Last week, I wrote a post about Howard "Cookie" Krongard, the Inspector General of the State Department who appears to be helping the Bush Administration cover its ass regarding fraud and slave labor in Iraq, even though his job is to investigate the allegations.
This investigator/enabler thing now appears to be a pattern. Scott Bloch, described by the Wall Street Journal as "a loyal member of the Bush administration, serving in the Justice Department's office of faith-based programs, when the president named him to head the Office of Special Counsel in 2003", is the guy that is charge of investigating whether the Bush Administration politicized the Justice department. One of the central issues that has arisen from the investigation is whether or not Karl Rove purposely deleted over four years worth of emails that may or may not contain incriminating evidence.
Well, it turns out that Scott Bloch is also under investigation himself for hiring a private company called Geeks on Call to delete, not just emails, but all of the files from his computer and the computers of two political deputies who had worked under him. He is now claiming that he had a computer virus. According to the Wall Street Journal,
Mr. Bloch had his computer's hard disk completely cleansed using a "seven-level" wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. He also directed Geeks on Call to erase laptop computers that had been used by his two top political deputies, who had recently left the agency.
Geeks on Call visited Mr. Bloch's government office in a nondescript office building on M Street in Washington twice, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2006, according to a receipt reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The total charge was $1,149, paid with an agency credit card, the receipt shows. The receipt says a seven-level wipe was performed but doesn't mention any computer virus.
Jeff Phelps, who runs Washington's Geeks on Call franchise, declined to talk about specific clients, but said calls placed directly by government officials are unusual. He also said erasing a drive is an unusual virus treatment. "We don't do a seven-level wipe for a virus," he said.
A few things that weren't brought up in the article are the fact that Scott Bloch, being a high ranking official in the government, would have had access to any number of computer technicians that could have taken care of his "computer virus", if there actually were one, but he chose to use a private company (although that didn't stop the taxpayers from having to pay for it since he used an agency credit card).
But more important might be the timing of Scott Bloch's "seven-level" wipe. The US Attorneys that were fired under mysterious circumstances were fired on December 7, 2006, just eleven days before Geeks on Call would first visit Scott Bloch 's office to destroy his computer files. The Congressional investigation into the firings, unlike many other scandals, began right away when Congress returned from their holiday break on January 4, 2007. Is it not likely that the Office of Special Council would have been informed that Congress would be expecting an investigation into this matter?
Is it possible that this timing is just a coincidence? Sure. But as more is revealed in the coming days and months, this coincidence is worth keeping in mind...
President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a deal on Monday arranging for permanent bases and “investment opportunities” for the Bush Administration in Iraq. In return, Nouri al-Maliki and his government will get protection from the United States military against any threats to Maliki’s power (at least until Bush decides to renege on the deal). The Bush Administration is calling this arrangement an “enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq”. While this imperial arrangement is the exact opposite of what the American taxpayers are demanding, this is a victory for the Bush Administration, which has been quite clear that its intention is to keep our military in Iraq.
In reality, this deal is a treaty between President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki. However, because President Bush decided not to call it a treaty and instead a “Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation”, the Bush Administration is going to use those semantics to circumvent Senate approval.
The result of this not-a-treaty, while it may not happen right away, is that the shit shall soon hit the fan. First, this deal is a slap in the face to Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite leader of the Mahdi Army. At the end of August, Moqtada al-Sadr called for a six-month Mahdi Army ceasefire, partially to rehabilitate his army and partially to ensure that he is viewed as a legitimate leader in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, prior to the ceasefire, had been violently protesting the Shi’ite Maliki government, which al-Sadr considers to be too cozy with President Bush, and the possibility of a permanent presence of United States forces in Iraq. A political agreement that arranges for permanent US military bases, allows the pillaging of Iraqi wealth by American corporations, and protects the Maliki government from other groups that would want to be a part of the government, like Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers, is a development that will not make Moqtada al-Sadr a happy camper.
Along with pitting Shi’ite against Shi’ite once again by screwing Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, the Bush Administration’s “Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation” will also piss off the Sunnis. The political reconciliation that the Bush Administration told us American and Iraqi suckers the “surge” was designed to create was a deal which would bring the Sunnis back into the government. Instead, in typical Bush Administration fashion, they doubled-down on Prime Minister Maliki, vowing to protect him with violence if and when needed. The Sunnis have been effectively eliminated from the government and will be left only with violence to further their interests once again.
Basically, the last three months of semi-good news from Iraq are just the calm before the storm. And our troops are sitting on the levees. This might be a decision that is looked back upon as being as devastating as when the Bush Administration disbanded the Iraqi army after the initial invasion. It has the potential to be way worse. The most devastating part is that it didn’t have to be this way. Both Sunnis and Shi’ites were cooperating. That’s all over now.
The question we need to be asking ourselves is what goal could the Bush Administration have that this treaty would help facilitate and why would that be their goal? While it is the complete opposite of what is in the best interest of the American people, the Bush Administration’s goal seems to be a larger, more permanent war.
But why would they want that?
One reason is that a full blown war, that engulfs the entire Middle East and the kills a bunch of United States troops, would be a big enough shock to allow the President to claim further and more extreme executive powers, like the ones laid out in NSPD-51, and possibly allow the Bush Administration to claim that it, or at least its Republican co-conspirators, must stay in power for our own safety, just as was done by President Musharraf in Pakistan. At the same time, the Bush Administration and its partners would have a huge distraction which would allow it to further privatize the commons, making heinous amounts of money for the privileged few that have benefited so greatly from the Milton Friedman inspired privatization bonanza that has charged forward at full speed during the last 7 years.
