04.29.06

Right Wing Editor Buries Another Story on Saturday…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:33 pm by SSquirrel

WaPo

Federal prosecutors signaled this week that they have decided to pursue a wide range of allegations about dealings between Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, rather than bringing a narrowly focused bribery case against the congressman.

Ney was also involved with Abramoff and his lobbying team on other issues under federal investigation. In 2002, Ney sponsored legislation at the team’s request to reopen a casino for a Texas Indian tribe that Abramoff represented, and approved a 2002 license for an Abramoff client to wire the House of Representatives for mobile phone service.

At the same time, Ney accepted many favors from Abramoff, among them campaign contributions, dinners at the lobbyist’s downtown restaurant, skybox fundraisers — including one at his then-MCI Center box the month after Boulis’s murder — and a lavish golf junket to Scotland in August 2002.

Ney was directly implicated by three of the four who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bribery charges: Abramoff, Scanlon and Rudy. Kidan’s attorney said his client also would testify against Ney if asked.

The Wingers editing WaPo.com have been burying these inconvenient corruption stories on Saturday for months now. Four guys are ready to testify that a congressional committee chair is a criminal and took bribes, and it gets buried on Saturday. The only people in DC on saturday are the janitors. This used to be the best news site on the web. What a waste…

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04.28.06

Your Tax Dollars at (Dirty)Work…

Posted in SSquirrel at 3:48 pm by SSquirrel

FT.com

A former official said the CIA recently warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission. He added that while the threats might be legally “hollow,” they were having a chilling effect on former employees.

The attempt to silence former employees extends beyond those who still have consulting contracts. Larry Johnson, a former CIA official who blogs at www.TPMCafe.com, said he recently received a “threatening” letter reminding him about his confidentiality agreements.

Mr Johnson – who has criticised the White House for not aggressively investigating the outing of Valerie Plame, a former covert operative, said it was the first such letter he had received despite regularly commenting in the media on intelligence matters since his retirement in 1989. He said other former employees also received letters.

He said the CIA was also “very forceful” in intimidating a retired official who maintains ties to the agency after he signed a letter criticising the administration over the Plame leak.

Mr Johnson and other critics say the campaign is also intended to crack down on politically embarrassing comments from former officials.

“They are trying to intimidate the press and trying to intimidate employees,” said Mr Johnson. “Anybody who has been critical of the Bush administration is getting letters.”

Another former CIA employee who maintains links to the agency said it did not need to be blatant about threats because contractors and retirees who had relationships with agency officials understood that talking to reporters could have repercussions for future work.

“People at the agency are bright enough to see that is going on, they don’t need to be reminded,” the former official said.

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Kodachrome…It Gives You Such Nice Bright Colors…

Posted in SSquirrel at 3:04 pm by SSquirrel

By Ken Silverstein.

Harpers

SCOT J. PALTROW ~WSJ

California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post(Porter Goss). I’ve also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I’ve learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

It gets even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petit larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more. Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company’s connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support.

As to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a “frat party” scene—real bacchanals. Apparently photographs were taken, and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster in fevered anticipation

It makes me think all the world’s a sunny day…

Wonkette

Oh please please please please please say other members of Congress “used” the same “services.” Hell, say all of them did. Oh man, we are excited about Congress again. People, FBI agents have “fanned out across Washington, interviewing women from escort services” — this truly is the best of all possible worlds. AND THEY MIGHT’VE DONE IT IN THE WATERGATE!

Mitchell Wade, for telling investigators that you provided a congressman with hookers, limos, and rooms at the Watergate, you are an American Hero. We salute you, corrupt contractor, and hope there are plenty more where you came from.

A couple others who were the beneficiaries of Brent Wilkes generosity — financial and maybe, just maybe, otherwise:

Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis

Rep. John T. Doolittle (received more money than Cunningham!)

Schwarzenegger (though he probably doesn’t need a contractor to get him a hooker)

Duncan Hunter

(OMG OMG) KATHERINE HARRIS

(some of those recipients have “given back” the tainted money to charities — but as we all know, you can’t give back a night in heaven)

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Killjoy Is Here?

