The Price of Bush
Starmail - 8. Dez, 18:18
Vote USA 2004
8
Dez
2005
Congress to Bush: Stop Under-Counting Casualties
Starmail - 8. Dez, 18:13
C.R.E.S.T.: We The People Coalition Carter & By-laws draft
Starmail - 8. Dez, 17:54
Washington infected with a culture of corruption
Joe Conason
The New York Observer
12/06/05
California's 'Duke' heads to the pokey Washington infected with a culture of corruption
For a crude bully who used to bray about lining up Democrats and anti-war protesters to be “shot,” Randy (Duke) Cunningham cried like a little baby the other day when he finally admitted taking millions in bribes from defense contractors.
Forced to resign his office immediately as part of his plea bargain with federal prosecutors, the once-powerful California Congressman, whose leverage derived from his chairmanship of an important defense subcommittee, was a dominant type in the Republican Party of this era.
During his career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cunningham's style was loud, mindlessly reactionary and full of flag-waving bluster. He once described Bill Clinton as a “traitor” and compared Senator John Kerry to Jane Fonda on the House floor.
This hyper-patriotic scoundrel also turned out to be avaricious, deceptive and as eager to sell himself as a male escort. He misused his authority to steer federal contracts to the contractors who bribed him, and he doesn't seem to have hesitated to damage the national interest if his personal interests were served.
Among the items acquired by Mr. Cunningham, thanks to the illicit generosity of his friends in the defense industry, were a hillside mansion with pool in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; a yacht called “The Dukestir”; a Rolls-Royce sedan, plus repairs; a 17th-century Louis-Philippe commode, along with assorted other antiques and Oriental carpets; and roughly $1.8 million in cash considerations, plus hundreds of thousands in the usual campaign contributions. He also avoided paying federal income taxes, as most crooks tend to do.
In short, he peddled his principles and his patriotism rather cheaply.
Yet while the disgraced Duke may be the most ostentatiously greedy member of the House, his sleazy story is but a single episode in the expanding saga of Republican scandal. As he pondered his next term-which he will serve in a federal correctional institution-another high-rolling crook on Capitol Hill confessed to corrupting Congress.
That would be Michael Scanlon, the former communications director for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who pleaded guilty to felony fraud for his role in helping super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to relieve several Indian tribes of about $80 million while lobbying to improve their gambling businesses. The cooperation provided by Mr. Scanlon to the Justice Department is expected to embroil no fewer than a half-dozen other members of Congress and a squad of current and former staffers like him.
Many more politicians may ultimately be implicated in Mr. Abramoff's influence-peddling scam, however, with the slime rising to the top of the leadership both inside and outside the Congress. Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed profited handsomely from the Abramoff gambling boodle, as did Grover Norquist, the conservative strategist, lobbyist and unofficial aide to White House political boss Karl Rove. House Speaker Dennis Hastert performed favors for Abramoff clients and collected more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from the lobbyist's firm and clients since 2001.
On a single June evening two years ago, according to the Associated Press, the Speaker's Keep Our Majority political-action committee took in more than $20,000 from the Abramoff network at a fund-raiser in a Washington restaurant owned by the lobbyist. A week later, Mr. Hastert and several of his top deputies sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, asking her to disapprove a gambling license sought by a tribe competing with one of Mr. Abramoff's clients. While the Speaker's spokesman insists there was no connection between his actions and the money steered into his accounts, such indignant assertions now provoke knowing smiles even among Republicans.
Indeed, thoughtful Republicans are well aware that the typical complaints and excuses proffered by their leaders and pundits sound utterly false these days. This swelling tsunami of scandal cannot be attributed to partisan enemies or the “liberal media.”
The Abramoff schemes were aired in public hearings chaired by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican. The Cunningham scams came to light in a brilliant investigation by the conservative Copley News Service, whose featured columnists include Jack Kemp and Phyllis Schlafly. The criminal prosecutions of Mr. Scanlon, Mr. Cunningham and many others yet to be indicted are the work of prosecutors answerable to a Republican Attorney General.
