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CORRUPTION UPDATES 48 April 2 to 16, 2007: The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 48
Previous Corruption Updates: Page 47
Next Corruption Updates: Page 49
Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org
1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE: LA Times, April 11, 07
Kurt Vonnegut, 84, dies in Manhattan
By Elaine Woo
Times Staff Writer
9:46 PM PDT, April 11, 2007
An obscure science fiction writer for two decades before earning mainstream acclaim in 1969 with "Slaughterhouse-Five," Vonnegut was an American original, often compared to Mark Twain for a vision that combined social criticism, wildly black humor and a call to basic human decency.
His novels, which include "The Sirens of Titan," "Cat's Cradle," "Mother Night" and "Breakfast of Champions," introduced a revolving cast of odd characters, from the downtrodden visionary Billy Pilgrim to Kilgore Trout, the unsuccessful writer who was Vonnegut's alter ego.
Vonnegut was also an essayist, playwright and short-story writer, whose shorter pieces were collected in such volumes as "Welcome to the Monkey House" (1968), "Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons" (1974) and "Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s" (1991).
"Slaughterhouse-Five" was a book he tried but failed to write for 25 years. An agile mix of fantasy and Vonnegut's World War II experiences, it features time traveler Pilgrim who, like Vonnegut, survived the Allied firebombing of Dresden.
Unorthodox in structure and patently anti-war, the novel resonated with a rebellious younger generation. Vonnegut became an icon of the countercultural 1970s and his book became a milestone of post-modern American literature, unequaled in force or artistry by any of his later novels.
"My motives are political," he once told Playboy magazine. "I agree with Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini that the writer should serve his society Mainly, I think they should be -- and biologically have to be -- agents of change."
On another occasion he explained that his goal in writing novels was to "catch people before they become generals and Senators and Presidents" and "poison their minds with humanity. Encourage them to make a better world."
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
We Need More Like Mr. Vonnegut, but the Price will be High
The next Vonnegut will rise out of our next global bloodbath, as Vonnegut's wisdom rose out of the chaos and ignorance of our last global bloodbath.
As we have put greed before wisdom on our list of human priorities, ignoring Vonnegut, our upcoming bloodbath will offer the environment of pain required for us to see the superiority of wisdom over greed, of restraint over aggression, and of cooperation over competition.
The lion will never lay with the lamb, nor do I expect them to. But if the lions eat all the lambs, the lions, and everybody else, will starve.
Today, the lions have eaten all the lambs, and they now have turned to eat each other.
And Vonnegut is Dead.
2)THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : Washington Post, April 11, 2007
House Panel Issues First Subpoena Over Firings
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 11, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/10/AR2007041000839_pf.html
The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena yesterday to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, demanding that the Justice Department turn over hundreds of pages of new or uncensored records related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.
The subpoena is the first served in connection with the dismissals, and it escalates the legal confrontation between Democrats and the Bush administration, which has resisted demands for more documents and for public testimony from White House aides. The order comes just a week before the embattled attorney general is scheduled to testify in the Senate...
Seven U.S. attorneys were fired Dec. 7, and another was dismissed earlier in the year, as part of a plan that originated in the White House to replace some prosecutors based in part on their perceived disloyalty to President Bush and his policies. The uproar over the removals has grown amid allegations that Republican lawmakers had improper political contact with prosecutors and assertions by Democrats that the firings may have been an attempt to disrupt public corruption investigations.
A subpoena is the first step in a long process that has rarely reached a clear legal conclusion in the past, experts say. If the administration refuses to comply with the subpoena, the Judiciary Committee could issue a citation for contempt of Congress, followed by a similar citation from the full Congress. That would then require the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia -- a former Gonzales aide -- to empanel a grand jury to consider criminal indictments.
In almost all cases, administrations have chosen to fully or substantially comply with such requests before they lead to criminal proceedings.
Wisconsin's Democratic senators, Russell Feingold and Herb Kohl, joined other members in demanding records and additional information about a federal public corruption case in that state, according to a letter they sent to Gonzales.
A federal appeals court in Chicago last week ordered a former Wisconsin state employee released after overturning her conviction.
