Daily Nonsense

In an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, Susan J. Crawford, has admitted that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the suspected 20th terrorist in the 9/11 attack on the US was brutally tortured while being detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Brutally tortured by Americans while being held without regard for the Geneva Convention.

Tortured by us.  Tortured by Americans.

Let’s couple this with Still Vice President Cheney’s admission on December 15th that he authorized and approved of the interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison,.  So Cheney admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

Where is the moral outrage?  Where are the arrests and public humiliation of these government officials?  Why is Still Vice President Dick Cheney not locked up right now?  We know that he believes that he is above the law (or worse, a law unto himself), but surely saner minds know better.

Why has there been no action?  Why has the name Cheney not be irrevocably linked with torture like Aaron Burr has been linked with treason?

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official
Trial Overseer Cites ‘Abusive’ Methods Against 9/11 Suspect

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A01

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.

Military prosecutors said in November that they would seek to refile charges against Qahtani, 30, based on subsequent interrogations that did not employ harsh techniques. But Crawford, who dismissed war crimes charges against him in May 2008, said in the interview that she would not allow the prosecution to go forward.

Qahtani was denied entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks and was allegedly planning to be the plot’s 20th hijacker. He was later captured in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo in January 2002. His interrogation took place over 50 days from November 2002 to January 2003, though he was held in isolation until April 2003.

"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.

The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.

The Qahtani case underscores the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration as it seeks to close the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the dilemmas posed by individuals considered too dangerous to release but whose legal status is uncertain. FBI "clean teams," which gather evidence without using information gained during controversial interrogations, have established that Qahtani intended to join the 2001 hijackers. Mohamed Atta, the plot’s leader, who died steering American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, went to the Orlando airport to meet Qahtani on Aug. 4, 2001, but the young Saudi was denied entry by a suspicious immigration inspector.

"There’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He’s a muscle hijacker. . . . He’s a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don’t charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, ‘Let him go.’ "

That, she said, is a decision that President-elect Barack Obama will have to make. Obama repeated Sunday that he intends to close the Guantanamo center but acknowledged the challenges involved. "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," Obama said on ABC’s "This Week," "and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous, who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted, even though it’s true."

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said that interrogations never involved torture. "The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values," Bush asserted on Sept. 6, 2006, when 14 high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons. And in a interview last week with the Weekly Standard, Cheney said, "And I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

"I sympathize with the intelligence gatherers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next and trying to gain information to keep us safe," said Crawford, a lifelong Republican. "But there still has to be a line that we should not cross. And unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward."

"The Department has always taken allegations of abuse seriously," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail. "We have conducted more than a dozen investigations and reviews of our detention operations, including specifically the interrogation of Mohammed Al Qahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker. They concluded the interrogation methods used at GTMO, including the special techniques used on Qahtani in 2002, were lawful. However, subsequent to those reviews, the Department adopted new and more restrictive policies and procedures for interrogation and detention operations. Some of the aggressive questioning techniques used on Al Qahtani, although permissible at the time, are no longer allowed in the updated Army field manual."

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that the original military commission system for Guantanamo Bay violated the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, Congress rewrote the rules and passed the Military Commissions Act, creating a new structure for trials by commissions. The act bans torture but permits "coercive" testimony.

Crawford said she believes that coerced testimony should not be allowed. "You don’t allow it in a regular court," said Crawford, who served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces from 1991 to 2006.

Under the act, Crawford is a neutral official overseeing charges, trials and sentencing, with ultimate decision-making power over all cases coming before the military commissions.

In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. "It did shock me," Crawford said. "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she said. Last month, a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." The committee found the interrogation techniques harsh and abusive but stopped short of calling them torture.

An aide to the former defense secretary accused the committee chairman, Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), of pursuing a politically motivated "false narrative" that is "unencumbered by the preponderance of the facts."

In June 2005, Time magazine obtained 83 pages of Qahtani’s interrogation log and published excerpts that showed some of the extreme abuse. The report of a military investigation released the same year concluded that Qahtani’s interrogations were "degrading and abusive."

Crawford said she does not know whether five other detainees accused of participating in the Sept. 11 plot, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, were tortured. "I assume torture," she said, noting that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said publicly that Mohammed was one of three detainees waterboarded by the CIA. Crawford declined to say whether she considers waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, to be torture.

The five detainees face capital murder charges, and Crawford said she let the charges go forward because the FBI satisfied her that they gathered information without using harsh techniques. She noted that Mohammed has acknowledged his Sept. 11 role in court, whereas Qahtani has recanted his self-incriminating statements to the FBI.

"There is no doubt he was tortured," Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Qahtani’s civilian attorney, said this week. "He has loss of concentration and memory loss, and he suffers from paranoia. . . . He wants just to get back to Saudi Arabia, get married and have a family." She said Qahtani "adamantly denies he planned to join the 9/11 attack. . . . He has no connections to extremists." Gutierrez said she believes Saudi Arabia has an effective rehabilitation program and Qahtani ought to be returned there.

When she came in as convening authority in 2007, Crawford said, "the prosecution was unprepared" to bring cases to trial. Even after four years working possible cases, "they were lacking in experience and judgment and leadership," she said. "A prosecutor has an ethical obligation to review all the evidence before making a charging decision. And they didn’t have access to all the evidence, including medical records, interrogation logs, and they were making charging decisions without looking at everything."

She noted that prosecutors are required to determine whether any evidence possessed by the government could be exculpatory; if it is, they must turn it over to defense lawyers. It took more than a year, she said — and the intervention of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England — to ensure they had access to all the information, much of it classified.

Crawford said detainee interrogation practices are a blot on the reputation of the United States and its military judicial system. "There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured. But unfortunately perception is reality." The system she oversees probably can’t function now, she said. "Certainly in the public’s mind, or politically speaking, and certainly in the international community" it may be forever tainted. "It may be too late."

