Bush and Cheney are criminals no cheerio about it sm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

May their sorry a$$e$ rot in helll! What did Bush do in the first three weeks of office - clear brush in crawford? He holds the record for the most vacations.

At the time, officials told said that Plame's outing resulted in *severe* damage to her team and *significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.* I guess personal kindergarten style paybacks are more important to Bush. Just remember Bush's role in all this when he declares yet another war on Iran.

I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.

And again I repeat, you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information -- outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.

And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on. But I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.

I'm confident the president knows who the source is, Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. I'd be amazed if he doesn't.

So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'

Reports: Plame Was Monitoring Iran Nukes When Outed
By E&P Staff
Published: May 02, 2006 10:55 AM ET

NEW YORK What was Valerie Plame working on at the CIA when she was outed by administration officials and columnist Robert Novak? MSNBC's David Schuster on Monday said he had confirmed an earlier report that she was helping to keep track of Iran's nuclear activity--not a front and center issue for the White House.

Earlier this year, Larisa Alexandrovna of the Web site RawStory.com, reported that Plame, whose covert status was compromised in the leak, was monitoring weapons proliferation in Iran. At the time, officials told her that Plame's outing resulted in severe damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.

On last night's Hardball, MSNBC correspondent Shuster reported that intelligence sources told him thatr Wilson was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources asserted, he said, that when here Wilson's cover was blown, the administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well.

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002426164

To be an honest Republican these days must be to wonder what awful revelation is coming next - and how the Grand Old Party, which once claimed to represent political reform, became a front for sleaze, corruption and cynical criminality. Across the country, from the Capitol to statehouses, Republican officials are under indictment, under investigation or under suspicion.

This week's headlines featured the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay and the probe of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, but the infection of venality among their fellow partisans is now reaching epidemic proportions. So widespread is the plague that keeping track of all the individual cases, and their increasingly baroque variations, has become a distinct challenge.

Consider Jack Abramoff, once the prince of K Street lobbyists and a dedicated right-wing ideologue who boasted of his powerful connections to DeLay, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and the entire Republican apparatus in Washington. Already under investigation by the Justice Department for his influence peddling among House members, including DeLay, and his swindling of Indian tribes, Abramoff was indicted last month for bank fraud in a separate South Florida case involving a casino boat company that he partly owned.

The fraud allegedly committed by Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan involved a phony wire transfer they used to purchase a controlling interest in SunCruz from the company's founder, Konstantinos Gus Boulis, in 2001.

Abramoff and Kidan later fell out with Boulis in a bitter business dispute that turned violent. In February 2001, gunmen ambushed Boulis on a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., highway and shot him repeatedly. On Tuesday, Florida authorities arrested three New York men with mob connections for the Boulis killing. Two of the men - Anthony Moscatiello and Tony Ferrari - had received payments totaling more than $240,000 from Kidan and Abramoff. Moscatiello, a longtime associate of the Gambino Mafia family, and Ferrari were supposedly providing food and consulting services to SunCruz - or so Kidan claimed when questioned by prosecutors. There is no evidence, however, that Moscatiello and Ferrari provided any services to the company.

Connecting the dots isn't difficult here: Kidan and Abramoff want to get rid of Boulis, who won't go away. Kidan and Abramoff hire Moscatiello and Ferrari with SunCruz money. Moscatiello and Ferrari allegedly whack Boulis, without any motive of their own. If the Broward County state's attorney has sufficient evidence to win convictions for a capital crime, some people will probably be talking soon in hope of avoiding the hot shot.

The stunning fall of Abramoff, who has yet to hit bottom, is certainly the most colorful tale of Republican depravity. The corporate money laundering to Texas politicians that led to DeLay's conspiracy indictment, and the suspicious insider stock transaction that spurred investigations of Frist by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, seem mundane by comparison. Outrage will be warranted if their misconduct is proved, but everyone sadly knows that these felonies are now common practice in our political and corporate culture.

Corporate misbehavior has also brought down right-wing publisher Conrad Black, neoconservative strategist and former Bush advisor Richard Perle and the entire corporate board of Hollinger Inc., the Republican-friendly media conglomerate formerly controlled by Lord Black - and that he and others are plausibly accused of illicitly looting for their own benefit. Furious shareholders forced Black to relinquish control of the company and are suing him, as well as Perle and former Black deputy David Radler, for $500 million. The SEC is also suing Black and Radler, and the Justice Department is investigating the former Hollinger directors.