Three senior prosecutors there abruptly relinquished their management positions last week; they said they could no longer work with the new U.S. attorney, Rachel K. Paulose, a former Gonzales aide who, at 34, is the nation's youngest chief federal prosecutor.
Also yesterday, Justice announced that Kevin J. O'Connor, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, will become Gonzales's new chief of staff. He will replace U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of Alexandria, who was brought into the position last month on an interim basis after Sampson resigned in the fallout from the prosecutor firings.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
The Above Story actually covered Four Serious Events requiring separate treatment:
House Subpoena Issued for US Attorney Info
False Prosecution by US Attorney Suspected in Wisconsin
Three Senior US Attorneys Quit rather than work with "Bushie"
US Attorneys used as Slaves by
Gonzales/Administration
A Constitutional Crisis Challenges our Government
Important related stories:
Corruption Updates 31, 1st article on page, ”GONZALES ATTACKS CONSTITUTION, JUDICIARY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS SIMULTANOUSLY”
Corruption Updates 46, 8th article on the page, "Prosecutor Posts Go To Bush Insiders:Bush packing US Attorney posts with biased insiders"
Corruption Updates 47, 2nd article on the page, "Gonzales has US Attorneys in Babylonian Captivity"
Full List of Relate Stories: US Attorneys Used as Political Tools
Search the Corruption Database under
Gonzales
US Attorney
3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2007; A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600291_pf.html
Some sections of a grim scientific assessment (U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) of the impact of global warming on human, animal and plant life issued in Brussels yesterday were softened at the insistence of officials from China and the United States, participants in the negotiations said.
In particular, U.S. negotiators managed to eliminate language in one section that called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, said Patricia Romero Lankao, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., who was one of the report's lead authors.
Yesterday's report, titled, "Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," warned that human-generated warming is already making oceans more acidic and parched regions even drier. Twenty to 30 percent of the world's species may disappear if the world warms another 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit, the authors concluded, and the risk of massive floods will increase significantly along the coasts because of rising seas and more intense storms.
"The conclusions in the report are so scary that whatever success the Bush administration may have had in watering down the language won't have any impact on what the reaction of the world will be,"(Said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.)
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Did Anyone Watch American Corporate Media Whitewash American Suppression of Climate Report?
Charlie Rose, and the News Hour, among the many Corporate Media Liars hiding at PBS, interviewed Corporate Tools who insisted the final draft was not unduly corrupted by the American Delegation, the very day the report was released.
These clearly biased "experts" assured us that Saudi Arabia and China, not the U.S., were resisting presenting open science, and honest remedies for our melting climate in the report.
The Corporate Media at PBS Lied to us again. America was us behind the efforts to neuter the Climate Report. China and Saudi Arabia were fronting for our desire to Kill our Environment in pursuit of irresponsible growth, greed, and profits.
Science, once the great tool of corporate industrial power, is now threatening Corporate Profits and their policies of endless growth and consumption. No problem: The Corporate Press and Corporate Politicians can neutralize the presentation, if not the content, of Scientific Research.
The corporate response was predictable: They turned up the flow of political bribes, and have bribed, or silenced as much of the "free Press" as they can. They already own the politicians, who will only act when South Florida is under water.
What little honest Climate Science that gets through this gauntlet is being used to offer our people the false hope that no real changes to our economic and demographic policies are necessary to address our impending climatic meltdown.
Just go back to sleep, you fat stupid consumers. No problem here.
On DW TV European Scientists were expressing outrage at the level of American Political Manipulations exerted to soften the climate report, while the American Corporate Press was trying to downplay, if not ignore the whole thing.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 47, 9th article on the page, "Earth Faces a Grim Future: UN Report" Climate Change has already happened:Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside
Corruption Updates 36 , 6th article on the page, "China to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases"
Search the Corruption Database under
Environment
Censoring Science
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : Washington Post, 4-7-07
Counselor To Gonzales Announces Resignation
Goodling Had Refused to Testify on Prosecutor Firings
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040600512_pf.html
The senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales submitted her resignation yesterday, becoming the third high-ranking Justice Department aide to quit in the aftermath of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
The departure of Monica M. Goodling, 33, comes two weeks after she first refused to answer questions from Congress about the firings, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In Minneapolis, three top managers staged a revolt Thursday, choosing to demote themselves rather than work for the newly confirmed U.S. attorney there, who is a former Gonzales aide, officials said. The department was so alarmed that it sent a Washington-based Justice official to Minneapolis this week to try to talk the three out of their plans, officials said.