Has the capital been infected by a “culture of corruption”? That culture has existed for well over a century, in both parties, at least since Mark Twain described Congress as America's only native criminal class. Before the Republicans won control of the House in 1994, its Democratic overlords had certainly proved capable of self-dealing and misconduct. A few of them went to jail, too.
What has happened since then seems unprecedented, however — at least during the postwar era. The sale of influence has been institutionalized in ways that earlier generations of politicians never imagined. Friends of Newt Gingrich — not a morally squeamish man — say he is dismayed. Members of the generation he brought to power are not revolutionaries but grifters, who have made a bad situation much worse.
Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer and Salon.com, and is the author of Big Lies: The Right- Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth.
Informant: Alan Dicey
The New York Observer
12/06/05
California's 'Duke' heads to the pokey Washington infected with a culture of corruption
For a crude bully who used to bray about lining up Democrats and anti-war protesters to be “shot,” Randy (Duke) Cunningham cried like a little baby the other day when he finally admitted taking millions in bribes from defense contractors.
Forced to resign his office immediately as part of his plea bargain with federal prosecutors, the once-powerful California Congressman, whose leverage derived from his chairmanship of an important defense subcommittee, was a dominant type in the Republican Party of this era.
During his career on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cunningham's style was loud, mindlessly reactionary and full of flag-waving bluster. He once described Bill Clinton as a “traitor” and compared Senator John Kerry to Jane Fonda on the House floor.
This hyper-patriotic scoundrel also turned out to be avaricious, deceptive and as eager to sell himself as a male escort. He misused his authority to steer federal contracts to the contractors who bribed him, and he doesn't seem to have hesitated to damage the national interest if his personal interests were served.
Among the items acquired by Mr. Cunningham, thanks to the illicit generosity of his friends in the defense industry, were a hillside mansion with pool in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; a yacht called “The Dukestir”; a Rolls-Royce sedan, plus repairs; a 17th-century Louis-Philippe commode, along with assorted other antiques and Oriental carpets; and roughly $1.8 million in cash considerations, plus hundreds of thousands in the usual campaign contributions. He also avoided paying federal income taxes, as most crooks tend to do.
In short, he peddled his principles and his patriotism rather cheaply.
Yet while the disgraced Duke may be the most ostentatiously greedy member of the House, his sleazy story is but a single episode in the expanding saga of Republican scandal. As he pondered his next term-which he will serve in a federal correctional institution-another high-rolling crook on Capitol Hill confessed to corrupting Congress.
That would be Michael Scanlon, the former communications director for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who pleaded guilty to felony fraud for his role in helping super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to relieve several Indian tribes of about $80 million while lobbying to improve their gambling businesses. The cooperation provided by Mr. Scanlon to the Justice Department is expected to embroil no fewer than a half-dozen other members of Congress and a squad of current and former staffers like him.
Many more politicians may ultimately be implicated in Mr. Abramoff's influence-peddling scam, however, with the slime rising to the top of the leadership both inside and outside the Congress. Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed profited handsomely from the Abramoff gambling boodle, as did Grover Norquist, the conservative strategist, lobbyist and unofficial aide to White House political boss Karl Rove. House Speaker Dennis Hastert performed favors for Abramoff clients and collected more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from the lobbyist's firm and clients since 2001.
On a single June evening two years ago, according to the Associated Press, the Speaker's Keep Our Majority political-action committee took in more than $20,000 from the Abramoff network at a fund-raiser in a Washington restaurant owned by the lobbyist. A week later, Mr. Hastert and several of his top deputies sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, asking her to disapprove a gambling license sought by a tribe competing with one of Mr. Abramoff's clients. While the Speaker's spokesman insists there was no connection between his actions and the money steered into his accounts, such indignant assertions now provoke knowing smiles even among Republicans.
Indeed, thoughtful Republicans are well aware that the typical complaints and excuses proffered by their leaders and pundits sound utterly false these days. This swelling tsunami of scandal cannot be attributed to partisan enemies or the “liberal media.”
The Abramoff schemes were aired in public hearings chaired by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican. The Cunningham scams came to light in a brilliant investigation by the conservative Copley News Service, whose featured columnists include Jack Kemp and Phyllis Schlafly. The criminal prosecutions of Mr. Scanlon, Mr. Cunningham and many others yet to be indicted are the work of prosecutors answerable to a Republican Attorney General.