Sound impossible? Just look the policies implemented by some of the same exact people who make up the Bush Administration and the Republican party in other countries around the world during the last few decades. Since the 1970’s, democracies were destroyed in places such as Chile, Argentina, Poland, Russia, and others. In all these countries, while obviously not taking the same exact courses, a functioning form of democracy was transformed, with the encouragement and/or assistance of the United States, in order for unfettered “free-trade”, or privatization, to thrive.
Privatization policies naturally concentrate huge amounts of money into the few hands that own and operate the gigantic corporations which are able to swallow up all other businesses and exploit their workers when regulations disappear. In effect, privatization policies have severe negative impacts on the lives of the vast majority of a country’s citizens, due to disappearing jobs, wages, benefits, and government services, and therefore must be implemented quickly and while the public is in a state of shock. As told by Milton Friedman, the privatization prophet himself, "Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change." It was military coups that shocked Chile, Argentina, and Pakistan, paving the way for their dictatorships. Economic shock and violence took democracy out of Poland and Russia. After the shocks occurred and the economies transformed, huge profits were reaped by those who invested in the misery of these countries, much of that money flowing to the filthy rich who currently control our very own United States government. Iraq is the country that most vividly displays the disastrous effects of war-generated privatization on the daily lives of citizens (to have these patterns laid out in brilliant detail, you simply must read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein).
The difference now is that the Bush Administration is going for the grand prize – milking the United States of America itself, which at one time, before he took office, was the richest country in the world. The United States got its first shock on 9/11. In the aftermath, the American public willingly went along with the Patriot Act, two occupations of Middle Eastern countries based on little evidence, our government torturing innocent people, and the Military Commissions Act, which voided habeas corpus, one of our most basic rights. We also allowed our military to be broken and replaced by private “contractors”, allowed our media to be consolidated to the point that it is now controlled by only six companies, and allowed the land where poor people used to live in Louisiana to be sold off to private developers in the wake of a hurricane, just to name a few of the most egregious examples of how the Bush Administration used our collective shock to quickly push through policies we would never otherwise authorize. The results have been disastrous. Thousands of us have died and tens of thousands of us have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gas prices have soared and the implementation of policies that might make it possible for Americans to use less gas have been effectively shut down. The dollar has weakened by 30% against the Euro since the Bush Administration took office, making our savings worth significantly less. Health care is too expensive for many of us to afford. People who can no longer afford their mortgages are being thrown out on the street. Unfortunately, I could go on.
The thing about shock though, is that it is a temporary state, and the United States citizenry seems to be shaking it off. Unless we believe that the Bush Administration is done, we must be prepared to be shocked again.
It’s all about tricking Americans into going along with the Bush Administration’s plans. The Bush Administration, after signing their dirty deal with Prime Minister Maliki, told the press that they will be focusing on “achievable goals in the hope of convincing Iraqis, foreign governments and Americans that progress is being made.” Not actually making progress, but fooling us into thinking they have, while they pursue their real goals. We may not know the fine details of those goals, but history seems to repeat itself. And I think we know enough of the big picture to know the Bush Administration agenda has got to be stopped.
At the very least, even if privatization, poverty, and treason don’t concern you, it should be crystal clear, in the wake of President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki's deal, that the Iraq war will continue as long as the Bush Administration is in power. Trying to cut off funding, or passing a bill requiring withdrawal, is just a shell game. To end the war, we must end the Bush Administration. Impeachment must happen. It’s the only weapon we have to use against the United States taxpayer’s real enemy, which is not brown people in the Middle East, but is instead the treasonous regime that started this phony “war on terror” in the first place. The stakes are too high, and we better use our weapon quick if we don’t want our 157,000 troops and God only knows how many contractors all coming home in body bags when the Iraqis who are not part of the Maliki government start violently fighting the occupiers of their country once again.
Jordan Fox, a soldier that lost full vision in his right eye and suffered injuries to his back after getting blown up in Iraq, has been contacted by the military and told to return $3,000 of his $10,000 signing bonus because he will not be able to finish the last three months of his tour of duty because of his injuries.
Here's the original report from KDKA, a local tv news station in Pittsburgh.
The Pentagon also failed to classify at least 20,000 troops that have brain injuries as being injured.
Finally, a Bush Administration insider has confirmed that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were personally involved in, at the very least, covering up the outing Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent who was working on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Valerie Plame was outed in retaliation for an article written by her husband, Joe Wilson, which said that President Bush twisted intelligence, and essentially lied to us, during the 2003 State of the Union address when he said Saddam tried to get yellowcake uranium from Africa.
Scott McClellan, the ex-White House Press Secretary, confirms in his new book that President Bush was directly involved in the cover-up of Valerie Plame's outing. Here's a portion of McClellan's book from Editor & Publisher:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration "were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."
None of this is entirely shocking, considering that President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence after he was convicted of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and lying to FBI agents in relation to this case. It is, however, the first time an insider in the affair has directly linked President Bush to the actual ordeal and cover-up. Senator Dodd has called for investigations into Scott McClellan's revelations.
