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The Daily Muck
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) isn't letting a federal investigation stop him from doing business with his favorite lobbying firm. Innovative Federal Strategies, a lobbyist firm under watch for its relationship with the California lawmaker, nevertheless secured $55 million for its clients through earmarks that were sponsored or co-sponsored by Lewis. (The Hill)
Another kind of deployment. The Washington Post details how Karl Rove, along with his “deployment” team, coordinated official government announcements to maximize President Bush’s political gain, particularly during election time. Cabinet officials with government largesse would visit key battleground states just before the elections. Rove may have executed nearly 100 political briefings to various Cabinet departments and agencies. (Washington Post)
The Defense Intelligence Agency is looking to outsource even more of its intelligence gathering responsibilities this year. As of now, the cost looks to be over one billion dollars paid to private firms in charge of core intelligence gathering and analysis. This comes only months after Congress forced the DIA to decrease the number of private contractors gathering intel. (Washington Post)
Michael “Brownie” Brown, the former director of FEMA who resigned under pressure after the government’s dismal response to Hurricane Katrina, has found a new (and we imagine, a more lucrative) calling: consultant to government agencies and other customers on disaster relief and data-mining. With his success, Brown is not that bitter about being the scapegoat for the Bush administration: “There is life after government…even after you have been thrown under a bus by the leader of the free world.” (Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp)
Immoral, psychologically damaging, and counterproductive. That’s the verdict the American Psychological Association has reached on many of the interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration, including prolonged nudity and the use of prisoner phobias. (Washington Post)
The Army has no available combat units that can be used to replace the five extra brigades sent this year as the brunt of the surge. This means that by next spring, either the surge will be forced to end, or soldiers are going to be forced into additional service. (Associated Press)
A plan to move Guantanamo Bay detainees from the controversial detention facility to the middle of Kansas is gaining widespread political support from Democrats and civil liberties groups. Kansas residents living close to Ft. Leavenworth prison, however, are not as enthusiastic. (Chicago Tribune)
David Chalmers, a trader for Bayoil, pleaded guilty Friday to accepting bribes and kickbacks while trading under the U.N.'s oil-for-food program with Iraq. (NY Times)
FYI - email address of the prof who can't fact check and believes Josh is not a reporter:
mskube@elon.edu (send a piece of your mind; I did!)
By the way, this professor has a history of doing this, being set straight - and doing it again! (google knows)
sc: "pain" - and yes, I hope he's in some - and will learn therefrom
August 20, 2007 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Weldon indictment must be coming down the pike.
Jack Cashill at WorldNetDaily is doing a 4-part series this week on how Weldon became a victim of the vast left wing conspiracy.
"...With a willing media to trumpet useful messages, this collaboration has effectively ended any number of Republican careers, most recently those of White House staffer Scooter Libby and congressmen Curt Weldon, Tom DeLay and Mark Foley...
In no case, however, has this collaboration of progressive forces acted with more diabolical efficiency than in that of Weldon. Regardless of any charges that may be filed against him, Weldon committed only one unforgivable crime: Investigating the intelligence failures of the Clinton era...
In reality, however, CREW has emerged as something of a dirty tricks operation for a truly worrisome cabal known as the Democratic Alliance...
Having unseated Weldon, the collaborators now need to justify the unseating and that spells still more woe for Weldon, his family and friends, which I will detail in the columns that follow."
Link to Part 1 below.
August 20, 2007 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Nelly. Do you the right is paying people like Michael Skube (and the writer above) to trash the truth coming out in blogs like this one? I can't help but wonder, can you?
Seems like their only game plan now is to just keep repeating the lies. And variations of the lies.
August 20, 2007 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
@Nelly Bly
I hope that Jack Cashill comes up with more than blaming Bill Clinton for Weldon's downfall. That was a disappointing first installment by that author.
BTW, the Karic Foundation's former "HQ" at 0002 6th St, NE in Washington, DC finally sold.
August 20, 2007 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thera,
WorldNetDaily is a Reverend Moon-owned publication and, as Weldon watchers all know, Curt Weldon has a special relationship with Moon.
Jack Cashill has written other articles favorable to Weldon in the past but I don't think many people paid attention to them.
I commented about the Weldon series because I thought Weldon watchers would get a kick out of it. Cashill's criticism of CREW is especially funny because Weldon blamed CREW when news of the investigation broke last fall.