Seven prosecutors were dismissed in December and another was removed earlier as part of a plan set in motion by the White House to replace U.S. attorneys viewed as insufficiently loyal to President Bush or his policies. Gonzales has sought to minimize his role in the firings, but recently released documents and testimony show he was regularly briefed on the effort.
Sampson and Goodling...Both participated in briefings for Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and others prior to testimony before Congress that has since been shown to be inaccurate.
The discontent in Minnesota centers on U.S. Attorney Rachel K. Paulose, 34, who previously worked for Gonzales and his deputy, McNulty. She is part of a wave of more than a dozen Bush administration insiders appointed as federal prosecutors over the past two years, according to government records.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
According to Gonzales, Torture eliminates the Right against Self-Incrimination
Maybe We should send Goodling to Gitmo
GONALES CAUGHT IN OPEN LIES TO CONGRESS
The article above focuses on the broad outlines of Gonzales' Lies about the US Attorney firings. Let's recap.
Gonzales, and his staff, lied in earlier testimony to Congress, in february. This only came out later, when his emails were examined. This proved they lied to Congress, and provoked Sampson's resignation.
The emails show Sampson and Gonzales lied, and Sampson directed Gonzales' cover up until he was busted red-handed in the Emails, and directly contradicted Gonzales' testimony and public statements.
Goodling appears to be only partially implicated in the cover up, but directly implicated in the original crime: she coordinated the application of the White House's political hiring policy within the Justice Department. She helped orchestrate a political takeover of the rule of law by neo-cons.
Gonzales now says it was Sampson who suborned Congress, alone and without his knowledge. If this far-fetched notion is true, Gonzales should resign for losing control of his staff while it was committing crimes and lying to Congress.
In this rising atmosphere of fear and recrimination, with Gonzales and Sampson implicating each other, Goodling saw the handwriting on the wall, and took off running for the protection of the fifth Amendment. Goodling's taking the Fifth reveals the depth of desperation of her situation: The Administration was going to sacrifice her just like she helped them to sacrifice their own US Attorneys.
If Sampson was following orders from Gonzales, which seems likely, the next question is who was directing Gonzales? Goodling's testimony should answer that question.
Goodling was the go-between, coordinating the Will of the White House with Justice Department hiring and firing. Goodling can tie the illegal politicization of the US Attorneys directly to the White House and the Department of Justice: Goodling is the key to breaking this whole scandal right open. And she has run for the legal hills, leaving Gonzales and the White House exposed to oversight and prosecution if she can be compelled to testify.
Presently, both Sampson and Gonzales lied to Congress, and should be charged with lying, and conspiring to lie to Congress, as well as obstruction of Justice.
Ultimately, how much we will find out about the depth of White House political manipulation of the US attorneys office will depend on the outcome of the Constitutional fight brewing between Congress and the President over the emails, described in Article Two in Corruption Updates, above.
In any case, A Constitutional Crisis already existed prior to the US Attorney Scandal: the president has claimed, and used a broad array of powers prohibited by Constitution and Law.
Yet Congress has done little to counter the Presidents's use of illegal authority, before or after the last election. The White House has broken numerous domestic and international laws, before and after the November Change in House and Senate Leadership.
Bush has kidnapped, tortured, and detained people in secret, claiming authority denied by the Constitution. It seems we have little hope that the recent crime of politicizing the US Attorneys will be addressed, when its previous crimes haven't been stopped, let alone prosecuted. Or do we?
The US Attorney Scandal only indirectly targeted the Constitution; its main target was the Democrats. The same Congress that has done almost nothing to protect our rights up to now, may well rise up to defend its party against a political attack using US Attorneys.
Congress' determination to protect the Constitution pales in comparison to their sense of political survival.
The emerging evidence is clear: Put together, these reports clearly prove that Gonzales and the White House worked up a plan to use US Attorneys, and Federal Law, to suppress the vote, pursue political prosecutions against enemies, and limit prosecutions against friends.
