On Tonight's Immigration Speech by Pres. O

Encouraging

A poll out this week shows that the American people think we are much more going "in the right DIRECTION", as a country, with President Obama in the White House (and George Bush out).

Thank God there are people out there who get it. It's reassuring.

There are so many right-wingers who think we're either going straight to Socialism or Communism or who knows what. Then there are the really crazy ones who think guns and lots of ammunition are the way to go, in response to the currrent administration.

Crazy.

It's just nice to know that a good portion of the American people know that what we're doing now, through the Obama Administration is an improvement over the "you're either with us or against us" of the previous administration.

The chuckleheads.

Link to poll:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/politics/07poll.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

What we're fighting right now

Dick Cheney's still at it.

Dick thinks all his papers and all his emails are his, you see.

Dick doesn't play well with others.

Dick wants to make sure that you and I--taxpayers and voters--don't get the mistaken idea that he was working for OUR government or on OUR tax dollar.

All those pesky materials that could finger him for oh, say, felonies of one kind or another? He wants them. He wants to take them with him.

From the White House.

From the Vice President's mansion.

From our government.

Even as we speak.

Those Enron papers the government still wants to read about?

Fugedaboudit.

The real hoot here, too, is that his friends over at his pal-zy Supreme Court are the ones who get to decide if he keeps 'em, too.

And I'll tell you, they'd better not agree with him.

This administration has trashed too much of our Constitution and this country to get away with more of this crap, I'll tell you.

That's not where it ends, though, either.

Dick is also fighting the GAO--the Governement Accountability Office--of all groups. He doesn't want his papers from his secret deals with Enron to be made public, of course.

And why would you, when what they came up with in private brought about incredible, cushy deals for the very energy companies that were there in the room?

So it ain't over, folks, not by a long shot. We can't "breathe easy", what with the Bush Administration being almost over.

There are still battles to be fought against these people and battles to be won.

We can't have them savage our country any more than they already have.

Awareness and some kind of action are what's required, even now.

Original links here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2871869/Dick-Cheney-fighting-to-keep-Enron-papers-secret.html

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-06/2007-06-22-voa16.cfm?CFID=82953120&CFTOKEN=53401419

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/washington/22cheney.html

http://www.judicialwatch.org/cheneycase.shtml

You want faith in our economic and political leaders?

Well don't look for it here.

Or lately.

Check out this quote for why, exactly, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson asked for 700 billion dollars of our taxpayer money to bail out his cronies on Wall Street, according to a "Treasury Department spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout, quoted on Forbes.com, September 23:

"It's not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number."


Makes ya' wanna vote for higher taxes, doesn't it?

"EVERYONE REMAIN CALM!!!"

You know what kills me?

For the last 2 weeks, first from "Hank" Paulson, then the White House and always from Wall Street, we've heard nothing but that, basically, we're all going to hell in a handbasket and/but "if you give us this 700 billion dollars, real fast and no questions asked, we'll be okay. But if you don't, it's going to be horrible," in a nutshell.

So they pushed through a nightmare bill and it died. Since Wall Street didn't get it's Christmas package, it got pissed off and slashed 777 points off the Dow. "We'll show you!", right?

So now, after all the threats, here we go. It looks like the House of Representatives is going to buckle and give them all this money. Sure, they put in a few little concessions--and millions of dollars of treats in the form of yet more earmarks for themselves and their friends--and they're going to get their boondoggle bailout.

Really, who can tell if this is really necessary or if this is the best way to do this? Sure, it seems we need more liquidity in the credit markets but is this the path to take? No one in power seems to be asking this or any other questions (thought we certainly hope they are, of course, and not just "what's in it for me?").

With all that going on, what we're just about to hear, then, out of Washington and from everyone who has their hands on this bill is that "There, that ought to do it." Tomorrow, once this is passed, we're going to hear everyone in Washington and government say "Okay, it's all better now. Be calm. Go back about your business. Spend money. Procreate. Do what it is you do."

Mark my words.

Again, for the past 2 weeks, we've heard nothing but how things are going straight to hell, with only a little exaggeration here, but tomorrow, once this passes, they're going to insist everything's fine and that we should all calm down.

Are you kidding me?

They've done nothing--from the President to Paulson to other government officials--but scream about everything but a 2nd Great Depression (after all, they don't wanna panic us), and all of a sudden it's going to be "okay, it's all fixed."