Has the capital been infected by a “culture of corruption”? That culture has existed for well over a century, in both parties, at least since Mark Twain described Congress as America's only native criminal class. Before the Republicans won control of the House in 1994, its Democratic overlords had certainly proved capable of self-dealing and misconduct. A few of them went to jail, too.
What has happened since then seems unprecedented, however — at least during the postwar era. The sale of influence has been institutionalized in ways that earlier generations of politicians never imagined. Friends of Newt Gingrich — not a morally squeamish man — say he is dismayed. Members of the generation he brought to power are not revolutionaries but grifters, who have made a bad situation much worse.
Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer and Salon.com, and is the author of Big Lies: The Right- Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth.
Informant: Alan Dicey
Starmail - 8. Dez, 17:48
The totalitarian impulse
Strike the Root
by David MacGregor
12/07/05
The welfare state turns us all into busybody brother's keepers. This impulse to interfere in the lives of others is then translated to the ballot box -- leading to the election of governments who propose more and more draconian legislation in the attempt to impose standards of 'public health'...
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor8.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by David MacGregor
12/07/05
The welfare state turns us all into busybody brother's keepers. This impulse to interfere in the lives of others is then translated to the ballot box -- leading to the election of governments who propose more and more draconian legislation in the attempt to impose standards of 'public health'...
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor8.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 8. Dez, 17:11
Government forces outsourcing of local jobs - The freedom to move
Hawaii Reporter
by Don Newman
12/07/05
When people complain about the 'outsourcing' of American manufacturing jobs they rarely take into account that it is government policies that often drive companies away. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Clark Foam Co., which was forced to close its doors recently due to harassment by the EPA and local county fire officials. This is a perfect example of government regulation run amuck...
http://tinyurl.com/8xc6r
The freedom to move
Foundation for Economic Education
by Oscar W. Cooley and Paul L. Poirot
posted 12/07/05
Can we hope to explain the blessings of freedom to foreign people while we deny them the freedom to cross our boundaries? Freedom of movement underlies the concept of private property rights. A person has the right to exclusive possession and use of that which he has assembled and improved without trespass against others -- the right to the product of his own labor. Any move of a man might be deemed proper and beneficial when he acts to assemble, transport, or otherwise convert the free gifts of Nature so that they may satisfy human needs more readily. This involves no infringement on the equal right of others. It would seem to be the kind of movement that should not be discouraged by man or by government...
http://tinyurl.com/aqub8
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Don Newman
12/07/05
When people complain about the 'outsourcing' of American manufacturing jobs they rarely take into account that it is government policies that often drive companies away. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Clark Foam Co., which was forced to close its doors recently due to harassment by the EPA and local county fire officials. This is a perfect example of government regulation run amuck...
http://tinyurl.com/8xc6r
The freedom to move
Foundation for Economic Education
by Oscar W. Cooley and Paul L. Poirot
posted 12/07/05
Can we hope to explain the blessings of freedom to foreign people while we deny them the freedom to cross our boundaries? Freedom of movement underlies the concept of private property rights. A person has the right to exclusive possession and use of that which he has assembled and improved without trespass against others -- the right to the product of his own labor. Any move of a man might be deemed proper and beneficial when he acts to assemble, transport, or otherwise convert the free gifts of Nature so that they may satisfy human needs more readily. This involves no infringement on the equal right of others. It would seem to be the kind of movement that should not be discouraged by man or by government...
http://tinyurl.com/aqub8
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 8. Dez, 17:10
Pompeii on the Mississippi
http://tinyurl.com/8vekc
Report from the ninth ward
Common Dreams
by Mary Beth Appell
12/07/05
The residents of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans were finally allowed to return home on December 1, 2005. The neighborhood is home to nearly 20,000 African-American citizens and was devastated by the flooding during and after Katrina. This was the very first time they were legally permitted to visit their homes. ... Everywhere else in New Orleans you can see people fixing roofs, clearing debris, working hard to reclaim their homes. But not in the Lower Ninth Ward which has been officially closed for three months and guarded by heavily armed army and police. Three months after the floods and hurricane, all the shelters are closed. People are coming back home and have nowhere to go. I heard that at most one quarter of the residents are here, the rest are spread out across the south and the country. I write because the Red Cross has been saying to potential volunteers, 'We don't need you in New Orleans. Go to Pakistan.' My experiences in New Orleans say otherwise...
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1207-23.htm
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Report from the ninth ward
Common Dreams
by Mary Beth Appell
12/07/05
The residents of the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans were finally allowed to return home on December 1, 2005. The neighborhood is home to nearly 20,000 African-American citizens and was devastated by the flooding during and after Katrina. This was the very first time they were legally permitted to visit their homes. ... Everywhere else in New Orleans you can see people fixing roofs, clearing debris, working hard to reclaim their homes. But not in the Lower Ninth Ward which has been officially closed for three months and guarded by heavily armed army and police. Three months after the floods and hurricane, all the shelters are closed. People are coming back home and have nowhere to go. I heard that at most one quarter of the residents are here, the rest are spread out across the south and the country. I write because the Red Cross has been saying to potential volunteers, 'We don't need you in New Orleans. Go to Pakistan.' My experiences in New Orleans say otherwise...
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1207-23.htm
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 8. Dez, 17:04
Democracy for sale
The Nation
by Robert Scheer
12/07/05
Call it Tonto's revenge: The outrageous rip-off of Native American tribes by a top Republican lobbyist is leading inexorably to a reckoning for the allegedly morally superior religious and political right. 'I don't think we have had something of this scope, arrogance and sheer venality in our lifetimes,' Norman J. Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in Roll Call. 'It is building to an explosion, one that could create immense collateral damage within Congress and in coming elections.' Selling firewater to the natives -- or in this case charging them $82 million for government breaks on slot machine and other gaming licenses -- is not exactly what the high-minded prophets of the Republican revolution promised. And to see behind the scenes as Christian right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grassroots 'pro-family' followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives, is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportions...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scheer1207
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by Robert Scheer
12/07/05
Call it Tonto's revenge: The outrageous rip-off of Native American tribes by a top Republican lobbyist is leading inexorably to a reckoning for the allegedly morally superior religious and political right. 'I don't think we have had something of this scope, arrogance and sheer venality in our lifetimes,' Norman J. Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in Roll Call. 'It is building to an explosion, one that could create immense collateral damage within Congress and in coming elections.' Selling firewater to the natives -- or in this case charging them $82 million for government breaks on slot machine and other gaming licenses -- is not exactly what the high-minded prophets of the Republican revolution promised. And to see behind the scenes as Christian right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grassroots 'pro-family' followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives, is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportions...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scheer1207
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 8. Dez, 16:45
Senate must reject cybercrime treaty
Human Events
by James Plummer
12/08/05
Originally conceived as a tool to facilitate international cooperation in the pursuit of computer hackers and the like, the Cybercrime Treaty evolved during 15 years of negotiations to encompass any criminal offense that involves electronic evidence -- which in the 21st century is essentially limitless. As written, it could require more surveillance on Americans who have been accused of violating the laws of foreign countries -- even if they haven't violated U.S. law. Treaty cheerleaders paint menacing pictures of hackers and child pornographers. But in reality the Convention is drafted so broadly that it encompasses virtually every area of law where the possibility exists of computerized evidence. That could affect thousands of innocent people, including not only political dissidents, but also the politically incorrect...
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10723
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
by James Plummer
12/08/05
Originally conceived as a tool to facilitate international cooperation in the pursuit of computer hackers and the like, the Cybercrime Treaty evolved during 15 years of negotiations to encompass any criminal offense that involves electronic evidence -- which in the 21st century is essentially limitless. As written, it could require more surveillance on Americans who have been accused of violating the laws of foreign countries -- even if they haven't violated U.S. law. Treaty cheerleaders paint menacing pictures of hackers and child pornographers. But in reality the Convention is drafted so broadly that it encompasses virtually every area of law where the possibility exists of computerized evidence. That could affect thousands of innocent people, including not only political dissidents, but also the politically incorrect...
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10723
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
Starmail - 8. Dez, 16:42
