FLAG BANNER
DEDICATED TO RIDDING POLITICAL BRIBERY FROM THE CENTER OF CALIFORNIA POLITICS

 

Fight Corporate Media Liars
HOME
 

CORRUPTION UPDATES 53

April 27 to May 1, 2007

The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story.

 

CORRUPTION UPDATES 53

 

Previous Corruption Updates: Page 52

Next Corruption Updates: Page 54

Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org

 

1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE:

White House Floats New Immigration Plan

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-immigration,1,3165856.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines


4:41 PM PDT, March 29, 2007

WASHINGTON — A White House plan devised in weeks of closed-door meetings with Republican senators would grant work visas to undocumented immigrants but require them to return home and pay hefty fines to become legal U.S. residents.

Under the plan, undocumented workers could apply for three-year work visas, which the plan dubs "Z" visas. They would be renewable indefinitely but renewal would cost $3,500 each time.

The undocumented workers would have legal status with the visas, but to get a green card, making them legal permanent residents, they'd have to return to their home country, apply at a
U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.
A plan to make more green cards available to skilled workers by limiting visas for parents, children and siblings of U.S. citizens and one that would prohibit temporary workers from bringing family members is one of the plan's more controversial provisions.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Be a Slave or Get Out Plan Unveiled by Bush

Bush is proposing a "best of both worlds" policy: Illegals and Bosses both regularize the benefits of illegality.

Swim the river, get your "Illegal Visa," and provide the Bosses with slave wage laborers. Both illegal and Boss win: the illegal has a card, and the Boss still gets slave wage laborers. Both illegal and Boss get to maintain their symbiotic relationship. But it gets better.

The already low Wages Bosses now pay will drop precipitously when entering the United States illegally is rewarded with an "illegal visa."

We will experience the equivalent of the Oklahoma Land Rush for Illegals. Again, both sides will benefit: Every Foreigner in the world will get a crimigrant card if they enter our country illegally, and Bosses will pay even less for labor, and have even less concern about providing benefits or decent conditions for foreign laborers than they have now.

The proponents of illegal immigration will also get their wish: Mexico will officially become America's bitch, sending its peasants here to be worked, or taking our factories there, when avoiding regulation is more profitable.

This plan goes even further. It achieves unlimited movement of Mexican labor into the United States, assuring that the American Middle and lower classes will never challenge corporate control of the American Government.

Mexicans will finally be able to spread everywhere in the US, bringing US wages uniformly to the level of wages in Mexico. Bosses will realize massive profits.

Bush's plan will fulfill the wishes of the Corporations, the illegals, and the advocates of illegal immigration at the same time. This will be a real money-maker, and I know who's going to make the money, and who's going to pay the bills.

They Bosses will get even richer, if that is even possible. The illegals will get relatively richer by abandoning their own Countries and Cultures to serve the American Corporate State. Both sides are losing something money cannot replace: their dignity, if they ever had any.

America will continue to build vast corporate fortunes for a few, built on an expanding foundation of deep poverty for the rest of us. This expanding poverty will continue to devour our schools, hospitals and prisons, not to mention our democracy.

But this is not anything new, it's what's been happening for the last 30 years. Except for the addition of the "crimigrant visa."

Great innovation.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 25, 10th article on the page, "CAN UNIONS BENEFIT FROM DEM VICTORY?DEMS PROGRAM IS “FREE TRADE” AND FREE IMMIGRATION: CAN UNIONS SURVIVE IN THIS ENVIRONMENT?" (NO!)

Corruption Updates 36 , 7th article on the page, "More in U.S. plunge deeper into poverty:CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: PERMANENT LOW COST LABORING UNDERCLASS CREATED IN US

Corruption Updates 36 , 9th article on the page, "The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market" 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 the page, "Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows: US MAIN PRODUCTS: LUXURY&POVERTY

 

Search the Corruption Database under

Immigration (10 Abstracts)

Crimigrants

Home All Archives

Top of Page

2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster, a Study Finds

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

NY Times, May 1, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/us/01climate.html?

_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Climate scientists may have significantly underestimated the power of global warming from human-generated heat-trapping gases to shrink the cap of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean, according to a new study of polar trends.

The study, published online today in Geophysical Research Letters, concluded that an open-water Arctic in summers could be more likely in this century than had been estimated in the latest international review of climate research released in February by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

There are huge changes going on,” said Julienne Stroeve, a lead author of the new study and a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.

The intergovernmental panel concluded that if emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide were not significantly reduced, the region could end up bereft of floating ice in summers sometime between 2050 and the early decades of the next century.

Dr. Stroeve’s team found that since 1953 the area of sea ice in September has declined at an average rate of 7.8 percent per decade. Computer climate simulations of the same period had an average rate of ice loss of 2.5 percent per decade.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Climatologists No Better than Reporters:

Their Models have failed: Science incapable of predicting Radical Pace of Climate Shift

Climate Change has already happened:

Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside

Those of you who know me, and have talked to me for the last decade, are not surprised.

