At the same time Miers was twisting in the wind, Bush created a parallel situation at the Export-Import Bank that is the talk of the bureaucracy and Capitol Hill. The three-year term as the bank's CEO for Philip Merrill, an experienced government official and businessman, expired Jan. 20 and was extended six months to July 20. The post has been vacant since then because Bush's choice, April Foley, has had difficulties getting through the clearance process and has yet to be formally nominated.
Foley is a former Ex-Im director, but her resume shows no executive experience, either corporate or governmental. Her last available campaign contribution disclosure form, in 2002, lists her as "housewife." But she was one of George W. Bush's girlfriends when they both attended Harvard Business School.
Does this mean Bush must have dated Michael Brown at some point?
We first noticed April Foley back in April 2003, when it was already clear that Bush's teeny-tiny social circle was defining the character, or lack thereof, of his administration.
Oil-field services giant Halliburton Co. said Monday that its quarterly earnings jumped as energy companies ramped up oil and natural gas exploration and production activities.
Net income in the third quarter was $499 million, or 95 cents a share, compared with a loss of $44 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago when the Houston-based company took a large charge related to its now-settled asbestos liability.
[...]
Analysts had expected the company to post earnings per share of 82 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.
Five hundred million dollars of profit in a single quarter is, as they say, real money. How much is Halliburton squeezing out of US taxpayers? To put it into perspective, Halliburton's profits (not revenues, but profits) since June of this year break out as follows:
$ 166,333,333 per month $ 38,384,615 per week $ 4,101,369 per day $ 170,890 per hour, every hour, 24 hours a day
Was the debacle of the entire Bush Junior administration really just a form of Cheney payback to Halliburton for his "asbestos liability" errors of management while he was CEO? After all, "...he orchestrated Halliburton's purchase of Dresser Industries in 1998. Few people connect this problem with Cheney, but they should, given that he was in charge at the time and got a raise as a result of buying Dresser."
As the above post by Tom Kirkendall states, "It is standard operating procedure in white collar criminal cases for the defense attorney to advise the defendant not to make public statements prior to trial so as not to risk making a statement that the prosecution could discover and use against the defendant during the trial."
It is also standard operating procedure for CEOs not to publicly pump up their companies' stock while simultaneously selling it and buying bankruptcy-immune annuities and Aspen real estate. (Not to mention secretly setting energy policy with Halliburton's ex-CEO Dick Cheney.) Enron was different in so many ways.
A woman who authorities said was hearing voices tossed her three young children off a pier into San Francisco Bay. Rescuers had found one body, and the other two children were feared dead.
Later, on Aug. 31, [FEMA regional director Marty] Bahamonde frantically e-mailed [then-FEMA director] Brown to tell him that thousands are [Katrina] evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours."
"Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical," Bahamonde wrote.
Less than three hours later, however, Brown's press secretary wrote colleagues to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. "He needs much more that (sic) 20 or 30 minutes," wrote Brown aide Sharon Worthy.
"We now have traffic to encounter to go to and from a location of his choise (sic), followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."
The crony's name is "Brown" and the lackey's name is "Worthy." What is this, Dickens?
One of the best bits of Fitzgerald's Chicago tenure suggests that manwhore Jeff Gannon might even have the potential to make a guest appearance in the Plame investigation:
Patrick Fitzgerald may have arrived in [Chicago] as the new U.S. attorney in August 2001, but he didn’t really arrive until April 2, 2002, when he stood before the television cameras and announced the stunning news: Gov. George Ryan’s three-decades-old campaign committee was being charged as a “criminal enterprise” whose thirst for money had led to the ever-widening driver’s-licenses-for-bribes scandal.
In a meaty 80-page indictment, Fitzgerald alleged “a pervasive pattern of fraud and corruption,” with schemes that stretched from secretly paying off state employees for campaign work to arranging prostitutes in Costa Rica for Scott Fawell, Ryan’s chief of staff when he was secretary of state.
The link to Jeff Gannon could be more than blogospherical wishful thinking because Jeff Gannon (James Guckert to his mom) was among the two dozen journalists (the term is loosely applied here) appearing in the subpoenaed White House records.
It's Eliot Ness redux. Chicago Magazine link via Gaper's Block (8/2/05).
The government added 10 defendants to its indictment in the KPMG LLP tax-shelter investigation, including the Big Four accounting firm's former chief financial officer, bringing the number of people charged in the case to 19.
