CORRUPTION UPDATES 52

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

Wolfowitz Clashed Repeatedly With World Bank Staff
Tenure as President Has Been Rocky

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 15, 2007; A12

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401564_pf.html

As he prepared to sign a five-year contract as World Bank president in the spring of 2005, Paul Wolfowitz sent his personal lawyer, Robert Barnett, to negotiate the terms. Barnett, whose high-profile clients have included some of Washington's biggest political and media figures, did not mince words in his meetings with the bank's legal team.

Wolfowitz wanted more than a dozen amendments to the standard contract that had served the institution for decades, Barnett told them, including special dispensation for the books he would write and the paid speeches he planned to deliver, and a salary on par with that of the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, who was traditionally more highly paid.

A final sticking point, conveyed in all capital letters in an e-mail to then-general counsel Roberto Dañino, was Wolfowitz's insistence that, while he had earlier offered to recuse himself from all office matters involving bank employee and his girlfriend Shaha Riza, he insisted on retaining retain "professional contact" with her -- something that the executive board later determined was a clear conflict of interest under personnel rules.

Wolfowitz has clashed with the staff over pay packages and authority he gave to aides Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems, whom he brought to the bank from the White House, installed in senior positions and rewarded with open-ended contracts and quarter-million-dollar, tax-free salaries, despite their lack of development experience.

Both staff and management also have raised concerns over what several described as Wolfowitz's insistence that the bank accelerate its lending to Iraq and open an office there.

Although the bank eventually opened a $500 million loan program for Baghdad, the board took the unusual step of asking to be "regularly updated" on developments, according to internal documents obtained by the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based whistle-blower group that tracks World Bank activities.
Another signature Wolfowitz initiative was a new anti-corruption strategy for countries receiving bank loans. But at a meeting last fall in Singapore, bank governors rejected the proposal on the grounds that it would politicize the multilateral institution. More recently, they attacked Wolfowitz's budget proposal, saying it lacked a coherent strategy. (just like Iraq!)

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Wolfie Steals for Love and Greed, II

See the article and Commentary: Wolfie Steals...#I (Corruption Updates 51, 5)

Also See:

Corruption Updates 51, 4th article on the page, "Wolfowitz Apologizes For 'Mistake'"

Search the Corruption Database under

World Bank

Wolfowitz

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

Dozens Arrested as Riot Police Beat Anti-Kremlin Protesters in St. Petersburg

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 16, 2007; A11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/15/AR2007041500250_pf.html

MOSCOW, April 15 -- Riot police beat anti-Kremlin demonstrators who attempted to march to government buildings in St. Petersburg on Sunday after an officially permitted protest rally on the edge of the city center, in a second day of clashes in Russia.

The violence followed the arrest of nearly 200 people in Moscow on Saturday, when an anti-government coalition led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was prevented from assembling in Pushkin Square. Kasparov was arrested but released late Saturday after he was fined $39 for participating in an unsanctioned rally. He did not travel to St. Petersburg, according to a spokesman for the activist.

In St. Petersburg, police detained an organizer of Sunday's march as she left her home to attend the rally. Police said Olga Kurnosova, the head of Kasparov's organization in St. Petersburg, was arrested for a traffic violation, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Some of the 3,000 protesters who attended the rally were arrested for vocally denouncing President Vladimir Putin and his administration, police said.

"Several participants in the rally have been arrested for chanting anti-constitutional and anti-government slogans and using foul language," a police spokesman told Interfax. "Leaflets and pamphlets urging readers to organize an unauthorized march were seized from several other demonstrators. They were detained and taken to a police station."

The rally was organized by the Other Russia, an anti-Kremlin coalition whose other demonstrations have been violently suppressed in three cities, including St. Petersburg, in recent weeks.

The Other Russia, which includes liberals, nationalists and communists, is united by a disdain for Putin's rule.

Kasparov and other dissidents say the Kremlin's stranglehold over the broadcast media and the lack of open political debate and competition have forced them to demonstrate.

When anti-Kremlin activists receive any television coverage, they are condemned as extremist hooligans or the puppets of foreign interests -- either the exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, the United States, or both.

Putin enjoys overwhelming support in Russia, while the Other Russia and other opposition groups are marginal forces.