Posted in SSquirrel at 12:54 am by SSquirrel

Florida state House Speaker Allan Bense is changing his tune on a potential Senate run against Rep. Katherine Harris in the Republican primary.

Bense spokesman Towson Fraser said that a Senate run is “definitely something he is considering” and that it is “at the top of his list” of options when the Florida legislative session ends May 5.

Bense will not announce his decision on whether to pursue the seat now held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) until May 5. The deadline to file is May 12.

Dude, You’re harshing my buzz.

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How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

Posted in SSquirrel at 12:05 am by SSquirrel

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

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04.27.06

Wings 4, Edmonton 2…Bringing It On Home…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:24 pm by SSquirrel

Datsyuk pulls a Stevie giving Zetterburg the insurance goal after Nikki gets the winner in the third. Rumors that Chelios was spotted outside the officials lockerroom wearing a black hood and carrying a shotgun are unsubstantiated at this time…

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04.26.06

Quotable…

Posted in SSquirrel at 7:07 pm by SSquirrel

WaPo

Democrat James Webb officially kicked off his campaign for the U.S. Senate in this conservative corner of Virginia on Tuesday, offering a strongly populist indictment of the Bush administration and pledging to seek an end to the war in Iraq and a “culture of corruption” in Washington.

Webb, a former Republican who served briefly as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, didn’t mention his Democratic opponent in the June 13 primary, Harris Miller, and didn’t dwell much on Sen. George Allen (R), who is seeking a second term.

But he scalded the Bush administration and a Republican Congress that he said had sent “other people’s kids to war and other people’s kids to bad schools.”

I like this guy. His kid is in the Marines and he would prefer he not get killed in Iraq this Summer. He’s also very quotable.

“My objection to the war is not aimed at my country but at the administration that has chosen to wage this war, an administration that has muddied the truth, made mistake after mistake and refused to accept responsibility,”

I am not in agreement with him on many issues, but I like him, and I’m tempted to support him over Harris Miller in the primary, if only for this…

Webb was wearing combat boots with his suit Tuesday, in contrast to the cowboy boots that Allen is known for. He said he is wearing them to show support for his son and others in the military and urged supporters to put on boots — “any kind other than cowboy” — and “join this journey.”

Like I said, quotable …

S(pring)Squirrel

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Couldn’t Resist…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:14 am by SSquirrel

Kinda brings a tear to your eye. I miss the Bill of Rights, don’t you?

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04.25.06

Chairmain Whitewash…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:19 am by SSquirrel

Hill

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel’s inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time.

The inquiry has dragged on for more than two years, a slow pace that prompted Democrats to force the Senate into an extraordinary closed-door session in November. Republicans then promised to speed up the probe.

Roberts would like to wrap up work quickly on three relatively less controversial topics of the second phase of the inquiry:

• Pre-war intelligence assessments of what the political and security environment would be in Iraq after the American victory.

• Post-war findings about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and its links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments.

• The U.S. intelligence community’s use of intelligence provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

A report on these three areas would be made separately from the most controversial aspects of the inquiry. Left unfinished would be a report on whether public statements and testimony about Iraq by senior U.S. government officials were substantiated by available intelligence information. Roberts also would leave unfinished another report on what Democrats have called possibly illegal activity in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, formerly headed by Douglas Feith, who is believed to have played an important role in persuading the president to invade Iraq.

Democrats also have pressed Roberts to interview government officials about their statements, something Roberts has not agreed to, although he told The Hill in November that he would conduct interviews and issue subpoenas as a last resort.

Roberts has deferred the job of looking into Feith’s role until the Department of Defense inspector general completes its own investigation of the former undersecretary’s activities.

Roberts is less than completely pleased about his committee’s focus on wrapping up phase two.

He recently complained in a U.S. News & World Report article that his committee has not made progress on overseeing intelligence on Iran, a growing national security concern, because Democrats are “more focused on intelligence failures of the past.”

You can have the report when you pry it from his cold dead blood soaked hands…

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Fox News Admits Dictating “Important Stories”…

Posted in SSquirrel at 10:38 am by SSquirrel

Rory O’Connor, AlterNet

“If your readers would take a few seconds to consider the things they enjoy by virtue of being in this country, the depth of their anger would dissipate,” says John Moody. “We’re not arguing over whether democracy is being sacrificed here, we’re arguing over the path we’re going to take the country on — and rightly so!”