She said Bush was right to create a system to try unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war on terrorism. The implementation, however, was flawed, she said. "I think he hurt his own effort. . . . I think someone should acknowledge that mistakes were made and that they hurt the effort and take responsibility for it."

"We learn as children it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission," Crawford said. "I think the buck stops in the Oval Office."

Researchers Julie Tate and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

I’m so overjoyed I’m incapable of commenting!

Cheney, Gonzales indicted for alleged prisoner abuse

(CNN) – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on separate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers, Willacy County, Texas, District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra told CNN Tuesday.

The indictment stems from Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group — an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

Democratic state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. also is charged in the indictment.

Michael R. Cowen, an attorney for Lucio, issued a statement calling Guerra a "one man circus."

"In the March 2008 Democratic Primary, 70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra as Willacy County District Attorney," Cowen said. "Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies."

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said, "The vice president has not received an indictment."

Willacy is near the United States-Mexico border.

[Thanks, CNN]

We all know that George W. Bush isn’t the man we elected as president.  But with the manipulation of the results from overseas voters and the residents of Ohio, Bush was determined to be the winner yet again in 2004.

One of the cornerstones of his theft of the office of the president was in Ohio.  Using voting machines which have now proven to be inaccurate, George W. and his puppet-master Dick Cheney were able to prevent more than 350,000 individuals from having their votes count.

350,000 votes was just enough to manipulate the results of the Electoral Congress and assure the continued reign of the true ‘Axis of Evil’.

Hey, guess what?  The Bush-Cheney administration has their eyes set on Ohio voters once again.  Choosing an influential battleground state and manipulating the votes might just be enough to get McCain and the warthog elected.

Bush Undermines Democracy with Attack on 200,000 New Ohio Voters

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2008.

How far will an already politicized Justice Department go to assist Republicans win on November 4?

As the 2008 presidential election heads into its final week, the current president threw a political wild card on table late Friday, when he asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the status of 200,000 Ohio voters.

George W. Bush’s request, if honored, could be politically explosive. It would remind voters of the Department of Justice’s partisan abuses of power in the scandal surrounding the firing of seven U.S. attorneys in 2006 who did not deliver ‘voter fraud’ convictions.

It could be a big distraction, drawing attention away from issues that call for legitimate DOJ intervention, such as shortages of voting machines in minority precincts in Virginia and Pennsylvania, compared to nearby white precincts. That disparity would violate existing civil rights law.

Or it could interject a complicating dynamic into the already heavily litigated Ohio general election, by adding the Department’s weight to GOP legal claims that pre-emptively question the legitimacy of a close vote count in a key battleground state.

Either way, the Department must choose if it will remain silent or get involved in an action that would go well beyond its historic role of quietly monitoring elections and avoiding messages to voters.

"This is taking the politicization of this to a new level, and the last thing we need is for the elections officials and voters of Ohio to be put in a chaotic situation in the last days before the election," Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Washington Post, reacting to the White House request.

The White House, according to the same Post report, described its actions as a routine referral to a federal agency as requested by a member of Congress, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). Boehner had written to Mukasey early last week but received no response.

The Obama campaign reaction was to send the fourth letter this month to Mukasey urging he ensure the Department does not interfere "to satisfy desperate partisan political demands."

"For the Department now, in response to the intense politics of the moment, to abruptly intercede in the current work of state and local officials would inflict incalculable damage — further and irreparable damage — to your office and to the reputation of senior federal law enforcement," said Robert Bauer, Obama campaign counsel.

Bauer’s "further" damage was a reference to media leaks by FBI officials confirming it was investigating ACORN, a low-income advocacy group, for voter registration issues. That disclosure violated Department rules and Bauer asked Mukasey to instruct a special prosecutor in the U.S. attorney firing scandal to investigate the leak. Like Beohner’s request, Mukasey also did not respond to Bauer’s request.

The Real Issue

At issue in the White House pressure tactics is how the GOP may be able to contest the vote count if the results are close.

Republicans in several battleground states have sought to challenge the validity of hundreds of thousands of voter registrations using a gray area of federal election law and error-prone databases.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) instructs states to use Social Security and driver’s license databases to verify voter registrations, but leaves it up to states how to specifically do that. In Ohio, for example, the Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, has issued for local officials to follow.

The absence of specific federal guidelines on using the Social Security and state motor vehicle databases to verify registrations is compounded by another factor: the fact that these records, especially Social Security data, have error rates as high as 28.5 percent when used for verifying voter registrations.

These factors are behind the GOP’s assertions that key battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are facing major ballot security crises that threaten the legitimacy of the vote.

In various lawsuits, the GOP has argued that registrations that did not match these databases be segregated and treated as a separate class of voters. The GOP said these voters should receive provisional ballots, which would have to be verified before being counted.

But, so far, most state and federal courts have rejected the GOP’s legal arguments. Late last week, a Wisconsin court told that state’s attorney general, a McCain campaign co-chair, that he did not have the authority to sue on this issue. Moreover, in Ohio, the GOP’s lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it sided with Brunner. The Ohio secretary of state, a former judge, said her office had met HAVA’s requirements by promulgating its own procedures to verify voter registrations.

Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, several Republican House members started lobbying the Justice Department to intervene. At the same time, Brunner issued new directives — which have the force of law — telling Ohio’s 88 county election boards they count not bar anyone from voting because of ‘no-match’ voter registration issues.

The White House then asked the Justice Department to intervene after Brunner’s latest directives.

[Thanks, AlterNet]

In overnight trading European and Japanese stocks fell so sharply that futures of US stocks quickly lost value as to reach their maximum permissible free-fall loss of 6%.  Apparently we are not the only nation to be facing economic recession.

But we are the nation who is at the root of the global issue and the blame can be squarely placed on the shoulders of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  How’s that for a legacy Georgie?  You not only bring down the American economy simply to further line your pockets and those of your corporate buddies, but now your bringing down Europe and Asia as well.