My point?

This whole thing has been so badly managed and mismanaged, once again, by this Bush Administration that it's almost giving the American people whiplash in it's messages.

The American people have been going about their business, going to work, paying taxes, etc., while people are almost talking about financial endtimes and then it'll be all "calm down", "take it easy".

While irresponsiblity and ineptitude has just been considered the norm for this group in the White House, it seems to me they've outdone themselves this time--this one, last time, before the Knucklehead is out of office next January.

This is just no way to run a government and country.

If you EVER voted for George W. Bush, even once, WE BLAME YOU.

When you're not focused on the 700 billion dollar bailout (for the wealthy, from the White House)

Here's another beauty from the pinheads in this administration:

The EPA "has declared there is no need to rid drinking water of a rocket fuel ingredient."

Wha??

WTF?

Rocket fuel ingredient?

In drinking water in the United States?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. You read right. Read on:

"The EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document reviewed Monday by the Associated Press. The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at high enough levels that some scientists say could interfere with thyroid function and pose health risks."

Yow.

The United States.

395 sites.

35 states.

Well, I, for one, am just glad the United States government is here to protect us, aren't you?

Now that we're over either the sarcasm or the laughter, this brings up some terrific, serious questions.

Where are these sites? Where are they mostly located? Are they in--or near--major cities?

What companies would most likely be responsible for these exposures? And please don't tell us it can't be certain. There can't be THAT many organizations handling this stuff.

Boy, I hope we get our government back from the corporations one day.

And soon.

The question

Quoted from "The Bill Maher Show", this past Friday night:

"The real, big question of this election is, will America be able to see the larger mistakes of the Bush Administrtion and Republican Party of the last 7 years and vote for a Black man?"



Good question.

No surprise--with the fox guarding the chicken coop

Mukasey: No prosecutions in Justice Dept. hiring scandal

He "used his sharpest words yet to criticize the senior leaders who took part in or failed to stop illegal hiring practices during the tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales."

Gosh.

Laws were broken, sure, and the constitution was trampled on, once more, by these clowns but, hey, no big thing, right? Just get back to breaking our justice system--I mean, to your work. Get back to your jobs.

Get a load of this quote, from AG Mukasey: "Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."

Whah?

What did he say?

Not every violation of the law is a crime?

I thought that was the EXACT definition of a crime--a violation of the law.

Oh, yeah. I get it. Not every violation of the law THAT THEY COMMIT is a crime.

Sure. I see that.

It's the way they operate in this Bush Administration.

Boy, when the Bushies went looking for a lapdog to head the Justice Department, they sure found it in Mukasey, in spite of Congress' best intention.

Original article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/mukasey_lawyers

How much longer 'til these clowns are out of office?

I knew this would happen. I knew the Bushies would try to slip their friends in the corporate world more and more bonuses and gifts in these last, waning months of the administration and here it comes, today:

Bush administration to relax parts of Endangered Species Act (AP)

Check this out:

"Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants."

"New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press."

I said it much earlier in the year. That is, that these clowns will try to dismantle all they can while still in office this year, in an effort to give Big Business more and more of what they want. It was an easy prediction and like I said, here it is.

But these guys get really pushy and outrageous. Look at this quote: "The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats."

What a hoot. Not only do they want to roll back our already-established laws but they "bar federal agencies from assessing...emissions."

Man, they're good, aren't they?

Unbelievable.

What chutzpah.

These guys have major cajones.

They are, in effect, rewriting our laws, all by themselves. They take out Congress. They take out the courts--everything and everybody. It's just them. They are the only branch of government. Period. It's done.

There needs to be major lawsuits over this. This is against the constitution, once again, from this administration.

Then, to add insult to insanity, they say they're doing it to "protect...species".

Yeah, no kidding.

Interior Secretary Dirk ("Diggler") Kempthorne said "We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good. It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species."

But wait. As usual with these guys, there's more:

"If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1986. They would accomplish through regulations what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

"The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that might harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year."

'"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.'

So get this straight: your own government, headed by George W. Bush, is stripping the EPA and government of its own ability to evaluate the effect emissions will have on nature and then saying they're doing it to "protect the most vulnerable species."

If this isn't more Orwellian double-speak, there isn't any.

