...despite all the elaborate rituals and customs the president had to observe, the palace made certain accommodations to suit his tastes. The orchestra played "King Cotton," a Sousa march, and "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song from the movie "Titanic." And, just before the guests arrived, the palace butlers placed bottles of Coca-Cola alongside decanters of the queen's port.
Those who aren't completely corrupt can't compete with those who are. [...] In the context of the United States, we can pin down the exact moment when this predation finally completely took over the Republican Party, and thus the whole country. It was on November 22, 2000, exactly three years ago, when the 'Brooks Brothers Riot' - the use of violence by Republican Party operatives under the direction of James Baker to disrupt the vote recount in Florida - formally ended any pretense that politics was a game played by rules, and thus completely changed the United States forever. Politics fell into line with commercial morality, and we can now see the culmination of the process in the completely unembarrassed way the Bush Administration caters to the predator class. Unless you decide to become a predator yourself, you are doomed to become prey.
Three years ago today Republicans removed all constraints of rules, laws, or even the human conscience from politics in their slavish devotion to wealth and power.
But three years and one more day ago, there was no mutual fund crisis, no corporate governance crisis, no Ken Lay dictating energy policy, no international alliance crisis, no American reputational crisis, no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no deaths of one-weekend-a-month reservists, no oil CEOs in the White House, no multibillion dollar conflicts of interest, no Bechtel and Halliburton in Iraq, no $400 billion annual deficit, no $350 billion tax cut for the wealthy, no anthrax, no Office of Homeland Security to play local politics for Tom DeLay in Texas, no worldwide antiwar protest in advance of unilateral American invasions, no environmental crisis, no crisis in first responders, no nationwide state budget crisis, no talk of tax-free dividends, no tax deduction for luxury SUVs, no inexplicable energy blackouts, no John Ashcroft and no Patriot Acts, and, yes, the World Trade Center was still standing.
The head of a purported multimillion-dollar religious communications business was indicted on federal fraud charges for allegedly swindling equipment leasing companies out of more than $11 million, federal authorities said Thursday.
Rodney Dixon, chief executive of Lacrad International Corp., was also charged with falsely inflating Lacrad's net worth and income to obtain a $2.25 million bank loan in order to buy a corporate jet.
Dixon was also hit with a money laundering charge for allegedly using $47,500 of the profits from the fraud to buy a Jaguar automobile in 2000.
[...]
Lacrad International, which sold religious sermons on compact discs, had offices in [Chicago suburbs] Elmhurst and later in Oakbrook Terrace.
[...]
According to a civil lawsuit filed by the companies, Dixon had claimed that Lacrad's annual revenue exceeded $100 million in the late 1990s.
But the indictment contends that Lacrad's annual sales never topped $100,000.
Dixon also claimed Lacrad had offices around the world, but that, too, proved to be false, the charges allege.
The indictment also says Dixon lied about Lacrad's financial condition to obtain the $2.25 million loan from Regions Bank in Tyler, Texas, in 2000 in order to buy the jet.
Why would a Chicago company go to Texas for a loan? Texas banks — now an offshoot of the Republican Christian theocracy — apparently never heard of due diligence or even healthy skepticism. "Christian business? That's all we need to hear. Loan approved!"
...at one company handling duplication orders from an assortment of churches, "demand grew from a minimum average order of 50 to 250 CD-R copies several years ago, to orders ranging from 250, 500, and 1,000 to 25,000 copies per customer per week." Move over, Thriller.
That company, Lacrad International, probably the busiest (and hippest) company I've seen in a long time, has been catering in a variety of capacities to churches, synagogues, temples, and plain old secular businesses since 1984. Today, it offers everything a digital ministry might require, including—and this is only scratching the surface—Internet broadcast (it's home to four Christian Internet stations—picture west Texas or eastern North Carolina in cyberspace), Web hosting for both content delivery and CD sales, and technical consulting. As far as duplication goes, Lacrad offers several different trademarked "media services," such as CD Visitor (for people unable to attend services), CD Outreach, and CD Sermons. All the company's efforts to date have been audio-only; plans for the future include IP broadcast movies and television, as well as conversion to DVD-R on the duplication side, within the year. Lacrad has its own plant in Ohio, all set for the upgrade.
Lacrad's facility in Ohio began with four Rimage Protégé units; later, four Rimage ProStar units were added; today, there are a grand total of eight ProStar units churning out discs. These ProStar systems aren't exactly small change: that's eight drives a piece, officially supporting up to 12X recording, with a 500-disc capacity, which is to say, if one of them fought me, it would win. Cooler than these items, though, is the fact they're run remotely from Lacrad Corporate headquarters in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois: data becomes an image, which, in turn, becomes a disc, all over a WAN. Bill Blank, executive vice president of operations, says of the rig, "It's working beautifully. The primary benefit is the ability to load it up and walk away. Return, and the job is done; the automation is fabulous."
Isn't it interesting that a Christian front for a run-of-the-mill fraud operation feels the need to express itself in the language of high technology and Michael Jackson?
When George Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq with only Britain as a major ally, he went against the earlier best judgments of most people with any experience in the region, including that of his own father during his own time of war against Iraq.
The grand vision of a pacified, democratized Iraq, with vast oil reserves enabling it to pay its own way and shine the light for the rest of the region, must have seemed quickly achievable. Clearly, it did to Mr. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz - the architects of this adventure.
But they were wrong. And every day of every week, more Americans are being maimed and killed because of their wrongness.
Lately, the fear has shifted from whether America would stay too long in Iraq to whether it would leave too soon, especially with the White House eye on next November.
Even the most committed opponents of the invasion recognize that leaving too soon would add another wrong to the first wrong. Rumsfeld was right to ask for help from abroad. Every member of this administration should ask for help, from every quarter, to help stabilize Iraq, even if it means Washington doesn't have full control.
And come next November, Americans should remember this November - and who took us on this ill-fated, deadly adventure.
But enough about Iraq. Today's headlines aren't about Tikrit. They're focused on Michael Jackson.
Before we Americans can "remember" this ill-fated, deadly adventure, we need to get even an approximate understanding of what's actually going on — something closer to that of the average bystander in Trafalgar Square. And that requires a media willing to tell the truth, and an audience willing to hear it. I'm fairly certain we have neither.
The author of the above excerpt is G. Jefferson Price III, The Baltimore Sun's Perspective editor. He was that newspaper's Middle East correspondent in the 1970s and '80s.
WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The parent company of Airbus has told Pentagon investigators that any proprietary data shared by the Air Force with Boeing Co. in a U.S. aerial tanker competition would give the Chicago-based company an "unfair advantage" in a multibillion dollar U.K. tanker deal.
This would constitute "real harm" to EADS, and could also violate British law, a lawyer representing EADS told the Defense Criminal Investigative Service "Dragon Lady" Druyun in a letter dated Oct. 31 that was obtained by Reuters.
DCIS is an arm of the Pentagon's Office of the Inspector General, which has concluded that enough credible information exists to warrant a formal investigation into possible impropriety in the U.S. Boeing tanker deal.
Defense officials say the investigation is focused in part on whether Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force official now with Boeing, improperly shared Airbus pricing data with Boeing during the U.S. competition for mid-air refueling tankers.
Darleen, the subject of a recent post on her $5.7 billion scam, coincidentally also sold her $692,000 house to a Boeing lawyer.
Sharon Bush has asked a state district court judge to order her ex-husband -- President Bush's brother Neil Bush -- to submit to a blood test to settle a paternity question at the heart of a defamation lawsuit against her.
The request, filed Monday, asks that the judge order Neil Bush and Robert Andrews to submit blood tests to determine the paternity of Andrews' 2-year-old son.
Sharon Bush contends she needs the tests to defend herself against a $850,000 defamation lawsuit filed against her by Andrews. Andrews' suit contends Bush defamed him when she suggested in conversations with reporters, friends and restaurant employees that his son may have been fathered by Neil Bush.
Andrews and his wife, Maria Andrews, divorced in October 2002 after 14 years of marriage. The Bushes divorced in April after a 23-year marriage. Neil Bush and Maria Andrews met several years ago when she was working as a volunteer for former first lady Barbara Bush.