Partisan politics are only the tip of the iceberg; The Justice Department is point man for defending the President's claims to illegal, unconstitutional authority. The evidence is also clear that the Democrats were not stirred to action when Bush shredded the Constitution, but only when Bush targeted the Dems.
Independent of that sad fact, the depth and seriousness of the misuse of the power of office by both Congress and The President requires the appointment of a special prosecutor with full power to investigate the politicization of all the executive branch agencies, not just the Justice Department.
This Special Prosecutor must also have the power to investigate all the Congressional Committees charged with oversight and funding the Executive Branch departments.
Even if these crimes are fully investigated, which I doubt will happen, the only sure way to end this vortex of greed and corruption is to cut off the politicians food supply: The Endless Flow of Corporate and Special Interest Bribe Money that funds their arrogant abuses of our democracy.
Contributions from All Non-Voting Sources must end. Political Party support to all candidates must be curbed to no more than 30% of the contributions Candidates collect from qualified voters.
The corporations and special interests must be pushed out of direct participation in our elections. The parties and politicians have become no more than the political focus points for the wealth and power of the special interests to control access to, and the power of our government.
Your job is to help us turn our government back over to the voters.
The special interests in America can no longer be allowed to control our government. They must be limited to their due free speech rights.
If they give a penny to a politician, it is bribery, not free speech. The politicians must belong to the voters, not the special interests, and you can help take them back.
Politicians will not defend our Constitution until their political existence is more dependent on you and I, their own voters, than Corporate Bribery. Until then, control of our government is no more than the prize of a corrupt political auction.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 43, 4th article on the page, "Gonzales Met With Top Aides On Firings:GONALES CAUGHT IN OPEN LIES TO CONGRESS"
Full List of Relate Stories: US Attorneys Used as Political Tools
See Related article 9 below: "Ex-Justice Official's Statements Contradict Gonzales on Firings"
Search the Corruption Database under
Goodling
Gonzales
US Attorney
5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE : Washington Post, 4-6-07:
Justice Department In New Fight Over Papers on Firings
By Paul Kane
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502374_pf.html
The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's hold on his position.
Gonzales first told the Judiciary Committee, during a hearing 11 weeks ago, that there was no intent to avoid Senate confirmation for the replacements of the fired prosecutors.
He made similar remarks to Leahy and other senators at a private meeting in the Capitol early last month.
And at a March 13 news conference, Gonzales declared that he had been part of "no discussions" about the firings, casting the blame on his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, who has since resigned.
But Sampson testified last week that Gonzales's statements were "not accurate" and that the attorney general was, in fact, regularly briefed about the evolving two-year plan to oust the prosecutors. Sampson also noted that Gonzales was aware of a staff-level idea to avoid Senate confirmation for the replacements.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Gonzales a Proven Liar to Congress, and the American People
Illegal Political Influence, Prosecutions, Kidnapping, "Detentions," Tortures, and Gonzales still sits in Office
Is there anybody in this Administration who is not a confirmed, proven Liar? A long term plan to manipulate US Attorneys, by beginning partisan investigations against political enemies, and ending corruption prosecutions against political friends, has emerged from the emails and testimony of Justice Officials.
This information proves that Gonzales and his staff lied openly, and intentionally, to Congress and the American people, in a pathetic attempt to cover their corrupt manipulations of our justice system.
Gonzales must be removed from any office of public trust. Bush must be impeached, and subsequently charged for his domestic and international crimes. This is a small step in our path to reestablishing some small part of our International Credibility, and even a shred of domestic Constitutional legitimacy.
The crimes of this Administration must be stopped now. The bribery and corruption which is the source of, and fuel for, these crimes must be ended immediately. Our initiative is an excellent first attack on political corruption.
Join the Committee to end political bribery and help us restore our democratic rights in California.
Also See:
Full List of Relate Stories: US Attorneys Used as Political Tools
Search the Corruption Database under
Gonzales
US Attorney
6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE: Bee, 4-6-07:
Term limits change has initial support
Survey finds voters back a proposal that would allow Perata, Núñez to stay on
By Kevin Yamamura - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTFriday, April 6, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/150412.html
California voters at least initially support a plan to reduce overall legislative tenure by two years but to allow some termed-out lawmakers to retain power beyond 2008, including Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, according to a Field Poll released Thursday.