Well done you piece of filth.  God has a special place in mind for you, it’s called hell.

Global Shares Plummet on Gloomy Data
By ALAN COWELL and JULIA WERDIGIER

Published: October 24, 2008

PARIS — Stocks plummeted worldwide on Friday, and United States futures fell so steeply that they reached their daily permissible limits, indicating a sharp decline in share prices when official trading opens in New York.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 550 points and both it and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index were locked, although the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said trading in the official market would open as normal at 9:30 a.m., Eastern time.

The global rout was propelled by dismal corporate earnings and economic data around the world pointing to a profound global slowdown.

In Europe, major exchanges opened with falls of around 5 percent that then turned even lower.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index plunged 9.6 percent, hitting its lowest level since April 2003.

[Thanks, NY Times]

We either have a faux Fox News story that it trying to diminish the impact of any "Incite to Riot" litigation against Palin or we have a cover-up.  What’s your guess??

Report: Secret Service Says ‘Kill Him’ Allegations at Palin Rally Unfounded

A Secret Service agent called charges that a man yelled "kill him" in reference to Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally "unfounded," .  

FOXNews.com

A senior Secret Service agent said allegations that a man yelled ‘kill him" when Barack Obama’s name was referenced Tuesday during a Sarah Palin rally are "unfounded," reports the Timesleader.com, a Northeastern Pennsylvania news agency.

Agent Bill Slavoski — who was standing in the audience along with other Secret Service agents during the rally in Scranton, Pa. — said neither he nor the other officers heard the comment, according to the report published Thursday.

The charges — first reported Tuesday on the Scranton Times-Tribune’s Web site — claimed that a male audience member shouted "kill him" after congressional candidate Chris Hackett mentioned Barack Obama’s name at the rally. 

Slavoski reportedly said he was "baffled" after first reading the report on Wednesday. 

Slavoski — who is charge of the Secret Service’s field office in Scranton — launched an official investigation into the charge and said he could not find anyone other than the Scranton Times-Tribune’s reporter to corroborate the story.

A Secret Service spokesman told FOXNews.com that the investigation is not closed and asks for anyone with information on the allegations to contact the agency.

[Thanks, FauxFoxNews]

Yikes, I seem have been a little quick off the mark yesterday when I mentioned that the only real critical reports on the Republican VP candidate were from outside of our borders.  I’ll assume that Alaska is still part of the US for the purposes of this discussion, much to the chagrin of Todd, Alaska’s otherwise unemployed First Dude, member in good standing of the separationist movement in Alaska.

Here are a flurry of stories responding to the official reaction by Sarah to the Alaska Legislature’s Troopergate report.  They range from editorials in her local daily paper, which since she can’t name as a news source I can only guess she has never read, and include a scathing analysis on MSNBCs ‘First Read’ site.

But let us start with an article from Editor & Publisher:

Anchorage Paper Calls Palin Response to Troopergate ‘An Embarrassment’
By E&P Staff
Published: October 14, 2008 10:10 AM ET

NEW YORK Since its release late last Friday, the Alaska legislatures "Troopergate" has drawn much attention, and Gov. Sarah Palin has claimed numerous times that it actually found no ethical misdeeds on her part — even as it charged her with a serious "abuse of power." The main paper in her home state is not buying it.

The Anchorage Daily News’ angry editorial today was topped with the headline: "Palin vindicated? Governor offers Orwellian spin." It opens: "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

"She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’

"Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian."

An excerpt follows.
*
In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

[Thanks, Editor & Publisher]

And let’s quickly segue into that original article from the Anchorage Daily News:

Palin vindicated?

Governor offers Orwellian spin

Published: October 13th, 2008 10:02 PM
Last Modified: October 13th, 2008 10:17 PM

Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: "I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

Gov. Palin does have a defense. She could have said:

"I’m gratified that the report confirmed what I said all along, that I had the authority to terminate Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner.

"I absolutely disagree that I violated state ethics law. In repeatedly complaining about trooper Mike Wooten, Todd and I were not pursuing a personal vendetta. We were trying to protect the integrity of the Alaska State Troopers from having an arrogant, almost-out-of-control law-breaker in their ranks. Because the action we were seeking was in the public interest, not purely our personal interest, there is no ethics law violation."

Gov. Palin and her husband felt so passionately about Wooten because the case was so personal to them. Their passion blinded them to any other considerations.

They had no sense that the power of the governor’s office carries a special responsibility not to use it to settle family scores. They had no sense that legal restrictions might prevent the troopers from firing Wooten. They had no sense that persistent queries from the governor’s office might be perceived as pressure to bend state personnel laws.

Gov. Palin and her husband were obsessed with Wooten the way Capt. Ahab was obsessed with the Great White Whale. No Wooten, no peace.

Has Gov. Palin committed an impeachable offense? Hardly.

Is what she did indictable? No.

But it wasn’t appropriate, especially for someone elected as an ethical reformer. And her Orwellian claims of "vindication" make this blemish on her record look even worse.

You asked us to hold you accountable, Gov. Palin. Did you mean it?

Bottom line: Gov. Palin, read the report. It says you violated the ethics law.

[Thanks, Anchorage Daily News]

And let’s flesh out this round of condemnation with MSNBC’s First Read:

Palin: Anchorage paper not happy

Posted: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:16 AM by Mark Murray

It’s not good when your home-state paper’s editorial page puts your name and "embarrassment" to the state in the same sentence. "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation. She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’ Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian." 

But wait, there’s more. Another independent investigator is looking into more ethics complaints against the guv.

The New York Times writes, “Here is the thing about Gov. Sarah Palin: She loves America. Really loves it. She loves the smell of cut grass and hay, as she told Ohio voters Sunday. She loves Navy bases, she said in Virginia Beach on Monday morning. She loves America’s ‘most beautiful national anthem,’ she told a crowd here a few hours later.”