Last month, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who also happens to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case, accepted Radler's guilty plea to mail fraud and wire fraud. Radler is now believed to be cooperating in the prosecution of what former SEC chairman Richard Breeden, a Republican who investigated Hollinger on behalf of shareholders, termed a corporate kleptocracy.

Kleptocratic morality evidently ruled at least two Republican statehouses in the Midwest as well. Currently under indictment are former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, whose trial on bribery charges began last week, and Gov. Robert Taft of Ohio, who pleaded no contest last month to charges of accepting illegal gifts from a state contractor.

That contractor is Thomas Noe, a coin dealer who received lucrative investment deals with the state's Workers Compensation Fund and is now at the center of a gigantic scandal known as Coingate. More than $12 million has disappeared from the fund, and former GOP official Noe stands accused of laundering money to various Republican politicians, including the Bush-Cheney campaign. Like Abramoff, Noe is a Bush Pioneer, responsible for raising at least $100,000 for the president last year.

Still another Pioneer is currently under criminal investigation in a celebrated corruption case involving Randy Duke Cunningham, a prominent Republican representative from San Diego with a senior position on the House defense appropriations subcommittee. On Aug. 18, FBI and IRS agents raided the offices of defense contractor and Bush fundraiser Brent Wilkes.

Wilkes is reportedly a former business associate of Mitchell J. Wade, the head of a defense contracting firm called MZM Inc. who is under investigation in San Diego for alleged bribery of Cunningham. According to newspaper reports, Wade purchased a home owned by Cunningham at a price inflated by at least $700,000, and also permitted the congressman to use his 42-foot yacht free of charge. Federal agents searched Wade's offices in July.

Although prosecutors have brought no criminal charges in the case yet, they have filed civil court documents describing the home sale as a violation of federal bribery laws - and Cunningham, who has served in Congress for decades, has already announced that he will not seek another term next year.

The Republican National Committee's new treasurer, Robert Kjellander, is under investigation too. (Naturally, he is also a Bush Pioneer.) Not long after he assumed his new post at the party's Washington headquarters, Kjellander received a federal subpoena for records of his dealings with the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System, a state pension fund, and the Carlyle Group. Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into alleged corruption at the fund, and have asked Kjellander to provide information about a $4.5 million fee he received from Carlyle for his role in arranging investments by the fund with the huge private equity fund. Carlyle, of course, is closely connected to the Bush administration, including the president's father, George H.W. Bush, who has worked for the firm as a rainmaker and advisor.

In fairness, it should be said that all these pols and parasites may be innocent (except for those already convicted), or at least not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is also true that voters have historically been slow to evict politicians from office because of corruption charges.

But public opinion of congressional Republicans is hitting new lows, and Americans are growing furious about the war in Iraq, the government response to Hurricane Katrina and rising energy prices. The natural impulse to throw the rascals out can only be encouraged by the Gilded Age spectacles now unfolding in Washington and in cities across the country as the indictments continue to come down between now and November 2006.

Libby told the FBI in 2003 that it was possible that Cheney ordered him to reveal Plame's identity to reporters. The prosecutor in that case, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, said in his closing remarks at Libby's trial that there was a "cloud" over Cheney's role in the case.

Fitzgerald told members of Congress who also sought the information that Cheney set no conditions about the use of his interview with investigators.

I hope Cehney will also be prosecuted about the Abu Ghraib torture case when Obama decides that the TIME IS RIGHT.

Fitzgerald told members of Congress who also sought the information that Cheney set no conditions about the use of his interview with investigators.

I hope Cehney will also be prosecuted about the Abu Ghraib torture case when Obama decides that the TIME IS RIGHT.

Fitzgerald told members of Congress who also sought the information that Cheney set no conditions about the use of his interview with investigators.

I hope Cheney will also be prosecuted about the Abu Ghraib torture case when Obama decides that the TIME IS RIGHT.

Fitzgerald told members of Congress who also sought the information that Cheney set no conditions about the use of his interview with investigators.

I hope Cheney will also be prosecuted about the Abu Ghraib torture case when Obama decides that the TIME IS RIGHT.

House Judiciary Trio Calls for Impeach Cheney Hearings

Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.

Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, �A Case for Hearings,� that declares, �The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.�

In particular, the Judiciary Committee members cite the recent revelation by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan that the Vice President and his staff purposefully gave him false information about the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent as part of a White House campaign to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. On the basis of McClellan�s statements, Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin say, �it is even more important for Congress to investigate what may have been an intentional obstruction of justice.� The three House members argue that, �Congress should call Mr. McClellan to testify about what he described as being asked to �unknowingly [pass] along false information.��

Adding to the sense of urgency, the members note that �recent revelations have shown that the Administration including Vice President Cheney may have again manipulated and exaggerated evidence about weapons of mass destruction � this time about Iran�s nuclear capabilities.�

Although Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin are close to Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, getting the Michigan Democrat to open hearings on impeachment will not necessarily be easy. Though Conyers was a leader in suggesting during the last Congress that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney had committed impeachable offenses, he has been under immense pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to keep Constitutional remedies for executive excesses �off the table� in this Congress.