Again, thanks to all those who voted--even once--for this clown and this administration. We'll be cleaning up his messes for years to come, both here at home, with the environment and our own government and in Iraq and 'round the world, literally.

Go to the following site and tell Secretary Kempthorne to keep our national law and the Endangered Species Act the way it is, for good reason:
http://www.doi.gov/contact.html

Additionally, write your Senators and Representatives about this. Let them know this is completely unacceptable. This is one easy way, right from your computer in your home, to take important action.

(See the original article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/bush_endangered_species)

A big Friday

So oil is down to $115.00/barrel today, the Dow is up, the dollar is up against the Euro and the British Pound--since they didn't raise their interest rates--and the Olympics starts today in Japan.

A big news day, to be sure.

The question for the banks--and the American people--is, will we witness and have to finance another bank failure in the next 24 hours? Will the FDIC have to march into yet another bank this evening and close it up because it's "upside down", financially.

Hopefully not, certainly.

If they don't have to, it would be nice to break the 3-week straight we've had on these things.

Hopefully it's a quiet, uneventful evening and weekend.

Enjoy, y'all.

Whatever happened to conservative government and keeping it out of our lives?

I'll Trade You the 2nd Amendment for the 4th
by Cenk Uygur
Fri Jun 27, 12:22 PM ET

Conservatives are thrilled about the Supreme Court decision settling the 2nd amendment issue in favor of individual gun owners (versus the idea that gun rights are only within the framework of a well-regulated militia). They are celebrating the constitution today. God bless their hearts. I wish they did that more often and about more amendments.

I believe in gun control. I believe that guns do kill people. In fact, they are designed to kill things. It is indisputable that they make killing a lot easier. That's what they're made for.

But I believe my side has lost this issue for now in the court of public opinion and in the Supreme Court. There are actually two different issues here. One is the policy argument concerning how much gun control we should have. The other is the constitutional argument of what the second amendment means.

I think it is reasonable to disagree on the meaning of the second amendment. In fact, I'm torn on it. If I heard this case myself as a judge and ultimately came down against the majority decision (which is not a certainty at all, I think this presents an excellent and close constitutional question -- apparently the Supreme Court agreed since they split 5-4 on it), I still wouldn't find the majority position unreasonable.

So, I am happy to concede that we should follow the second amendment to the letter of the law (as interpreted in this case). Now, can conservatives find it in their heart to agree that we should also follow the fourth amendment to the letter of the law? And if they can't, what possible logical or constitutional arguments can they have for fervently defending one amendment and rejecting another?

The fourth amendment clearly states that the government needs a warrant with probable cause in order for it to conduct a search or seizure. The Bush administration has been in flagrant violation of this for seven years now. They refuse to get warrants to wiretap conversations of Americans speaking with or emailing people abroad. This is clearly illegal and unconstitutional. But here conservatives find the constitution a little more inconvenient.

Justice Scalia warned after the recent Guantanamo Bay case, that the majority had almost certainly caused the deaths of many Americans with their decision. I think that's absurd hyperbole. But what is entirely possible is that the second amendment decision written by Scalia will lead to many more American deaths. But I don't begrudge him that. If he thinks that's the correct interpretation of the amendment, then our only recourse is to pass another amendment overriding it (not going to happen). We'll have to live with the extra deaths. Freedom isn't free.

But here, I propose a very fair trade. I will trade the second amendment for the fourth amendment. If the Bush administration releases the fourth amendment that it is currently holding hostage, I'm happy to consider the Supreme Court decision on the second amendment final and decisive. You keep the second amendment, we keep the fourth.

That seems like the fairest possible trade. My guess is that conservatives won't bite. They will continue the party line about how crucial it is that we follow the constitution when it comes to the second amendment and how important it is that we ignore the constitution when it comes to the fourth.

(original Yahoo post here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080627/cm_huffpost/109531

_______________________________________________________
Back to yours truly here, with a weekly/monthly note: More than 40 American soldiers died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last month, with 20 coming in just the past week. Thanks, as ever, "W".

Oh, and to each and every person who voted for George W. Bush for President in either 2000 or 2004 or, God forbid they did it twice, both, our nation would like to give you a big, hardy "thank you" for the arbitrary war in Iraq, the largest deficit spending in the history of our nation, the division of the American people, $142.00 per barrel for oil and $4.00 per gallon for gas.

It's a real treat.

