[Ninong]

...what a wonderful job the Cheney-Bush Administration has been doing, check out this excerpt from a recent book by a well known supporter of George W. Bush.

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

Click here for more excerpts and to learn the author's identity.

(OK, to be perfectly honest, he campaigned for Bush in 2000 but switched to Kerry in 2004 because he said he was fed up with the incompetence of the Cheney-Bush Administration.)

Code: clueless bozos

[Ninong]

Bush says Gonzales testimony 'increased my confidence'



WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush expressed renewed confidence Monday for embattled Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales, who has come under fire for his handling of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys.

"The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job," Bush said about Gonzales testimony last week to the Senate.

The President said he was particularly inspired by the following exchange between Gonzales and various Senators:

"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall." "I don't recall."
"I don't recall." "I don't recall."

Code: lying idiots

[Ninong]

...in the ability of Karl Rove to do his job.

No wonder Karl was so touchy at the White House Correspondents Dinner. It's going to be a long, hot summer, Karl!



Code: T-Blossom

P.S. -- As a follow-up to the story I linked here about the OSC investigating Rove, it now turns out that the Bush appointee who heads the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is himself under investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for alleged mistreatment of OSC's career employees and for throwing out legitimate whistleblower cases OSC is designed to investigate. In other words, it looks like Rove is being investigated by someone who is a proven "loyal Bushie." This could turn into a charade.

P.P.S. -- David Iglesias just called in to Chris Matthews' Hardball and Chris took his call live. That was interesting. Iglesias thinks the OSC investigation is a result of his complaint about Gonzo firing him in part because of his 45 days a year Navy Reserve duty (David is a Navy Captain). Remember that Kyle Sampson listed "absentee landlord" as one of the reasons to fire Iglesias.

If you're wondering how Karl Rove is involved in all of this, it's because when the Democrats started investigating the firing of the US Attorneys (and other matters), emails to and from Rove and other White House aides were showing up on non-White House domains (gwb43.com, etc.). Now it turns out that something like 4 million emails may have been deleted in violation of the official records act. In spite of that, the investigators are finding plenty of those emails in computers of the recipients.

[Ninong]

...corrupt GOP Congressmen to the list!

Last week it was Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) who were in the news. This week it looks like Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) are about to make headlines. Both of these guys have long been reported to be on the take from Jack Abramoff.

Rumor has it that Mark Zachares, an aide to Don Young, is about to plead guilty to accepting some $30,000 in bribes from Abramoff and yesterday there were reports in the Florida press that the FBI is talking to Feeney about his 2003 golf trip to St. Andrews with Jack Abramoff. You might remember that Abramoff had arranged a regular tour event open to GOP Congressmen and Lt. Governor wannabees -- Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Tom Feeney, et alii.

Code: Friends of Jack Abramoff

[Ninong]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that Carol Lam, the fired US Attorney in San Diego, had been investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). That was incorrect. I lumped Jerry Lewis with Randy "Duke" Cunningham and other GOP crooks (e.g., Dusty Foggo, Brent Wilkes, et al.) that she was investigating.

Actually it was the Los Angeles US Attorney, Debra Yang, who was investigating Jerry Lewis. Yang was not one of the US Attorneys who was fired on December 7, 2006 because she had resigned only a few weeks earlier.

However, during Sen. Diane Feinstein's questioning of Gonzo the Magnificent last week, she said something about Harriet Miers talking about the possibility of removing Yang because of her investigation of Lewis. When asked how Feinstein learned about this, her spokesman said that it was something that came up "during interviews."

Here's where it gets really interesting: According to a report in the American Lawyer, Yang was lured away by a $1.5 million-plus offer to become a partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, which is defending Lewis in the probe. This is not the first time that a law firm that is representing a high-profile defendant has made a lucrative job offer to the federal prosecutor investigating their client. This is not much different than defense contractors offering lucrative jobs to the generals who were in charge of their contracts before their recent retirements. Or Halliburton hiring the former Secretary of Defense (Dick Cheney) as their CEO. Cheney made more than $50 million during the few years he headed Halliburton.

