[Ninong]

Hi Dave, long time no see.

I can't take credit for that quote. I was quoting from Lee Iacocca's book.

[Aragorn]

Good to see you my friend. I trust you're well, yes?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Good to see you my friend. I trust you're well, yes?

I can't complain.

[Ninong]

They have been plotting ways to circumvent the Senate confirmation process for US Attorneys since 2003!

Memo describes installing unconfirmed prosecutors

Justice official asked how to bypass Senate

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 28, 2007

WASHINGTON -- More than a year before the Bush administration has said it first considered firing US attorneys, a top Justice Department official asked lawyers to determine how the administration could temporarily fill vacant US attorney positions with appointees who had not been confirmed by the Senate.

In a September 2003 memo, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which answers legal questions for the president and his appointees, described a way to install a replacement US attorney who could serve up to 330 days without Senate confirmation.

But the memo also said that any appointee would eventually still have to win confirmation from the Senate or be approved by a federal court to continue serving. Two years later, the administration quietly got a provision inserted into the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill giving itself the power to permanently appoint replacement US attorneys without Senate or court approval.

That provision was a key component in the planning for what became a mass firing of eight US attorneys last year, documents have shown. Administration officials have told congressional investigators that the idea of firing US attorneys first arose shortly after the 2004 election.

Here.

P.S. -- That provision was quietly inserted into the Patriot Act reauthorization bill at the last minute by Arlen Specter's chief legislative counsel at the request of the White House/DOJ. Specter insists that he himself was never informed, which is amazing if true.

[Ninong]

Aww, what a shame! Gonzo the Magnificent attended his 25th reunion at Harvard yesterday and a few students, including one dressed up as a Gitmo detainee, showed up to protest his presence on campus.

Check out how Faux News reported it:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Heckled at Harvard Law School Reunion

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A small group of student protesters, including one wearing a black hood and an orange jumpsuit, heckled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as he posed with old classmates Saturday during their 25-year Harvard Law School reunion.

"When the photographer was getting everybody set up and having people say 'cheese,' the protesters yelled: 'say torture, instead,' 'resign' and 'I don't recall,'" said Nate Ela, a protester and third-year student.

Law school spokesman Mike Armini said the impromptu protest was so small that some of those attending the photo shoot did not notice it.


I want you to pay particular attention to that phrase "some of those attending the photo shoot did not notice it" because here are a couple of pictures of the photo shoot that Faux News didn't include in their report.


Gonzo the Magnificent is sort of in the middle of the group.


Gonzo is holding up a placard with the number 588 printed on it. What's that all about? Anybody know? Does that mean he graduated 588th out of a class of 600?


As you can clearly see from this picture, the Harvard Law 1982 graduates were all so busy saying "I don't recall" for the cameraman that they failed to notice the dude in the black hood and orange jumpsuit.

Gonzo's security detail whisked him out a rear basement emergency exit into a waiting SUV to avoid his adoring fans.

[Ninong]

"It was just like ordering pizza."

I have a feeling we should have started a new thread for this D.C. Madam stuff but, what the heck, it's in here already and this is a thread about bozos, so I guess we'll just go with it.

ABC’s Ross: DC Madam’s List Includes White House & Pentagon Officials, Prominent Lawyers

ABC News’ Brian Ross revealed tonight that the list of customers of an alleged Washington-based prostitution service includes White House and Pentagon officials as well as prominent attorneys.

“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,” Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.”


When Brian Ross asked former Deputy Secretary of State Randy Tobias "if he knew any of the young women, their names. He said he didn’t remember them at all. He said it was like ordering pizza.”


This sounds like it's going to be even more fun than the Mark Foley revelations. You might remember that it was Brian Ross who broke that story, too. The D.C. Madam's operation extends back to the beginning of Clinton's first term, so I'm sure this will turn out to be a bipartisan list of customers. That's the good news for the GOP. They will finally have some Democrats to point at and say, "They did it, too."



P.S. -- The good news for the White House is that Karl Rove, Kenny Mehlman and at least three GOP Senators are safe on this one. That's assuming this was an all-female escort service.