Asked about charges from former FOX News producer Charlie Reina that “The roots of FNC’s day-to-day on-air bias come in the form of an executive memo distributed electronically each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often, suggesting how they should be covered,” Moody, who writes the daily document, smirked.

“Poor Charlie, he had trouble getting things right,” he said. “It’s not even called a ‘memo,’ it’s an editorial note. It is not a political directive — that’s a specious charge — but my attempt to communicate about what are important stories.”

On the subject of the cable news fascination (some might say obsession) with the likes of missing teenager Natalee Holloway, Moody was dismissive at first. “These freethinking bloggers amaze me,” he began. “They refer to ‘dead white women.’ But what about live black pole dancers?”

“Is black life less valued by us? Certainly not!” he continued. “So why Natalee Holloway? What story rises to the level of becoming a news story? Often it’s the circumstances of the disappearance — was it different, lurid, unusual in some way? Could it happen to you?”

“Why does one story become news when others don’t? Sometimes, frankly, just because there’s video ”

I just love the smell of arrogance and bigotry in the morning, don’t you?

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Same Job, Less Pay…

Posted in SSquirrel at 10:25 am by SSquirrel

CNN

Sources close to the White House said Monday that Fox anchor Tony Snow is likely to accept the job as White House press secretary, succeeding Scott McClellan.

The sources said they expect him to announce his decision within the next few days.

Snow serves as a political analyst for Fox News Channel, which he joined in 1996.

He was a nationally syndicated columnist with The Detroit News in Detroit, Michigan, from 1993 to 2001 and was a columnist for USA Today from 1994 to 2000.

Before that, he was an editorial writer at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia; editorial page editor of The Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia; deputy editorial page editor of The Detroit News; and editorial page editor of The Washington Times.

The conservative radio talk show host, who was born in 1955, served as a speech writer for President Bush’s father in 1991.

In a separate personnel matter, discussions are also continuing about replacing Treasury Secretary John Snow, said two sources familiar with the issue and a third GOP source close to the White House.

Republicans familiar with the discussions said David Mulford, currently U.S. ambassador to India and a former Treasury Department official who also was the European chief of Credit Suisse First Boston, is considered a candidate for the job.

Apparently Tony has reached a settlement on back pay for basically being a Bush mouthpiece for the last six years…

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The Manure Effect…

Posted in SSquirrel at 6:31 am by SSquirrel

Dan Froomkin

John Roberts:

“But I think the reason was is because this president came into the White House with the idea that he didn’t want to use the national media. He wanted to talk past the national media. He wanted to reach out directly to the people. All the time forgetting that in order to get to the people, you’ve got to go through the national media, or at least the local media, you know, in regional markets. So I think that that was all part of their strategy. It’s the mushroom principle. It’s keep them in the dark and feed them manure.”

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04.24.06

Happy Birthday Kim…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:43 am by SSquirrel

Happy Birthday to Kimberly Marshall, wherever you are now. Hope the hurricanes didn’t get ya! Go Blue! Go Tigers! Darlene say hey.

SSquirrel

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More on the Nuts and Sluts at “Fox & Friends”…

Posted in SSquirrel at 11:39 am by SSquirrel

Eichidne of the Snakes

This is a most interesting post and well worth a feminist reading. It ties the treatment of the Duke rape case and the Natalie Holloway disappearance to wingnut politics by showing how talking about news stories like these in a certain way benefits the conservatives and why Fox News does it all the time.

The things they say on Fox in the morning would make Sean Hannity blush. Total fiction of the lowest form. Saturday mornings are the worst. I’ve fallen literally out of my chair laughing at what comes out of their Super Gloss encrusted lips on Saturday’s. If people didn’t actually believe them it would be priceless satire…

S(uspicous)Squirrel

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Popcorn!…When Wing-Nuts Explode…

Posted in SSquirrel at 10:43 am by SSquirrel

I’d be surprised if even this Supreme Court would hold as a matter of law that revealing criminal activity is a crime if the activity in question is labeled “classified.”

“But demanding that a political opponent go to jail for embarrassing the Beloved Leader is just par for the course. This is a special situation, so it calls for a special brand of lunacy.

