Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich

Frank Rich | NYTimes.com:

"ROD BLAGOJEVICH is the perfect holiday treat for a country fighting off depression. He gift-wraps the ugliness of corruption in the mirthful garb of farce. From a safe distance outside Illinois, it’s hard not to laugh at the “culture of Chicago,” where even the president-elect’s Senate seat is just another commodity to be bought and sold.

But the entertainment is escapist only up to a point. What went down in the Land of Lincoln is just the reductio ad absurdum of an American era where both entitlement and corruption have been the calling cards of power. Blagojevich’s alleged crimes pale next to the larger scandals of Washington and Wall Street. Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald...." Continue Reading.

Photo Credit: Frank Rich. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Rod Blagojevich, Frank Rich, New York Times, Frauds, Corruption, Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Politics, Government, United States, op ed

A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks

Amit R. Paley, Washington Post, reports:

With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy

"The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin...."

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Amit R. Paley, Corporate Taxes, Congress, Bailout, U.S. Economy, Banks, Windfall, Treasury Dept., news

Who is the REAL Sarah Palin?

Someone You Can't Trust

Panel Finds Palin Abused Authority in Firing State Official | NYTimes.com:

"A legislative committee investigating Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate, issued a report Friday night that found she unlawfully abused her authority by firing the state’s public safety commissioner...."

Also See:

• Palin E-Mails: Judge Orders State To Preserve


• Monegan responds to Todd Palin’s statement in Troopergate investigation

Technorati tags: Sarah Palin, Troopergate, Alaska, Governor, Vice President, 2008 campaign, investigation, abuse of power

Who Is Cindy McCain?

Someone lacking ethics and honesty.

Cindy McCain Kept Keating Partnership After Scandal:

"Sen. John McCain's wife and father-in-law continued a lucrative business partnership with disgraced financier Charles H. Keating Jr. for 11 years after the GOP presidential nominee said he ended his close friendship with Keating in March 1987.

Cindy McCain's business partnership with Keating in a real-estate development between 1986 and 1998 netted her a tidy profit, in addition to years of significant tax benefits. Her father, who died in 2000, earned similar returns...."

Every day, it becomes more apparent that John McCain is part of the problem, not the solution to our current economic crisis. Every day, he continues to try to bring down Barack Obama with lies and distortions directed at both his policies and his character. Every day it becomes apparent that John McCain's attempts to divide us in a time of crisis is the exact opposite of what this country needs.

Photo credit: Cindy McCain. (Huffington Post)

Help Shed Light on McCain's Lobbyests!

From Campaign Money Watch:

John McCain’s connections to high-powered lobbyists are so numerous it’s hard to keep up with all of them. But you can help us keep up and point us to any stories you’ve heard or read that you think deserve some attention on this blog.

Just send your tips to our new e-mail address: tips@mccainslobbyists.com. We’ll sift through what we receive and will post the good stuff (including a hat-tip to whoever sent it in).

And remember, if you want to know whose interests a candidate will embrace once he is in office, all you have to do is follow the money.

Technorati tags: John McCain, Lobbyists, Corruption, Corporate America, 2008 Presidential Election

The Shocking Video Hillary Does NOT Want You To See!

Vote for Hillary at your own risk. This is exactly what the Republicans will be dredging up should she win the Democratic nomination -- and it's why she will lose in the general election, giving us 8 more years of Bush policies.

THINK before you vote.

Part I


Trouble viewing this video? Click Here.

Part II


Trouble viewing this video? CLICK HERE

Hillary! Uncensored, the unedited trailer that has been ranked #1 video in Google Top 100 in the World, debuted as a 1 hour documentary on YouPerView on November 5, 2007. Copyright T2P Media Inc. Presented by Equal Justice Foundation of America.

Refer to Hillary Clinton Accountability Project - http://www.hillcap.org - for link to DVD and other evidence of the frauds Hillary directed to win her senate seat

------------------------------------

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Then, there's the Clintons...

