on the CNMI since 1995.

And more digging will yield more headlines.

We really should put a stop to all of this. I hope that the 110th Congress can do it, but the Pirates of Saipan have hired a Democratic Lobbying firm with ties to one of our Presidential Candidates. Another of our Candidates has taken at least $10,000 in donations from the Tan Family, including Willie Tan (celebrated in news reports, released documents and Court filings as a key participant in the growing Abramoff/GOP scandal).

This news, the delays in passing the Minimum Wage Bill and the rumors that extension of the minimum wage to the CNMI will be scrapped in favor of a Wage Review Board are troubling.

Up to now the Abramoff scandal was Republican owned and operated, the 110th Congress should do the right thing and keep it that way. And our Presidential candidates should be bashing the Republicans for their ties to Abramoff. They should not chase Jack’s partners in crime for donations and/or payoffs to family members.

We need to ensure that our candidates and elected officials take the high road and leave the taint of Abramoff to the Republican Party. And more than that, we need to ensure that justice finally comes to the CNMI. It is long overdue.

And this Diary is long as well, perhaps too long, but it was a complicated tale to lay out. Still, it boils down to a simple statement:

The focus of the Bush White House and the Republican Party is obstructing justice

It is way past time to take our Country back.

Let’s do it.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers

Tags: Jack Abramoff Karl Rove White House Bush China Republicans Democrats Department of Justice U.S. Attorneys purge scandal

Illegal Aliens Protest Bush's Immigration Plan In Los Angeles

   So once again we have the illegal aliens and their support groups crying fowl over the fact that the United States government wants them to go home and then apply for entry into the United States legally.

   Some 15,000 protestors had a gathering in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to protest Bush new immigration plan which calls for the illegal aliens to apply for 3-year work permits that would then be renewed indefinitely but would cost $3,500 each time the permits are renewed.

   Some of the protesters have said that the cost of doing this would be more expensive than the mules that the illegal aliens paid to bring them into the United States illegally.    Source

To get a permit and become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a US embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.

Critics of the proposal, which include Hispanic advocacy groups and unions made up of a large number of immigrants, argue the cost of work permits and the green card application, which could total more than $20,000, is prohibitive for low-wage earners.

Alfredo Gonzalez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who marched on Saturday with his wife and daughter, said he feared the immigration raids occurring across the country.

"If they kick me out, who is going to take care of my daughters? The government? I don't think so," he said. "We need full legalisation and need it now."

   The problem with Mr. Gonzalez is that he and his wife shouldn't  have had a child in this country in the first place! Like many, all, of the illegal aliens, who sneak into this country, he thought that he was going to have a happy vacation here forever.

   I think that if the United States government wants to deport people and families like Gonzalez, then they should send the child back to the parents country with them. Something like this would surely slow the flood of illegal aliens down somewhat if they realize that coming here and having a child will not get them permanent visitation rights.

   And what's with these illegal aliens having unions? If you are here illegally, then that union that you are in doesn't mean shit!

  Go back home and then come back into the United states legally, like most aliens do.

Tags: Los Angeles illegal aliens Bush immigration

Carl Levin ( D-MI ) What An Idiot!

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin ( D-MI )

"We're very strong in supporting the troops, but we're also strong on putting pressure on the Iraqi leaders to live up to their own commitments. Without that political settlement on their part, there is no military solution. We can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back within four months."

"And what we will leave will be benchmarks, for instance, which would require the president to certify to the American people if the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement, which they, the Iraqi leaders, have set for themselves."   FoxNews

...and he's calling me in despair, wanting to know what the Democrats are doing to end this bloodbath and get his buddies out of that meat grinder.  Fathers conversation with son in Iraq

   I sometimes wonder if Carl Levin and a few other of the Democrats that we hired to get the troops out of the Iraq war are really Republicans in disguise. Why do I continue to get the feeling that the Democrats don't want to end this war any more than Bush does?

   One more time! If Congress would just go ahead and cut the fucking funds then the U.S. involvement is over, period! That would be showing our troops that you support them. Not giving Bush certain dates to begin withdrawing them, but making this punk begin taking them out now would be showing support for our troops!

   Cutting the war funds would be supporting the troops, it would not be supporting the war. There is a difference!

   And if Carl Levin is stupid enough to believe that Bush would be honest when it comes time to certify that the Iraqis are holding up to their benchmarks, then he needs another career! I also have some beach front property I'll sell him cheap, in Baghdad.

Tags: Carl Levin Iraq Bush benchmarks Congress Senate

This Is Not Civil War?

     Part of a DoD March 2007 quarterly report to Congress concerning the outlook for Iraq.

The conflict in Iraq has changed from a predominantly Sunni-led insurgency against foreign occupation to a struggle for the division of political and economic influence among sectarian groups and organized criminal activity. The level of violence in Iraq continued to rise during this reporting period as ethnic,tribal, sectarian,and political factions seek power over political and economic resources.

  Let's see how two different sect's live, while we're here.

Reporting out of Baghdad also began to note the diference between the security and availability of basic services between Sunni and Shi’ite areas. In the poor Shi’ite area of Sadr City, markets were open most of the day, there was no nightly curfew, and citizens had access to at least one generator for power. Residents in Sadr City credited the Mahdi Army with the security and Moqtada al-Sadr for providing aid and political progress.

In contrast, markets in Sunni neighborhoods were al but deserted, residents were lucky to receive two hours of power a day, and Sunnis were continualy threatened into cooperating with insurgents. Insurgents would kil US or Shi’ite security forces working on reconstruction projects as well as Sunni workers who were seen as colaborating with the enemy. Increasingly, Iraqi government workers refused to enter Sunni neighborhoods, leaving piles of trash on the street and water and electricity lines unrepaired. Many residents even had dificulty colecting their daily food rations.      

Pressure was also mounting within mixed families throughout the country. Approximately one-third of Iraqi marriages were mixed, but increasingly, family members from both sects were urging couples to divorce or flee the country. In many cases, family members were forced to live in separate neighborhoods and rarely saw each other for fear of reprisal atacks. In the past, mixed mariages were seen as the unifying factor that would spare Iraq from civil war.

CSIS Full Report  in downloaded PDF

   CSIS has many various studies concerning Iraq and the way of life their since Bush came to town. Good reading when you have the time as many of these reports are quite lengthy.

Tags: Iraq civil war Sunni Shiite U.S.

The Bush Administration's Missteps With Iraq

Ali A Allawi   (former Minister of Trade and Minister of Defense in Iraq )

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order."

"More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society."

    From his book "The Occupation of Iraq," published by Yale University Press.

The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

• The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

• Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

• The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.  Yahoo News

  I guess that I am going to be  spending some of my time reading this entire book. This should be a very interesting take on things.

