In the first half of the [State of the Union] speech, the words "terror" or "terrorists" were used 14 times; some form of "kill" ("killers," "killed," "killing") 10 times; war 7 times; and that doesn't count the various stand-ins for war or warlike actions ("aggressive raids," "attack," "offensive," "patrols," "operations," "battle," "armored charges," "midnight raids," "on the offensive," and the slightly more opaque "pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the Greater Middle East," a favorite phrase of our vice president as well);"weapons" was used 8 times (usually in the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" or "of mass murder," or in one case in the extraordinarily convoluted phrase, "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities"); "threat" appeared 4 times, "hunting" or "manhunt" 3 times; "capture" 3 times; ditto "tracking"; "plotting" four times; "danger" in some form four times including "ultimate danger"; some form of the word "violent" three times; "thugs" twice; some form of "enemy" 3 times.
Among other words occurring at least once were: patrolling, vigilance, assassins, disrupt, seize, tragedy, trial, catch, fear, chaos, carnage, torture, tyrant, tyranny, despair, anger, brutal, hateful propaganda, prison cell, shake the will.
And even some normally positive words fell into this category in a process akin to guilt-by-association as in the phrase, "enemies of reform and allies of terror."
Irrational fear is a wall that divides people. Words like these are bricks that build the wall of fear.
The ultimate mission of the Bush administration is to slake the greed of its donors by capitalizing on the fears it manufactures among voters.
Bush is building a fortress of artificial fears to distract us from his own incapacity to face actual threats. Let's face it, Bush couldn't catch the real Osama bin Laden so instead he went after his imagined enemy — his daddy's and Cheney's nemesis.
WASHINGTON -- Halliburton Co. has told the Pentagon that two employees took kickbacks valued at up to $6 million in return for awarding a Kuwaiti-based company with lucrative work supplying U.S. troops in Iraq.
The disclosure is the first firm indication of corruption involving U.S.-funded projects in Iraq and raises new questions about Halliburton's dealings there. The company's work already is being scrutinized because of accusations that the U.S. government was overcharged for gasoline under another controversial contract.
Halliburton has strenuously defended its Iraq work as fairly priced and free of taint. A discovery of kickbacks could expose the company to hefty fines and other punishments such as potential fraud charges. At the least, contracting experts say, Halliburton will be required to reimburse the money.
[...]
The latest revelation, though, is sure to increase the already intense scrutiny Halliburton has received from congressional Democrats, some of whom charge that the Houston-based company benefited from political favoritism in securing lucrative work in Iraq. The news also is likely to further raise suspicions abroad that Iraq reconstruction work is largely benefiting U.S. companies and their employees.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who was chairman of Halliburton until he left in 2000, defended the company Wednesday in a Fox Radio Network interview. "They get unfairly maligned simply because of their past association with me," he said.
[...]
The Pentagon has had to reject two huge proposed bills from KBR, including one for $2.7 billion, because of myriad "deficiencies," the memo says. "We consider [the company's] estimates in the area of subcontracts to be inadequate," the memo says. The agency is now auditing proposed KBR bills totaling $2.1 billion, the memo says.
Pentagon auditors last month said that KBR's Kuwaiti supplier, Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co., was charging the U.S. almost double the market price for gasoline. Auditors said the overcharging amounted to $61 million through September, and as much as $20 million a month since then.
The Army Corps defended the company's hiring of Altanmia in a lengthy Jan. 6 report. The report said KBR had "urgent and compelling needs" to use the Kuwaiti supplier, even at significantly higher prices than other potential suppliers.
Still, Pentagon officials are likely to home in on the circumstances under which KBR hired Altanmia. The Army Corps report says KBR picked Altanmia on May 5 after making phone calls to just two other bidders. Officials say there is no indication of kickbacks involving Altanmia.
A number of anonymous whistleblowers have come forward in recent weeks with often-detailed allegations of KBR wrongdoing in Kuwait, including accusations of paybacks from companies that received lucrative subcontracting work from KBR, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources. These reports in turn have been taken up by the Pentagon's IG office.
