Year: 2006

Dems Ask Bush to Explain Abramoff Ties, Influence

Buck Banks

Feet to the fire: Top Dems, including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Richard Durbin, Senate Democratic Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer and Senate Democratic Conference Secretary Debbie Stabenow sent George Bush a letter yesterday, and it was not an early Valentine.

The letter asks the prez to explain the nature of the quid pro quo between his administration and super-crook Jack Abramoff. It questions not only the influence deals covered already in the press, but asks bluntly how deep Bush’s hand went into Abramoff’s pocket and how many strings were attached.

It’s good to see the Democratic Party jumping on this scandal and making political hay with it. Read the whole letter here.

Thanks to Susan S. for the tip

Jeb’s Privatization Dream is a Nightmare for Florida Employees

Trish

Florida saved a nickel per page by axing state workers and contracting instead with Convergys to scan and digitize government employee personnel files. The price tag for offshoring that task — and spreading around social security and bank account numbers — could be considerably higher. Tallahassee Democrat:

People First employees were able to leaf through personnel files for their own amusement, download data to disks, e-mail it or print it out – often without leaving a computer trail.

Lawyers for state employees urged Attorney General Charlie Crist’s office Tuesday to make Convergys warn tens of thousands of state workers that their confidential personnel data – including Social Security and bank-routing numbers – may have been illegally sent to computer companies in India, China and Barbados.

A lawsuit is in the works, for among other things, failing to notify the affected employees so they could try to protect themselves from fraud and identity theft. But it gets even better. Looking for something to read in the break room? How about my personnel file?

GDXdata has said it will vigorously defend against the suit, which was reported Dec. 25 by the Tallahassee Democrat. On the same day, the newspaper separately reported on an investigation by Department of Management Services Inspector General Steve Rumph, who said People First employees were able to leaf through personnel files for their own amusement, download data to disks, e-mail it or print it out – often without leaving a computer trail.

People First is Gov. Jeb Bush’s biggest privatization project – a $350 million, nine-year contract for Convergys to provide online personnel services. The system has been haunted by big and small glitches for three years, but the Department of Management Services has recently said it is running much better.

“This is why privatization is a failed experiment,” Gonzalez said. “Ultimately, when you’re trying to get accountability, you can’t get anybody to take responsibility.”

Crist, who is running as a Republican candidate for governor this year, doesn’t seem anxious to get involved but his deputy AG, Clay Roberts, says he’s a victim too.

“My boss was among those people who, according to one of the news articles, had employees looking up things in his file for grins.”

Most state employees haven’t forgotten that when Jeb was sworn in, he surveyed all over which he now had dominion and proclaimed his greatest wish was that there was no government in Florida to run. You’re doing a heckuva job there, Jebby.

CNN to Launch New Conservative Talk Show

Buck Banks

Another talking bobblehead: According to Variety, CNN’s Headline News division has hired conservative radio talk-show host Glenn Beck to host an hour-long primetime program beginning in April.

While the network is counting on Beck to lure tube drones from Bill O’Reilly and Joe Scarborough, his style is supposed to be less rabid than those two dogs.

“Glenn’s style is self-deprecating, cordial; he says he’d like to be able to disagree with guests and part as friends. It’s conversational, not confrontational,” said HLN’s Ken Jautz.

Beck apparently already has a huge following. Variety noted he is tied for eighth with a national radio audience of 2.75 million, according to “Talkers” magazine. More importantly, however, Beck is third in the 25-54 demo (advertisers’ fave demo), according to Arbitron, behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

“We didn’t look for a conservative, a liberal or anyone of a particular ideology. It was about getting the best talent that would resonate with the most viewers,” Jautz said.

Texas GOP-Run Government Hires Former Abramoff Associate to Lobby Congress

Jon Ponder

Republican hubris:The state of Texas, which is controlled and completely dominated by the Republican Party, has hired a former associate of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff to lobby the U.S. Congress, acording to the Houston Chronicle – via Buzzflash:

Todd Boulanger, who once worked closely with confessed influence peddler Jack Abramoff, now heads a group lobbying Congress for Texas under a $330,000 state contract.

