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CORRUPTION UPDATES 62

Late May 2007:

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

 

CORRUPTION UPDATES 62

 

Previous Corruption Updates: Page 61

Next Corruption Updates: Page 63

Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org

Recent headlines in the News:

Escalating drug war grips Mexico

Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 2007

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0523/p01s01-woam.html

 

White House Is Said to Debate ’08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50%

New York Times, May 26, 2007http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/washington/26strategy.html?ref=todayspaper

 

U.S. Rebuffs Germany on Greenhouse Gas Cuts

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/world/europe/26climate.html

New York Times, May 26, 2007

 

Battle Over Control of Troops Escalates Political Crisis in Ukraine

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/world/europe/26ukraine.html

New York Times, May 26, 2007

 

 

Lawmakers in Colombia Urge Firing of Mediator

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/world/americas/26colombia.html

New York Times, May 26, 2007

 

Ex-Senator Faults ’86 Law on Immigrants

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/us/politics/26thompson.html

New York Times, May 26, 2007

 

Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah's fight against Hamas

The Bush administration has spent most of its $84 million in aid to Palestinians to train an elite corps of Fatah-loyal fighters.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0525/p07s02-wome.html

Christian Science Monitor, May 25, 2007

 

New Bio on Hillary: Sex, Lies, and Greed exposed.

See the Washington Post Article: Hillary

 

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

US unit created to pressure Iran, Syria disbanded

Occurs amid effort at talks

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has dismantled a special committee that was established last year to coordinate aggressive actions against Iran and Syria, State Department officials said this week.

The group had become the focus for administration critics who feared that it was plotting covert actions that could escalate into a military conflict with Iran or Syria. The air of secrecy surrounding the group when it was established in March 2006, coupled with the fact that it was modeled after a similar special committee on Iraq, contributed to those suspicions.

R. Nicholas Burns , the State Department's Under Secretary for Political Affairs, revealed in a written statement to a senator this week that the group was disbanded in March 2007 in "favor of a more standard process" of coordinating between the White House, the State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence agencies.

"At this stage, these are just initial steps towards diplomacy," Parsi said. "I think we have entered a stage in which the people who were favoring regime change are not strong enough to conduct policy but they are still strong enough to undermine policy. It is too early to count them out entirely."

Despite the group's dismantlement and the new diplomacy, aggressive actions against Iran and Syria are widely expected to continue. ABC news reported this week that President Bush has given the CIA permission to try to destabilize Iran's government with a "coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions," according to the network's website.

According to ABC, the covert action was championed by Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams , who co chaired ISOG.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Iranian Subversion Group Disbanded

The press and experts see this as a change in direction for the Administration; I see it as discarding a criminal group before hostilities with Iran begin.

There are a lot of factors in play which argue against expanding the war to Iran, first of which is the damage Bush has done to our military. It is incapable of sustaining an attack on Iran without a national mobilization.

But a "surge" in Iraq provides the reinforcements our position there requires to withstand the upsurge in the insurgency that is sure to follow an American attack on Iran. Another is that Iran will be able to threaten Arabic oil production facilities, if not politically destabilize Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

And then there is the Straight of Hormuz, which the Iranians will cut off for a time, and seriously threaten, if we attack them. It is certain they will seriously respond if we attack.

Bush has seriously screwed up with his botched plan to impose another American backed Dictator in the middle east. Rather than containing Iran and Syria, Bush has enhanced their positions. Rather than reinforcing the Israeli Subjugation of Palastein, Bush has destablilized Isreal's position.

Both Bush and Isreal's positions, there very existance, are based on violence alone. Violence can take a country for a short time, but violence is insufficient to keep a country.

Rather than assuring American domination of Arabic oil for the next 40 years by installing another American Backed Dictator into the heart of the middle east, Bush has hastened the post colonial evolution of Arabic identity and nationalism that has been brewing since the fall of the Ottomans.

Bush's war and crimes are creating and empowering anti-American sentiment around the middle east, forcing Arabic Governments to take a hard line against America's crimes in Iraq to stay on top of popular opinion.