It is notable, however, that Baldwin maintains warm relations with Pelosi and that Wexler, a veteran member of the Judiciary Committee has historically had an amiable and effective working relationship with Conyers. There is no question that Conyers, who voted to keep open the impeachment debate on November 7, has been looking for a way to explore the charges against Cheney. The move by three of his key allies on the committee may provide the chairman with the opening he seeks, although it is likely he will need to hear from more committee members before making any kind of break with Pelosi � or perhaps convincing her that holding hearings on Cheney�s high crimes and misdemeanors is different from putting a Bush impeachment move on the table.

The most important immediate development, however, is the assertion of an �ask� for supporters of impeachment. Pulled in many directions in recent months, campaigners for presidential and vice presidential accountability have focused their attention on supporting a House proposal by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nod, to impeach Cheney. When Kucinich forced consideration of his resolution on November 7, Pelosi and her allies used procedural moves to get it sent to the Judiciary Committee for consideration. Pelosi�s hope was that the proposal would disappear into the committee�s files.

The call for hearings by Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin puts impeachment on the table, at least as far as activists are concerned, creating a pressure point that can serve as a reply when House Democrats who are critical of Bush but cautious about impeachment ask: �What do you want me to do?� The answer can now be: �Back the call for Judiciary Committee hearings on whether to impeach Cheney?�

�Some of us were in Congress during the impeachment hearings of President Clinton. We spent a year and a half listening to testimony about President Clinton�s personal relations. This must not be the model for impeachment inquires. A Democratic Congress can show that it takes its constitutional authority seriously and hold a sober investigation, which will stand in stark contrast to the kangaroo court convened by Republicans for President Clinton. In fact, the worst legacy of the Clinton impeachment - where the GOP pursued trumped up and insignificant allegations - would be that it discourages future Congresses from examining credible and significant allegations of a constitutional nature when they arise,� write Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin.

�The charges against Vice President Cheney are not personal,� the House members add. �They go to the core of the actions of this Administration, and deserve consideration in a way the Clinton scandal never did. The American people understand this, and a majority support hearings according to a November 13 poll by the American Research Group. In fact, 70 percent of voters say that Vice President Cheney has abused his powers and 43 percent say that he should be removed from office right now. The American people understand the magnitude of what has been done and what is at stake if we fail to act. It is time for Congress to catch up.�

Arguing that hearings need not distract Congress, Wexler, Gutierrez and Baldwin note that the focus is on Cheney for a reason: �These hearings involve the possible impeachment of the Vice President � not our commander in chief � and the resulting impact on the nation�s business and attention would be significantly less than the Clinton Presidential impeachment hearings.�

They also argue, correctly, that the hearings are necessary if Congress is to restore its position in the Constitutionally-defined system of checks and balances.

�Holding hearings would put the evidence on the table, and the evidence � not politics � should determine the outcome,� the Judiciary Committee members explain. �Even if the hearings do not lead to removal from office, putting these grievous abuses on the record is important for the sake of history. For an Administration that has consistently skirted the constitution and asserted that it is above the law, it is imperative for Congress to make clear that we do not accept this dangerous precedent. Our Founding Fathers provided Congress the power of impeachment for just this reason, and we must now at least consider using it.

Why should he care? He's leaving office soon and none of his family or friends were at risk over there. He and most of his cronies all were successful in shirking military service. And he won't be around to pay the bill for this war -- our children and grandchildren are the ones who will pay in the long run if it doesn't financially ruin this country before then.

I'm sure he thought he and a few others would benefit in $$$ from this invasion, and I'm sure some folks did (like Halliburton) but instead it has backfired. Recent news shows that the war has ultimately destabilized the flow of oil and our relations with the countries that provide our oil. Plus the Iraqi pipeline has never gotten back to even pre-war levels.

Well, maybe that makes sense. He does seem like someone who is pretty difficult to entertain.

Well, maybe that makes sense. As I remember his snarling face, he did seem like someone who is pretty difficult to entertain.

Bush and Cheney are criminals no cheerio about it sm

House Judiciary Trio Calls for Impeach Cheney Hearings

FBI Examines Computers in Cheney's Office