Boulanger and his firm, Cassidy & Associates, were hired by the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations under a contract approved by Gov. Rick Perry, House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

This is the second time the state has hired as a congressional lobbyist someone with connections to the lobbying controversies surrounding former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

The state’s Washington office previously had hired former DeLay chief of staff Drew Maloney, the Houston Chronicle first reported last year. Maloney has not been connected to Abramoff’s activities, but he was a key figure in 2002 fundraising that brought DeLay a reprimand from the House Ethics Committee.

“It’s cronyism at its worst,” said Texas House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco. “All these guys are connected to one another.”

The combined Boulanger and Maloney lobby contracts will have cost Texas taxpayers $1.1 million by the time they expire on Aug. 31, 2007.

More Journalists Have Been Killed in Iraq Than In Vietnam

Trish

More journalists have been killed in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began less than three years ago than were killed in 20 years in Vietnam, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The 2005 roundup shows that you young folks considering a career in journalism might want to brush up on your math and science skills instead

For the third year running, Iraq was the world’s most dangerous country for the media, with 24 journalists and 5 media assistants killed. 76 journalists and media assistants have been killed there since the start of fighting in March 2003, more than in the 1955-75 Vietnam War. Terrorist strikes and Iraqi guerrilla attacks were the main cause but the US army killed three of them. Iraqi TV producer Wael al-Bakri, 30, was shot dead by US troops on 28 June. A US Third Infantry Division spokesman admitted the next day in Baghdad that a US unit was involved in his death and said an enquiry had been opened. No result has been announced, nor in the other investigated killings.

The publication of this milestone came before that of the latest kidnapping, of American journalist Jill Carroll. Reuters:

Carroll, 28, working for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted earlier this month by unknown kidnappers who killed her Iraqi interpreter…

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: “We will make every effort to work with the Iraqis to bring her back safe and sound as soon as possible.”

I know that makes me feel better.

Does anyone remember the flap over Bush “joking” to Tony Blair about bombing the headquarters of al Jazeera? It was a whole three months ago, so it might have slipped everyone’s minds. Not to mention that the MSM doesn’t mention it.

Meanwhile, the 2005 roundup shows that you young folks considering a career in journalism might want to brush up on your math and science skills instead. Last year:

– 63 journalists and 5 media assistants were killed
– at least 807 journalists were arrested
– 1,308 were physically attacked or threatened
– 1,006 media outlets were censored

I hope Jill Carroll is rescued or released immediately because her loss would be senseless and tragic. It would also be further evidence, if anyone needs it, that we are losing this war on terror.

Poll: Impeachment Favored 52% to 43%

Jon Ponder

Poll was by Zogby:

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge’s approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52 percent agreed with the statement:

“If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.”

…”The American people are not buying Bush’s outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother,” said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik.

House ‘Plantation’ – Traditional Media Gave Newt a Pass But Pillories Hillary

Jon Ponder

Newt Gingrich, 1994:

“I clearly fascinate them,” Gingrich said of the Democrats. “I’m much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I’m actually willing to lead the slave rebellion.”

Hillary Clinton, 2006:

“When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation and you know what I’m talking about,” said Senator Clinton. “We have cronyism, we have incompetence. I predict to you that this administration will go down as one of the worst that has ever governed our country.”

Pensito Review News Tickler

Buck Banks

From Associated Press Wire Reports:

Austria to Return Art to California Woman
VIENNA, Austria – Austria said Tuesday it will honor an arbitration court decision and give five precious Gustav Klimt paintings to a California woman who says the Nazis stole them from her Jewish family. “We’ll give you back the paintings if you promise not to give us back Schwarzenegger,” said a spokesman for Austria.

Al-Jazeera Hires Lawyers to Get Transcript
CAIRO, Egypt – Al-Jazeera has hired a British law firm to press its request to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a partial transcript of a conversation between him and U.S. President George W. Bush in which the American leader allegedly said the Arab broadcaster’s headquarters should be bombed. Blair offered a Xerox copy of the Downing Street Memo instead.