This has allowed a broader pan arabic realization of the role that western powers have played in all of their countries during the last century to rise in anger. The enevitable emergence of Independent Arabic Political movements could have been a very good thing, had we not tried so hard to maintain our control over the region with lies and violence.

A little justice would have eliminated the need for a lot of violence.

Rather than really democratize these regimes, and honestly deal with the fair demands of democratically elected Arabic goernments, Bush approved the arrest of Hamas Legislators, sanctioned the last fraudlent presidential and legislative elections in Egypt. If Bush did no more that this, he would be no different from our last 10 administrations.

But Bush 's attempts to maintain western backed dictators in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, and reimpose them in Iraq and Iran through military as well as economic war has radicalized moderate Arabs, and threatened all of our middle eastern alliances.

Bush's use of war, kidnapping, torture, airstrikes against residences, and deep relationships with local dictators and tyrants to pursue energy domination in Arabic lands often employs the same terroristic tools he claims to be fighting against

Bush has ended our already hollow pretensions to moral superiority.

Rather than Moral Superiority, Bush is concerned with maintaining Military and Political Superiority over the middle east. Bush knows that his legacy, as well as American Domination over Arabic Oil, are the true stakes in his fool's game.

Democracy, Hussien's evil, nor the best interests of the American or the Iraqi people were ever a concern in Bush's war plans.

The cold fact is that our corporate leadership wants to double our population again during the next 40 years, like they did during the last 40 years. All the corporate politicians are aware of this fact, and that is why they backed, and continue to back, this crazy war.

To maintain our crazy growth rate, and continue our quest for world domination, Bush knew we would need to restore our slipping hold on the middle east, which has been slipping since the Iranian People threw out their American Puppet Dictator in 1979.

The upcoming presidential election, the war in Iraq, and the damages Bush has done to our middle eastern and world influence are incentives for Bush to stage at least a "Shock and Awe"attack against Iran. It will at least tame the Pussycrats, and may offer Bush a "national emergency" sufficient to "postpone" the election.

In any case, Bush sees many advantages by spreading war to Iran. It will quash the already feeble Democratic resistance to his Iraq, and offer Dems another way to "support the troops."

An Iran Crisis will take the heat off of Gonzales' crimes, let alone the graft and incompentence infesting every Executive Branch Agency. An Iranian Adventure will push domestic political corruption investigations to page 17 in the papers, for a month of Sundays. An Iranina war will give this tratorious Congress an excuse to Approve Bush's Illegal searching programs, his programs for kidnapping, endlessly detaining, and torturing anyone he wants.

The risk is that the Iranians will overreact, close the gulf, and engage American Allies across the middle east, sparking a regional, if not a global conflict.

If that happens, Bush will attempt to "postpone" the 2008 election because of the global emergency he created.
Bush sees many advantages to spreading war to Iran.

Also See:

“The Redirection” Seymore Hersh, The New Yorker

Search the Corruption Database under

Iran

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

Iran: Western Spy Networks Discovered

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
7:26 PM PDT, May 26, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top14may26,0,116463.story?coll=la-ap-topnews-headlines

 

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran said Saturday it has uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of "infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers."

The Intelligence Ministry has "succeeded in identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western, southwestern and central Iran," said the statement, using shorthand for United States and its allies.

Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency said the uncovered networks "enjoyed guidance from intelligence services of the occupying powers in Iraq" and also that "Iraqi groups" were "involved in the case."

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iran has often accused the United States and Britain of trying to undermine the security of the Islamic Republic.

The allegations Saturday come two days before American and Iranian ambassadors are to meet in Baghdad to discuss ways to ease the crisis in Iraq. It remains unclear how the announcement will affect those talks, although it clearly reflects a toughening of Iran's stand.

The talks will also take place against the backdrop of five Iranians held by U.S. troops for more than three months after their January capture in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.

Saturday's Iranian statement did not refer to either U.S. or Britain by name, but followed reports that President Bush has authorized the covert CIA action to destabilize the Iranian government.

State television said this month that Iran had captured 10 men crossing the country's eastern border, with $500,000 in cash, maps of sensitive Iranian locations and modern spying equipment. No other details were available.

Iran has arrested a number of Iranian-Americans in recent months, accusing them of seeking to topple the ruling establishment.

Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May and charged with seeking to topple the government in Tehran.

Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months, including Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine's Center for Citizen Peacebuilding; and Kian Tajbakhsh, consultant working for George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran's resort island of Kish.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Iranians responding to Bush Kidnapping of Iranian Diplomats

Since the Iranians had the gall to overthrow our Military Dictator, the Shah, we have done everything in our power to hurt Iran.

We have spent millions supporting internal resistance groups in Iran, and we have tried to cut Iran out of global business. It is suspected that the recent, terrorist bombings in Northern Iran were American backed attacks.

Bush and Cheney "took the gloves off," and their crimes have been ignored here, but not in Iran. Iran will not comply with our illegal demands to end its uranium enrichment.

Iran will never agree that Israel has any right to any Palestinian land, nor agree that military victory (in 1948) gives it any right to "exist." We seem to have forgotten that Israel was born in a violent wave of genocidal ethnic cleansing: No Muslim has forgotten that, nor have the Arab people forgotten that their leaders are appendages of American Military, Economic, and Political interference in their domestic affairs.

I hope I'm right, and that Bush's brutal militarism against Iran will cause middle eastern Muslims to rise and reject their American Backed Dictators when Iran enters the war against America.

Our 50 year program of brutality and greed in the middle east was coming to a close anyway. Bush's Iraq attack was a veiled attempt to re impose America's failing domination of the middle east. It backfired, and is now speeding the forces of independence in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

Bush's Iraq war failed to stem the tide, rather, it has sped the process: Now, Bush is running out of time and options to assure our continued domination of the middle east, and continue our irresponsible growth for the next 40 years.

Iran is his last, doomed, chance to achieve his evil goals.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 25 , 7th article on the page, "ITALY CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE, 25 CIA OPERATIVES INDICTED FOR KIDNAPPING"

Corruption Updates 32 , 10th article on the page, "Call for UN Action Against US Abduction"

Corruption Updates 34 , 4th article on the page, "BUSH KIDNAPPING ON TRIAL IN GERMANY"

Corruption Updates 51 , 6th article on the page, "U.S. Decides Against Freeing 5 Iranian Agents"

Search the Corruption Database under

Iran

Illegal Detentions

Illegal Trials

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

Arabs make plans for nuclear power

Iran's program appears to be stirring interest that some fear will lead to a scramble for atomic weapons in the volatile region.

By Bob Drogin and Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writers

May 26, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nuclear26may26,0,6887430,full.story?coll=la-home-world

From the Los Angeles Times



VIENNA — As Iran races ahead with an illicit uranium enrichment effort, nearly a dozen other Middle East nations are moving forward on their own civilian nuclear programs. In the latest development, a team of eight U.N. experts on Friday ended a weeklong trip to
Saudi Arabia to provide nuclear guidance to officials from six Persian Gulf countries.

The International Atomic Energy Agency sent the team of nuclear experts to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to advise the Gulf Cooperation Council on building nuclear energy plants. Together, the council members — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the seven sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates — control nearly half the world's known oil reserves.
Other nations that have said they plan to construct civilian nuclear reactors or have sought technical assistance and advice from the IAEA, the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, in the last year include Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, as well as several North African nations.
"We have the right if the Iranians are going to insist on their right to develop their civilian nuclear program," said Mustafa Alani, a security expert at the Gulf
Research Center, a think tank based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "We tell the Iranians, 'We have no problem with you developing civilian nuclear energy, but if you're going to turn your nuclear program into a weapons program, we'll do the same.' "

Iran sought to rally Arab support for its nuclear program at the World Economic Forum meeting of business and political leaders this month in Jordan.

"Iran will be a partner, a brotherly partner, and will share its capabilities with the people of the region," Mohammed J.A. Larijani, a former deputy foreign minister, told reporters.

Officially, leaders of the Arab gulf states say they are eager to close a technology gap with Iran, as well as with Israel, which operates two civilian reactors and is widely believed to have built at least 80 nuclear warheads since the 1960s. Israel does not acknowledge its nuclear arsenal under a policy aimed at deterring regional foes while avoiding an arms race.
A Russian diplomat here similarly cautioned that Iran's influence on other nations' nuclear plans might be overstated. "I should be very cautious about any connection between these two things," he said. "We don't deny that even Iran has the right to peaceful nuclear activities."