Anyway, I thought that was an interesting little tidbit of information that relates to the US Attorney mess. I wonder if Yang's departure had any effect on the investigation of Lewis? According to his disclosures, he has spent more than $1 million on legal fees so far.

[Ninong]

Last week Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) resigned from the House Intelligence Committee and today he resigned from the House Financial Services and Natural Resources committees. Oops! Did I say resigned? I meant to say he "stepped down temporarily." As soon as this ridiculous witch hunt is finished, Rick will rejoin his corrupt GOP colleagues on those three committees. These FBI raids can certainly be disruptive.

In the meantime, "House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that he appreciated Renzi's decision."

Oh, and there's one other little tiny detail we are now learning. It seems that Rick was sort of tied to the firing of the US Attorney in Arizona. How's that? You never heard anything about it? Well, don't feel like the Lone Ranger because neither did the House or the Senate Judiciary Committees that have been investigating this mess.

It seems that Rick's top aide called US Attorney Paul Charlton's office a few weeks before the election when an article was printed in the local press about Renzi's land deals being under investigation. You see, Rick was really upset about this possibly affecting his reelection chances, so he instructed his top aide to call Charlton's office to find out what they were up to. Charlton's aide told Renzi's aide that they would have no comment and that they would now have to inform the Department of Justice about this inappropriate contact, as required by department regulations. You might remember that David Iglesias didn't inform Main Justice when Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson called him to put heat on him to jack up some local Democrats before the election. David said he felt awful about having to rat them out. Little did he know that his patron, Sen. Domenici, would call Karl Rove and President Bush to ask that he be fired as an uncooperative and not-loyal-enough Bushie.

Anyway, it seems that Brian Murray, Renzi's top aide, issued a statement late today acknowledging that shortly after the local media reported that the congressman was being investigated, he called Charlton spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle.

I guess Murray is trying to get ahead of the game to make sure he doesn't get charged with something by the Democrats who are investigating this mess. Oh, and guess what? It seems that somehow Gonzo's Justice Department forgot to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee about this inappropriate contact. Imagine that!

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Rumor has it that Mark Zachares, an aide to Don Young, is about to plead guilty to accepting some $30,000 in bribes from Abramoff...

"Guilty, your honor."

It may not be as common as "I don't recall" but it's still a very common phrase you hear from Republicans in the nation's capital lately.


WASHINGTON (AP) - A former congressional aide pleaded guilty Tuesday to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in an influence-peddling scandal that has touched the White House, Interior Department and congressional Republicans.

Mark Zachares was the 11th person to be convicted in the Justice Department probe.

Zachares admitted engaging in official acts on Abramoff's behalf while working for Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, who chaired the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Code: Friends of Jack Abramoff

[Ninong]

Mark Zachares, one of the more minor figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, has agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge at a plea hearing Tuesday.

According to one source, the investigations have been picking up speed because Abramoff, who is in jail, has been "spilling his guts" in continued debriefings with federal prosecutors. The source noted wryly that while the Justice Department was once dubious of Abramoff's credibility, prosecutors are embracing much of what he's telling them.

Tuesday's plea indicates that the investigations have new momentum and are likely to lead to additional charges.

The criminal information cites Zachares' "extensive contact" with Abramoff going back to the mid-1990s. Zachares worked for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, then took key staff positions on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee while Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, was the chairman. Abramoff tried and failed to get Zachares a job with the Office of Insular Affairs at the Interior Department.

The headline in the plea is the cryptic reference to "Representative #3." We're told this is a member of Congress who has not been publicly named before in the Abramoff investigation.

Zachares went on the $160,000 golf trip in August of 2003 with Abramoff and six others, including a member of the House identified as "Representative #3. That lawmaker is not identified, but Rep. Tom Feeney acknowledged the golf trip on his financial disclosure forms but claimed it was paid by the National Center for Public Policy Research, not Jack Abramoff.

Code: Friends of Jack Abramoff

[Ninong]

Even the ultra-Republican Wall Street Journal knows what Gonzo was up to at Justice!

They have been reporting how the Bush family consiglieri did everything in his power to impede and delay the US Attorneys who were investigating corrupt GOP congressmen. How Carol Lam had to wait months for key approvals from Main Justice when she was investigating Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, Brent Wilkes, et al., and now they're reporting that the US Attorney in Arizona has had to wait more than a year for key clearances in the Rick Renzi investigation. (The US Attorney in Arizona was one of the ones Gonzo the Magnificent fired in December 2006.)

Even the Wall Street Journal knows it was obstruction of justice!

Follow the link above to see just how much they know.

Code: Obstruction of Justice

P.S. -- Instead of asking for Gonzo's resignation, why don't they just bring a bill of impeachment against him? Or, better yet, get Patrick Fitzgerald appointed as a special counsel to investigate him!

[Ninong]

It's not just Democrats who are out to get Gonzo! Republicans have been almost as vocal in their disgust at his amnesia act last week.

Sen. Arlen Specter, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, co-signed a letter with Chairman Patrick Leahy today urging Gonzales to freshen his memory and provide answers within a week.

Gonzales is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on May 10, so I'm sure Henry Waxman wants to take a look at the new & improved answers that Gonzo the Magnificent submits to the Senate before he gets his shot at him.

"We are reviewing this request," said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.

John McCain told Larry King that he thinks it would be best if Gonzales resigned. BTW, McCain officially anounced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. I wonder where I got the idea that he was already a candidate? Could of fooled me. All this time I though he already was a candidate.

Meanwhile, Congress was ramping up investigations of the White House on several fronts:

-The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 21-10 to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her testimony on the Bush administration's pre-war claims about Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction.

-Next door, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity from prosecution to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to testify. In addition, the committee scheduled a May 10 hearing for Gonzales.

-Across Capitol Hill, Leahy's panel approved - but did not issue - a subpoena in the firings matter for Sara Taylor, deputy to Bush political adviser Karl Rove.

-The House oversight committee also issued subpoenas for the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents about White House e-mails on RNC accounts that are said to be missing. The RNC released a letter to the panel listing 37 White House officials who have RNC e-mail accounts, including Rove.

Gonzales, meanwhile, was trying to mend fences in his first visit to Capitol Hill since his punishing appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

He met privately with Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who has contended Gonzales wasn't truthful with him about the dismissal of the U.S. attorney in Little Rock. The outreach didn't take.

"I reiterated with the attorney general, face-to-face, that I think he should resign," Pryor told reporters after the meeting. "I think it's the best thing for the Department of Justice and it's probably the best thing for him personally and the administration."

Lawmakers say they want to force into the open the story of why the eight U.S. attorneys were fired.

Pryor's harsh words on Gonzales were echoed by lawmakers in both parties, though Republicans tended to leave out the actual call for his resignation.

Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, noted a pragmatic concern: The waning months of the Bush administration complicate prospects for confirming a new attorney general.

"I'll be as vigilant as ever in overseeing the Justice Department and working with other senators, both Republicans and Democrats, for accountability from the attorney general and the department he leads," Grassley said.

On the uranium issue, Rice's allies maintained that she has for years answered Congress' questions under oath, as well as media inquiries, about her knowledge of Bush's claim about Iraq.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, traveling with Rice in Europe for NATO meetings, said department officials would try to answer the committee's questions, but he indicated Rice might not comply with a subpoena.

"Those matters are covered by executive privilege," McCormack said. "Those matters mean the questions that he has related to her tenure as national security adviser."

That position gives "us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena," said House Oversight Committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

Even as he pressed ahead on Rice, Waxman postponed a vote on a subpoena for former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card on the same issue.
Waxman said White House Counsel Fred Fielding had made a compromise proposal worth pursuing: The committee will first talk to the White House office of administration about Card's knowledge.

On the prosecutor firings, the House Judiciary Committee approved two measures that would compel Goodling's testimony and grant her immunity from prosecution for what she says.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Even the ultra-Republican Wall Street Journal knows what Gonzo was up to at Justice!

They have been reporting how the Bush family consiglieri did everything in his power to impede and delay the US Attorneys who were investigating corrupt GOP congressmen. How Carol Lam had to wait months for key approvals from Main Justice when she was investigating Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, Brent Wilkes, et al., and now they're reporting that the US Attorney in Arizona has had to wait more than a year for key clearances in the Rick Renzi investigation. (The US Attorney in Arizona was one of the ones Gonzo fired in December 2006.)

Even the Wall Street Journal knows it was obstruction of justice!

Follow the link above to see just how much they know.

Code: Obstruction of Justice

P.S. -- Instead of asking for Gonzo's resignation, why don't they just bring a bill of impeachment against him? Or, better yet, get Patrick Fitzgerald appointed as a special counsel to investigate him!

Well, there you have it. Everybody is calling for his head but will he step down? I really don't think so. If we learn anything about this administration it is that they don't really give a hoots what anyone thinks or says...and just keep plowing on.

I just hope that more dirt comes out to show how really screwed up this whole gang is.

[schrocat]

WASHINGTON - A senior Justice Department official has resigned after coming under scrutiny in the Department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to a Justice Department official with knowledge of the case. Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.






Hang in there Gonzo!
Bush can't get to 19% without you!

[Ninong]

Dude, you left out the best part:

"He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff."



GWB: "Jack who? What did you say his last name was again?"

Reporter: "Abramoff."

GWB: "Never heard of him."

[Ninong]

It's still only 8 p.m. in D.C., more bad news might still come out. Sometimes they don't release it until around 9 p.m. They're hoping no one will notice anything that comes out late on a Friday. They dumped all those emails around 9 p.m. on a Friday, two or three Fridays in a row to be exact.

[zhenya]

It looks like everybody doing a heckuva job!

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

It looks like everybody doing a heckuva job!

Especially this guy:

Bush Administration's "Faithfulness & Abstinence Czar" has just resigned!!!

You'll never in a thousand years guess why! OK, so maybe you will.

If you guessed it has something to do with the D.C. Madam, you win a prize or something!!!



This is hilarious!


Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.

As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

A State Department press release late Friday afternoon said only he was leaving for "personal reasons."

Tobias' private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," who is facing the federal charges. In an interview to be broadcast on "20/20" next Friday, Palfrey says she intends to call Tobias and a number of her other prominent DC clients to testify at her trial.

"I'm sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, four to eight years, because I'm shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever," Palfrey told ABC News.

Here.

His Wikipedia profile has already been updated.

Excerpt from his official White House profile: "His book on leadership lessons learned, Put The Moose On The Table, written with his son, Todd Tobias, was published in early 2003." Just think, in the subsequent editions, he can add a new lesson learned!



P.S. -- Who would write a book about leadership lessons learned and call it "Put The Moose On The Table?" Reminds me of what "Scooter" Libby has them do to that deer in his literary masterpiece.

[Ninong]

State Department officials declined to comment further on the reasons for Tobias's resignation.

"I'm sad today," said one person close to Tobias. "The president loves him and Condi absolutely loves him."

White House officials said Rice briefed Bush on the matter early yesterday before he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The president "was saddened and disappointed and wished Dr. Tobias and his family well," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who operated the escort service, was indicted on federal racketeering charges in February and has threatened to expose her high-profile client list.