Big news that I hope is wrong

This is why we need to be contacting our Congressperson/representative RIGHT NOW:


Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran

New Yorker article says Congress authorized up to $400 million for covert ops in Iran

Journalist Seymour Hersh says program is being staged from Afghanistan

U.S. officials decline comment, deny the U.S. is launching raids from Iraq

Iranian general says troops are building graves for invaders in the event of war

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.

White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.

He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. Watch Hersh discuss what he says are the administration's plans for Iran

"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.

"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.

"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.

Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.

He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.

The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.

Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at providing civilian electric power, and refuses to comply with U.N. Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment work.

U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

Israel, which is believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.

The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, Iran, a U.S. military official said.

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."

"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action.

Journalist Shirzad Bozorghmehr in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

The original article at this link:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Our government: 289 million dollars for a 21 year old they don't even like

Military contract spurs anger in Congress
By LESLEY CLARK
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON | Military officials promised changes Tuesday after congressional outrage erupted over how a 21-year-old on a State Department “watch list” was awarded a $298 million arms deal.

An investigation found that Efraim Diveroli was granted the contract even though he, his company, AEY, and a supplier he worked with were on a watch list for suspicious international arms dealers, said Rep. Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The California Democrat said that the awarding of the contract revealed a “fundamentally flawed system,” noting that Defense Department officials had overlooked AEY’s “long record of failed and dubious performance.” That record included delivering damaged helmets to Iraq.

“It appears that anyone — no matter how inexperienced or unqualified — can win a lucrative federal contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Waxman said.

Back to yours truly: I'd like to personally thank, here, the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense for both protecting our country, obviously, and spending our hard-earned money so wisely. (NOT!)

Makes ya' wanna pay more taxes, don't it?

Just lifted from Yahoo and the AP because I can't say it better than this:

Too many dollars, too few Army investigators
June 12, 2008 1:11 PM EDT

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Double-billing. Bribes. Kickbacks. Military contracts are big targets for serious crimes - and there aren't nearly enough investigators to catch them all.

The Army's contracting budget has exploded since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began - from $46 billion in 2002 to $112 billion in 2007. Yet the number of people who hunt down crooked companies and corrupt officials has stayed about the same, according to Associated Press interviews and research.

Army investigation chiefs told the AP they need a dramatic increase in agents to fight contract fraud.

In combat zones, deals can be made quickly, often with foreign companies in countries where bribes are a routine part of doing business. Yet to monitor those billions in contracts, just under 100 civilian agents are assigned to the Army Criminal Investigation Command's procurement fraud office.

Even with more fraud police, there would be no guarantees. Flaws in how the Army awards and manages contracts, especially overseas, also need repairs to curb criminal activity.

"It's sort of like an assembly line for cars and having more checkers at the end of the line when the people aren't building the cars right," said Jacques Gansler, a military acquisition expert. "What we really need to eliminate the abuse is people doing it right in the first place."

Until that happens, the Army's procurement fraud team faces an increasingly complex workload that requires frequent overseas travel and specialized training to spot foul play in mountains of arcane paperwork.

"There's obviously more going on out there today than there was five years ago, but I have the same number of people," said Wes Kilgore, director of the command's Major Procurement Fraud Unit.

There are 95 ongoing investigations into Army contract irregularities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. An additional 500 fraud cases have been launched in the United States, but most of those are not related to wartime contracts.

Under a proposal now being reviewed by senior Army officials at the Pentagon, Kilgore's staff would increase by 143 agents and 30 support personnel between 2010 and 2015. Army leaders approved a request last year to add 36 employees, including 23 agents. Those extra hands are still being hired or trained, however.

Overall, the 166 new agents would cost about $21.5 million a year.

If the latest request is approved, Kilgore's unit would eventually have 260 agents to uncover and prevent contract fraud.

"We're concerned, and that's why we've pushed so hard on getting these numbers ramped up rather than sitting on our hands," said Daniel Quinn, the command's chief of staff. "It's the same reason why police departments will put cops out on a beat or patrol cars flooding an area. If you have a higher chance of getting caught, you're not going to be out there committing a crime."

Criminal Investigation Command officials rarely grant interviews. The decision to speak with a reporter reflects how critical the new hires are to them.