While the connection to President Bush may be new, Vice President Cheney has been balls deep in this scandal from the beginning. While Scott McClellan is a little weasel for sitting on this information for years so that he can sell a book, his book can only help move forward Vice-President Cheney's articles of impeachment, which have passed the House of Representatives and are waiting for hearings to begin in the House Judiciary Committee.
Maybe we can file Bush's articles of impeachment now too? Outing a covert CIA agent is treason, after all...
The other day I promised to have a post about my corrupt Senator, Diane Feinstein. I'm working on it (and finding out some fascinating things) but I won't be able to get it out this week. Expect it sometime next week, after the Thanksgiving holiday but before Congress resumes (it must be nice having two full weeks off for Thanksgiving, huh?).
Sorry for the delay. It will be worth it - I promise.
Since I wrote this post about the House Judiciary Committee hearing during which the State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard quite possibly committed perjury, there have been a few new developments:
In addition to recusing himself from any investigations involving Blackwater, which he did during the House Judiciary Committee hearing, Howard "Cookie" Krongard has also recused himself from " looking into corruption allegations involving the construction of the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad".
Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested another hearing, to take place during the week of December 3rd, this time to determine if Howard "Cookie" Krongard's November 14th testimony was actually a bunch of lies (the odds are not in Cookie's favor, from what I've observed). Howard "Cookie" Krongard's lawyer has written to Henry Waxman asking that he cancel the hearing. Good luck with that.
Howard "Cookie" Krongard's brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, has resigned from Blackwater's advisory board. Henry Waxman also wants Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard to appear before the House Judiciary Committee during the early December hearing.
This information appeared in The Washington Post on September 27th (so it's not technically "new") but Howard "Cookie" Krongard's son and daughter-in-law have attempted to get a restraining order against the State Department Inspector General because of threatening emails Howard "Cookie" Krongard sent to them. I'm not going to get into the back-story because this really has nothing to do with Howard "Cookie" Krongard's corruption charges (read this article, if interested), but this is just further evidence of this guy's questionable character. (Thanks Johnny Pez for the head's up on this).
The most fascinating thing about hearings like the one about FISA yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee is watching Senators discuss issues amongst themselves. The reality these people live in is so different from ours. Sometimes it’s the arguments they use to comfort each other that freak me out the most.
Here’s Arlen Specter arguing that giving retro-active immunity to corporations, like AT&T and Verizon who were the ones who physically tapped our phones and data-mined our calls and emails without warrants, isn’t a bad thing because,
I don’t see, as I sit here, how anyone can prove their privacy was invaded. That they know what was done here. There’s one case under the Terrorist Surveillance Act where there was an inadvertent disclosure by the Federal government and somebody was able to show that they were subject to the program. But unless there would be something like that, I don’t see who’s going to be able to prove anything whether it’s against the telephone company or the government.
In other words, the Senators should give the corporations immunity because neither the government nor the corporations are going to get caught by us suckers anyway.
I hope he lives to eat those words.
By the way, we can thank the citizens in Pennsylvania for Arlen Specter's presence in the Senate.
Here is a copy of the email I sent to Newsweek canceling my subscription. Feel free to use all or part of it to cancel your own subscriptions:
I found out today that in response to the Bush Administration puppet’s “outrage” put on in response to your decision to hire DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas as a contributor, you have decided to hire Karl Rove to create “balance”.
This infuriates me and I would like to cancel my subscription.
Here is a portion of the resume of the man you think deserves a column in a (soon to be formally) well-respected news source:
Newsweek reported that Karl Rove was one of the people who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame, who was working on nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East.
Evidence indicates Karl Rove arranged for at least 8 US Attorneys to be fired who were not submissive to the Bush Administration. The positions were then filled with interim US Attorneys, like Tim Griffin, Karl Rove’s protégé.
Under Karl Rove’s supervision, the BBC reported that Tim Griffin caged voters before the 2004 election, which resulted in thousands of students, homeless people, and US soldiers serving overseas losing their basic American right to a vote.
Karl Rove has evaded Congress by refusing to turn over emails and documents that were subpoenaed and, in a display of utter contempt for our nation of laws, was a no show in response to a subpoena to appear at a Congressional hearing.
Karl Rove has consistently acted against the best interests of our country, our laws, and our people. The short list of his actions that I provided exhibits that your new contributor has, at least, committed treason, voter disenfranchisement, and is in contempt of Congress. This man should be in jail. He should not be rewarded with a column in Newsweek
If this is the level of trustworthiness that I can expect from a Newsweek contributor, then I can no longer trust your publication to give me my news. I would like a refund for the remainder of my subscription.
One of the two most dramatic revelations of the day was that Howard “Cookie” Krongard’s brother, Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, is currently serving on Blackwater’s advisory board. The obvious conflict of interest that arises from the Inspector General of the State Department having a family member working for Blackwater, a company his job involves overseeing, is bad enough. But what was most revealing, and disturbing, is the way the Committee confirmed this information. When Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard's relationship with Blackwater was first mentioned in the beginning of the hearing today, Howard "Cookie" Krongard flat-out denied his brother had anything to do with Blackwater. He went out of his way to say,
“One thing just came up that really does bother me and that was an allegation concerning my brother. I can tell you very frankly I am not aware of any financial interests or position he has with respect to Blackwater. It couldn’t have possibly affected anything I’ve done because I don’t believe it. And when these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him. I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board…”
A letter from Erik Prince, the CEO and founder of Blackwater, inviting Alvin "Buzzy" Krongrad to the Blackwater Worldwide Advisory Board. The letter is dated July 26, 2007.