"It is no longer a country . . . where the government tries to pretend it is playing by the letter and spirit of the law," Kasparov said late Saturday.

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 a significant degree of control over the whole political system.

The "oligarchs" failed attempt to impose the rule of wealth, of American-style Corporate Democracy, on Russia really pissed-off the Russian People, who 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 citizens in each these countries towards outside interference, bet it American or Russian interference in their domestic affairs.

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. Thus the beatings in the streets of St. Petersburg.

And Putin is Clubbing Dissenters in the streets of St. Petersburg with the approval and blessing of the vast majority of the Russian people. Remember this the next time Newt speaks of the "public will."

Putin will soon hand-pick his replacement as President, and the people will elect his chosen successor, or Putin 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 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 Corporate Greed and dishonesty that dominates our 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?

Interested in a brief Answers.Com Bio on Khodorkovsky?

Also See:

Corruption Updates 14 , 1st article on the page, "Political culture of lies and war"

Corruption Updates 28 , 2nd article on the page, "BRIBERY RISES WITH CORPORATE TRANSITION IN RUSSIA: RUSSIA FOLLOWING AMERICA BY TALKING DEMOCRACY AND DOING BRIBERY"

Corruption Updates 51, 4th article on the page, "Who's to Blame for Russia?"

Search the Corruption Database under

Russia (7 Abstracts)

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

Congressman Quits Panel After Raid

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 20, 2007; A08

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902558_pf.html

Less than a week after the FBI raided the Northern Virginia home of his wife, Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) gave up his coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee yesterday amid concerns that he had used that post to advance the interests of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other allies.

Doolittle's wife, Julie, operates Sierra Dominion Financial Services Inc. out of the couple's home in Oakton. Since 2005, a Justice Department task force has been looking into payments made by Abramoff and other lobbyists to Doolittle's wife and the spouses of other lawmakers. The couple's house was raided last Friday, the same day that Doolittle's former legislative director, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned as a lobbyist for Barnes & Thornburg. Ring had been an intermediary in Abramoff's hiring of Julie Doolittle's firm as a fundraiser for a charity the lobbyist had founded.

Doolittle also helped steer millions of dollars in military funding to one of the defense contractors tied to the bribery case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.).

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Scumbag Doolittle Quits Committee of Corruptions:

Doolittle steps down from Appropriations Committee after draining America of Money and Honor

Doolittle must go to Prison. As the poster child of Congressional Corruption, he shot his mouth off endlessly about values, while taking massive Abramoff Bribes to protect legalized slavery in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Doolittle is a disgrace to America. He has defiled American Democracy, given the notion of American Freedom a black eye, and has gotten rich selling our most treasured political values to traitors like Abramoff.

I suggest life in prison, and stripping he and his wife of every asset they collected during his tenure in government.

That would differ from the Duke's punishment. Duke was allowed to keep much of his criminal gains in political office by Bush Administration "prosecutors."

Also See:

Corruption Updates 1, 5th article on the page, "Doolittle received $14,000, helped Abramoff win contract: Abramoff-Doolittle: A Love Story"

Corruption Updates 18, 4th article on the page, "DOOLITTLE SOUGHT AND GOT ABRAMOFF JOB FOR WIFE"

Corruption Updates 30 , 3rd article on the page,

"HONESTY FORCES DOOLITTLES TO POVERTY: WIFE LOSES ABRAMOFF JOB, HER 15% COMMISSION ON “CONTRIBUTIONS,” (Bribes) AND ABRAMOFF's BRIBES ALL AT ONCE"

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Doolittle

Abramoff

Duke

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

Justices may ease limits on 'issue ads'

Some groups may be permitted to mention candidates in preelection spots, exempting them from a broadcast ban.

By David G. Savage
Times Staff Writer
April 26, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-scotus26apr26,1,6195047.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday that it was likely to permit a return to broadcast ads next election season that tell voters to "contact" a candidate and "send him a message."

These were known as "issue ads" by their sponsors, but most everyone else understood they were intended to help or hurt a candidate running for federal office.

Federal law has long prohibited corporations from directly supporting candidates.

When it passed the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, Congress extended that prohibition to also ban corporations and unions from funding preelection broadcast ads that mentioned a candidate for office.