The survey conducted last month found that 53 percent of likely voters back a proposal allowing lawmakers to serve up to 12 years total in one house, rather than existing limits of six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate. The poll found 39 percent are opposed.
Voters as a whole have taken a more positive view of lawmakers. The Legislature received approval from 42 percent, its highest rating in nearly five years. It also was the first time since July 2002 that more voters approve of the Legislature than disapprove.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Party Leaders Agree:Term Limits Bad
If we remove term limits without removing the party monopoly on election districts and elections in California, the voters will be left in the same place we were when we began term limits: It will be impossible for voters in California to control their own representatives.
The Politicians will be impossible to remove once elected, and they will once again ignore the will of the voters with impunity.
Before the voters tolerate any modifications to term limits, we must first eliminate the Corporate Bribes which subsidize the Democratic and Republican Parties' monopoly of politics in California.
I suggest a trade: ending term limits for ending outside contributions to candidates. If a party or politician is to be given any sort of political monopoly, it must be based on monopolizing the real, direct support of local voters, not the support of the corporations and special interests.
This would be an acceptable trade: Democracy for the end of term limits. If we remove or modify term limits, the politicians and parties must be made Completely dependent on their Voters to get elected.
Otherwise the partnership between the Corporations and the politicians will be strong enough to once again remove the voice of the voters from the electoral process, forcing us to accept the Corporate Politicians they are shoving down our throats.
The real story behind this attempt to reduce term limits are the political aspirations of Fabian Nunez. Nunez wants to be governor. It looks like Villagrarosa has the inside track at capturing the next Democratic nomination, especially if Nunez is termed out. Lame ducks don't run well, they waddle.
Nunez hopes to keep his seat in the Assembly to keep his hopes of capturing the Dem Nomination for Governor alive.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 23, 10th article on the page, "Governor again floats plan for redistricting"
Corruption Updates 35, 4th article on the page, "Democrats in Congress may threaten California redistricting"
Search the Corruption Database under
Term Limits
Nunez
7) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE:
Pentagon probe fills in blanks on Iraq war groundwork
A memo calling for progress on linking Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein marked the beginnings of Feith's project.
By Peter Spiegel
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Just four months after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz dashed off a memo to a senior Pentagon colleague, demanding action to identify connections between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda.
"We don't seem to be making much progress pulling together intelligence on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Wolfowitz wrote in the Jan. 22, 2002, memo to Douglas J. Feith, the department's No. 3 official.
Wolfowitz's memo, released Thursday, is included in a recently declassified report by the Pentagon's inspector general. The memo marked the beginnings of what would become a controversial yearlong Pentagon project supervised by Feith to convince the most senior members of the Bush administration that Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked — a conclusion that was hotly disputed by U.S. intelligence agencies at the time and has been discredited in the years since.
In excerpts released in February, Thomas F. Gimble, the acting inspector general of the Pentagon, criticized the project as an alternative intelligence assessment that was improper. However, Gimble said, the operation was not illegal or unauthorized, because Pentagon directives allowed Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to assign the work.
...a group of Pentagon officials and on-loan intelligence analysts were able to shunt aside contradictory reports and convince top administration officials that they had powerful evidence of connections between Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. The 121-page report was released by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and is posted on the senator's website, levin.senate.gov/.
The Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA each "published reports that disavowed any 'mature, symbiotic' cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda," the inspector general's report found.
The report also said Feith tailored his briefings to his audiences: There were at least three versions of the slides he used in different sessions with senior officials.
His Aug. 15, 2002, briefing for Tenet, for instance, omitted a slide titled "Fundamental Problems With How Intelligence Community Is Assessing Information," which was highly critical of the CIA.
The same slide was included, however, when Feith's office briefed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then the vice president's chief of staff, and Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security advisor.
The report said Feith's criticism of the CIA "undercuts the intelligence community," pointing to Vice President Dick Cheney's validation of the material as "your best source of information" on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Bush Administration Lied About Every "Cause" for Iraqi War
The Administration decided that linking Iraq and Osama would speed their path to war. An actual linkage was unnecessary for their purposes, making truth their enemy.