An email from Erik Prince thanking a group of people, including Alvin “Buzzy” Krongrad, for accepting his invitation to go to a board meeting on Monday and Tuesday of this week (November 12-13, 2007). The email is dated September 5, 2007. In addition, Congressional staffers called the hotel where the advisory board meeting was taking place and Alvin Krongrad’s name was indeed in their records.
When Howard “Cookie” Krongard was asked when he had spoken to his brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, about his relationship with Blackwater, Howard "Cookie" Krongard said the conversation took place sometime around early October. This means the conversation would have taken place about a month after his brother had apparently accepted the invitation to be on Blackwater’s advisory board, according to Erik Prince’s email. Before the hearing had ended, Howard "Cookie" Krongard admitted that his brother does sit on Blackwater's advisory board.
Either Howard “Cookie” Krongard’s brother lied to him or Howard “Cookie” Krongrad sold his brother out to cover his own ass. His brother, Alvin "Buzzy" Krongrad, said this afternoon that not only did he tell Howard "Cookie" Krongard that he had accepted the position with Blackwater, but he said the conversation took place just a few weeks ago, not in early October as Howard "Cookie" Krongard had said. At the very least, even if you accept the unlikely explanation that Howard "Cookie" Krongard had absolutely no idea that his brother is working for Blackwater, Howard "Cookie" Krongard exhibited that he would answer questions definitively during a hearing without knowing for sure whether or not his answers were true.
Fortunately for our country, the hearing resulted in Howard “Cookie” Krongrad officially recusing himself from “any matters having to do with Blackwater”. Better late than never, I guess.
The other incredible moment of the hearing took place when Howard “Cookie” Krongard got caught red-handed reading aloud from an email that he had refused to hand over to the Justice Department. In an exchange you have to see to believe (forward to 2:32:20 ), Congressman Henry Waxman called out Howard "Cookie" Krongard's omission from the public record, and boy, did Howard Krongard smirk and squirm! I wonder how many other omitted emails were sitting in the huge stack of papers he brought with him.
There were other issues addressed in the hearing with similarly insufficient explanations. Congressman Elijah Cummings from Maryland, at the end of the hearing,summarized Howard "Cookie" Krongard’s testimony. The impression he got from the hearing mirrored my own, and since I couldn’t possibly be as informed on the details as the Congressman, here is what he said:
“As I’ve listened… the Justice Department told us you impeded their investigation. You have told us that not only haven’t you blocked the Department’s work, but that the Department doesn’t believe you blocked its work. So you are telling us, you are right and the Department is wrong.
The Justice Department and the agent you assigned to the Blackwater inquiry told us you put your Congressional and Public Affairs Officer in charge of obtaining relevant documents. You have told us that isn’t true, even though the Congressional and Public Relations Director confirmed the two other accounts. So again, you are telling us that you are right and they are wrong.
Your employees have uniformly told us of the abusive and hostile environment that you created. This morning you told us the problem wasn’t with you, but was a reflection of the low quality of the people working for you. In fact, you previously told them the Office of Inspector General was a “banana republic” and belittled the standards they followed. In response, your chief counsil, Erich Hart, told us that “Everybody in that room was personally offended by that statement. I was offended. I come from a military background and my standards are exceedingly high.” In this case, you are telling us you are right, and again, your senior employees were wrong.
Despite the recommendations of the head of your audit division, your chief council, and your deputy that you not allow the State Department to replace a qualified audit of its financial statement with a clean audit, you did this both in 2005 and 2006. This morning you told us that you did this to preserve the integrity of the audit process not withstanding the views of your top advisors and when they objected, you told one of them that he was “irrelevant”. Bill Todd, your deputy, told the committee that “Howard said I was wrong. Howard told DeDona he was wrong, and Howard told Erich Hart he is wrong.”
A number of your senior advisors told us your personal investigation into First Kuwaiti’s alleged labor trafficking was unorthodox, “didn’t comply with any standards”, was “an embarrassment to the community” and “an affront to our profession”. But this morning, you’ve stuck to your position and insisted you were right, and they were wrong.
A number of those same advisers and the Justice Department have also told us that they warned you that your supposed participation into an ongoing criminal inquiry was wrong and could taint the real investigation. Again, you’ve insisted today that you were right and they were wrong.
In fact, the only time today that you’ve admitted you were wrong relates to your brother “Buzzy” Krongard. You were adamant this morning that he did not serve on the Blackwater board. As a matter of fact, after you gave your statement, you were emphatic that you had talked to him about it and you gave me the impression that you had just talked to him recently, and then came back and it had been a while. I’m just saying, that was the impression I got. And Mr. Krongard, I just don’t believe that everybody is wrong and you are the only one who is right.”
Howard “Cookie” Krongard’s defense to just about every question can be boiled down to ‘Everyone else is lying’. (For the record, I can’t in good conscience avoid mentioning that Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut shamelessly did everything he could to help Howard "Cookie" Krongard out with his defense. Shays began the hearing by characterizing the allegations made by over a dozen different government employees working for both the State Department and the Justice Department as“water-cooler gossip and personality conflicts”, he threw a mini-fit over whether or not all the whistleblowers were officially under oath, and interjected himself into the conversation in defense of Howard "Cookie" Krongard when Congressman Henry Waxman had him squirming. Christopher Shays did a great job as the 'Republican Obstructionist of the Day', but certainly did nothing to help determine if the allegations made against Howard "Cookie" Krongrad were, in fact, true).