Belgium PM: U.S. Relations Need More Work
WASHINGTON – Belgium’s prime minister told President Bush on Tuesday that while the United States has improved its relationship with Europe in the last year, “there is certainly a lot of work still to do.” In response, Bush offered to clear brush around The Hague.

Olmert Seeks to Begin Work on Peace Deal
JERUSALEM – Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in his first policy statement Tuesday that he hopes to start working on a final peace deal with the Palestinians after Israel’s March 28 elections, and hinted that Palestinians in Jerusalem might not always be under Israeli rule. “But I’d keep my eye on those evangelical Christians moving into Galilee,” Olmert added.

Iran Lifts CNN Ban; Amanpour Criticized
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran on Tuesday lifted a ban it had imposed on CNN a day earlier for misquoting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During the ban, CNN simply ran the same Iran stories it has been running since December.

Cheney Talks Iraq With Egypt’s Mubarak
CAIRO, Egypt – Vice President Dick Cheney met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Tuesday for talks on the political process in Iraq and the West’s standoffs with Syria and Iran. “F@#k you,” said Cheney.

Iraq Elections Commission Issues Ruling
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s electoral commission ruled Monday that more than 99 percent of the ballots from the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are valid. That’s about 66 percent better than Florida did in 2000.

Supremes: If You Live In Oregon, Your Doctor Can Kill You

Buck Banks

John Ashcroft is still wrong: When he said doctor-assisted suicide was “not a legitimate medical purpose” in 2001, Ashcroft was wrong, and the Supreme Court confirmed it today when it refused to support the Bush administration’s attempt to punish Oregon physicians who help terminally ill patients die under the state’s assisted suicide statute.

In a harbinger of things to come, the Gang of Three — Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — found themselves together on the far right arguing that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine: “If the term `legitimate medical purpose’ has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death,” Scalia wrote in the dissenting opinion.

Of course, if it’s the state — sanctioned by the Supreme Court — putting to death blind, deaf, crippled, 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen with an overdose of prescription drugs, I suppose that’s constitutes a “legitimate legal purpose.”

I think assisted suicide should be legal everywhere and available in the way that Kurt Vonnegut envisioned it: The Ethical Suicide Parlor is associated with Howard Johnson’s. When an individual gets so depressed by the state of the world and so disheartened by the lack of ability and leadership in the government, he goes to HoJo’s, has a free meal, complete with his choice of 39 flavors of ice cream. After dinner, he goes next door to the suicide parlor and, in a comfortable, soothing environment, is gently euthanized by a beautiful buxom blonde.

Maybe Ashcroft would approve of that — nah.

If 9/11 Repeats, Blame Congress and Bush Admin

Buck Banks

Terrible on terror: Remember back last year to Dec. 5, when former members of the 9/11 Commission issued a report card for how Congress and the Bush administration had implemented the commission’s reasonable recommendations? No? All you can remember is the bitter controversy over how retailers and Lefties were attacking Xmas? That’s convenient for the legislature and prez, ain’t it?

Well, now the National Journal has published a comprehensive article detaiiling exactly why the commission gave out D’s and F’s like my high-school geometry teacher. It’s long and detailed, but well worth reading.

To get answers, National Journal looked at 14 of the 17 most-important commission recommendations that scored the worst grades — the D’s and F’s — and examined the roadblocks to their implementation. The causes behind the failing and near-failing grades fall into six categories: a Congress resistant to institutional change; a bureaucracy that bucks new ideas; lack of money; lack of leadership; special interests that have the ear of Congress or the White House; and, finally, an inability to accurately see how the United States is perceived abroad.

To be sure, not everyone agrees that the 9/11 commission’s recommendations are the end-all, be-all cure — the commissioners themselves admit that their conclusions are imperfect. Critics of particular recommendations may be motivated by nothing more than a differing view of how best to combat terrorism.

Still, the commission’s report card represents the most thorough assessment to date of how far the country has come in bolstering its security since 9/11. At the end of their long trip, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton [chair and vice chair of the commission] could have invoked Robert Frost: We have miles to go before we sleep.

[…]