“Apparently there are people who do not feel the same way about America as Ms. Palin does, she said at campaign rallies over the last two days. Those people just do not get it.”

The AP: “Gov. Sarah Palin’s rural adviser resigned Monday amid criticism of the governor’s record on hiring Alaska Natives.” 

"Palin mistook some of her own fans for hecklers Monday at a rally that drew thousands" in Virginia, the AP writes. " ‘Louder! Louder!’ they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin’s left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased. Palin stopped her remarks briefly and looked toward the commotion. ‘I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest,’ she said. Some in the crowd tried to shout toward her what was really being said, but she couldn’t hear them."

[Thanks, MSNBC]

Or at least there will be an attempt at bringing the criminal mastermind behind ‘Troopergate’ to justice.  The Alaska Supreme Court has heard the evidence and decided that the ethics investigation against the Republican Vice Presidential candidate can continue.

Palin is being investigated by an independent investigator, hired by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan committee of the Legislature, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Walt Monegan’s termination as the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska. Also under investigation, potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch. The results of a probe conducted by independent investigator Steve Branchwater will be presented to a legislative hearing later today.

It’s interesting reading about all of the allegations.  You can get a pretty good summary over at Wikipedia.

Court allows Sarah Palin Troopergate inquiry

October 11, 2008

ANCHORAGE: The Alaska Supreme Court has refused to halt an ethics investigation into US vice-presidential contender Sarah Palin.

The ruling clears the way for legislators to release a report on their probe into whether Ms Palin abused her power as Alaska Governor by firing her public safety commissioner.

Legislators are investigating whether the Republican candidate used her position to settle a family dispute. The former commissioner says he was sacked after resisting pressure to fire a state trooper who had gone through a divorce from Ms Palin’s sister.

Republicans had sued to block the report. Ms Palin refused to join that lawsuit. Her husband, Todd, and some of her top aides are co-operating in the inquiry.

In affidavits submitted on Wednesday, Mr Palin and two top aides for his wife’s administration portrayed the firing as the result of wrangling between the Governor and her public safety commissioner over control of the agency.

The affidavits portray Ms Palin as uninvolved while her husband repeatedly tried to spread the word that their former brother-in-law was unfit to be a state trooper.

In yesterday’s ruling, the Supreme Court refused to block the legislative investigation.

For years – before his wife became governor – Mr Palin told state officials and the couple’s advisers stories about Mike Wooten, their former brother-in-law, allegedly threatening and emotionally abusing his family.

Walter Monegan says he was fired as commissioner for not dismissing Mr Wooten, a claim that led to the probe just before Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose Ms Palin as his running mate in late August.

Ms Palin said she fired Mr Monegan over a budget dispute.

Mr Palin said he had not pressured anyone. He says that after repeatedly talking with her about the matter, she finally told him to "drop it".

"Anyone who knows Sarah knows she is the Governor and she calls the shots," Mr Palin wrote. "I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family andwanting to publicise the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge."

[Thanks, The Australian]

Bowing to what must have been enormous pressure from all corners, still Attorney General (sAG) Michael Mukasey has finally appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the illegal firings of several U.S. Attorneys in 2006.  The selected special prosecutor, Nora R. Dannehy, is pictured at right.  (Let’s hope we start seeing a lot more of her!!)

Although sAG Mukasey has maintained that the firings were performance based (parroting the one of the few things then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales managed to remember during the original Congressional investigations ), the report by the DoJ’s own Office of the Inspector General has a different opinion.

This might just lead to the first of hopefully many indictments, trials, and prison sentences for not only the puppets in this current administration, but the puppet masters as well.  I hope I live to see the day that Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and all the other jackholes are violated in some maximum security federal penitentiary somewhere.

The 392 page DoJ report can be downloaded here:

An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 (pdf)

(I love the part in the last paragraph in the story below about ‘Berto being unable to find a full time job.  You reap what you sow I guess…..)

Mukasey Appoints Special Prosecutor to Investigate U.S. Attorney Firings

Joe Palazzolo
Legal Times
September 30, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the firings of several U.S. Attorneys in 2006, as a report released Monday by Justice Department watchdogs found "significant evidence" that several of the attorneys fired in 2006 were let go for partisan or political reasons (pdf). The report recommended the appointment of a prosecutor with subpoena powers to continue the investigation.

Top department officials had said the firings were performance-related, but the report, by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine and Office of Professional Responsibility Director H. Marshall Jarrett, found otherwise. It also describes the department’s top two officials at the time, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, as "remarkably unengaged" in the firing process and cites both for making "inconsistent, misleading and inaccurate" public statements about the firings.

The report found that the White House was involved in three of nine firings, though it could not determine to what extent. Investigators say they were stymied by the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, including former White House adviser Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers. Both are subjects of congressional subpoenas by committees investigating the matter. The report found the Justice Department "had reasonable concerns" about only two of the fired U.S. Attorneys.

On Tuesday, Gonzales’ lawyer, George Terwilliger III, a partner at White & Case, said the report "makes clear that Judge Gonzales engaged in no wrongful or improper conduct while recognizing, as he has acknowledged many times, that the process for evaluating U.S. attorney performance in this instance was flawed." Gonzales released a statement saying that he and his family "are glad to have the investigation of my conduct in this matter behind us and we look forward to moving on to new challenges."

But it isn’t clear, especially with the appointment of a special prosecutor, that Gonzales can leave the investigation behind.

Mukasey announced the appointment of career prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate the firings as the report was released Monday. Dannehy, currently the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut and a veteran of the office’s white-collar and public-corruption section, will be able to subpoena witnesses to help her investigation, something the authors of the report couldn’t do.

The report specifically recommends that Dannehy investigate whether Justice Department officials made false statements to Congress or to investigators or violated other federal criminal statutes, including obstruction of justice or wire fraud.

The report says Gonzales and McNulty deferred to D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ former chief of staff, in the firings, despite their responsibility to oversee the department. The report describes Sampson as the architect of the firing plan, and cites him for inappropriately advocating the use of internal appointments to bypass the Senate confirmation process for U.S. Attorneys.