Unfortunately, for Howard “Cookie” Krongard, the pieces of the puzzle provided by the State Department whistleblowers make more sense than his explanations. After all, how could First Kuwaiti get away with using slave labor to construct the US Embassy, months after there was testimony about it in front of Congress, if the State Department Inspector General wasn’t turning a blind eye? How is it that after all the information available about Blackwater, be it documentaries, TV shows, books, or articles, how is it that the State Department Inspector General has investigated none of it? This guy has been the State Department Inspector General since May 2005. More should have been done by now. There’s also the very important fact that he is a part of a State Department that is headed by Condolleezza Rice, who is devoutly loyal to George W. Bush. And, while Howard "Cookie" Krongard testified that he has not met anyone in the Bush Administration (does that mean he’s never met his boss?), he is a Bush appointee.
At the end of the day, Howard Krongard said he had learned a good lesson:
“I’ll tell ya, I’ve learned a really good lesson through this and I’m going to think long and hard before hitting that 'send' button. Which we all should. Email is a terrible, a terrible thing.”
Gotta wonder... Is that the big lesson an innocent guy would learn from this experience?
I'm not going to be writing today, but I have two things on deck.
Tomorrow I will be watching the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing (7am PST on CSPAN-3) during which Howard Krongrad will be testifying. He is the Bush Administration's State Department Inspector General and lower level employees have said that he interfered with investigations into "contracting fraud" (otherwise known as "war profiteering") in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, here is a list of the dirty deeds Howard Krongrad has been accused of:
Refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts.
Preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Using "highly irregular" procedures to personally exonerate the embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses.
Interfering in the investigation of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove.
Censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress.
Refusing to publish critical audits of State's financial statements.
I can only guess what kind of juicy tales of greed and corruption will be revealed. Highlights will be given tomorrow evening.
Sometime within the next week, in a somewhat related story, will be a report on my Senator Diane Feinstein. The post that has gotten Little Country Lost by far the most hits in its infant stage is this open email I wrote to Senator Feinstein back in August right after she gave the President expanded power to spy on us. I honestly couldn't figure her out. Now I think I have. Short story: she won't stand up to the Bush Administration because she is the Bush Administration.
This headline is not a joke. Last week, on November 6, Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney on the floor of the House of Representatives and it passed.
It was the most exciting CSPAN event surely of my lifetime. The vote started out like everyone would expect. Some Democrats were voting 'yes'. The clueless Democrats and all Republicans were voting 'no'. All of a sudden, in a move that I can't quite wrap my head around, the Republicans started switching their votes to 'yes'. Here's a good summary of what happened from Jonathon Kaplan at The Hill:
The vote to kill Kucinch’s privileged resolution began as a largely party-line affair, but halfway through the vote, Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) persuaded Republican leaders to get rank-and-file GOP lawmakers to change their votes to force the debate.
At one point, the vote to table the motion stood at 246-165. Once Republicans began switching their votes, momentum swung the other way. When the vote stood at 205-206, some Democrats began switching their votes.
The vote to kill Kucinich’s resolution finally failed 162-251, giving Republicans the opportunity to watch Democrats debate whether to impeach Cheney — a debate in which many liberal Democrats were more than willing to engage.
House Republicans clearly enjoyed watching Democratic leaders squirm during the series of votes, which lasted more than one hour.
The consensus seems to be that "John Boehner and the Republicans' Beltway consultants told the [the rank-and-file Republicans that] they could milk political gain from helping Kucinich keep impeachment alive." The idea was that the Democrats would look bad if they were fighting with each other over Dick Cheney on the floor of the House of Representatives and the Republicans would be able "to score political points with full-throated denunciations of those mean, over-reaching Democrats in Congress."
It's hard to believe that the arrogance of the Republicans in Congress has reached the level that they would nonchalantly vote to impeach the Vice President, especially one that totally deserves it (read the official charges against him here), and I have to wonder if the Republican leadership has something else up their sleeve. However, the words from the Republican's own mouths seem to indicate that political arrogance was, in fact, the reason for their 'yes' votes.
“We’re going to help them out,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”
“The determination was made that if Democrats are going to waste time and resources with a resolution like this, then it should be thoroughly debated,” said Brian Kennedy, the spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio)...
Can't you just see the smirks? All of our hard-earned taxpayer money that has been stolen and given away to Dick Cheney and his corporate partners, all the the people who have died in Iraq as a result of Cheney's lies, all the people who will die if Cheney succeeds in his quest to bomb (aka: kill people) in Iran, all of our outrage over these and many other deceptions...It's all a damn joke to these people.
These Republicans think they're so clever... but this act of hubris could come back to bite them in their asses.
While the Republicans patted each other on the back and said 'cheers' to themselves over glasses of scotch, the articles of impeachment moved to the House Judiciary Committee, which is exactly where it needs to be. The Republicans are not concerned because they are counting on the out-of-touch, terrified Democratic leadership (Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer) to demand the impeachment articles stay buried in the Judiciary Committee (which is exactly what they are doing). But the decision to start hearings, with full subpoena power, actually rests with the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, who is one of the good guys. The Committee has released a silly statement about being too busy to continue with the impeachment (even though their actual schedule looks quite clear), but that in no way means that this is over. Legally, which is all that matters, the impeachment of Dick Cheney has been born and it is now alive and well.