Compassionate conservative and education exploitation entrepreneur Neil Bush informed his wife and the mother of his children that he wanted to divorce her via email.
Republican leaders on Monday killed a Senate plan to close a loophole allowing small-business owners to deduct up to $100,000 from their taxable income for buying a luxury sport utility vehicle.
[...]
Republican Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma offered the proposal to drop the tax break for doctors, lawyers, real estate agents and other business owners who buy expensive SUVs. "There is enormous abuse of this provision. People are driving SUVs through this loophole," Nickles said.
The deduction of up to $100,000 from taxable income dramatically cut the price of a Hummer H2, Land Rover and other expensive, gas-guzzling SUVs for small business owners in the highest tax bracket.
The loophole was part of the $350 billion Bush tax cut enacted in May and applied to the purchase of a vehicle for business use weighing 6,000 pounds or more.
Having fought two wars on the US taxpayers' credit card for the sake of the terror-financing Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchies, by now it should be clear that the Bush family's interest in energy independence is less than nil. Therefore, only the most obscenely and ostentatiously wasteful vehicles will qualify for the tax loophole.
These are not oversights in a 1,100-page pile of "policy." This is only the latest volley in a deliberate, coordinated and unconscionable attack on America. The so-called War on Terror is in effect a war on American energy independence, a war on American taxpayers, a war on American democracy, and, most of all, a war on reason itself.
This post from August 2003 spells out the original luxury SUV loophole, as written up in Kiplinger's personal finance magazine.
Rep. Eric I. Cantor (Va.), a member of the House GOP leadership, said "we are in full gear on the inside" trying to lock down votes for the bill "and the groups on the outside are going full force." Last week, Cantor convened a meeting with Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and lobbyists in a coalition of 400 insurance, health care, business and other groups that support the legislation.
If "400 insurance, health care, business and other groups" support the legislation behind Karl Rove's closed doors — how good can it be for America's seniors?
AARP members should demand new leadership immediately.
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
[...]
Dear George,
I would just like to say how much I hate you. You have done nothing positive in your whole time as president. You are the reason for the poverty in the Middle East. You have no idea what you are doing. You're killing loads of people, and that is not excluding your own nation too. There are still lots of very poor people in America, and they are getting poorer.
You keep making excuses about Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but all you were in Iraq for was the oil. Saddam had been there for 30 years, so why is it only now you decided to act? You keep talking about September 11 when all you do is bomb other countries and give Israel lots of money. It is a very bad idea that you have come over here.
I don't want to grow up in a country which is so influenced by you and your policies.
Mickey (12)
There are also letters from DBC Pierre, Frederick Forsyth, Salam Pax (The Baghdad Blogger), and Richard Dawkins.
A call-center employee at Putnam Investments says he turned to Massachusetts regulators after Putnam and the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to act on his complaints about heavy "market timing" trades at the mutual-fund concern.
The Putnam call taker, Peter Scannell, has now emerged as an important source of evidence supporting charges against Putnam, as part of a continuing investigation that is sweeping through the nation's $7 trillion mutual-fund industry.
[...]
Mr. Scannell said Putnam ignored his repeated warnings, from 2001 until earlier this year, about heavy customer trading designed to reap short-term profits. He said he was motivated by his belief that the trading was hurting other Putnam investors. In February of this year, he said he was assaulted in an incident that he says was connected to his attempts to stop the trading, leading to a disability leave from Putnam. Mr. Scannell said he consulted with a lawyer over his employment and his injuries and to seek advice about his discussions with regulators. But he said he hasn't retained an attorney to sue Putnam.
[...]
According to the account he provided to regulators, Putnam retirement-fund customers, including members of Boilermakers Union, Local 5, in New York, made thousands of trades in and out of Putnam international funds through the call center, in a way that harmed other Putnam investors.
"I've worked at a casino," says Mr. Scannell, a former maitre d' at a Lake Tahoe casino resort. "I know a racket when I see it."
His tip, regulators said, led to the discovery of another breach that is expected to be part of the Massachusetts charges Tuesday, and is acknowledged by Putnam: Six of its own money managers were also using market-timing trades, and made $700,000 doing so. The SEC is also considering bringing civil charges against Putnam as early as Tuesday related to the trading of mutual-fund managers.