Linking Osama and Iraq did not start in the intelligence community, based on facts. The link between Osama and Iraq was made in the White House, for the purpose of justifying an illegal war.
The article above contends that the White House received false information about the fraudulent Osama-Iraqi connection from Feith's briefings.
The opposite is actually true: The war was a sales pitch that started in the White House. When Feith came back from the Pentagon with his Slide Shows linking Osama and Iraq, he was a student bringing his assigned homework back to teacher. The White House was not misinformed, it was the source of the misinformation.
This exposes the outlines of the real problem behind the lies that led us to war: Political victory now gives the winners the power to ignore, suppress, and alter the professional analysis provided by Executive Branch scientists, analysts, and climitologists to suit their tastes.
This allows the will of the winners to be imposed on the rest of us, indifferent to our Constitutional rights, our differing beliefs, and any foundation in science or fact.
From banning guns to banning abortion, each side vies to partner with the Big Corporate Contributors to impose their will on our country with the full power of our government, while the special interests loot our country and torture the free world.
We have traded our freedom not for security, but for domestic political "victory."
Decision-making, and setting the direction of the professional staff is the assigned job of our political "victors."
Political victory does not give either party the power or right to replace our professional government with party hacks and lobbyists. Political victory does not allow either party to change or silence our scientists.
Political victory now arms both parties with audacity sufficient to drown the rights of anyone who disagrees, by manipulating the press and science to justify anything they want to do.
Whichever side wins, the ones that want to take your guns, or take your birth control, their decisions are based on the power to impose their will on everyone else, while advancing the power and wealth of their special interest masters.
Both sides are wrong: Victory only brings the privilege of leading our country, by the rules, not owning it.
Also See:
Read more about political Censorship of Science
More Articles about how BIG MONEY RUNS POLITICS
Read more Articles about Unconstitutional Presidential Power
Read Articles about how the Democrats represent Corporations
Search the Corruption Database under
Environment
8) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE: Bee, 4-2-07:
Work permit measure floated
Bill seeks to garnish 8 percent of wages of undocumented workers to pay for services.
By Susan Ferriss - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDTMonday, April 2, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/147791.html
A California assemblyman who says he's tired of waiting for Congress to change immigration laws has come up with his own bill to provide a "California work permit" to undocumented workers for three years.
Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico, introduced his proposed "Employer Security and Accountability Act" to the Assembly's labor committee on Thursday.
The bill which some experts say is patently unconstitutional -- would create a state work permit for non-U.S. citizens, including undocumented workers. It would require employers to ask to see the permits and verify them through a state "hotline." Employers could face a $10,000 fine for failing to comply.
The proposed law also would garnish 8 percent of the wages of undocumented workers -- exempting legal immigrants -- to contribute to California's general fund to help pay for public education, police, health and other services.
Keene's large rural district is home to many businesses that hire immigrants, including farms, construction companies, landscapers and hotels. Employers tell him, Keene said, that they can't tell whether documents are real or fake.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Keene's Idiot Bill to Maintain Subsidized Illegal Farm Labor
After decades of under funding and massive, un funded, increases in enrollment, California's schools are incapable of educating our children. Our hospitals are incapable of treating the sick and wounded. Our prisons are inhumane. Our leaders are rich and arrogant. Our business class enjoys a state subsidized docile oversupply of cheap foreign labor.
The circumstances we find ourselves in today were assured by the decision we made, but will not admit to, thirty five years ago, when our national and state leaders decided that cheap labor was more important than decent wages, services and political power for our middle-class.
Dems and Repubs both agree that spending money on schools, hospitals and prisons is not in the books: Thieves do not voluntary give back what they have stolen.
Many groups like to crow about how much money illegals, and the semi-legals, make for business. Let's test the claim! I suggest a policy innovation:
An alien tax
Since we don't know how many illegals are going to flood our emergency rooms next year, how many of their foreign kids are going to show up in our schools, or how many illegals will require imprisonment, we must demand an annual poll to determine the number, and charge the business community for the expenses they are throwing onto the public.
Unlike Mr. Keene, I can not summon the coldness to burden these crimigrants with a tax to self-subsidize their already publicly subsidized slave wages. Far from it. I demand the employers pay the full bill for the illegal profits they are making.