Although enthusiasm for prospective nuclear programs appears strongest in the Middle East, governments elsewhere have displayed interest in atomic power after years of decline in the industry that followed the 1979 reactor accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the far worse 1986 radiation leak at Chernobyl in Ukraine. About 30 countries operate nuclear reactors for energy, and that number seems certain to grow.

IAEA officials say the largest growth in nuclear power is likely to occur in China, India, Russia, the United States and South Africa, with Argentina, Finland and France following close behind. The United States has 103 operating plants, more than any other country, and as many as 31 additional plants are under consideration or have begun the regulatory process.

And there are other nations in line. Oil-rich Nigeria and Indonesia are preparing to build nuclear plants. Belarus and Vietnam have approached the IAEA for advice. Algeria signed a deal with Russia in January on possible nuclear cooperation. Morocco and Poland are said to be considering nuclear power. Myanmar disclosed plans to purchase a Russian research reactor.

Even Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries, has expressed interest.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush violence sparks instability and Mistrust: Arms Race is now Running
Iran has full legal rights under international law to enrich uranium. Under international law, India and Israel should be the targets of sanctions, not Iran.

Iran is doing nothing wrong. America Threats against Iran for the last 28 years were preceeded by an American Backed Dictatorship for 20 odd years, which was preceeded by around 50 years of British Colonial Rule.

This history alone offers sufficient reason justifing Iran's pursuit of Nukes, and we have done nothing during the last 30 years, or the last 3 years, to change their mind.

We would re impose a "Shah" on them in a hot second, if we could. The failures of our "Israel and Oil" diplomacy in the middle east have now uncorked the desire of every nation in the middle east to nuke Israel, and they are using American-inspired fear of Iran to justify developing nuclear programs. Weapons will not be far behind, and we will find out that it is not Iran they fear and hate, it is America and Israel.

By the time the Arabic nuke programs come to fruition, our puppet regimes in the region will be long gone.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 45 , 2nd article on the page, "U.S. Iraq Role Is Called Illegal by Saudi King"

Search the Corruption Database under

Saudi Arabia

Egypt

Pakistan

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

Low caste Indians set to convert

By Zubair Ahmed
BBC News, Mumbai

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/south_asia/6695695.stm

 

Saturday, 26 May 2007, 22:33 GMT 23:33 UK

 

Thousands of tribal and Dalit Hindus in India are to embrace the Buddhist faith at a huge gathering in Mumbai.

The ceremony, which may be presided over by Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is billed as the largest religious conversion in modern India.

The converts hope to escape the rigid caste system in which their status is the lowest.

The organisers say the number of people to convert in Sunday's ceremony could go up to 100,000, easily the biggest mass conversion in India's recent history.

...several Indian states, especially the ones governed by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, have made laws severely restricting conversion.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

No More Slaves for Reddy Realty!
We got a taste here in Berkeley of why 100,000 "untouchables" are converting to Buddhism in India: Our own resident Brahmin Scum, Lakireddy Reddy had imported his Indian peasant slaves here, and was using them as labor and sex slaves in his Berkeley Real Estate Empire.

It would be nice to see the "slaves" stop scum like Reddy in India, before they import their despicable practices here, where they fit in so well with the Corporate Democracy.

Also See:

Reddy of Berkeley is a Slave exploiting Scum, Busted , 1-20-2000

Reddy imported Indian Slavery to Berkeley: Berkeley Landlord Depicted As Overlord of India Village

Daily Planet Breakdown of Reddy Empire of Filth

Search the Corruption Database under

Reddy

India

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

Immigration judges lack apt backgrounds

A growing number of the jurists have little or no experience in that area of law. Some have strong Republican resumes.

By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

May 26, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys26may26,1,1587024.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

From the Los Angeles Times



WASHINGTON — Over the last two years, U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has appointed more than two dozen individuals as federal immigration judges.

The new jurists include a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, who was a legal advisor to the Bush Florida recount team after the 2000 presidential election. There is also a former GOP congressional aide who had tracked voter fraud issues for the Justice Department, and a Texan appointed by then-Gov. George W. Bush to a seat on the state library commission.