It's up to John Conyers and the rest of the Judiciary Committee to decide whether or not the impeachment of Dick Cheney, and the end of our American nightmare, will be allowed to move forward. Feel free to give the committee a call, if you're so inclined, at (202) 225-3951.
And on a side note, isn't it nice to finally get some good news, even if the media won't cover it?
Yesterday, I happened to turn on CSPAN-3 during the Joint Economic Committee's hearing on the U.S. Economic Outlook. They were questioning Ben Bernanke, the Bush Administration appointee as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. I wasn't going to watch it, because I'm not a fan of being bored, but there was something about the body language of the committee members that made me stay on that channel.
Other CSPAN junkies will attest that, even in the most gnarly hearings (like the Alberto Gonzales hearings), the Senators and Congressman all are interested but generally pretty relaxed. But this boring old economic hearing was different. The Senators and Congressman (it's a mixed committee) were sitting straight up during their turns to question the Chairman of the Fed, their backs not touching the leather chairs. Some of their voices were shaking. Ben Bernanke was, at some points, kind of stuttering, definitely shaking, and even had a moment where I swear he looked like he might cry.
I've never seen a hearing with more tension.
Unfortunately, I couldn't really tell what the issue was. Until Ron Paul got his turn.
Here's most of the transcript (some gibberish that's not vital to the point has been taken out) of Ron Paul's questioning of Ben Bernanke, shocking in Ron Paul's blunt assessment of our current economic situation and Ben Bernanke's disturbing dodge:
RON PAUL: The best way I could describe the problems that we face here in this country, as well as the problem the Federal Reserve faces, is that we are indeed between a rock and a hard place. We have a serious problem and we don’t talk much about how we got here. We talk about how we’re gonna patch it up.
The bubble has been burst. We saw what happened after the NASDAQ bubble burst. We didn’t ask how it was created. Then we have a housing bubble, and it’s deflating and it’s spreading and yet nobody says, but where does it come from?
What is the advice that you generally get? That is ‘inflate the currency’. They don’t say ‘inflate the currency’, they don’t say ‘debase the currency’, they don’t say ‘devalue the currency’, they don’t say ‘cheat the people who are safe’. They say ‘lower the interest rates’ […]
This was taught by the free-market economists all through the 20th-Century. They said ‘Beware, they will increase the money supply, but they will make you concentrate on prices, and they will give you CPIs, and PPIs, and they’ll fudge those figures, and they’ll talk about wage and price controls to solve our problems.’
We ignore the fundamental flaw and that is that not only do we have a subprime market in housing, but the whole economic system is subprime in that we have artificially low interest rates. And it wasn’t just in your tenure in office. It’s been going on 10 years or longer and now we’re bearing the fruits of that policy. I mean, a 1% interest rate, overnight rates, and that’s not a distortion? Instead of looking at the consumer prices, which nobody in this country really believes, we need to talk about the distortion, the mal-investment, the mis-direction, the bad information, that is gotten from artificially low interest rates.
In some ways, people refer to you as a ‘price-fixer’, you know because you fix interest rates. The market is powerful, and usually overwhelms and comes into play, but when the Fed fixes an interest rate at 1%, that is price fixing.
At the end of your testimony, you suggested that we should address this housing crisis and we should have rules that would address deceptive lending practices. And I just think that is not the answer at all. The real deception is when we distort the value of money. When we create money out of thin air, and we have no savings, yet there’s so-called capital. There’s money available, but it comes from what you have to do and the pressures put on you.
I think we have to get back to the very fundamentals of where this problem comes from. The bubbles occur when we have this mal-investment and the creation of new money. So my question boils down to this… how in the world can we expect to solve the problems of inflation, that is the increase in the supply of money, with more inflation?
BEN BERNANKE: […] What we’ve tried to do is follow the mandate that Congress gave us and the mandate that Congress gave us is to look at employment and inflation as measured by domestic price growth. And as I talked about today, and as I think you would agree, we do see risks to inflation, and we are taking those into account. We want to be sure that prices remain as stable as possible in the United States.
RON PAUL: But how can you do this and pursue this, the policy you have, without further weakening the dollar? There’s a dollar crisis out there and people’s money is being stolen. People who have saved, they’re being robbed. I mean, if you have a devaluation of the dollar at 10%, people have been robbed of 10%. How can you pursue this policy without addressing the subject that somebody’s losing their wealth because of a weaker dollar? And it’s going to lead to higher interest rates and a weaker economy.
BEN BERNANKE: If somebody has their wealth in dollars and they’re going to buy consumer goods in dollars, hence, the typical American. The decline in the dollar... the only effect it has on their buying power is that it makes imported goods more expensive.
RON PAUL: Yeah, but not if you are retired and elderly and you have CD’s. Their cost of living is going up. No matter what your CPI says, their cost of living is going up and they’re hurting and that’s why the people in this country are very upset.
The decline of the dollar just makes imported goods more expensive? Imported goods - doesn't that mean clothing, furniture, computers, office supplies, toys, medicines, automobiles, and oil? Don't we import some of our food from other countries?
Can you afford to pay more for all of these things?
It should be shocking that the Chairman of the Fed is so dismissive of a rapidly declining dollar and its' effects on you and me. It should be shocking that we're being robbed daily, and that the Chairman of the Fed is making excuses for why that's fine.
I should be shocked by this, but I can't be.