You guys may not remember this but back during Bush the Elder's administration, there was a scandal involving GOP operatives who were taking 16-year-old teenage boys for midnight tours of the White House during which, on at least one occasion, oral sex was performed on the teenager in I believe the Lincoln bedroom. The boy's FBI (or was it USSS?) interview included details of defects in the ceiling moulding that are only visible if one is lying on one's back in the bed!

Barbara Bush had some hilarious comments at the time. Maybe I can google them. I'll see what I can do later on.

P.P.S. -- OK, I found this copy of the June 29, 1989 Washington Times:

It was headline news back in June 1989 but now that I have found the complete Washington Times story, it appears that many of the incidents took place during 1988 when Reagan was still in the White House. It's a fun read. I may post it in this thread later on. Maybe. (OK, here's a full scan of the entire Washington Times article on the midnight sex tours of the White House.)

[zhenya]

The fact that some of this bozos used "call girl" service don't bother me all that much. It's been going on since the dawn of time in Washington, from what I understand. The fact that some of this bozos profess abstinence and were involved in making policy on what other may or may not do, this fact bothers me alot.
You said it right, Ninong...

Originally Posted by Ninong

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.

I couldn't agree more with you on this. This people made a mockery of religion they profess they follow, and they made millions of lives more miserable than it already was.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

The fact that some of this bozos used "call girl" service don't bother me all that much. It's been going on since the dawn of time in Washington, from what I understand. The fact that some of this bozos profess abstinence and were involved in making policy on what other may or may not do, this fact bothers me alot.
You said it right, Ninong...


I couldn't agree more with you on this. This people made a mockery of religion they profess they follow, and they made millions of lives more miserable than it already was.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Randy Tobias oversaw a program helping men in poor countries “develop healthy relationships with women.” (I wonder if there was anything in there about "just like ordering pizza?") This was part of the Bush Administration's program to eradicate HIV/AIDS by teaching that prostitution was a sin and abstinence was the only way to avoid AIDS. In fact, they required anti-prostitution oaths from the Third-World countries who participated in the USAID-funded programs.

Just teach them that if they practiced good old fundamentalist Christian values instead of their sinful pagan ways, they wouldn't have this AIDS problem. It's only because they are ignorant, sinful savages that are getting AIDS because, as everyone knows, AIDS is punishment from God for their sins. And they should be grateful that the White House has even bothered to consider helping them in spite of their moral inferiority.

Bush totally destroyed the programs that Bill Clinton had in place to help eradicate AIDS in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Many countries simply told him they weren't interested in his money because of his idiotic faith-based restrictions that had nothing to do with sound medical practice. For example, our official government literature on AIDS insists that condoms are permeable and therefore do not prevent the transmission of AIDS and other STDs. That's an outright lie. They allowed the wingnut fundies to write their AIDS prevention literature just like they allowed them to write their abstinence-based 'sex education' courses.

This is just another area where the Bush Administration has ruined the goodwill built up by the United States over previous years. The rest of the world views us as a country of ignorant, arrogant, narrow minded warmongers who think we're God's gift to humanity. Much of the unrest in the world today is a direct result of actions by this administration. They may not have started some of it but they certainly threw fuel on the fire.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Ninong

P.S. -- The good news for the White House is that Karl Rove, Kenny Mehlman and at least three GOP Senators are safe on this one.

I guess it's nothing that some good ol water boarding couldn't fix for this guys...

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by zhenya

I guess it's nothing that some good ol water boarding couldn't fix for this guys...

No, Gene, you don't need to waterboard them. These guys will not be on the D.C. Madam's rolodex. Neither will your former governor. Or the current governor of Florida.

[Ninong]

This DC Madam story could be bigger than the Mark Foley story and last longer. ABC News is promising to reveal more client names live on 20/20 on May 4, during sweeps week.

The WaPo is all over it and I have excerpted a few choice paragraphs below. Pay particular attention to the fact that she started up her present $300/hr escort service immediately after being released from an 18-month prison term for pimping in California.

Miz Julia was the pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman at the center of a sex scandal that has caused a deputy secretary of state to resign and has lawyers calling around town trying to keep their clients' names out of public view. A one-time law student, Palfrey ran for 13 years what she insists was a legal escort service. Federal prosecutors allege she was providing $300-an-hour prostitutes, and a grand jury indicted her in February on federal racketeering charges.

Palfrey piqued fascination -- and anxiety -- by first threatening to sell phone records that could unveil thousands of clients, and then handing them over, apparently for free, to ABC News. She is scheduled to appear tomorrow in U.S. District Court in the District.

On Friday, Randall L. Tobias resigned as deputy secretary of state one day after confirming to Brian Ross of ABC that he had patronized the Pamela Martin firm. Speaking yesterday on "Good Morning America," Ross said Tobias told him Tobias's number was on Palfrey's phone records because he had called "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." There had been "no sex," Ross quoted Tobias as saying, and that recently he has used another service, "with Central American gals," for massages. [Randy should have just kept his mouth shut and refused to confirm anything. What an idiot! Does he expect anyone to believe he paid $450 for a 90-minute non-sexual massage? And who calls an escort service for a real massage? This is turning out to be a very unhappy ending for Randy.]

Tobias, who is 65 and married, was director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. He previously held a top job in the Bush administration overseeing AIDS relief, in which he promoted abstinence and a policy requiring grant recipients to swear they oppose prostitution.

Palfrey's flamboyant attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said Friday that he has been contacted by five lawyers recently, asking whether their clients' names are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 phone numbers. Some, Sibley said, have inquired about whether accommodations could be made to keep their identities private. ABC is expected to air a report on Palfrey and her clients on "20/20" on May 4, during sweeps.

[...]

She sees herself as an entrepreneur being railroaded by an all-powerful government, in a "David and Goliath scenario." Prosecutors have made much of her history: In 1992, she pleaded guilty to attempted felony pimping. She started her Washington business while on probation in California.

[...]

She told Thomas Czech, a career Marine who said he dated Palfrey for about two months, that she was an interior designer. Things ended badly, and Czech took out a restraining order against her in San Diego County in 1989.

[...]

Palfrey was a no-show at her scheduled trial in August 1991. She was captured that October in Montana. She explained to the court that the stress from the criminal proceedings had caused her to flee. Her mother, she said, was so upset that she developed a life-threatening aneurysm and required surgery. She said her parents "just can't comprehend how my offense could be viewed so harshly." Once free, she said, she planned to go into business exporting "authentic American Western and Indian art to the United Kingdom."

Instead, after 18 months in state prison, Palfrey started Pamela Martin. The firm recruited escorts through the University of Maryland student newspaper and Washington City Paper. It advertised in the Yellow Pages and on Web sites, touting itself as "undoubtedly the best adult agency around."

P.S. -- Here's what Brian Ross said this morning on ABC's Good Morning America:
"It's a long list, we've been going through the phone records for the last four years provided for us by Jean Palfrey. There are some very prominent people, lobbyists, lawyers, members of the military, other people in the Bush administration."

[Ninong]

Meanwhile, Gonzo the Magnificent is back in the nation's capital where he has resumed his acting lessons. His aides have reviewed his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and they think they have finalized a new strategy for Gonzo's May 9 May 10 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.

Gonzo can be seen here practicing his new lines:



No hablo ingles.

[Ninong]

So much new damaging information has come out in the last few days that Gonzo's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on May 10 is certain to be filled with fireworks. The only question now is whether the Republicans in Congress will demand that he resign and whether Bush will allow him to resign.

The firing of the US Attorneys is only the tip of a much, much bigger iceberg! It was merely the symptom of a much more serious disease. If Bush allows Gonzo to resign, he and Cheney could be at serious risk of impeachment. A Justice Department that is not under the direct control of the White House could prove hazardous to their political health.

I suspect that by May 14 the calls for Gonzo's resignation will be loud and clear from both sides of the aisle. If he doesn't step down, look for the Senate to pass a resolution of no-confidence in the Attorney General. It would have no legal force whatsoever but it would put Republicans, especially those up for reelection in 2008, in a very uncomfortable position. Such a resolution might pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. That would really put the White House on the hot seat.

[schrocat]

Originally Posted by Ninong

If Bush allows Gonzo to resign, he and Cheney could be at serious risk of impeachment. A Justice Department that is not under the direct control of the White House could prove hazardous to their political health.

word.


P.S. "No hablo ingles." ...how did I miss that post up there?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by schrocat

P.S. "No hablo ingles." ...how did I miss that post up there?

Muchas gracias.

[Ninong]

I hate having this issue intertwined in this thread but it already is, so...

Brian Ross will reveal the names of two more of the D.C. Madam's customers on tomorrow night's 20/20.

Rumor has it that he is furious that ABC/Disney has drastically edited what he had proposed to reveal on the show. He has so far positively identified more than 1,000 names on that list, including many more Bush Administration officials, high-ranking military brass, the head of a conservative think tank, etc.

Evidently he had planned a much more sensational show than what his corporate overlords are comfortable with, so they scaled it back drastically and he's extremely unhappy about that.

I hope one of the two names he reveals is either William "The Bloody" Kristol or whoever heads the American Enterprise Institute right now. I would much rather see Bill Kristol's name pop up but any rightwing think tank honcho would suffice.

I wonder if they would dare reveal the name of someone who works for another network? Boy, would that be hilarious! I have a feeling that all of the White House press corps is safe because revealing anyone's name could start an internetwork feud. Maybe Keith Olberman could get ahold of the list and reveal the names of any Fox people? Shepard Smith is safe and the entire crew at American Idol is safe. The same goes for Anderson Cooper and Thomas Roberts on CNN.

I think it's important that both of the guys exposed tomorrow night be in the same boat as Randy Tobias -- obvious hypocrites. Hey, I wonder if any of the announced or unannounced presidential candidates from either political party are on the list?

This is one of those questions that can be argued either way. I think publishing a complete list of customers would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with publishing the names of people like Randy Tobias who was preaching against the evils of prostitution and who led the effort to impose the Bush Administration's own peculiar religious beliefs on Third World countries in desperate need of assistance in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The D.C. Madam herself made an interesting observation. She pointed out that when law enforcement agents raided her home, they took only the records relating to her escorts. They told her they had no interest in the customer records. She views that as a typical male chauvinist sexist view of the law. She has a point. If what her escorts did was illegal, then the customers are just as guilty as the escorts.

I'm not getting into whether any of this should be illegal or not because that's a complex issue that involves so many other basic beliefs about the role of government in regulating personal behavior. Arguing for or against prostitution is about as tricky as arguing for or against abortion or for or against the legalization of marijuana. You can find yourself agreeing with both sides, which is frustrating!

[zhenya]

I hate having this issue intertwined in this thread but it already is, so...

Brian Ross will reveal the names of two more of the D.C. Madam's customers on tomorrow night's 20/20.

Oh good! I'll be watching tomorrow night...

And since I'm the one that started this thread.., you have my OK to post more of such wonderful news...

[Ninong]

Well, I sure hope this doesn't count as one of the two names:

A legal secretary at one of Washington's most prominent and well-connected law firms, Akin Gump Strauss Houer & Feld LLP, has been suspended after telling her bosses she secretly worked at night for the escort service run by the so-called D.C. Madam, Jeane Palfrey.

The woman both serviced clients and, at times, helped to run the business, Palfrey told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast on "20/20" Friday.

You can read the rest here.

[Ninong]

Jon Stewart explains the D.C. Madam sex scandal here. Pay particular attention to the clip of Sean Hannity defending the customers with the argument that many people pay escorts to come over for nothing more than friendly conversation. Yeah, right! Three-hundred bucks an hour for somebody to talk to. It's near the end of the segment.



P.S. -- Sean Hannity's liberal views on legalized prostitution are well known. Remember my link: Sean Hannity & Friends!

[zhenya]

It's hilarious how all the rats are scrambling.... but you are right, Hannity takes the cake.