The Roughcut Trailer for "Hillary! Uncensored - the Documentary."

This is the video that's been buzzing around the blogs for the past few months, becoming one of the most viewed on Google Video. It shows the Peter Paul side of the issue, which involves allegations that Hillary Clinton has committed numerous federal election law violations, has lied about them to cover them up, all culminating in what might be felonious conduct on her part. Paul makes a strong case here. Will the media continue to do its best to bury what might be the largest election fraud in US history? Stay tuned...

This is the most shocking expose on the blatant corruption surrounding Hillary Clinton. Includes exclusive home videos of Hillary to expose the illegalities that elected Hillary to the Senate and the obstructions of justice that keep her there. The full documentary, at (www.hillcap.org) and (www.peterfpaul.com) will be released on November 1, 2007 by Equal Justice Foundation of America - CONTRIBUTE TO EJFA, NON-PROFIT WHISTLEBLOWER FOUNDATION - https://www.registrationfactory.com/v3/? EventUUID=2A54FEC2 .

TO ADVERTISE AND PUBLICIZE the ONLY documentary that dares to expose the evidence of Hillary's misconduct to the American people - Banned by the Mainstream Media!

Equal Justice Foundation of America

www.hillcap.org

Technorati tags: Hillary Clinton, Corruption, Accountability, Bill Clinton, Peter Paul, Campaign finance

Commerce, Treasury Funds Helped Boost GOP Campaigns

More corruption, folks....

Marisa Taylor and Kevin G. Hall (McClatchy Newspapers) report:

"Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.

Political appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received at least four briefings — all in the election years of 2002, 2004 and 2006.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the White House's political briefings to at least 15 agencies, including to the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the State Department, violated a ban on the use of government resources for campaign activities...."

Thanks to Al B. for the heads up.

Technorati tags: U.S. Commerce Dept., U.S. Treasury Dept., GOP, Elections, Hatch Act, news, McClatchy Newspapers

The results are in!

And the Winners are (DRUM ROLL) ....

ExxonMobile, Halliburton, and Wal-Mart!


Corporate Accountability International reports:

"Nearly 8,600 voters have voiced their choice, and the 2007 inductees are ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Wal-Mart. Here are the results:

ExxonMobil: 4,834 Votes Cast

Halliburton: 4,324 Votes Cast

Wal-Mart: 2,882 Votes Cast

Kimberly-Clark: 2,822 Votes Cast

Coke: 1,935 Votes Cast

Ford: 1,465 Votes Cast

Nestlé: 1,075 Votes Cast

Merck: 879 Votes Cast

Write-Ins: 313 Votes Cast

Total Voters: 8,592

Each voter could select up to three different nominees, or they could write in their own candidate. More than 300 people did so, with corporations such as Monsanto, Lockheed Martin and McDonald’s named the most frequently. And many of you posted comments...."

To find out why the new inductees led the voting: CLICK HERE.

Technorati tags: Corporations, Corporate Accountability International, Polls, ExxonMobile, Halliburton, Wal-Mart, news

Bush Says He is Above the Law

In the slightly paraphrased words of my astute friend Al Buono, "This is incredibly arrogant and brazenly unconstitutional ... IMPEACH THEM BOTH; NOW!

Then fire up the war crimes trials."

Bush Claims Oversight Exemption Too :
The LA Times reports:

"The White House says the president's own order on classified data does not apply to his office or the vice president's.

The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.

An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said...."

Hat tip yet again to Al.

Related Articles:

• MotherJones.com: Dick Cheney: Check and Balance This!

  Quick, forget everything you learned in 5th-grade social studies (or Election) about the three branches of government. You know, the executive, judicial, and legislative. Now it turns out we actually have four branches of government. Like so many of the interesting new things we've learned about how the federal government is really supposed to work, this head-scratcher comes from Dick Cheney....