"They get unfairly maligned simply because of their past association with me," Cheney says, apparently unaware that he himself is one of the greatest examples of "conflict of interest" in American history — a CEO who resigns to become vice president and then to wage a war based on fake evidence to provide multibillion no-bid contracts to his company.
Correction: Halliburton is fairly maligned because of their past association with Cheney.
Note also the magnanimous depth of the gratitude Kuwait shows the United States for our role in supporting its monarchy, thanks to not one but two Bush Gulf wars.
A Southern California investment adviser authorities believe bilked $814 million from thousands of clients in a nationwide scam was arrested early this morning at a Houston motel, an FBI spokesman said.
James Paul Lewis Jr., 57, was expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Frances Stacy today. He was arrested without incident at a Houston motel sometime after midnight , said Bob Doguim, a Houston FBI spokesman.
[...]
Doguim said Lewis is accused of "stealing from Paul to pay Mary."
"That money was never invested in anything," he said. "All he was doing was finding others (investors). That is the money he used to show some kind of return."
When the FBI raided his office Dec. 22, Lewis was supposed to have $814 million on hand for the firm's clients, but bank accounts held about $2.3 million. Federal authorities have frozen those accounts.
[...]
The FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission allege Lewis fabricated more than $730 million in interest payments. Even accounting for the fictitious funds, Lewis still should have $75 million more than investigators can find, the SEC said. A temporary receiver appointed to find more assets put the shortfall at $100 million.
Speaking of nationwide scams, all retirement funding privatization schemes lead to stories just like this one. Which is not to say that all privatization advocates are crooks, but they are advocates of an inherently riskier system that allows for criminal negligence of the types we've seen in a number of mutual fund companies — thanks largely to the investigations of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
"Stealing from Paul to pay Mary" is Lewis's variation on the Republican theme of "stealing from working taxpayers to pay corporate donors."
James Paul Lewis Jr. was captured only because his namesake father did not have the foresight to fix the Supreme Court, get him appointed president of the United States, and turn his crimes into federal policy.
Here is the show's listing at the HotHouse, where the show is being performed and where you can also buy tickets online.
The HotHouse, in case you don't know, is Chicago's greatest venue for nightclub-scale performing arts, especially world music. The HotHouse is in downtown Chicago next to the Chicago Hilton and Towers on Grant Park. With this new play they are expanding their lineup to include cutting-edge theatre.
Krugman on class immobility. In "The Death of Horatio Alger" in The Nation, Krugman states that "over the past generation upward mobility has fallen drastically," and chronicles exactly how, if you like that sort of thing, you can promote further class immobility.
In other words, the Bush administration has worked tirelessly to tear down the American Dream that was a reality only a generation ago — and replace it with a caste society in which tremendous wealth creates family dynasties that employ and govern the rest of us. But you had to be paying attention to see it coming.
(Look! Over here! Christian prisons! Men on Mars! Athletes on steroids!)
So, with some cutting but without reordering, here is his poem, a meditation on the silence of Dick Cheney:
The Silence of Cheney by Mark Leibovich
Cheney doesn't like to talk unless he has to. He sits for long stretches of conversation, holding his fingertips together at his lips, peering over his glasses.
When he does speak, it is in a brisk cadence and often in partial sentences, as if to conserve every word.
He has no use for self-revelation, yours or his own. He is impatient with small talk and niceties. "Not enough hours in the day" is his recurring platitude for anything he deems wasteful.
Cheney relishes quiet and solitude, the better to absorb information. Excess words can bloat and complicate. Information escapes. And you never learn anything when you're talking.
Cheney is the one known for disappearing, into a "secure undisclosed location." ("There are a few of them, actually," he says.)
Few people know where he is much of the time, where he resides at night.
Only that he's somewhere.
And powerful.
And if he feels your pain -- double gosh forbid -- he's certainly not going to say so.
Cheney rarely gives interviews. The media has changed a great deal, he says. "As an institution. Evolved. Kind of thing where it's almost impossible to catch up with a bad story. Factual errors." He mentions Lexis-Nexis, search engines, 24-hour news cycles, cable news. "Nobody goes back to check the accuracy," he says. "Can be frustrating."