"We believe that the primary responsibility for these serious failures rest with senior department leaders — Gonzales and McNulty — who abdicated their responsibility to adequately oversee the process," the report says.

In the most extreme example of partisan influence cited in the report, David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, Rep. Heather Wilson and other New Mexico Republicans complained of his refusal to prosecute a local Democrat or and voter fraud cases on the eve of the 2006 elections.

Another U.S. Attorney, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, was sacked because the White House wanted to give the job to its then-director of political affairs, Tim Griffin.

Talk of firing the U.S. Attorneys began shortly after Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004, the report says. At different points, Miers, and later White House adviser Karl Rove, asked about firing all 93 U.S. Attorneys, but Sampson argued via e-mail that senators would likely resist the firing of U.S. Attorneys they had recommended for appointment in their home states, and it would draw too much attention.

Instead, Sampson proposed firing a few of the "underperforming" U.S. Attorneys, and after Gonzales was confirmed as attorney general and Miers replaced him as White House counsel in early 2005, Sampson began cobbling together the first of several lists.

Some of those named in the report, including Sampson, say they have cooperated with the investigation. Sampson is now a partner at Hunton & Williams.

Sampson’s lawyer, Bradford Berenson, a partner at Sidley Austin, said: "It is mystifying and disappointing that the Inspector General chose to impugn Mr. Sampson’s candor and integrity when, virtually alone among significant participants in this matter, Mr. Sampson at all times cooperated fully and voluntarily with any and all investigators, without preconditions, and provided his best, most honest and complete recollection of these events. He has behaved with honor and dignity throughout this difficult episode and has never attempted to shirk his responsibility for problems in the U.S. Attorney firings."

Gonzales, who has not held a full-time job since resigning, took work in June as an assistant to a special master on a patent case in Texas. McNulty, who resigned in May 2007, joined Baker & McKenzie’s Washington office.

[Thanks, Law.com]

I don’t know if the letter displayed in the picture below is true.  But is sure is a nice sentiment either way.

In other news, EW has a nice quote from Nancy:

Exclusive: Heart’s Nancy Wilson responds to McCain campaign’s use of ‘Barracuda’ at Republican convention

Sep 5, 2008, 01:44 AM | by Whitney Pastorek

Thursday afternoon, Heart e-mailed out a statement regarding vice-presidential candidate Sarah "Barracuda" Palin’s use of their similarly monikered song at the Republican National Convention: "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission," it read. "We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored."

But after McCain finished his speech accepting the GOP’s presidential nomination tonight, Palin joined him on stage, and the song was used again: Heart’s "Barracuda" played as balloons fell. With that elephant in the room, Heart’s Nancy Wilson felt compelled to personally respond. "I think it’s completely unfair to be so misrepresented," she said in a phone call to EW.com after the speech. "I feel completely f—ed over." She and sister Ann Wilson then e-mailed the following exclusive statement:

"Sarah Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song ‘Barracuda’ no longer be used to promote her image. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The ‘barracuda’ represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there’s irony in Republican strategists’ choice to make use of it there."

The Heart-McCain incident isn’t the only example of music-related controversy on this year’s presidential campaign trail. Click here to read Chris Willman’s report about Barack Obama’s eyebrow-raising use of Brooks & Dunn’s "Only in America" after his nomination-acceptance address last week.

[Thanks, EW]

Presidential hopeful John McCain has shown time and again that he is far out of touch with the world as it is today.  He displays no clue as to the severity of our economic crisis, he has no idea where Spain is and that they are our ally in Afghanistan, and he has no idea of some of the concerns of women in this country.

The Planned Parenthood Action Center has put together a list of things YOU should know about John McCain.  The elections are coming quickly, but the time to decide is now.

10 Things Everyone Should Know About John McCain

Sen. John McCain is not just the Republican candidate for president, he is also frighteningly out of touch on issues crucial to the women of the United States. By now, many people have heard about the wildly popular condoms the Planned Parenthood Action Fund passed out at the Democratic National Convention. On them, we pulled together the top 10 things every voter needs to know about John McCain before this Election Day. Check them out:

1. John McCain opposes equal pay legislation, saying it wouldn’t do "anything to help the rights of women."
2. John McCain opposes requiring health care plans to cover birth control.
3. John McCain opposes comprehensive, medically accurate sex education.
4. John McCain opposes funding to prevent unintended and teen pregnancies.
5. John McCain opposes funding for public education about emergency contraception.
6. John McCain opposes restoring family planning services for low-income women.
7. John McCain opposes Roe v. Wade and says it should be overturned. 
8. John McCain wants to nominate Supreme Court justices who are "clones" of conservative Justices Alito and Roberts.
9. John McCain said he was "stumped" when asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV.
10. In his 25 years in Washington, DC, John McCain has voted anti-choice125 times!

Even though the word is getting out about John McCain’s extremist record on women’s health, we still need your help.

Join the One Million Strong Campaign and stand with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in the 2008 election. Your voice will strengthen the work we do every day fighting for women’s health in Washington.

[Thanks, Planned Parenthood]

Almost across the board retailers have bemoaned lackluster sales during the all important ‘Back to School’ season.  Viewed as one of the three major sales events in many stores, a poor showing this year could be a harbinger of tough times leading up to the holiday season.

The next major milestone is in just a little more than two months.  Black Friday, the traditionally heavy shopping day after Thanksgiving, is rapidly approaching.  And many retailers have to be worrying. 

As Bush and his evil minions drive our economy deeper and deeper into the toilet, it becomes harder and harder for some families to pay their commute to and from work.  Let’s not even think of gifts to put under the Festivus Pole.

As far as I’m concerned, this year looks like the year I’ll be doing all of my shopping on-line.  Ever since Amazon started participating in the Black Friday sales, it only makes sense to save both the gas of driving around to stores and the hours of sleep usually lost getting up early.

Holidays ‘uncertain’ after poor back-to-school sales
Posted by Erica Ogg

The roughly two-month shopping period before school starts is typically fruitful for consumer electronics retailers. Not this year.

All categories combined showed minimal growth. Although notebook sales increased 10 percent over the same period the year before, desktops were down 3 percent. And products that have been guaranteed big sellers in past years continue to lose momentum: digital-camera sales were down 1 percent, printer sales were even, and MP3 player sales were up 7 percent.

This is especially concerning to electronics retailers, since the all-important holiday shopping season is approaching, a time when they typically can expect to play catch-up in yearly sales and revenue.

"The holiday (period) is likely to look a lot like back-to-school, I think," said Steve Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD Group, which tracks electronics retailing. There’s likely to be "a little bit better demand" because there are a broader array of categories that people shop for during the holiday. For back-to-school, retailers push mostly computers and peripherals.

The problem with notebooks: they’ve been selling so well for so long that the category just can’t sustain that kind of growth forever. Growth percentages in years past for laptops during the back-to-school shopping period have been in the high teens and low 20s, which is why 10 percent growth this year is disappointing for retailers.

And when a market matures, steep price declines are harder for retailers to offer. Notebooks from brand names have been routinely available for less than $600 for a while, and retailers are finding it harder to cut prices and maintain acceptable profit margins. The same could be true for Black Friday and beyond, when retailers usually unveil their best deals of the year.

Of course, back-to-school shopping isn’t a perfect indicator for holiday shopping, especially when it comes to an important category like notebooks. Portable PCs will become even harder to predict this year because of the so-called wild card that Netbooks present. Every major PC maker has one now, but they haven’t been available in large volumes. This will change in the next few weeks, and it will be interesting to see if mainstream consumers find a use for them.

New product categories, combined with disturbing financial news, makes it harder for electronics retailers to feel comfortable heading into the holiday season.

"The word everyone (in electronics retail) uses when I talk to them is ‘uncertainty,’" Baker said. "People can handle, ‘We’re sure it’s going to be bad,’ or, ‘We’re sure it’s going to be good.’ But ‘We’re not sure what it’s going to be’ is tough to plan against."

[Thanks, CNet News]

Senator Jim McDermott, D-Wash, has joined Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio in calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush.  As you might recall, Kucinich has been working tirelessly to instigate impeachment proceedings against the criminal element currently residing in the white House.

He has not gotten as much support as I might have imagined, but he recently pick up the full support of my elected Senator, Jim McDermott.  I’m afraid that Bush and his puppet-master Cheney will escape from paying for their crimes, but if there is a god, they will pay for their sins.  Honest Americans have that going for them at least.

McDermott joins call to oust Bush

Impeachment group won’t let even the election stop it

By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER

Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott wants to see George Bush impeached, whether or not, he says, Bush is still in office.

The long-serving Democrat and outspoken advocate for liberal causes made his displeasure with the president official Tuesday, joining a call from Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, to launch impeachment proceedings against Bush.

Chiefly at issue, McDermott said, is Bush’s decision to mislead the country to war with Iraq.

"It’s increasingly clear to me that we were led into a war without any justification whatsoever," McDermott said in an interview Wednesday. "And the president deliberately did this. It wasn’t an accident of any kind."

Linda Boyd, founder of Washington for Impeachment, said she met with McDermott the day before his announcement and is elated that he joined her cause. Boyd finds it poignant that McDermott’s decision came as Americans prepared to remember the seventh anniversary of Sept. 11.

"We have been in a state of emergency in this country for seven years now," Boyd said. "We know that Americans torture people. We know that Americans stand guard over innocent prisoners. We know Americans are killing children in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in Pakistan.

"Sept. 11 was really the day that put this all in motion."

Whether the effort ends in Bush’s dismissal, Boyd said impeachment proceedings would set straight the historical record and prevent future presidents from relying on Bush’s example to justify abuses of power.

An opponent of the war, McDermott was widely derided as an ally to Saddam Hussein in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Many of the claims McDermott made then — that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, that the regime wasn’t involved in the Sept. 11 attack — have since proved correct.

"People brushed me off and called me ‘Baghdad Jim,’ made some comments," McDermott said. "They said, ‘I trust the president.’ "

McDermott had been considering joining the effort to impeach the president for two years. But, he said, it was recent revelations in three books on Bush’s push for war that ultimately tipped the scales.

On McDermott’s shelf were Watergate scandal-reporter Bob Woodward’s latest, "The War Within," and Ron Suskind’s "The Way of the World." In the latter, Suskind reported that Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri was working with the CIA before the invasion.

McDermott said he met with Sabri before the war, imploring him to allow weapons inspectors full access to the country to avoid war. Sabri said the Iraqis would, but that doing so wouldn’t dissuade Bush.

"He told me the truth in October 2002, six months before the president led us into war in Iraq," McDermott said. "I thought that was hyperbole. In fact, it turns out, he was in the pay of the United States."

Also cited by McDermott in a speech Tuesday morning on the U.C. House floor was "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," authored by former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.

In Seattle on Wednesday to speak at The Elliott Bay Book Company, Bugliosi said he’s pleased that McDermott is calling for impeachment. But, in his view, congressional action doesn’t go far enough.

Bugliosi said state officials should prosecute Bush for murder in the deaths of American soldiers fighting in Iraq. "Impeachment alone would be a joke for anyone interested in justice," he said.

McDermott said it’s highly unlikely impeachment proceedings will move forward prior to the November elections. At the moment, he said, Congress is focused on the presidential race and their own contests.

But, McDermott argued, impeachment proceedings could be levied even after Bush left office.

Doing so would be a first in American history, and would be limited by the Constitution to preventing Bush from holding "any office of honor" in the country. But McDermott asserted such action is necessary to re-establish that even presidents are subject to the law.