One thing missing on many of their resumes: a background in immigration law.

These lawyers are among a growing number of the nation's more than 200 immigration judges who have little or no experience in the law they were appointed to enforce.

The admission by former Justice Department official Monica M. Goodling this week that federal immigration judges were screened for their political credentials and loyalty to the Republican Party in possible violation of civil service laws is drawing new attention to the usually low-profile immigration bench.

Goodling testified that as a senior counsel to Gonzales in 2005 and 2006, she considered factors such as party affiliation and political donations when screening immigration judge applicants.

Of the 226 immigration judges around the country, 75 have been appointed during the Bush administration — 26 of them during Gonzales' tenure. The judges handled more than 300,000 cases last year, including deportation and asylum proceedings.

Immigration lawyers and judges said Goodling's revelation explained what they perceived as a growing politicization of the immigration bench in recent years.

The hiring and firing of immigration judges are covered by federal civil service laws, which prohibit discrimination based on political association.

The Justice Department has launched a widening internal review to see whether laws were broken in the hiring of the immigration judges as well as career prosecutors.

Goodling testified that she was told by another Justice official that because the judges are appointed by the attorney general, she could include political factors. Responding to her testimony, a Justice Department spokesman said Thursday that the department had never taken that view.

Considering political affiliation in filling civil service positions is a violation of the Hatch Act, which is designed to keep party politics separate from the day-to-day operations of the federal government. Such a violation could result in the firing of any employees involved in the illegal screening, and could trigger discrimination litigation by applicants who were declined positions.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Justice Department not Alone: Bush has Appointed Lobbyists who bribed him, with incompetent Friends to every Executive Branch Department

Also See:

Corruption Updates 44 , 2nd article on the page, "U.S. attorney probe raises civil rights issues"

Read more abstracts About Abuse of the US Attorney

Search the Corruption Database under

US Attorney

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

Suit Sheds Light on Clintons’ Ties to a Benefactor

By MIKE McINTIRE

May 26, 2007, NYT

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?

_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

When former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, one of their longtime supporters, Vinod Gupta, provided his company’s private jet to fly them there.

The company, infoUSA, one of the nation’s largest brokers of information on consumers, paid $146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Mr. Gupta and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, infoUSA paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events.

Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed late last year in a Delaware court by angry shareholders of infoUSA, who assert that Mr. Gupta wasted the company’s money trying “to ingratiate himself” with his high-profile guests.

In addition to the shareholder accusations, The New York Times reported last Sunday that an investigation by the authorities in Iowa found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised call lists with titles like “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” or “Suffering Seniors,” a compilation of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. The company called the episodes an aberration and pledged that it would not happen again.

Asked to describe Mr. Clinton’s consulting services, an infoUSA official said they were limited to making appearances at one or two company events each year. Jay Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, would not elaborate on what the former president does for infoUSA, but said that he shared the public’s concern about misuse of personal information.

An entrepreneur from India, Mr. Gupta, 60, founded infoUSA in Omaha in 1972 and built it into a publicly traded company with more than $400 million in revenue. Along the way, he nurtured a taste for politics, becoming a major Democratic fund-raiser and a Lincoln Bedroom guest in the Clinton White House.

Before leaving office, Mr. Clinton appointed Mr. Gupta to the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Earlier, Mr. Clinton had nominated him for two minor ambassadorships, which Mr. Gupta declined because of business commitments.

The shareholder lawsuit against infoUSA, brought by two Connecticut-based hedge funds, Dolphin Limited Partnership and Cardinal Capital Management, forced that information into the open. It charges that Mr. Gupta’s spending on the Clintons is part of a pattern of improper company expenditures for things like luxury cars, jets and houses, as well as a yacht that is notable for being one of the few to have an all-female crew.

“When the C.E.O. of a publicly traded company can say with a straight face that the shareholders benefit from having a yacht with an all-female crew stationed in the Virgin Islands, then you’ve got a problem,” Mr. Denton said. (Herbert A. Denton, president of Providence Capital, a New York hedge fund that also invested in infoUSA)

.” InfoUSA made $2.1 million in quarterly payments to Mr. Clinton from July 2003 to April 2005, and in October 2005 entered into a new three-year agreement to pay him $1.2 million. It also gave him an option to buy 100,000 shares of infoUSA stock, with no expiration date.