After all the dead and wounded military guys, after all the civil rights that have been taken away, after the destruction of justice, and the billions of wasted tax dollars... after all of the ways that we have been systematically screwed in the last 7 years, how can any of us be honestly shocked that we are being robbed of our personal savings and wealth by the policies implemented by a Bush Administration appointee?
We're all a bunch of suckers. This is just more proof.
UPDATE: Here's the video of the part of the hearing I transcribed above:
This past weekend, Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan that took over the country in 1999 in a military coup and has since promised a return to democracy, declared martial law and took complete control of Pakistan’s government. Americans in the United States should be concerned about this development, not only because the Pakistani people are suffering, but because the lead up to and implementation of martial law taken by Pervez Musharraf has disturbing similarities to changes made by the Bush Administration to our own United States government.
Pervez Musharraf was able to suspend the Pakistani Constitution and impose martial law by declaring “emergency rule.” After declaring “emergency rule”, Pervez Musharraf deployed troops to patrol city streets, forcibly shut down the media, and arrested thousands of lawyers, human rights activists, protestors, journalists, and protesting citizens.
The phrase “emergency rule” is strikingly similar to the phrase “catastrophic emergency”, which can be found in the largely ignored National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-51) that was released by the White House on May 9th of this year. NSPD-51 says that if the president determines a broadly defined “catastrophic emergency” has taken place, the Executive Branch alone will control the functions of federal, state, and all other territories in the United States. During the “catastrophic emergency”, the Executive Branch will only have to consult the Legislative or Judicial Branches out of “comity”, a fancy word for courtesy, which would essentially suspend the checks and balances found in the United States Constitution. No end date to the Executive Branch controlled government is legislated. The details of how NSPD-51 will be implemented have been kept secret from both Congress and the American people.
Pervez Musharraf had two justifications for suspending the Pakistani Constitution. The broadest reason that Musharraf gave for his power grab were “terrorism and extremism” as existential threats to Pakistan. As we are all painfully aware, “terrorism” is an excuse used constantly by President George W. Bush to justify wars and take away the civil rights of American citizens.
However, the more honest reason for declaring martial law Pervez Musharraf cited was “judicial interference”. The Pakistani Supreme Court was scheduled to rule this week on the legality of Pervez Musharraf’s “re-election” to a second 5 year term. After it was quietly confirmed by one of the Justices that the ruling would not be in his favor, Musharraf instituted martial law and fired the top Justice, Ifikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who had proven himself to be a difficult opponent when Musharraf had tried to suspend him 5 months ago. After firing Chaudhry and at least six other judges, Musharraf hired and installed new, likely more friendly, judges to the court.
“Judicial interference” in the United States is a problem the Bush Administration has already taken care of. As far back as 2000, the Supreme Court proved itself to be a friend of President Bush when the Supreme Court handed George W. Bush the 2000 election without a complete Florida vote recount. Since then, the Supreme Court has only gotten friendlier towards the Bush Administration. After the departures of two Supreme Court Justices during his second term, President Bush was able to appoint two ultra-conservative Judges to the court, which fundamentally shifted the balance to the Bush Administration’s side on most issues. Recently, this newly reconfigured court refused to hear, or even comment on, the case of Khaled el-Masri, an innocent German citizen that was kidnapped, detained for months, and tortured by the United States. The rest of the Judicial Branch, meaning the Justice Department, has also been severely politicized in favor of the Bush Administration by the Bush Administration, which has been made painfully obvious during the Congressional investigations into the so-called Firing of US Attorneys scandal.
Even the compositions of Pervez Musharraf’s and George W. Bush’s allies within their own countries have striking resemblances to each other. In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf is supported by the top brass of the military, even though the younger officers have questioned “whether the entire military establishment should risk the public's wrath to keep one man in power.” This looks similar to George W. Bush’s support from top Generals, such as General Petreaus, even though many privates and corpsmen have serious doubts about their mission and commanders in Iraq. Pervez Musharraf is also able to count on the support of the business community, a community that has experienced good fortunes while Musharraf has been in power. This is not unlike big business in the United States, especially the defense, pharmaceutical and energy industries, who still support the Bush Administration due to the record profits they have been afforded during the Bush Administration’s two terms. The last group of allies Pervez Musharraf still retains is “a motley group of politicians who came to power after the military rigged elections in 2002, although many of them are considering jumping ship or ditching Musharraf”. Sounds a lot like the Republicans in Congress, doesn’t it?
The Bush Administration’s response to Pervez Musharraf’s anti-democratic actions, at the very least, shows passive acceptance, if not secret support. Since 2001, the Bush Administration has given over $10 billion in aid to Pakistan, but despite Musharraf’s ”disappointing” move towards authoritarian measures, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters on Saturday, "The declaration does not impact our military support of Pakistan's efforts in the war on terror." President Bush himself, after waiting a few days to release a statement, also indicated that his support for Pervez Musharraf is not hindered by Musharraf’s dictatorial actions:
“We want to continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists, who not only have tried to kill him, but who use parts of his country from which to launch attacks into Afghanistan and are plotting attacks on America,” Bush said. […]
He also acknowledged that the Pakistani government had told the US of impending emergency at the beginning of last week in view of its concerns over the Supreme Court's likely decision on Musharraf's election and its impact on the security situation.
The State Department also seemed to think as far back as June that the elections in 2007 would not result in Pervez Musharraf losing power. The Washington Post reported:
Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, “refused to let the State Department even consider alternative policies if Musharraf were threatened with being ousted, even though 2007 is an election year in Pakistan.”