"There’s nothing that requires that impeachment be done when someone is in office," he said. "The time has come for this guy to pay for what he’s done."

[Thanks, Seattle PI]

Anne Kilkenny, long-time resident of Wasilla, Alaska writes about Ms. Palin, her ability to keep secrets and her inability to either balance a budget or live within one.  Anne also spends a few moments discussing Sarah’s abuse of power. 

Just what we need, another Vice President who believes they can make whatever rules serve them in the moment.  What is the difference between Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin?  Lipstick!

About Sarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny
By admin on Sep 3, 2008 in John McCain

What follows is an open letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska named Anne Kilkenny.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasor compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

[Thanks, ThePresidentialCandidates.us]

And to think this almost slipped through the cracks…..

Oh, if this were only to come to pass.  That the lying and thieving current administration get their just desserts.  What a day that will be.

We’ll be dancin’, dancin’ in the streets…….

Obama might pursue criminal charges against Bush

· Biden says criminal violations will be pursued
· Democrats have issued subpoenas to Bush aides
· 3 staffers have been held in contempt of Congress

Elana Schor in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday September 03 2008 19:32 BST

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Biden’s comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

But his statements represent the Democrats’ strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years.

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.

"[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution," he added, "out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president — no one is above the law."

Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".

"[I]f crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. "You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve."

Congressional Democrats have issued a flurry of subpoenas this year to senior Bush administration aides as part of a broad inquiry into the authorisation of torturous interrogation tactics used at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Three veterans of the Bush White House have been held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to respond to subpoenas: former counsel Harriet Miers, former political adviser Karl Rove, and current chief of staff Josh Bolten. The contempt battle is currently before a federal court.

[Thanks, Guardian]

In yet another travesty of justice by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the Justice Department officials implicated in the illegal hiring practices issues can rest easy tonight.  They no longer have to fear prosecution from Still President Bush’s tool, Mikey Mukasey.

Stating that "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime." Mukasey gave hope to Alberto Gonzales and his group of cronies that persecution prosecution wouldn’t soon follow.  And for the next 160 days, that’s probably true.

Can you believe that the highest law enforcement officer in the nation (that’s Mukasey, eh) said (and in public) that not every violation of the law is a crime?  I was under the opposite impression for some reason, that laws defined crimes.  I wonder how that defense might go over the next time I’m tagged for a parking violation?

It’s also interesting to note that none of the NeoCon, Christian, anti-abortionist employees who were the spawn of the illegal hiring practices will be fired or reassigned.  I wonder what might have happened if the Democrats had benefited from this type of abuse of privilege.  Would they still have jobs after a Mukasey ‘investigation’?  I think not.

Mukasey: No prosecutions in Justice hiring scandal

By MARK SHERMAN

The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; 12:13 PM

NEW YORK — Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday.

Mukasey 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.

But, he told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws."

Other intrusions of Bush administration politics into department hirings and firings remain under investigation. Mukasey said he is awaiting reports on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the hiring practices in the department’s civil rights division.

The political controversies prompted Gonzales’ resignation last year.

An internal investigation concluded last month that for nearly two years, top advisers to Gonzales discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists.

The federal government makes a distinction between "career" and "political" appointees, and it’s a violation of civil service laws and Justice Department policy to hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.

Yet Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales’ counselor and White House liaison, routinely asked career job applicants about politics, the report concluded.

Mukasey, who once served as a federal judge in New York, said the Justice Department has taken steps under his leadership to prevent a recurrence of the hiring scandal.

"I have made repeatedly clear…that it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees," Mukasey said.

If the problems were to recur, Mukasey said he is confident department employees would speak up.

That did not happen during Gonzales’ tenure, he said. Gonzales appeared unaware of the political hiring process outlined by Goodling and his then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, the report said.

"There was a failure of supervision by senior officials in the department. And there was a failure on the part of some employees to cry foul when they were aware, or should have been aware, of problems," Mukasey said.

The ABA has been at odds with the Bush administration on a range of issues, including treatment of prisoners suspected of terrorist ties and the need for a federal law to shield reporters from subpoenas.

Mukasey said that on the issue of politics in his department, there was no disagreement with the lawyers’ group.

"Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department," he said.

Some candidates for career Justice Department jobs who were excluded because of politics could be invited to apply for new positions, Mukasey said.

He also ruled out firing or reassigning those who were hired under the now-discarded evaluation process.

"Two wrongs do not make a right," he said. "People who were hired in an improper way didn’t themselves do anything wrong."

[Thanks, Washington Post]

Taking a page from the republican book of economics, Fannie Mae has posted an impressive 2.3 BILLION dollar loss in the three month period from April 1 through 30 June of this year.  That is actually a total loss of $4.27 BILLION since posting a profit of $1.97 Billion last year.

Our government sponsored mortgage guarantors, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have lost Billions upon Billions of dollars due to their smarmy accounting practices, glad-handed lending practices and inability to work with the home owners.

And of course Still President Bush and his cronies in Washington are going to bail them out using your tax dollars.  That is imagining that there are any tax dollars left to spend since Iraq seems to suck our money up like a Dyson vacuum on steroids.

Fannie Mae unveils loss of $2.3bn

Problems in the US housing market have pushed mortgage finance company Fannie Mae into the red.

The group sank to a net loss of $2.3bn in the three months to 30 June, against a profit of $1.97bn last year.

It comes days after its sister company Freddie Mac posted worse-than-expected results and its top executive warned house price falls are not over yet.

Both government sponsored firms own, or guarantee, nearly half of the nation’s mortgage debt.

Difficult market

As mortgage guarantors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, must pay out when people default on their loans.

But as a result of recent woes in the US housing market and subsequent sub-prime crisis the pair have run into severe difficulty.

Fannie Mae said that the current housing crisis had added to its woes to the tune of $5.3bn in credit expenses.

The latest losses at the firm – which came in at more than three times analysts’ estimates – followed a $2.2bn loss for the first three months of the year.