The complaint asserts that the contracts with Mr. Clinton are “extremely vague” to the point of being wasteful. It says they state that Mr. Clinton will not lobby for infoUSA, and that the company cannot use his name, likeness or association for any business purpose.

InfoUSA paid $18,480 in January 2004 to fly Mrs. Clinton “and her four-person entourage” to New York from New Mexico, where she had made a campaign appearance and attended a book signing. Campaign finance records show that her committee, Friends of Hillary, made a reimbursement of $2,127 for that flight.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Clintons Soak up Corporate Privilege and Wealth, And they Pay them Back with our Money and Power

Also See:

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

Corruption Updates 19, 3rd article on page, “PARTIES AND THEIR BRIBERS WORK TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE RESTRICTION”

Corruption Updates 26, 1st article on page, 12-8-06, LOBBYISTS SEE NO CHANGE UNDER DEMS CORRUPTION PRESENTED AS FORCE OF NATURE, DEM CORRUPTION NATURAL”

Corruption Updates 28, 1st article on page, 1-2-07: LOBBYISTS HIRING-BRIBING DEMS SHIFTING FUNDS AND PERSONELL TO DEMS ASSURES NO REAL CHANGES”

Corruption Updates 33 , 2nd article on the page, "Corporate Democrats of the Democratic Leadership Council Laughs at democracy"

Also See Right Web for an interesting profile of the DLC and its backers

Search the Corruption Database under

Big Money Politics

Democrats

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

Veiled warning on Musharraf rule

Saturday, 26 May 2007, 21:04 GMT 22:04 UK BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low

/world/south_asia/6695629.stm

Pakistan's ex-top judge has addressed thousands of supporters at Islamabad's Supreme Court, making a veiled attack on President Pervez Musharraf.

Ex-Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said it was vital to maintain the separation of branches of political power.

His last planned address in the city of Karachi earlier in May was cancelled after his visit led to street violence which left at least 41 dead.

President Musharraf has faced a backlash over Mr Chaudhry's dismissal.

Though he did not refer to the president by name, Mr Chaudhry said it was wrong for too much power to be wielded by one figure. Mr Musharraf is not only president, but head of the armed forces.

During the seminar, he told the audience: "The courts must be independent. Courts should remain free from the pressure of the executive.

"Abuse of power often occurs in a system of governance where there is centralization of all power in one person or in one institution and that is dangerous."

The president is accused of trying to stifle the independence of the judiciary in an election year, and protests over the judge have snowballed into a campaign against the government.

The speech to the Supreme Court Bar Association in Islamabad appeared to be an answer to the Karachi mayhem, a way of demonstrating that the opposition movement would not be intimidated, our correspondent says.

Observers have said Mr Chaudhry is offering an alternative to Pakistan's military rule, with an independent judiciary and a return to civilian government.

 

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Pakistan Wants Democracy:

US Backs Military Dictator Musharraf
We better send a whole lot more money and guns to Musharraf if we want him to continue in power.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 31, 10th article on the page,

"Pakistan's old new year"

Corruption Updates 38, 10th article on the page, "American Dictator Removes Chief Justice in Pakistan"

Search the Corruption Database under

Pakistan

International

Supporting Dictators

 

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

Unions split over immigration bill

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-immig1jun01,1,6870061,full.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

From the Los Angeles Times

Some welcome immigrants as new union members while others see only unwelcome competition for jobs. The split could doom the reform bill and have a broad political impact.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Times Staff Writer

June 1, 2007

WASHINGTON — Competing demands by two factions of organized labor could sink the latest immigration legislation, dividing congressional Democrats who rely on union support.

The labor divide reflects a deeper rift within the party, which includes a growing constituency of immigrants as well as middle-class workers afraid of layoffs as U.S. jobs move overseas.

On one side of the debate are the AFL-CIO and other large industrial unions whose members have historically seen illegal immigrants as unwanted competitors.

The other side includes the Service Employees International Union, whose members have healthcare, property management and public service jobs, and Unite Here, which represents garment, hotel and restaurant workers. These unions have embraced immigrants, even those here illegally.

"One is thinking in terms of adding members, and the other is thinking in terms of new people coming in and taking jobs from their members," said Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of a nonpartisan political newsletter.

Some Democratic strategists say the labor divide could be enough to halt the bill, given the amount of added opposition from immigrant groups and businesses. Others predict that the SEIU and Unite Here will succeed in moving the bill forward with their lobbying and organizing of immigrant workers.

Late last month, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney met with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Ken Salazar (R-Colo.), key members of the bipartisan coalition that drafted the Senate bill. At a meeting with Kennedy, Sweeney, who represents 10 million union members, was joined by Joseph T. Hansen, president of the 1.3-million-member United Food and Commercial Workers, and Terence M. O'Sullivan, head of the Laborers' International Union of North America, with more than 700,000 members.

While the industrial unions have not openly threatened legislators who have endorsed the legislation, the message is clear: "We support candidates who support our agenda," said Ramirez, the AFL-CIO lobbyist. "These votes definitely speak to that commitment."

The service workers' unions have launched a counter-campaign. A large number of Unite Here's 450,000 members — 50,000 of whom are in California — are immigrants, according to Tom Snyder, the union's national political director, and they back legalization.

Local 11 in Los Angeles is more than 80% immigrant, Snyder said, and other big locals in Las Vegas and New York have a majority immigrant membership, many of whom are illegal.


THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

What Kind of Union is Composed of Union Busters? Both!

The AFL-CIO Eliteism Betrays Regular Laborers, and The SEIU Mass Immigration Assures Permenant Poverty for all Labor

Also See:

Corruption Updates 21, 1st article on page, SEIU POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN LA DEFENDED AS NORMAL PRACTICE: UNION PRESIDENT'S Defense Based on Corruption being an Acceptable and Common Tool in UNION POLITICAL PRACTICES.

Ex-Union Chief gets jail...,Corruption Updates 27, last article on page.

Search the Corruption Database under

Unions

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

Minnesota case fits the pattern in flap over firing of U.S. attorneys

A prosecutor apparently targeted for firing had supported Native American voters' rights.

By Tom Hamburger
Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-usatty31may31,1,5345537,full.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

From the Los Angeles Times



May 31, 2007

WASHINGTON — For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.

So it came as a surprise — and something of a mystery — when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing.

Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.

At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger's office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

A hint at why Heffelfinger's name was on termination lists that Justice Department officials and Bush political strategists put together emerged when Monica M. Goodling, the department's former White House liaison, testified last week before the House Judiciary Committee about the firings.

Goodling said she had heard Heffelfinger criticized for "spending an excessive amount of time" on Native American issues.

Her comment caused bewilderment and anger among the former U.S. attorney's supporters in Minnesota. And Heffelfinger said it was "shameful" if the time he spent on the problems of Native Americans had landed him in trouble with his superiors in
Washington.

But newly obtained documents and interviews with government officials suggest that what displeased some of his superiors and GOP politicians was narrower and more politically charged — his actions on Indian voting.

About three months after Heffelfinger's office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

"I have come to the conclusion that his expressed concern for Indian voting rights is at least part of the reason that Tom Heffelfinger was placed on the list to be fired," said Joseph D. Rich, former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Rich, who retired in 2005 after 37 years as a career department lawyer — 24 of them in Republican administrations — was closely involved in the Minnesota ID issue. He played no role in drafting the termination lists, which were prepared by political appointees.
On his way out, Heffelfinger recommended that Joan Humes, the No. 2 person in the office, be named interim U.S. attorney. But Humes was rejected by the Justice Department — in part, Goodling testified, because she was known to be a "liberal."

The job went to a conservative Justice Department employee, Rachel Paulose. She had Ivy League credentials, brief experience as a prosecutor, and as a private lawyer had helped bring election lawsuits on behalf of the Minnesota GOP. She declined to comment for this article.

One of Paulose's first acts in office was to remove Lewis, who had written the 2004 e-mails to Washington expressing concern about Native American voting rights in Minnesota, from overseeing voting rights cases.

For his part, Heffelfinger said, he took Goodling at her word and believed that he was on the termination lists for his zeal in confronting problems facing Indian country. But Heffelfinger said he did not know whether voting rights in particular affected his standing with Washington.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

US Attorney Fired to Maintain Voter Fraud, and Suppression of Indian Voters

Also See:

Corruption Updates 43, 4th article on the page, "Gonzales Met With Top Aides On Firings: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"

 

Read more articles About Abuse of the US Attorney

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US Attorney

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

Pakistani businessman, donor to Dems, returns to U.S. to face charges

Abdul Rehman Jinnah, charged with illegally funneling funds to Clinton and Boxer campaigns, collapses at L.A. hearing.

By Greg Krikorian and Robin Fields
Times Staff Writers

May 30, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-jinnah30may30,1,4242723.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

From the Los Angeles Times



A Pakistani businessman accused of illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to the political campaigns of U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) surrendered to the FBI on a year-old indictment Tuesday, then collapsed in Los Angeles federal court.

Looking tired and disoriented, Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, complained of chest pains and began shaking an hour into a contentious bond hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh. The judge interrupted the hearing for nearly 30 minutes while paramedics attended to Jinnah.

Born in Pakistan, Jinnah immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1980s and settled in Northridge. Over the next decade, he tried his hand at a string of businesses and left a trail of angry creditors and former business partners, many of whom accused him of making grandiose promises he failed to fulfill, court records show.

But by 2004, Jinnah had positioned himself as a point man who could help the Democratic Party tap the increasingly affluent Pakistani American community for campaign funds.

He and his family personally contributed $122,000 to Democratic candidates and organizations that year and held events for Clinton and Boxer at his home.

Jinnah's legal troubles began when he allegedly attempted to circumvent federal contribution limits by reimbursing friends, business contacts and their family members for contributions made in their names.

From June 2004 to February 2005, according to an indictment, Jinnah solicited nearly $60,000 in political contributions to Clinton and Boxer from more than a dozen "conduits," reimbursing them with funds from his company, All American Distributing, a cellphone wholesaler.

Stuart Schoenburg, 76, a Tarzana television producer charged as Jinnah's co-conspirator, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count and is awaiting sentencing.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Dem Traitors at it Again: Selling Influence to, and Accepting Bribes From Foreigners

This happened before, during the 1996 election cycle, when Clinton and the Corporate Branch of the Democratic Party received unreported foreign bribes.

But this does not bother the Dems, especially the "global" Dems. If they had their way, foreigners would be able to both bribe, and collect favors, from them just like the American Special interests do.

For are not Greed, Bribery, and the American Way universal truths? Does not everyone, from Saudi Prince, to Mexican Peasant, recognize the power of political bribery? Is it not unfair to prohibit well funded foreginers from entering our political auction, as we have allowed poor foreigners to enter the labor pool?

The Poor Foreigners can destroy our working conditions and wages from the bottom, and the Rich Foreigners can participate in the destruction of our democracy, from the top.

Maybe Hillary doesn't have to wait for Amnesty to reap foreign bribes. Let's just open up the political auction to all the illegal foreigners already here.

The Dems could charge them by the head, and pay them off by giving them free access to our hospitals, medical care, our schools, roads, water and electrical supplies. Hell, we still have enough for half the people who are here.

Both parties will continue to use foreigners as cheap labor, earning massive profits while throwing the social costs onto what's left of the middle-class's broken infrastructure.

Also See:

Albion Monitor, Monitor Wire Services, 2-18-97, "More Questions About Clinton's Asian Donations"

March 30, 1998: Clinton's Asian superfunds - '96 campaign funds - Senate probe reports

Dec. 19, 1996, NY Times, "Money From Private Sources Helps Clinton and Associates With Bad Times and Good"

A fine list of NY Times Articles detailing the scummy relationships between the Clintons and Foreign Theives

Also See Right Web for an interesting profile of the DLC and its Corporate Backers

Search the Corruption Database under

Clintons

Democrats

Big Money Politics

 

Previous Corruption Updates: Page 61

Next Corruption Updates: Page 63

 

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