Tags: Ali A. Allawi Iraq Bush Saddam Hussein

Defund The War

You Can't Hurt a Troop by Defunding a War

Submitted by davidswanson on April 8, 2007 - 1:51pm.

OutOfIraq via Democrats.com

By David Swanson

When Senator Russ Feingold and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid propose cutting off the funding for the war, they are proposing the only thing that can possibly benefit U.S. troops. In fact, there is no way to make any sense of the idea that they could possibly be hurting U.S. troops. The funding is not for the troops.

When President George Bush claims that the money is for the troops, he is quite simply lying. The funding is not for the troops.

When Senator Barack Obama or Senator Carl Levin claims to want to pressure Bush to end the war, while at the same time promising to fund the war forever in the name of funding the troops, we are being told something that cannot possibly make any sense. The funding is not for the troops. It is for the war. You can't end the war while providing it. You can't hurt a troop by denying it.

Tags: U.S. Troops Iraq war defunding

Rudy Giuliani: Another Crooked President In The Making?

WaPo:     April 08, 2007

When former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani urged President Bush to make Bernard B. Kerik the next secretary of homeland security, White House aides knew Kerik as the take-charge top cop from Sept. 11, 2001. But it did not take them long to compile an extensive dossier of damaging information about the would-be Cabinet officer.

They learned about questionable financial deals, an ethics violation, allegations of mismanagement and a top deputy prosecuted for corruption. Most disturbing, according to people close to the process, was Kerik's friendship with a businessman who was linked to organized crime. The businessman had told federal authorities that Kerik received gifts, including $165,000 in apartment renovations, from a New Jersey family with alleged Mafia ties.

Alarmed about the raft of allegations, several White House aides tried to raise red flags. But the normal investigation process was short-circuited, the sources said. Bush's top lawyer, Alberto R. Gonzales, took charge of the vetting, repeatedly grilling Kerik about the issues that had been raised. In the end, despite the concerns, the White House moved forward with his nomination -- only to have it collapse a week later.                                       -- David Kurtz

   This is all that the United States would need. Another Republican president who would appoint his own field of crooked friends!

A U.S. Marine In Iraq And A conversation With One Of His Parents

   Once in a while I go through the political website's/blogs and browse through the comments section after certain articles just to see what the readers have to say. I particularly look for service members who are either in Iraq or have been there. I also keep an eye out for comments for comments from parents who have kids in Iraq.

   This comment comes from Talking Points Memo

On April 8, 2007 - 12:46pm Deanie Mills said:

When my son deployed to Iraq in Nov. '04 with the Marine Corps to fight in the battle to clear insurgents out of Fallujah, we were all told that "the next six months" were going to be crucial, because the Iraqis were going to vote.

When he deployed in Jan. '06, we were all told that "the next six months" were crucial because a government was being established.

The first thing my son talked about when he called on sat phones from rooftops watching for snipers or huddled around a campfire, he said that the most discouraging thing about the deployment was that it seemed "Fallujah is as bad as it was before we went in," because all the insurgents who'd fled to outlying areas had only crept back into the beleagured city.

Three weeks into his deployment, the mosque at Samarra was bombed, and he and the Marines in the Anbar fought for their lives for seven miserable months, and my son came home angry because he felt as if their fight and their losses "has all been a waste." All they were doing was "going out every day and waiting to get blown up."

My nephew had similar observations in HIS three deployments to Iraq with the Marines. And "the next six months" were always crucial.

Now, another beloved nephew has just deployed to Baghdad with the army, and hey! Guess what!

THE NEXT SIX MONTHS ARE CRUCIAL.

I don't give a damn what John McCain says anymore because he flat-out lied when he pretended that things were better because he could stroll through a marketplace.

I don't know a single Marine who has had the luxury of STROLLING anywhere in that godforsaken country.

And now, thanks to this miserable escalation, my son's unit orders have been changed, to go back a FOURTH time (thankfully, he'll be out by then, if they let him)--and he's calling me in despair, wanting to know what the Democrats are doing to end this bloodbath and get his buddies out of that meatgrinder.

I cannot describe the rage I feel whenever I see Bush and anyone backing him using troops as some kind of stage-prop, talking about how the next six months are crucial and we should "support the troops."

The threatened chaos IS ALREADY HAPPENING, and our men and women are just caught in the crossfire. I don't mind a phased redeployment and benchmarks for the Iraqi govt., but the truth is that the military CAN'T stay much longer because they're stretched to the breaking point.

We can support them all by getting them the hell out of there and rewarding the politicians who pray to the god of patriotism by throwing them out of office or not electing them in the first place.

 

Tags: U.S. Marines Iraq John McCain

Sunday Video Watch: Bush, Iraq, Impeachment

  Here are a few video's that are making the rounds this week.

Down With the GOP


Smacking The Vice President


Impeach Him!


BYE GONZO?


Cleansing Bush's Evil


LIES, LIES, LIES


Some video's are courtesy of Dailey Kos.com

The Liberation Of Iraq, Bush Style

According to that wash-out John McCain, things are improving. Is he talking about things such as this?

Asia Times Online    By Pepe Escobar   April 6, 2007

A 100-square-meter apartment sells for 2 million Syrian pounds (roughly US$40,000) - four times as much as before the Iraqi invasion. One square meter in prime business premises is now $20,000. Iraqis always pay US dollars cash. No wonder the price of potatoes has also risen fourfold. Not to mention the inflation of hairdressing salons - where Mesopotamian sirens perfect their Christina Aguilera-influenced, multi-shaded pompadours. And right beside al-Nahda is the action - al-Rahda, peppered with smart cafes like the Stop In and al-Nabil not far away from a huge Sunni mosque.

There's not only Little Fallujah. There also are Little Baghdad, Little Mosul, Little Babylon, Little Najaf. But even exile replicates the stark divide found in Baghdad. Middle-class Sunnis won't be seen around the middle-class Shi'ites who tend to go to the area around the spectacular Sayyida Zaynab shrine - a key Shi'ite pilgrim site boasting distinctive Persian architecture that would be perfectly at home in Qom or Mashhad. This area is Little Najaf. The stories, though, are similar to Little Fallujah's. Shi'ite families had to abandon their homes in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods - otherwise they would have been killed. They came, they saw, they opened a restaurant, and they're in business.

This proliferation of Little Iraqs accounts for the biggest exodus in the Middle East since the Palestinians were forced to abandon their own lands in 1948 as the State of Israel was being created. In every single month in Iraq at least 40,000 people are displaced. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there may be as many as 50,000 a month. Were that rate to continue, before 2020, all the population of Iraq would have been "liberated" from its own country.

Whichever Iraq one picks in Damascus, the mantra is recited in unison. Any glimmer of hope for the future hinges on the Americans leaving - and the establishment, by Iraqis, with no foreign interference, of a non-sectarian government.

 

Tags: Iraq Bush Middle East

Muqtada al-Sadr Telling Iraqis Forces To Attack U.S. Troops

"The president is vetoing the bill to provide money for soldiers -- readiness, health care, armaments, etc and a timeline to get out of Iraq." --  Keep this in mind when Bush blames the Democrats!

* * * *

   Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is now telling the Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with the United States and he also told his fighters to begin concentrating on American troops instead of other Iraqis.

   This comes from a statement that was released Sunday and even though it bears the official al-Sadr seal, the writer has not been verified. Source

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy."

"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq. You have to protect and build Iraq."

   For the record, the Associated Press count of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq now stands at 3,274 including 7 civilians.

  As much as I hate to say this, things are going to get pretty ugly for the United States troops in Iraq. U.S. soldiers are under-trained and they are fighting groups who have been doing this kind of fighting for a very, very, long time.

   This occupation of Iraq is heading toward a disastrous outcome under Bush's leadership. Unfortunately, it mat be to late to do anything about it. The American voters fucked up when you re-elected this idiot in 2004 and so you also can take the blame for this mess in Iraq and the deaths of our troops.

  This man has to go, and Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Congress have to put impeachment up on the table and then proceed with it! 10 or so states are already working on getting congress to impeach this asshole, so it will not be long before Congress has no choice but to look into it.

 

Tags: Muqtada al-Sadr U.S. troops Iraq Bush

British Told Bush To Stay Out Of Iran Dispute

   We learn today that the Bush war machine offered to use U.S. warplanes to fly over Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions in Iran after the Iranians detained 15 British sailors and marines who were caught ( allegedly ) in Iranian waters.

   It is reported that the Pentagon had offered a few various military options to the British but Tony Blair actually told Bush and company to stay out of the situation and to cut back on the rhetoric coming from Bushco. Britain also asked the U.S. to cut back on their military exercises in the Gulf so that things wouldn't appear to confrontational. Source

   This all started over a trespass by the British into Iranian territory, which the British have denied. They said that they were in international waters but that may not have been the case.

In the first days of the crisis, Iraqi officials also helped the British to identify the exact boundaries of Iraqi waters, the Guardian has learned, suggesting the British were not as certain of their case as they had publicly claimed.  The Guardian

   Anyway, I'm sure that Bush will now punish Tony Blair for not letting him start another war with Iran. My guess is that there will be no sex the next time that they meet!

   This was the golden opportunity for the Bush clan to attack Iran and he got bitch-slapped by Blair. Now Bush and the CIA and the military planners will have to come up with something different to get an excuse.

Tags: Tony Blair Iran Bush Pentagon

 

Christian Rights Lawyers Attacking the Constitution

The Original Article

ARMY OF GOD
The Legal Muscle Leading the Fight to End the Separation of Church and State
By Sarah Posner |  April 1, 2007  

n a dismal, rainy afternoon, over tea and Pepsi and a plate of fries at the Bob Evans restaurant in Cannonsburg, Kentucky, Bill Scaggs, a retired government and public-relations executive of ARMCO Steel, told me why he thinks that homosexuality is the greatest threat to America. "AIDS kills," was his circa 1984 answer, "and the most common way to pass that on of course is from homosexual contact." His voice cracking with indignation, Scaggs added that he refuses to use the word gay. "It's homosexual, or worse," he says. "Gay is in our Kentucky song! They took it away and trampled on it. We want it back."

Scaggs is a board member of Defenders Voice, a local organization formed two years ago by a group of ministers and their followers who fought the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at Boyd County High School, just up the road from where we sat. Located on a stretch of state highway dotted with churches, dollar stores, payday lenders, and a drive-through cigarette store, the high school had become a place where anti-gay harassment had become an everyday occurrence.

Most of the time, student organizers of the Boyd County GSA said, the basis for the harassment was religious. One of the organizers, Libby Fugett, said that "most of the people at school, even the younger people, who would call us names at school, they would cuss at us; they would say, You f'ing fag, you're going to hell. . . . They just think it's excusable because their religion backs it up. And that was a really big part of it. It's okay for them to sin against us because we're sinners."

Leading the charge against the GSA were ministers, led by the Rev. Tim York, who said they "believe the Bible to be the word of God; we believe that homosexuality is a sin." (In 2004, York, who is now the pastor of a church in Nashville, ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Kentucky Senate on an anti-gay-marriage platform, with backing from the state and national Republican parties.) York and his followers exerted such intense pressure on school officials that it influenced their decision on the GSA, ultimately forcing the students to sue the school system in order have the GSA recognized.

To settle the case, the school district agreed to conduct mandatory anti-harassment training for all students. Although the training consisted of just a one-hour video once a year, York was intent on preventing students from seeing what he considered "indoctrination [into the] homosexual lifestyle . . . indoctrination to tear down the Christian view that homosexuality is wrong. It is reverse discrimination, is what it is." The minister-led group circulated opt-out forms in an effort to exempt students from watching the video, but the forms were not legally binding. York, his followers, and some parents wanted to exempt Christian students, legally, from watching the court-ordered anti-harassment video. To vindicate what he believed to be their legal rights, York knew exactly where to turn for help: the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).

THE O'REILLY FACTOR—If Bill O'Reilly had a hero other than himself, it would be ADF and its courtroom crusaders lined up to fight the ACLU, Nickelodeon's homosexual agenda, and heathens who are hell-bent on censoring the words "Merry Christmas." ADF's president, Alan Sears, a former Reagan administration prosecutor who, according to the ADF's website, "God uniquely prepared" for his lead role in the organization, admits to being inspired by the right-wing commentator O'Reilly—hardly known for his jurisprudential acuity—to write portions of his book, The ACLU vs. America.

In the first chapter, Sears maintains that "from the very start, the ACLU wanted to destroy from within the America our founders intended." As proof of the ACLU's supposed anti-American, anti-Christian agenda, Sears fingers ACLU founder Roger Baldwin as an "agnostic and socialist who demonstrated Communist leanings"; Baldwin was moreover a friend of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, whom Sears calls a "eugenicist who . . . establish[ed] the early link between the ACLU and abortionists." Before the reader has turned even ten pages, Sears has established that only ADF's godly legal services can save the country from the havoc the ACLU has wreaked on its justice system and culture.

    While the ACLU gained its reputation by winning cases, ADF's reputation—and fund-raising spigot—preceded its first court case. Created just 13 years ago with the support of such Christian Right powerhouses as James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, it is today the nation's leading Christian Right legal organization. Through its National Litigation Academy, ADF has trained more than 900 lawyers, who commit themselves to performing 450 hours of pro bono legal work "on behalf of the body of Christ." It doles out millions of dollars a year to other Christian Right organizations—many of which are already well endowed—to cover attorneys' fees and costs.

Its three principal goals are protecting the "sanctity of human life" (through litigating cases relating to abortion and end-of-life issues); promoting the "traditional family" (via cases concerning gay marriage and adoption); and ensuring the "religious freedom" of Christians (by portraying them as victims of discrimination on the part of those who seek to silence their ability to "speak the Truth" by preaching the Gospel). Using the propaganda machinery of conservative media outlets and churches, ADF has created a zeitgeist of Christian victimhood among people like Rev. York, who believes Christian students are the victims in Boyd County, and who has long admired ADF's "fight with the ACLU to protect Christian freedom and Christian liberty."

Last year, ADF received over $21 million in individual and foundation funding. Some of the major donors include the Covenant Foundation, financed by the "Granddaddy" of the Texas Christian Right, business mogul James Leininger; various members of the Amway-Prince Automotive empire, including the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, whose vice president, Erik Prince (Edgar and Elsa's son, and brother of Betsy DeVos, wife of the Amway magnate, right-wing financier, and unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard DeVos), founded the Blackwater USA military-security firm; and the Bolthouse Foundation, which is underwritten chiefly with profits from Bolthouse Farms, a family-run California company whose products are often seen at organic markets and Whole Foods. Bolthouse requires recipients of its grants to pledge adherence to a statement of faith that includes the declaration that "man was created by a direct act of God in His image, not from previously existing creatures" and a belief in "the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlasting punishment of the lost."

SCHOOLHOUSE "DAYS"—Public high schools—where, as a result of a Vietnam-era case, public school officials can curtail student speech in the interest of preventing disturbances or infringement of the rights of other students—have become one of ADF's principal battlegrounds. Right now, it is gearing up for its annual Day of Truth, scheduled for April 19, which ADF has sponsored since 2005 in response to the nationwide Day of Silence, intended to promote tolerance of LGBT students at public high schools. Last year, ADF claimed that students at 700 high schools participated in its organized effort "to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective." Each year, only a handful of ADF's longed-for federal cases emerge. But when they do, ADF makes a public relations spectacle out of them.

ADF recognizes that sometimes strange bedfellows—even the ACLU—can help its divine cause on behalf of the free-speech rights of America's public high schoolers. It recently sided with its arch-enemy (and against the Bush administration) in a Supreme Court case in which an Alaska high school student charged that his First Amendment rights were violated when school officials forced him to take down a sign reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The student, Joseph Frederick, admitted that he designed the sign "to be meaningless and funny, in order to get on television" as the Olympic torch passed through his home town of Juneau in 2002. And even though Frederick's cause had nothing to do with Jesus (and even implicated the Savior in the defiled culture that ADF disdains), ADF has an interest in continuing to shape Supreme Court precedent, an effort it began with its first landmark case 12 years ago and that has been aided by a judiciary increasingly friendly to its views. ADF's legacy in these cases has been to elevate the First Amendment's free speech clause over its Establishment Clause, which separates church and state, and thereby to promote religious speech—even proselytizing speechin the nation's public schools.

In that first landmark case, Rosenberger vs. The Regents of the University of Virginia, ADF represented a student challenging the university's policy of not funding religious student groups through the same student activity fees that funded secular clubs. The Supreme Court deviated from its precedents and based its decision not on the Establishment Clause—which prohibits a state institution like the University of Virginia from endorsing or appearing to endorse a particular religion—but on ADF's theory of "viewpoint discrimination."

In other words, ADF convinced the Court that instead of determining whether the school's funding of religious clubs would be, or would appear to be, an endorsement of a particular religion, it should decide whether or not funding religious groups "discriminated" against them based on their religion. And discrimination is present, the Court reasoned, if the school funded secular clubs but not religious ones.

    Rosenberger, then, not only began to bring down the Christian Right's dreaded "wall of separation" between government and religious activities, but elevated ADF's mythology of the victimized Christian to a legal precedent. The case, says Marci Hamilton, professor of constitutional law at Cardozo Law School and author of the book God Versus the Gavel, represented a "fork in the road" in Establishment Clause jurisprudence. "When framed as a viewpoint discrimination issue," Hamilton adds, "it was going to be very hard for the university to win. . . . the word discrimination is so freighted in our culture with negatives that the minute that viewpoint discrimination was on the table, it was really the end."

The Court reiterated its reasoning and applied it to the nation's public elementary schools in a 2001 decision in an ADF-funded case, in which it forced the Milford Central School District in upstate New York to change its policy of prohibiting religious clubs from using its facilities for after-school meetings. Although the Good News Club, one of thousands sponsored nationwide by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, proselytizes to children, under Rosenberger, the school's denial of its use of school facilities to the religious clubs, when it allowed secular clubs to use them, again constituted "viewpoint discrimination." The Court rejected the school's claim that it had to exclude the religious club in order to comply with the Establishment Clause.

According to Hamilton, in "viewpoint discrimination" cases, the plaintiffs need only claim discrimination, without any actual proof, to prevail on their assertion that they were illegally prevented from using school resources for religious activities. Compared with other civil rights law, said Hamilton, "it's like living with Alice in Wonderland."

These cases have become not only the chief legal weapon in ADF's arsenal but also the organizing principle for all its fund-raising, public relations, and propaganda. ADF attorney Mike Johnson summed up his organization's position when he said, "What we're seeing in more and more cases is a discrimination against particular viewpoints, even outright hostility sometimes, against . . . kids who hold a Christian kind of world view who want to share Christian viewpoints or speech on campus, and they're being discriminated against because some people see that as intolerant, or however they characterize it."

"BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN IS IN"—Over the past several years, ADF has seized on "viewpoint discrimination" to put the gay rights movement in its cross hairs. Gay rights, in ADF's view, cannot coexist with its version of Christianity. Anti-harassment codes at schools and universities, gay rights events, and other expressions of freedom or equal rights for LGBT people, necessarily silence Christians, who, ADF insists, are biblically compelled to condemn homosexuality. The "homosexual agenda," then, is ipso facto anti-Christian. Alan Sears, ADF's president, told the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit last fall that "the homosexual agenda and religious freedom are on a collision course." He scoffed at what he called "propaganda about so-called oppression" of gays, countering that the "homosexual agenda" not only seeks to silence religious speech but it "probably includes the abolition of marriage."

Shortly before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, it had agreed to hear ADF's appeal of another case, one in which a San Diego student, Chase Harper, who participated in the first Day of Truth, claimed that his school prevented him from wearing a T-shirt that read "Be ashamed, our school has embraced what god has condemned" on the front, and "Homosexuality is shameful, Romans 1:27" on the back. After a federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit (the Christian Right's bogeyman of the judiciary) ruled last year that the school could constitutionally restrain Harper from wearing the shirt in the interest of protecting the rights of other students, ADF issued a press release complaining that the opinion "implied that Brokeback Mountain is in, and the Bible is out."

Back in Boyd County, Kentucky, ADF lost its attempt to exempt its clients from the mandatory training, and is now appealing. Kevin Theriot, ADF's senior legal counsel, says the training video—which he hasn't seen—is trying "change the belief systems of religious students." In fact, the video, which is publicly available, acknowledges that "your religious beliefs are sacred and we're not trying to influence those," and "you have the right to express your beliefs" that "homosexuality is wrong" without harassing another student.

Despite ADF's ongoing litigation, the percentage of students viewing the video has steadily increased since 2004, when barely half the students watched it, to over 87 percent. But there is no longer a GSA at Boyd County High School, which to Bill Scaggs proves that it was just a "flash in the pan," failing to see that his organization intimidated the club out of existence. As William Carter, a Boyd County High School graduate whose efforts to start the GSA resulted in years of personal upheaval and entanglement in lawsuits, said, "Who wants to join a club where you would have to explain to your parents, you know, I'm going to be involved in a federal lawsuit because I'm going to be in a club or someone hit me in the head with a can of pop, or someone's going to kill me? No one's going to do that. It's high school."

---

Sarah Posner is an investigative journalist at work on a book about televangelist's in American politics, due out next year from PowerPoint Press. The Nation Institute Investigative Fund provided research support for this article.

 

Tags: Christian Right ACLU Constitution  Bill O'Reilly

A Fact For George Bush, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani

Bush in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin on Wednesday, "this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here."

   We've heard that same old lame line in speech after speech from the Commander Moron and it is really getting tiresome.

Item

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.

Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they're believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.

"Attacks by terrorist groups account for only a fraction of insurgent violence," said a February DIA report.

While acknowledging that terrorists could commit a catastrophic act on U.S. soil at any time - whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not - the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best, experts say.

Tags: Bush John McCain Rudy Giuliani Iraq

Giuliani Not Fit to Flip Burgers Much Less To Be President Of The U.S.

On April 7, 2007 - 12:05pm marcNYC said:

Greg, it's absurd that the media cedes Rudy the expertise on anything having to do with what it would take to run the White House. I've said this before, the media has conveniently forgotten that fact that on September 10, 2001 Rudy Giuliani had poll numbers that rivaled the current occupant of the White House.

The media also does not like to discuss that the reason he looked so heroic wandering around downtown Manhattan is that he had no place to go -- his emergenct response center was destroyed because he moved it into the world's biggest terroris target. He did this after ignoring the advice of every competent security person who looked at the issue. The media also gives him a pass on his insane attempt to alter the New York City Charter and appoint himself mayor beyond his term, even though he was legally barred from continuing in office. (I hope this doesn't give Carl Rove any ideas). And, let's not discuss his abuses of office while he was US Attorney.

Why does it seem like the MSM is afraid of him?    TPM

  This comment was in response to an article from TPM discussing what would appear to be Rudy Giuliani's ignorance in the difference between Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq and whether he is fit to be a president.

   Since the MSM doesn't see fit to remember the bad side of dear old Rudy, maybe the blogoshpere should refresh their memory.

Tags: Rudy Giuliani 9/11 MSM White House

George Bush's Greatest Hits

Albert Einstein was visited one day by one of his students. "The questions on this year's exam are the same as last year's!" the young man exclaimed. "Yes," Einstein replied, "but this year all the answers are different."

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

* * * *

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt

This is a short poem of actual quotations from George W. Bush. These have been arranged, only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.
MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

* * * *

Lionelonline

 

Tags: Albert Einstein George Bush

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's Ugly Past before 9/11

   The following is a look at the Giuliani way of life before he became an over-rated 9/11 icon. This man could be an even more disastrous president than George Bush could ever hope to be.

From Human Rights Watch.

New York is enjoying a dramatic drop in violent crime, with some attributing it to the police department's emphasis on more minor, "quality of life," crimes, such as graffiti, squeegee windshield washing, and subway turnstile-jumping, pursued as a way to demonstrate control of the streets and to apprehend individuals who may have outstanding arrest warrants against them.

...

Police abuse experts have wondered why, if the police leadership is eager to stop crime by aggressively pursuing minor criminals and crimes, it is failing to demonstrate the same aggressiveness in dealing with officers before they commit more serious offenses.

   The rest of this is crossposted from Daily Kos and My Blog and Op-ed news.

In 1997 the Giuliani dichotomy of being tough on civilians who commit minor offense and light on police who abuse their authority gradually began to be exposed and led to several tragic incidents.  

First there was the wrongful arrest, torture and sexual abuse of Abner Louima by NYPD officers who mistakenly thought he had insulted one of them outside of a night club.  

A federal court jury in Brooklyn convicted three New York City cops March 6 of conspiring to cover up the 1997 station house torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.  

Thomas Weise and Thomas Bruder each face five years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation into the savage assault on Louima. The third cop, Charles Schwarz, was convicted in a previous trial as an accomplice with Justin Volpe in torturing the immigrant worker inside the bathroom of the 70th Precinct in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.  

Volpe, convicted of sodomizing Louima with a broken piece of a broomstick, tearing a one-inch hole in his rectum and bladder, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Schwarz, who was found guilty of holding Louima down during the attack, faces up to a life sentence.  

The three cops greeted the verdict with disbelief and rage. "They're f—-ing liars; this is f—-ing bullshit," exclaimed Schwarz, who turned his wrath on his lawyer. As he was taken back into custody he slammed the wall and shouted out other obscenities.  

Let me point out again that Louima wasn't even the guy they were looking for in the first place!  This kind of brutality doesn't just happen, there has to be a permissive attitude in play at the department in order for anyone - let alone several officers - to believe that kidnapping and assaulting someone this way, not to mention intimidating witness and the victim to "keep quiet" could possibly work.  

And how did Rudy react at the time? (From Human Rights Watch)  

In August 1997, after the alleged torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by police officers made national headlines and outraged city residents, the anti-crime record of the mayor and police department was tarnished. In uncharacteristic fashion, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir condemned the officers implicated in the incident as well as those who reportedly did nothing to stop it or report it.2 These were welcome condemnations, but conflicted with the mayor's persistent and seemingly automatic defense of officers accused of abusive treatment - even when he lacked a factual basis to do so - in his first term.  

So did Rudy then take decisive steps to correct the problem? Not really.  

Even when the mayor himself asked a task force to review police-community issues following the alleged beating and torture of Abner Louima, he immediately criticized the task force's majority report: "Some of the things [recommended] we've already done. Some of the things I've opposed in the past, I'll continue to oppose them. And some of the things are unrealistic and make very little sense."

Two years after Louima, another high profile police misconduct case landed on Rudy's lap - the murder of Amadou Diallo.

In February 1999, four New York City policemen searching for a rape suspect knocked on Amadou Diallo's door to question him. When he came to the door he reached inside his jacket, at which point the officers shot at him 41 times, hitting him with 19 bullets. The object Diallo was reaching for turned out to be his wallet.

Many New Yorkers were incensed and began to raise cries of W.W.B. - "Walking While Black!"  

In New York City under Rudy Giuliani, we have seen the terrible resurgence of officially condoned police racism. Not long ago, a black cast member of a Broadway play was arrested and held overnight, missing his performance. Like Diallo, his only "crime" was that of being a black man in his own building at a time when it came under police attention. Ask any young black man in New York City, neatly dressed teenager or even a computer consultant wearing a suit, how many times he has been stopped and harassed by the police.  

...  

Giuliani's first Mayoral campaign began in a police riot, which no-one today remembers. The cops were demonstrating in front of City Hall, then inhabited by a black mayor, David Dinkins. Giuliani stood on the steps and delivered a speech so incendiary that the cops, many of them already drunk, began beating journalists and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. It is heavily ironic that Giuliani no longer permits demonstrations on the steps of City Hall.  

After Diallo, there was also the case of shooting of Patrick Dorismond:  

On March 16, 2000, an undercover New York City narcotics officer approached Haitian-American Patrick Dorismond to solicit marijuana. Dorismond reportedly grew upset at officer's request, and scuffled with Detective Anthony Vasquez, who fatally shot Dorismond. Dorismond was later found to not have any drugs or weapons on him.

As he had done before, Giuliani blamed the victim.  

Before Patrick Dorismond's body was cold, the Giuliani administration launched an obscene campaign to vilify the dead security guard and all but portray him as someone who had a police bullet coming to him. Having little to work with, Giuliani ordered Police Commissioner Safir to unseal a juvenile record on the man, disclosing that he had been arrested for robbery and assault in 1987, when he was 13.  

The charge, reportedly stemming from a childhood fist fight over a quarter, was dropped and his record sealed because he was a child. But Giuliani's legal advisers took the position that once he was dead, Dorismond's right not to have police records from his childhood publicized by the mayor died with him. It allowed Giuliani to declare that Dorismond was no "altar boy" and that his previous brush with the police "may justify, more closely, what the police officer did."

As for the cop who shot the security guard, Giuliani praised him for his "distinguished" career as an undercover officer, declaring that in going out and shooting an innocent, unarmed man to death in the street he "put his life on the line in the middle of the night to protect the safety and security of this city."

But then 9/11 happened and washed all this away from our collective memories, remaking Rudy into a brand new Golden Boy ™ for the G.O.P.  

He became a key speaker at the G.O.P's 2004 Presidential Convention even while NYPD officers continued their suppression tactics and even engaged in political espionage.  Milking the situation for every ounce of juice Rudy wrote to the Republican faithful in an RNC mass-mailing on the eve of the 2004 elections repeating what he'd stated on the Convention floor.  

On September 11, our nation faced the worst attack in our history.  

On that day, we had to confront reality. Our people were brave in their response.  

At the time, we believed we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, "Thank God George Bush is our President." I've been saying that every day since.  

We needed George Bush then; we need him now; and we need him for four more years!  

That conversation has since been shown to have been a complete fabrication, while Bernard Kerik who Giuliani had been pushing as the new head of Homeland Security has since been unceremoniously tossed off the bus in the wake of ethics issues and alleged ties to organized crime.  

Skip forward to the here and now.  

I have recounted all the above in such detail in order to provide context for what may be some of the most chilling aspects of Rudy Giuliani radical authoritarianism to be yet revealed : His belief in absolute Presidential Authority.

From Glenn Greenwald.  

Rudy was asked about the Iraq supplemental. He said he finds it "irresponsible and dangerous." Then he began to muse about, after a veto, "would the president have the constitutional authority to support them [the troops], anyway?" He said he's a lawyer so he wouldn't offer an opinion "off the top of his head," then he proceeded to do just that.

He seemed to suggest that Bush could fund the Iraq war without Congress providing funding, but it was confusing. In an interview with a New Hampshire TV reporter after his remarks, he seemed more categorical and said, since the war had been authorized by Congress, the president has "the inherent authority to support the troops." But he added, "You have to ask a constitutional lawyer."  

Glenn Greenwald is a Constitutional Lawyer, and he's not down with this.

Not only does Rudy believe that the President has some magic ability to fund a War on his own (ala Iran/Contra) but he also believes that the President has the authority to imprison American Citizens without charges, justification or review.  

This view flies totally in the fact of Hamdi v Rumsfeld which clearly called for Judicial Review in such cases:  

It would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to the factual basis for his detention by his government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge. Absent suspension of the writ by Congress, a citizen detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to this process.  

Following Hamdi the 109th Congress via the MCA effectively suspended the writ for foreign combatants - but it did not suspend habeas corpus for U.S. Citizens and the President certainly does not have that power independent of Congressional authority.  

Giuliani may simply be confused on this point - but I doubt it since also think the President has the inherent power to defy the will of Congress.  

In fact, it may well be this very long and clearly defined authoritarian streak of Giuliani's that is making him the darling of the Neo-Con Sect, causing them to brush aside his pro-abortion, pro-gay stances even among the deepest, darkest hearted of the red-staters. Especially among them.  

For you see, they love nothing so much as a whip-cracking, brutal authoritarian in those parts.  Just listen to what Katie O'Beirn and Rich Lowry have said about how Giuliani "women issues" have actually helped him.  Lowry via Greenwald...

Have been talking to some smart people today about Giuliani. Two of them said independently that the appeal of Giuliani is he'd be "a tough SOB -- for you," and that he'd be "a d*head -- for you." Another said . . . that a Giuliani supporter he knows considers the nasty divorce a kind of asset because it speaks to his toughness. . . .  

I think it's clear he'd be a "tough dickhead son of a bitch" for somebody - but there's no guarantee that it's going to you.  

Greenwald on O'Beirn:  

O'Beirne passed along an email from a friend which stated: "Contrary to popular speculation, the apparently brutal public dumping of Donna Hanover can only bolster the popularity of the man with conservatives." O'Beirne also suggested that an old Giuliani campaign ad showcasing his lovely family could be revised to say: "Don't worry. I dumped them all because I am that tough guy."  

The Past is Prologue.

If you look back, the signs are all there.  With a Giuliani Presidency we can not expect to see an actual moderate Republicanism, we will not see "Compassionate Conservative" finally realized, instead we can expect to see an even more extreme version of the Unitary Executive Theory than we have from John Yoo, more corruption and cronyism (Kerik), and even more excuses and justifications of racial profiling (against Muslims, Blacks and probably Latinos), illegal detainment of suspects and possibly even torture than we've seen so far from President Bush.  

And that's saying something.  

Even back in 1998 in response to Louima and Diallo - some New Yorkers saw it all clearly. He is George Bush Redux.  

The kind of mayor I want for my city would be deeply agitated by the killing of Amadou Diallo and would ask why he had such poorly trained, highly strung "heroes" patrolling in plainclothes. Giuliani, on television, merely seemed pained, as he always does. Undoubtedly he wishes it had not happened, but only because it is a nuisance to deal with ...

Yes, exactly how George Bush looked pained by the aftermath of Katrina - not because he was sorry that it had happened to all those who lost their lives and homes, but that it had happened to deeply embarrass his admistration.  

More from 1999:  

Rudy Giuliani is a dictator in waiting. He is self righteous, absolute, has no sense of humor, and will go to any lengths to punish his enemies. He is temperamentally completely unsuited to be senator [As he was vying at the time], as it is a job requiring negotiation, collegiality, and charm. I believe he is interested in the job for one reason only: as a stepping stone to the Presidency. If so, he would be the most dangerous president since Richard Nixon. In fact, I think he would be more dangerous: Nixon doubted himself and sometimes hesitated at the opportune moment; Giuliani feels no doubt and will not hesitate.

   Tags: Rudy Giuliani president Neocons police brutality racism Fascism Amadou Diallo

 

John Edwards Pulls Out Of CBC/Fox News Debate

   Presidential hopeful John Kerry has pulled out of the Fox sponsored Congressional Black Caucus debate, once again beating the rest of the Democratic field to the punch.

    In an email to Talking Points Memo, deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince said,

"We just called the CBC to let them know that we're looking forward to their January debate with CNN but we're not going to participate in the proposed debate with Fox. The CBC champions critical issues that matter enormously to the future of our country, and we look forward to discussing them throughout this campaign and at their debate in January. But we believe there's just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending they're objective. If there was any uncertainty as to Fox's objectivity, it was put to rest when they attacked Democratic candidates, Democratic constituency groups, and the Nevada Democratic party when their last proposed debate was canceled for lack of support."

  Good for you Mr. Edwards! Maybe now the spineless wonders ( Clinton, Obama ) will follow your lead once again.

Tags: John Edwards CBC Fox News

Dave Obey On Bush's Press Conference

The Gavel

Chairman Obey on President Bush’s Press Conference

April 4th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Today, Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey made the following remarks at a public forum at the University of Wisconsin in response to the President’s attack on Congressional Democrats yesterday:

“The President is crying crocodile tears about the fact that the Congress has not yet passed his take-it-or-leave-it spending request for the Iraq war. The President said we left Washington without finishing our work, complaining that it has taken us 57 days to process his ‘my way or no way’ request. Let me remind the President that last year, the Republican Congress took 118 days to pass his supplemental request. Further, let me remind the President that his Republican party in Congress left Washington for the year without finishing their work on the entire $463.5 billion domestic budget. If we had not had to spend the first month of this new session finishing the work they should have done last year, we might have had more time to turn to the President’s ‘my way or no way’ request, but we first had to clean up their last year’s leftovers.

“The President needs to stop his huffing and puffing and recognize that he is no longer dealing with a rubber stamp Congress. There must be compromise. We have already adjusted our proposal by giving him a waiver on troop readiness. When are we going to hear any talk of reasonable compromise from him?

“As usual the President is trying to govern by dividing rather than uniting. That is why his Presidency is in such disarray. When will he ever learn?

“The President is simply thrashing out as a diversionary tactic to obscure the fact that he has no viable policy in Iraq or in the entire Middle East for that matter. We need to come together to fashion such a policy.”

 

Tags: Dave Obey Bush Democrats

John Murtha On Bush's Press Conference

Rep. Murtha on President Bush’s Press Conference

April 4th, 2007 by Jesse Lee

Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha:

“I have just been informed that the 4th Infantry Division is preparing to deploy to Iraq with only eight months at home and without the appropriate training. This is unacceptable.

“The stress on our military due to the manner in which the President has waged the war in Iraq is no longer tolerable. Due to continuous and extended deployments to Iraq, our military is running out of troops and equipment and is being forced to abandon its own rotation and deployment guidelines in order to sustain the President’s war plan.

“In short, our military has been forced to do too much with too little.

“Our military readiness has deteriorated to levels not seen since Vietnam and our ability to fight future threats is severely compromised. Yet the President refuses to address this most vital issue.

“In reaction to the disastrous manner in which the President has run the war, Congress passed the Iraq Accountability Act in both houses. This bill provides resources to address the readiness problem, puts the onus on the Iraqi Government to internally solve its own civil war and provides the beginnings of a safe and responsible return of our United States forces from Iraq.

“The Constitution expressly places the power ‘to raise and support Armies,’ and ‘to provide and maintain a Navy’ with Congress. It is, therefore, Congress’ responsibility to raise the revenues for our military and to determine in what manner and by what means they shall be spent.

“For four years, the President has been waging a war without end and without accountability. The Iraq Accountability Act expresses the sentiment of the Congress and the majority of the American people who say it’s time for a plan to safely and responsibly end the war.”

Tags: John Murtha Bush U.S. troops Iraq

 

Fact: Bush Is Slowing War Funding

  Here's a bit on the Bush clans claim that the Democrats are slowing down the funding for the for the troops.

Analysis: Bush delays slowed war funding

UPI

Published: April 3, 2007 at 1:26 PM

By PAMELA HESS
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush is framing the standoff with Congress over funding the Iraq war as a matter of supporting the troops.

"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq," he said Tuesday in a Rose garden press conference.

Four years of budget machinations on the war, however, show the White House's record is not as clean as it suggests.

The White House submits the annual Pentagon budget request in February -- 2008 is the latest -- six months prior to the start of the new fiscal year. That gives Congress six months to hold hearings, debate, and approve final legislation.

Since 2002, however, the White House has submitted the annual war funding request six months after the fiscal year has already started. This automatically puts the bill and Congress into crisis mode and ratchets up political pressure to approve the $100 billion requests quickly to demonstrate their support of the troops.

But with half the year elapsed already with no war funding, the military every year dips into its procurement accounts, delays training exercises and defers scheduled weapons and vehicle repair until the war money comes through.

By the time Congress finishes hearings and passes a war spending bill -- which is separate from the annual budget, and lags behind it by a year -- there are only a few months left to use the money and the artificial cycle of delay, crisis, and military budget machinations begins again.

To offset the delay in the White House supplemental request, Congress has annually appropriated a bridge war supplemental fund of more than $50 billion. But at a "burn rate" of more than $10 billion a month for Iraq and Afghanistan, that money runs out quickly.

Pentagon officials since 2001 have told reporters they did not want to submit imprecise war funding requests and so waited until the annual war costs were clear to ask Congress for them. They blamed Congress itself for this, pointing to Congress's refusal in 2001 to approve a vague $10 billion fund for the Pentagon to draw on as it saw fit.

Last fall, however, U.S. Army officials called the accounting bluff.

Lt. Gen. David Melcher, the deputy chief of staff for Army programming, materiel integration and management, told reporters on Oct. 10 the Army could easily submit the 2008 supplemental request in February 2007, rather than waiting until February 2008 to ask for the money.

"If there was a desire to submit that in February that could easily be done," Melcher told reporters at the Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington.

"From the Army's perspective, I think it would make good sense to submit the president's budget and the entire '08 supplemental at the same time ... I think it would be good to have openness about that, and articulate the need up front," he said.

The Army got its way this year, certainly helped by a change in defense secretaries. Both the 2007 and the 2008 supplemental request went to Capitol Hill in February with the 2008 annual budget request for the Defense Department.

Congress has also been agitating for a change in defense budget practices, asking that the war costs be included in the annual budget since they are now quite predictable, albeit rising. Emergency appropriations bills, now topping $120 billion annually, are not counted into the national deficit although they add to the national debt.

President Bush Tuesday scolded the Democratic-controlled Congress for slowing funding for the troops but he left out his central role in the delay.

"If Democrat leaders in Congress are bent on making a political statement, then they need to send me this unacceptable bill as quickly as possible when they come back," he said. "I'll veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without delay."

 

Tags: Bush war funding Iraq Democrats

 

Sam Fox and How To Get An Appointment When Nobody Likes You

   Just in the past few months the American public and the Congressmen along with the Senate and the rest of the world, have seen how immoral George Bush is and we have also seen what a liar and conniving son of a bitch he is.

    His recent nomination appointment of Sam Fox as the United States ambassador to Belgium flat out stinks!

   I'm not a legal expert on this political stuff, so I may be wrong here. I'm just wondering if it is legal to appoint someone that was officially withdrawn from the nomination in the first place?

   This recess appointment while the Congress is on Easter Vacation doesn't have any merit to it in the first place.

   This is how you get into politics if you are a big spending, Bush supporter. It's called buying the position. For example:

                                     THIS...

President Bush has rewarded 146 elite 2000 and 2004 donors (23 percent) by appointing them or their spouses to his 2000 transition team or to one or more federal posts. Of these 146 big-donor appointees, 99 (70 percent) were 2000 Pioneers who have had more time than the newcomers to score Bush appointments. Nonetheless there are 47 appointees who first became elite donors in Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign.

   * Bush appointed two elite donors as cabinet secretaries: Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson took the Pioneer pledge in 2000 but were not recognized by the campaign for raising the full $100,000.   Source

           ...plus this...

Thirteen other families bred multiple elite Bush donors, with three trifecta families producing three Pioneers or Rangers. Mercer Reynolds, who once bought out George W. Bush's failing oil company, is Bush's ex-Swiss ambassador and current national finance chair. The grandfathers of Mercer and Pioneer cousin James Reynolds bought the "Cracker's Neck" wood pulp plantation outside Atlanta. Along with Pioneer--and apparent family member-- Harold Reynolds, their grandsons developed the land into Reynolds Plantation, a luxury development that was the site of major fundraisers for Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns.

<...>        ....and this...

Sam Fox is another Ranger father of two Ranger sons. The Fox family's Harbour Group specializes in takeovers of manufacturing companies and has major investments in China. Sam Fox ironically told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he got involved in politics in the 1980s out of concern over the huge federal deficit. He was among 22 wealthy business leaders whom the president, who calls this donor "Foxie," invited to a 2001 lunch to discuss  tax cuts for the rich.

The Pickens family of Dallas--which recently squabbled over its oil inheritance--had two members who raised more than $100,000 for Bush's campaigns. Three other family members took the 2000 Pioneer pledge but failed to reach their $100,000 target (John T., Michael K. and William C. Pickens). A T. Boone Pickens spokesperson says that he is not related to this Pickens family.   Source

                          equal this...

Fox nominated for Belgium ambassador
St. Louis Business Journal - December 7, 2006

Sam Fox, head of Clayton-based Harbour Group, has been nominated to be ambassador to Belgium. President George W. Bush announced the appointment Dec. 4, which is subject to Senate confirmation.

Fox, a significant contributor to the Republican Party and its candidates, is Harbour's chairman and chief executive.

He joins another area resident who already serves as an ambassador. Ann Wagner, former co-chair of the Republican National Committee and the Missouri Republican Party, has been ambassador to Luxembourg since August 2005.

Stephen Brauer, chairman and chief executive of St. Louis-based Hunter Engineering, served as ambassador to Belgium from June 2001 until September 2003. George Herbert "Bert" Walker III, who also lives in the St. Louis area, was ambassador to Hungary from 2003 until last July. He is a first cousin to the first President George H. W. Bush.  Source

   Any Questions?

   The American citizens have only themselves to blame for any of this since many of you voted for this reject as president a second time. All that you did was to allow a crook, liar, and fraud to continue to collect cash from his corporate friends and to appoint many unqualified friends of his to a few important positions that will end up hurting the country in the long run.

   You watched Fox News and read the banners under the reporters as they and the GOP spin machine spoke to you, and you became an ignorant, un-informed population.  Many of you are still listening to that White House propaganda spin machine and I feel really sorry for you. NOT! If you are to ignorant ( stupid ) to know what Bush is doing by now and to see the punk for what he really is, then you deserve everything else that this gutter garbage is going to do to you for " democracy."

  I see that I have gotten a little off target here, but I can do that. I'm not a professional  with a political science major and what have you. I'm just an regular United States citizen who was once proud to call this country my home.  Thanks to " the Dictator ", I find it hard to be proud of my home to the outside world. Bush has given us citizens nothing good to advertise to the other countries on why democracy is the better way as they have seen what democracy has /is doing to America. Most of the outside sees this country as becoming more communist-like everyday, and I agree. Those of you who voted for this scum and those of you ( 28% ) who still support this scum are as far down the ladder in morals as is our Idiot in Chief.

   For the fake feel of safety from terrorist, you have given up many of our rights and allowed the Bush clan to get by with various illegal activities.

   I wish that someone could explain to me how you can give up your Constitutional rights, along with your Bill of Rights, and then still be called a democracy. They do not mix in the same glass.

          IMPEACH! INDICT! IMPRISON!

Tags: George Bush Sam Fox Congress Senate fraud