This ban was intended to stop "issue ads" sponsored by the insurance and drug industries, among others, that flooded the airwaves in the weeks before the election. The limited broadcast ban goes into effect 30 days before a state primary election involving candidates for Congress or president. It also covers the 60 days before the general election in November.

"If we agree with you in this case, goodbye McCain-Feingold," interjected Justice Stephen G. Breyer. He said corporate groups would see such a ruling as giving a green light to preelection broadcasts that are designed to aid or undercut a candidate.

But based on their comments Wednesday and their past decisions, a five-member majority is likely to side with the challengers and allow at least some corporate groups to pay for preelection radio and TV ads that speak of candidates.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy have said the McCain-Feingold Act should be struck down on free-speech grounds, and they are likely to be joined by Bush's appointees: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Roberts, however, said he was not convinced the broadcast ban should be struck down entirely.

Instead, he asked how advocacy groups could be exempted from it so they could sponsor ads that focus on issues, not candidates.

The justices will meet behind closed doors to vote on the case, Wisconsin Right to Life vs. Federal Election Commission, and they will issue a ruling by the end of June

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Supreme Court to Overrule Voter Franchise in Defense of Corporate "Free Speech"

Here it is: The Supreme Court is going to officially allow free speech to be used as a cover for corporate participation in elections that will completely overwhelm the franchise rights of average voters.

Corporate Free Speech will now trump the sovereignty of the voter.

How? First, by granting political Free Speech Rights to Corporations, allowing the virtually unlimited corporate wealth to overwhelm voter's contributions in the Bribery Arms Race.

This farce's sole goal is to allow the individuals who own and control the Corporations to side-step contribution limits, and use their Corporations as a megaphone to amplify their own political voices with the full power and wealth of their Corporations. But that is only the beginning.

The Court is going to magically expand these illegal, and unconstitutional, Corporate "speech rights," by allowing Corporations to use their vast wealth to overpower the voice of the local voters through direct Propaganda supporting their Corporate Candidates.

It will be de facto contributions outside the limits or reporting rules presently regulating political contributions.

The will and power of the Voters will be cast aside by this anti-democratic ruling. Hell, the Corporations financed the politicians who appointed the Supreme Court. What would you expect?

The Supreme Court will empower the Corporations to wield more power and influence in our elections than any individual voter.

And, as it is today, the most powerful Corporations will wield the most power in politics, extending the political control of our parties, elections, and government which they already enjoy.

I hope I'm wrong, and the Supreme Court will stop non-voting entities from manipulating our elections and making our government no more than a cheap whore for Corporate wealth and power.

But I'm not. The Supreme Court is already composed of the tools of our Corporate polity, and they will wreck our Constitution and democracy to serve their Corporate Masters. Just look at the tools who appointed them.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't fear the truth. I deal with it.

Do you?

Also See:

Corruption Updates 32 , 4th article on the page, High court to review campaign finance law: SPECIAL INTEREST DEMOCRACY, OR DEMOCRACY? Supreme Court About to Unleash Unlimited Corporate Political Propaganda

Search the Corruption Database under

Supreme Court (9 Abstracts)

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

Muslim Brothers in military trial

Thursday, 26 April 2007, 18:08 GMT 19:08 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/6597041.stm

The first hearing in the military trial of 33 members of Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood has been held at a military base in Cairo.

The defendants are understood to face charges relating to membership of a banned organization, money-laundering and supporting terrorism.

Defense lawyers boycotted the session, protesting that the court did not notify them of the start of the trial.

The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed, but has traditionally been tolerated.

This is the first time in seven years that members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been tried before a military court.

"We haven't been officially notified about this trial. The whole thing looks suspicious," a member of the defense team told the Associated Press news agency.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Bush-Style Military Trials A-OK in Egypt

Here, in America, it is clear that our "Free Press" have missed our government's direct support of dictators, death squads, and Banana Republics for the last 100 years.

Heck of a "miss."

According to ABC, NBC, PBS, and CBS we are fighting for freedom and democracy in Iraq. And “everyone thought” Saddam had WMD. According to our "Free Press," our enemies are Cuba, Iran, Palestine and Venezuela.

The common link between these nations is that they have thrown our American-backed Dictators, or dared to elect governments unacceptable to us. Let's have some fun figuring out who our next enemy will be.