"Our second-quarter results reflect challenging conditions in the housing and mortgage markets that began in 2006 and have deepened through 2007 and 2008," said Daniel H Mudd, president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae.

He added that the firm had also taken steps to raise an additional $7bn to help it tackle the "most difficult US housing market in more than 70 years".

As part of the plan Fannie Mae is cutting its dividend from 0.35 cents to 0.05, raising its fees and has taken steps to cut its costs by 10%.

[Thanks, BBC World News]

I want to be shocked.  I should be shocked.  But I’m actually just weary of the same executive privilege bullshit that seems to spew out of the white house like vomit at a fraternity house toga party.

Still President Bush has decided that the interview conducted by a special prosecutor with Still Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the public unmasking and humiliation of a CIA covert asset is privileged information.  Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, call this newest White House legal reasoning “ludicrous”.

I second that observation and call the entire presidency ludicrous.

My only hope is that despite the best efforts of Pelosi and the rest of Congress, Bush and Cheney will eventually be indicted, prosecuted, convicted and raped in prison.

Bush Hides ‘Plame-gate’ Testimony

Tuesday, 05 August 2008
by Jason Leopold

In the latest twist in the “Plame-gate” scandal, President George W. Bush has asserted executive privilege to block release of Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with a special prosecutor about possible criminal violations in the leaking of a CIA officer’s covert identity.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, promptly denounced the White House legal reasoning as “ludicrous,” noting that executive privilege covers advice that an aide gives the President, not responses to legal questions posed by a prosecutor about a possible crime.

Bush applied his broad assertion of executive privilege Wednesday at the request of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who earlier had rebuffed congressional requests for interviews conducted with both Cheney and Bush about the disclosure of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity.

“I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the [House Oversight] Committee’s subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations,” Mukasey wrote in a letter to Bush on Tuesday.

Since becoming Attorney General in December 2007, Mukasey has balked at investigating crimes allegedly committed earlier by Bush administration officials – from torturing detainees to arranging political prosecutions – a "no-look-back" approach that drew criticism from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In reaction to Bush’s assertion of executive privilege, Waxman said “we are not seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and the President. We are seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and FBI investigators.”

The California Democrat also noted that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told the committee in a July 3 letter that Cheney had met with the FBI voluntarily and knew his answers could be disclosed at a public trial.

“Mr. Fitzgerald told us that ‘there were no agreements, conditions and understandings’ that limited Mr. Fitzgerald’s use of the interview in any way,” Waxman said. “This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person.”

Waxman also accused Mukasey of applying a different standard for a Republican administration than was applied to its Democratic predecessors.
“Ten years ago,” Waxman said, “Attorney General Janet Reno, provided the Committee the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Mr. Mukasey decided that a different rule should apply to Republican presidents than to Democratic presidents."

Actually, the Bush administration’s resistance to releasing the responses from a President and a Vice President in a criminal proceeding contrasts with precedents for both parties, including the appearances of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton before various special prosecutors.

Waxman’s committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday to hold Mukasey in contempt for refusing to comply with the Cheney subpoena. However, Waxman postponed the vote after Bush’s assertion of executive privilege.

Long-running Scandal

The “Plame-gate” affair dates back to 2003 when Valerie Plame Wilson’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went public with the fact that he had undertaken a fact-finding trip to Niger which had disproved President Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake uranium from the African nation.

As Wilson was going public with his knowledge of the Niger falsehood, Bush administration officials began leaking the fact that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and had a hand in arranging Wilson’s trip to Niger.

The leakers included Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, White House political adviser Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.
Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA employment was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by right-wing columnist Robert Novak, effectively destroying her career. Two months later, a CIA complaint to the Justice Department sparked a criminal probe into the identity of the leakers.

Initially, Bush professed not to know anything about the matter, and several of his senior aides, including Rove and Libby, followed suit. However, it later became clear that Rove and Libby had a hand in the Plame leak and that Bush and Cheney had helped organize a campaign to disparage Wilson by giving critical information to friendly journalists.

In a statement Wednesday, Wilson said the "fact that the Attorney General is recommending the assertion of executive privilege reveals that this Department of Justice is as beholden to the White House as that run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”

In October 2005, Libby was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. At Libby’s trial in 2007, his attorney, Theodore Wells, told jurors that Fitzgerald had tried to build a case of conspiracy against Cheney and Libby, and that the prosecution believed Libby may have lied to federal investigators and to a grand jury to protect Cheney.

“Now, I think the government, through its questions, really tried to put a cloud over Vice President Cheney," Wells said.

Rebutting Wells, Fitzgerald told jurors: "You know what? [Wells] said something here that we’re trying to put a cloud on the Vice President. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over the Vice President. He sent Libby off to [meet with New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting – the two-hour meeting – the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened."

Libby also told the FBI that it was "possible" that Cheney instructed him to disseminate to the press information about Plame’s identity.

[Thanks, Atlantic Free Press]

Jay Leno:   "Barack Obama told Tom Brokaw the other day on ‘Meet the Press’ that what he’s looking for in a vice president is a person who will tell him when they thought he was wrong, to which president Bush said, ‘Trust me. That gets old really fast.’"

Conan O’Brien:   "In a speech yesterday, Barack Obama said he’s distantly related to the famous 19th century gunslinger Wild Bill Hickock. … After hearing this, John McCain said, ‘Big deal. I went to high school with him.’

Jimmy Kimmel:   "President Bush is on the hunt for a new home. … I guess his master plan of massive foreclosures and plummeting real estate prices has finally paid off, because he should get a good deal."

As we wind down the worst presidency in the history of this once great country it behooves us to reflect upon the man and the myth that is George W. Bush.

And so, I present to you, a daily ‘Bushism’ or two…..

"Reading is the basics for all learning."
-G.W. Bush

"Laura and I really don’t realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis."
-G.W. Bush

"It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it."
-G.W. Bush