The acknowledgment that the Bush Administration had previous knowledge of Pervez Musharraf’s intentions is suspicious because the most likely recipient of this information was Vice President Cheney’s office. In June, Ahmed Rashid of The Washington Post reported:
Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney's office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I'm told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney's aides, rather than taken to the State Department.”
Vice President Cheney openly believes in unlimited Executive power. The fact that Dick Cheney’s office was the principle United States contact for a regime that just declared martial law using a strategy almost identical to NSPD-51 (at least the parts we are allowed to know about) and the Bush Administration’s refusal to take real non-verbal action against that regime places serious doubt on any Bush Administration rhetorical assertions that they are “disappointed” with Musharraf.
Pervez Musharraf’s widely acknowledged motivation for instituting martial law is that he knew it would be necessary in order for him to stay in power. The Supreme Court in Pakistan threatened to force Musharraf out of office using the Pakistani Constitution, which said that Pervez Musharraf could not be President if he were to remain Army Chief. Pervez Musharraf wasn’t about to let the Supreme Court take away the power he was willing to stage a military coup to get.
The Constitution of the United States says George W. Bush and Dick Cheney must leave office on January 20, 2009 because of a constitutionally mandated Presidential term limit.Most signs indicate that the Democrats will take back the White House in the 2008 elections, and quite possibly expand their majority in both houses of Congress. But why would an Administration that believes so strongly in unlimited Executive power create something like NSPD-51, which allows the Executive to take control of the government in the case of an “emergency”, just to pass it off to their political rivals less than two years later?We must seriously ask ourselves if we believe President Bush and Vice President Cheney are going to let the Democrats, the American people, and the Constitution take away their power, especially in light of the extreme measures they have taken in order to expand it.
Ok, so I'm going to be upfront with you. I know next to nothing about the Hollywood writer's strike that started today. I don't know the reasons behind the strike and I have not read any articles for or against it. To be honest, I don't really care about the details.
The strike itself, however, has me concerned. While this strike goes on, these shows and people will be off-the-air effective immediately:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Colbert Report with Steven Colbert
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Late Show with David Letterman
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
My knee-jerk reaction is to love that someone is standing up to the big media corporations, regardless of their reasons. And it doesn't surprise me, or disappoint me, that these names are on the list of people involved in the standing up.
But in order for the Hollywood writers to exercise their democratic rights, which is good for all of us, they are hurting our country by taking these particular shows off-the-air. As sad a statement as this is, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson are almost always better sources for perspective than our cable TV news programs and their hosts. The interviews conducted by the late-night guys, especially Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are usually of smart people and consist of conversations, as opposed to shouting matches between know-it-alls. They may be in the business of making people laugh, but the late-night comedies serve a vital function by pointing out the ironies, "coincidences", and flat-out lies that the "news" programs have made big business out of participating in and ignoring. We need these daily doses of sanity to make us question what's going on, and to inform us as well.
My biggest concern is the timing behind these crucial absences to our national conversation. Turkey might soon invade Iraq. Strangely, the Bushies don't seem to care. Instead, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are threatening daily to invade Iran. We're currently occupying Iraq with 180,000 private contractors whose actions haven't been bound by any particular law, and the Iraqi Cabinet just advanced a law taking away "US contractor" immunity. President Bush's nominee for Attorney General is in the process of being confirmed, despite the fact that he is cool with torture, the President breaking the law, and ignoring the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments to the Constitution by denying people habeas corpus rights. Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan, transformed Pakistan's government from a democracy to a dictatorship over the weekend by declaring a "national emergency", a strategy that looks strikingly similar to President Bush's NSPD-51 emergency plan.
All these curious things going on with our government lately and the absence of the late-night guys just makes it that much easier for the Bushies to do shady things without the vast majority of us knowing about it.
So Hollywood writers (if any of you happen to StumbleUpon this little blog while out of work), I know you're probably getting screwed by the corporations. But really, aren't we all? While I like that you're telling your corporate slave owners to shove it, and think more of us need to do the same, this country needs you to give in and go back to work, at least until there's a bit more sanity in our government. Until the Bush Administration is permanently returned to Crawford, you need to keep your guys on-the-air. Their words are important to our conversation. If you stay silent, this is all we can get....
I've been paying close attention to the developments regarding Micheal Mukasey and his confirmation hearing. After watching both days of the hearing in full and reading his clarification letter to the Judiciary Committee, I'm terrified of him becoming the next Attorney General. The waterboarding thing is bad enough, but please don't forget that he also said he would not recommend that the President grant habeas corpus rights, which basically throws the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th amendments to the Constitution out the window.
While, based on your voting record, you may agree with him on the intelligence issues (which I personally do not), the physical abuse he condones inflicting upon other human beings and the disregard for the Constitution is more than enough reason to stop his confirmation to be the top lawyer for the United States.
I know that you are on the Judiciary Committee and your vote is going to be crucial in the matter of whether or not his confirmation will move on to the Senate. I'm writing today to beg you, on my hands and knees, to PLEASE VOTE NO on Tuesday.
I'm not sure the Constitution can survive another Attorney General who doesn't give the Constitution the respect it deserves and the protection the Attorney General's oath of office demands.
Thank you.
UPDATE: Both Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer confirmed that they will be voting in favor of Michael Mukasey. These people disgust me.
by Naomi Klein). 