8 years ago I predicted the rate of global climate change would break all the climatologists' models, regaling scientists to the role of merely reporting. rather than predicting, climate change.

This prediction has proven itself.

Hear that chainsaw in the distance? That's the sound of nature coming to return all the favors we have bestowed on it.

Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT

For about 10 years I have been telling my buddies that the heat of summer was not retreating southward during winter. This has been increasing each year, diminishing the polar chilling, changing the timing of the onset and end of the seasons. Most important in my view is the radical changes in the direction of the winter winds.

Winter Winds in the Bay Area have traditionally come from the NW. For the past 8 years the Winter winds have been shifting, coming from the West and the South West. These winds are dry in mid-winter, and keep the wet Northern Storms at bay. Then, in Spring, these Southern Winds have brought tropical-style downpours, barely offsetting our drying Winters.

This year the freakish Southern Spring storms did not come and bail us out.

Every Winter has become drier and warmer for the past 10 years. Fall now regularly extends into December, and spring try's to start in February. For the majority of you who are from someplace else, and don't have a clue as to what was normal for the Bay Area, this is very abnormal weather.

Watching the Sierra Bears in November and December is sad. Instead of enjoying a cold sleep, they are hungrily patrolling dead, dry meadows that have no berries, grubs, or food to sustain them until the uncertain advent of Winter snows and hibernation.

Watching the lowland trees this winter was disturbing: deciduous trees were dropping leaves all winter long. There was no "fall" to speak of, as in a temperature fall triggering a massive leave drop.

I suspect that the increasing incidents of mountain lion attacks reflects the lions response to decreasing late-fall food supplies. In any case, these seasonal changes have had a cascading effect in ecosystems. Budding times in Spring are off, affecting birth and survival rates of all interrelated species. Increasing Summer temperature are killing off high altitude plants. Lack of Winter snowfall is drying out the land early in the Spring, affecting budding timing and density. And the cycles of life continue to decline in the thrall of our ignorance.

Expect large declines in crop productions, if not outright crop failures, across the United States, and the world this year.

The Climatologists will catch up with the changes, but it will be too late to preserve our predictable seasons. We do not need science to tell us we have severely damaged our climate, we needed wisdom to fundamentally change our values and the direction our country is going.

Wisdom would have prevented us from blinding ourselves to the early warnings of nature, and the subsequent warnings of science. Wisdom would have prevented us from overburdening our land with people, our water with dams, and our skies with endlessly expanding pollution. The oceans contain a thin shadow of the life they held in 1600. And we desperately need wisdom now that our science cannot keep up with reporting on the damage our industrial-strength ignorance is perpetuating.

We seem to have traded, or maybe sold, our wisdom for luxury, prestige, greed and power.

It was a bad trade. The latter commodities are short-lived, unless balanced with wisdom. But Wisdom cannot be comodified and put on the market, so it has little contemporary value, and was let go of cheaply.

I have a wise plan: Let's double California's population by 2050. Let's give everybody in the state a driver's licence and a car or two. lets put another 30 million cars on our State's streets. Let's double our water and electricity consumption. That should fix things right up. I'm glad we have such wise leaders, who represent our best interests so well.

(first printed in 47-10)

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"


Corruption Updates 39 , 10th article on the page, "Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming"

Read more about political Censorship of Science

 

Search the Corruption Database under

Environment (14 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

$10,000 donation raises questions

After governor appears on 'The Apprentice,' Donald Trump sends a campaign contribution.

By Shane Goldmacher - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTSaturday, April 28, 2007

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/162655.html

Little more than a month after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger guest-starred on Donald Trump's TV show "The Apprentice," Trump donated $10,000 to help Schwarzenegger pay off his campaign debts, according to campaign filings.

Schwarzenegger has appeared on at least two other reality TV shows filmed in California, including a special Earth Day episode of MTV's "Pimp My Ride," which aired last Sunday.

Both shows had connections to Schwarzenegger donors.

The owners of the auto shop featured weekly in the MTV program are among the Republican governor's biggest donors. Since 2003, H.F. Boeckmann and Jane Boeckmann, owners of Galpin Motors, have given the governor's political accounts more than $190,000, according to records filed with the secretary of state's office.

In March 2005, Schwarzenegger was the guest star on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which rebuilds houses for families in need. In the episode, Pardee Homes, a major California builder, was the featured contractor.

At the time, Pardee Homes had given the governor's political committees $94,600, of which $44,600 was given the month the program aired. The company gave Schwarzenegger another $22,300 in 2006.

In the March 18 episode of this season, filmed in Los Angeles, the winners of a competition on the show were flown to meet with Schwarzenegger in his office in the state Capitol.