[...]
Between July 2000 and Jan. 31, 2003, Mr. Scannell's tally determined, 10 of the boilermakers made 5,340 trades involving $657 million of shares. Their total gains added up to $2 million. Mr. Scannell said he compiled the information by looking at transaction histories when he spoke with clients. He said the tally may not be a complete picture of market timing at Putnam and wouldn't include those who made transfers over the Internet.
The most successful trader, Richard Martin, churned $226 million in 542 trades, resulting in a gain of more than $886,000. At the door of his home in Malverne, N.Y., Mr. Martin declined to comment, except to say: "You shouldn't have printed my financial information."
[...]
Also that fall, Mr. Scannell said he stopped another supervisor, Richard Crowley, and showed him an account he had been working on. One boilermaker had appeared to have been market timing since 1998, using Putnam International Voyager Fund, making gains of more than $400,000. Mr. Crowley replied, according to information Mr. Scannell provided to the state: "Oh, a market timer, how old is he? . . . 38, he should be fine," according to the account that Mr. Scannell provided to Massachusetts regulators. Mr. Scannell said he took that comment to mean that the union member would have ample time to build retirement assets. Mr. Crowley didn't return calls seeking comment.
In September 2002, preferred specialists met with Robert Capone, now a Putnam managing director, Mr. Scannell said, and one colleague voiced concern about the boilermakers. "They're all getting rich doing nothing," he recalls the colleague said, asking why Putnam couldn't impose restrictions on trading.
"Listen, it isn't criminal," Mr. Capone said, according to Mr. Scannell's account for the regulators. "I couldn't believe my ears and felt myself turning red," Mr. Scannell remembers. Mr. Capone declined to comment.
Disbelief and embarrassment in the face of unethical behavior come naturally to some of us, Mr. Scannell included. Not so the aptly-named Mr. Capone.
What the heads of financial services firms and regulators want, more than anything, is for us to remain bewildered at the complexities of these maneuvers and simply to forget all about it (Boston Globe):
The longtime head of the SEC's Boston office, Juan M. Marcelino, resigned two weeks ago after the Globe and then other media reported that the SEC ignored the whistle-blower Scannell. But it was not known at the time that the SEC's Boston office also was undertaking a lengthy review of Putnam, the second-biggest funds company in Boston and the nation's fifth largest, at the time that Scannell came in.
Reached at his home, Marcelino declined to answer questions about the Putnam matter and his office's response. "I feel uncomfortable talking about this," he said. "I just want to fade into anonymity."
The moral of this story: One call center employee can bring down a CEO — even one whose five-year compensation was $163 million. By recognizing that real but invisible harm is being done and not taking "shut up and just do your job" for an answer, one person can change an industry — and help guarantee the financial integrity and trust that America's elderly depend on.
Putnam was recently one of the companies that the Republicans would have used as an example of why privatization of Americans' retirement savings is such a good idea. Putnam is now the perfect example of why it is not.
In an era when the din of corporate money and the barking of the Supreme Court is louder than the votes of citizens, it's comforting to know that the mighty can still fall when they abuse their offices.
"It’s out of respect for the families," explains Dover’s Lt. Olivia Nelson. Even though none of the bodies are identified, letting the media in would not show the proper reverence for the dead. Plus, she explains, Dover is just a way station. The transfer is not ceremonial—even though an honor guard carries the body and a flag is draped over the container. Nelson argues that if the media were to show the offloading of remains it would create pressure on the families to be there when the body arrives rather than await delivery in the privacy of their homes.
But, of course, such images would create pressure on the administration, too. "Restricting access to Dover is part of a piece," says veteran war correspondent George Wilson, who did two tours in Vietnam. "It’s designed to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. That’s not limited to this administration, but it has accelerated."
We've all seen the immense power of Dick Cheney's accentuate-the-positive logic — how all of the 419 (as of yesterday, via Cryptome) American dead were "greeted as liberators."
Four hundred and nineteen flag-draped coffins weren't shown on the American news because the media had to make room for the cheerleader movies about Jessica Lynch and "DC 9/11."