In a superseding indictment that is believed to be the largest criminal tax case ever filed, a federal grand jury in New York yesterday charged each of the 19 defendants with at least 39 counts of tax evasion and a single count of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Additionally, it charged three of the defendants with obstructing government investigations, and one with evading his personal income taxes.
Seventeen of the 19 defendants are former KPMG tax professionals. The 10 newly added defendants include Richard Rosenthal, 49 years old, a former KPMG chief financial officer; Steven Gremminger, 55, a former KPMG associate general counsel; Larry DeLap, 62, formerly the partner in charge of KPMG's department of professional practice for tax; and Gregg Ritchie 48, a former division head in KPMG's tax practice.
[...]
The case centers on four types of allegedly fraudulent tax shelters that KPMG sold from 1996 to 2002 to about 600 wealthy individuals; the shelters generated about $2.5 billion in tax savings.
In this context, "$2.5 billion in tax savings" is a euphemism for "$2.5 billion stolen from the US Treasury."
But there's another politically charged part of the Journal's story that is missing: that one of the KPMG's "wealthy individual" clients for these abusive tax shelters was Bill Frist: "For every $1 KPMG collected for its 'bogus' shelters for Frist and Co., an extra $11 was taken from your pocket in the form of taxes deflected to the middle class."
Because of HCA, the corporation to which they're all connected and because of which Frist is currently being investigated, it appears that the illegal KPMG tax shelters will probably turn out to be a significant corollary — as additional evidence of the Frists being conniving, thieving bastards if nothing else.
Assuming little is done to slow the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Houston in 2100 would be a less comfortable place to live, one computer model suggests.
Instead of two or three weeks of 95-plus degree days a year, Houston could expect about 50 days that warm each summer, said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Purdue University and lead author of a paper outlining one simulation in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rainfall would also increase somewhat in Diffenbaugh's simulation, but here's the kicker: Houston would receive more of its wet stuff during "extreme rain events," and would actually have about 30 fewer rainy days per year. That likely means more flooding and droughts.
"I have a hard time imagining what it would feel like to live in a Texas with that climate," Diffenbaugh said. "I can't imagine it would be that pleasant."
Unpleasant weather, of course, doesn't mean much to the true believers if the Rapture sucks them all out of their manmade Texan hell.
Meanwhile, the price of a Hummer just went up by a few trillion dollars.
I'm sure you'll be having a nice little tea party with your fellow war criminal, Tony Blair. Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments.
Harold Pinter Playwright
You can imagine what a shitstorm this would arouse in Wingnuttia if they weren't so focused on their "political capital" being flushed down Cheney's, Rove's, DeLay's and Frist's toilets.
But Michelle Malkin managed to notice, citing the opinion of Laura Bush's aspiring luncheon companion Roger Kimball.
There's only one problem with their arguments: his political opinions aside for the moment, Pinter made a contribution to literature, and they didn't. On the contrary, their entire output and agenda consist of a politics of exclusion that is based on nothing but their opinions. Kimball's predictable rhapsodizing should be considered not art or even criticism but propaganda.
Conclusion: The Nobel Committee did its job admirably.
The President's new 'tax reform' is the ultimate expression of his values. We don't know all of the details, but we know that people who inherit hundreds of millions will pay nothing; firemen and waitresses and working people will pay everything. And we know his plan will take away the most important incentive for the single most important form of ownership: it will eliminate entirely the tax deduction for home mortgage interest.
Meanwhile, snug under the cover of "faith," Pat Robertson's vast enterprises pay no taxes. Paris Hilton gets a free pass on her inheritance. And Cheney's dividend income is tax-free. In fact, if George W Bush is lucky enough for his father to die in 2010, he will receive his own dynastic inheritance without paying a nickel in estate taxes.
In Bushworld, the Ownership Society no longer applies to non-decamillionaires. Sadly, Kerry-Edwards called it right, and the blinkered press corps is discovering what a fool they promoted for over five years now that the damage is already done.
[Harriet Miers's] demure exterior, however, cloaks a tough will and an uncommonly close relationship with Bush. In the Oval Office and on the road, Miers has spent more time with him than perhaps any aide except Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. On Sept. 11, 2001, she was flying on Air Force One as it sped the president to the Midwest and back after the terrorist attacks.
In June 2003, when Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare that "major combat operations" had ended in Iraq, Miers was part of a nucleus of aides who stayed overnight with him on the aircraft carrier. She is with him often at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., and is a regular weekend visitor to the presidential retreat at Camp David.
