That is clear from the appointments made to the so-called ethics review board in the House of Representatives, where Nancy Pelosi has made Porter Goss co-chairman of the board.
If you recall, Goss was forced to resign from the CIA when a hooker/lobbyist scandal tied into the Randall “Duke” Cunningham affair hit the news, and tied him to those involved.
Un-fracking-believable.
I’ve mentioned the Downpayment Assistance Program before, and it’s one of the worst scams in real estate, and the housing rescue bill shuts it down.
The FHA requires a down payment of 3%, and “non-profit” agencies will front the money to the buyer. That money, plus what is typically a $500 fee, comes from the seller, who raises the price of his house to cover it, effectively meaning that the buyer pays an additional $500 (plus taxes and commission) to create a phony downpayment.
Huzzah!
By a company called Optiver Holdings. Only it appears not to have had much of an effect:
The alleged manipulation was attempted 19 times on 11 days in March 2007, the agency said. In at least five of those 19 times, traders succeeded in driving prices higher twice and lower three times, according to the CFTC.
Five out of Nineteen, about 26%…not so effective.
He ran down a pedestrian, and then tried to leave the scene of the accident, prompting a bicyclist to pull in front of his car to stop him.
Unfortunately, the man who gleefully leaked the name of one of the CIA’s chief covert operatives on WMDs is unlikely to get any jail time. He was only cited for “failure to yield.”
No, this is not satire. “Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers’ on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.”
They are doing their level best to do it in secret.
Only 180 days to go…..
Considering that these programs were all founded by people who prospered under Batista, it’s not surprising that corruption is the rule rather than the exception.
If your goal is to restore corruption and klepto-capitalism to Cuba, it should be no surprise when the organization you found is corrupt and klepto-capitalist.
Our position towards Cuba has been as self-destructive as anything that I’ve seen in US history.
The New York Times buries the lede:
…..some lawyers and law professors are raising a related question: Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?
Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.
Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. But several members of the conservative legal community in Washington said in interviews that they hoped Mr. Bush would issue such pardons — whether or not anyone made a specific request for one. They said people who carried out the president’s orders should not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills.
“The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,” said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. “If we don’t protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.”
Bush does not pardon out of a compassion, he does not believe in that.
He will pardon for personal and political advantage.
Thus, I expect blanket pardons of his His Evil Minions™, because otherwise, Bush would be in the dock himself.
When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, many in Washington, particularly Republicans came to believe that immunity from lawbreaking was a birthright, and so they have been increasingly brazen in breaking laws.
These people need to spend time in prison. Real ones. Medium security at least.
The thing that is depressing though is what looks likely to be admitted in the trial, including statements made under the influence of, “sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and sexual humiliation”, because these actions could be seen as, “rationally related to good order and discipline.”
Maybe, if the warders in the prison were members of Stalin’s NKVD. Otherwise, this has nothing to do with “good order and discipline”.
Michael Mukasey, George Bush’s new bottom at the department of justice is now saying that allowing Gitmo detainees to actually be physically present in court to contest their detention would constitute an “extraordinary risk”, so Congress needs to act to prevent this.
His proposal:
One hopes that the Dems have some backbone on this, but I doubt it.
Because his statement condemning a withdrawal timetable is right out of the Republican spin machine, and is clearly an attempt to influence the election.
Obama needs to make a clear statement that such a role is inappropriate for an active duty officer, particularly a general.
It ain’t just the Department of Justice that will need to be de-Bushified in 2009.
Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise, has the scoop.
Money quote:
This is explosive news because Payne’s company’s entire business model is international influence peddling in exchange for oil and gas leases from politically unstable and dictatorial regimes.
Mr. Straight Talk, my ass.
Considering the fact that it has been at previous Red Flags, and it has zero role in the so called “War on Terror”, and they could shake one loose for the Farnborough airshow but this year, when the Indian AF will be sending Su-30MKIs to the exercise, David Axe reports that they are too busy to participate.
They are doing their hair, or some such.
I’m certain that they guys who actually fly the F-22 want to see how their likely adversary, advanced derivatives of the Su-27 will perform against them, what sort of tactics would be used, and similar issues, but the guys who fly desks, and are still interested in additional purchases of the white elephant, so they don’t want any losses in exercises, to get in the way of that.
I don’t know what it is, though I predict that it will come out some time between 8:00pm on Friday and Monday morning.
How do I know this? I know this because Homeland Security Secretary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin* Michael Chertoff is issuing a warning that European Terrorists are attempting to enter the US.
We know what this means: Breaking scandal in the Bush admin.
*Sorry about the confusion, for some reason, I always mix up the two of them.
I don’t mean junk the planes, just fold it back into the US Army Air Corps.
Case in point, the Air Force Top Brass is spending some $20 million counter-terrorism funds to build “comfort capsules” to be used by senior generals when traveling.
And these people were very involved in this project:
One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table’s wood be darkened.
Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.
(emphasis mine)
I understand the need of these guys to stay connected, but that would be a large screen laptop with secure network connections and a satcom link, not this.
Apparrently General Robert McMahon, Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support, who appears to be the prime mover behind this, and claims that it is, “not opulent”, and that he wanted the change to blue because “it would not show as much dirt” as brown, the color of dirt.
We no know, as a result of a computer technician selling data he downloaded, about a large number of using Lichtenstein bank secrecy laws to evade taxes.
While Liechtensteiner banking secrecy laws are actually more opaque than those of Switzerland, it has always been Swiss banks that have captured the public imagination when it came to the rich laundering money, and we are now seeing revelations regard Swiss banking giant UBS was helping its clients launder money, though this time it appears the discovery happened the old fashioned way, employees have been caught, and they are flipping to prosecutors for consideration on sentences.
Senator Carl Levin is now calling for regulators to revoke the banking license UBS American operations.
His call may have little bite, as UBS has revealed that it intends to wind down its US private banking operations.
It intends to stop taking new customers immediately, and wind down the rest of its services over time.
Wachovia Securities, until last October A.G. Edwards, was raided by regulators from Missouri, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and a, “sixth state that asked not to be identified”, today. In addition, some number more than a dozen employees of the firm were subpoenaed.
It appears that they had some questions about the collapse of the auction rate securities market, and Wachovia refused to respond to queries.
I expect to see a lot more of this as the markets swirl down the drain.
OK, maybe the next time I fly, I walk instead.
Some US Air pilots requested additional fuel be loaded into their aircraft in order to have more reserves upon landing. US Airways retaliated:
But US Airways recently crossed the line when it ordered eight pilots who requested “an extra 10 to 15 minutes worth of fuel” to attend training sessions, or “check rides,” that could put their pilot licenses in jeopardy, Ray said. The pilots were supposed to report for their training sessions Wednesday, he said.
So, we have bankruptcy, pay cuts for the workers, massive bonuses for the executives, and now attempts to eliminate safety margins on fuel loads, because you have to burn some of that fuel to carry that fuel.
And all the while, I though that Ashcroft was one of the Evil Minions™
It turns out that in early 2003, John Ashcroft refused to appoint torture memo author John Yoo to head the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, which had among its roles certifying interrogation techniques as legal, and there was a major blowup on this.
It was eventually settled with a compromise on Jack Goldsmith, who promptly review Yoo’s work and put a big red BS on it.
His lawyers are requesting an injunction for two reasons:
It should be interesting, because Bush and His Evil Minions™ are desperately trying to get these trials scheduled for maximum impact on the November elections.
And the Judge has decided to allow the trial to proceed on schedule.
It’s the interviews by the FBI with him and Cheney in the Plame Affair, and Bush is insisting that it’s covered by executive privilige, and Mukasey going along with it.
Simply put, enough is enough. Find Mukasey in contempt, and have the sergeant at arms of the Congress throw his ass in th t cell in the basement of Congress.
While you are at it, get Miers and Bolton in a cell.