Egypt's American Dictatorship is indicative of our intentions for the middle-east, and it is not democracy. The Egyptians would vote Mubarak's dictatorship out in a second, if they could. Since Egypt has never had honest elections, Mubarak will be violently forced from power.

If the Egyptian People revolt and take over, Egypt will become our newest enemy. Pakistan is in exactly the same position.

Our greed and violence's are bringing the political situations in the middle east to a head, well before we will be able to moderate our own behavior enough to assure the rise of an independent middle east that will regard the US as a friend.

The Brothers on trial in Egyptian Military Courts are representative of the future leadership of Egypt. Judging by how we and our military dictatorships in the region are treating these people, you can be certain that they not going to be our friends when they finally kill, or drive Mubarak out of Egypt.

An independent middle east is going to rise, and it will be very hostile to the countries that oppressed it for the last 100 years.

Practically speaking, this means that Egypt will not transfer power from Mubarak to another American puppet dictator. No matter how harsh and nasty we encourage his dictatorship to be.

His son will not take power. The Saudi monarchy will not be able to maintain power based on American support. The monarchy in Jordan is already dead, but too stupid to lay down in its grave.

Pakistan will shed its American backed dictator, and will become an independent, Islamic nation with nuclear weapons. And so will Iran.

And they will all hate us.

Bush's invasion doomed what it was meant to preserve: American hegemony over middle eastern resources and politics.

Thus it is good that Bore and Korny were not elected. Their “soft” version of American Corporate Fascism would not have stopped the birth of independent Islam, but only delayed it.

Gore and Kerry would have tried to maintain our colonial system, globalism, and the dictatorships that support it, through moderation, rather than Bush's “preemptive,” military approach to the emergence of local sovereignty and democracy.

Moderation is not possible now, no matter how wise a corporate Democrat the corporations sponsor for President.

Our international system is immoral, if preserved through moderation or militarism. The former only delays the fall of our empire, while militarism hastens its decline.

The unintentional consequence of our idiotic, imperial foreign policy is that the loss of American political control of the middle east, and its oil, will give Americans, here in the “homeland,” (of foreign labor and multinational corporations) an opportunity to end the corporate hijacking of our democracy.

Make no mistake about it: It is not The Brotherhood that is on trial in a military court in Cairo. It is the very legitimacy of Mubarak's military dictatorship, and its American Backers that is on trial.

And we all have watched while Bush has been claiming and using the same authority in the US that Mubarak has imposed on Egypt.

The very existence of Mubarak's Military Kangaroo Court strongly condemns his regime as illegitimate, held together only by American money and military support combined with Mubarak's willingness to use violence and intimidation, rather than democracy, to base his power.

And we are just fine with military courts and unlimited dictatorial presidential powers, both here, and in Egypt.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 32, 1^st article on page, “RICE THANKS EGYPTIAN DICTATOR FOR REGIONAL SUPPORT”

Corruption Update 40, 6 ^th article on page, "Before the vote" (MUBARAK ABOUT TO IMPOSE BUSH RULES ON EGYPT The Constitutional changes Mubarak is about to impose on Egypt are the same powers Bush has claimed here)

Capitol embraces prison deal -- but will judges?

By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTFriday, April 27, 2007

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/162077.html

The Legislature's bipartisan passage Thursday of a $7.9 billion prison construction and rehabilitation plan only awaits the assured signature of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before it becomes law.

But it is still a very open question whether the plan to add 53,000 beds to the state's prison and jail systems, tied to a strong rehabilitation component, will gain favor with three federal judges who are considering population caps to relieve California's inmate overcrowding crisis.

Don Specter, the directing attorney of the San Rafael-based Prison Law Office...

Specter said he will try to persuade U.S. District Court Judges Lawrence Karlton, Thelton Henderson and Claudia Wilken in hearings scheduled for June that they still should convene three-judge panels to impose population caps. In spite of Thursday's votes, Specter said, the Legislature "failed to provide any immediate relief for what the governor concedes is an emergency" and also "failed to implement any structural reform so that the prison overcrowding crisis will abate in the future."

The deal will provide 16,000 new beds at existing prisons, 16,000 locally based "re-entry" beds for short-term inmates and parole violators, 8,000 new hospital medical beds to satisfy federal court medical and mental health care monitors and 13,000 county jail beds.