He likes to ask questions, pointed and at times rapid-fire. This is a variation on silence in that he does not explicitly express his views or divulge information. He just acquires.
You hear Cheney cough. You see Cheney's lips move. If you're standing close enough, maybe you'll hear a quick mutter. But it's next to impossible to decipher his words.
Cheney then retreats to a corner and digs his hand into a bag of Werther's hard caramels.
Cheney deploys his quiet to great, sometimes intimidating effect.
Cheney is ardently unsentimental, especially in business settings. He is not prone to teary speeches, elaborate goodbye ceremonies or, for that matter, thoughtful reassurances.
Cheney stares at his shoes as he makes a slow walk from Air Force Two to a group of servicemen and their families in a hangar at McChord Air Force Base. They are hoisting camcorders, raising toddlers up for a better view of the balding adult in a navy blue suit.
Cheney has a long-standing curiosity -- obsession, some have said -- with catastrophic scenarios involving biological, chemical and radiological weapons. This long precedes Sept. 11, 2001.
In his skull resides the nation's most chilling intelligence. Lynne and their daughters never ask about it.
Is this too much information for a man with a sick heart?
Cheney was found best-suited to being a funeral director. His voice is soft and even, like an airline pilot's. When shaking hands, Cheney grips hard for a split-second then pulls away quickly, as if he's touched a hot stove. You can't hear what Dick is saying.
At one point, Dick is posing with Staff Sgt. Denise Caspers. Their hands rest awkwardly on each other's backs. But the camera keeps misfiring. Cheney endures this for several seconds. His face is frozen in a smile, his hand limp on Caspers's spine. His body slumps until a replacement camera is found, and he is finally delivered.
He is professorial but hard to hear.
Cheney has much to share, except that he doesn't.
He is asked if he will write a memoir. The question elicits a slight wince. But he's not thinking about it.
An aide hands him a folded piece of paper, which Cheney looks at and closes. He runs two fingers across the fold to reinforce the crease.
He looks at the paper again. "I gotta call I gotta take," the vice president says. He excuses himself and the moment fades to silence.
There was also this somewhat less poetic passage:
"One of Cheney's favorite recent books is An Autumn of War, a collection of essays published by historian Victor Davis Hanson in National Review after 9/11. Hanson, a scholar of ancient Rome and Greece and a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute, believes that bloodshed is a natural condition of humanity. Evil exists in the world and the evildoers need to be met head-on."
Evil exists in the world, but those Iraqi WMDs apparently didn't.
Tough luck for the silent Dick Cheney and the 512 dead US soldiers, their grieving families, and the thousands of Iraqi civilians whose disprove Cheney's silent theories with their tears and their lives.
HALLIBURTON ACTIVELY PUSHING FOR MARS FUNDING: In the 4/24/00 edition of Oil & Gas Journal, Halliburton scientist Steve Streich pointed out why a Mars program would be so lucrative for Halliburton. He says a "Mars exploration program presents an unprecedented opportunity" for the industry and that it "warrants the support of both government and industry leaders." He says "one area of great importance is finding out of what the inside of Mars consists. That's where the petroleum industry comes in." Specifically, benefits for "the oil and gas industry may lie in technology that NASA will use for drilling into the surface of Mars." He says there is "great potential for a happy synergy between space researchers" on a Mars project and "the oil and gas industry."
HALLIBURTON ALREADY INVOLVED IN MARS PLANS: The 4/24/00 edition of Oil & Gas Journal also reported that Halliburton is already involved in a preliminary consortium of industry and academia "organized to support the development of new technology required for the Mars mission." A 2/28/01 report in Petroleum News confirmed that "NASA has been working with Halliburton and others to identify drilling technologies that might work on Mars."
As if we needed it, here's further proof of the Cheney-Halliburton presidency.
If you want to know what's being sacrificed to make way for Halliburton on Mars, take a look at the Hubble gallery.