Let's go a bit further: Let's not just figure out how much money business has stolen from American Workers by using our schools, hospitals, roads, and social infrastructure to subsidize their illegal labor force, but let's figure out the wages American labor has lost, and charge them for that too.
If foreigners are so good for the country, this will be much less than their profits.
Unlike Assemblyman Keene's proposal, which suggests that poor crimigrant mexicans pay out of their paltry wages to even further subsidize the profits of their exploiters, I demand that the business community pay their own costs of doing business themselves.
They can keep what's left.
The hidden costs of publicly subsidizing the business community's illegal labor policy are coming due, and nobody but average middle-class Americans are going to pay the bill, as they have for the last thirty-five years.
Or poor mexicans, if Assembly keene has his way.
Corruption Updates 4, 2nd article on page, “Special Interests and Politicians Play, Our Education System Melts Away"
Corruption Updates 34, 3rd article on page, “LONG TERM PRISON CRISIS RECOGNIZED?SEEING IT HAS NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM-PAYING IS...”
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on page, “CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: PERMANENT LOW COST LABORING UNDERCLASS CREATED IN US”
Corruption Updates 36, 9th article on page, “HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION: EDUCATION, MEDICINE, DEMOCRACY, AND JUSTICE ARE HIDDEN “COSTS” OF CHEAP FOREIGN LABOR ON AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS”
Corruption Updates 45, 8th article on page, “Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows”
Search the Corruption Database under
Crimigrants
Economics
9) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Ex-Justice Official's Statements Contradict Gonzales on Firings
By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 16, 2007; A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500548_pf.html
The former Justice Department official who carried out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year told Congress that several of the prosecutors had no performance problems and that a memo on the firings was distributed at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a Democratic senator said yesterday.
The statements to House and Senate investigators by Michael A. Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, represent another potential challenge to the credibility of Gonzales, who has said that he never saw any documents about the firings
...Battle also contradicted Gonzales's assertion at a March 13 news conference that he had not seen any documents or participated in any discussions about the firings. A memo related to the dismissals was passed out at a Nov. 27 meeting attended by Gonzales and others, Battle told investigators.
In a related matter yesterday, an attorney for Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who faces an ethics inquiry into his role in the firings, declined to comment on an Albuquerque Journal report that Domenici directly contacted Rove to push for the firing of David C. Iglesias as New Mexico's U.S. attorney.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Yet Another Gonzales LIE
See Article 4, above: "Counselor To Gonzales Announces Resignation"
Also See:
Corruption Updates 35, 11th article on page, “DOMENICI FINALLY ADMITS TO UNETHICAL, IF NOT CRIMINAL, CONTACT WITH FEDERAL PROSECUTOR”
Corruption Update 43 2nd article on the page, "GONALES CAUGHT IN OPEN LIES TO CONGRESS"
Corruption Updates 46, 8th article on the page, "Prosecutor Posts Go To Bush Insiders:Bush packing US Attorney posts with biased insiders"
Corruption Updates 47, 2nd article on the page, "Gonzales has US Attorneys in Babylonian Captivity"
Corruption Updates 54 , 2ndh article on page, “Fired U.S. attorneys are called some of the best"
Read more articles About Abuse of the US Attorney
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US Attorney
Gonzales
10) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE: Washington Post, 4-7-07:
Student Loan Official Suspended
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2007; A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601824_pf.html
The U.S. Education Department yesterday suspended a senior agency official who held more than $100,000 of stock in a student loan company at the same time he helped oversee the lending industry.
Matteo Fontana, general manager in a division of the office of Federal Student Aid, was placed on paid administrative leave after officials learned Thursday that he was a shareholder in 2003 in the parent company of Student Loan XPress.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings also asked yesterday for the financial aid director at the University of Texas at Austin to resign from a committee created by Congress that advises the secretary on student aid policy. The official, Lawrence Burt, was one of three university financial aid administrators who also owned shares in the loan company and have been suspended.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Education Department a Tool of Special Interests
Also See:
Corruption Updates 51, 10th article on the page, "Lenders Misusing Student Database"
Search the Corruption Database under
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