Cashill on CREW:
"In reality, however, CREW has emerged as something of a dirty tricks operation for a truly worrisome cabal known as the Democratic Alliance."
Great stuff! The fact that Weldon is being investigated by a DOJ currently being accused of playing partisan politics seems to have escaped Mr. Cashill.
Another great line is this one:
"The Clintons would not be caught on the defensive again. To neutralize their opposition, they and their cronies have consciously crafted their own communication stream, one that is far less ethical and more effective than anything the right could have ever concocted."
On a serious note, expect to read more about the vast left wing communications stream in the coming months. The right wing is seriously concerned about the power of the left on the internet. Karl Rove and his buddies really screwed up by not harnessing the power of the internet effectively.
August 20, 2007 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Update on "Skube-doo-doo":
Jay Rosen now has a short piece up at his blog (cross-posted at dkos), suggesting that the "professor" who wrote the piece that Josh has written about should "retire."
See Jay's piece here:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/08/20/my_advice_retir.html#comments
August 20, 2007 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the further info, Nelly Bly. The dirt goes deep. And deeper. And the Muck Rakers are having a field day, are they not?
August 20, 2007 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
On Meet the Press yesterday, Rove called Fred Thompson a "serious" candidate and named his among the many GOP campaign candidates.
Yet Thompson doesn't even have an exploratory committee up and running. What does Rove know here that he's not telling us?
August 20, 2007 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
C 92,
I wonder who got the proceeds from the sale of the building because, according to its 990s, The Karic Foundation USA, Inc. never recorded the building on its books. Karen Weldon, as you know, signed all thee of the Foundation's 990s as managing director.
If the Foundation does own the building, the 990s that Karen Weldon signed are wrong. Since its inception in 2003, the Foundation only reported $156k in revenue, hardly enough to buy a building.
I recently read the Kimberly Weldon, Karen's sister, was paid by the Foundation. Kimberly is listed as an uncompensated Foundation director in 2003 so if she was paid, the compensation was never reported to the government.
Just some of the many questions surrounding the Weldon investigation,hey, C 92?
August 20, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"A plan to move Guantanamo Bay detainees from the controversial detention facility to the middle of Kansas is gaining widespread political support from Democrats and civil liberties groups. Kansas residents living close to Ft. Leavenworth prison, however, are not as enthusiastic."
If they think these "terrorists" are any more dangerous than the murderers and rapists and other violent federal prisoners at Leavenworth, they don't know much about American criminals.
And I dare say, someone from Gitmo who might escape from Leavenworth would have a hell of a time making their way through this part of the US, without getting shot.
Now, while a white fundie-fascist with a cross tatooed on each knuckle might survive and find some cover and accomplices, it is doubtful an escaped Islamofascist would make it past the first farmhouse between the prison and Leavenworth.
If I were a terrorist, living in these times, I'd probably be more worried about getting sent to Kansas than to Gitmo.
August 20, 2007 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the record, Ft. Leavenworth is NOT in the middle of Kansas. It's near the Kansas-Missouri border, just north of Kansas City.
Look at a damn map, would ya?
August 20, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The Defense Intelligence Agency is looking to outsource even more of its intelligence gathering responsibilities this year"
Apparently, we are ending up with a top secret information gathering group of organizations, which, without court approval, is able to spy on individuals only if there is someone who says "I suspect _______" (fill in the blank).
Meanwhile, secrecy is so important that only a few hundred thousand people (including the Indian companies hired to actually gather, collate, and organize the data) given the task of spying on an individual will be allowed to know what information is gathered.
I guess this means, once our identities are taken, messed up, and returned to us following a few years in one of the many new prisons being built for us, we can request, under the "Freedom of Information Act", pertinent information needed to return us to a normal life.
Thank you, Congress, for representing us common folk so well....
(anyone else out there the least bit concerned that Halliburton, British Petroleum, or Honest Sam's 24 hour Check Cashing Service might be the ones gathering and interpreting your every move and sending it to people with the power to arrest you and put you into prison with no trial or access to an attorney?)
August 20, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
so let me get this straight ... Michael “Brownie” Brown totally failed at his job as head of FEMA, so now he is getting paid MORE money to advise "government agencies and other customers on disaster relief"?
irony is certainly not dead!
"and data-mining"? what a bizarre combination of talents that mr. brown has ...
August 22, 2007 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink