Corruption

Media Enabled Bush 1's Savage Attacks on Maddow and Olbermann, Yet Continue to Ignore Bush Family's Sordid Past
By Russ Baker | Alternet

The other day, George H.W. Bush fired a salvo against mean media liberals who savaged his son. Soon, brickbats were flying to and fro about who said what about whom. But this mini-controversy is nothing more than a distraction from the real story: even the most animated of Bush critics on television have not gotten around to acknowledging the full, unspeakably dark nature of the Bush enterprise. Bush41, it turns out, has nothing at all to complain about.

The kerfuffle began last Friday, when CBS ran a story on its website about George H.W. Bush criticizing MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow for edgy rhetoric and name-calling, in which he then … called them names -- specifically, “sick puppies.”

"The way they treat my son and anyone who's opposed to their point of view is just horrible," Mr. Bush said. "When our son was president they just hammered him mercilessly and I think obscenely a lot of the time and now it's moved to a new president," he added.

Of course, this is ridiculous on many counts. First is the absurdity of the man who employed the political assassin Lee Atwater (look up Willie Horton) and gave Karl Rove his first job, whining about incivility. Then there is the way the former president glided over the snapping trash- mouths and conjurers of the Right, from Limbaugh to Hannity to Beck, who dominate and influence the media’s vast market of vulnerable and hurting Americans. And finally, it is hard to recall criticism of H.W.’s son that was wildly inaccurate, truly out of bounds, or not reflective of the awful reality of W.’s presidency.

The real problem is not that popular media figures have gone after the Bushes, it is quite the opposite: that they have stopped well short of sharing the full story with the American people.

CBS inadvertently touched on this when it reported H.W.’s general satisfaction with how his personal saga was playing out in his golden years:

“Mr. Bush also said his own life is "very good, very private."

Perfect irony resides in that remark. One reason that the elder Bush’s life is so very good, and remains so very private, is because of the media’s failure to unearth the extent of the continuing deception perpetrated by the Bush family and their allies. The guilty parties surely include CBS itself -- which stopped asking questions when under pressure and unceremoniously tossed to the lions Dan Rather, the most visible television personality willing to dig into the truth about the Bushes. Read more.

IPS analysis of 'Galbraith-gate'
Posted by Helena Cobban | Just World News

It's here, and also archived here.

Y'all know the story here already. (Renewed kudos to Reidar Visser for breaking it for all those of us who don't read Norwegian... Reidar, I know I should have slotted in a quotoid from you there... Sorry that I didn't.)

My conclusion in the IPS piece is, Read more.

Peace Movement Grows Up, Codepink vs. "Anti-imperialist" Flap
by Ralph Lopez | Jobs for Afghans

Codepink co-founder catching a lot of flak for suggesting that all troops out of Afghanistan immediately would lead to a Taliban takeover and bloodbath. It began with a Christian Science Monitor article in which Medea Benjamin said after a trip to Afghanistan ™We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban. So many people are saying that, 'If the U.S. troops left the country, would collapse. We'd go into civil war.' A palpable sense of fear that is making us start to reconsider that."

Scott Horton followed up with an interview of Medea.

Anything but everyone and everything out of the water pronto is neo-imperialist stooge? What's happening here is a long-overdue discussion that goes beyond "troops out now" for the peace movement. Does troops out now mean everything out now, even humanitarian aid? First, there is no such thing as "troops out now" because even a full withdrawal would take six months to a year, as there are logistics of troop transport, bringing back equipment or just leaving it and burning it (the military-industrial complex loves that one woo hoo! More contracts). You don't get 60,000 troops into a country overnight. You don't take them out overnight either.

We take a pre-bombed country, bombed because Ziggy Brzezinski couldn't wait to arm Islamic extremists to give the Russians "their own Vietnam", then bomb it some more then split. Nice! In the Seventies women were wearing mini-skirts in Kabul. Brzezinski and US policy fixed all that.

Leave them to work their own problems out now? With what? They are already starving, have nothing to grow but poppies, their irrigation and canal systems are still trashed with Russian bomb rubble because we haven't helped them clear it, and this winter if we just split thousands of more children will starve and freeze. Prosecute Brzezinski as a war criminal if we must, but these people don't know or care who made the mess. Only that they are starving, and someone is always bombing them. When will the world have pity on this country?

There is a solution. Get money to the poorest people in a way which "tunnels" through the corruption, so that they don't have to depend on the Taliban for the $8 a day they pay for insurgent work, and they will turn on the Taliban themselves. The Taliban is hated by most of the population as it ruled only by fear, not any popular consent.

We identified one functional ministry of the Karzai government which has done the work of building more than 25,000 community development councils (CDCs) which work with the villages and the elders on work projects which benefit the communities, not corrupt foreign contractors like Loius Berger or corrupt Afghan warlords. Details are in our White Paper "Stabilizing Afghanistan Through a Cash-for-Work Initiative." Read more.

SOA's Hendrik Voss wrote:

Honduran Human Rights Defender Bertha Oliva to Come to the November Vigil to Close the SOA in Georgia

We just talked with Human Rights Defender Bertha Oliva from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She is planning to come to the United States to stand with thousands and to speak out at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia during the November Vigil to close the SOA (November 10-22, 2009). She will bring the call for accountability and the anti-coup resistance to the place where the coup plotters received their training: the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)!

Bertha wanted to relay her gratitude for all that people here are doing in solidarity with Honduras. We have kept her abreast of our efforts, and she senses the outpouring of solidarity, along with concrete actions.

She told us that, although she and everyone else are exhausted, and a few pounds lighter, that they are exhilarated at the energy and hope and spirit of the resistance movement. She feels so proud of her people at this moment.

I asked Bertha how we could be of help in addition to what we are doing. Her response was: Send concrete reports (photos, places, statements) about Honduran solidarity events that have taken place in the U.S. International solidarity is having a huge impact on Honduran society, and is putting pressure on the coup govt. By sending info about these expressions of solidarity throughout the U.S., you would make a huge contribution, according to Bertha. COFADEH's press team is very effective in getting things out widely there, as Father Roy and Lisa Sullivan have experienced in several visits, and they would get this info out. She mentioned several times that this would be very helpful.

By Dave Lindorff

The Democrats in Congress, and their main man Barack Obama in the White House, have taken tens of millions in legal bribes from the health insurance industry over the past year, and have obligingly been hammering out in Congress a health “reform” bill that, instead of helping people, has been designed to help the insurance industry.

They started out by immediately blackballing any discussion of real health reform in the form of an expansion of Medicare to cover everyone of every age, which of course would have ended the problem of the uninsured, while cutting the nation’s overall health bill by at least a third, but in the process shutting down the private health insurance business.

Then they chipped away and are at this point on the verge of eliminating any so-called “public option” or government-run health insurance plan to even compete with the private insurance sector.

How To Create An Angry American from PuppetGov on Vimeo.

More Collateral Damage from the Siegelman Case – Talking with DOJ Whistleblower, Tamarah Grimes
By Joan Brunwasser | Op Ed News

The Bush administration is no more. But his legacy lives on in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, massive joblessness, the trashed economy, the transfer of power to the Executive Branch. During Bush's tenure, the Justice Department also became politicized to an unprecedented degree.

One of the most visible among the hundreds of political prosecutions was former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. A Democrat and the only Alabamian to have served in all four of the top state elected positions, he was a choice target of Karl Rove. After several unsuccessful attempts, Gov. Siegelman was convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison. He is presently out as he awaits his appeal. Ninety-one former US Attorneys of both parties have asked President Obama, AG Holder and DOJ to reexamine Siegelman's case. Andrew Kreig, Roger Shuler, Scott Horton, and Glynn Wilson have done a stellar job covering the Siegelman case. [For more background information, a sampler of their articles can be found at the end of the second part of this interview.]

Tamarah Grimes was a paralegal working with the prosecution in the case against Don Siegelman. She contacted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers and the DOJ about the prosecutorial misconduct of Alabama US Attorney Leura Canary and her team. For her pains, Grimes was chastised, intimidated, and ultimately fired, her reputation trashed. To add insult to injury, she was denied health insurance and they're trying to rescind her unemployment benefits.

This is particularly grievous for Grimes because she was the sole breadwinner in her household and her health insurance policy covered her disabled son. Grimes was terminated just eight days after sending a letter to AG Holder, laying out her concerns about the Siegelman case. Her firing will surely have a stifling effect on any other DOJ employees contemplating similar actions.

Unemployed and uninsured, she is on the brink of financial ruin. Tamarah may be bloodied but she is also unbowed. She seeks no one's pity. This is her story. Read more.

by Linda Milazzo

Our great buddy Mike is angry. For the past twenty years, Michael Moore, our everyday hero, has worked hard for us. He's documented sadistic acts against us by industry and government. He's exposed case after case of devious schemes that robbed us of our homes and our jobs, sent our children to war, and sacrificed our health. He's given us irrefutable proof that our leaders lied us to war, our insurers denied us care, and our lenders deceived us into hopelessness and destitution.

Mike's been our teacher, our ally and our devoted friend. Few people in recent memory have worked harder to inform us - ALL OF US - of the inhumanity and greed that are decaying our nation, which we perpetuate through apathy and inertia.

FRONT: See a PENNY, pick it up and...That's YOUR GOV'T Bail Out!

BACK: As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. ABRAHAM LINCOLN - Purportedly in a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins (21 November 1864)

Pentagon Fraud and the ACORN Standard | Press Release

The Senate last night passed an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would require the Department of Defense to calculate how much the Pentagon pays companies that committed fraud.

The measure, added to a defense appropriations bill, also would make the Pentagon recommend how to penalize contractors that repeatedly cheated the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars....According to the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, the three largest government contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman – all have a history riddled with fraud and other illegal behavior. Altogether, the three companies engaged in 109 instances of misconduct since 1995, and were fined $2.9 billion. How were they punished? In one year alone, the big-three pocketed $77 billion in government contracts in 2007. Read more.

WASHINGTON, October 2 – The Senate last night passed an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would require the Department of Defense to calculate how much the Pentagon pays companies that committed fraud.

The measure, added to a defense appropriations bill, also would make the Pentagon recommend how to penalize contractors that repeatedly cheated the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sanders contrasted the sweeping scope of defense contractor fraud to misdeeds by a few employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The ACORN workers were fired for what Sanders called “an outrageous and absurd discussion with actors.” The sledge-hammer response in the House of Representatives and the Senate was to cut off federal funds for ACORN.

By Dave Lindorff

Some years ago, my wife and I, together with our young daughter, took a circuitous summer train trip through France, Italy, Austria and Germany. The last leg was an overnight express from Berlin that deposited us at the Gare du Nord in Paris just at sunrise. Feeling washed out from the ride, we made our separate ways to the facilities. I was standing at the urinal with a bunch of other men, relieving myself, when I heard this awful groaning coming from a stall. The groaning grew louder and more painful sounding. Some guy was obviously having a terrible time with his bowels. The agony continued, to the point that we who were by now washing our hands at the sinks were looking at each other in puzzlement, wondering what was going on. I even wondered if someone should ask if the poor wretch if he needed help.

It's Fun Watching Rep. Grayson At Work. He's The Kind of Democrat We Need
By Susie Madrak | Crooks & Liars

Turns out Matt Taibbi is already acquainted with Rep. Alan Grayson. Here's his backstory ((and remember, reward good behavior):

Alan Grayson, Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul and others keep hammering away at this whole Fed-secrecy issue, and every now and then we get some pretty interesting exchanges. Zero Hedge relates this one between Grayson and Fed counsel Scott Alvarez. It’s becoming abundantly clear that at some point we’re going to start to hear details about monstrous front-running operations involving the major banks on Wall Street. Read more.

Karl Rove And The Republican War Against ACORN
By Jason Leopold | The Public Record

Yet, while bending to Republican demands to speak out against a poor people’s group, Obama continued to resist the notion that powerful Republicans from the Bush administration deserved to be investigated for authorizing the use of torture against prisoners in the “war on terror.”

In recent days, the Washington Post, the New York Times and other major news outlets have recounted the “troubled” history of the poor people’s advocacy group ACORN, but left out the five-year anti-ACORN campaign led by White House adviser Karl Rove and other Republican operatives.

Dropped down the memory hole is the fact that ACORN was at the center of the so-called “prosecutor-gate” scandal, when the Bush administration pressured U.S. Attorneys to bring indictments over the grassroots group’s voter-registration drives and then fired some prosecutors who resisted what they viewed as a partisan strategy not supported by solid evidence.

The latest furor over ACORN was touched off by conservative filmmaker James E. O’Keefe III and a right-wing columnist who posed as a couple planning to buy a house for use as a brothel and getting advice from a few ACORN employees, rather than being turned away.

The pair filmed their meetings at ACORN offices with a hidden-camera, producing a video that brought to a fever pitch the long-simmering Republican war against ACORN. The video was trumpeted by Fox News and other right-wing news outlets, starting a stampede in the mainstream press and in Congress, where a majority of panicked Democrats joined the herd in approving legislation to strip ACORN of federal funds. Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

When the White House or Democrats in Congress talk about health care reform, and about wanting to preserve the central role of the private insurance industry in health care, it pays to look at just what it is that they they’re so anxious to preserve.

Siegelman Blasts DoJ and Judge In ‘Final’ Reply Seeking Hearing
By Andrew Kreig | Huffington Post

Facing a sentence of 20 additional years in prison recommended by Bush Justice Department holdovers, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman finally took off the gloves Sept. 21 against his prosecutors and the judge -- and, for once, skipped any mention of Karl Rove.

Citing new evidence since his 2006 convictions, Siegelman's nine-page filing called for a hearing with cross-examination, plus a new trial and new judge.

The arguments responded to a government filing on Aug. 28 that no new evidence has arisen since Siegelman's 2006 corruption convictions to justify a hearing or other relief.

More generally, Siegelman's prosecution remains the dramatic centerpiece of still-unsolved allegations that the Bush administration mounted a nationwide effort to change the country's political leadership by hundreds of disputed prosecutions of Democratic office-holders, candidates and contributors. Siegelman's case is key because no other has produced so many whistleblowers and investigative reporters alleging scandals. But so far no watchdog institutions have put any of the alleged miscreants under oath for public cross-examination. Read more.

Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
The gagged whistleblower goes on the record.
By Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi | American Conservative

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.

A Department of Justice inspector general’s report called Edmonds’s allegations “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.” Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. “60 Minutes” launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds’s revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files.

John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. The ACLU has called her “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.”

But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony. What follows is her own account of what some consider the most incredible tale of corruption and influence peddling in recent times. As Sibel herself puts it, “If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it.” Read more.

By Dana Jill Simpson

Holder asked for a conflict waiver on September 4, 2009, from President Obama to allow Holder to stay in the Ted Stevens case. It seems his old firm now represents William Welch in that case.

Obama granted this ethics waiver and allowed Holder to stay in a case where he thought he had a conflict.

I wonder what Holder will do now that Don Siegelman has made William Welch part of his case, as many have encouraged him to do for months?

I do not believe Siegelman knew at the time he filed this last paperwork that Covington and Burling was representing William Welch. It has been a secret in Washington and quietly handled behind the scenes but I suspect firecrackers will go off about this in all the cases in the South where Welch is accused of wrongdoing and helping hide facts that needed to be turned over to defendants, just like in the Stevens and Siegelman cases.

Justice Dept. Investigates Ex-Official’s Ties to Shell
By Neil A. Lewis | NY Times

The Justice Department is investigating whether a former secretary of the interior, Gale A. Norton, violated the law by granting valuable leases to Royal Dutch Shell around the time she was considering going to work for the company after she left office, officials said Thursday.

The officials said investigators had recently turned up information suggesting that Ms. Norton had had discussions while in office with Royal Dutch Shell about future career opportunities. In early 2006, Ms. Norton’s department awarded three tracts in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary for shale exploration. In December 2006, she joined Shell as the company’s general counsel in the United States for unconventional oils, a company spokeswoman said.

The existence of a federal criminal investigation was first reported Thursday by The Los Angeles Times. Read more.

Don Siegelman and the Poisoning of American Politics | Legal Schnauzer

Numerous media outlets have reported in recent years on the coarsening of our culture. A country that once seemed to exhibit a sense of grace and humility now seems awash in people who are rude, arrogant, selfish, and dishonest.

If our overall culture has one leg in the sewer, what about our political culture? It seems to be covered in slime from head to toe, with no better example than the bogus prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Andrew Kreig, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and journalist, shows in a recent piece at Huffington Post how the Siegelman prosecution showcases a political culture that is covered with muck.

Kreig focuses on a recent Justice Department filing that argues that Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy have presented "no evidence" since their 2006 bribery convictions that justifies a hearing or new trial. You can almost hear Kreig's jaw hitting the floor as he writes that:

No evidence? Read more.

Corporations have no more place in a democracy than carpenter ants or mold have in the beams of an old barn

By Dave Lindorff

For the last two weeks, I’ve been contemplating the mysteries of a post-and-beam barn, trying to work out how to rescue the long-ignored structure from the fate of many barns of its vintage (probably about 150 years old), which is total collapse.

Ex-Manager: More Excesses By U.S. Embassy Guards
by Michele Kelemen | NPR

"Their goal was to do everything they could do to prevent the State Department from discovering their multiple contract violations and operational shortcomings. Their goal was to maximize their profits, provide a fig leaf of security at the embassy and pray to God that nobody got killed," Gordon told reporters in Washington.

A week after photographs emerged of U.S. Embassy guards in Afghanistan taking part in raucous, drunken parties, there is a new allegation that some may have been involved in sex trafficking.

James Gordon, who formerly worked with the private security company ArmorGroup North America, raised that prospect in a lawsuit against the company, which guards the embassy in Kabul.

Gordon's whistle-blower retaliation lawsuit says he was forced out of the company in February 2008 after he attempted to raise the issues within the firm and to the State Department.

Gordon, a retired army captain from New Zealand, says the road to the courthouse wasn't an easy one for him. Before filing suit Thursday, he says he tried repeatedly to raise red flags with ArmorGroup North America, its parent company, Wackenhut Services Inc., and the State Department to talk about the need for a more professional guard force at the embassy.

A former director of operations for ArmorGroup, Gordon alleges that the company lowballed its bid for the contract and then understaffed its guard corps. ArmorGroup was awarded the $189 million embassy security contract in 2007. Read more.

91 former AGs file brief in Siegelman case
BY Chris Rizo | Legal Newsline

A bipartisan group of 91 former state attorneys general are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal by former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

The former Democratic governor is appealing his federal bribery conviction. The former attorneys general, in a brief filed Thursday, said the case raises important free speech issues.

In court papers, the former attorneys general said it was not against the law for Siegelman to appoint former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a hospital regulatory board after Scrushy arranged for $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's campaign for a statewide lottery.

They said there was no agreement between the governor and Scrushy concerning the appointment.

"This case concerns the criminalization of conduct protected by the First Amendment - the giving and receiving of campaign contributions," the group's amicus brief said. Read more.

Whistleblowers Unveil More Armor Group Allegations
Former Company Officials Say State Department Contractor Involved in Myriad Fraudulent Schemes
By Spencer Ackerman | Washington Independent

Former employees of ArmorGroup, the private security company that holds a State Department contract to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, unveiled new allegations against the besieged contractor a week after photographic evidence emerged of its guards engaged in physical and sexual harassment. In a press conference revolving around an unlawful-termination lawsuit filed against ArmorGroup, former senior company officials said ArmorGroup was aware of widespread fraud; intentional use of non-English speaking guards to save money at the expense of embassy security; operations of a shell corporation in order to win contracts intended only for American companies; and even involvement in prostitution — and that the State Department knew about at least some of the company’s illicit practices.

The allegations came from John Gorman, a former manager of ArmorGroup’s Kabul contract, and James Gordon, the former director of operation’s at ArmorGroup’s North American branch, headquartered in McLean, Va. Gordon, who yesterday sued the company for wrongful firing in federal court, spoke by teleconference from Kabul, where he said he was employed by an unspecified security company. Gorman and Gordon’s revelations come after the Project on Government Oversight wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week detailing accusations of fraud in ArmorGroup’s $189 million contract; and a year after their former colleagues and fellow whistleblowers, James Sauer and Peter Martino, filed a similar lawsuit.

Both Gorman and Gordon said ArmorGroup intentionally misrepresented its cost requirements to the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security in order to win the contract to protect the embassy when it was initially put up for bid in 2006. Gordon’s lawsuit alleges that Michael O’Connell, ArmorGroup North America’s vice president of operations, emailed Sauer on March 11, 2007, “AGNA bid this at a very low price and a very low margin,” adding the next day that the timelines and resources given to State in its proposal “don’t match up,” but it wasn’t “a big deal unless” the State Department contracting officer’s representative “calls us on it.”

One immediate consequence of the emphasis on hiding fraud, Gordon said, was hiring Nepalese guards, known as Gurkhas, who did not speak adequate English to guard the embassy. “It was impossible to safeguard the embassy with a guard force that couldn’t communicate with one another,” he said. “I was told that no language test had ever been given. I immediately reported this violation to the Department of State. To this day, AGNA has not corrected the problem.” Read more.

Afghan Recount Ordered Because of Fraud Charges
UN-backed commission orders Afghan recount as Karzai wins majority of votes
By Jason Strazoiso and Heidi Vogt, Associated Press | ABCNews.com

A U.N.-backed commission found "convincing evidence" of fraud Tuesday in Afghanistan's presidential election and ordered a recount of suspect ballots in at least three provinces, a process that could take months.

At the same time, Afghan officials released new returns that give President Hamid Karzai 54 percent of the vote with nearly all ballots tallied, enough to avoid a run-off unless large numbers of tainted ballots are ultimately thrown out.

The separate announcements from the complaints commission, which is dominated by U.N.-appointed Westerners, and the election commission, which is filled with Karzai appointees, could set the stage for a showdown.

The image of a crooked Afghan president rigging the vote threatens to discredit the entire U.S.-led mission here at a time when NATO casualties are mounting and American, European and Canadian voters are fatigued and disenchanted with the war. Read more.