It did not include a proposal for a sentencing commission or direct discharge of nonviolent offenders from parole, items the governor had included in the correction overhaul proposal he laid out in December.

Along with the new bed space and programs, the plan includes legislative approval for the state to transfer 8,000 inmates, voluntarily or not, to out-of-state prisons.

Thursday's votes represented a major setback for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the 31,000-member prison union renowned in recent decades for the political influence it has wielded in the Legislature. But even with a team of lobbyists and dozens of members working the hallways of the Capitol on Thursday, the union, which also is working these days without a contract, sustained a bitter defeat.

CCPOA President Mike Jimenez said the union was mostly opposed to the out-of-state transfer component, which it is currently fighting in the courts. He also said he was concerned about overcrowding caused by the "infill" program at existing prisons that he said would pose grave threats to the safety of his union members.

Corrections Director Jim Tilton disagreed, saying that the infill program will in time replace the 16,000 beds prison officials have stacked up in gyms, day rooms, work areas and classrooms to house the 172,000-plus inmates in prisons crowded to twice their designed capacity.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

State Prison Bill for Enriching Contractors-Developers:

It Does Nothing to End Inhumane Conditions for Prisoners

Devil's Island in California? Yes, and our prisons will remain inhumane for the foreseeable future, under this piece of crap legislation our worthless Assembly approved.

And why are the people of California being burdened with paying the costs of Corporate Cheap Labor? The fallout of our foreign labor policy and Amnesty for the last generation of cheap labor is sitting in our prisons. And our emergency rooms. And our failing schools.

And somehow, amid this growing well of social violence, ignorance and poverty, somehow, the Corporations are enjoying historic profits. This money is being put to good use: The Corporations are Bribing politicians and buying elections like there's no tomorrow.

Gee, do you think these things are connected?

Why are our citizens paying the costs of impoverishing themselves? Because the Corporations control our press, politicians and government. According to all three, anybody who sneaks into the country is an American, due the same services and rights they already stole from the Citizens: None.

And you, the California Citizens, get the privilege of paying to subsidize the cheap labor and profits of our corporate masters. Unless you are enjoying the fruits of our irresponsible growth.

And if the foreigners keep their mouths shut, work hard for slave wages, and obey the master's orders, they have met all the Corporate Qualifications for Citizenship, and will be rewarded for their obedience to power and greed with citizenship. You can go far. Look what John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales have contributed to America.

What about The Constitution? What about Our laws, culture, customs and values? The Corporations and their foreign minions Shit on That, in a crapfest of mutual self-interest. Really, just ask them.

They'll tell you that "the Constitution doesn't apply, it was written for a different time and place." They'll tell you to piss off.

Gee, wonder why our democracy is broken? We have allowed our Corporations and their politicians to fill our country with corporate asslickers for 30 years. The Fascist Cubans. The Shah's Iranians. The Vietnamese who supported US rule over their country. Anyone who will obey to consume is welcome. Just wonderful. Gee, do you wonder where our middle-class went? Let me repeat: We have filled our country with corporate asslickers for 30 years. We have divided into the rich, and the rest.

The bill for this political, social and economic irresponsibility has been deferred for 30 years, and it is coming due. And the corporations and their politicians are going to make you pay, again.

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

Corruption Updates 43 , 3rd article on the page, "State prisons in 'tailspin,' panel says"

Search the Corruption Database under

Prisons (10 Abstracts)

Crimigrants

Immigration (10 Abstracts)

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

Frist Not Charged as Investigators Close Probe of His Hospital Stock Sales

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 27, 2007; Page A13

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042602343.html

Ending an investigation that clouded the tenure of former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, federal prosecutors have decided not to file insider-trading charges against the Tennessee Republican for his sales of stock in a family-owned chain of hospitals.

The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York and Securities and Exchange Commission staff sent Frist letters last week signaling that they had closed their joint, 18-month investigation. The letters essentially cleared him of wrongdoing.

At issue in the long-running investigation was the sale of all of Frist's remaining HCA shares by July 8, 2005, a few days before a downbeat forecast that sent HCA's stock price tumbling by 9 percent in a single day.

The timing triggered multiple federal investigations and months of complex legal reviews.