It's not just the enormous flow of wartime money, it's the speed with which contracts are awarded that lures the cheaters. Location is key, too. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, supplies such as bottled water, shipping containers, food and transportation might be needed quickly from local vendors. If only a few suppliers can fill the order, the choices may be limited. But the potential for a crooked deal is not.

Army Col. Joe Ethridge, commander of the 701st Military Police Group, likens the situation to buying a plane ticket for travel to a remote location the day before a holiday weekend.

"The vendors know going in (the customer is) going to want this really fast and there's not going to be a lot of competition," said Ethridge, whose military police group includes Kilgore's procurement fraud unit.

Another pitfall of overseas contracting - known in military circles as contingency or expeditionary contracting - is the expectation of bribes. In the Middle East and other parts of the world, they're often assumed to be part of the deal.

"The threat and the opportunity of money passing hands is always there," Ethridge said. "So it's a pretty tough environment to do contracting in, and it's a pretty tough environment to do oversight."

Ethridge and other command officials said they didn't anticipate how reliant the Army would be on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Private companies get paid to provide base security, drive trucks, operate warehouses and serve meals. Contracts for these and other services can be difficult to manage.

"This is a change in how we operate and creates threats that we're going to have to address," Ethridge said.

The investigation command has procurement fraud offices in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. The Iraq office opened in December 2005, two years after the U.S.-led invasion, and the others followed.

In retrospect, the command should have dispatched its fraud agents more quickly, says Quinn, the command's chief of staff.

"They (didn't) have to be with the 1st Armored Division moving up the highway," he said. "But we probably should have sent our fraud guys in there early on."

The concern, and need for more people, is shared by other oversight organizations. In a March 31 report to Congress, the office of the Pentagon inspector general said its ability to adequately audit and investigate military activities and budgets has become strained because staffing levels haven't increased.

The gap, the report said, means a greater chance for fraud, waste and abuse. The Pentagon inspector general and the Army criminal investigation command are separate organizations, although their agents often work together.

The March report was made public last month by the Project on Government Oversight, a public interest group in Washington.

Each new agent costs about $130,000 a year in salary, benefits, training, and equipment.

Army investigation command officials say the investment pays big returns. With fewer than 100 agents, the procurement fraud unit now generates about $130 million a year in recoveries, about $10 million more than the command's annual operating budget.

The pitch for more investigators has to be weighed against an ongoing effort to expand and improve the Army's contracting corps. In October, an independent panel sharply criticized the Army's ability to award and manage contracts, especially for overseas combat forces.

That panel, chaired by Gansler, a former Pentagon acquisition chief, said the Army's contracting employees were "understaffed, overworked, undertrained, undersupported and, most important, undervalued."

The criticisms led the Army to order a major overhaul of the way it buys gear and supplies for the troops. Chief among the moves is the formation of a new contracting command to better manage military purchasing and the addition of 1,400 contracting personnel.
---
On the Net:

Army Criminal Investigation Command: http://www.cid.army.mil/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

And now this...

Headline from 19 minutes ago:

Ex-Government Officials Say the Bush Administration Ignored Iraq Corruption

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Get the whole story at this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080512/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_corruption



Okay, folks, let's get this straight:

They lied to us about why we should go over there;

They lied to us about why we should attack a sovereign, foreign nation WHICH IS AGAINST INTERNATIONAL LAW;

They lied to us about the "enemy" having weapons of mass destruction, and it's been proven;

They lied about "winning", prematurely;

They lied to us and to themselves about it being a "fast" war (we're going into our seventh--yes, that's seventh--year);

They lied to us about this being a "cheap" war (we're at ONE-HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS now, and still counting);

They lied to us about not losing very many soldiers (we're over 4,000);

They didn't have a plan for the country once they created their power vacuum;

They blew up the country--and continue to do so;

We are now rebuilding same country--THAT WE BLEW UP;

They've given away millions of sweetheart deal contracts;

They didn't compete these same multi-million dollar contracts;

They've literally HANDED OUT millions of dollars in COLD HARD CASH (yeah, there's a good idea, huh?);

They cannot prove that Iran has been supplying arms, in large quantitities, to Iraqi insurgents;

and just generally screwed everything up for the last 7 years and now this--proof positive that this same Bush Administration IGNORED multi-million dollar corruption by the officials in Iraq that we're supposed to be helping and who are supposed to be helping us rebuild their country.

You gotta' be kidding me.