"You are going to meet with a great man and a great friend of mine, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger," Trump told the contestants. "He's going to sit with you. He's going to talk about leadership, and nobody knows more about leadership than the Terminator. You know that, right?"

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Arnie is a Tool of Big Money

This is just the latest purchase of Arnie's power and influence with Corporate bribes. The following abstracts highlight the many interests who have bribed Arnie:

Also See:

Corruption Updates 6, 4th article on page, “Arnie's Turn to Bleed Special Interests: Assembly done selling itself, Now it's Arnie's Turn.

Corruption Updates 12, 4th article on page, “How to Corrupt Democracy: The Insurance Industry and the Governor

Corruption Updates 12, 5th article on page “INSURANCE INDUSTRY BATTLE PLAN: COMBINED BUSINESS ASSUALT ON DEMOCRACY” LATimes. Plot to corrupt democratic process and institutions successful. Plot uncovered, and yet it goes on. 9-24-06

Corruption Updates 13, 6th article on page, “Governor, PGE, Set Up Political Slush Fund

Corruption Updates 17, 5th article on page, “VAST SUMS OF SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY COLLECTED BY GOV CANDIDATES IN CA

Corruption Updates 17, 6th article on page “Total Campaign Outlays Approach $400 Million

Corruption Updates 24, 2nd article on page, “Arnie has Huge Special Interest Slush Fund” ("officeholder" account: Southern California Edison, PG&E, Chevron and AT&T)

 

Search the Corruption Database under

Arnie (30 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyer Under Scrutiny in Probe
Ties With Abramoff Associate in Question

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2007; A06

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702228_pf.html

A federal task force investigating the activities of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has in recent weeks been looking into whether one of Abramoff's colleagues improperly traded favors with a Justice Department lawyer, sources familiar with the Abramoff investigation said yesterday.

The lawyer, Robert E. Coughlin II, resigned on April 6 as deputy chief of staff in the Criminal Division, citing personal reasons, a department spokesman said.

Coughlin had worked in the criminal division since 2005 but was recused from the Abramoff inquiry because of a longtime personal friendship with Kevin A. Ring, one of Abramoff's lobbying colleagues whose actions are under investigation, a law enforcement source said. Investigators are looking into dealings between the two in 2001 and 2002, when Coughlin worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, the sources said.

Coughlin and Ring were friends on Capitol Hill in the 1990s when both worked as staffers to then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), who became attorney general in 2001.

Ring took Coughlin to sporting events with tickets provided by his lobbying firm, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

The task force has tracked millions of dollars in meals, trips, tickets, gifts and campaign contributions that the Abramoff lobbying team lavished on lawmakers and staffers.

Coughlin is the second Justice Department official whose name has surfaced in the wide-ranging Abramoff investigation. Earlier this year, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, deputy assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources, abruptly resigned when her boyfriend -- now her husband -- was notified that he was a criminal target. J. Steven Griles, former deputy secretary of the Interior Department, has since pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Abramoff.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush's Federal Task Force Traps Another Rat
Bush's "Catch and Release" US Attorneys no threat to the Rats, nor the system of Political Corruption and Bribery Feeding Them

Also See:

Corruption Updates 13 , 2nd article on page, "Report Details Abramoff Ties to White House: “The convicted lobbyist and his associates had hundreds of contacts with the executive branch, a bipartisan House probe finds.”

Corruption Updates 42, 5th article on page, "U.S. suggests cutting Abramoff sentence: This is how Justice Dept. Lawyers keep their jobs in the Bush Administration"

Corruption Updates 43, 1st article on page, “Ex-Deputy Pleads Guilty in Abramoff Case" (Griles let of easy for Betraying public trust with Abramoff in Interior)

Corruption Updates 51 , 2nd article on page, “Ex-House aide snared in Abramoff probe" (Zachares let off easy for Betraying public trust with Abramoff in Congress)

Search the Corruption Database under

Abramoff (37 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Political Appointees No Longer to Pick Justice Interns

By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 28, 2007; A02

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702190_pf.html

The Justice Department is removing political appointees from the hiring process for rookie lawyers and summer interns, amid allegations that the Bush administration had rigged the programs in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups, according to documents and officials.

The decision, outlined in an internal memo distributed Thursday, returns control of the Attorney General's Honors Program and the Summer Law Intern Program to career lawyers in the department after four years during which political appointees directed the process.

Justice officials said the change was prompted by a contentious staff meeting in early December, which included complaints that political appointees led by Michael J. Elston, chief of staff for Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, had rejected an unusually large number of applicants during the most recent hiring period.

The House and Senate Judiciary committees also are investigating allegations from an anonymous group of Justice employees that most of those cut from the application lists had worked for Democrats or liberal causes and that Elston removed people for spurious reasons that included "inappropriate information about them on the Internet."