Palfrey has contended that her escort service provided clients with college-educated women who engaged in legal, sexual game-playing for $275 per 90-minute session in their homes or hotel rooms. Prosecutors allege she ran a prostitution ring.

Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said yesterday that he has been contacted in the past few days by five lawyers asking whether their client's phone numbers are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers from 2002 to 2006. Some have also asked about whether an accommodation can be made to avoid identifying their clients, which Sibley said he is not able to promise. ABC's "20/20" is mining that database of phone numbers, Sibley said, for a news report on the more notable of Palfrey's customers.

"I presume '20/20' crews running around with cameras has led to this flurry of activity," Sibley said. "That may cause some people to worry."

[schrocat]

ouch.

how awkward.

It's rude to stare.

I guess he was...ummm, doing a heck of a... job or something.
Not sure if it counts though.

He'll be missed.

NEEEEEXT.

[Ninong]

This is the Bush Administration hypocrite who was peddling "celibacy until marriage" and "faithfulness" around the world as the best way to fight HIV/AIDS. In fact, it was the "only way" that would be funded by the U.S. government.

The Bush Administration has adopted the Vatican's view that it is better that people should die from AIDS and that innocent babies should be born with AIDS than anyone sin by using a condom. Condoms would encourage people to have sex just for the fun of it and, as everyone knows, that's a sin. The sex act should always be "open to reproduction." Anything else is a sin! Everyone knows this. Just ask Papa Ratzi.

Thousands and thousands of people are dying in Third-World countries because of the policies of the Vatican and the Bush Administration. I touched on this topic before in this forum. Bush has destroyed the programs put in place during the Clinton Administration by attaching unacceptable strings: No condoms and no assistance to anyone who contracted AIDS through acts of prostitution. The "no condoms" alone destroys the effectiveness of the programs. But what else should we expect from an administration that has ignored what is happening in Darfur.

Sure, it's fun to see these self-righteous, supposedly "Christian" hypocrites caught with their pants down but that's not the real story. The real story is that these cretins are immoral incompentent jackasses who are directly responsible for adding to the misery in the world instead of trying to alleviate it. Their public health policies are based on religious beliefs instead of sound medical science. The irony is that none of them adheres to the religious beliefs that they pretend to profess. Just read the book that kid wrote, the one who was the deputy to the White House's Office of Faith-Based programs czar, or whatever the hell they call it. He wrote that Karl Rove and everyone at the White House considers all the fundies to be a bunch of whackos. Whether that observation is correct or not is not the point. The point is that this administration is the biggest collection of bumbling, lying, immoral, incompetent, hypocrites ever assembled.

The Bush Administration's policies when it comes to public health are counterproductive and harmful. They are worse than inhumane, they are anti-human!

From Human Rights Watch:

The United States announced in 2002 that it would no longer donate condoms to the Philippines, causing an unprecedented condom supply crisis. The announcement coincided with the scaling up of U.S.-funded “abstinence until marriage” programs, now a staple of U.S. foreign AIDS policy. Since President George W. Bush took office in 2000, his administration has removed information about condoms from government websites, appointed physicians who oppose condoms as high-level advisers on HIV/AIDS, and opposed references to condoms in United Nations policy documents. The United States opposed a reference to “consistent condom use” at the 2002 Asian and Pacific Population Conference.


P.S. -- Indiana University's Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence and Massage.

Ambassador Tobias resides in Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis with his wife, Marianne. He has two children, two step-children and eight grandchildren. Who are all asking themselves the same question, "What the hell was he thinking?"

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder.

No, you're not the only one Ninong but I'd say that you're part of a small minority. I too attempt to instill interest/concern amongst my colleagues but I fear it's an uphill struggle as most Americans, IMHO, have become complacent to the point that "We the People" have allowed this travesty to occur. We have allowed the "Ruling Class" to dictate how we run our lives and we have empowered them to the point where they have lost touch with those they claim to serve.

I'm thinking of hosting a "Tea Party", would you like to join?