If you were either the bad guys--who want us there to kill us--or the good guys--who want us there so they can take our money--WHY WOULD YOU WANT THE US TO LEAVE??

Oh, yeah, great plan, George. You just keep outdoing yourself.


News flash: John McCain wants to continue on this "path of progress."

(Bang head on wall here).

I'm going to end today's post with a quote from the end of this same article by Senator Byron Dorgan, Head of the Democratic Policy Committee--and then a question: "It is a cruel irony if we are appropriating money next Thursday or did appropriate money last month or last year and that money ends up actually providing the resources for an insurgency in Iraq which ends up killing Americans," said Dorgan, D-N.D.

So the question is, WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?

Here we go again (2nd post in one day, too!)

Hud chief resigns amid criminal probe (don'tcha just love this Bush Administration?)

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.

He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.

The move comes at a shaky time for the economy, with soaring mortgage foreclosures imperiling the nation's credit markets.

In announcing that his last day at HUD will be April 18, Jackson said only, "There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters."

Some Congressional Democrats had pushed for him to leave.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said that while Jackson's resignation is "appropriate, it does nothing to address the Bush administration's wait-and-don't-see posture to our nation's housing crisis."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said HUD will be called on to work with Congress on assisting refinancing for borrowers faced with imminent foreclosure.

The ethical allegations against Jackson "meant that the Bush administration's ineffective housing policies were being burdened by an even more ineffective HUD Secretary," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said after Jackson's announcement.

President Bush called Jackson "a strong leader and a good man." Ties between the two men go back to the 1980s when they lived in the same Dallas neighborhood. It was Jackson's personal ties to Bush that brought him to Washington, where he displayed a forceful personal style at HUD for seven years, first as the agency's No. 2 official and since 2004 in the top slot.

Despite a strong commitment to housing for those in need, Jackson was capable of ill-advised public comments.

Last year, after the subprime mortgage crisis erupted, many policymakers underlined the disproportionate impact of the high-risk, high-cost mortgages on minorities and the elderly, who often are targets of predatory lending practices that lure people into loans they are incapable of repaying.

Asked about the problems with subprime mortgages last June, Jackson insisted that many such borrowers were not unsophisticated, low-income people but what he called "Yuppies, Buppies and Guppies" — well-educated, young, black and gay upwardly mobile achievers — with expensive cars who bought $400,000 homes with little or no money down.

In announcing his departure, Jackson said that in his time at HUD, "We have helped families keep their homes. We have transformed public housing. We have reduced chronic homelessness. And we have preserved affordable housing and increased minority homeownership."

Bush has been cool to the idea of a big federal housing rescue. "The temptation of Washington is to say that anything short of a massive government intervention in the housing market amounts to inaction," the president said recently. "I strongly disagree with that sentiment."

On Monday on his way out of the country for a trip built around a NATO summit, Bush said he wants Congress to modernize HUD's Federal Housing Administration, allowing more struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

In October, the National Journal first reported on the criminal investigation of Jackson. The FBI has been examining the ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans. Jackson's friend got the job after Jackson asked a staff member to pass along his name to the Housing Authority of New Orleans.

In another instance of alleged favoritism that came to light in February, the Philadelphia housing authority alleges that Jackson retaliated against the agency because it refused to award a vacant lot worth $2 million to soul-music producer-turned-community developer Kenny Gamble for redevelopment of a public housing complex.

Jackson's problems began in 2006, when he told a group of commercial real estate executives that he had revoked a contract because the applicant who thanked him said he did not like President Bush. Jackson later told investigators "I lied" when he made the remark about taking back the contract.

The probe of Jackson's comment by the HUD inspector general ended with no action taken against him, but the investigators brought to light friction between the HUD secretary and some contractors who have long done business with the agency, a number of them donors to Democrats. On Monday, the IG's office said it had seen Jackson's latest remarks and "there is nothing more that we can add."

In the IG probe, some of Jackson's own aides contradicted his account of one incident in which investigators found the HUD secretary had blocked a contract for several months to one heavily Democratic donor. Jackson blamed his aides for the delay in the award.

Jackson was the first black leader of the housing authority in Dallas, where his integration efforts caused clashes with some local homeowners in predominantly white neighborhoods.

___

Associated Press writers Marcy Gordon, Ben Feller, Hope Yen and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.