• NY Times Editorial: White House of Mirrors:

  "President Bush has turned the executive branch into a two-way mirror. They get to see everything Americans do: our telephone calls, e-mail, and all manner of personal information. And we get to see nothing about what they do...."

• MotherJones.com: Finally, Some Answers on NSA Domestic Spying?

  The Senate Judiciary Committee has made at least nine formal requests for documents regarding the NSA's domestic spying programs, but the Bush Administration has refused to hand anything over. The stonewalling may finally cease now that the committee has voted to issue subpoenas, with Chairman Leahy openly questioning what the Administration has to hide.
  
  A list of the documents Leahy and the committee hope to uncover can be found here.

• The Hill's Pundit Blog: � CIA Skeletons, The Mortal Sins of Dick Cheney, The Nobility Of Al Gore

  "Soon, CIA Director Michael Hayden will release documents that describe major misdeeds of the CIA in darker days, after General Antonio Taguba went public in The New Yorker with charges of an Abu Ghraib cover-up.
  
  A great and noble debate will begin in America. Revelations about past and current misdeeds will bring into focus what went wrong in the Iraq war, and why opponents of these policies are voices of American patriotism...."

• The Hill's Pundit Blog: � Abu Ghraib Cover-up About to Explode

  "Gen. Antonio Taguba is one of America’s most respected senior officers, was put in charge of the Abu Ghraib investigation, and has now leveled a series of powerful public
  charges that will soon blow this case sky-high.
  
  Gen. Taguba went public early this week in long on-the-record interviews with Sy Hersh reported in his New Yorker piece now on newsstands.
  
  Among other things, Taguba says:
  
  1. He was ordered not to investigate higher-ups in the chain of command, which means
  there was (is) a cover-up protecting the highest-ranking Bush administration officials who might have criminal liability.
  
  2. Early in his investigation he was threatened with career retribution if he dared to seek the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
  
  3. After his investigation he was punished by being forced into early retirement.
  
  4. He suggests that Don Rumsfeld might have lied when he testified before Congress, which would be a criminal offense.
  
  5. He details meetings in which Rumsfeld spoke to him in terms that were sarcastic,
  rude and unprofessional shortly before Rumsfeld would publicly say how much he
  supported the investigation and wanted the truth to come out.
  
  6. He reveals specific acts of torture that are beyond what was publicly known, and videos of Abu Ghraib torture have not been released that provide strong evidence that the crimes of Abu Ghraib were known earlier and far higher up than previously reported.
  
  7. He expresses serious concern that the same forms of torture used at Abu
  Ghraib were (are?) also used at Guantanamo Bay, which remains open and the subject of world-wide condemnation.
  
  At some point Gen. Taguba will be called to testify publicly and will prove one of the most explosive witnesses in six years, while investigative reporters and almost certainly congressional committees are currently looking into Abu Ghraib.
  
  The implications of this are enormous because they go to potential perjury and giving false testimony to Congress and investigators, and lead outward throughout the dark side of the Bush years.
  
  There is a high probability that investigation of the Abu Ghraib crimes and cover-up will lead upward to Donald Rumsfeld and his coterie of neoconservative aides and their
  shadow CIA run through the Department of Defense.
  
  There is a substantial possibility this leads to the role of Alberto Gonzales on the range of torture issues at the Department of Justice and during his years as White House Counsel.
  
  There is significant possibility this leads to Vice President Cheney, the most aggressive
  advocate of what the world considers torture of any senior official anywhere in the free world.
  
  Gen. Taguba should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his honor, integrity and courage throughout this shameful episode and for having the honor to speak out publicly, visibly and unequivocally now.
  
  The stakes are high and the storm clouds are gathering for those who committed, ordered or covered up crimes of torture."

• NY Times: Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data


• Inmates' Words: The Poems of Guantanamo
  The publication of an anthology of works, composed on paper cups by detainees, provides a harrowing insight into the torments and fading hopes of prisoners.