Right Wing Nuthouse (their label, not mine) jumps on a report that the European Union investigator has said that there is no “proof beyond reasonable doubt” that the “renditions” happened or that the secret prisons exist (which, quoting from Little Green Footballs, RWN overinterprets as “no evidence”) and proceeds to “connect the dots”: the whole thing was made up out of whole cloth as a sting to catch CIA leakers. (No, really: I lack the invention to make this stuff up.)

Captain’s Quarters endorses the idea, and embellishes this fantasy by calling a leak search a “mole hunt”: a “mole,” of course, is a traitor working for a foreign intelligence service, but of course in Rightwingistan anything contrary to the will of the Decider is effectively treason anyway, so who’s counting?”

More loud popping noises from Mark Kleiman at The Reality Based Community. (Warning: I don’t think that’s butter)

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Paying at the Pump for Kammander Koo-Koo Bananas…

Posted in SSquirrel at 10:20 am by SSquirrel

Oil prices breached a record high of $75 on Friday, raising concerns about its impact on world economic growth.

Qatar’s al-Attiya said that there was at least a $15 per barrel premium on oil prices related to political tension.

A senior US energy department official attending the Doha forum admitted that tension over Iran was affecting oil markets but that it was Iran’s fault in initiating uranium enrichment in defiance of “the world”.

Karen Harbert, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, said: “I think the world has spoken out about its feelings [over Iran] and unfortunately there is a reaction in the market.”

The White House issued a statement this morning regarding its Iran Policy “Go sell crazy someplace else, we’re all full up here”

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If We Leave, Violence and Chaos May Break Out…Next Bullshit Reason?

Posted in SSquirrel at 10:08 am by SSquirrel

A wave of car bombs hit Baghdad on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 80, police said. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz

AP

Seven car bombs exploded across the capital Monday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, as politicians met to try to finalize a new Cabinet. Police discovered the bodies of 20 Iraqis — apparent victims of sectarian killings the United States hopes the new government can end.

Three roadside bombs, five drive-by shootings and a mortar round killed 12 Iraqis in Baghdad and elsewhere, police said.

Baghdad’s first car bomb exploded during morning rush hour on a major street near the Tigris river, close to a complex of government buildings, a hospital and a bus station. Three people were killed and 25 wounded.

Two hours later, bombs hidden in two cars parked near Mustansiriya University in eastern Baghdad exploded, killing three civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, and wounding 22 people, said police Lt. Bila Ali.

A car bomb also exploded near a square near a U.S. military convoy in central Baghdad, wounding at least 11 civilians, including a young girl, said police Maj. Abbas Mohammed Selman. U.S. forces closed off the area, and it was not immediately known if there were American casualties.

Bombs in two cars parked about 100 yards apart then exploded one after another near Iraqi police patrols in the New Baghdad part of the capital, wounding three policemen and three civilians, said police Lt. Ali Abass.

That was followed by a car bomb that targeted a police patrol in the Mansur area of Baghdad, wounding three policemen and four civilians, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

Police in Abu Ghraib, just outside Baghdad, found a small truck containing the bodies of 15 men who had been tortured in captivity, said police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq. Two other corpses were found in southwest Baghdad; one appeared to have been hanged, said police Capt. Qassim Hassan. Three bodies were found in the northern city of Mosul, including that of a university student who had been kidnapped hours earlier, police said.

Police said the bodies of six Shiites were found Sunday in the mainly Sunni district of Azamiyah in Baghdad, their hands and legs bound and their bodies showing signs of torture. Two more bodies were found in a mixed district south of Baghdad.

The chief of the Azamiyah district council, Sheik Hassan Sabri Salman, said relatives also identified the bodies of 14 Sunnis kidnapped last week. The bodies were handcuffed with signs of torture, he said. Police did not confirm the deaths.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni faction in parliament and a likely participant in the next Cabinet, warned of “the repercussions of sectarian cleansing.” It urged the new government to stop “the criminal gangs” involved in the killings.

Khalilzad also said Iraq’s next government must decommission sectarian militias and integrate them into the national armed forces, warning that the armed groups represent the “infrastructure for civil war.”

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