Frist's older brother, Thomas, a board member and former chief executive at HCA, also had been the subject of government scrutiny. It appears that he will not be charged either, sources familiar with the probe said.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

I don't Believe Frist, or Bush's Political US Attorneys

Questions on US Attorney Job Application: Who's always right? Who can break no laws? Are you greedy and ambitious? Are you willing to do anything to satisfy your greed and ambition?

Answers: Bush. Bush. Yes. Yes.

Congratulations, if you answered these four questions correctly, you are now a US Attorney, and qualified to investigate political corruption.

Frist? There is no way in today's political climate that we can confirm his innocence, except by saying he ran the Senate for the last 6 years.

Enough said.

Also See:

Corruption Updates 26 , 6th article on the page,"Aspirations Dashed, Frist Says Farewell"

Read more articles About Abuse of the US Attorney

Search the Corruption Database under

Frist (2 Abstracts)

US Attorney (37 Abstracts)

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

Freshmen House members now face nonstop campaigning

The same goes for fundraising too.

From Associated Press
3:14 PM PDT, April 27, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-aphousecampaigns27apr27,1,969586.story?coll=la-headlines-politics

CORNWELLS HEIGHTS, Pa. -- Rep. Patrick Murphy hasn't let the fact that he was elected to Congress in November put a stop to his campaigning.

Some in this year's crop of congressional freshmen are finding they must be constant campaigners, with growing pressure to raise money...

For incumbents, particularly freshmen who haven't had as much time to develop name recognition in their home districts, that means added pressure to raise enough money to elevate their profiles and deal with potential challengers.

"Republicans learned our lesson on pork-barrel politics -- learned it the hard way," House Minority Leader John Boehner, said in an op-ed printed April 16 in the National Review. "Sadly, it appears the Democrats who now control Congress haven't learned from our mistakes, and never really intended to."

So the campaign -- and the quest for money -- continues...

"It's hard to go back to people you were asking only a few months ago," Murphy said. "It's a necessary evil."

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

AP Soft Pedals Corporate Control of Elections
"It's a necessary evil"

The AP fails to point out the fact that our political system has been hijacked by special interest bribery and corruption, not the contributions of the actual voters.

It must have been hard to write this story while ignoring the system of wholesale bribery and corruption that has stolen our democracy, while putting candidates among the people.

But our Corporate Press is up to the task!

Mr. Murphy must be high, stupid, or lying. Or he thinks we are. Elections are won by obtaining and maintaining Millions of Dollars of Corporate and Special interest Bribes. 1.8 million in Murphy's case.

1.8 million marks Murphy as a cheap political whore, compared to the rest of the pack. Murphy and AP worked together well to present a distorted image how politicians get elected today, soft peddling the corporate bribery while highlighting Murphy on the train platform.

Today, all politicians, even Mr. Murphy, solicit Bribes from the Corporations, (be they lobbying-law firms, or) and assorted special interests, (Elite Government Unions) not their own voters.

Mr. Murphy, like the rest of the politicians in office today, rode a wave of Bribery Money into office, and they will pay it back to get more Bribe Money for the next election cycle. That's the real story here.

Going into today's political world without realizing you're a whore is like joining the Marines and being surprised that your job is killing people.

Also See:

Check out Murphy's list of Shadow Parties, (MoveOn) Lawyers/Lobbyists, and business-labor contributions at OpenSecrets.Org

See how Murphy got a third of his contributions from out of state contributors, again at OpenSecrets.Org

Corruption Updates 22, 6th article on the page, "deep pockets carry the day" MONEY WINS IN ALMOST EVERY POLITICAL RACE: POLITICAL VICTORY GOES TO THE BIGGEST SPENDER. BIG SPENDERS CLEAN UP. DEMOCRACY A JOKE. BIG SURPRISE

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10) 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.

In filings to the appellate court in recent weeks, the Justice Department argued that detainees should be allowed three visits with their attorneys, instead of an unlimited number.

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.

"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."

Many of the approximately 380 foreign nationals at the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been imprisoned for years.

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.

But under a law approved in 2005, detainees' attorneys now must seek to prove their clients' innocence in the appeals court. The law, crafted by the White House and approved by Congress when Republicans controlled both chambers, denies detainees the right to challenge their detentions in trial courts and requires them to petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review Pentagon decisions to hold them.