The honors program, established during the Eisenhower administration, is a highly regarded recruiting program that attracts thousands of applicants from top-flight law schools for about 150 spots each year and has been overseen for most of its history by senior career lawyers at Justice. Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft reworked the program in 2002, shifting control from career employees to himself and his aides.

Many law school placement officers said in 2003 that they noticed a marked shift to the right in the students approached for honors program interviews.

Complaints about the program emerged again this month after Senate and House investigators received a letter from the unidentified Justice employees, who alleged that hiring at the department was "consistently and methodically being eroded by partisan politics." The letter singled out the honors and intern programs, alleging that senior political appointees appeared to reject applicants who "had interned for a Hill Democrat, clerked for a Democratic judge, worked for a 'liberal' cause, or otherwise appeared to have 'liberal' leanings."

According to current and former Justice employees, many of whom spoke about fellow lawyers on the condition of anonymity, the centralization of the honors program selection process in the hands of political appointees markedly changed the profile of the entry-level lawyers hired, particularly in the department's civil rights division.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

All Career Lawyers Hired at Justice During Last 6 Years Must be Suspended Pending Investigation

Our legal system, and the Rule of Law itself, have been compromised, and is threatened by the Political Corruption emanating from our system of political bribery.

Although Congress is Corrupt, The White House has gone beyond stealing money to robbing us of our Constitutional rights and protections.

Until a through investigation investigating political hiring in the Justice Department is completed, all career attorneys hired during the Bush Administration must be suspended. Congress must take immediate action on this issue.

If the investigation indicates that politics were a factor in Career Hires, all Attorneys hired under these corrupted standards must be immediately fired, and all of their work reviewed for bias.

Any and All prosecutorial misconduct by politically tainted Attorneys must be harshly prosecuted, and the Attorneys who participated in political corruption using the power of the Justice Department must be disbarred and imprisoned.

The source of this Corruption, as well as all who spread and instituted it in the Justice Department, must be identified, prosecuted, and severely punished.

Evidence indicates that the source of Corruption in Justice emanates from the complete corruption of the White House. This Administration does not stand alone, it is a product of our corrupted political system.

The situation we find ourselves in is the consequence of allowing Congress and the Executive Branch to slip Constitutional Restraints; Congress and the Executive are no longer democratic institutions: They are Illegitimate, Unconstitutional expressions of political Bribery, as as such they do not represent the Citizens of our Country, nor respect the limits of their offices.

The only solution that will restore our democracy, return legitimacy to our government, and give us back our unalienable rights, is a dramatic change in who, and how, political candidates and officeholders fund their elections.

Voter-only contributions and limiting party financial support to 30% of the total local contributions from qualified voters is going to be a powerful reform that will break the grip of Special Interest Bribes have on our politicians.

Radical Reform is required to change our political system from Bribery to Democracy, and restore democratic legitimacy to our damaged government.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 34 , 2nd article on page, “SCARY NEO-CON POLITICAL OPERATIVE REPLACES US ATTORNEY IN ARKANSAS"

Corruption Updates 37 , 5th article on page, “Fed Attorneys Silent on Pressure/Threats Until Fired"

Corruption Updates 38 , 1st article on page, “REPUGNANTS QUESTION WHY ATTORNEY SNITCHES REPUBLICAN CRIME: THE PROPER ANSWER IS “LOYALTY TO LAW,” BUT REVENGE IS THE TRUE ANSWER

Read more articles About Abuse of the US Attorney

Search the Corruption Database under

US Attorney (37 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

6) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Ex-prosecutors urge access for detainees

The Associated Press
Published 3:23 pm PDT Monday, April 30, 2007

http://dwb.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/v-print/story/3610668p-12901264c.html

WASHINGTON (AP) A bipartisan group of 39 former prosecutors told Congress on Monday that detainees at Guantanamo Bay should be granted access to U.S. courts.

"If the men at Guantanamo are not provided these rights, a cloud will always remain over the validity of their detention," the prosecutors said in a letter to Congress.

Only 10 of an estimated 385 men held at the prison in Cuba have been charged with war crimes, and there are plans to charge 14 more transferred there from CIA prisons last year.

In 2004 and 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees have access to the U.S. court system. After the ruling last year, Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act to strip the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., of jurisdiction over the prisoners.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush"s Criminal Detentions Under Fire: America's Shame Highlighted

HOW DARE THEY QUESTION THE PRESIDENT'S RIGHT TO ARREST AND IMPRISON PEOPLE ON HIS OWN IMAGINARY AUTHORITY

The only people who have any guts are retired. Everybody in the active front lines of their professions, including our “free” press, “our” politicians, the commanders in our military, and legions of Americans, have chosen to advance their personal agendas by remaining silent in the face of injustice, dishonesty, and the serious political crimes the parties and politicians have committed against our Constitutional system.

Our government long ago exceeded the clear constitutional limits placed on political power. The Democrats say the the Constitution is outdated, and they can take away a citizen's guns. Yeah, right.

The Republicans say the Constitution grants liberty only to people who are straight and don't believe in abortion. Yeah, right.

Stuck between these two corrupted parties, civil liberties are a mirage, only attained through political victory, and the cost of victory makes our franchise rights no more than a joke.

The party that wins gets to impose its values on everybody else, and steal the lion's share of the country's wealth. The losing party bides its time, waiting for its chance to impose its corruptions on the country.

It is time to reapply the democratic system that our Constitution guarantees on our politicians and on our political system. It's time to protect everyone's civil liberties, no matter which party is in power, or if your beliefs pass the popularity test.

Link to an extensive list of articles concerning:

Unconstitutional Presidential Power

(This essay was written for CU 21, 7th article on the page, in early November, 2006.)

Also See:

Corruption Updates 21 , 7th article on page, “Ex-judges: Detainee law unconstitutional"

Corruption Updates 31 , 2nd article on page, “BUSH APPOINTEE ATTACKS AMERICAN RIGHT TO TRIAL, AND COUNSEL: CULLY STIMSON SUGGESTS RETRABUTION FOR DEFENDING UNPOPULAR CASES"

Corruption Updates 31 , 8th article on page, “CONVICTION, NOT JUSTICE, IS THE STATED GOAL OF GUANTAMAMO TRIAL RULES"

Corruption Updates 31 , 7th article on page, “DETANIEE” TORTURE, HEARSAY, AND NO HABIUS CORPUS:THE CRIMINALS ARE RUNNING THE COURTS"

Search the Corruption Database under

Illegal Trials (9 Abstracts)

Illegal Detentions (15 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

7) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

U.S. Wants to Limit Guantanamo Detainees' Access to Lawyers

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 27, 2007; A12

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602468_pf.html

The Bush administration is urging a federal appeals court to clamp down on Guantanamo Bay prisoners' ability to see their attorneys and obtain government records to help argue their innocence.

As the legal battle over the detentions moves to a new arena, the Justice Department is trying to tightly restrict the tactics that a persistent and largely volunteer group of defense lawyers can use to challenge the government's basis for holding their clients.

In recent court filings, the Justice Department argues that defense lawyers' visits to the prisoners "cause unrest on the base," including hunger strikes and protests, and are often a pretext for obtaining accounts from the detainees to relay to the media.

The effort to restrict detainees' access to lawyers and documents comes as the fight over their fate moves out of a federal trial court -- which was often at odds with the administration's assertion that it could hold them indefinitely without charges -- to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which generally has been more supportive of the president's claim of broad powers in fighting terrorism.

The Justice Department also argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals should not consider new evidence or information in reviewing Pentagon decisions about continued detention. The court should take into account only the facts that a military combatant status review tribunal considered in determining that each detainee should be held, the government argued.

The government has rejected attorneys' demands for other records, saying the government will determine which records are relevant.

"We've brought suit to prove our client is innocent. And the government says it gets to decide what is relevant to those facts," attorney Susan Baker Manning said. "It is absolutely, utterly at odds with everything in our legal system."

Defense attorneys, who were first able to interview their clients at Guantanamo in 2004, began compiling evidence that some detainees were kidnapped by local bounty hunters or were seized by U.S. troops by mistake. Such accounts were a source of embarrassment for the administration.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush Admin Argues that President is No Longer Bound by The Rule Of Law:

Kangaroo Courts that accept evidence gained under Torture, hide evidence of innocence, and are unaccountable to Judicial or Legislative Scrutiny added to Bush's previous crimes of authorizing Secret Prisons, Kidnapping, and Torture


The injustice of Bush's illegal and inhumane detentions is causing "unrest" at Gitmo, and around the world. Attorneys who go to Gitmo can only be blamed for highlighting these injustices, not causing them. Only in this Orwellian Administration could the exposers of injustice be blamed for causing the injustices. Such is the logic behind Bush's Criminal Acts.

The true Cause of the "Unrest" lies in the hands that manufactured the injustice: Bush and his Criminal Administration.

Many of Bush's legal maneuvers are designed to hide their crimes. Many at Gitmo were kidnapped, illegally detained, held in secret prisons and tortured. These crimes are the real secret Bush is trying to protect.

Open trials will free the innocent, and everyone else who was tortured and kidnapped by the Bush Administration. If we are still a nation of laws, rather than under the will of one man.

Open trials would not only expose the Crimes Committed by this Administration, but would also open the Administration to ridicule for its incompetence, and expose our President to prosecution in both American and International courts for Crimes Against Humanity, Assorted War Crimes, and breaking American Law.

Bush is openly arguing in American Courts that we are no longer a country that operates under the Rule of Law. Impeachment and prosecution is the proper Congressional response to these crimes, If Congress Takes Its Constitutional Duties Seriously.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 36 , 11th article on page, "DETAINEES” WANT RIGHTS? THEY ARE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE: AMERICA IS THE HOME OF RENDITIONS, NOT RIGHTS

Corruption Updates 38 , 2nd article on page, “THE KANGAROO COURT IS OPEN: ENTER AND BE CONVICTED:BUSH WAS GUILTY WHEN HE KIDNAPPED AND TORTURED THESE PEOPLE. DISGRACE FALLS ON AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM"

Search the Corruption Database under

Illegal Trials (9 Abstracts)

Illegal Detentions (15 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

8) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Newspaper Circulation in Steep Slide Across Nation

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

NY Times, May 1, 2007

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/media/01paper.html?pagewanted=print

Newspaper sales continue a steep slide nationally, figures released Monday show, but two New York City tabloids continued to buck the trend, posting the largest gains among major papers.

The industry as a whole reported a 2.1 percent drop in weekday circulation, and 3.1 percent on Sundays, in the six months ended March 31, compared with the period a year earlier. The figures, compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulations but not yet audited, reflect 745 of the nation’s more than 1,400 daily newspapers.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Crappy Newspapers of Corporate Media not Worthy to Clean a Dog's Ass

The behavior of our Corporate Media denies them use of the title of "Free Press," as much as the behavior of our Government denies them the title of "Democracy." Each is busy protecting the other, to protect itself.

Our Corporate Government continues to refer to the "Free Press," While the Corporate Media continue to refer to our Government as "democratic." Neither claim is credible.

We have neither a free press or a democracy: We live in a Corporate State with a Corporate Press.

We will only recognize this when we value democracy more than profits and power. Then the mask will fall, and we will be forced to take responsibility for the Crimes Committed in Our Name by these Corporate Tools, and take action to restore our democracy and free press.

Now is the time to identify and reform the corruption that has captured our parties and government.

Now is the time to restore the heart of our country: our free press.

Now is the time to punish the greedy and corrupt interests who have prostituted our government and press for power and wealth.

Now is the time to take up our Initiative, and force our government back to democracy.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 23 , 9th article on page, “BUSH ADMIN BUYS ANTI-CASTRO CUBAN REPORTERS IN MIAMI; NOBODY CARES: CORRUPTION OF PRESS BY GOVT & SPECIAL INTERESTS CONSIDERED NORMAL

Corruption Updates 17 , 9th article on page, “Secret Iraq Meeting Included Journalists: Reporters help plan war, and pre-war propaganda"

Corruption Updates 23 , 9th article on page, “TIMES SOFTPEDALS PRESIDENTIAL WAR CRIMES AND DOMESTIC CRIMES: LEAVE IT TO THE TIMES TO PUT LIPSTICK ON PIGS"

Corruption Updates 34 , 13th article on page, “Plame Treachery: CORPORATE PRESS A TOOL OF CORPORATIONS-SPECIAL INTERESTS"

Search the Corruption Database under

Media (38 Abstracts)

Home All Archives

Top of Page

9) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Warnings On Student Lenders Unheeded
Bush Aides Derailed New Rules in 2001

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 1, 2007; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001930_pf.html

The Bush administration killed a proposal to clamp down on the student loan industry six years ago following allegations that companies sought to shower universities with financial favors to help generate business, according to documents and interviews with government officials.

Now, as the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry faces an array of investigations into questionable business practices that some officials believe could have been curtailed by the 2001 proposal, the Education Department has embarked on a new effort to set rules for the industry to prevent conflicts of interest and other abuses.

The abandonment of the 2001 proposal underscores what some consumer advocates and Democratic lawmakers believe is lax federal oversight of the financial aid system by a department they say is too cozy with the industry. More than a dozen senior department officials either previously worked in the student loan business or found high-paying jobs in the sector after they left the agency.

"The Department of Education has been run as a wholly owned subsidiary of the loan industry under this administration," said Barmak Nassirian, a longtime advocate for industry reform at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. "They are running the federal loan program for the profit of their friends and not for the benefit of students and taxpayers."

Although investigators have found several cases in which lenders made payments to schools that steered business their way, it has not been established that those practices violate federal prohibitions on quid pro quo arrangements. The 2001 proposal addressed that challenge by saying the department would presume that a violation has occurred if a lender offers "something of value" to a school at which it has at least 20 percent of the school's loan volume.

"We were like, 'No, we're not going to drop a bomb on the lending community with these wacko ideas,' " said Jeffrey R. Andrade, a senior Education Department official at the time who now works for a loan company.

It wasn't long before the department's inspector general issued the first of several reports criticizing a lack of oversight from the agency's Office of Federal Student Aid.

Congressional Democrats and the department also are now investigating potential conflicts of interest among agency employees. One official, Matteo Fontana, a former Sallie Mae employee, was suspended early last month after revelations that he held more than $100,000 of stock in a student loan company while overseeing the industry.