• The CIA's torture teachers | Salon News:

  "Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics -- likely with the approval of the Bush White House...."

Technorati tags: Bush, Congress, Oversight, Constitution, Executive Order, Abuse of Power, news

Invisible Cheney

A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times

It’s hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month.

Harry’s cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice’s culture of invisibility.

I’ve always thought Cheney was way out there — the most Voldemort-like official I’ve run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet — a separate entity from the White House.

I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it’s quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution.

Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he’s blowing off his own administration.

Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress’s ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney’s chicanery.

On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it?

Cheney’s office denied doing anything wrong, but Cheney’s office is also denying it’s an office. Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch, instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an “entity within the executive branch” and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders.

“It’s absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don’t apply to him,” Representative Waxman told me. “The irony is, he’s taking the position that he’s not part of the executive branch.”

Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn’t have to worry every night that she’ll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over.

“Your decision to exempt your office from the president’s order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk,” Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Cheney.

Of course, it’s doubtful, now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk, that he’ll suddenly listen to reason.

Cheney and Cheney’s Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch.

Cheney, they argue, is the president of the Senate, so he’s also part of the legislative branch. Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera, an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster. It’s a new level of gall, to avoid accountability by saying you’re part of a legislative branch that you’ve spent six years trying to weaken.

But gall is the specialty of Addington, who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king. He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects, and he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission. He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy.

Dana Perino, a White House press spokeswoman, had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney’s bizarre contention that he is his own government. “This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate,” she said.

I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors — I’m visualizing dedicated “We the People” wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors — they pushed back.

Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.

Photo Credit: Maureen Dowd. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Dick Cheney, National Archives and Records Administration, Vice Presidency, Politics, U.S. Government, Abuse of Power, Corruption, news, commentary, op ed

Another Giant Snow Job

Snow Responds To Potentially Illegal Use Of RNC Accounts: Clinton Did It Too

Only Clinton didn't do it. Does the mainstream press question Snow's false assertion? Of course not. Do they ever question baseless assertions?

Think Progress sets Tony straight here:

"In 1993, President Clinton’s then-Assistant to the President John Podesta issued a staff memo clearly stating that all administration e-mails dealing with official business had to be 'incorporated into an official recordkeeping system,' stressing that no “e-mail document that is a Presidential record should be deleted.'

The Clinton administration’s policy also made clear that personal and political e-mail accounts — which are generally exempt from the Presidential Records Act — could not be used for official business. Indeed, the Bush administration has seemingly implemented a policy opposite of the Clinton administration’s.

Read the full memo HERE.

See Snow video HERE.

TRANSCRIPT:

Q Waxman’s committee has put out an interim report on the issue of the RNC emails showing, they say, that there was more use of those emails than the White House suggested, indicating possibly widespread violation of the Presidential Records Act. It’s, like, 140,000 emails of Rove’s, so the White House Counsel’s Office is aware that official business was being conducted through this party (inaudible) system? Can you respond to all that and what –

MR. SNOW: Look, I can’t respond specifically to things that the committee may have put out. But those email accounts were set up, A, on a model based on the prior administration, which had done it the same way, in order to try to avoid Hatch Act violations. And we’ll just — we’ll leave it at that. I mean, these were designed precisely to avoid Hatch Act violations that prohibit the use of government assets for certain political activities.

Photo Credit: Tony Snow. (AP/Gerald Herbert/salon.com)
Document Credit: Podesta memo. (thinkprogress.org)
(Hat Tip to Al for the Title of this Post and the "heads up")

Technorati tags: Tony Snow, Illegal RNC emails, Bill Clinton, John Podesta, Rove, Waxman, news, Thinkprogress.com

UPDATE: Bush Aides' E-Mail Abuses

From Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post:

Bush Aides' Misuse of E-Mail Detailed by House Committee

"White House aides made extensive use of political e-mail accounts for official government business, despite rules requiring that they conduct such business through official communications channels, according to new evidence disclosed yesterday by congressional investigators.