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

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

Bush is confused. The American Constitution was not made to give rights to foreigners, The American Constitution was designed to set the terms of our government's legitimacy by dividing power between the branches, and restraining and checking the use of power by each branch.

The President has illegally consolidated powers the Constitution wisely divided.

One of the Constitution's most important checks on arbitrary power is the division of wartime authority between the President and Congress.

Congress declares war, sets the objective, means, and rules, then the President leads the country. Congressional and Constitutional restraints are inherent in the grant of war powers, and do not end at our borders.

If not, the President need only to march our armies out of the country, and escape the grasp of Congress and Constitution to do whatever he pleases.

Congress has not declared war, nor set the objectives, means, nor the rules for this “war.” Except their hideous and unconstitutional revocation of habius corpus.

This President has made rules for captures that authorize kidnapping, indefinite detentions, and torture.

These are criminal acts prohibited by the Constitution and long standing law. Now the President has created a military “justice” system that assures conviction for the victims of Bush's crimes, in secret, with none of the judicial safeguards an honest, Constitutional process requires.

But this is consistent with his whole administration: virtually all of The President's Actions, in Iraq, in the nonsensical “war on terror,” and his use of the executive branch agencies has been illegal, immoral, and clearly against the spirit of the Constitution and the letter of the law. He is the most consistent president we have ever had.

But Bush's crimes began in Congress, when they abused their war powers by not declaring war. Instead, they granted the President vague, and unconstitutional “war powers.”

But Congress has no power to grant the President Unconstitutional powers. The President has no right to interpret any law as absolving him of his Constitutional restraints and duty to obey the law.

The whole lead up to the war by the President, Congress, and the press was an exercise in abuse of power, their offices, and our Constitution.

And the President has taken full advantage: Bush twisted these already unconstitutional “war powers” into a declaration of endless war unbounded by borders, or the rule of law.

The President's acts are a declaration of war against the Constitution, and our country, not Iraq.

Congress again joined the President in his crimes when they passed a bill which removed the President's prisoners from judicial review, and stripped them of Habeas Corpus.

The Constitution is clear:

The Privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

We have neither, yet Congress acted against the Constitution to remove Habeas Corpus. Every politician who voted for that Bill must be removed from any Constitutional office in our Government.

Our President is restrained by the Constitution anywhere he uses the power of office, be it inside or outside the country. Both Congress and the President have broken the law, and violated the specific words of our Constitution.

Let's be very clear about this: Bush is a criminal. Bush is not confused. He is a criminal who is purposely using the pretext of “foreigners,” “terrorism,” and fears of foreign threats, to manufacture Presidential Powers the Constitution specifically denied, and Congress outlawed.

As far as our Constitutional limits assigns “rights” to foreigners, these “rights” reflect our political values, not theirs. This is what made us different from the rest of the world.

We once operated by the rule of law, not the rule of men. Those days are over. It is time to restore the rule of law based on our Revolutionary Constitution that generations of men fought and died for.

Today, our men are fighting and dying to serve a criminal president who has defied the Constitution and broken Congressional, as well as international law. If you have an iota of honor, you will fight these criminals with all the powers at your disposal.

Without Constitutional limits we would have a President capable of searching, arresting, detaining, torturing, and killing people, at will, anywhere in the country or the world. A tyrant. A Bush.

How about this: The Constitution is the Club, Bush, Congress, the “free” press, and the Corporations are the baby seals, and hunting season is opening soon.

Pick up a club: The Initiative

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

Corruption Updates 36, 11,“DETAINEES” ARE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE: AMERICA IS THE HOME OF RENDITIONS, NOT RIGHTS”

THE COMMITTEE SAYS:

Justices may ease limits on 'issue ads'

These were known as "issue ads" by their sponsors, but most everyone else understood they were intended to help or hurt a candidate running for federal office.

Federal law has long prohibited corporations from directly supporting candidates.

Muslim Brothers in military trial

Capitol embraces prison deal -- but will judges?

By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau Published 12:00 am PDTFriday, April 27, 2007

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/162077.html

Frist Not Charged as Investigators Close Probe of His Hospital Stock Sales

Freshmen House members now face nonstop campaigning

By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDTFriday, April 27, 2007