 

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush has Corrupted Every Executive Branch Agency to Repay Corporate Bribery

Also See:

Corruption Updates 10, 5th article on page, “DO BRIBED POLITICIANS PROVIDE SAFE REGULATION OF PIPELINES, OR ANYTHING ELSE?” AP IN BEE.

Corruption Updates 12, 1st article on page, “POLITICAL CORRUPTION INFILTRATES INTERIOR DEPARTMENTPOLITICAL APPOINTEES ARE LOBBYISTS AND INCOMPENTENTS, AND GIVE AWAY BILLIONS TO THEIR BUDDIES"

Corruption Updates 16, 4th article on the page, "EPA STANDARDS WILL KILL YOU: SPECIAL INTEREST BRIBERY BRINGS AMERICA DEATH"

Corruption Updates 19, 1st article on page, “TOP RECIPEINTS OF LOBBYISTS BRIBES ARE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES

Corruption Updates 21, 9th article on page, “White House under Investigation for Censoring Science (Commerce and NASA)

Corruption Updates 24, 4th article on page, “ BIG OIL OWNS INTERIOR DEPARTMENT

Corruption Updates 24, 5th article on page, NYTIMES, 12-3-06, LOBBYING BY TRUCKING INDUSTRY BRINGS DEATH TO NATION'S HIGHWAYS INSURANCE AND SAFETY LOBBIES HAVE INSUFFICIENT BRIBE MONEY TO STOP TRUCKING LOBBY FROM GUTTING SAFETY RULES (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration)

Corruption Updates 25, 5th article on page, AP, 12-6-06, BATTERY LOBBY BRIBES ENDANGER HEALTH BUSH REPAYS BRIBES WITH OUR HEALTH AND WELFARE BY ATTEMPTING TO KILL LEAD STANDARDS (EPA)

Corruption Updates 25, 6th article, AP, 12-6-06, FARM LOBBY BRIBES ENDANGER HEALTH GRASSLEY (R-IOWA) REPAYS BRIBES BY KILLING EPA REGULATION OF FARMS (EPA)

Corruption Updates 32, 2nd article on the page, "BUSH TRIES TO KILL CHEMICAL RULES, SCIENCE, AND INTEGRITY IN ONE FELL SWOOP: INTEGERTY FALLS, RULES AND SCIENCE DAMAGED, BUT STILL STANDING (OMB)

Search the Corruption Database under

Schools

How lobbying buys lawmakers and law:

Corruption Updates 1, 2nd to last article on the page,Big Oil Owns our Politicians

Corruption Updates 2, 6th article down, “Contribute to Win, Big Contribs try to Trump State Safety Laws

See, “Contribute to Win, Big Contribs donate when legislation pending,” Corruption Updates 2, 6th article down.

Corruption Updates 3, 2nd article on page, “Big Business Spends Lawmakers into Compliance

Corruption Updates 4, 1st article on page, “Checks in, Laws Out, It's that Simple

SEE: Corruption Update #21, 5th article: Some legislative candidates run with big money but no opposition” This article highlights the redistribution of funds between Dem candidates, and how this predicts power within the party.

 

Home All Archives

Top of Page

10) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :

Russia to Suspend Compliance With Key European Pact
Putin Cites U.S. Missile Defense Plans

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 27, 2007; A16

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042600430_pf.html

MOSCOW, April 26 -- President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he was suspending Russia's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, ratcheting up a tense standoff with the NATO alliance over U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

The CFE Treaty dates from the last days of the Cold War and limits the deployment of conventional arms, including tanks and other heavy weapons, on either side of the old Iron Curtain. Putin linked his decision, which he said could lead to full withdrawal from the treaty, to the U.S. missile plan.

NATO countries are "building up military bases on our borders and, more than that, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," said Putin, delivering his annual state of the nation address to both houses of parliament, the cabinet and regional leaders. "In this connection, I consider it expedient to declare a moratorium on Russia's implementation of this treaty."

Russia plans to conduct national parliamentary elections in December, followed by presidential elections in March. Putin warned against any foreign interference in the political process.

"There is a growth in the flow of money from abroad for direct interference in our internal affairs," he said. "There are those who, skillfully using pseudo-democratic rhetoric, would like to return to the recent past -- some to loot the country's national riches, to rob the people and the state; others to strip us of economic and political independence."

Russian officials contend that in 1999, when Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary became alliance members, NATO gave a commitment that it would not establish bases on the territory of the old Warsaw Pact or expand into the former Soviet Union.

U.S. forces are today opening bases in Romania and Bulgaria, and three former Soviet republics -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- became NATO members in 2004, moves that Russian officials contend are violations of agreements. Western officials deny those claims.

In view of NATO's record, Russians say, the missile defense system, once established, could be quickly expanded and become a real strategic threat to Russia. "I propose discussing this problem in the NATO-Russia Council and, should there be no progress in the negotiations, to look at the possibility of ceasing our commitments under the CFE Treaty," Putin said.

Putin also said the CFE Treaty, which limits Russia's ability to deploy its forces within its own borders, was an anachronism. "It is hard to imagine that anyone would restrict the United States, for example, in moving its troops around its own territory," he said.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Russia Rejected Western Style Corporate dominated State:

What's Next?

America stood by, applauding, while Mikhail Khodorkovsky stole Russia's Oil Industry, and tried to leverage his stolen Big Oil money into Political Dominance, Just like his Big Oil pals had done in the United States. The takeover failed, and Kornhead will spend the rest of his life in Russian Prison.

We have exactly the same kind of people as Kornhead here in the US, except their plan to takeover our country in a flood of Corruption and Bribery Succeeded.

Bush, Cheney, and Ken Lay represent what happens when people like Khodorkovsky, the failed Russian Rockefeller, are able to leverage wealth into political power, and ultimately, into control of the whole political system.

The "oligarchs" failed attempt to impose the rule of wealth on Russia, and really pissed-off the Russian People with their efforts. Average Russians cheered wildly when this greedy bastard was jailed, and his fellow cockroaches fled for the West.

The rest of his gang of thieves, such as Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, fled Russia with as much money as they could steal from the Russian people. They are not welcome in Russia, unless they are willing to put their heads into a noose.

Putin's crushing of Khodorkovsky and his gang of criminals raised his approval rating to 80%, and it has not fallen significantly since.

Khodorkovsky represented American-Style business and political practices in Russia, and these practices were firmly rejected.

Our Support for these thieves squandered the our "political capitol" in Russia, and marked the end of hopes that a Corporate Elite would rise to rule Russia as it Rules the United States.

Our attempts to finance Corporate Politics and Parties in the Ukraine and Georgia are suffering similar fates, and raising the hostility of average Russians towards our interference in their, and their neighbors, domestic politics.

Now, largely due to our misguided interference in Russia's Domestic Politics, Non-Corporate Western Democratic Ideals are as dead in Russia as Corporate Democracy is. And so is the Conventional Arms treaty in Europe.

Our brilliant strategy offers us no room to criticize or pressure Russia from a moral high ground. Putin is Clubbing Dissenters in the streets of St. Petersburg with the approval and blessing of the Russian people, and there is not a thing we can do about it.

Putin will soon hand-pick his replacement as President, and the people will elect his chosen successor, or he will keep the Presidency.

Putin's choice depends on how he perceives the maturity and stability of his political Mafia: If Putin feels his party can maintain its strange balance between Commie-Style Authoritarianism within an economic system of modified open-market capitalism, he will step down.

If Putin believes his departure will allow the Market to Control Politics, or if he believes that post-Putin Authoritarianism will shut down their modified open-market capitalism, he will keep the Presidency.

It's Putin's Choice.

In either case, it's sure that the greed and dishonesty that dominates our government's Corporate Foreign Policy, combined with our military and political aggression along the soft, insecure underbelly of Russia's Southern Frontier, has rekindled the fires of paranoid anti-American nationalism in Russia.

Good work, America; your greed and ego has exceeded our principals, and blown our post-cold war chance to lead Russia, and the rest of the world, into a truly democratic age.

It was a pipe dream at best; how could we lead the world into something that we do not ourselves possess?

(First printed in 52_2)

Also See:

Corruption Updates 36 , 1st article on page, “RUSSIA RESPONDS STRONGLY TO AMERICAN AGGRESSION"

Corruption Updates 36 , 2nd article on page, “CHINESE ENJOY AMERICAN PROVACATION OF RUSSIA"

Corruption Updates 49 , 4th article on page, “Russian Minister Says No ‘Rogue State’ Missile Threat to Europe"

Search the Corruption Database under

Russia (7 Abstracts)

GO TO:

Previous Corruption Updates: Page 52

 

Next Corruption Updates: Page 54

 

Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org




Home All Archives

Top of Page



THE INITIATIVE

WHY
HOW TO HELP

THE PLAN

IMPORTANT DATES
ARCHIVE I
ARCHIVE 2
ARCHIVE 3
ARCHIVE 4
ARCHIVE 5
ARCHIVE 6
ARCHIVE 7
ARCHIVE 8
ARCHIVE 9
ALL ARCHIVES
CORRUPTION UPDATES
ALL ARCHIVES
Corruption Database
 

WHO WE ARE

CONTACT US

 
ARCHIVE I:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
ARCHIVE II:
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
ARCHIVE III:
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
ARCHIVE IV:
Page 14
vPage 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
ARCHIVE V:
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
ARCHIVE VI:
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29

ARCHIVE VII:

Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
ARCHIVE 8
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
ARCHIVE 9
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 45
Page 46
All ARCHIVES
 
SunSet
CREEK