So on 9/11/01, after Bush was finished reading The Pet Goat, Miers was right there to minister to his needs while ricocheting around the United States. That was probably the day he made the most momentous decision of his presidency: to link those events to Iraq.
And Miers was there! So she must be qualified. QED.
Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.
Chief Warrant Officer William Howell was a 15-year Army Special Forces veteran who had seen combat duty all over the world. Sgt. 1st Class Andre McDaniel was a military accountant. Spc. Jeremy Wilson repaired electronics.
They had little in common, other than having served in Iraq with the 10th Special Forces Group based at Fort Carson, Colo. They did not know each other, and they had vastly different duties.
Each, however, committed suicide shortly after returning home, all within about a 17-month period.
[...]
Laura Howell said she blamed Lariam, an Army-issued anti-malaria drug, for her husband's suicide. The drug's manufacturer, Roche Pharmaceuticals, says side effects can include anxiety, paranoia, depression, hallucinations and psychotic behavior.
Lariam is an unbelievably irresponsible drug to prescribe to people with weapons. We can only hope that Roche's Lariam gets half the bad press that Merck's Vioxx got — the risks are so much higher with Lariam.
Another Bush ancestor recognized "the features of a personal enemy poking from a pile of severed heads after a battle, snatched up the rotting flesh and tore it with his teeth in a 'hideous frenzy.'"
The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of total American military deaths nearly doubling since last year.
Reservists have accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the Iraq war began, but the proportion has grown over time. It was 10 percent for the five weeks it took to topple Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and 20 percent for 2004 as a whole.
The trend accelerated this year. For the first nine months of 2005, reservists accounted for 36 percent of U.S. deaths, and for August and September, it was 56 percent, according to Pentagon figures.
The Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve accounted for more than half of all U.S. deaths in August and in September — the first time that has happened in consecutive months.
Dubya's daddy problem will be the true lasting legacy of his reign. Junior's obsession with Saddam trumped everything else about his administration, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. It's difficult to recall the faux-outrage over Saddam's "rape rooms" after Abu Ghraib and especially now that the proportion of all military deaths experienced by the Guard and Reserves has more than quintupled in just two years.
A former senior Air Force acquisition official was released from prison in Marianna, Fla., Friday after serving nine months for giving Boeing Co. preferential treatment in contract awards in exchange for a job.
Darleen Druyun's sentence also included a $5,000 fine, 150 hours of community service and seven months of community confinement upon release.
[...]
Druyun, 57, in April 2004 pleaded guilty to giving Boeing preferential treatment. She served as principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management from 1993 to 2002, where she oversaw contract negotiations for Boeing's leasing of tanker aircraft for the Pentagon. That deal was worth $20 billion.
Druyun secretly met with Michael Sears, then a senior executive for Boeing, at the Orlando airport in October 2002 to discuss her salary, bonus and starting date at the company.
In January 2003, Druyun accepted a position as vice president and deputy general manager of Boeing's missile defense systems, where she remained until she was terminated in November 2003.
Druyun and Sears, who was sentenced to four months in prison in February, agreed to lie about their discussions.
Let's get this straight: she doctors a $20 billion deal so she could get a better job for herself and her daughter. And she served only nine months?
Darleen Druyun, enemy combatant in the Global War on TaxpayersHello! The average sentence for just having (not selling) marijuana in a state like Alabama is 8.4 years. A sentence of nine months for falsifying the terms of a $20 billion bill footed by taxpayers seems a wee bit light, especially in the retrospective light of financial obligations with respect to Iraq, Katrina, Medicare, etc., etc., etc.
Meanwhile, the arrest of another procurement crook, David Safavian, for lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into the dealings of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, will probably culminate in probation and a dozen hours of community service.
Darleen Druyun was an enemy combatant in the Global War on Taxpayers, and now she's free! There's your values-based administration in a nutshell.
Privatization of functions formerly performed by [state] government workers has yet to achieve any of the predicted $21.7 million in savings at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the state auditor reported Tuesday.
And, the auditor found, it's not clear whether using private workers for payroll and human resources jobs will save the state any money at all.
[...]
The commission awarded the contract to Convergys in October 2004 after conducting an analysis it said showed the company could save the state as much as $21.7 million over five years.
[...]
The auditor said commission officials overestimated the cost of a government-run system by $19 million while omitting $24 million in start-up costs and not counting other costs for the private contractor.
Three-card monte continues to be big business, and the sellers of privatization along with their governmental shills are, in a word, liars.