The Republican National Committee told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove alone sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails between 2002 and 2007, more than half of which involved individuals using official ".gov" e-mail accounts, a report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said. The RNC said it still has copies of those e-mails.

Former Rove assistant Susan B. Ralston affirmed in a deposition released by the committee that her ex-boss used his political e-mail account "most of the time."

The White House previously acknowledged that aides to President Bush improperly used the political e-mail accounts. But the material released yesterday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and for what purposes.

The committee said it learned that the White House aides used the RNC accounts to discuss official matters such as appointments and grant announcements. It also said at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts, a figure above previous administration statements that only about 50 had such accounts.

The report also said many RNC e-mails involving others besides Rove and one of his aides have been lost, either under its deletion policy or individual deletions by senior officials. "As a result of these policies, potentially hundreds of thousands of White House e-mails have been destroyed, many of which may be presidential records," the report said.

Congressional Democrats have suggested that Rove and other White House officials may have used the political accounts to avoid scrutiny of their decisions from Congress, but the report offered no evidence about their motives. Ralston said Rove believed all of his e-mails were being saved even though the RNC had a policy until 2004 of destroying all e-mails after 30 days...."

Read more.

Technorati tags: Political email accounts, RNC, Karl Rove, Congress, Democrats, Justice Department, news

Sunday Late-Night Reader

DOJ Probes Turn to Civil Rights Division | LegalTimes.com:

The Civil Rights Division has emerged as the latest lightning rod for allegations that the Justice Department has become politicized during the Bush administration.

Congress Wants Ashcroft's Testimony | Newsweek | Isikoff:

"The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have asked the former attorney general to testify about his role in a dramatic showdown over a controversial eavesdropping program. Will he play ball? ..."

White House Follows New Path To Secrecy:

"A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush administration.

Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them...."

VIDEO DOCUMENTARY: THE FUTURE OF FOOD:

"Offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade."

Even the Twinkie is Made in China:

"...So much for the great "All-American" snack food...."

Troops to Lieberman: "When Are We Going To Get Out Of Here?"

"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five 'surge' brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

'When are we going to get out of here?' ..."

The corporate takeover of U.S. intelligence | Salon:

"The U.S. government now outsources a vast portion of its spying operations to private firms -- with zero public accountability.

More than five years into the global 'war on terror,' spying has become one of the fastest-growing private industries in the United States. The federal government relies more than ever on outsourcing for some of its most sensitive work, though it has kept details about its use of private contractors a closely guarded secret. Intelligence experts, and even the government itself, have warned of a critical lack of oversight for the booming intelligence business...."

Mr. Hardball Goes to the World Bank:

Sarah Anderson asks: "Is a tone-deaf, name-calling, steely opportunist a good choice to lead the World Bank? The Bank's official mission, after all, is to fight global poverty, not promote US corporate interests. And after the Wolfowitz uproar, one might have expected the Bush administration to pick a more genteel and broad-minded successor to lead this global institution...."

US Attorney Targeted for Supporting Voting Rights:

"At a time when GOP activists wanted US attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger's office was expressing deep concern about a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots...."

Is Martial Law Coming? | The Progressive

Saluting Cindy Sheehan | The Progressive

Why I Was Fired By David Iglesias (New York Times Select)

Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg a New Voice on Court

Why Democratic Political Consultants Love the Iraq War

Technorati tags: Corruption, Bush Administration, Politics, Supreme Court, Attorney Generals, Corporate America, John Ashcroft, Iraq, DOJ, Civil Rights, Dick Cheney, Food Safety, Cindy Sheehan, news

More Adventures in Rovian Corruption

(Click For Larger View)

Rove Linked to Prosecution of Ex-Alabama Governor | TIME:

"In the rough and tumble of Alabama politics, the scramble for power is often a blood sport. At the moment, the state's former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, stands convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges and faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Siegelman has long claimed that his prosecution was driven by politically motivated, Republican-appointed US attorneys. Now Karl Rove, the President's top political strategist, has been implicated in the controversy...."

Jason Leopold | An Interview With David Iglesias

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Truthout, David Iglesias, the former US attorney for New Mexico, who was fired in December along with seven other US attorneys for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics, said he believes a "smoking gun" exists that will lead directly to Karl Rove and blow the scandal wide open. "I believe somewhere on an RNC computer, on some server somewhere there's an email from Karl Rove stating why we need to be axed," Iglesias told Truthout....

Technorati tags: Karl Rove, Attorney Generals, Corruption, US Justice System, news

Taming the Giant Corporation

By Ralph Nader
CommonDreams.org

This column heralds a pioneering conference next month in Washington, D.C. But first a little background.

Back in the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt went on the national radio and declared what the basic necessities were for the American people - a wage that can support a family, decent housing, the right to health care, a good education and future economic security.

Sound familiar today? It certainly would sound familiar to a majority of the American people. The struggle for livelihood, the struggles to escape poverty, calamitous health care bills, mounting debt, gouging rents and failing, crumbling schools continues year after year.

What’s that French saying - “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Things have changed for the rich and corporate, though. The rich have gotten richer. The talk now is about the super-rich and the hyper-rich. The richest 1 percent of people in this country has financial wealth equal to the combined financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.

The big corporations are more avaricious than ever. The past decade’s corporate crime wave, dutifully reported in the major business media-newspapers and magazines-demonstrates how trillions of dollars were looted, or drained away, from tens of millions of small investors, pensioners and workers.

In FDR’s time, the CEOs of the top 300 corporations paid themselves about 12 times the average wage in their company. Now the “top greed” registers 400 to 500 times what the average workers eke out in a full year. WalMart is an example of that sheer self-serving power at the top.

All this is occurring while the big companies deliver comparatively far less to the economic well-being of the American worker. The CEOs are otherwise preoccupied with figuring out how they can outsource more American jobs to China and India, how they can hollow out more communities and ship whole industries to those and other countries, many under authoritarian rule, that promise to keep the CEOs’ operations at costs close to serfdom.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the CEOs say it is necessary to flee our country-where they were nurtured to their size and profits-in order to keep up with global competition. But they never urge outsourcing their own CEO jobs to hardworking, bilingual executives in the Third World willing to work for less than one-tenth of the U.S. CEOs’ pay package.

Besides, who wrote the rules (NAFTA, WTO) that define the global competition? Big Business and its lawyer-lobbyists.

Uncle Sam has bent over to give Big Business what it has demanded in the past 25 years. Huge tax reductions, compared to the prosperous nineteen sixties. Massive deregulation, or the abandonment of law and order against criminal, negligent or defrauding corporations. Your tax dollars were transferred in the form of subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts to demanding, mismanaged or corrupt large businesses.

Still, it was not enough coddling to keep these giant companies from casting aside what allegiance they had to our country, its communities and people. The companies’ standard is to control them or quit them as these CEOs see fit.

When BusinessWeek Magazine answered a resounding YES to its cover story in 2000 “Too Much Corporate Power?” the editors were not kidding. They even wrote an editorial saying that “corporations should get out of politics.” I guess they meant that since corporations do not vote, and are not human beings, that they should not be honing in on what should be the exclusive domain of real people.

More and more conservatives believe that Big Business (Wall Street vs. Main Street) is out of control and stomping on conservative values. They don’t like corporate welfare, corporate eminent domain against the little guys, commercial invasion of privacies, WTO and NAFTA shredding our sovereignty, corporate crimes (Enron, Worldcom, etc.) or Big Government on behalf of Big Business Empires around the world.

They are appalled by corporations directly selling bad things and violent programming to their children, whom these companies teach to nag parents.

It is time for the American people to get off the defense and take the offense against corporate power, the way it was done in the consumer, environmental and worker areas from 1965 to 1975 and beyond to new frontiers of subordinating the big corporations to the rights and necessities of real people.

Toward those objectives, hundreds of leading advocates, scholars and activists will convene on June 8-10 in Washington, D.C. to address how to subordinate raw corporate power to the will of the people.

The title of the conference tells its content: “Taming the Giant Corporation: A National Conference on Corporate Accountability.”

Conference speakers include: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman; Robert Monks, veteran leader for corporate governance; Mark Green, president, Air America Radio; Robert Greenstein, Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Ron Daniels, President of Institute of the Black World in the 21st Century; Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Lori Wallach of Public Citizen and many more distinguished persons.

If you wish to attend the entire conference, including the Saturday evening dinner, go to www.tamethecorporation.org for details or call 202-387-8030. Hurry up. Space is available but seating is limited.

© 2007 Ralph Nader

Photo Credit: Ralph Nader. (The Michigan Daily)

Technorati tags: Corporations, Corporate Accountability, U.S. Government, Ralph Nader, CommonDreams.org, news

Be Kind to Our Whistle-Blower Friends

The New York Times Reports:

"...The House has approved an overdue remedy that would strengthen whistle-blower protection and the penalties for retaliators. The measure is particularly important for extending protection to national security workers so they feel freer to report misconduct and gaps in antiterrorism defenses. One provision would bar a familiar tactic of retaliation-- the revocation of a complaining worker's security clearance. The White House, of course, is threatening a veto, claiming the measure weakens national security. Tell that to Coleen Rowley, who quit the F.B.I. after documenting the agency's failure to follow up on field office warnings before the 9/11 attacks. In truth, it is vital for national security that the Senate vote final approval of the measure with the same veto-proof support shown by the House. Whistle-blowers honor government service. It is time to strike back at their tormentors."

Technorati tags: New York Times, Whistle-Blowers, Congress, Bush Administration, news, commentary

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel

Murray Waas, special to NATIONAL JOURNAL, has the story.

Op-Art: Dick and Don's Cabal

With Libby indicted, that's one down, 28 to go. Here's the TomPaine official guide to the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal that sold America an unjust war.

A Separate Peace

America is in trouble--and our elites are merely resigned.

This is a link to an insightful, thought provoking piece by Peggy Noonan. Surprisingly, I share many of Ms. Noonan's feelings. What do you think? Is there a "deep and fundamental" sense in America that "things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon"?

The problem I have is that in describing an extremely depressing outlook, Noonan offers no solution and, in fact, postulates that there may be none. Importantly, she fails to analyze why our problems have suddenly become so overwhelming, our feelings so hopeless. Without analyzing the causes, there can be no solutions.

I believe that our normal political and societal problems have been exascerbated and fanned to hurricane proportions by the Bush administration's severely misguided and dangerous policies. Where we had problems before Bush, they have multiplied tenfold in both number and intensity since the Bush regime.

The solution is, therefore, first and foremost, to remove from power the disruptive and counter productive forces in our government: Bush, his cronies, and their elitist agendas must go. And they had better go soon. Because the dire future Ms. Noonan paints is already upon us, and the point of no return is rapidly approaching (if we haven't reached it already). We must radically change the direction this country has taken for the last 5 years. And we need to do it now.

Bush should take a hint from Harriet Miers. His reign is distrupting this country's ability to solve our problems. He should step down and take his whole crazy cabal of neo-cons with him."

Dick at the Heart of Darkness

Maureen Dowd (NYT) writes that

"the shocking thing about the trellis of revelations showing Dick Cheney, the self-styled Mr. Strong America, as the central figure in dark conspiracies to juice up a case for war and demonize those who tried to tell the public the truth, is how un-shocking it all is.... It's exactly what we thought was going on...."